{"id":16956,"date":"2010-01-24T17:12:44","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T22:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=16956"},"modified":"2010-01-24T17:31:47","modified_gmt":"2010-01-24T22:31:47","slug":"denver-post-goes-squishy-on-duncanstrandlof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=16956","title":{"rendered":"Denver Post goes squishy on Duncan\/Strandlof"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in May, when Rick Duncan\/Richard Strandlof was first exposed as a phony veteran<\/a> who had starred in VoteVets commercials and headed money raising schemes ostensibly for veterans, the Denver Post led the posse to put Standloff on the gallows.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, some half-witted and unknown band of lawyers from Virginia called the Rutherford Institute filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Strandlof’s case<\/a> that said, in effect, that calling yourself a veteran and claiming certain awards and accolades as your own, is protected speech and that the Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Today, to prove to us how enlightened they are, the editorial board of the Denver Post<\/a> declared that they agree with those nimrods of the Rutherford Institute like good members of the Liberal Bobblehead Brigade.<\/p>\n

Upon arresting him, federal authorities said he claimed to be a wounded Marine veteran who had received a Purple Heart and a Silver Star.<\/p>\n

Reprehensible? Yes. But criminal?<\/p>\n

We have doubts about the constitutionality of the 2006 Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to merely say you had received certain military decorations when you hadn’t.<\/p>\n

The First Amendment protects even deplorable, distasteful speech, particularly in cases where that speech doesn’t injure someone else.<\/p>\n

Strandlof’s alleged deception began to unravel in May, when members of the group he founded, the Colorado Veterans Alliance, began checking out his claims of having served three tours in Iraq, surviving the 9\/11 attacks on the Pentagon and suffering a brain injury from an improvised explosive device.<\/p>\n

It has not been alleged that Strandlof lied to gain anything for himself other than publicity. He is accused of using his created persona to solicit donations on behalf of veterans.<\/p>\n

We are not defending the alleged lies, but there hasn’t been a case made that he was making such claims to line his own pockets.<\/p>\n

You might argue that the “injured party” is really the integrity and honor associated with the awards \u2014 that they are cheapened by frauds who falsely claim them. Frankly, if anyone is injured by such false claims, it would be the person who is lying.<\/p>\n

The veterans community that Strandlof had so integrated himself into turned on him, and for good reason, once they realized he wasn’t who he said he was.<\/p>\n

The Stolen Valor Act, introduced in the U.S. House by Colorado’s Rep. John Salazar, broadened the provisions of prior U.S. law that prohibited the unauthorized wearing or manufacturing of military decorations and medals. Salazar’s website says the congressman supported the measure because “These imposters degrade the meaning of medals earned in service to our nation and sometimes use their ‘standing’ as a medal recipient to commit further fraud and more dangerous crimes.”<\/p>\n

Pursuing fraud charges against those who make false claims to enrich themselves or hurt others is one thing. But criminalizing the mere act of lying is entirely another. Would truth police squads pursue all lies?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Weasel words if any were ever written. I guess the Denver Post wouldn’t mind if I started calling myself a Pulitzer Award winning former editor of the Denver Post and put that in my bio. Lord knows, I wouldn’t make any money from it (the way you guys won’t click my Google Ads) – and my use of occasional profanity and odd sexual references wouldn’t reflect poorly on the Post at all, would it?<\/p>\n

So what is the solution for veterans? The Post says we should make the government put all of our records up for public scrutiny so that we’ll all know who the phonies aren’t. Isn’t that a bit like putting all of the personal information online of everyone who HASN’T committed a crime so we know who the criminals aren’t?<\/p>\n

We hope the judicial system will recognize the value of free speech, even when it’s not popular.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Strandlof led the Post and several other “journalists” down his merry path of anti-war activism, they were calling for his nuts on a skewer . Now since they’ve cleansed themselves of that, the Post wants to shove veterans under the bus and encourage the Rick Strandlofs to continue their behavior, at the expense of real veterans.<\/p>\n

Strandlof’s stories of his four dead Marines and stories about his experiences were meant to damage the war effort in this country and only benefited the anti-war movement. His stories about being gay make me wonder if there are really any gays in the military these days. All of the utter phonies we’ve outed have also claimed to be gay. Aren’t there any real gays who want to tell their stories?<\/p>\n

In short, because Strandlof supported the anti-war and anti-DADT platform and used his lies only for good (supporting Democrat candidates), the Post has determined he hasn’t done any real damage.<\/p>\n

Maybe he hasn’t done any damage up until now, but he’s exposed the Post for being a bunch of hypocritical Leftist ideologues who’ll take any bait tossed them from a bunch of no-name lawyers in Virginia.<\/p>\n

Fuck you, Denver Post, you spineless cum bubbles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in May, when Rick Duncan\/Richard Strandlof was first exposed as a phony veteran who had … Denver Post goes squishy on Duncan\/Strandlof<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16956","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}