About a week ago, I started seeing leftybloggers writing posts titled “Why Does The GOP Hate Teh Veterans”. I knew they were up to something…
The DFL, and Govenor Dayton, have moved from their usual tactic – beating us over the head with women and children and the elderly – to beating us over the head with veterans.
Via Gary at LFR, the commander of the MN American Legion begs to differ, in a letter from Senator Mike Parry (emphasis added):
Dear Governor Dayton,
This morning, I received a letter from the State Commander of the American Legion that recognizes the legislature has openly and publicly defended our stance to hold veterans and the Department of Military Affairs harmless in our budget. The State Commander correctly recognized that the honorable men and women that serve in our armed forces have been a top priority with both the Senate and House for the entirety of this session.
The rhetoric being used by your administration completely disregards the legislature’s intent to provide the funding necessary to provide care to our veterans in our state’s veterans homes, to assist veterans in securing federal benefits and to maintain the readiness of our national guard. At the first hint of discretionary authority, you directed your staff to cut veterans and military affairs.
And I loved this bit:
I grew up in a military household. I served eight years in the National Guard. I have been around the military and veterans my whole life and I know what leadership looks like. What you have done to the military and veterans community is not leadership.
Gary adds:
The sound you hear is Gov. Dayton’s facade of nonpartisanship shattering. The State Commander of the American Legion isn’t an honorary title given to someone for being a swell guy. They’re picked because it’s known that they’ll be the veterans’ fiercest advocate.
Furthermore, the American Legion isn’t a partisan organization. They’ve shown their appreciation for those legislators who’ve been the veterans’ staunchest allies, regardless of political affiliation. Testiment to that principle is the praise Republican Dan Severson and Democrat Larry Haws received in 2007 for their work on the veterans bill.
The real problem, of course, is that the DFL – faced with a GOP majority that has acted with unusual decisiveness to release a balanced budget that capitalizes on savings – is stuck arguing that the Minnesota Management and Budget office, whose commissioner (Schowalter) is appointed by Dayton and serves at his pleasure, is “non-partisan”, and that their fiscal models, which ignore realized savings, are valid in analyzing a budget that counts heavily on them.
MMB Commissioner Showalter has been at the heart of this administration’s attack on the truth. He’s insisted that his numbers are right even though the plain language of the House and Senate bills have mocked him.
Schowalter is a key part of Dayton’s campaign of obfuscation; he – they – are trying to make reform seem impossible…
I can’t tell you how pissed off I am at our draft dodging, war protesting, mental midget of a governor uses veterans as an excuse for his stupidity. I am also concerned about the veterans that sat in on the hearing last week. I hope that they were told that they would be there for a different purpose, but I doubt it. That said, I know that there are veterans and active duty military that are hard left, so maybe the DFL cherry picked for the “right” veterans to be present.
Excellent post title!
One tactic that the most left wing politicians do is give large amounts of money to veterans, and hope that a Republican will question some of it.
But if you look and listen closer, the lefties are implying that it is pity money to victims of a militarisitc US. I’ve heard liberals say that we need to support veterans because they were duped by the gov’t into signing up. Basically calling veterans idiots so we must pity them.
Chuck;
You are spot on!
To the libturds, bright men and women can’t possibly be signing up for military service because they a. are patriots, b. want to get some great skills, c. want to further their education, d. want to see the world on Uncle Sam, e. see the libs killing the creation of private sector jobs with their outrageous spending and money printing or f. want to accept significantly lower pay than the same pay grades in other government sector jobs!
Got to love the Democrats pimping the honorable service of the veterans. They even pimp the active duty folks as well. The WaPo’s Eugene Robinson is out to make clear that when you denigrate the work, usefulness or need of a government employee – at any skill level or job classification – you are also denigrating the service of the Navy SEAL’s who helped The Won ‘make his bones’ by double-tapping OBL.
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/266816/robinson-navy-seals-demonstrate-government-employees-are-irreplaceable
Hmm. Navy SEAL = Diversity Coordinator. Yep, makes perfect sense. Where did I put that Victory Gin?