Outside the Beltway

Jon Stewart Blasts Congress for Indifference to 9/11 First Reponders

Almost eighteen years after the greatest terrorist attack on our country, we haven't taken care of those who risked it all.

James Joyner · Tuesday, June 11, 2019 · 7 comments

Submitted without comment:

FILED UNDER: Congress, Society, Terrorism, 9/11, Jon Stewart, YouTube

About James Joyner

James Joyner is a Professor of Security Studies. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

Tuesday, 11 June 2019 at 17:06

This is an abomination. No other word.
Dennison, just yesterday after the heli crash in NYC:

I have been briefed on the helicopter crash in New York City. Phenomenal job by our GREAT First Responders who are currently on the scene. THANK YOU for all you do 24/7/365! The Trump Administration stands ready should you need anything at all.

Well…anything at all besides proper care for your health which has been damaged by being one of “our GREAT First Responders”.
Republicans are pieces of shit. A lot of these Red-Hatted Loons drive around with “Never Forget” stickers on their pick-ups. But it really means nothing. Nothing at all. You all are pieces of shit.

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Doug Mataconis says:

Tuesday, 11 June 2019 at 17:12

Yet another reminder that I miss Jon Stewart.

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Neil Hudelson says:

Tuesday, 11 June 2019 at 17:36

@Daryl and his brother Darryl:

There were a lot of empty chairs there, on both sides of the aisle. Sure, Trump (probably) have done more* to encourage a standalone bill with speedy passage, but I think that misses the point. For more than a decade, the heroes of 9/11 have had to fight with all of their might–attend hearings, learn how to entice the media, enroll celebrities, drag their now-cancer-riddled bodies to more hearings–to get no brainer help from our Congress. Help they were promised, with a refrain of “never forget.”

This problem goes far beyond Trump, if it really involves him at all. A pox on both houses.

*From what I can tell, he didn’t actively impede legislation, and he didn’t have a hand in its crafting (so avoiding the ETTD rule). Honestly, that’s just about leadership by Trump-era standards.

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Scott F. says:

Tuesday, 11 June 2019 at 18:21

Thank you, James, for sharing this.

We really need to know the names of those Congresspeople who attended and those who didn’t. The absentees need our public condemnation by name. The attendees should be recognized for at least behaving as humans. Anyone know where to find that information?

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Franklin says:

Tuesday, 11 June 2019 at 22:45

That was powerful.

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gVOR08 says:

Wednesday, 12 June 2019 at 00:01

Adam Silverman at Balloon Juice is not happy with Stewart, and for good reason. Half the subcommittee were present, but they were using a room for a larger committee. This is the House, the bill will easily pass the committee and the full House, with some R votes.

But once it does, it has to go across the Capitol to the Senate. Stewart knows, and if he doesn’t, then he should, that the problem isn’t the House or its Democratic majority. Rather it’s the McConnell controlled, GOP majority Senate. Should Senator McConnell deign to allow this to move forward, given he’s bottled up everything else the House has passed, he’s likely to demand ransom to do so. Why? Because he watched how Stewart manipulated the news media today to hammer the Democrats running the House of Representatives for failing to take care of 9-11 first responders who are ill because of their service on 9-11. Senator McConnell also knows that if he does nothing, because there isn’t going to be an equivalent hearing in the Senate to produce equally negative publicity, that he and his GOP majority in the Senate will take no blame. And because he knows that if it fails, Stewart will simply rebroadcast today’s video, the news media will follow like lemmings, and he’ll have made this a problem for Democrats going into a presidential election year where his Republican senators are defending more seats than the Senate Democrats are in 2020. Senator McConnell already had too much leverage and Stewart’s tantrum today simply gave him more

.

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Steven L. Taylor says:

Wednesday, 12 June 2019 at 12:26

@gVOR08: The Senate GOP is not going to let Stewart give this speech. This is a method of getting the message out into the broader population.

And, Democrats are not blameless here: they have controlled the entire Congress at times since 9/11. They all deserve the chastisement.

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