{"id":120482,"date":"2021-12-10T07:30:24","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T12:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=120482"},"modified":"2021-12-09T20:31:56","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T01:31:56","slug":"politician-accused-of-stolen-valor-wins-mayoral-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=120482","title":{"rendered":"Politician accused of stolen valor wins mayoral seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gene James, a Republican in San Clemente, California, attracted our attention back in 2020<\/a>. Steve posted about accusations of stolen valor levied against James, then a candidate for the city’s council. In that advert, which you can see below, it shows prominently the Legion of Merit and lists that award as part of his accomplishments.<\/p>\n

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My favorite part of the flyer is in yellow. It proclaims that “Democrats stole the 2018 election by harvesting ballots.” Then implores the reader to allow\u00a0them\u00a0<\/em>(the Republicans) instead to harvest their ballots “safely.” That’s politics. It’s bad when they do it, but it’s ok if we do it. Around this site we tend to believe ballot harvesting is bad, no matter who does it.<\/p>\n

James’ defense at the time was that the mailer was sent out by the county party apparatus, and that he had no foreknowledge of the claims being made. The San Clemente Times reported at the time;<\/p>\n

James, who wrote in the email that he\u2019s \u201cembarrassed beyond words,\u201d added that he\u2019s aware of being recommended for the Meritorious Service Medal, as well as the Legion of Merit, but he retired from the military without knowing for certain whether he received it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually retired not knowing if I received a MSM or LOM, nor did either award ever follow me,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI remember it was an award requiring SECARMY approval, so there would have been significant lag time. What I can say is I was recommended for the LOM by a colonel and a three-star general.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. James is well aware, as are all veterans, that if it’s not listed on your DD-214 or other discharge paperwork, then you never got it. Anyone at anytime can be “recommended” or have a package submitted for any of these awards. That doesn’t mean you’ve gotten it. If it was an award “requiring SECARMY approval”, then that would have been a Distinguished Service Medal. Legions of Merit (properly abbreviated as “LM”) can be approved by a two-star and Meritorious Service Medals by a one-star. For details, see AR 600\u20138\u201322.<\/p>\n

Anywho, since that election in 2019 it seems that Mr. James has been busy. He was stopped by the Sheriff’s Department on June 25th this year<\/a> for allegedly failing to stop for a red light. During the stop, which was audio recorded and publicly released, Mr. James is a bit testy with the deputy. James even suggested that the cop was stopping him, not for committing a dangerous traffic offense by running a red light, but on orders of his “*(expletive) boss”, the then-San Clemente Police Chief Manhart (who isn’t the boss of anyone within the Sheriff’s Office).<\/p>\n

Now, on December 7, Mr. James cast the deciding vote to make himself Mayor of San Clemente<\/a>. In a 3-2 vote, he was elevated from Mayor Pro Tem to the big seat. We sincerely wish His Honor luck as he undertakes his new role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gene James, a Republican in San Clemente, California, attracted our attention back in 2020. Steve posted … Politician accused of stolen valor wins mayoral seat<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,122,226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-veterans-in-politics","category-veterans-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120491,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120482\/revisions\/120491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}