This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: VoteVets

  • Soltz on that Politico article about veterans

    Yesterday we talked about a Politico article which said that veterans aren’t supporting Obama, something we already knew. But VoteVets’ Jon Soltz couldn’t let it go by without jumping the rest of the way into the bag for Obama. Apparently Soltz was upset because he spent 45 minutes interviewing with the author of the article and nothing he said was included in the piece. I’m guessing it’s because nothing Soltz said was credible. SO he lays out his case in the Huffington Post.

    After parroting the party line about how much Obama has done for veterans by trying to push us all into the VA care system and away from Tricare, he tells us how we shouldn’t believe our lyin’ eyes;

    These are issues that military troops, veterans, and their families care deeply about. While those numbers don’t break down veterans, I find it extremely hard to believe that the veterans community is so wildly out of line with the American public, at large, that they’re flooding over to Mitt Romney, as the Politico article would have you believe.

    Here’s my point. The “polling” of veterans is incredibly inconsistent and unreliable. It’s impossible to use any existing polls to show definitive veteran support for President Obama or Mitt Romney. The best we can do is guess where President Obama started with veterans, and presume veterans’ opinions don’t move in complete and utter contrast to the rest of the population. But guessing isn’t good enough to write a story on.

    So, the “polling” of veterans can’t be trusted, but just by Soltz telling us something with nothing to support him, we should just believe it. And guessing isn’t good enough for Politico, but it is for Soltz.

    Yeah, I’m starting to understand why the Politico writer didn’t include anything Soltz said in the interview in his article. It’s pure diversion based on Soltz’ feelings. I’m sure there are writers at Politico who might copy and paste Soltz’ fantasies, but luckily this wasn’t one of them.

    Thanks to Daniel for the link.

  • VoteVets’ quid pro quo

    Found this over at VoteVets’ Facebook page (they’ve shut down their VetVoice blog for some reason and moved to FB);

    Well, of course VoteVets supports Duckworth; when she went to Shinseki’s Department of Veterans’ Affairs, she was on the board of VoteVets and took all of their frontpage bloggers with her, no less than five. That’s why they’ve had to shut down their blog; everyone left to go to work for the DVA.

    Aside from providing hiring opportunities for VoteVets, what else has Duckworth accomplished? Well she ran Illinois’ Veterans Department. From folks I know in Illinois, she accomplished absolutely nothing and the few programs that she did start, she stole the credit from her employees. While she was at DVA, she selflessly volunteered to use her 9-11 GI Bill while she was supposed to be working for veterans (and getting paid by tax payers) so she could iron out the bugs in that particular program. Big of her, huh?

    VoteVets has changed their mission statement to allow them to contribute to the campaigns of non-veterans like Claire McCaskill and Harry Reid. but, they still include this line in their statement; “VoteVets.org PAC has three primary goals: Elect Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans to public office – regardless of party….” So, which Republicans have they ever supported? None. In the last election, they told me that they supported Senator Chuck Hagel (NE-R), but that was a lie. VoteVets never existed during any of Hagel’s campaigns for the Senator of Nebraska. So the answer to the question is “None”. Ever.

  • Jon Soltz swiftboats OPSEC

    I really dislike Jon Soltz of VoteVets and if you don’t dislike him, you won’t not dislike him after watching this video from MSNBC in which he faces off with Navy Seal, Gabriel Gomez, from the OPSEC folks. Gomez actually gives credit to President Obama for making the decision to go after bin Laden at about 2:45 into the video.

    Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    It took 10 seconds into Soltz’ diatribe to mention that he was in Iraq. After Gomez tries to be gracious and says that VoteVets is non-partisan (they are not, VV has never supported a Republican for any political office in their six year history), Soltz just plows ahead and without saying why, he calls the whole video a lie. He calls Gomez a liar without explaining what he thinks Gomez is lying about.

    The VoteVets Facebook page says about the video; “Swiftboating of Obama Smacked Down by VoteVets.org Chairman Jon Soltz on Hardball on MSNBC.” Yeah, it wasn’t smacked down, Gomez tried to be polite while Soltz played the bully and leaned on the grade school playground tactic of calling Gomez names. Soltz might not have so brave if he’d been in the same room as Gomez, though.

    Trolling through the Facebook page, you can see countless examples of whoever is running that POS page (disksmith went to Veterans’ Affairs with the rest of the VV crew, so I know it’s not him) of VV taking cheap shots at veterans who were in the video. They accuse Scott Taylor of releasing SEAL secrets on a Discovery Channel program “The Secrets of SEAL Team Six” because the Discovery Channel is the best place to release classified information, I suppose.

    They also link to a Business Insider article that claims that another member of OPSEC, Fred Rustmann, had defended Scooter Libby’s outing of Valerie Plame on *gasp* Fox News’ Hannity Show, although Scooter Libby had nothing to do with outing Plame, who was out years before she was outed, anyway. I mean, the cover of Vanity Fair is a strange place to be announcing you’re a CIA agent if you’re trying to be covert, isn’t it?

    Anyway, so much for VoteVets’ non-partisan support of issues that matter to veterans.

  • VoteVets and Wesley Clark discover the internet

    So, Wesley Clark has weighed in to VoteVets on the comment that Congressman Joe Walsh made about Tammy Duckworth which the Democrats has construed as meaning that she’s not a “true hero”. First, what Walsh said;

    Walsh said. “Now I’m running against a woman who, I mean, my God, that’s all she talks about. Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, it’s the last thing in the world they talk about.”

    The context was that real heroes don’t talk much about their service, but obviously, that’s all Tammy Duckworth has to run on. I’m not saying she shouldn’t, I’m just reporting the discussion. Walsh has gone on CNN since and correctly repeated that he’s said that Duckworth is a hero hundreds of times, but because her service is the centerpiece of her campaign, she has to make up attacks on her service in order to gain a leg up (no pun intended) on her opponent.

    But anyway, Wesley Clark, this generation’s General George McClellan, felt a need to weigh in last week in a letter to VoteVets and their supporters;

    Obviously, Clark would like us to forget that he criticized John McCain’s service when McCain was running for the presidency in 2008. Clark said, according to Jon Solz, VoteVets’ Executive Director in the Huffington Post;

    So, in short, General Clark respects John McCain’s service, calls him a hero to millions, but notes that experience doesn’t make him qualified to be Commander in Chief.

    Now, VoteVets.org isn’t getting into the presidential race, but I don’t see what is so wrong about what General Clark said. And yet, immediately and unsurprisingly, the McCain campaign let loose with a response that expressed shock and dismay.

    It looks exactly like what Walsh said; that McCain is a hero, but that being shot down doesn’t qualify him for the presidency. Back then Soltz wrote “I don’t see what is so wrong about what General Clark said”. But now, because the shoe is on the other foot, it’s an entirely different tune. Oh, did I mention that Duckworth was on VoteVets’ Board of Directors, along with Wesley Clark until this campaign? That she staffed the Department of Veterans’ Affairs from the ranks of VoteVets – that’s where dicksmith works now, along with most of the VoteVets members who we’ve profiled here.

    I know I wrote about this once before, but I figured that it needed to be said again. I was trapped in the waiting room at Walter Reed last week with Wolf Blitzer on the tube while he was interviewing Walsh and found Walsh totally believable in regards to his comments, despite the double teaming efforts of Blitzer and his staff to make him crack.

    Guess I’m always amazed at the hypocritical lengths Soltz and the boys at VoteVets will employ, all the while calling themselves non-partisan because they once supported Chuck Hagel, the anti-war Republican Senator from Nebraska. And in regards to their support for Hagel that they like to wave around as proof of their “non-partisan” creds, Hagel never ran for office during the time that VV existed. He served two terms beginning in 1997 – his only reelection bid was in 2002 before VV existed, then he retired in 2009 when that term ended. So VV has never supported a Republican veteran for any office, despite what they tell us.

  • Walsh: Duckworth not a “true hero” (Updated)

    Several of you sent this link to us and, truthfully, I was hoping I could avoid writing about it. Not because it’s a (R) vs (D) issue, and it makes the (R) look bad, but because I really don’t like Tammy Duckworth, the veteran double-amputee running for the Congess in Illinois. Aside from the fact that folks from Illinois have told me that she was an incompetent boob while she was Director of Illinois’ Department of Veterans’ Affairs, but also because she was the VoteVets employment advocate when she went to be the Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs in DC. And then, while she was at the DVA, she “selflessly” and publicly volunteered to go back to school while she was getting a full-time paycheck in order to straighten out the mess she and Shinseki had created with Veterans’ Education Benefits. And, oh, yeah, she doesn’t know how her own agency worked.

    So, now that I’ve established clearly why I dislike Tammy Duckworth greatly, apparently, her opponent in Illinois, Joe Walsh made a very stupid statement according to the Chicago Tribune;

    Walsh began his criticism of Duckworth on Sunday by noting that heroes such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Vietnam prisoner of war, were uncomfortable talking about their service.

    He said political advisers for McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, “day after day had to take him and almost throw him against a wall and hit him against the head and say, ‘Senator, you have to let people know you served!’”

    “That’s what’s so noble about our heroes,” Walsh said. “Now I’m running against a woman who, I mean, my God, that’s all she talks about. Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, it’s the last thing in the world they talk about.”

    So, the implication here is that she’s not a “true hero”. Walsh, it should be noted, has no military service. While he may be correct, it was a very stupid thing to say out loud. If you look at Duckworth’s bio at her campaign website, you’ll see what he means. Like I said, folks from Illinois tell me that almost all of her “accomplishments” at the IL DVA were things other people accomplished, but she took the credit. So, naturally, she leans heavily on the fact that she was in the military and wounded, because she can’t speak beyond platitudes of veterans’ issues.

    But none of Duckworth’s utter incompetence justifies Walsh’s implication that she doesn’t deserve credit for being shot down and losing her legs in combat. Apparently, Duckworth’s minions at VoteVets, hoping for another employment opportunity, are circulating another of their online petitions against Walsh. But I don’t pay attention to them anymore since they quit writing at VetVoice and turned amateur playing on Facebook these days. But Soltz writes that Walsh “swiftboats” Duckworth on Daily Kos. I don’t think he knows that “swiftboat” means telling the truth about a candidate’s military service.

    You may have noticed that I can’t really bring myself to support Duckworth on this, but at least now you know the reasons.

    ADDED: On a second thought, not that we need more proof that Soltz and VoteVets are hypocrites, but here’s some thoughts that Soltz had when Wesley Clark criticized John McCain‘s service;


    (more…)

  • What’s good for the [Crossroads GPS] is good for the [VoteVets]

    If this post doesn’t make as much sense as it should, it’s because my boys at Boys State decided to talk to girls out the window after midnight last night, and after the State Cops chased the girls off, I got to deliver a ridiculous and completely un-heartfelt butt chewing to them for doing what they should get achievement medals for. Also, I am listening to the Governor candidates for Nationalist Party give horrible speeches that are at ridiculous Debbie Wasserman-Shutz decibel levels.

    Nonetheless, I love this article in NYT so much, I want to cuddle with it after reading it.

    The lawyer for President Obama demanded on Tuesday that Crossroads GPS disclose its donors, saying in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission that the group is plainly a “political committee” subject to federal reporting requirements.

    In the complaint, obtained by The New York Times, Robert F. Bauer, the campaign’s chief counsel, writes that the group — founded by Karl Rove, among others — can no longer shield the identity of its donors by defining itself as a “social welfare” organization.

    “Crossroads seems to believe that it can run out the clock and spend massive sums of money in this election without accounting for a trace of its funding,” Mr. Bauer wrote in the complaint, filed Tuesday. “Now, a federal appellate court has issued a ruling that makes clear that Crossroads is out of time.”

    The case Mr. Bauer cites is “Real Truth About Obama v. FEC,” in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the government must determine the “major purpose” of groups like Crossroads.

    In a letter to Mr. Rove and Steven Law, the president of Crossroads, Mr. Bauer urges them to immediately disclose their donors.

    Amen Mr Bauer! You speakum troof to power!

    I join Mr. Bauer in detesting all these political expenditures by the 1% that are unreported and unattributable. Which is why I am going to take his complain (which you can read here) and just do a find/replace between Crossroads GPS and VoteVets. Both are 501(c)(4)s and neither apparently do anything vaguely charitable or educational except trying to elect members of their chosen political power.

    Need proof, go reread Jonn’s post from about a week ago about how Jon Stoltz (name intentionally misspelled) who thinks it is diabolical that Romney got student deferments, even though a year and a half ago they were spending almost all their money electing a similarly dispositioned Harry Reid.

  • VoteVets; Romney and draft

    So, last week, Jon Soltz from the “non-partisan” organization VoteVets was on that show on MSNBC which has that idiot Lawrence O’Donnell hosting. At about 5:38 into this video, O’Donnell mentions that Mitt Romney had four deferments for college and his missionary work during the Vietnam War and Jon Soltz condemns Romney for avoiding the draft.

    See, I was under the impression that VoteVets didn’t have a problem with deferments from the draft because they helped Harry Reid’s campaign in the last election and Reid had successfully avoided the draft while he enjoyed deferments. But suddenly, when someone who is not a Democrat got college deferments for the draft, it’s a big deal.

    By the way, O’Donnell tells a whopper during the discussion. He says that the draft ended before he was old enough to face the draft. The last draft round was in 1972, the year I turned 17 (I was born in 1955). O’Donnell was born in 1951 according to Wiki, which means that O’Donnell was 21 years old the year that the draft ended, which also means that he got deferments for college (you were eligible for the draft when you turned 18 years old), and yet here he is criticizing Romney for it. Wiki says that O’Donnell graduated from high school in 1970, so he got at least two deferments before the draft ended.

    So, I’m guessing that the word hypocrisy isn’t in their vocabulary around that network or whatever they call that show.

  • Gallup: Romney’s lead over Obama comes from veterans

    Politics seeps into Memorial Day news from a Gallup poll which says that Romney’s lead over Obama is mainly fueled by veterans;

    These data, from an analysis of Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted April 11-May 24, show that 24% of all adult men are veterans, compared with 2% of adult women.

    Obama and Romney are tied overall at 46% apiece among all registered voters in this sample. Men give Romney an eight-point edge, while women opt for Obama over Romney by seven points. It turns out that the male skew for Romney is driven almost entirely by veterans. Romney leads by one point among nonveteran men, contrasted with the 28-point edge Romney receives among male veterans.

    Gallup blames the socialization processes that convert people into Republicans while they serve;

    Why veterans are so strong in their preference for the Republican presidential candidate is not clear. Previous Gallup analysis has suggested that two processes may be at work. Men who serve in the military may become socialized into a more conservative orientation to politics as a result of their service. Additionally, men who in the last decades have chosen to enlist in the military may have a more Republican orientation to begin with.

    I think it’s because Romney has the advantage of not having the opportunity to screw veterans yet, whereas Obama’s strategy of pumping money into the Department of Veterans Affairs while slashing healthcare at the Department of Defense while Leon Panetta takes the heat doesn’t seem to be working as he planned. Obama’s rush for the exits in Afghanistan doesn’t look to be doing him any favors either.

    Age makes little substantive difference in the vote preferences of male veterans. Those younger than 50 are roughly as likely to support Romney as are those 60 and older. Male veterans aged 50 to 59 are slightly less skewed toward Romney, but still support him by a 15-point margin.

    Time for VoteVets and IAVA to roll out their usual “non-partisan” blather to save the President skin.