So how much does this Senate suck?

A lot.

This has definitely been a year of incredible frustration and stagnation in Washington. Without a doubt, it’s the worst I've seen it in my short time working as an advocate on Capitol Hill. But in the last week, the inaction and incompetence in Congress was taken to a whole new level. This Senate is so backwards, so ineffective, so lacking in leadership, it’s almost hard to put it into words. Unless you use a term that comes from the military: FUBAR.

The Senate has been so FUBAR in the lame duck that they failed to make progress on some of the most important, defining, urgent issues facing our nation – within one action-packed, C-Span-dominated, frenzy of partisanship, selfishness and petty posturing. And in the end, our fearful leaders in Washington have not only failed to produce a result on taxes, but also “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” The Defense Bill, the New GI Bill and even support for heroes who dug through rubble with their bare hands to save lives at Ground Zero after 9/11. (As a first responder myself, I feel obliged to post the names of the 42 Senators who made sure that support didn’t come through this year.)

If Senator Reid and Senator McConnell don’t turn things around and make tremendous progress in the short weeks left before the end of the year, the legacy of the 111th Congress will be defined by one Twitter hashtag: #SenateFail.

Recently, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) has become a media staple. And with good reason. It’s a subject of historic importance, a defining issue of our time. Activists, politicians and pundits have talked every DADT angle, but they oversimplified the political discussion, leading most Americans to believe that last week Congress was voting yes or no on repealing onlythis controversial policy. But that wasn’t the case. DADT was actually just one component of a larger, comprehensive annual Defense Bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). NDAA has dozens of other, low profile provisions that will impact our troops and veterans in a profound way. Military Sexual Trauma support. Traumatic Brain Injury screening. Military pay raises. Stop loss back pay. Burn pit investigations. They are all in this massive bill – which also contains DADT.

So as the small group of Senators dug in last week to oppose DADT, they also risked stopping critical funding and support for our troops and veterans. In the midst of two wars, they hunkered down over a policy that has received overwhelming bi-partisan and expert support from Bill O’Reilly to Senator Scott Brown to Liz Cheney to Senator Levin to Secretary Gates. And nearly 70% of the American public. Everyone now seems to understand that all men and women who have committed their lives to service and sacrifice in our military should be treated equally. That’s why IAVA took a position two weeks ago. After the groundbreaking Pentagon survey results, almost everyone, no matter what side of the aisle, seemed to get it. But all of America could see that some Senators still didn’t. So the stage was set for a fight. And for yet another soul-crushing, Metrodome-like collapse by the Democrats.

After 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, our troops are coming home from war to a difficult economy, staggering foreclosure rates and high unemployment. Now, if Washington gets its way, they’ll also face their lowest pay raise in decades. Nice. So as investment bankers get hefty bonuses on Wall Street, a Marine Corps Sergeant in Fallujah would get a minimal pay increase, or in the worst circumstances, a pay freeze.

According to new reports, the President is expected to propose a 1.4% raise for the military in 2011 - the lowest pay raise for service members since 1962, when no raise was given. His proposal comes as the White House is seeking ways to reduce the growing U.S. deficit and pull the economy out of the worst recession we’ve seen in decades.

In the last three years, active duty pay has increased between 3.4 percent and 3.9 percent. As the largest new veterans organization and as a member of The Military Coalition (TMC), we at IAVA know that in the midst of two wars, military pay is not a place to start freezing or cutting to pull us out of the recession.

Every single servicemember deserves a pay increase. That's why IAVA and TMC advocate for across-the-board increases and support the Houses's 1.9 percent pay raise. The objective of Congress should be to close the private sector-military pay gap, not make it larger. For comparison, the average pay of a Private is just over $19,000 a year, as opposed to $29,000 for workers in the fast food industry.

The debt commission must abandon recommending freezing military pay increases altogether. If it doesn't, it will set an unacceptable precedent for our troops and their families - who have already given so much. If anyone understands the need for shared sacrifice during tough times, it's the military. And they've been sacrificing for 10 years now. Washington, don't make us sacrifice our already paltry pay too.

'Graveyard Of Empires'

For centuries, Afghanistan was part of the "Silk Road," connecting trade between East Asia and Europe. In the 19th century, it became a major staging ground for the "great game" played by Britain and Russia, who essentially fought three proxy wars for influence in the region.

The British took control of the country in the 1830s, seeking to turn Afghanistan from a crossroads to a roadblock for other nations. They put in place a hand-picked monarch named Shah Shoojah. But Shoojah's collaboration with non-Muslim occupiers earned him the hatred of many Afghans.

Shoojah had no control outside Kabul, the capital – leading many Afghan historians to compare him to current President Hamid Karzai. An uprising against Shoojah led to the first of two disastrous Anglo-Afghan wars.

Disastrous for the British, that is. A massacre of retreating British troops in 1842 remains a point of national pride in Afghanistan.

"Pretty much every time I see President Karzai, there's some reference to that piece of British history, or another piece of British history," says Mark Sedwill, the former British ambassador to Afghanistan and now the top NATO official there.

Prince Ali Seraj, cousin to the last king of Afghanistan, says the powers in London sought Afghanistan as a buffer state for the British Empire. Instead, Britain got caught in its own trap.

The Soviets' Bleeding Wound

Afghanistan gained its independence in 1919. A modernizing king named Amanullah Khan tried to update Afghan society too quickly, and rural Afghans rebelled — just as they would 60 years later, when the Soviet Union invaded.

In 1978, a communist coup installed a pro-Soviet president, and the tribes rose up, prompting a massive Soviet military occupation.

Over the course of the Soviet era, which lasted from 1980 to 1989, the State Department estimates that the U.S. sent a total of about $3 billion in economic and covert military aid to the mujahedeen, or holy warriors of the Afghan resistance group.

Russian fighter jets and helicopters used Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, to launch attacks against guerrillas who countered with deadly ambushes. The same base is used today by U.S. forces and was visited by President Obama in his quick trip to Afghanistan last week.

Afghanistan became a "bleeding wound" for the Soviets, as President Mikhail Gorbachev said in 1986. He decided to pull his country's troops out, a process that took another three years.

"All foreign forces invading must learn it's easy to enter Afghanistan," Seraj says. "It's very difficult to leave Afghanistan."

Quote by Raine:
Couch! AchOO! Good Morning.

Quote by Raine:
I WaPo this morning! Check this one out!

Readers Photoshopped John Boehner as WaPo asks Why is He crying?

Quote by wickedpam:



I think Old Yeller is the only acceptable excuse there

Quote by Raine:
What the hell is Thom talking about? 5 stages of grief?