Free Republic

"..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...

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...

...[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...

On Wednesday's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," Move America Forward Vice Chairman, Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson (USAF, Ret.), took anti-war activist Jon Soltz to task. Soltz was in the news recently when at the "Yearly Kos" convention he silenced a U.S. Army soldier who supports the missions of our troops. Soltz has repeatedly worked to undermine the missions of U.S. Troops serving in Iraq, and is active in the MoveOn.org affiliated group, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. Watch this great video, where Lt. Col. Patterson gave a much-deserved verbal spanking to Jon Soltz: WATCH THE VIDEO - CLICK HERE

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...

It took them a couple of days to get the spin together, but we now have an official position on the incident at the ‘Military and Progressives’ panel at YearlyKos, from an employee of VoteVets, whose founder shouted down and threatened that soldier. With obligatory “chickenhawk” slurs—the logically empty argument they never seem to get tired of. The conservative bloggers who’ve tried to make Jon look bad over this—like Michelle Malkin, Matt Drudge, and others—have no concept of this. Just like they have no concept of war in general. None of them has ever served the country in any meaningful...

The first Daily Kos diary on the subject of the Soltz Shoutdown has disappeared from their site. Gone missing, along with more than 50 comments. Here’s where it used to be: Daily Kos: What happened to this soldier?!?!? Another diary post has now turned up to discuss this incident, from another Kos Kid whose cognitive dissonance reached critical mass, and this time I grabbed a screenshot. You know, just in case there’s another glitch in their software.

MARGARET WARNER: We get those two views from two officers who saw duty in Iraq last year. Stan Coerr, a major in the marine reserves, was called to active duty last year. He fought in Iraq from March to May of 2003. He's now San Diego co-chair of California Republican Veterans of America. And Jon Soltz was an army captain who served in Iraq during the occupation, from May to September of 2003. He is now a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh. He's also Pennsylvania state co- coordinator for the group Veterans for Kerry. And gentlemen, welcome to...

Philadelphia Inquirer July 27, 2004 Iraq Vet Becomes A Soldier For Kerry Jonathan Soltz's perspective as an Army captain has made him a Pa. VIP in Boston. By Carrie Budoff, Inquirer Staff Writer BOSTON - Jonathan Soltz's unlikely journey into presidential politics began with a graduate-school term paper titled "Secure Intentions, But a Less-Secure America." Soltz, 27, a Pittsburgh-area Army veteran, argued from a unique perspective: He landed in Baghdad in May 2003, the month he survived a roadside ambush and President Bush declared major combat over in Iraq. The 16-page paper, forwarded from one e-mail inbox to another, eventually...