{"id":19910,"date":"2011-05-10T05:16:07","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T11:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19910"},"modified":"2011-09-01T07:36:28","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T12:36:28","slug":"legion-back-off-lord-fauntelroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19910","title":{"rendered":"Legion: “Back Off, Lord Fauntelroy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a week ago, I started seeing leftybloggers writing posts titled “Why Does The GOP Hate Teh Veterans”. \u00a0I knew they were up to something…<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Via Gary at LFR, the commander of the MN American Legion begs to differ<\/a>, in a letter from Senator Mike Parry (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

Dear Governor Dayton,<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n

The rhetoric being used by your administration completely disregards the legislature\u2019s intent to provide the funding necessary to provide care to our veterans in our state\u2019s veterans homes<\/strong>, 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I loved this bit:<\/p>\n

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 leadershi<\/strong>p.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gary adds:<\/p>\n

The sound you hear is Gov. Dayton\u2019s facade of nonpartisanship shattering. The State Commander of the American Legion isn\u2019t an honorary title given to someone for being a swell guy. They\u2019re picked because it\u2019s known that they\u2019ll be the veterans\u2019 fiercest advocate.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the American Legion isn\u2019t a partisan organization. They\u2019ve shown their appreciation for those legislators who\u2019ve been the veterans\u2019 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

MMB Commissioner Showalter has been at the heart of this administration\u2019s attack on the truth. He\u2019s insisted that his numbers are right even though the plain language of the House and Senate bills have mocked him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Schowalter is a key part of Dayton’s campaign of obfuscation; he – they – are trying to make reform seem <\/em>impossible…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a week ago, I started seeing leftybloggers writing posts titled “Why Does The GOP Hate Teh Veterans”. \u00a0I 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[144,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-governor","category-mn-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19910"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19923,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910\/revisions\/19923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}