More than a month after a news report revealed that the Combat Infantryman Badge Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, wears on his lapel was revoked since he was never eligible for the award to begin with, the congressman refuses to take the pin off.
Nehls’ stubbornness has garnered growing criticism from veterans and others in the community of stolen valor researchers, who say the issue is simple: The rules for the CIB are clear, and Nehls did not qualify.
“The veteran community is starting to get to the point now where there’s no room for forgiveness at this point because now they see, ‘Hey, this wasn’t an error. He’s doubling down now,’” said Anthony Anderson, an Army veteran who runs Guardian of Valor and was instrumental in uncovering Nehls’ revoked award. “He knows he didn’t earn this award.”
Personally I think “stolen valor” is a nonsense term. And free speech does cover wearing anything you want. The issue here, as I see it, is the lying about it and using it for his political gain.
If I understand this correctly, it was originally illegal to lie about having been in the armed forces, but that was struck down as a 1A violation. The new law says that you can’t lie about having been in the armed forces in order to profit from it. Whether or not lying about it to win an election counts, I’m not sure.
In the United States, the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which criminalized any false claim regarding military service, was struck down as violating the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Subsequently, the Stolen Valor Act of 2013, which makes it a federal offense to falsely claim to have received any of several major military awards with the intention of obtaining money, property, or other tangible benefits, was passed and remains in effect.[39] There are additional laws criminalizing the altering or forging of discharge documents,[40] and attempting to obtain veteran’s benefits from the government.
ETA: If it can be shown that he lied about being in the armed forces in order to get campaign donations, maybe that would count?
Initially the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided Alvarez on August 17, 2010, ruling the Stolen Valor Act unconstitutional.[25] Specifically, in the 2–1 decision, Judge Milan Smith stated for the court that lies not within traditionally unprotected subsets of false facts are subject to First Amendment protection, the Stolen Valor Act is not subject to defamation law precedent, and there’s no compelling reason for government interest in banning such lies.[26]
The law amends the federal criminal code to make it a crime for a person to fraudulently claim having received a valor award specified in the Act, with the intention of obtaining money, property, or other tangible benefit by convincing another that he or she received the award.
The law is a revised version of a previous statute with roughly the same name that had been struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States in United States v. Alvarez (2012). In that case, the Supreme Court ruled the arrest and prosecution of a citizen for wearing and claiming to have received unearned military awards, who did so without criminal intent, under the 2005 law violates their constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Trump’s press secretary attacks CNN’s debate moderators while being interviewed by CNN. CNN anchor, like an SDMB mod gave her a few chances to get back on track and then ended the interview about 30 seconds after it was started.
I went to find a source for this story and it was full of the usual accufessions about doped-up Joe the President, but the best part was the last few paragraphs
It gets stupider. Ronny “Johnson”, as Confused Donald recently called him, was asked by Fox News about these magic dementia cures Biden is supposedly being injected with, and he immediately mentioned Provigil… which is one of the drugs he was overprescribing while he was Donald’s Secretary of Feelin’ Groovy.
From his home office in small-town Kentucky, a seasoned political operative is quietly investigating scores of federal employees suspected of being hostile to the policies of Republican Donald Trump, an effort that dovetails with broader conservative preparations for a new White House.
Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They’re relying in part on tips from his network of conservative contacts, including workers. In a move that alarms some, they’re preparing to publish the findings online.
The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) has found “substantial reason to believe” that Reps. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) and Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) improperly utilized campaign funds at two social clubs in Texas.
In two separate reports released Monday, the OCE — an independent, nonpartisan entity that reviews allegations of misconduct regarding lawmakers and staff members — found that Jackson and Hunt spent thousands of campaign dollars at two private Texas social clubs in a way that it said violates ethical standards.
That’s two more hypocites on the red side of the aisle.
And speaking of hypocrites, the idiot republicans in Louisiana managed to not only get a requirement that schools display the Decalog enacted into law, but [they also managed to get the state sued for so doing](https://Louisiana parents sue over placing Ten Commandments in schools). (Link goes to Yahoo; embedded links go to NBC News, Yahoo, MSNBC, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.)
Nine Louisiana families filed a federal lawsuit Monday against their state’s education department and their local school boards challenging the constitutionality of a radical new law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms.
The lawsuit was unveiled less than a week after Louisiana’s Gov. Jeff Landry put pen to paper and made his state the first in the country to require all public schools to display the Christian commandments in classrooms since the Supreme Court declared such a requirement unconstitutional more than 40 years ago.
The families, who are Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and nonreligious, alleged in court papers filed in the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Louisiana, that the new law “substantially interferes with and burdens” the parents’ First Amendment right to raise their kids in whatever religion they want.
