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"What Everyone Should Know About The Secretive Group Trying To Swift Boat Barack Obama"
Joel Arends, Director of the Veterans for a Strong AmericaA secretive right-wing group, Veterans For A Strong America, is attempting to do to President Obama what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to Sen. John Kerry in 2004. And they aren’t shy about it. The group’s leader and sole employee, Joel Arends, told Mother Jones, “.”
Arends said his goal is to take “what’s perceived to be [Obama’s] greatest strength” — the successful raid on Osama Bin Laden’s Pakistani compound — and make it “his greatest weakness.” The effort started this week with
attacking Obama for taking too much credit.
In an interview with ThinkProgress, Arends refused to discuss any information regarding how the group was financed or its leadership. Arends also declined to provide legal forms he claims to have filed with the IRS. A representative from the IRS told ThinkProgress that the agency does not have any forms from Arends’ group on file.
Here’s what we do know about Arends and Veterans For A Strong America:
1. In four days, the first ad by Veterans For A Strong America garnered almost 1 million views on Youtube. It has also been played frequently on TV news shows. [YouTube, ]
2. Veterans For A Strong America is seeking to recruit Navy SEALS to attack Obama. “In the wake of a warm conservative reception for a web video trashing the president for ‘spiking the football’ on the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death, the conservative group Veterans for a Strong America plans to gather Navy SEALs and Special Forces operators to criticize the White House during the 2012 campaign.” [BuzzFeed, ]
3. Arends also tried to Swift Boat Obama in 2008. Arends, under the auspices of a similar group called “Vets for Freedom,” ran an ad accusing Obama of refusing to meet with wounded soldiers from Illinois. [NPR, ]
4. Arends worked as a consultant for the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. “Though he doesn’t list it on his public resume, around 2006 Arends went to work for Craig Dewey, the state director of Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy outfit that’s Astroturfed everything from the tea party and the Wisconsin union fight to public-school segregation.” The Koch Brothers and their allies have pledged to spend $100 million to defeat Obama. [Mother Jones, ; HuffingtonPost, ]
5. In 2008, Arends — posing as a “journalist” — organized and participated in a taxpayer-subsidized propaganda trip to Iraq. “American taxpayers are paying for politically slanted, pro-McCain, anti-Obama ‘reporters’ embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq. Vets for Freedom – a pro-war organization that buys attack ads against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama – assembled a team of eight military veterans with dubious journalistic credentials to report ‘objectively’ on what is occurring in Iraq…Joel Arends, another “reporter,” is VFF’s executive director and was on McCain’s campaign payroll between March 2007 and February 2008.” [Charleston Gazette, 8/28/08]
6. Arends is coordinating with key Islamophobic figures on the far right. He regularly appears at events with anti-Islam conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney, who has been condemned by mainstream conservatives for his intolerant views. He is also alligned with William “Jerry” Boykin, who was found to have violated Pentagon rules by expressing his anti-Muslim views in an official capacity. [ThinkProgress, ; ; New York Times, ]
7. Arends helped promote a documentary advocating war with Iran. Arends appeared on a panel in March 2011 in South Dakota promoting the documentary Iranium, which strongly suggests beginning a war with Iran. [; ThinkProgress, ]
8. Veterans for A Strong America is fully endorsed by Karl Rove. The man known as “Bush’s Brain” tweeted his support of their first web ad. [Twitter, ]
Veterans For A Strong America is already succeeding in influencing the political discussion. Its web ad was aired nationally, for free, on ABC’s This Week. Many members of the political round-table then echoed Arends talking points on Obama and Bin Laden.
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Obama To Meet With Mideast Leaders
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U.S. President Barack Obama
is stepping up his personal involvement in the Middle East peace process.
He has invited regional leaders to the White House for individual talks in
the coming weeks.
The invitations are going out to the leaders of Israel, Egypt and the
Palestinian Authority.
Details are still being worked out, but the administration says President
Obama hopes to meet ly with Benjamin Netanyahu, Hosni Mubarak and
Mahmoud Abbas within the next six weeks.　
President Barack Obama (r) with Jordan's King Abdullah at the White
House, 21 Apr 2009
Mr. Obama previewed this new
round of personal diplomacy on Tuesday, when he welcomed Jordan's King
Abdullah to the White House.
He said some people are cynical about the peace process, both in the
region and around the world. But he said progress is still .
&What we want to do is to step back from the abyss to say as hard as it
is, as difficult as it may be, the prospect of peace still exists,& said
President Obama.
The president tried to mix optimism with realism as he took questions from
reporters at the end of the meeting with the Jordanian monarch.
He talked about the tough road ahead, but he indicated he expects some
positive signs in the not too distant future.
&My hope would be that over the next several months that you start seeing
gestures of good faith on all sides,& said Mr. Obama.
Mr. Obama did not elaborate, but he said the parties know what kind of
confidence measures might be helpful.
The president stressed that the United States will do everything it can to
encourage those measures, noting that his special envoy, George Mitchell,
will continue discussions in the region.
Mr. Obama cautioned, though, that with a new
in Israel,
progress will not come overnight.
&I think it is very important to recognize that the Israelis now have had
for a few weeks,& he said. &And it was a very complicated
process for them to put a
together. So I think more listening
needs to be done.&
The president said with all the political changes taking place in the
region, both sides will need time to formulate and solidify their
positions. But he said there will come a point when the talking must stop,
and action must be taken.
Mr. Obama said again that he backs a two-state solution, despite the
reluctance of the new Israeli
to support Palestinian statehood.
He said tough decisions lie ahead for all parties, and vowed the U.S. will
do all it can to create the conditions where progress is .
Jordan's King said he hopes everyone involved in the peace process will
seize the opportunity.
&I think we are looking now at the positives and not the negatives in
seeing how we can sequence events over the next couple of months that
allows Israelis and Palestinians, and Israelis and Arabs to sit around the
table and move this process forward,& said King Abdullah.
During the session with reporters, President Obama was also asked about
anti-Israel statements made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a
U.N. conference on racism this week.
Mr. Obama said such comments
Iran's position in the world. But he
indicated he was not d by the Iranian leader's remarks, saying the
rhetoric was nothing new.
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