This latest posting in the "Lamborn Files" comes via the esteemed Colorado Independent (see the Extended Post Text).  Where we learn that the lesser Congressman from Colorado Springs has pronounced his policy for providing Veterans Administration (VA) benefits only to deserving (according to his confused definition) veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and standing against his delusional tide of undeserving vets suffering from PTSD.

Wendy Norris lays it out pretty clean and to the point reporting this story.  But, there's the rest of the story to consider.  Lamborn's conduct is an indictment both of his inadequacy to represent the people of the heavily military 5th CD, but also of his Party's penchant to picking, choosing (discriminating) and ultimately denying the right of Americans to adequate healthcare.

Perhaps in earlier decades a Congressman could get away with making such statements.  In the age of C-SPAN such an allowance and forgiveness for being horrifically wrong cannot go unanswered and without penalty.  While it is shocking that Lamborn would disregard the pleas of the supporting Veterans organizations, the silence of those groups in response to Lamborn’s offense is an even greater indictment of their often brazen Conservative posturing.

It is fortunate that America is not facing a Republican controlled US House.  With the likes of Lamborn in charge such a deserving and important piece of legislation could very well have been defeated.  Don’t hold your breath waiting for the national vets groups to thank the Democratic Congress, or criticize a Republican.

This is a clear example of the long-running self-destructive practices of the veterans and military advocacy groups.  Regardless of the truth and obvious merits of Democratic introduced policies and legislation it is all too often the reaction of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign War and others to side with the Republicans who have inexplicably sided not with soldiers and veterans, but with off-shore defense contractors and mercenaries.

The past few months have provided a dizzying series of messages in the blogosphere praising or persecuting the new President of the United States (POTUS). Thankfully, Salon.com produced an “over the nation” report on the Republican Party today that deserves more attention, and a more in-depth analysis (from yours truly, naturally).

Here’s the Salon.com link - The state (by state) of the GOP

Once again, Dick Wadhams’ penchant for media attention provides the clue for how to defeat him and continue the GOP decline:

"This notion that Colorado has suddenly become a Democratic state is preposterous. I think Democrats who have a grip on reality know that." -- State GOP chairman Dick Wadhams

The lesson from Dick is a hard and true fact of politically strategy from today to 2012, and unfortunately, too many high level Democratic leaders are positively oblivious to the concept. While basking in the glory of Barack Obama’s victory, I am seeing too many messages ignoring recent losses and weaknesses going into future ballots. This kind of complacency and false posturing is a formula for a disaster in the 2010 General Election.

Salon.com is absolutely correct by highlighting the dominance of the GOP at the county and community level. Even in Larimer County, the Democratic Party leadership is mute on the loss of a seat on the Board of County Commissioners. Reveling in the glory of former Democratic Party Chair Betsy Markey defeating Marilyn Musgrave is apparently too intoxicating to take a clear look at the dangers of the political landscape.

Those were the famous last words on the Constitution from the lips of the Honorable George W. Bush in summation of his opinion of the law of the land.

Steven Colbert had an outrageous segment of ‘Wag the Finger’ on ‘The Colbert Report’ today. It consisted of Rush Limbaugh’s recent address to CPAC, in which Limbaugh quoted the preamble of ‘the Constitution’s’ statement on ‘Life, Liberty, Freedom (sic), and the pursuit of happiness. Colbert then rightly pointed out that this quote is not, in fact from the Constitution, but from the Declaration of Independence.

There seems to be a serious disconnect between politicians, politicos, and pundits everywhere about what the law of the land actually states… other than among the fundamentalists who believe it sounds an awful lot like the Ten Commandments, carried, of course, on the shoulders of the late Charleton Heston, a.k.a, Moses, a.k.a Mr. Past President of the NRA.

In a nation of laws, the disturbing trend of ‘making it up as you go along,’ is almost as bad as the Legislative and Executive branches willingness to throw taxpayer’s money at a problem and ‘see if it floats,’ with little if any oversight. Of course this trend is nothing new, as the following analysis on domestic intelligence and torture from the Bush administration demonstrates, courtesy of the VVAWnet:

“The documents currently being released by the Justice Department that demonstrate the Bush administration’s view of the president’s constitutional power in a “state of war” tell us things we suspected but didn’t want to know.

“The first seven of these official memorandums issued last week dealt with claimed presidential powers to unilaterally abrogate international treaties; suspend constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and press; and order warrant-less searches, wiretaps and seizures of documents and indefinite imprisonment inside the U.S. without trial or criminal charges. The memorandums claimed that Congress has no overriding authority in these matters.

“The authors of all but one of these documents were John Yoo and Jay Bybee (both then of the Justice Department but now, respectively, a member of the University of California at Berkeley Law School faculty and a federal judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals). They were also the authors early in the Bush administration of two special memorandums defining torture much more narrowly than in the United States code of military justice or U.S. civil law.

“They redefined torture to permit what ordinarily is illegal in U.S. military and civil law under the so-called Federal Maiming Statute. This law makes it a crime to disfigure faces and body parts with knives or razors, or to cause blindness, or cut out tongues, or perform other grotesque and gruesome tortures that this column will leave to the consciences of professor Yoo, Judge Bybee and the senior members of the Bush administration who wished to be advised on their exemption from such legal limits.

“The final thing I will say about this is that many or most of the documents now being issued on how President Bush might ignore the U.S. Constitution had to do with domestic surveillance and the (illegal) use of American military forces against the American public.

“That probably would have begun in a small way. “Troublemakers” disappearing here and there. Protest groups rounded up and sent to camps. Possibly a day would have come when some conference of lawyers, or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or Americans for Democratic Action, or the Cato Institute, or some political pressure group like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, did something that seriously annoyed the White House.

“…If a battalion of military police took over the hall and the participants “disappeared,” it would certainly have made the newspapers, if the newspapers still reported such things. But considering the precedent of the American popular reaction to torture, what else would have happened? Possibly there would have been a popular new television program about the subversive forces at work in America, and how patriots should deal with them.”

Full story link: www.williampfaff.com.

This could be Rush’s next TV show… the last one bombed so badly, a hour long Cop- style reality show based on liberal bashing should go over great… Oh! Wait, they already have Fox News.