It is strange to use the adjective “happy” when talking about Veterans Day.  It is, in my mind, the saddest of U.S. holidays.  Partially, it’s the weather.  It’s November, it’s normally cold and grey.  But beyond that, I think it’s because this is the only holiday that celebrates the still living.  It sound like it should be a happy occasion except for the fact that we fail our veterans so miserably.

Veterans Day has become a way for us non-veterans to feel good about ourselves.  Oh, look at me, I’m thanking a veteran, my work here is done!  This is not nearly enough.  Veterans face issues, both visible and invisible, that most of us cannot possibly imagine.  Thank yous don’t fix these problem.

What can we do?  Well, the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans is still over 10%.  We can do things like call our Republican representatives and senators and tell them to stop blocking jobs bills for veterans.  We can contact our representatives and ask them to increase funding for research into prosthetics.  We can tell them that, when we send our people to war they should be accompanied by armies of psychologists and we should make counseling for soldiers in the field mandatory.  We can volunteer in shelters and soup kitchens and other places where veterans are disproportionately represented.

Veterans are sent to war by a political class that doesn’t think about the repercussions of war.  They are used in war by generals that, by necessity, think of them as tools in a toolbox.  They are spit back up by war into a society that hasn’t changed while they have.  We owe it to them to give them politicians who have something to lose by a declaration of war.  We owe it to them to give them the tools they need, both physical and mental, to survive the wars we send them to.  We owe it to them to provide them the support they need when they return from war.

We need to redefine Veterans Day.  Let it no longer be a day of thanking veterans.  That should be every day.  Let it be a day of looking inward and asking ourselves what we have done in the past year to support those that sacrifice so much for so little.  This year, we have failed them.  We have a year to go.  Let’s get to work.

But Ta-Nehisi Coates has already done so better than I ever could.  No surprises there.

By the way, if you don’t read everything Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, you are a horrible human being.

I find this article baffling.  Either that or the article explains a whole lot.  Romney and Ryan were surprised they lost?  They always had a chance of winning, but it was pretty obvious that chance was slim at best near the end.  Even when they had better odds, they never had more than a 50% chance of winning.  And yet, after losing they’re “shell-shocked”?  If true, the suspension of disbelief in the campaign must have been at astounding levels.  Either that or the Republican war on science had even infected Romney and Ryan.

Although, it would explain why the self-described “numbers guy”, Paul Ryan, can release a budget and claim it will solve all of our country’s budgetary ills when even a cursory look at his numbers shows them to be a sham of the highest level.  For Paul Ryan, 1+1 has always equaled 3.

Romney’s a little more difficult to figure out.  Is it possible that Romney isn’t a numbers guy?  Despite all evidence to the contrary (his business record, etc.), I have to conclude that he isn’t.  My theory would be that Romney has always just been a good manager of people who makes good decisions when surrounded by people who know their stuff.  It’s never been an issue in his business career because people who know how to hire people who know their stuff were hiring the right people.  A national campaign works differently.  There is a whole group-think aspect to the campaign that doesn’t exist in the same way it does in a business.  The result being a bias that leads you to draw people to you that are telling you what you want to hear instead of those that are telling you what you need to hear.  The result being that you make good choices based off of incorrect information.

Despite coming into office in the middle of a horrible recession, President Obama did everything in his power to assure the gun industry thrived in this environment.  This consisted mostly of him getting elected.  Gun sales have gone up 10% every year since his election.

With his reelection, the markets are expecting this growth industry to continue to grow apace.  Gun manufacturing stocks are up mightily today in anticipation.  But will you hear Republicans praising Obama for making sure the gun industry stays strong for at least another four years?  Noooooo.