Donald J. Trump = Fraud Using Veterans for Political Gain!
— Originally written as a Facebook Note on January 29, 2016
Author’s Note: I always wondered why mainstream media didn’t do solid reporting on this issue back when it happened. It certainly was newsworthy and elements of fraud were more than clear at the time. It was later discovered, from Wikileaks-released John Podesta documents, that the USS Iowa veterans event happened at the same time the main media was treating Donald Trump as Hillary Clinton’s “pied piper,” showering Trump with ‘kids gloves’ media treatment and excessive reporting, wanting Trump to break out of the crowded GOPwinger pack of candidates. The belief was Clinton would then easily defeat him in November. Also occurring during this time was a media blackout on the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, given Sanders was not well-known in the southern primary states (and Clinton was!) which were scheduled early in the voting process! The below article was also published on Steemit three years ago.
Investigative reporting counts in America. I recommend everyone do their own investigation into the relationship between Donald J. Trump and Joel Arends, the CEO of Veterans for A Strong America, a supposed vets group which masquerades as a large veterans organization.
I’d certainly advise you do this before you decide to cast a vote for Trump in the presidential election.
VSA was the organization which sponsored Trump’s highly-hailed National Security speech on board a navy battleship, the USS Iowa. Trump got lots of media exposure for his speech. But very few media organizations actually investigated either the background or legitimacy of VSA. Some did, but few did any effective follow-up.
Since you’re all on Facebook, perhaps a good place to begin your own investigation is to visit VSA’s facebook site. Note there are only 1,352 members and one site administrator, Joel Arends. If you examine the membership you’ll note very few members actually requested to join the group, rather nearly all of them were unilaterally added by Arends.
Here is the organization’s website:
[1/23/21 NOTE: It’s apparently defunct given the link doesn’t come up.]
http://www.veteransforastrongamerica.org/
Next you can visit the site of The Non-Profit Quarterly Magazine which tracks and reports on non-profit organizations:
Here is an AP report on the Trump speech:
When Trump gave the USS Iowa speech, he was doing the CNN debate the next evening. He attempted to extort CNN by threatening not to participate in the CNN debate unless CNN donated its profits from sponsoring the debate to veterans groups. CNN did no such thing. Trump participated in the debate anyway.
How much money was raised for the USS Iowa speech? Trump has not responded and neither has Arends of VSA.
Next comes last night’s GOP FoxNews/Google debate which Trump did in fact boycott and alternatively promoted his own veterans event. Originally, Trump was going to donate proceeds from his event to the Wounded Warriors Veterans Project. But WWVP has recently come under scrutiny, with lots of evidence, that it has been misusing veterans funds.
So what did Trump do? He had his attorneys yesterday draw up paperwork to create a brand new veterans organization which apparently will become a conduit for Trump’s fundraising. Interestingly, the status for this fund expires within one year.
Worthnoting
Rachel Maddow, who recently uncovered and exposed the Flint, Michigan water crisis where children were lead poisoned, has conducted extensive reporting on Trump’s relationship with Joe Arends and the VSA. I recommend you view both of her reports on this subject, the first dated September 15, 2015 and the second dated January 28, 2016:
Pretty much, she was the only journalist to cover Trump’s rip-off!
