US Vets stage sit-in at Capitol over burn pits vote - A group of veterans is staging a sit-in at the Capitol in response to Senate Republicans blocking a bill that would extend health care benefits to millions of veterans who were exposed to toxins during their service.

A group of veterans is staging a sit-in at the Capitol in response to Senate Republicans blocking a bill that would extend health care benefits to millions of veterans who were exposed to toxins during their service.

Twenty-five senators went from supporting the Sgt. 1st Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our PACT Act when it passed the Senate 84-14 last month to helping filibuster the bill when a technically updated version was blocked 55-42 on Wednesday.

“We got punched in the gut, right by those 25 senators that flipped their vote from yesterday,” Burn Pits 360 Executive Director and co-founder Rosie Torres told The Hill late Thursday.

Torres said the veterans rights group was spending the night on the steps of the U.S. Capitol “as a message to those senators, those 25 senators and asking them to right the wrong.”

“They shouldn’t be here, and to know that we’re in that America where they’ve turned their backs on veterans and their families are sick and dying. It’s disgusting. But if this is what we have to do to get the bill passed, and at all costs, all measures, we’re going to get it done,” she said.

The group later tweeted it would remain outside the Capitol until the next cloture vote on the bill, which is expected Monday.

The PACT Act was initially passed by the Senate before being tweaked by the House and sent back to the Senate for a second vote, where 24 Republicans and one Democrat voted against the bill.

“This is what it’s come to. Veterans. The sick, the dying. Fed up. Pulling an all nighter to support their fellow vets. This is the hell their service has brought them,” comedian Jon Stewart, a longtime advocate for veterans’ and first-responders’ health care, tweeted in response to the announcement of a “Fire Watch” hosted by veterans on Thursday night.

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[TowinKarz]

The solution is universal healthcare so everyone gets the same shit standard of care.

That sounds nice on paper...

In practice, it means everyone will get the current-level VA "care" because that's the cheapest to supply that meets the contractual obligations. And lack of competition leads to inevitable stagnation and I-don't-give-a-fuck attitudes in the halls of 1 Federal Insurance Plaza, because what are you going to do? Build your own hospital? Be your own Doctor?

No thanks.....

"Nice ideas" are worse than useless when they run up against the absolute black hole of graft, waste and incompetence that is making them law via the actions of a Congress. especially ours.

The rapid unraveling in the last 8 years of almost EVERY major public institution that was built in their lifetime, on their orders, as each proves to be incompetent, corrupt and willing to unilaterally ignore the Constitution when it suits is proof that the 60's dream of the Great Society and the Welfare State was exactly what it's critics called it at the time, a starry-eyed good-intentioned waste and false belief that making things that fail bigger in scope and budget will make them succeed instead of just fail worse.

It was always envisioned that a major catastrophe would show how all that treasure and authority we poured into The System (tm) would be worth it... That it would "prove" the Nanny-State had a function.

And look what happened instead when Katrina and COVID showed up?

Wal-Mart beat the government to New Orleans with supplies even when the water was still waist-deep and the CDC couldn't even keep a straight story about how many masks you needed to wear to be safe (but didn't need ANY if you were out burning down buildings to "protest" )

We don't NEED another three-letter bureaucracy that you can't avoid, because no matter what you do in life, you're gonna eventually get sick.

 

[Qtinterval]

Lets not forget testing the Anthrax vaccine, as well as the early influenza and chickenpox vaccines. Then there was the 'lead testing' at Fort Hood.

Every fucking military base is a goddamn toxic waste dump.

Jet fuel testing contaminated the ground water so bad that even today it's contaminated around a lot of Air Forces bases in the SW.

REMFs got exposed to all kinds of shit, depending on their MOS.

Lets not forget the US Army stripping asbestos out of buildings in the 1980's and 1990's by having privates pull the insulation and shit out by hand, bagging it, and throwing it in trucks.

Some of us had our yearly qualification where we had to do live NBC environment.

Then, the Army got really into covering all that shit up suddenly in the late 1990's, to the point medical records started disappearing (ALWAYS make copies of your records. Never give them the last copy) and getting seriously redacted. (Some of my records are redacted badly enough the only thing on there is my last name and first initial. Even the date is gone)

Of course, you go to the VA, and they just have a ton of excuses.

My favorite was "I fucking hate how you Desert Storm guys try to act like you're all messed up. Don't you know us Vietnam Vets have the Agent Orange!"

Yeah, that's why I thought you be sympathetic to the fact my records have this fucked up shit in it.

Remember, your exposure to radiation is not due to your military service at [REDACTED] at the date [REDACTED] during which you were [REDACTED]. No compensation awarded for [REDACTED].

Amen. Then the hell you go through trying to get the benefits. I think the last time I looked it was 90% of gulf War illness claims that had presumptive (i.e. the VA is supposed to concede specific issues for a certain time/place were caused by strive in that time/place) were denied.

 

[Qtinterval]

They voluntarily signed up. If it was a draft and they were forced to go I think you'd have a point.

Again, injured in actual combat, sure, no one is going to argue that. But even in this thread you see people coming out of the woodwork to talk about how anything and everything that ever went wrong in their life happens to conveniently fit into a category where all care related to it is free. Cancer 20 years later? It has to be that burn pit I saw out a window once, not 20 years of alcoholism, smoking and eating processed food.

The solution is universal healthcare so everyone gets the same shit standard of care, and disability payments for those that were actually injured in combat. Paying 40% of all veterans their entire lives is one of those great Keynesian inventions where we pray to god that printing infinite money works forever.

That being said, if you seriously don't mind working a few extra hours a week so a bunch of "disabled vets" can jerk off at home and play Call of Duty for a living, more power to you. What's one more category of drain on the system these days? I already work half my week so I can fund bombs for Israel, joggers buying nikes, and remittances leading to most of Mexico's productivity. What's another hour?

Dude what the flying fuck are you spending about. You obviously have no fucking clue. For me personally I was a single father doing IT for one of the cities near me. In the space of a year I was bed bound for a year. 5 years later after finally find8ng a neurologist (outside of the VA) who has started treating me, I have some semblance of a normal life. Sad thing is since overexertion can cause a flair up, or just my body doing nothing can cause a flair up which makes me bed ridden again for at least a day. Really hard to keep a job if you have to constantly take off work because of a flair up, not to mention the danger of potential of passing out while driving to/from work.

That's not even mentioning all the people at Camp Lejeune when their water was contaminated (civilian workers and civilian family members) or every other base shit like that happened. But your retarded take is they volunteered or didn't serve in combat so fuck them. The most brain dead take I've read all day.

 

[ICametoLurk]

if they didnt wanna get cancer they shouldnt have joined

kill dem all

 

[Polarity]

That's not even mentioning all the people at Camp Lejeune when their water was contaminated (civilian workers and civilian family members) or every other base shit like that happened. But your retarded take is they volunteered or didn't serve in combat so fuck them. The most brain dead take I've read all day.

Thanks for your service man, I hope unending cash payments from the US taxpayer heal the permanent damage you took from dangerous water.

Lemme guess, the VA couldn't diagnose the mystery illness you have, but it probably responds to painkillers and "not working"?

 

[Qtinterval]

Thanks for your service man, I hope unending cash payments from the US taxpayer heal the permanent damage you took from dangerous water.

Lemme guess, the VA couldn't diagnose the mystery illness you have, but it probably responds to painkillers and "not working"?

Nice try dipshit. Obviously reading comprehension ain't your strong point. Where did I say I got permanent damage from dangerous service? Nice try to deflect how I used that to say that not only "dumbest who volunteered" were screwed up. Seems to me you prolly couldn't pass the ASVAB and are now permanently ass hurt you were rejected......don't worry with recruiting numbers the way they are you might just get another shot.

Though you are half right. The VA couldn't diagnose my autoimmune disorder....that happened when I went out of the VA system. As for painkillers, never took em, never asked for em, closet I got is a lyrica for neuropathy and cut that down to the lowest dose due to the weight gain.