Ted Cruz voted against federal aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy–three times.
But the United States Senator from Texas quickly announced he would seek “all available resources” to assist victims of the April 17 explosion at as fertilizer plant in West, McLennan County, Texas.
The blast killed 13 people, wounded about 200 others, and caused extensive damages to surrounding homes.
Last october, Hurricane Sandy killed about 150 people and caused an estimated $75 billion in damage across the Northeast.
The Republican legislator stood foursquare against the Sandy Aid Relief bill, claiming that it was loaded with “pork”:
“Hurricane Sandy inflicted devastating damage on the East Coast, and Congress appropriately responded with hurricane relief,” said Cruz.
“Unfortunately, cynical politicians in Washington could not resist loading up this relief bill with billions in new spending utterly unrelated to Sandy.
“Emergency relief for the families who are suffering from this natural disaster should not be used as a Christmas tree for billions in unrelated spending, including projects such as Smithsonian repairs, upgrades to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration airplanes, and more funding for Head Start.
“This bill is symptomatic of a larger problem in Washington–an addiction to spending money we do not have. The United States Senate should not be in the business of exploiting victims of natural disasters to fund pork projects that further expand our debt.”
Another Republican, Rep. Bill Flores, who represents West, also voted against the Sandy relief package. But this didn’t stop him from requesting federal aid for the disaster in his home district.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
But, according to PolitiFact, “A big portion of the $17 billion in ‘immediate’ assistance, more than $5 billion, went to replenish FEMA’s disaster relief fund, which may fund relief from future disasters.”
Furthermore, Rick Ungar, writing at Forbes, pointed out that the “pork” came from having to bribe red state Republicans–including Texas–to get the package passed over their filibuster:
“However, as it turns out, the pork portions of the Senate bill were not earmarked to benefit Democratic members of the upper chamber of Congress….
“The answer can be found in a quick review of the states that are set to benefit from the Senate’s extra-special benevolence—states including Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana.”
In fact, according to a September 29, 2011 article in iWatch News: Texas had the most FEMA-declared disasters since the start of 2009:
“Eleven Republican U.S. senators who represent the states with the most FEMA-declared disasters since the start of 2009 voted against a bill designed to keep the agency’s disaster relief fund from running out of cash.”
“The top two states, Texas and Oklahoma, combined for more than a quarter of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s declared disasters since Jan. 1, 2009.”
Yet the hypocrisy doesn’t end there.
“The nation’s number one resource is its workers,” said Keith Wrightson, safety expert at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. “But the agency that’s charged with protecting them is not given the resources to do it. I think it’s worrisome for the nation.”
The West Fertilizer Company facility hadn’t been inspected by the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) since 1985, when the company was fined $30. Why did the facility go for almost 30 years without further inspections from OSHA?
As a small employer, the fertilizer facility may have been exempt from some forms of OSHA scrutiny. Years ago, Congress attached a rider to agency funding that forbids OSHA to perform inspections of workplaces with 10 or fewer employees and whose industries have low injury rates.
Lawmakers reason that small businesses shouldn’t have to shoulder the same costs of compliance as larger ones.
But smaller worksites aren’t necessarily less dangerous. According to safety advocates, small companies often have fewer resources to invest in worker safety and, with less government oversight, even less incentive.
On April 20, the damning news broke in a Reuters story:
“The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).”
Yet a source told Reuters that West Fertilizer, the company that owns the plant, did not tell DHS about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do.
The DHS is a major regulator of ammonium nitrate–which can also be used in bomb making. Thus, it was left totally unaware of the potential danger posed by the plant..
Fertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb or more of the substance. Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren’t shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year.
In short, this situation offers the ultimate combination of disaster-producing circumstances:
- A state with lax regulation of corporate businesses.
- A plant crammed full of highly explosive materials.
- Hypocritical U.S. Senators callously ignoring the hardships nature inflicts on other states while greedily demanding the lion’s share of emergency resources for their own constituents.
- A state–Texas–whose governor has openly threatened secession greedily sucking at the tit of the otherwise despised Federal Government.
ALAMO, BILLY BOB THORNTON, DAVID CROCKETT, FACEBOOK, FESS PARKER, JAMES BOWIE, JOHN WAYNE, MEXICO, SAM HOUSTON, SLAVERY, STEPHEN F. AUSTIN, STERLING HAYDEN, TEXAS, TEXAS REVOLUTION, TWITTER, WILLIAM B. TRAVIS
REMEMBERING THE ALAMO: PART ONE (OF THREE)
In History, Social commentary on March 6, 2013 at 12:36 amJohn Wayne fought and died there–cinematically.
So did Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey, Fess Parker, Sterling Hayden, Jason Patrick, Billy Bob Thornton and Patrick Wilson.
Today–March 6, 2013–marks the 177th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, a crumbling former Spanish mission in the heart of San Antonio, Texas.
The combatants: 180 to 250 Texans (or “Texians,” as many of them preferred to be called) vs. 2,000 Mexican soldiers.
On the Texan side three names predominate: David Crockett, James Bowie and William Barret Travis. “The Holy Trinity,” as some historians ironically refer to them.
Crockett, at 49, was the most famous man in the Alamo. He had been a bear hunter, Indian fighter and Congressman. Rare among the men of his time, he sympathized with the Indian tribes he had helped subdue in the War of 1812.
He believed Congress should honor the treaties made with the former hostiles and opposed President Andrew Jackson’s effort to move the tribes further West.
Largely because of this, his constituents turned him out of office in November, 1835. He told them they could go to hell; he would go to Texas.
James Bowie, at 40, had been a slave trader with pirate Jean Lafitte and a land swindler. His greatest claim to fame lay in his fame as a knife-fighter.
This grew out of his participating in an 1827 duel on a sandbar in Natchez, Mississippi. Bowie was acting as a second to one of the duelists who had arranged the event.
After the two duelists exchanged pistol shots without injury, they called it a draw. But those who had come as their seconds had scores to settle among themselves–and decided to do so. A bloody melee erupted.
Bowie was shot in the hip and then impaled on a sword cane wielded by Major Norris Wright, a longtime enemy. Drawing a large butcher knife he wore at his belt, he gutted Wright, who died instantly.
The brawl became famous as the Sandbar Fight, and cemented Bowie’s reputation across the South as a deadly knife fighter.
William Barret Travis had been an attorney and militia member. Burdened by debts and pursued by creditors, he fled Alabama in 1831 to start over in Texas. Behind him he left a wife, son, and unborn daughter.
From the first, Travis burned to free Texas from Mexico and see it become a part of the United States.
In January, 1836, he was sent by the American provisional governor of Texas to San Antonio, to fortify the Alamo. He arrived there with a small party of regular soldiers and the title of lieutenant colonel in the state militia.
On the Mexican side, only one name matters: Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, president (i.e., absolute dictator) of Mexico. After backing first one general and would-be “president” after another, Santa Anna maneuvered himself into the office in 1833.
Texas was then legally a part of Mexico. Stephen F. Austin, “the father of Texas,” had received a grant from Spain–which ruled Mexico until 1821–to bring in 300 American families to settle there. The Spaniards wanted to establish a buffer between themselves and warring Indian tribes like the Comanches.
These immigrations continued after Mexico threw off Spanish rule and obtained its independence.
But as Americans kept flooding into Texas, the character of its population changed, alarming its Mexican rulers.
The new arrivals did not see themselves as Mexican citizens but as transplanted Americans. They were largely Protestant, as opposed to the Catholic Mexicans. And many of them not only owned slaves but demanded the expansion of slavery–a practice illegal under Mexican law.
In October, 1835, fighting erupted between settlers and Mexican soldiers. In November, Mexican forces took shelter in the Alamo, which had been built in 1718 as a mission to convert Indians to Christianity. Since then it had been used as a fort–by Spanish and then Mexican troops.
Texans lay siege to the Alamo from October 16 to December 10, 1835. With his men exhausted, and facing certain defeat, General Perfecto de Cos, Santa Anna’s brother-in-law, surrendered. He gave his word to leave Texas and never take up arms again against its settlers.
Texans rejoiced. They believed they had won their “war” against Mexico.
But others knew better. One was Bowie. Another was Sam Houston, a former Indian fighter, Congressman and protégé of Andrew Jackson.
Still another was Santa Anna, who styled himself “The Napoleon of the West.” In January, 1836, he set out from Mexico City at the head of an army totaling about 7,000.
He planned the 18th century version of a blitzkrieg, intending to arrive in Texas and take its “rebellious foreigners” by surprise.
His forced march proved costly in lives, but met his objective. He arrived in San Aotonio with several hundred soldiers on February 23, 1836.
The siege of the Alamo–the most famous event in Texas history–was about to begin.
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