Charles Pierce: Jon Stewart has contributed more to USA Politics than Newt Gingrich has in 30 years
Jon Stewart has gotten conspicuously angry in public twice. The first time, he got Crossfire cancelled. The second time, he got this bill passed. He's already contributed more to American politics than Newt Gingrich has in 30 years.
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..............thanks to relentless lobbying, and the game-changing outrage of Jon Stewart, the bill finally passed, to actual applause, in the Senate on Tuesday. (Stewart has gotten conspicuously angry in public twice. The first time, he got Crossfire cancelled. The second time, he got this bill passed.He's already contributed more to American politics than Newt Gingrich has in 30 years.) But as John Feal, the ramrod activist behind the bill, reminded everyone afterwards, this wasn't the typical group of professional lobbyists. They weren't lounging at the Palm or arriving in private jets. They were sick and dying people asking for help, for themselves and for the ones that assuredly will come later.
"There's no joy. There's no comfort. Yes, I cried with Jon, but that was to exhale. That was to get 18 years of pain and suffering out. And it's out," said Feal, whose foot was crushed while he was working on the pile, and who was denied assistance because his injury had occurred too long after the attacks to count. This was Feal's first encounter with a system that seemed to use red tape instead of bandages.
"I'm just so proud of these guys and these women behind me," Feal continued. "They drove down 95 countless times, stopping at rest stops, taking medications, having their wives yelling at me, telling me to make sure they take their medication. We had a small window and we took it, and we're leaving DC and we're going out with dignity and class."
There are so many times when everything seems stuck in the mud around this place. As it happens, the first people I ran into in Washington this trip were a group of retired coal miners, come to plead for money to help them fight the black lung that is the way so many of them have died through the decades. They were the first group of people I saw walking across Capitol Hill carrying portable oxygen. Some of them were in wheelchairs. Everybody in this country so very much needs to breathe.
MORE:
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a28485934/9-11-first-responders-bill-jon-stewart-rand-paul/
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... like no Repuke ever did.
Thank you Jon Stewart! You're a good American.
constituents started calling them about this bill.
A few years ago my then representative, Erik Paulsen, had not even signed on as a co-sponser and the bill had been languishing in the House for months. The morning after I saw Jon talk about this on TDS, I called his office, told the little drip who I spoke to that I hoped Paulsen would finally support it (if I recall correctly, the first time it came up he voted against it) and mentioned Jon Stewart. "We don't get our news from the TDS", sneered the person I spoke to. I told I didn't either and that I also didn't get my news from Fox. He then opined that, as a Minnesota resident, I really shouldn't be concerned. 
Let's just say the conversation deteriorated from there.
Then the next 9/11 anniversary rolled around and Paulsen (more likely a staff member) put up a "Never forget". The way he got hammered was a glorious to see & I'll bet that many people paid attention because of Jon Stewart. Not long after that, he finally signed on to the bill.
Paulsen was soundly defeated in 2016. First time a Democrat has won this district in 50+ years and, while we expected the counting to go until the wee hours, it was over by 9:30 PM on election day.
