Free Republic

Rachel Vindman, wife of former National Security Council member and outspoken President Donald Trump critic retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, expressed “betrayal” and “hurt” over her family not being pardoned by outgoing President Joe Biden. “Whatever happens to my family, know this: No pardons were offered or discussed,” Vindman wrote in a post on Bluesky. Vindman also stated that she “cannot begin to describe the level of betrayal and hurt” that she feels. Vindman’s social media post comes after Biden announced on Monday that he was pardoning Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, members of the Jan. 6 committee and...

EXCLUSIVE — Eugene Vindman, a Trump whistleblower-turned-Democratic congressional candidate in Virginia, is facing a Federal Election Commission complaint over his campaign’s allegedly illegal coordination with an outside group. The complaint, filed with the FEC on Wednesday by the Functional Government Initiative, calls for the agency to investigate Vindman, the Democrat’s campaign, and a political action committee called VoteVets. That’s because, in the telling of the watchdog group, a recent interaction with the press appears to show that VoteVets, which supports progressive veterans for office such as Vindman, made an “excessive and impermissible” in-kind contribution to Vindman’s campaign. “The public is...

Juan Dominguez, a West Point graduate and Gulf War veteran, is unhappy about the VoteVets political action committee’s decision to endorse former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn. Unlike Dominguez and at least two other candidates in the crowded Democratic primary race for Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District, Dunn is not a military veteran. VoteVets describes itself as a progressive political action committee that “endorses veterans and national security professionals” who champion “everyday issues that affect the lives of those who served, their families, and the country.” In a phone interview with Blaze Media, Dominguez shared his frustrations with VoteVets’ endorsement...

With the presidential primary season now underway, the season of political campaign ads is also in full swing. On Sunday, some football fans in Pennsylvania watching the NFL playoff game between the Detroit Lions and the San Francisco 49ers will see a minute-long ad attacking Donald Trump as he seeks a third Republican nomination for president. Made by VoteVets, a progressive political action committee that advocates for veterans and military families, the ad criticizes Trump for past comments where he disparaged veterans and soldiers. The ad includes quotes attributed to Trump where he called fallen soldiers “losers” and “suckers.” The...

NEW – PREBUTTAL TO TRUMP RNC SPEECH: The first combat death under Trump happened when he ordered a Navy SEAL team into Yemen while at a dinner party. He wanted to play big-man-going-to-war. The Gold Star dad of the hero lost has some BRUTAL words for Trump. VoteVets

was bombarded with criticism on Tuesday for labeling late Secretary of State Colin Powell a 'RINO' who 'made plenty of mistakes' in a statement one day after Powell's death of COVID-19 complications at age 84. In an email full of mixed messages, Trump commented on the posthumous praise Powell has been receiving since Monday morning and said he hoped he'd get the same treatment 'one day.' 'Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media,' Trump said in a statement...

WASHINGTON (WNDU) - VoteVets, the largest progressive group of veterans in America, is endorsing South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg for president. It is the first presidential endorsement for the group, which represents more than 700,000 veterans, military families and civilian supporters. "We need a candidate who will win," VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz says in a release. "Bar none, Pete gives us the best shot at doing just that. It is time to rally around him, and stop the walking, talking national security threat that is Donald Trump." Buttigieg is a veteran himself. He took a leave of absence as mayor...

(snip) Reporter Kaitlan Collins cited and displayed a tweet from “VoteVets” harshly criticizing President Trump’s Memorial Day tweet in which he touted the strong economy. An innocent viewer might have assumed VoteVets was a non-partisan group representing all veterans. What Collins and CNN failed to disclose is that “VoteVets” is actually a self-described “progressive” political action committee. Even the New York Times has described VoteVets as “a group closely aligned with Congressional Democrats.” The group has spent millions attacking Republicans and supporting Dem candidates. It even takes up other liberal causes such as “clean energy.”Get the rest of the story...

His name is David Aguina and he’s an Army reservist. His UCMJ claims against Soltz seem thin to me — Article 88 prohibits “contemptuous words” directed at the president, not criticism, and Article 91 seems to apply only to lower-ranking soldiers and only when on duty — but it’s hard not to be moved by his story about his experience with Iraqis. Meanwhile, via LGF, one of the yKos panelists parries right-wing criticism of the incident with some clever stammering about chickenhawks. Unmentioned in his post: Glenn Greenwald, Atrios, Max Blumenthal, Ken Layne, and the countless millions of other...

"..To many in the anti-Iraq war movement, the liberal opposition to the bill was as maddening as it was mystifying. ?You really have two options here: One is that you can vote for a change of course here and say we?re going to find a way out of Iraq, or, two, you can vote against it and hand George Bush a victory,? said Jon Soltz, an Iraq war veteran and co-founder of the anti-Iraq war VoteVets.org . ?It doesn?t make sense to me. George Bush got us into the war. They have challenged him on everything. Why would they give...

...[None] other than John Kerry himself who had counseled Soltz on his anti-victory activism. As reported by Fox News Channel and The Riehl World blog, "Soltz ... thanked Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, who opposed the Vietnam War after returning from combat, for helping him to focus his disillusionment after returning from Iraq." (They have the video to back it up too, which you can watch. .... Yet, left-wing activists have been engaged in a fierce campaign to undermine the war effort. No news there, but what is alarming is the degree to which they are organized, funded, and orchestrated. Jon...

A new TV ad featuring a disabled military veteran blasts President Donald Trump for seeking to repeal Obamacare and for imposing a travel ban that primarily affects Muslims. "You want to be a legitimate president, sir? Then act like one," says the veteran, who according to the ad's sponsor is a Marine who lost a leg while on patrol in Afghanistan. The ad aired for the first time Monday on MSNBC's show "Morning Joe" — which Trump is known to avidly watch — and was produced by the progressive veterans group VoteVets. It lasts just 30 seconds. But in that...

A former Veterans Affairs official apologized Thursday for suggesting that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may have left his post in Afghanistan five years ago because he was surrounded by “psychopaths.” “While I just wanted to make the point that the public should wait before passing judgment, I unfortunately used my own poor judgment in choosing inappropriate language that many view as disparaging to U.S. service members,” Brandon Friedman, who currently serves as a spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told BuzzFeed. “That was certainly not my intent and I regret making the comments on my personal account...

An Obama administration official has floated the idea that Bowe Bergdahl was justified in deserting his platoon in Afghanistan and joining the Taliban over disagreements with the platoon's leadership. Brandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Housing and Urban Development posted a series of tweets Wednesday evening in which he speculated that Bergdahl deserted over bad leadership of his platoon and that is why his fellow soldiers were smearing him."Here's the thing about Bergdahl and the Jump-to-Conclusions mats: What if his platoon was long on psychopaths and short on leadership? (1/5)"" What if he grew...

Countering the Republican-led opposition to President Barack Obama’s nominee for defense secretary is a less flashy but powerful constituency: military veterans. Veterans’ organizations have praised Chuck Hagel, a twice-wounded combat veteran of Vietnam and deputy administrator in President Ronald Reagan’s Veterans Administration. The Veterans of Foreign Wars has called him uniquely qualified to become Pentagon chief. The Military Officers Association of America said his experience gives him “a range of perspectives.” The American Legion said he was a longtime advocate for veterans. … VoteVets, a left-leaning veterans group, has campaigned for Hagel through social media, old-fashioned letters to editors and...

GOP money floods battlegrounds, threatens Dems' hold on SenateBy Alexander Bolton - 05/01/12 05:00 AM ET Third-party groups allied with the Republican Party have vastly outspent Democratic incumbents and their backers in Senate battlegrounds. The disparity in advertising firepower threatens Democratic control of the Senate and could have an impact on the presidential race as well. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a first-term Democrat from Ohio, has been the primary target of outside groups, which have outspent his allies by a ratio of 10-1 this election cycle. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Crossroads GPS and 60Plus Association have funded the bulk of...

What exactly is VoteVets? We've seen them lurking around MSNBC and various anti-war organizations ostensibly to support our fighting men and women. The veneer wore off quickly as we all realized this was just another anti-Bush group - this one under the guise of military veterans. They have even admitted to taking money from the Democracy Alliance - the Doctor Evil-esque, far-left funding project of George Soros. If anyone really doubted where these guys stood, there was always their campaign to close Gitmo.Now, they have twisted their transparent, faux pro-military message into something truly offensive. The Vets have taken what...

December 09, 2007 Anti-War General Flip Flops on the Surge Rick Moran One of the Iraq War's harshest military critics, retired General John Batiste, has changed his mind and come out in support of the new counterinsurgency strategy. In a joint Op-Ed in the Washington Post with Pete Hegseth, executive director of Vets for Freedom, Batiste, who was a board member of the anti-war group Votevets.org, gives some of his reasons for the change of heart: First, the United States must be successful in the fight against worldwide Islamic extremism. We have seen this ruthless enemy firsthand, and its global...

The leading Washington coalition for ending the war in Iraq has lost its highest-profile Iraq veteran. John Bruhns, a former Army  sergeant who participated in the 2003 invasion, left his position as legislative representative of Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI) at the beginning of October. He had started in May, but quickly became frustrated with the group’s lack of legislative success as well as some of its tactics. He was part of AAEI’s “Iraq summer” campaign, which launched in August and was designed to get as many as 50 Republicans to break with Bush on the war. Only one...

An anti-war group consisting of veterans from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is launching an ad Tuesday that attacks popular conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The group, VoteVets.org, is spending $60,000 on the ad, which will air on Fox News and CNN. In addition, a radio version of the ad will run during Limbaugh’s show in Washington, D.C., and Palm Beach, Fla., the group said. At issue is Limbaugh’s controversial “phony soldiers” remark that was made during a broadcast last week in response to a caller who criticized soldiers who spoke out against the war in Iraq. While...