First Brush With Fake News From a Friend on Facebook: Beto O'Rourke, the Flag, and the VFW.
According to a friend of mine on Facebook — a hardcore conservative, there is a story being promulgated by Redstate that Beto O’Rourke’s campaign asked a VFW chapter to take down their flag while he was there. This is my first official brush with fake news. I really have not been on Facebook in a long time, so I avoided all the other fake news stories shared by Trump supporters. But I wanted to share this bullshit story because it just strikes me as too stupid.
Here is a link to snopes.com about this so called incident.
First off, VFW Post 4006 Commander Carl Dry makes the following claim:
As the hall was starting to fill up a young lady came up and said, ‘can we take the flags down,’ and I said ‘no.’ At this point in time I don’t know what she was referring to — we have a large American flag and a large Texas flag against the wall behind the stage as a back drop. We also have them on either side of the stage in the stands. Another young man came up and asked again. I was a little upset and I very rudely said not only ‘no’ but ‘hell no.’ Whether these people work for Mr. O’Rourke or not, I do not know.
That last part gets lost in all the hyperventilating by conservatives. The “young lady” is unidentified. Assuming that Dry is telling the truth, who was this person? Has he identified this woman as being part of the O’Rourke campaign?
If the young woman exists, could she be a plant from the Republicans? Fake campaign volunteers have shown up at other Democratic events and tried “sting” operations and other dirty tricks. I’m thinking of several of the stunts that Project Veritas James O’Keefe has done.
O’Rourke’s campaign, obviously, denies that they ever asked Dry to take down any flag. In fact, O’Rourke’s campaign has said that they have never done this at previous meetings at other VFW Posts. I think this would be easy to check with any of the other VFW Post commanders.
So why the hell would O’Rourke’s campaign ask any VFW Post commander to take down American flags or any flags? O’Rourke does not strike me as stupid, and he is from Texas. He would have to know how any such request for removal of American flags from any political event would look unpatriotic. And politically suicidal.
No, this is typical BS from conservatives that Democrats are unpatriotic and routinely disrespect and hate the American flag. It’s just sad to watch a friend of mine go for this hook, line, and sinker.
