{"id":20588,"date":"2010-09-27T08:59:30","date_gmt":"2010-09-27T12:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=20588"},"modified":"2010-09-27T09:06:44","modified_gmt":"2010-09-27T13:06:44","slug":"ballduster-mcmanus-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=20588","title":{"rendered":"Ballduster McManus news"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thursday, I posted Michael McManus’ military records<\/a> (known around these parts as Ballduster McSoulpatch) and now, strangely enough there’s news from Houston on him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, as he faces the prospect of again wearing a prison uniform, McManus, 44, argues he never intended to suggest at the mayor’s party that he was a true war hero.<\/p>\n

Instead, his dress at the 2009 gathering at George R. Brown Convention Center for the city’s first openly gay mayor was a political statement, he contends in documents filed in federal court this week.<\/p>\n

McManus was recognizing a triumph for gay rights as well as making a commentary about the military’s policy on gays, including his own personal battle while in the service, he argues in a motion filed by his lawyer, James Fallon.<\/p>\n

“Mr. McManus wore an Army uniform and medals to the mayor’s victory party in order to protest both his discharge from the Army and the continuing exclusion of (lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender) Americans from the military under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then explain all of the crap he spread out all over the internet<\/a> about “personal security details” and being a General and getting booted for DADT? Was that to celebrate an openly gay mayor, too? In fact TSO spent most of the afternoon transcribing all of his lies from various sources.<\/p>\n

This veteran probably sums up the opinion at TAH pretty well.<\/p>\n

He was again arrested earlier this year after military bloggers dedicated to rooting out imposters pinned him down.<\/p>\n

“Wanted for Stolen Valor,” read an Old West-style wanted poster that showed a photo of McManus, who attended the mayor’s party while wearing a goatee and hipster glasses with the uniform.<\/p>\n

He struck a nerve.<\/p>\n

“Stolen Valor is one of the most insulting crimes to veterans,” said blogger Mark Seavey, who served in Afghanistan and was among several people who tracked McManus. “Granted there are far worse, but this (crime) is based on stealing something that many of us earned.”
\nPhotographed at party<\/p>\n

McManus did not just wear the uniform but assumed the character on Facebook and elsewhere, Seavey contends.<\/p>\n

“You might get away with telling war stories in the bars, but when you start trying to use fake accomplishments to make political statements, or to bulk up your reputation in the community, there are hundreds of military bloggers out there, and one of them will find you and put you right,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thanks to TSO and another reader (sorry that I forgot your username but it’s hard to match your real names with your screen names sometimes) who sent links to this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, I posted Michael McManus’ military records (known around these parts as Ballduster McSoulpatch) and now, … Ballduster McManus news<\/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":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20588","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=20588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}