Support our troops or you hate America:
Senate Republicans stopped Democrats from advancing a bill that would have expanded healthcare and education programs for veterans.
In a 56-41 vote Thursday, the motion to waive a budget point of order against the bill failed, as Democrats fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the Republican roadblock.
GOP Sens. Dean Heller (Nev.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) voted with Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) refused to allow a GOP substitute amendment to get an up-or-down vote because it included Iran sanctions, which he said were unrelated to veterans’ issues.
“I hope all the veterans groups have witnessed all the contortions the Republicans have done to defeat this bill,” Reid said Thursday. “Shame on Republicans for bringing base politics into a bill to help veterans.”
Tax cut jeebus trumps bloodied veterans from pointless wars of choice with the GOP.
Schlemizel
Paul Wellstone was viewed by the goopers as an easy target for being “soft on defense” but he kicked ass on election day winning the majority of the vet vote because he valued the men and women of the military over the tanks and planes. Its simple to do, its an electoral winner and best of all it is the right thing to do.
Villago Delenda Est
That’s really unfair, Harry.
You see, it’s in their nature.
raven
You people are drillin a dry well with this outrage. These motherfuckers never gave a single rats ass about the goddamn troops or vets. Welcome to the real world. Just wait till they pin “who lost Afghanistan” on the Democrats and the dumb ass vets buy it hook line and sinker.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
It’s clear that Darwin doesn’t work on a battlefield, because so many dumb ass vets come back from them.
Howard Beale IV
Can’t wait to ram this 20-ft long barb-wire wrapped curare-tipped telephone pole up some GOP’er arse with no lubriacnts when they say they support the vets AND voted no against them.
Problem is, some of those fucks might actually like it.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: You ever been to a rolling thunder or patriot guard event? Mensa meetings they ain’t.
burnspbesq
OT, but every opportunity for derisive laughter must be taken, and none may be left on the table.
The fine citizens of Allen, TX, who paid $60 million to build an 18,000-seat high school football stadium, have had to mothball the thing indefinitely in order to fix widespread cracking of concrete all around the facility.
http://espn.go.com/dallas/story/_/id/10528972/cracks-force-closure-60m-stadium-allen-texas
God is punishing you for your misplaced priorities, you jackalopes.
raven
And then some jackass lawyer hijacks the vets thread.
burnspbesq
@raven:
Which is not something you’ve ever done. Riiiight.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: Okay that made me chuckle. Thanks.
ACT
Heard they are against fertility treatment for soldiers who were injuried by IED’s.
karen
Yet the soldiers and their families and the members of the military will talk about how stupid Obama is and how he and Democrats hate the military and their families.
Boudica
@burnspbesq: Allen is a big rival of my town’s HS (where both my kids went). I am enjoying the Schadenfreude! And Go Dragons!
Davis X. Machina
@karen: Democrats will be ‘soft on defense’ in the absence of any actual evidence, for as long as the Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility, in the absence of any actual evidence. In other words, until the last voters who actually remember Eisenhower die off.
Jeremy
@karen: Didn’t Obama do well with the military vote in 2008 and 2012 ? It’s not like every person in the military is a republican. The Iraq war and the failure of the Bush administration changed some of those dynamics.
SFAW
It would be great if Jay Carney or Joe Biden or take-your-pick said: “Once again, we see the Republicans TALK a good game when it comes to national defense and our Armed Forces, but when it comes time actually to DO SOMETHING to help our veterans, the only finger they lift (to help) is the middle one.
“In America, we honor the service of our vets; it is unfortunate that the Republicans don’t know how to act like true Americans.”
Yeah, and the Mets will win 100 games this year, and the Jets will win the Super Bowl.
SFAW
@Jeremy:
Maybe, but he needed to get 90 percent of the military vote to be considered legit. As it stands, he’s still the usurper.
Phil Perspective
It would be great if Jay Carney or Joe Biden or take-your-pick said: “Once again, we see the Republicans TALK a good game when it comes to national defense and our Armed Forces, but when it comes time actually to DO SOMETHING to help our veterans, the only finger they lift (to help) is the middle one.
You wish Carney or Obama would say something like that, especially Carney. The question is why won’t he? Versailles would go completely apeshit and it would put the GOP on the defensive. And they’d resort to whining about those mean Democrats. You couldn’t ask for more.
barbequebob
@SFAW:
“Lets Go Mets/Jets (hazy memories of Shea Stadium, may she RIP)
BBA
No no, you don’t get it. By pushing for Iran sanctions, the Republicans are showing they love veterans so much that they want to make more of them with another pointless war of choice.
NotMax
@barbequebob
A step-sibling still cherishes his pre-Jets New York Titans paraphernalia.
Been inside Shea Stadium precisely once, when was shanghaied for the Beatles’ concert at the last minute because the ticketholder was too sick to attend.
Omnes Omnibus
@karen: Not all of them.
RaflW
The Republicans seem unable to even help themselves these days. Everything they do is anti-everyone, with the possible exception of gun-loving white males, preferably rich but the GOP will hold their noses and take votes from poor white males if they have to.
And of course, gun-fetishists aren’t all that often veterans. Huh.
danielx
@BBA:
Hey, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine….there’s a whole smorgasbord out there waiting, just ask Charles Krauthammer.
Seriously, color me unsurprised. After all, it’s not like any of those Senators (R-hypocrisy) have kids who are serving. The service is where the proles go, not the children of the elite. At least in the enlisted ranks….
“We’re sorry, but the deficit, you know? What wars that we didn’t want to raise taxes to pay for? Oh, those wars! That’s SO 2011 of you to bring that up.”
billB
If you want some real fun [not] go look for the Counterpunch piece on the USS Reagun that was exposed to massive radiation while parked next to Fukushima. Every sailor on-board got a killing dose, and no nation will let them pull into port. The 4.2 BILLION ship is so irradiated it will prob be sunk out at sea. Fun Times.
Scott Alloway
@karen: @Davis X. Machina: As a kid in the fifties and sixties, I remember when the Dems were referred to as the “War Party.”
Comrade Dread
So what else is new?
They care so much about fetuses until the kid is born and then it’s “Fuck you, no you can’t have food stamps, day care, or preschool, get a fucking job, parasite.”
No surprise they care about veterans when they’re useful political props, but when it comes time to help them out or think about whether bombing the latest Hitler of the Week is worth their lives to begin with, they say, “Fuck you too.”
Scott Alloway
@NotMax: Attended the first Met game ever at Shea. April, 1964. Box seats were $4.50, IIRC. Ed Bauta gave up a homer in the 9th lose it for the Metsies. Birthday gift. Go Bosox.
The Other Chuck
@Comrade Dread:
Their record on prenatal care belies even that. They just want to hurt women.
Talentless Hack
@raven: Hate to say it, but you’re right. John Kerry was a VFW member in good standing, and look how they treated him. Supported that coward Bush over him in ’04 even as they were getting fucked harder. Believed every word of that Swift Boat Vets for Bald-faced Lies and shit.
debbie
@SFAW:
What they really need to do is point out how much of a total fraud the GOP is on military and national security. Point out how for all their tough talk, the only war won by a Republican in all of the 20th century was a single tiny island; how their “tough stance” is really just a front to keep their military contractor buddies wallowing in cash; how, when it comes down to it, the soldiers are really just their lowest priority: “You go to war with the army you have.” Damn the consequences.
Stop nibbling around the edges and go straight to the heart of the truth.