 This is a tweet from Senator Rick Scott of Florida from yesterday. It's beautiful. And I'm sorry about the cursing and let me say something beautiful to make it up to you. I was honored to join the USO today and make care packages for brave military members in gratitude, in gratitude of their sacrifice and service to our nation. And there's a beautiful picture. I wish you could see it. He's standing with a little package. Did you get the package? It's like he has M&Ms in it and some cookies and some moist towelettes. I'm not honest. I don't even know what to say. I haven't come down here 10, 15 years. I'm used to the hypocrisy. Christina Kino tell you from BFW, she sat in an office with Mitch McConnell and a war veteran from Kentucky. And he looked at that man in the eyes and he said, and he lied to him because Mitch McConnell yesterday flipped. I'm used to the lies. I'm used to the hypocrisy. Senator Patoumi won't take a meeting with the veterans groups, sends out his chief of staff. I'm used to the cowardice. I've been here a long time. That's where accountability goes to die. These people don't care. They're never losing their jobs. They're never losing their health care. Patoumi didn't lose his job. He's walking away. God knows what kind of pot of gold he's stepping into to lobby this government to shit on more people. I'm used to all of it, but I'm not used to the cruelty. That was a snippet from John Stuart's speech outside of the Capitol following news that GOP senators blocked a bill to expand health care for veterans. It's just unnecessarily cruel, but this is what we've come to expect from the modern GOP. I know that John Stuart says that this isn't necessarily his expectation, but this is my expectation. The cruelty, the barbarity is the point of the GOP, because that's how extreme they are. But this is what they blocked as the Guardian explains the measure called the honoring our Pact Act would make it easier for veterans to access military care related to exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam and toxins from pits used to burn military waste in Iraq and Afghanistan. A version of the bill passed the Senate 84-14 earlier this year, but was sent back to the House for some technical corrections. It easily passed there. But on Wednesday, 25 Republican senators who previously supported the measure declined to move it forward. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told CNN Republicans did not back the measure because Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, was blocking votes on amendments Republicans wanted. Cornyn also said Republicans wanted to negotiate more in order to cut out some of the mandatory spending contained in the bill. In other words, they're blocking this bill because they're mad at Chuck Schumer because he's not giving them what they want. And they're using sick veterans who they sent to war as bargaining chips that is outrageous. But I'm not surprised at all by this at all. You know, these Republicans, they will vote for every single war. They will vote for every single military expansion. No questions asked. No concerns about the deficit. Nothing. But when it comes to helping sick veterans, they deny that responsibility. So John Stuart is going to touch on this point in the next clip. These people thought they could finally breathe. You think their struggles end because the Pact Act passes? All it means is they don't have to decide between their cancer drugs and their house. Their struggle continues. This bill does a lot more than just give us health care. Give some health care, give some benefits, let's them live. Keeps veterans from committing suicide. Senator Toomey's not going to hear that because he won't sit down with this man because he is a fucking coward. You hear me? A coward. And like I say, I'm used to it. But this type of cruelty on those that we say we hold up as our most valued Americans, then what are we? Patumis stood up there. Patriot Patumis. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I want to give him his property. I want to make sure that I give him his property. Patriot Patumis stood on the floor and said, this is a slush fund. They're going to use $400 billion to spend on whatever they want. That's nonsense. I call bullshit. This isn't a slush fund. You know what's a slush fund? The OCO, the Overseas Contingency Operations Fund, $60 billion, $70 billion every year on top of $500 billion, $600 billion, $700 billion of a defense budget. That's a slush fund, unaccountable, no guardrails. Did Patumis stand up and say, this is irresponsible? The guardrails? No, not one of them did. They vote for it year after year after year. You don't support the troops. You support the war machine. That's all you care about. Personally signed the Doc Proclamation to send me to war. Boy, they haven't met a war they won't sign up for. And they haven't met a veteran they won't screw over. What the fuck are we? And now they're going to go away. Patumis says, I've got veterans groups behind me. I call bullshit. These are the veterans groups. VFW, American Legion, IAVA, wounded warriors, DAV, and vets. They're all here. This is the veterans community senator. They don't stand behind you. In fact, you won't let them stand in front of you. Cowards, all of them. Cowards, all of them. And 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. Do you understand? You live around here. Senate time is ridiculous. These motherfuckers lived 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, they're not on Senate time. They're on human time, cancer time. Don't you have families? Don't you have people who are deciding how to live their last moments? I know some of them. They've been down here advocating with us. They spent their remaining time advocating so that other soldiers didn't have to face the indignities and the depravity and the desperation that they faced. And none of them will hear it. And none of them care. Except to tweet, boy, they'll tweet it. Can't wait to see what they come up with on Veterans Day, on Memorial Day. Well, this is the reality of it. Really powerful speech here. Now, my favorite part was when he said, you don't support the troops, you support the war machine. That is precisely correct. Because they're happy to use troops for propaganda purposes to cultivate support for their wars. But when it comes time to actually responsibly protect these veterans who survived war, take care of them, they're nowhere to be found. It's truly despicable. Truly despicable. Now, I'm glad that John Stuart made that point because nobody is really making this point. We talk about the deficit all the time where we hear about the deficit being talked about in mainstream media. How can we support healthcare expansions? How can we support reducing the cost of prescription drugs when we have this out-of-control deficit and inflation? But when it comes to the military budget, it gets expanded all the time. And there's just never any concerns about that. And that is infuriating to me. So I'm glad that he's making this point where everyone can see it. And John Stuart is really good at raising the salience of particular issues because nobody was paying attention to this particular issue until he sounded the alarm. I just wish my only request, really from John, is that he would expand what he advocates for. Talk about trans rights. Talk about the lack of universal healthcare in this country, which leads to tens of thousands of people dying every single year. These are things that he alone, I think, could raise the salience of. I think that he's actually that influential as a political figure. Now, I wanna show you another clip. I've got two more for you. The first is of John Stuart going on Newsmax. So he's going on every platform to get out the message and he really shows you how it's done because the right-wing pundit on Newsmax tried to run interference for Republican senators, but John Stuart shot that shit down brilliantly. Let's watch. But I did wanna point out just to push back a little bit on this. So the Republicans, when you say what you said, they do not support veterans. The Republicans pushed back saying there is unrelated spending within this. It's just not true. What they're saying is they don't like that it's mandatory as opposed to discretionary. There isn't unrelated spending to it. They're saying there could be if there was an oversight, but that's what the Senate's job is. The bill itself is incredibly detailed and prescriptive about what it's for. It's about treating and preventing the different conditions that veterans are coming home with, including cancers and chronic bronchiolitis and all these other issues from their exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan. And to push back on what they're saying, they're saying what if this creates a slush fund, right? So are you familiar with something called the OCO, the Overseas Continuity Operations Fund? Fairly, yes. So every year, 50 billion, 60 billion, 70 billion dollars is added to what's called the OCO on top of the 600 billion, 700 billion, 800 billion that goes to the Defense Department. That OCO fund is actually a slush fund, 60 to 70 billion dollars every year, no oversight, no guardrails. And every one of those Republicans that voted against healthcare for veterans voted for the slush fund for the war. They don't support the troops, they support the war machine. And that's gotta stop. The value in the US military isn't in the toys. It's not in the hardware, it's not in the tanks. It's in the men and women. And until they start supporting them in the manner that they purport to online, they are hypocritical. That was brilliant. I wanted to show that to you because that is what you're supposed to do if you go on right-wing news shows, right? There's this debate on the left about whether or not it's acceptable for people who were formerly on the left, Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Dorr, to go on Fox News. And the answer is, it's fine if you go on Fox News, but only if you forcefully push back and get out the left message. If you just go on that program and recite what they want you to say if you be their useful idiot, that can be harmful. But what John Stuart did here by going on a far-right news outlet is he rebutted their points. He didn't play ball with them. That clip shows you that he was getting his message across and not allowing them to do propaganda at the behest of GOP senators. Now, one more clip that I wanna show you is from a veteran on MSNBC who had a particular message for Republican Senator Pat Toomey. Republicans love the soldier, but they don't love the veteran. And that's the bottom line. Again, politics and game-playing at the course of human life is unacceptable. And no matter what the issue is in this country, Americans don't have to put up with it. I don't care if you're far-right or far-left, this is not about politics right now. This is about human life. So those who are gonna tweet and text me and email me and say, I'm this and I'm that, I am a human being. I'm a human being before I am a Republican or Democrat. I am a human being before I'm an American. And when human beings suffer, and you do not get involved and watch that suffering, you're as guilty as a party who is pushing out that suffering. And enough is enough. And to watch Lou Alvarez and Ray Pfeiffer and others, you know, Andrew, I've been to 191 funerals. Soon I'll be going on my own. And the fact that we have to continue to fight for veterans or first responders is proof that the Congress and the Senate in this country do not get it. And the American people should be fed up like John Stuart, John Field and all of the BSOs. Pat Tooney said yesterday that the BSOs wanted him to block this bill. Every BSO organization was at that press conference today and nobody stood with Pat Tooney. He's a liar. His wife should divorce and his dog should bite him and he should not get healthcare when he leaves and retires because he's a piece of shit. That was incredible. So look, I don't have much commentary to add here. I think that what John Stuart and these veterans are doing is really important. They're really creating a blueprint or perhaps a potential blueprint, assuming this is successful, but I think that he will have a degree of success here because before he has shamed Republicans sufficiently enough to get them to buckle. And I think that he could possibly do this again because by him going to the Capitol, having this speech, powerful speech, you know, you're getting mainstream media coverage. And this is how it's done. It's sad that the only way to accomplish anything, even incremental policies like this policy, which is incrementalist, you know, it's sad that you have to shame politicians into doing the right thing, but this is where we're at in our so-called democracy where you can't simply get what you want by voting for politicians and crossing your fingers that they're gonna do the right thing. They're corrupt, they're sellouts and they're cruel. So in order to get them to do your bidding even a little bit, you have to shame them relentlessly. So if we as Americans learn from this and we have solidarity and we join together to shame politicians on other issues and we're overwhelming in our condemnation, perhaps we could be successful as well.