They Only Needed to Be Shamed

 

The PACT Act will be going to President Biden's desk to be signed after needless and spiteful delay on the part of Senate Republicans, who spent the weekend trying to defend their fist-bumping vote against the bill with sad claims of "gimmicks" and "pork". They got rightfully hammered for that, but 11 Republican senators still voted against--all of whom also voted against the bill in June.

This group includes Rand Paul of KY, who argued that veterans would take advantage of the program because one could not tell for sure that their illnesses were from service-related expose (that's right--he's basically accusing cancer-stricken vets of trying to pull one over on the government), Mitt Romney of Utah, generally incorrectly perceived as a moderate, and my outgoing (but not soon enough!) senator, Pat Toomey, who opposes spending money to help people or basically being useful at all, just on general principles. 

So, what happened here? It looks like the Republicans got caught out for being spiteful hacks that literally didn't have a problem with the bill, just with Democrats.  And some of them still pretty transparently seem to have contempt for the idea that after having served and made sacrifices on behalf of this country, veterans want to be compensated for the harm done to them.

This is who they are. Don't forget it. 

And as an afterthought, although so many people worked to make this bill a law, a lot of praise goes to Jon Stewart for using humor, outrage, the superpower of celebrity, to advocate forcefully for the Seante to just do the right thing. He's a good guy.