Saturday, November 14, 2026

The Logic Of Incumbents

Fetterman: "I'm frustrated by the gas prices. It's terrible Americans have to suffer, but if you want to blame the Trump administration, I continue to blame the Iranians as well too. They could find a way forward for peace. It's a political loser, absolutely, but that's a country over party."
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the Democrats wiped the floor with the GOP.

‘Tis indeed a mystery…
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Now They’ve Done It

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The Morning After

Sec. Mullin during tonight’s briefing at the White House : “What it appears to be right now is, as secretary Duffy and FAA was going in and putting patches into the system, they were putting new equipment and new technology and that new equipment, new technology just wasn’t— it was overwhelming the older system, which is why secretary Duffy made it very clear the patchwork doesn't work. We need one complete system. We need someone to come in and build the whole system, doing it nickel and diming it together does not work. This is what happens when that takes place. That's why the president has made it very clear we can't do this. It has to be a complete overhaul of the system, which we estimate to be about $50 billion. However, out of an abundance of caution, we are still going to do everything we can to rule it out. If that changes, we will let you know.”
Yeah, that didn’t inspire confidence.
I’ve spoken with 60 air traffic controllers tonight about what Sean Duffy said at the White House today. None of them are buying what he said because they said these types of switches that the FAA is doing, they don’t happen during the day, they don’t happen during busy times like a Friday afternoon. They’re doing these midweek, middle of the night when there is no air traffic going on. The controllers were saying, “We don’t buy that this is actually what’s happening, the reason that Sean Duffy is saying this has happened.”
So we give these clowns $50 billion, and don’t expect them to just light it on fire? Or to threaten Congress with criminal charges if they try to conduct oversight of the use of that money?


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Friday, November 13, 2026

✈️ “This Is What President Trump Does”

That explains the election results. I think we’re about to find out. Let’s see if Mullin or Duffy address that. Not an explanation of what did happen. "Let be be finale of seem." "The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.”🍦  This is what the leadership of President Trump looks like. They did. According to the CBO, you spent it incompetently, rushed complicated work, only addressed the communications system, and tore that out before the new was in place. In other words: reflecting pool redux. First, let’s get some competence in DOT. Because all you’re talking about is throwing money at the problem. 👍 The important stuff. So we don’t know what happened, we don’t know what fixed it, and we don’t know that it won’t happen again. We do know it’s Congress’ fault, because Duffy came out of hiding to say so.
So:
And then it gets better:
He doesn’t know that, either.

Good job, guys. The system is so fragile this could happen again; maybe during Thanksgiving week. And there’s still the problem of getting the entire system working smoothly again. With all those planes piled up at airports, I think that’s going to be a new problem.

Good job, guys!! Country reassured. 👍

That the people in charge are boneheads….:
Indeed we don’t.

Tomorrow, they blame Biden.
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FUBAR

Even if we had a White House Press Secretary, they would be as incompetent as Duffy and Mullen and Trump.

That’s just science.
It still starts from the top. And this idiot is still the spokesperson for this shit: Which means nobody has any fucking idea:
According to CBS News, citing several sources, an update to the private communications network - operated by L3Harris Technologies - that connects America’s air traffic control system caused the system to reboot, resulting in a system crash and the current nationwide ground stop across the United States.
Not just here: And if it goes too long (which isn’t long at all at this point), Thanksgiving travel will be affected. Because those dominoes are already ready to tip.

In the meantime, the Administration still can’t say shit.
(Current conventional wisdom is that, at base, the ATS is held together with string and baling wire, and should have been overhauled years ago. But that doesn’t excuse a software update crashing the nation. Or Boob McGee being the only person shoved out the door to answer questions, while the SOT hides behind a single tweet. 10,000 flights have been delayed, 4400 cancelled. And nobody from the Administration can even get in front of a camera, or report to Congress. Elect a clown 🤡, get a circus 🎪.)
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Your Reminder That No Matter What Happened In The Midterms…

These clowns are still in charge of important functions of government for the next two years.

So please, 🙏, for the love of God and all that’s decent, the next time you vote for President, THINK about what you are doing. And if you can’t do that, just stay home. Preferably with the curtains drawn and the TV off and away from the internet, so nothing catches your attention and inspires you to act. Because whatever Congress does in the next two years, they can’t do enough to stop these blithering incompetents and set every government agency right. And we can’t go through another four years of this crap. Ever.

Because we do know what caused it. And we can’t ever let that happen again.
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Leaderlyship ✈️

Yeah, don’t hold your breath. This is gonna take a while. REMAIN CALM! ALL IS WELL!! (Yes, this is the best person the Administration can put in front of a camera right now. A plumber from Oklahoma whose name sounds like a really bad mullet.) Including incompetence? Coming from a plumber, that’s extremely reassuring. 🙄 I HADN’T EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT! So if you’re in an airport trying to get some: start walking. Oh, so you’re a dick AND an Administration official? But I repeat myself. That phrase doesn’t mean: “Keep repeating it!” Did pull him away from the television? His phone? Wake him from his nap?💤  But we call it “SI.”

If it turns out to be the new AI program, and especially if they can’t unfuck the system for days, I have to ask again: what is the fucking point of AI? So far it just seems to be the wet dream of a handful of tech bros who want all the money, and want to spend it on a concept that is financially unsound (indebtedness already far exceeds any reasonable return, but the beat goes on) for a future that will be so much better for…them. But so far, we ain’t gettin’ shit, and this whole concept looks far less than half-baked.

It’s obvious by now nobody’s building SkyNet, but beyond fucking up Google search and making celebrity nudes and kiddie porn, and wrecking the nation’s air traffic control system…what the fuck is AI good for?

Or, for that matter, DHS and DOT? And why isn’t Duffy in front of the cameras covered in flop sweat. 😓 

That would at least be entertaining.
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Sean Duffy To The White Courtesy Telephone, Puh-leeze

CNN: CNN has just learned that the FAA has issued a nationwide ground stop for all flights because of extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.

Now, according to information our aviation correspondent, it's limited to the communication of en route, the air route traffic. In other words, they can still communicate. But for some reason there is outages and problems with the communications that direct or that tell airplanes which way and the various route networks across the country.

What does it mean? Chaos
Schiavo: What's interesting to me about the ground stop is the FAA had also announced that it was about to deploy their new tool called SMART, to assist in managing air traffic across the entire national airspace system…

I don't know if they're linked, but it's just too much coincidence that they were trying to start that moving today. And now we have problems with the system.

And that would be my guess that they are having computer issues by putting the new software in with the old
I’m only surprised FAA didn’t wait until the last week of November to install the program.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans:
Duffy is on the way to being scapegoat No. 1. Because, of course.

Trump told somebody, anybody, to get Hueng’s name out of the headlines. “Who will rid me of this troublesome CEO?”
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🤔🤨

I seriously wonder... ... if she has bus fare to get back to Colorado. Because I understand she’s broke.
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Y’All Need To Understand

You don’t have to like him.  He’s not running for President. The Democrats just have to decide if he should be Speaker. 

Unless you voted in his district, you didn’t even get to elect him.

For better or worse, this is how it works.

Though I am intrigued by this:
The crowd jeered him as his tirade dragged on for more than a minute, Newsweek reported.

Jeffries barely flinched, and when Tarlov remarked on how unbothered he seemed, he chalked it up to his roots.

“Remember, y’all, I grew up in Brooklyn,” he said.
The Golden Child spent a week at an art school in Brooklyn the summer after she graduated high school. Made a lot of friends who were charmed by her liberal use of “y’all.” When we picked her up on the last day, as she parted from them they giggled and said “Bye, y’all!” They were talking to my daughter.

So I’m surprised Jeffries knew the word is plural, never singular.

I do think he handled the protests correctly. People can yell and scream and be escorted out. People who think they’re more privileged than the rest of us, and only their opinions count…can suck it.
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🤖 When All The Laughter Died In Sorrow

Huang’s downfall raises questions about the viability of Silicon Valley’s reliance on godlike CEO figures—executives who, regardless of how often or unwisely they fuck, become the all-powerful faces of the corporations they run. Apple, though it largely invented the tech-CEO-as-god archetype with Steve Jobs, has successfully moved away from the model in recent years, but Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla’s Elon Musk, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Palantir’s Alex Karp, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei have perpetuated it, even though some of these men are motherfuckers to the core.

The problem, industry experts say, is that when a company becomes so identified with a single executive, that executive can’t wreck even one hotel bed in the company of a foreign espionage agent without jeopardizing shareholder value. A single trail of baby-oil footprints leading out of the wrong sex cabana may cause Moody’s to downgrade a firm’s senior unsecured rating to Baa2. You live by the fucker, you die by the fucker, as they describe key-man risk on the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Ultimately, however, the greatest lesson of the Huang scandal may be that once a system of fucking grows complex enough, it becomes almost impossible to identify the optimal resolution to a scandal. AI companies are now so heavily represented in cap-weighted 401(k) plans, pensions, and index funds that the collapse of the AI industry would fuck the living bejeezus out of millions of regular people who never chose to invest in AI in the first place. But the continued success of the AI industry—in part funded by those same regular investors—would fuck society in a slew of different ways: mass layoffs, erosion of trust, cognitive decline, surveillance, misinformation, and environmental catastrophe, among others. Should we root for the Jensen Huangs of the world to go on fucking with impunity, in the hope of maintaining our own economic security? Or should we root for the implosion of an exploitative industry that shoehorned its way into the center of the economy through bluster and deceit, an industry that means none of us any good? What the actual fuck are we supposed to do?

All we know for sure is that we, too, have been fucked by Jensen Huang. We may not be Chinese spies, yet we have been plowed in the moonlight by a doughy sexagenarian billionaire with a leather fetish, and in our case we don’t have a single state secret to show for it. Huang and his industry fucked our computers. He fucked our classrooms. He fucked our government. He fucked our art. He fucked our jobs. Now, on his way out, he’s fucking our savings, too.

This fucking fucker fucked the ever-fucking fuck out of us all.
Fuck AI. Fuck data centers. Put it all back in an hermetically sealed laboratory until we find a real use for it.
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“I Don’t Belong To An Organized Political Party.”

"I’m a Democrat.”—Will Rogers. Who was from Oklahoma, if that tells you the more things change, the more they stay the same. Back in the day, Sam Rayburn ran the Democratic House with strict party discipline, and taught LBJ a thing or two about how to get bills passed. 

If there is any question left that those days are gone, consider the speakerships of Boehner, McCarthy, and Johnson. Jeffries is smart enough to know his success will depend on staying in front of the parade. And if you listen to AOC lately, she understands that. She has not abandoned her principles. She has just become wise in how to achieve them.

Jeffries has a lot of incoming freshman Democrats to listen to, surfing a tsunami that hasn’t been seen in this country in most of their lifetimes. Frankly, booing and cursing Jeffries is kind of childish. But protest is the American way, so…
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Maybe El Sayed…

....can get the one Keith Ellison used. Funny MAGA never got around to purging the Library of Congress. Maybe because their Dear Leader can’t read.

(And yes, read correctly, the Hebrew and Christian scriptures contain ideas that are antithetical to the Constitution of the United States. The process of kicking these people into the outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, is gonna take awhile.)
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I’ve Gotta Say…

The BosWash punditocracy really likes the narrative that Schumer from New York did that.

Those of us west of the Hudson and the Potomac are pretty sure we had more to do with it.

Success has a thousand fathers; and the pundits race to crown some of them.

Same as it ever was.
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Joe Biden Is The New George Soros

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😈🧑‍⚖️

 In other words:

“Congress can turn off the lights at the Supreme Court and stop everything from happening if they want to defund their activities,” Alito told the Federalist Society, according to The Hill. “And there are many, many, many other things that they can do, or at least try to do.”

“So, it is important to preserve the independence of the judiciary,” Alito added. “If that is eliminated, then the Constitution as adopted in 1789 will no longer be the same.”
The “independence” of the judiciary is not a Constitutional absolute. I’m not even sure it’s a Constitutional concept, going by the plain text of Article III (nor the impeachment clause which requires the Chief Justice to preside over the Senate trials). 

An independent judiciary is a good thing. A free swinging Supreme Court that sets itself above the entire Constitution and rules as its ideology dictates, is another thing. And yes, I realize that could indict the Warren Court, but I don’t believe it does. Brown v Board may be more honored in the breach than in the keeping, but it was still a crucial pivot toward racial justice. (Not to mention Loving v. Virginia, which NOBODY complains about.) What virtues flow from Shelby County, or Hobby Lobby? Dobbs? Trump v U.S.?

An independent judiciary rests on its awareness that it is a creation of Congress, and Article III only establishes its necessity.  Humility, in other words, is a greater power and authority than arrogance. 

Funny how often that’s true.
It wouldn’t be too much to add “Reminding the Supreme Court of its place” to that list.
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The Times They Are A Changing

I’m on Medicare because I’m an old guy. So old my doctor of 25 years, retired. I have an appointment with a new one in a few weeks. It’s the end of the year, my meager Medicare deductible has long since been used up (it’s about $250, IIRC). The doctor’s office sent me a note on what I can expect to pay for the initial visit.

$0.

There is a fee. Medicare is covering it. 

I have an app on my phone that tells me what Medicare covers. I seldom use it because I seldom need to. But try finding out what’s covered in regular insurance. I also get checks from Medicare when I paid for services that should have been covered at time of service. Medicare doesn’t contest coverage. It just pays.

Why shouldn’t it be this way for everyone? Heaven knows, life would be a misery and a travail if I didn’t have Medicare coverage in the years when I most need healthcare. But I had to live this long to get here. 

Why this obstacle course? Why this endurance test?
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Thursday, November 12, 2026

Mississippi-ing The Point

 I…ummm..hmmm…

President Trump reacted Thursday to Sen.-elect Scott Colom’s (D) upset victory in the Mississippi Senate race, giving credit to the Democrat for his efforts to win over Republican voters.

“I don’t know the gentleman, but I give him credit,” Trump told sports commentator Stephen A. Smith in an interview at the White House. “I had a rally there, and we had lines that went 10 miles long, and he campaigned on that line — telling everybody in the line what a good job he did. I give him a lot of credit for that.”

Colom’s campaign released a now-viral video on social media of him at Trump’s rally in Corinth, Miss., just days ahead of Election Day, in which he approached voters waiting to get into the president’s event and asked them which issues mattered most to them.

In the clip, many supporters cited high prices as key issue impacting their choices at the polls, though some openly expressed opposition to Trump’s war in Iran and tariffs.
🤨
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What Does Lindell Think Is Going To Happen Now?

From a lawyer’s point of view, only the courts can reverse an election, and that’s simply not going to happen (the explanation is long and tedious and depends so much on the facts Lindell might think he has (“change the facts, change the outcome”) that it’s ridiculous to entertain legal objections to his foolishness.)

The primary factor is: the people of Texas are okay with it. Abbott is working with Hinojosa; Paxton is out of the country:
(Must be nice to be rich); and soon to be former Lite Guv Dan Patrick wants the Texas Senate to take away all the powers they gave him, so his successor doesn’t have them. It not clear that’ll happen, but everyone always knew Patrick was a dick.

The Texas AG’s office is dropping cases it was pursuing for years, mostly MAGA friendly cases, and Paxton doesn’t give a shit. Patrick is determined to be a shitstain. He’ll be remembered that way.

Which means no one in Texas (besides Patrick) is clamoring to reverse the election. We’ll accept it, and we’ll see how it goes. That’s what we do in America. In Texas. That’s what we’ve always done.

Lindell is a looney.
Good. Like Lindell’s messages from Mars coming in through his fillings, it’s a reminder of what we rejected. We can use the foil to our advantage.
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Keeping The Elephants 🐘 Away

When the “caravans” never show up, she’ll say Trump did it.

They don’t think we saw through this. Or they don’t know what else to do. 
Their playbook really is exhausted.

Either way: 😹
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Good Times

It can’t believe Mamdani is for real.😳  He shouldn’t wait. He may not be as popular in 2 years.

Or a member of the Knesset.
Stay for the “MAGA After Midterms.”
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Hercules And The Stables

INCOMING:
Jain: After the 2024 election, a lot of donors told me I think we have got to nominate a white straight male as the next Democratic nominee because we cannot afford what happened to Kamala Harris.

I said if you are focused on that, you're definitely going to lose. There is not really any evidence anywhere in all of the analysis we have done in any cycle to suggest that minorities are less electable or women are less electable.

Women did better than men in battlegrounds. Anytime you hear of a sex scandal, it’s very rarely a woman politician in trouble.

Crowd Member: Boebert

Jain: So yes, Boebert, and she lost. Point proven.
Talarico: On election night, as I was delivering my victory speech, I noticed a woman up front. The lights were bright, so I couldn’t see her face, but I was struck by her attention, how closely she was listening, how much this moment meant to her.

As I finished speaking, I looked down again, and she had made her way to the front of the stage. I bent down to shake her hand, and I realized who she was.

She looked me in the eyes, and she said, “I’m so glad you have my father’s job.”

Lucy Baines Johnson was there to see another public school teacher take her dad’s Senate seat.
Talarico: The American people cannot wait two years for change, so we must work with President Trump. If President Trump wants the same plaques and portraits as LBJ, we can help make that a reality. We should make the final two years of his presidency the most productive of any American presidency
🤠
Abdul El-Sayed absolutely destroys Donald Trump.

Q: You recently called President Trump the dumbest effing guy who ever was president.

AES: True.

Q: You've also said Democrats should drop the decorum and treat the president as the unserious fool that he is.

AES: True.

Q: Why are you taking that approach?

AES: Because he's a bully alongside being a narcissist. And the only way you deal with bullies is to stand up to them. Bullies don't bully you because they necessarily care for the thing you have. They bully you because they like to bully you because it makes them feel strong. And the way you take on a bully is to bully back. Because then they learn that this does not make them feel strong. It makes them feel weak and they don't like to feel weak. So they back off. And the more you let a bully get away with bullying, the more they signal to everybody else that this person cannot be stood up to. And so I think it's important for us to stand up to him.
El Sayed also recently publicly told Trump that he would name Medicare For All “Trumpcare” if that’s what he needed. El Sayed is not wrong in the interview, and he’s not wrong there 👆. But neither is he a rigid absolutist. The attitude of the incoming Democrats seems to be: “Whatever it takes.”

And that doesn’t mean “Whatever it takes for the Republicans to like us.” There aren’t any Clinton Democrats here.
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FAKE NEWS!

I cover Mexico for The New York Times, and there is no such "invasion."

About 1,500 people recently began walking north from the southern tip of Mexico — weeks away from the United States — and very few, if any, will reach the northern border.

Over the past two years, the Mexican government has repeatedly broken up these small caravans within days of them starting. And there have been far fewer of them since Trump took office.

The reality is the number of illegal border crossings remain near historic lows.
And when the mass of people don’t wade the river, Trump will credit his threat of tariffs. If he remembers that threat; and the caravans.

Trump continues to work relentlessly to keep the elephants away. 🐘
Hardest working man in Washington. His staff said; before Election Day. Since then? Well, why bother?
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The Children’s Hour

Hand to God, the first time I saw that photo, I wondered: “What the FUCK is that man wearing?”

I’m still waiting for Derek Guy to get off Huang’s shoes and explain the place of this jacket in history of Western menswear.

It’s gotta be a lulu.

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In Defeat, Truth

That would be the Texas GOP primary voters. Notoriously MAGA. (And Abbott’s push for school vouchers and data centers didn’t help, either. He was right below Paxton on the ticket, and clearly serving wealthy interests.) Clearly he’s become a RINO. 🦏
Republican Chip Roy attacking Republican redistricting: We passed a great bill, didn't campaign on it immediately turned towards our own political interest in passing redistricting plans across the country, including Texas. Spent our time trying to focus on political power rather than focusing on the people who send us here to represent them.
I’ve always thought the same thing about mattress stores in strip centers. Nobody’s ever in them. How do they stay in business?

Or, in defeat, just more blundering stupidity and denial:
IOW, we’ve lost so many attorneys we had to go to the hustings to find one to threaten a U.S.Congressman doing his job.
"Trump told us to.” 😈 This man has the nuclear codes. 🤦‍♂️ And bugs in his brain.

I had to look it up. Pratt ran in the El “A” mayoral election, got 25.5% of the vote, and didn’t advance to general. I have no idea what he was supposed to protest, aside from whinge about losing.

 In victory, hope:
"This is a new day for Mississippi and for mothers in Mississippi who so many of us have great dreams and hopes for our children. For a lot of us, that means that maybe you you hope your kids leave and that they find a better place to be where there isn't the hatred ... I think Scott will be a leader that reverses the brain drain in Mississippi."
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The Appearance Of…

Does he know who he works for?
Trump is having a full-blown meltdown: "Here we go again! With the perceived loss by the Republicans in the Midterms - I WAS NOT ON THE BALLOT- the INVASION of our Country is taking place again. Huge CARAVANS are forming and beginning their illegal march through Mexico. Many of the people in these Caravans are those that various countries don’t want - 'Send them to America,' they say - But they will not be accepted! MEXICO MUST STOP THEM, NOW, and if they do not do so, the Tariffs on Mexico will be IMMEDIATELY DOUBLED. MEXICO, THE GOVERNOR OF TEXAS, THE VERY LIBERAL NEW GOVERNOR OF TEXAS, OUR GREAT BORDER PATROL, & ICE, HAVE BEEN SO INFORMED. There will be no leniency! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP"
Nope. He hasn’t a clue.
Rep. Dave Min: "I read the letter from the White House counsel. I's embarrassing. It's laughable. And I looked this guy up, Robert Scharf or William Scharf or whatever his name is, just to see who this jackass was. Apparently, he's a Harvard law school graduate. And as a fellow Harvard law alum, I'm embarrassed on behalf of our alma mater."
I remember being embarrassed by people I met in graduate school, because I knew they’d get the same degree I would; and they were meatballs. (I was embarrassed by some of my professors, too; which is why I took my MA and ran. The program was aimed at making PhD’s of us, but they convinced me I didn’t want that fate.) It’s not Harvard, it’s Trump. He is truly a pernicious influence. And besides, he doesn’t hire people with integrity. Good luck with that. This is normal for Trump. This is even normal for Emmer. But the elections...
NN: You're all in for Marco Rubio, but he's tied to the Iran War. So if you think the war cost you the election, how is he the fix?

STUTZMAN: If we could've performed in Iran and taken out the IRGC, kept away any nuclear threat, and gas prices not go up, I don't think we'd have a problem today related to that. I think he'd be a tremendous candidate.
... broke some GOP brains. Maybe it’s seeing that circus tent coming down.

Of course, some of them are just more obviously out of step. Or simply in denial:
Tom Emmer suggests Minnesota elections are rigged: "Either fraud doesn't matter, or our election process in Minnesota is corrupt to the core. I'll let you decide ... something is wrong with the election process in Minnesota, which I think we're gonna hear more about in the future."
🎶Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow!🎶 (Somebody tell Emmer tomorrow arrived on the first Tuesday of this month.)

Still, credit where it is due:
Rep. Mike Lawler: "I'm a big believer in 'humble in victory, gracious in defeat.' And when you lose, you need to be gracious. And one of the things that's important to me is a smooth transition. So we sat down yesterday ... and really had a great conversation ... we can be adults and engage in a civil transfer of power."
Mike Lawler... ... and Cindy Hyde-White are showing the way out from under Trump’s shadow.
Trump, who is lunatic posting this morning, is back to lying that the midterms were stolen: "In order to deflect from MASSIVE BLUE STATE CORRUPTION & CRIME, they are at it again, illegally threatening Republicans with knowingly false accusations and charges. Other than cheating, this is how they won the Midterms - But we won’t let our Country go to hell!"
Even as Trump tries desperately to prove he still has one.

I’ve just gotta end this with Emmer crashing out as badly as Trump. Must be something in the air today:
Emmer: "He came in dressed as a Somali imam. You can only see the eyes -- which, by the way, that's gotta end. I want to see what you're wearing, I want to see what you're carrying, and I want to know who the heck you are. It's a matter of safety and security, it's not a matter of your personal beliefs. This is something that's gotta end."
Armed ICE agents could not be reached for comment. They were too busy shooting people and running around.
BENNY JOHNSON: Would you be in favor of a burka ban here in America, or at least in Minnesota?

TOM EMMER: There should be no burkas. There should be nothing like that allowed. It's pure stupidity to say 'this is what they believe.' Really? Over 80% of this population is on welfare programs.
Non-sequiturs ‘R’ Us. Emmer’s NSFW erotic fantasy. Ladies and gentlemen, the new House Minority Whip. 😎 (‘Cause with Gym Jordan and Emmer in charge, future’s so bright, I gotta wear…)
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In Memoriam

House Republicans just jammed through a bill to CUT veterans benefits on Veterans Day. Plenty of money for tax giveaways for billionaires and corporations, but they have no problem slashing veterans’ benefits.

I will keep fighting this betrayal of my fellow veterans and right-wing efforts to gut and privatize the VA.
VFW:
On a day dedicated to honoring America's veterans, the House of Representatives took the reprehensible step to quickly pass the so-called Take Care of America's Veterans Act (H.R. 9237), advancing legislation that the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States considers the largest net benefit cut since the Great Depression, setting a dangerous precedent that would allow Congress to cut veterans' earned benefits to finance unrelated federal spending.

The circumstances surrounding the House's action make this vote even more troubling. After conducting a lengthy recorded roll call vote on another matter, the House moved to a voice vote on TCAVA, with the chair quickly declaring that the yeas had prevailed without the opportunity for a roll call, while House Veterans Affairs Committee Ranking Member Mark Takano was called off the floor to discuss amending the bill.

If that sequence is confirmed, veterans and the American people deserve an explanation for why members of Congress were not required to go on the record on legislation that could affect millions of veterans and their families. Veterans deserve to know where their elected representatives stand. They deserve more than procedural maneuvering that leaves the public questioning whether their representatives were willing to accept accountability for their votes.

“It is an insult to America's veterans that Congress would advance legislation threatening their earned benefits on Veterans Day, the very day our nation is supposed to honor their service and sacrifice,” said VFW National Commander-in-Chief Cory Geisler. “And if congressional leaders believed this proposal was worthy of passage, they should have had the courage to let every member's position be recorded for the country to see. Playing political games with veterans' benefits while avoiding public accountability is cowardly and dishonorable. Those who have worn the uniform are watching, and we are more than disappointed – we feel dishonored and disrespected for our service. This proposal should be dead on arrival in the Senate, sending an unmistakable message to every American serving in harm's way that this country will honor its commitments to those who defend it.”

The VFW has repeatedly raised concerns about Section 108 of the legislation, which would, for the first time ever, write changes to the VA disability rating schedule into law to generate budget savings. Beyond its immediate implications for veterans' disability compensation, the VFW believes this approach creates a roadmap for future Congresses to target veterans' earned benefits as a budgetary gimmick or to cut benefits out of political convenience.

The timing of today's vote carries particular significance. As American service members continue to serve in harm's way around the world, Congress has advanced a proposal that raises serious questions about the promises made to those who volunteer to serve.

"Our all-volunteer force is built on the promise that when Americans step forward to defend this country, this country will stand behind them,” said Geisler. “We cannot tell young Americans that their service is indispensable while simultaneously treating the benefits earned through that service as a convenient way to cut spending. We must honor the contract, not rewrite it when the bill comes due."

More than 150 VFW volunteers converged on Washington this week to make their voices heard, joining thousands more who called and emailed their legislators from communities across the country. Their message was consistent: Veterans' earned benefits should never be used as a congressional piggy bank to fund other projects or as leverage in budget negotiations.

With the legislation now heading to the Senate, the VFW's concerns are stronger than ever after the political trickery in the House. The organization maintains that Congress can pursue meaningful improvements to veterans' benefits without financing them through reductions to other veterans' compensation or establishing a precedent that threatens future generations of service members.

The VFW has historically fought against benefit cuts like those included in TCAVA, and we will continue to fight these kinds of dangerous proposals to the end – especially when legislators seek to avoid accountability. VFW will continue to monitor the legislation and communicate its concerns about the potential consequences for veterans, military families and the nation's all-volunteer force, ensuring our nation's leaders Honor the Contract.
According to the GOP, our responsibility doesn’t even begin when they come home.
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