Why?
Why would you do that?
Why would you deny war veterans a shot at a job?
Why would you block a bill that puts more Americans back to work?
Why would you say you care about the 8% unemployment but vote NO on a jobs bill?
Why would you fail to mention our soldiers in a major acceptance speech in front of millions of Americans?
Why would you obstruct every jobs bill for the past two years but then run on jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs?
Why would you constantly beat the drum on the economy and say we're doing worse than we were four years ago, but offer nothing to help the country out?
Why would you not vote YES on a jobs bill that could put one million war vets back to work, and help small businesses in the process, if for no other reason than out of symbolic allegiance to a stronger economy?
Why would you use the ballooning deficit you created with unpaid wars and unpaid tax breaks as an excuse to deny 1/12th of unemployed Americans a chance to pick their own cotton, to pay income tax, to stop collecting unemployment, to prove Mitt Romney wrong because they aren't lazy moochers who want a handout, who just want a chance to work for the very country they put their lives on the line for in the past three wars?
It really is too bad, because we know the answer: you want Barack Obama to lose more than you want America to win.
But Barack Obama will win, and America with him, and the country won't easily forget what you've done to us, because unlike those war veterans, you have lost sight of what it means to fight for your country.
So throw yourselves a Grand Old Party for what you've done today, because when Obama gets re-elected and the economy, without your help and against all your expectations, improves, we will feel it.
And we'll know why.
UPDATE
Oh, here's why. Per the New York Times:
Eager to shoot down President Obama’s legislative agenda just weeks before the election, Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure that would have provided $1 billion over five years to help veterans find work in their communities.
UPDATE X2
Oh. McCain voted No. Glad to see who's corner he's really in. Per Business Insider:
Senator John McCain, of all people, opted to vote no on the bill. McCain's vote is especially odd since just a week ago he released letters from the CEOs of a dozen giant defense conglomerates appealing to Congress to avoid defense cuts. McCain's reasoning to circumvent sequestration cuts was under the oft-flexed auspicouses of "supporting our troops," maintaining a "strong military," and, of all things, not losing more American jobs.
How is one form of military job spending "supporting our troops" but another form is not?
FINAL (& MEGA) UPDATE
Hey guys, a few things.
First, thanks for all your engagement and your comments. I've read them all. This story wasn't as "sexy" as, say, my Alyssa Douglass diary, so sadly this story didn't get re-shared some 40 thousand times like that one or whatever, but it is what it is. I think that, tragically, to a certain extent, we've all grown accustomed to this kind of behavior from the GOP, and conservative Americans oftentimes justify it along anti-Obama affectations which are, in my opinion, mostly just proxy for antipathy towards Obama. It really does irk me that so many people elevate their disdain for our President above their allegiance to policies that help our country...and then have the gall to pile on him when things aren't better. In that regard, patriotism has been largely redefined in a phagocytic sort of way—where people who are deemed "foreign" are de-elevated by the right in such a way that those persons' ideas are treated callously even if they mirror ideas the old guard agrees with, merely out of spite for the "foreignness" of those ideas, however proximal or mundane those ideas actually are. It's mind-boggling, it's perverse, it's utterly disappointing, and yet it's to be expected. All we can do is rally at each new piece of evidence that the GOP is bad for America's future and do what we can to show our friends, cousins, neighbors, and others what the Republicans truly stand for: petty personal grievances first, country second.
Anyhow, this story didn't get much airplay, but here is one reaction from an actual foreign source, and it's tragic:
Democrats fall two votes short of passing bill that would help unemployed veterans amid accusations GOP played politics via The Guardian:
Republicans have voted down legislation that would have established a $1bn jobs programme to put unemployed veterans back to work as firefighters and police officers and in public work projects.
They objected to the cost of the bill, which they said violated spending limits agreed to last year in Congress.
Democrats and veterans groups say its cost are fully offset.
The bill, which had bipartisan support in the Senate and would have given priority to post-9/11 veterans whose employment prospects are three points below the national average, fell two votes short of the majority of 60 needed to waive Republican objections.
After the vote, at midday on Wednesday, Patty Murray, chairman of the Senate veterans affairs committee, accused Senate Republicans of "shocking and shameful" obstructive politics.
She said: "At a time when one in four young veterans are unemployed, Republicans should have been able, for just this once, to put aside the politics of obstruction and to help these men and women provide for their families.
Except they didn't. Defeating one man is too important to risk helping one million veterans of our tragic wars.
FUCK THE GOP.