Don Bacon Protects The Military? Only When Trump And Republican Party Bosses Say It's OK

Earlier we looked at how the "bipartisan" For Country Caucus and their associated With Honor PAC has targeted Katie Hill for obliteration, Chairman Don Bacon acceding to a request from the NRCC, which is strictly against the caucus rules. The Democratic co-chair, Jimmy Panetta, wasn't quite sharp enough to catch it and spends his time lying to the media about the non-relationship between the PAC and caucus (each of which links immediately to the other). Point though, isn't about Panetta; we'll get to him soon enough, but about Don Bacon a thorough Trump enabler who tries presenting himself as an above the fray general, while disgracing his former service. (His Trump adhesion score is 95.6%... He drank the koolaide-- and asked for more.)

When Bacon was a general, he was in charge of Offut Airforce Base, close enough to Omaha so that many of his constituents work there. The base was severely damaged in the severe Nebraska flooding in May. Recently, the Omaha World-Herald, which endorsed his reelection bid last year, called Bacon out on his hypocrisy over the bill to save the damaged base. It was natural for Bacon to vote for it committee. But then he got pushback from Republican leadership which wanted it to fail. So, sure enough, in the final vote, Bacon-- like all the other lock-step Republicans-- voted no.

The World-Herald reported that "Bacon was one of only two Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to support the measure when the panel approved it, declaring it imperfect but good enough to advance." Eventually Bacon whined that the bill had gone too far to the left-- by, for example, including "a prohibition on attacking Iran without congressional approval," basically reiterating exactly what the Constitution requires.

Democrats said they tried to work with Republicans on the bill and characterized Republicans as abandoning what is typically a highly bipartisan process simply because they didn’t get their way on every issue.

As you probably know, Blue America has endorsed progressive Democrat Kara Eastman to replace Bacon next year. "This," she said, "is another example of Don Bacon putting party over the people he represents. He purports to be the great defender of the military and the brave individuals who serve our country, but when it comes down to taking the tough votes, he capitulated to Trump, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and the rest of his right wing cronies."