Republican Dirty Tricks

Too bad the bill isn’t for caretakers of clumps of cells in a petri dish rather than living, grown adult veterans.

Happy Veterans Day from RDT.

You may be interested to know that I, Taradacktyl of RepublicanDirtyTricks.com, am an honorably discharged veteran of the Army National Guard.   There is a common mythology that supposes our military is strictly a Republican stronghold.   I understand that one liberal does make a whole Army, in spite of the “Army of One” campaign, but let me assure you that proud liberals love this country, are serving this country, and are fighting daily to make the dreams of our founders a reality.

Another myth that permeates the American zeitgeist without substantiation is that Republican politicians and Republican administrations care for our veterans and are good for the military when, in fact, Republicans are notorious for cutting veterans benefits while simultaneously possessing a pathological propensity towards using our men and women in uniform to fight battles for corporate America, rather than for the supposed “freedom” they loudly profess.

General Smedley Butler, author of the famous tome, “War is a Racket” summed up the military’s role in our broken capitalist system…

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Republicans only truly care for the military when they need to use them as props in a photo-op.

Today’s Republican dirty trick is brought to us by Republican Senator Tom Coburn, who has placed a “hold” on Senate Bill 1963 (S.1963), The Caregiver and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009 – the bill that would ease the burden of family members and other private individuals who care for veterans disabled and severely wounded since 9/11, expand services for women veterans, make medical care easier for vets in rural areas and increase outreach efforts to homeless vets.

Rachel Maddow discusses Coburn’s disgraceful willful neglect of American veteran’s here:

This bill is direly needed to support the relatively small number of veterans with profound health needs due to severe wounds incurred in Iraq or Afghanistan who continue to need personal care long after returning home and are now reliant on a family member for assistance with the most basic needs of daily living.

Some veterans are living with multiple injuries including traumatic brain injury, severe burns, blindness, amputations, and often co-occurring PTSD or depression. Without adequate supports, the strain of 24/7 caregiving can take a severe emotional, physical, psychological and financial toll on families – but Republicans don’t care – if your family is taking care of a wounded vet, then take up a collection, have a bake sale, pull yourself up by your bootstraps or, better yet, go door to door begging your Republican neighbors to take up a shift changing the wounded vet’s feeding tube.

This bill that Coburn is blocking would do the human and moral thing and diminish substantially the strains of caregiving, allowing many vets to be cared for at home, rather than in an institution – but we all know that “family first” is just a buzz word Republicans throw to their mouth-breathing followers.

Senator Tom Coburn’s excuse for blocking the bill is that he doesn’t know how it is being paid for – when he has, in the past, supported war funding bills and subsequent supplemental funding bills that sent soldiers to die and/or get wounded in the Republican quagmire his lord and master GW Bush lied us into.

So, in short, another lying, hypocritical Republican will send Americans to die for corporate America but won’t support the same Americans who desperately need assistance for the injuries he helped create.  Read more about Coburn’s disgraceful attack on wounded veterans and their caregivers here.

Like I said in the beginning of this post, if only this bill provided funding for the caretakers of clumps of cells in a petri dish…