{"id":6985,"date":"2006-03-28T12:29:08","date_gmt":"2006-03-28T17:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6985"},"modified":"2006-03-28T12:29:08","modified_gmt":"2006-03-28T17:29:08","slug":"veterans-have-other-things-on-their-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/veterans-have-other-things-on-their-minds\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans have other things on their minds"},"content":{"rendered":"

In response to the upcoming vote on a constitutional amendment to ban [tag]flag burning[\/tag], Harry Reid’s office has a pretty good response: this is a ridiculous waste of time<\/a>. “It’s that time of the year to throw a little red meat to the base,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). “We need to focus on the American people’s priorities.”<\/p>\n

Bill Frist’s office agrees, which is why he’s scheduled a vote<\/a> on the amendment for June.<\/p>\n

Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said that is exactly what his boss is doing. The flag-protection amendment “is the number-one issue on veterans’ agenda,” Stevenson said yesterday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The response got me thinking: Is this even remotely true? Do veterans’ groups consider the flag amendment their “number-one issue”? Is it even in their top 10?<\/p>\n

I checked the website for the Veterans of Foreign Wars ([tag]VFW[\/tag]), one of the nation’s largest veterans’ groups. The site includes a copy of the testimony<\/a> VFW Commander in Chief James Mueller presented to the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs earlier this month. Mueller’s testimony spanned nearly 6,000 words — not one of which mentioned the flag, even in passing.<\/p>\n

Better yet, the VFW also published its “Legislative Priority Goals<\/a>” for 2005 and 2006. It’s a detailed, 10-point legislative agenda that emphasizes health care, veterans’ benefits, the GI Bill, retirement pay, job training, and community-based homeless programs. There were no references to the flag or the amendment.<\/p>\n

It’s not only proof that Frist’s office needs another spin for this nonsense, it’s also a point to keep in mind when the June debate rolls around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In response to the upcoming vote on a constitutional amendment to ban [tag]flag burning[\/tag], Harry Reid’s office has a pretty good response: this is a ridiculous waste of time. “It’s that time of the year to throw a little red meat to the base,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}