The government still pretends that its missile-defense program<\/span> works, Guant\u00e1namo Bay prison is still open, the enhanced<\/span> surveillance powers<\/span> of the USA PATRIOT Act are still in place, Bush appointees<\/span> Robert Gates and David Petraeus are still in charge of<\/span> the foreign wars we hear about, and other wars are still going on that we don’t hear about (except through WikiLeaks<\/a>). Old Europe still isn’t trusted (we now know), North Korea and Palestine are still powder kegs<\/span>, and Cuba is still off-limits<\/span> (though the Canadians are talking to us again).<\/p>\n As commentator Bill Maher has observed<\/a>, even Obama’s narrowly<\/span> won health-care compromise was essentially<\/span> the plan put forward<\/span> by Republican Senator Bob Dole in 1994.<\/p>\n I’m not saying any of this is bad; it’s just not what we expected to happen.<\/p>\n How startling<\/span> it is, then, whenever Obama handles something differently than George W. Bush. Admittedly<\/span>, Obama acted very stealthily<\/span> \u2014 on January 2, during a holiday weekend, while he was vacationing in Hawaii, where reporters wouldn’t notice.<\/p>\n The Bush administration did readily<\/span> pay $7 billion to the families of those injured or killed in the 9\/11 attacks, in order to prevent any lawsuits<\/span> against the airlines. But compensation<\/span> to the cleanup crews was a different matter. The official answer was that it was difficult to show that any particular syndrome resulted directly from exposure<\/span> to the smoke. The more likely<\/span> answer was probably that the government was scared silly<\/span> that millions of claims<\/span> might be filed<\/span>.<\/p>\n On the one hand, acts of terrorism are usually exempted<\/span> from insurance policies, so no one is liable<\/span> for them. On the other hand, the federal government usually does help out during other catastrophes like hurricanes and earthquakes<\/span>, even though it’s not responsible for those. It’s also commonly agreed that the government should protect its citizens \u2014 think of all the money spent on things like defense<\/span> and food inspection \u2014 so it could be considered liable, especially as the entire East Coast was left undefended<\/a> on that day.<\/p>\n The new law is named after James Zadroga, the first New York police officer to die of a lung disease attributed to<\/span> the smoke at “Ground Zero”. Senate Republicans tried hard<\/a> to block the bill<\/span>, but gave in<\/span> when tax cuts for wealthy Americans<\/a> were extended just before Christmas.<\/p>\n Obama offered a written statement that read, in full<\/span>:<\/p>\n “I was honored to sign the James Zadroga 9\/11 Health and Compensation Act<\/span> to ensure that rescue and recovery<\/span> workers, residents<\/span>, students, and others suffering from health consequences related to the World Trade Center disaster have access to the medical monitoring<\/span> and treatment they need. We will never forget the selfless courage demonstrated by the firefighters, police officers, and first responders who risked their lives to save others. I believe this is a critical step for those who continue to bear<\/span> the physical scars<\/span> of those attacks.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n No speech at Ground Zero, no words to the TV cameras \u2014 but honor has been given back to the heroes of 9\/11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So far, Barack Obama has been one of our best Republican presidents \u2014 which is fine, except that he claims to be a Democrat. Despite his promise of “change”, some things haven’t changed at all since the days of George W. Bush. We’ve seen unrepentant bankers get big bonuses, government advisers be recruited from Wall Street and corporations, and nearly … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[39,27,127,91,51,108,29,35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1578,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions\/1578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"300px-Obama_signs_Zadroga_Act\"](\"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/300px-Obama_signs_Zadroga_Act.jpg\")
<\/a>His act was to approve<\/span> a law giving $4.2 billion<\/span> to people who had breathed toxic<\/span> smoke at the World Trade Center site while cleaning it up after 9\/11. Back then, the Bush administration<\/span> had repeatedly declared that the thick smoke, which contained heavy metals and asbestos and persisted<\/span> for weeks, represented no risk to anyone’s health. First responders<\/span> and firefighters had had to rely on<\/span> private donations<\/span> to pay their hospital bills.<\/p>\n\n