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- July 29, 2022
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The Republican Party talks a big game about its respect and admiration for the military but—as is the case when it claims to be all about the “sanctity of life” while insisting pregnant people should be left to die—is actually full of shit. The most recent example of conservatives’ bodies being 10% water, 90% sewage came on Wednesday, when the party that loves to send troops into harm’s way blocked the PACT Act—which would expand access to health care for veterans exposed to burn pits, and subsequently diagnosed with rare cancers and respiratory illnesses—from advancing. And Jon Stewart, for one, was having none of it.
Following a series of tweets in which the comedian and activist called out Senator Pat Toomey—who was instrumental in killing the bill—writing, “Congratulations @SenToomey You successfully used the Byzantine Senate rules to keep sick veterans suffering!!!! Kudos! I’m sure you’ll celebrate by kicking a dog or punching a baby…or whatever terrible people do for fun!!!!!” Stewart spoke at a press conference on Thursday to further lay into Republicans.
“Ain’t this a bitch,” Stewart said. “America’s heroes, who fought in our wars, outside sweating their asses off…battling all kinds of ailments, while these motherfuckers sit in the air conditioning, walled off from any of it. They don’t have to hear it, they don’t have to see it. They don’t have to understand that these are human beings…. I’m used to the lies, I’m used to the hypocrisy…. Senate is where accountability goes to die…. I’m used to all of it. But I am not used to cruelty.”
He continued: “[Republicans] haven’t met a war they won’t sign up for, and they haven’t met a veteran they won’t screw over…. Now they say, ‘Well, this will get done, maybe after we get back from our summer recess, maybe during the lame duck.’ Because they’re on Senate time…. Senate time is ridiculous. These motherfuckers live to 200. They’re tortoises. They live forever and they never lose their jobs and they never lose their benefits and they never lose all those things. Well, [veterans] aren’t on Senate time, they’re on human time…. This is an embarrassment to the Senate, to the country, to the founders, and all that they profess to hold dear. And if this is America First, then America is fucked.”
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Addressing Toomey’s claim that the legislation would create a “slush fund,” Stewart noted that that was not only “nonsense” but reminded the crowd that the senator and his colleagues regularly back defense bills with few spending guardrails. Stewart also slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, noting that he’d, as well as many other Republicans, voted for the legislation in June only to change their votes a month later.
Stewart has been a longtime advocate for veterans’ health care. In 2019, during a hearing on the Hill, he laid into Congress on behalf of the 9/11 first responders who still had not receive adequate health care benefits from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, saying the lawmakers’ “rank hypocrisy” and “shameful” behavior “cost these men and women their most valuable commodity: time.”
At a press conference on Thursday, Senator Jon Tester, the chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said that Republicans “voted against the men and women who fight for this country.” He’d previously called the opposition to the bill an “eleventh-hour act of cowardice” and warned that “more veterans will suffer and die as a result.”
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