Free Republic

A divided Senate on Thursday derailed Democratic legislation providing $21 billion for medical, education and job-training benefits for the nation’s veterans, as the bill fell victim to election-year disputes over spending and whether to slap sanctions on Iran. With each party coveting the allegiance of the country’s 22 million veterans and their families, Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for turning the effort into a chess match aimed at forcing politically embarrassing votes. Republicans used a procedural move to block the massive bill after Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chided GOP senators for their priorities. …

For decades, country and city interests had come together every few years to pass the farm bill, a measure that provided billions of dollars in subsidies to farmers and businesses in rural areas and food stamp money for urbanites. No more. The recent defeat of this year’s farm bill—traditionally a sturdy, albeit lonely pillar of cooperation in Washington—highlighted how the country-city political marriage became yet another victim of partisan politics in polarizing times. … Here’s how the breakdown of a longtime coalition happened: Newly emboldened conservative groups pressured rural-state Republicans—many representing agricultural districts—with radio ad campaigns to oppose the five-year...

In a Tuesday segment on “All In” marking 50 years since Wallace personally stopped two black students from registering at University of Alabama, Hayes introduced a clip of Wallace making his stand, saying “George Wallace was obviously the villain in this story.” A chyron overlaid on the clip misidentified Wallace as a Republican.