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McCarthy abruptly withdraws candidacy for House speaker
McCarthy undone by extremists
Where, oh, where, is a new Howard Baker - the architect of compromise GOP governing - when we need him?
Rep. Kevin McCarthy shocked America (or at least Republicans) Thursday when he abruptly took himself out of the race to succeed John A. Boehner as House speaker.
McCarthy apparently was undone by the same forces that drove Boehner to resign - a group of about 40 hard-line conservatives who announced they would support Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida. Their choice made it unlikely McCarthy could gain the 218 votes he would need to be elected.
McCarthy had spent a good bit of time in recent days walking back last week's less-than-wise, but unwittingly gleeful honesty on Fox News that the House committee investigating the attack in Benghazi had the political aim of damaging Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Later, in dropping out of the speaker's race, McCarthy acknowledged that his comments "didn't help." How much better an embarrassing commentary on the state of Republican politics could we see?
Clearly extremists can't forge coalitions. They much prefer to flock with their faction and fight.
Meanwhile, the nation's business does not get done.
Worker safety should be worth more
Ouch! No one could read without wincing the story this week about a Calhoun, Ga., worker whose hand was punctured and injected with fluid from a hydraulic hose on the job. The unidentified 42-year-old was performing maintenance on a machine that did not have proper guards in place, according to safety officials.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration - most of us know it as OSHA - found the company, Apache Mills Inc., in violation of nine safety regulations and then levied $51,000 in penalties against the firm.
Repeat: $51,000 for nine violations, including seven serious safety violations like failure to load-test a lifting device, failure to provide safe access to equipment, failure to properly test electrical equipment and failure to properly train employees.
Apache, which has 800 workers, had previously been cited six times in the past 10 years for violations, three of them serious, with just over $5,500 in penalties before the most recent bout of violations. Further, Benjamin Ross, deputy regional administrator for enforcement programs at the U.S. Department of Labor's Atlanta office, told the Times Free Press that Apache's violations and penalties are not out of the ordinary. Nationwide, around 80 percent of safety inspections result in violation citations, he said.
Well, no wonder. It's clearly cheaper for businesses to get caught and even penalized than to make the effort to be safe.
The worker was hospitalized and required a surgical shunt to drain the fluid and reduce swelling. His hospital bill may well be higher than the $51,000 penalty imposed for nine safety violations.
For those who decry "too much" regulation on American businesses, this would show there may actually be too little regulation - and far too little enforcement of what safety regulation American workers do have.
OSHA has 2,200 inspectors responsible for the health and safety of 130 million workers at 8 million worksites - one compliance officer for every 59,000 workers, according to government statistics. In 2014, on average, almost 90 workers a week were killed on the job - more than 13 a day.
That's 66 percent better than in 1970 when the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed by Congress.
But is it good enough?
Jesse Jackson's important gun reminder
Thank you, Jesse Jackson, for taking the time to talk to Chattanoogans and pleading that we collectively put the guns down and "stop the killing."
But Jackson had another message, too. Be a part of the solution:
"Somebody," he said, low voice slowly rumbling through a church auditorium to finally become a shout. "Somebody knows who killed Kevin. They may be in this room. And if you know, tell it. If you know, and you don't tell it, blood is on your hands."
The well-known civil rights activist who can rattle rafters visited Chattanooga on Tuesday to speak with city leaders about gun violence and VW jobs and other issues. But perhaps his most important words were those spoken at Olivet Baptist Church for the funeral of 19-year-old Kevin Albert Jr., a Brainerd High School graduate who was shot to death on Rosemont Drive on Sept 29.
Albert was the 17th person killed in gun violence in Chattanooga this year (and the 22nd homicide). Records show there have been more than 100 shootings in the city thus far in 2015.
Jackson, speaking here on the heels of the Oregon mass shooting where a deranged gunman killed nine people at a community college, didn't let his message become another mass shooting wail. Instead he pivoted to America's day-in, day-out dances with guns.
"We seem to have these emotional episodes when something horrific occurs," he said of Oregon. "But the institutional killing [daily on American streets and in American homes], we have grown numb to it at the national level."
Amen.