Attempt to Silence Vets Today for Standing With L.A. Vets, Litigation Threatened by Rees Lloyd

Rees Lloyd is a confused man. 

Lloyd, pictured at left, wants to sue to silence VT for criticizing veterans service organizations’ not lending institutional support and coming to the aid of veterans involved in a political-legal fight against the West Los Angeles Democratic Party machine and the West Los Angeles VA

The ACLU-hating, civil liberties-bashing, Vietnam-era veteran Lloyd is shown at left  holding a flipped flag in front of the VA Medical Center in West Los Angeles where he joined the group, Veterans Revolution, that has for years criticized the facility’s oversight and betrayal of veterans.

Though Lloyd swore an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution many years ago, he’s not happy that the ACLU defends the Bill of Rights for all and not just Lloyd’s favored politicos. Unclear where Lloyd stands on the ACLU defending his own protests.

Here is where Lloyd get weird.

As Robert Rosebrock and Gordon Duff reported here, the ACLU is suing the VA over veterans’ free speech rights. Reports Duff:

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles on behalf of Robert Rosebrock, who along with other veterans has protested the VA’s land-use policies every Sunday since March 9, 2008. As part of their protest, Rosebrock often displays the American flag upside down on a fence outside VA property as a distress symbol to draw attention to their cause. On Feb. 28, VA police demanded that he remove the flag, and when Rosebrock refused, they removed it themselves. A week earlier, VA police had allowed Rosebrock to display the flag right side up at the same site.

‘The VA has shown a basic misunderstanding of the meaning of the First Amendment of the Constitution, the very document that Mr. Rosebrock and other veterans have served in the military to protect,’ said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney and Manheim Family Attorney for First Amendment Rights at the ACLU/SC.

Lloyd loves the idea of flying the flag of distress and hates the ACLU for defending this very expression. It’s impossisble to reconcile what Lloyd writes and what he at least once has done, and good for him on that score. Lloyd calls the ACLU the “Taliban of American Liberal Secularism,” that needs to “come to its senses.”

VT, Duff and Rosebrock have worked to bring the deplorable behavior of the VA in West Angeles and the Democratic Party machine there to the fore.

Now, Lloyd want to sue VT for taking veterans service organizations to task for too much ass-kissing and not enough standing with veterans. Duff’s piece, ACLU RESCUES VETS FROM VA ABUSE, LEGION AND VFW, DROP THE BALL, didn’t sit well with Lloyd. Writes Duff:

I can’t call all VFW, Legion and AMVET posts bad.  Some are highly supportive of many progressive and pro-veteran causes and, from time to time, their massive political power is used to help vets.  Often, however, it is not.  In reality, they are extremely ineffective and highly political organizations that pander to the basest instincts, hatred, fear and greed.  I can’t call them ‘neo-con’ because they lack the political savvy and sophistication of this pack of con men.  The shame is not that men have organized into groups proven outdated and useless, its that they have so much power and influence, all tragically misused.

Los Angeles is where their faults are laid bare most of all.  The VFW and Legion members, almost universally, are abusive and derisive of the American Civil Liberties Union.  The ACLU supports free speech, gay rights and minorities, especially when groups seem to be singled out as part of an attack on the Constitution.

In an e-mail sent by Lloyd to VT’s general manager and Duff dated March 22, 2010, Lloyd writes:

I am attaching hereto in one file (1) that original complaint and demand for retraction; (2) an e-mail from your VT staff writer and senior editor, Gordon Duff (‘Duff’) which does not agree to retract or correct the manifestly false assertions of fact in the article he wrote and you published; and (3) my response to Duff, notifying him that I will not deal directly with him as the demand for retraction and correction is directed to you as General Manager of VT; and advising Duff to get a lawyer.

Please advise whether you will do so, or will refuse and necessitate other and further action. [emphasis mine]
______________________

REES LLOYD, Attorney
For American Legion Post 79,
And District 21 of the Dept. of California,
And Rees Lloyd

Lloyd, you are an attorney, look up the words “frivolous” and “puffery.”

Then, see a Doctor. You’re entitled to medical care–which is the whole point of the protests by the band of dedicated veterans whom the VFW, Legion and AMVET should be supporting with the full weight of their organizations.

REES LLOYD
Attorney
( California State Bar No. 090538)
44921 Palm Ave., Hemet , CA 92544
951-867-1551, [email protected]

March 22, 2010 by e-mail:

John P. Allen
General Manager
VT Network
www.veteranstodaynetwork.co

Re: Further information and demands re Demand for Retraction and Correction (3/21/10)

Greetings:

On March 21, I served you by e-mail with my complaint and request for retraction and for correction of the false assertions of fact published by you and authored by Gordon Duff ( whom I copy) concerning Robert Rosebrock (whom I copy), entitled “ACLU Rescues Vets from VA Abuse, Legion and VFW ‘Drop the Ball’,” and appearing at https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2010/03/17/gordon-duff-aclu-rescues-vets-from-va-abuse-legion-and-vfw-drop-the-ball/.

I am attaching hereto in one file (1) that original complaint and demand for retraction; (2) an e-mail from your VT staff writer and senior editor, Gordon Duff (“Duff”) which does not agree to retract or correct the manifestly false assertions of fact in the article he wrote and you published; and (3) my response to Duff, notifying him that I will not deal directly with him as the demand for retraction and correction is directed to you as General Manager of VT; and advising Duff to get a lawyer.

In light of Duff’s e-mail, in addition to the above matter contained in the attached file referenced immediately above, I raise this further information and further demands regarding demand for retraction and correction.

In addition to the specific false assertions of fact cited in the demand for retraction and correction of March 21, 2010, VT, in the above cited writing by Gordon Duff, published the following:

First, VT published that the allegataion that veterans organizations named in the article, including The American Legion, were guilty of “endemic corruption.”

This is a most serious allegation. Wherefore, please provide or cite to me, the following:

A. The evidence of “corruption” in or by The American Legion which VT had in hand and relied upon at the time of the publication.

B. The evidence of corruption that was “endemic” in The American Legion that VT had in hand at the time of publication of the allegation.

C. The evidence of any “corrupt” acts by officers, agents, representatives –including me — or members of American Legion Riverside Post 79, or American Legion District 21 (Riverside County), whom I represent as attorney, which VT had in hand and relied upon in alleging that the American Legion was guilty of “endemic corruption.”

Second, VT further published the allegation that The American Legion had failed to have an interest in the in the welfare of needy veterans at the National Veterans Home and had failed to provide assistance or aid to them.

This allegation is astounding and utterly false.

First, VT’s allegation was made despite the fact that VT knew, or should have known in the reasonable exercise of care and respect for ordinary journalistic standards, that, the American Legion taken interest in, and provided provable aid and assistance regarding the effort to protect the land of the veterans for the veterans at the National Veterans Home — in particular by and through American Legion Riverside Post 79, District 21, and me, as well as the Department of California which in fact has adopted two Resolutions opposing VA policies regarding transfers of the veterans lands to non-veteran third-parties, one of which, produced by an L.A. County District and sponsored by the Department of California was adopted at the 2009 National American Legion Convention and is now policy of the National American Legion.

Second, VT’s allegation was made despite the fact that VT knew, or should have known in the reasonable exercise of care and respect for ordinary journalistic standards, that, among other acts of interest and assistance of American Legionnaires for veterans at the National Veterans Home, the members of American Legion Pacific Palisdades Post 283 donated Two Million Dollars ($2,000,000) to establish a Fisher House at the National Veterans Home.
I
t is unconscionable for VT to make such false allegations against The American Legion despite these facts which are irrefutably true.

Wherefore, please provide or cite to me the evidence which VT had in hand and relied upon at the time of publication of such false allegations damaging to the reputation of The American Legion generally, and Riverside Post 79, District 21, and me as an attorney for them in your broadbrushed and utterly false allegations against The American Legion.

If you cannot cite evidence as to these two areas of false allegations, and those of the demand letter of March 21, incorporated herein, then have the integrity to publish your retraction, correction, and apology to The American Legion generally and Riverside Post 79, and District 21 in the particular.

Please advise whether you will do so, or will refuse and necessitate other and further action.

______________________
REES LLOYD, Attorney
For American Legion Post 79,
And District 21 of the Dept. of California,
And Rees Lloyd