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We are now taking revenge on salt mine inspectors

Published on 18 Comments on We are now taking revenge on salt mine inspectors

Last week, in a fit of pique, Republicans in the House tried to pass a bill reducing the salary of Joe Biden's press secretary to $1. What I didn't know was that this has become a regular occurrence. The latest outburst happened yesterday:

It was the 25th time in the three weeks since Speaker Mike Johnson was elected to the top post — and at least the 31st time this year — that Republicans have spent time on the House floor using a spending bill to try to strip the salary of a member of President Biden’s team.

....Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, took aim at a single federal inspector responsible for regulating safety standards at a salt mine in his district, who the congressman said had a “personal vendetta.”

“These are not just punitive measures,” Mr. Higgins said as he offered multiple proposals on Tuesday afternoon to slash the salaries and budgets of the inspector and a number of other officials who oversee the mine, which is operated by the Morton Salt Company.

That's a lot of salt.

I certainly hope that Higgins receives a generous donation from Morton Salt for this demonstration of loyalty. Constituent service is what being a member of Congress is all about, amirite? And besides, Morton had a legitimate beef:

MSHA cited 82 S&S violations at Weeks Island Mine and Mill; of those, 32 were issued for the operator’s high negligence or reckless disregard.... This marks the first time since 2014 that a mine operator has received a POV notice for persistent serious health and safety violations.

See? The government busybodies even admit that this is the only mine they've cited in the past decade. If that's not proof of a vendetta, I don't know what is.

18 thoughts on “We are now taking revenge on salt mine inspectors”

    1. iamr4man

      I worked with a guy who was from Kuwait. He told me the special police force that enforced morals were called POV, which meant Promotion of Virtue/Prevention Of Vice. He told me he subscribed to Archie Comics and they always arrived with portions of the comic blacked out. He also said he was disappointed when he came to America during his high school years that the girls didn’t all look like they were depicted in the comics.

      1. cld

        I've been reading that Archie is huge in India. I was surprised to remember that sometime in the Great Beforetime I had met a guy from India who told me this and I completely forgot about it.

  2. masscommons

    Good post, but a word with your headline writer, please.

    "What do you mean "we", white man?"*

    I know it's just one headline on one blog, but it's one of those verbal habits that allows Republicans to get away with all sorts of things (including insurrection, but that's another story).

    I know you know this. It's the rest of us who need constant reminders: it's not that "the government" is dysfunctional; it's that Republicans are vindictive extremists.

    *reference to very old Lone Ranger TV show.

    1. iamr4man

      Your reference originated, I believe, from a “scenes we’d like to see” feature in Mad magazine #38 written by E. Nelson Birdwell and drawn by Joe Orlando.

  3. DFPaul

    When they say “destroy the administrative state” this is exactly what they mean: do solids for big corporations in return for cash. Eh, Bannon?

  6. Salamander

    Mines are dangerous, and salt mines are a whole 'nother level. Higgins and Johnson are ignorant tools to be serving Big Salt in this way. Democrats in Louisiana ought to start making ads about this, how their Republican representatives are just shoveling it, when they talk about their support for "hard working Amurkins".

  7. Dana Decker

    Clay Higgins is concerned - rightly! - that safety inspectors are trying to shut down salt mines so that ghost busses can be hidden there.
    WAKE UP PEOPLE!

    1. memyselfandi

      The supreme court did in fact rule in the late 40s that these are the rovision that the republicans are invoking make these bills of attainder. But your typical house republicans are apparently unaware of that and the smarter ones ssume Trump's appointees are so corrupt that they won;t care. These are the same people who claimed an originalist treading of the constitution made the practices of Washington and Jefferson unconstitutional.

  10. emjayay

    I'm guessing there was a new inspector who wasn't in the bag with management like the old one.

    Reminds me of right wingers being outraged at increased funding for the IRS. Besides providing some customer service, that money is going to go into updating ancient computer systems and actually auditing some more returns from businesses and the wealthy whose returns need expensive expert analysis unlike the simple wage earner returns which are all just checked by computer.

    They passed the tax laws but don't like them to be enforced against people of their class they mingle with at the country club.

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