Franken Calls Swiftboater Pickens Out as a Draft Dodger in Debt

Fellow draft dodger, Sean Hannity, tried exhaustively to "spin" Pickens out of his humiliation at the time.

(CLEVELAND, Ohio) - This week, T Boone Pickens, famous for offering a million dollars to anyone who could prove John Kerry earned his combat awards got a dressing down by Senator Al Franken. Picken spent $3 million spreading what were later proven to be total lies.

Pickens, who refused to serve during the Korean War, stuck it to paralyzed veterans when his challenge was met and his Swift Boat politicos were proven liars.

Fellow draft dodger, Sean Hannity, tried exhaustively to "spin" Pickens out of his humiliation at the time. Pickens, who believed his newfound love of wild horses and windfarms would endear him with liberals was more than a bit surprised to find himself on the receiving end of a butt whopping.

Pickens, pay up or get out! You have earned hundreds of millions living off America, her government, her fighting men and the politicians, both Republican and Democrat, that your wealth has bought and sold, all except Senator Al Franken. Talk about an unlikely hero.....

Fellow Dem's were embarassed by Franken, who was genuinely more than impolite to Pickens while other Dems lined up to kiss butt in the usual fashion. Publicists representing Pickens immediately ran crying to the networks and neocon blogs calling Frankens failure to bend over for a buck a "meltdown."

Franken's first act as senator has been to introduce legislation starting a pilot program to pair service dogs with wounded veterans.

Reputedly, thousands of posts supporting Pickens have been loaded onto military dot com crashing their servers today. I can't think of a worse disaster than this unless, maybe, Bush and Cheney went hunting together......

When Vietnam veterans submitted a 12 page letter and 42 pages of documents disproving Pickens claims and demanding payment be made to Paralyzed Veterans of America, Pickens made a series of unintelligible excuses, believing, perhaps rightly so, that money and control of the press could help him avoid humiliation for bad mouthing a combat veteran and being called to pay.

In a time when so many veterans are in need of services, the Paralyzed Veteran of America could use the money owed and, just perhaps, some penalties and interest to boot.

Time for Pickens to eat some crow and pay his debt to America's heroes. Every veteran knows this: you attack one vet, you attack them all. Even Bush spent some time in the National Guard though his record of military service and discharge status are currently being held, from what we hear by the Secretary of States office in Hawaii, as secret.

Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and a regular contributor to Veterans Today. He specializes in political and social issues. You can see a large collection of Gordon's published articles at this link: VeteransToday.com.

He is an outspoken advocate for veterans and his powerful words have brought about change. Gordon is a lifelong PTSD sufferer from his war experiences and he is empathetic to the plight of today's veterans also suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to feature Gordon's timely and critical reports on Salem-News.com, a news organization staffed by a number of veterans, particularly former U.S. Marines.

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Jacob August 9, 2009 8:52 am (Pacific time)

I think the poster was referring to George Soros. He was the individual known to manipulate currency in England. Of course I could be wrong. The close election in Minnesota was quite familiar to what happened in the state of Washington's governor race in 2004. I am beyond shock anymore when certain parties do recounts and still find new votes that help one candidate, but are completely out of kilter with the earlier statistical trends. We need to have more oversight and voter fraud (of any kind) should be treated as a major felony with minimum sentences.

Henry Ruark August 7, 2009 1:20 pm (Pacific time)

R.M.: Why not name Franken's millionaire financing friend ? Yours seductively ducks the issue by distorting/perverting simple fact, obviously to make it sound sinister when it remains what it is known to be: Completely open and ethical assistance from foundation set up for that purpose. Your own awkward attenpt at painting in purple what is purely white and highly honorable is distortion at least, at its dishonorable worst. IF you have details showing this situation to be either unethical or in any way criminal, simple query is: Have you alerted proper authorities yoy have evidence and arranged to turn it over ? IF you have no such evidence and this is purely personal "observation", you still have option so to state openly here and rapidly, thus remediating as "blunder" what is on public record otherwise, for massive multiple readers to see. Have purposely withheld the obvious millionaire (actually billionaire) name to allow you now to do so in honorable way if you can swallow that very revealing option. I hold further options here in abeyance as ethical action to allow you that remediation if indeed you dare to take it OR can conceivably offer any other explanation to those whom you offend by seeming arrogant, contemptuous assumption of ignorance.

Roger Millison August 7, 2009 9:31 am (Pacific time)

There is some interesting biographical info that needs further addressing regarding comments in this article. Both Obama and Hannity were born in 1961, so when Carter stopped the military draft both these two were high school kids who certainly neither could be considered draft dodgers. Franken was born in 1951 and graduated from college in 1973, so he was exposed to the draft for 3 years after his student deferrment was expired. I'm glad Franken took on Pickens, those billionaires need some critical appraisals, but there is another major known billionaire that heavily financed Franken, an individual with a criminal background and who also nearly destroyed the english pound. My hope is he will also address this individuals character and background. Of course both Franken and this billionaire have close family ties to Israel.

Bill August 7, 2009 8:59 am (Pacific time)

Sean Hannity was born in 1961, what draft did he dodge?

Matt Johnson August 7, 2009 12:23 am (Pacific time)

The truth comes out and I hope these hypocritical republicans learn what a rotten team they have been on. They never meant a word of it. Semper Fi

BigMike August 6, 2009 8:53 pm (Pacific time)

Senator Franken will be a fine Senator in the Minnesota tradition of Humphrey, Mondale and McCarthy. He will embarass the lying liars and big fat idiots. SENATOR FRANKEN...I do enjoying typing it and seeing it in print as well. Great job today, Senator Franken, on the Sotomayor confirmation vote. Well done, Senator Franken.

G/2-3; August 6, 2009 7:13 pm (Pacific time)

well done senator! The pickens fellow is a shining example of ..,dare I mention..,"The Limbaugh syndrome", A.K.A. "BS'ing the public" for their own agenda. So I say make the bastard pay. Thank you very much.

Daniel August 6, 2009 7:08 pm (Pacific time)

Franken is a great replacement for the late Paul Wellstone , who died in a plane crash . Some were suspicious about the crash circumstance , but nothing was proven .

Henry Ruark August 6, 2009 6:51 pm (Pacific time)

Friend Daniel et al: Agreed, totally...they all need and deserve all the hell we can serve up. But so do many others, and if we look in the mirror we may recognize some of them portrayed right there, too. That's what ennui and apatth and negligence and inattention creates in any society which allows that to happen over a half-century and more.

Jim August 6, 2009 5:04 pm (Pacific time)

Go get em Al! Nice to see somebody with some backbone for once.

Daniel Johnson August 6, 2009 3:43 pm (Pacific time)

I googled the incident and SN is the only real coverage of it. Is Franken going to be a "rogue" senator who doesn't just "go along" with the Senate traditions because "that's just the way we do things". If so, he'll embarrass the Democrats as much as the Republicans. I hope so.

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Franken Calls Swiftboater Pickens Out as a Draft Dodger in Debt

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