This is not surprising coming from Mike Lee, one of the scummiest sychophants in the Senate today. Lee ran for Senate on a platform of repealing Child Labor Laws, so he has no problem with children being harmed and sees protecting children as Unconstitutional, a function outside the scope of the United States Government. This, of course, also serves the right-wing mantra that government doesn't work.
Since, he's been in office Lee's "highlights" include; proudly marching on the White House with Sarah Palin, Senator Rafael 'Ted' Cruz, Larry Klayman, and a 100 conservative domestic terrorists under the banner of the confederate flag, the symbol of the worst arch-traitors in American History, to demand the arrest and lynching of President Obama.
He's also used the arcane procedural rules of the Senate to deliberately sabotage the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Lee demanded a constitutional amendment making it possible to raise taxes only when approved by 2/3rds of both the House and Senate and threatened if it wasn't approved "in his framework" he'd shut down the Government. When 'Ted' Cruz did shut down the government in 2013, Lee continued to enjoy all the financial perks of his office, "I’m working," Republican Senator Mike Lee. "I’ll continue to be paid*."
When he began his hold Lee stated, "If we create a precedent that suggests any time there’s a significant problem with a locally operated utility that operates entirely intrastate. I would ask, where’s the stopping point? What’s the limit?" - this is basically the same argument Lee touted after Hurricane Sandy and Republicons were screeching during Hurrucane Katrina, i.e. 'FYIGM*!'
Of course, Lee sang a different tune when it came to Federal Disaster Relief for Utah in 2011. In that case it was 'Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!'
It's no mystery why Lee is withholding the funds from the residents of Flint, Michigan; they are poor, mainly black, and they've been screwed by a Republican Governor. This is the essence of Republicon governance. Steal money, kill the poor, and use every piece of "legal" recourse to ensure those people stay screwed.
But, in using byzantine Senate procedure to withhold the money in the Energy Mordenization Bill, Lee is repeating history as farce. I wrote previously about the Polish Sejm and liberum veto,
The Golden Freedom, which the magnates defended with every bit of chicanery and power they commanded, was the freedom of the few to oppress the many... - James A. Michener's, PolandIn the novel Poland, Michener describes how the, "incredible liberum veto, by which one nobleman in the Seym (parliament) of hundreds could negate and prorogue the entire work of the Seym by merely crying, 'I oppose!', was a major cause of Poland's disappearance from the map of Europe".
The Republicons are not interested the United States or 99% of its' citizens, what they are interested in and busily working towards, is the re-feudalization of America. They are in office to destroy the federal government, or more specifically those parts of the federal government which aid the poor and working class, and to create a Wage Slavery State in which every man, woman, and child is held at the whim of the Rich and shackled in Corporate Bondage.
* Fuck You I Got Mine.
* Fuck You I Got Mine.
