JOSHUA FRANK: Call Him Senator Con Job

[Tace]

Joshua Frank -- World News Trust

(The New York Times yesterday laid out the case against Conrad Burns, Republican Senator from Montana. Burns is losing ground fast in a tight race with Jon Tester, a Montana farmer and prominent Democrat. If there is any place in the United States where the Democrats are worth a damn, it looks like Montana is it. Below is my own encounter with ol' Conrad Burns, the super-shyster. He even likes to poison kids. -- jf)

I've met Senator Conrad Burns on two separate occasions: Once during a visit to his plush office in Washington DC, and the other at an airport in Montana while he was campaigning for reelection. It wasn't long into our first meeting that I realized the Republican couldn't care less about the state he purportedly represented.

Yeah, I admit it -- I was a bit of neophyte back in the day.

When I visited Sen. Burns in Washington I had a chance to chat a while with a couple of his sprightly young interns. Both had thick southern accents. I remember how overly eager I was to ask them what they thought about some of the pressing issues that were facing my home state at the time. And I was surprised to find out that neither had ever even been to Big Sky Country. When I pointed this out to Burns he just chuckled, patted me on the back, and divulged in his raspy voice, "I don't hire the cute ones for their brains, kid. I hire 'em cuz they are easy on the eyes."

Like so many other sleazy politicians in DC, Burns is sullied by out-of-state (often times out-of-country) interests. He works for the fat cats that thicken his campaign coffers -- not the Montanans who vote for him. And his assistants were a testament to his real motivations. It was just business. The senator's high-ranking seats on the Appropriations Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee have scored him hundreds of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry, while his seat on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has landed him boo coo bucks from the telecommunications sector. He pockets thousands from big timber, the NRA, the pro-Israel lobby, and even has connections to Jack Abramoff, the notorious DC lobbyist who has been accused of bilking millions out of his Native American clients.

more

http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=2497

[radio4progressives]

1. omg! this man is evil!

I suppose fabricating the truth isn't quite as bad as poisoning someone, though. Just this Summer it has been exposed that Senator Burns supports testing pesticides on human beings. The EPA is currently reviewing some its own egregious and deadly "experiments," as a congressional report released on June 16, noted:

"In one experiment under EPA review, human subjects were exposed to MITC, a dangerous pesticide closely related to the chemical that killed thousands in Bhopal, India, in 1984. In another, human subjects -- mostly college students and minorities paid $15 per hour -- were placed in a chamber with chloropicrin, an active ingredient in tear gas, for up to one hour at a time for four consecutive days ... The report also finds that the adverse health effects of these studies were downplayed. In one study, headaches, abdominal pain, nausea, coughing, and rashes experienced by study participants dosed with azinphos-methyl for nearly a month were dismissed as having been caused by "viral illness," "ward conditions," or diet. Human subjects were often inadequately notified of about the health risks of participating in experiments."

It's hard to believe anyone could support such cruel tests on animals, let alone humans. But Burns apparently does. According to an article published by the Center for Health and Environmental Justice, Senator Burns "will likely oppose a provision in the House version of the agency's appropriations bill that bans the agency's use of data from pesticide testing on humans.... CropLife America, the pesticide industry trade group, issued a statement after the House vote, calling on the Senate to `overturn' the provision.' Since 2000, Burns has accepted $10,000 from political action committees set up by some of the pesticide industries top producers. In total, Burns has accepted $5,000 from DuPont, $3,000 from the American Crop Protection Association, $1,000 from Bayer Crop Science and $1,000 from Monsanto."

cont..
http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=2497