I knew it would happen. I knew that when Sen. Bernie Sanders took possession of the Senate Veteran’s Affairs Committee gavel, that he would soon ingratiate himself with millions of our country’s retired soldiers. I knew he would bring forth worthy legislation, and I wondered what the cultural impact would be once it became clear that a Vermont Socialist was the best advocate that veterans have on Capitol Hill. Sen. Sanders has probably opposed virtually every mission that our soldiers have been sent on over the last sixty years (although he did approve using military force in Afghanistan). On the covert side, at least, many of those missions have been aimed at crushing socialism. In our country, where straightforward Democrats like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are routinely denounced as communists, Sen. Sanders must strike a lot of veterans as a radical. But he’s not among the radicals who just screwed over our vets.
Yesterday, all but two Senate Republicans voted against a motion to take up Sanders’ bill. They didn’t do it, for the most part, because they opposed the bill, but because they wanted to slap sanctions on Iran. The administration is in delicate talks with the Iranian government and does not want Congress to make aggressive moves that could undermine their negotiations and potentially lead to an unnecessary war. Even AIPAC has urged Congress to show restraint.
America’s main pro-Israel lobby came out against an immediate vote on Iran sanctions Thursday, just hours after 42 Republican senators demanded a vote.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) issued its statement after the bill’s author, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), took to the Senate floor and obliquely criticized the GOP push.
“We agree with the Chairman that stopping the Iranian nuclear program should rest on bipartisan support,” AIPAC said in an emailed statement, “and that there should not be a vote at this time on the measure.”
An AIPAC official confirmed the email’s validity and said the organization has never pushed for an immediate vote.
“We have not and are not calling for [an] immediate vote,” the official told The Hill.
Despite this, the Republicans demanded an immediate vote, and they used the veterans’ bill as a hostage.
Here’s Charles Pierce’s observation on this development:
It’s not until you watch it happen close up that the way things do not get done in the World’s Legislative Body becomes well and truly nauseating. This afternoon, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont brought forth a carefully crafted bill to provide $21 billion in new veterans benefits over the next decade. These included medical benefits, education benefits, and job-training. It contained 26 provisions that came from the Republican members of the Veterans Affairs Committee, which Sanders chairs. It was so wide-ranging that it contained a provision that would eliminate a rule prohibiting the Veterans Administration from covering in vitro fertilization on behalf of veterans whose wounds prevent them from conceiving a child in the usual manner. There was a time, and not so long ago, when both parties would fall all over themselves to help America’s veterans. How many platitudes are we going to hear on the stump between now and November about America’s Heroes and Our Wounded Warriors? This bill was a put up or shut up moment.
It failed.
The Republicans (for the most part) sent them off to war but it is the Socialist who is trying to take care of them. Some not insignificant number of soldiers are going to notice this and draw some new conclusions about what this country ought to be fighting for.
