Today we go local and give our award to a republican State House candidate. Jim Van Houten is running against Valerie Longhurst in the 15th. He’s been trumpeted by Delusional David over at the wingnut blog as “a tough man for tough times.”
Van Houten is the conservative Republican Candidate for the 15th District Representative Seat, running against incumbent Valerie Longhurst (D). He is a retired army military policeman that guarded President Ronald Reagan while serving in Panmunjom Korea. He also guarded the last living Five Star General, Omar Bradley and worked as a combat engineer.
Only one problem – Van Houten and his defenders over at batshitcrazypolitics.net got caught in a lie. And it’s a huge lie. There was no way the Van Houten was able to guard General Bradley. Bradley retired from the Army in 1953, 5 years before Van Houten was born. When questions were raised about the veracity of this claim in the comments section over at batshitcrazypolitics.net, Don Ayotte said that Van Houten was telling the truth, that he guarded General Bradley in retirement at Ft. Bliss, which he said was in San Antonio, TX. Problem is, Ft. Bliss is in El Paso, TX, 550 miles away. And General Bradley did not live on Ft. Bliss, he had a house on the grounds of William Beaumont Army Medical Center, which is a separate command from Ft. Bliss. And during the time General Bradley lived there, there were no guards stationed there because it was an open post. No guard on the gates, no permanent MP presence. None, nada. And how do I know this? I was stationed at Beaumont Army Medical Center shortly after General Bradley’s death. And I read everything there was about the General as it was a source of pride for the hospital. I have eyewitness accounts of his daily routine. And there were no guards posted outside of General Bradley’s house.
But the even bigger sin – Van Houten scrubbed his website of this information when he and his minions were called on their lie. But he still has the information on his Facebook page.
And before they scrub that, here’s a screenshot of that page:
So, you rethuglicans will go off about a US Senate Candidate who falsely claimed to have served in Viet Nam, but when faced with your own “independent conservative” candidate, whose lies have been brought to light, you claim that it’s all a liberal conspiracy and that liberals hate America.
Jim Van Houten, you’re a liar, you got caught in the lie, and then you tried to cover up the lie by scrubbing your website. Van Houten, you’re our Asshat of the Day.