{"id":182,"date":"2006-06-26T22:29:31","date_gmt":"2006-06-27T05:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=182"},"modified":"2006-10-14T20:53:05","modified_gmt":"2006-10-15T03:53:05","slug":"vets-for-freedom-fronts-for-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=182","title":{"rendered":"Vets For Freedom: Fronts For GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vets For Freedom (VFF) claims to be <em>&#8220;a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the unbiased, nonpartisan truth of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.&#8221;<\/em> They are marketing their services to media firms for whom they offer to provide reports from Iraq as embedded correspondents. The only problem is that they are actually a fiercely partisan group of Republican operatives who are purposefully concealing their biased connections and funding.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sourcewatch.org\/index.php?title=Vets_for_Freedom\" target=\"_blank\">Source Watch<\/a> has learned that Taylor Gross, whose PR firm is pitching for VFF, is a former White House spokesman for President Bush &#8211; a fact that Gross omits when offering the group&#8217;s services as non-partisan reporters. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buffalonews.com\/editorial\/20060625\/1066005.asp\" target=\"_blank\">Buffalo News<\/a> was solicited by Gross and published  an article about the encounter.<\/p>\n<p>But the real meat of this melowdrama is the information turned up by Source Watch. Their investigation reveals associations with a variety of GOP connected organizations including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Herald Group<\/li>\n<li>Campaign Solutions<\/li>\n<li>Creative Response Concepts<\/li>\n<li>The Donatelli Group<\/li>\n<li>The Republican Party<\/li>\n<li>Swift Boat Veterans for Truth<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The ties to these organizations suggest a sophisticated degree of coordination. This can only be described as deliberate campaign to plant positively biased propaganda in the media. While they have not yet had any success in syndicating their faux correspondents, they have had their representatives appear in broadcast media (including CNN) as spokespersons for veterans.<\/p>\n<p>These imposters are deeply rooted in Republican politics, but they are also somewhat inept. The attempt to cover their tracks was executed so amateurishly that Source Watch was able to paint a pretty complete picture of this deceit. But that doesn&#8217;t mean we don&#8217;t need to keep an eye on them. Undoubtedly they will continue to spread their misinformation and they are well positioned to be this year&#8217;s Swiftboat Liars group. They have already begun disparaging other vets that are critical of the war and the Bush administration like Democrat John Murtha and Republican Chuck Hagel.<\/p>\n<p>This is a band of weasels that we will need to be prepared to smack down with the truth whenever they raise their shiny snouts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vets For Freedom (VFF) claims to be &#8220;a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the unbiased, nonpartisan truth of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.&#8221; They are marketing their services to media firms for whom they offer to provide reports from Iraq as embedded correspondents. The only problem is that they are actually a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-propaganda"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-2W","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":203,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=203","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":0},"title":"Lieberman&#8217;s Support Grows &#8211; Amongst Republicans","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/11\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"After being roundling rejected by Connecticut's Democrats, Joe Lieberman has begun to collect support from a much more natural constituency for his Fox News brand of conservatism: DC Republicans. Lieberman has been praised and endorsed by the likes of Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and even Karl Rove called\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38511,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=38511","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":1},"title":"Robo-Trump Issues Mindlessly Identical Endorsements of Glassy-Eyed Stepford Republicans","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/19\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"It's less than four months until election day. These midterms may be among the most consequential in history. The current Republican Party is worse than ineffective. They are knowingly complicit with a president who openly favors America's enemies over the patriots who put their lives on the line in her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump robo-endorsements","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-robo-gop.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-robo-gop.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-robo-gop.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":475,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=475","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":2},"title":"Campbell Brown Joins The Dobbs Brigade At CNN","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/15\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"If current reports from Media Bistro (via Drudge ?) are correct, Paula Zahn will shortly be leaving CNN. That's no big loss as far as I'm concerned. But I do worry about speculation that Campbell Brown will be filling the void. Brown is an NBC reporter who is married to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20760,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=20760","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":3},"title":"American Spectator&#8217;s Hit Job On Veterans (And Suck Up To Fox News)","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/30\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The fallout from an offensive \"joke\" told by Fox News host Eric Bolling has quite properly reverberated throughout the media. Bolling callously insulted jet fighter pilot, Major Maryam Al-Mansouri of the UAE Air Force, as \"boobs on the ground,\" even as she was putting her life at risk in combat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"American Spectator","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-hit-job.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-hit-job.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-hit-job.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":606,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=606","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":4},"title":"A Tale Of Two Rallies","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/17\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"On Saturday, September 15, 2007, A rally was held in Washington, D.C. to protest the Bush administration's policy of perpetual war. As has become routine in modern demonstrations, a counter- rally was quickly organized in support of the war and the continued deployment of American troops in Iraq. The images\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42040,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=42040","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":5},"title":"Fox News on Trump Hijacking the 4th of July: &#8216;You Can&#8217;t Hijack Something You Already Own&#8217;","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/3\/2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The fact that millions of Americans are disgusted by Donald Trump's brazen exploitation of Independence Day is reason enough for him to cancel his plans to turn the celebration into a tribute to himself. But then that wouldn't be the Trump that America has come to know and despise. Instead,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump, Immigrant, Child","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-child-immigrant.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-child-immigrant.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-child-immigrant.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}