I'm sitting here watching the run-up on CNN to the latest Trump-a-palooza, a speech on 'national security' that the Donald will be giving on the decommissioned battleship USS Iowa.
Somewhere along the line a talking head mentioned that they were selling tickets for the event, which would benefit an outfit called 'Veterans for a Strong America. Not having heard of them, I decided to take a look. Here's what I found.
Veterans for a Strong America is a Super-PAC based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which appeared on the scene during the 2012 election cycle. It raised about $156,000 and contributed about $170,000..... to veterans, you might assume? Sorry, that would be wrong. Here's where that money went to:
Mitt Romney campaign..............................$125,082
Campaign to defeat Rick Berg (R-ND)........ $45,000
And where, you ask, did the money come from? Well, that's the interesting part.... most of the $156,000 came from........
Veterans for a Strong America
Yeah, that's right, most of their funding came from themselves. I assume that's some sort of convoluted hide-the-money scheme that works by transferring the money from the parent group of the same name to the Super PAC while hiding the funding sources of the parent group.
For the 2016 cycle, this group shows $30 on hand and debts of $318.... not exactly burning up the wires advocating for veterans' causes, are they?
So there you have it: Donald Trump is raising money for a basically non-existent 'veteran's group' that has no money, and does next to nothing for veterans, other than some lobbying. As with everything else that Trump does, there's no there there.
Oh, and in case you missed it, there was no there there in The Donald's big 'foreign policy' speech, either. Same old tired 'Carl Icahn is a great negotiator...... we're gonna make our military so strong we'll never have to use it.... etc. etc. etc. Nothing about foreign policy either.
He did come up with this truly magnificent idea for fixing the VA: He's going to change things so that when a VA hospital is too busy to serve a veteran, that veteran will be able to go to a civilian doctor, and the doctor will get paid for it!
Ummmmm..... Donald? I hate to burst your UUUUGGGGEEEEEEEE bubble, but I seem to recall that that was part of the VA reform bill that was passed last year and signed into law by President Obama.
Oh, wow! Rachel Maddow is right now talking about this same subject! Same numbers $30.... $318
I swear I did this research before I heard it on Rachel's show!
Cheers.