Could a state pass a law making it illegal to lie on a job application?

Could be a slippery slope.

I mean, Faux "news" got the "right to lie."

Fraud definitely has never been protected speech.

Otherwise, it's unconstitutional as hell.

but regarding general lies in the media see the WTVT Monsanto controversy...in 2003 a fed appeals court ruled that the media has the right to lie, meaning that smear campaigns like Swift Boat can't be criminalized. But indeed fraud is crime not free speech.

However, they get around that simply by saying "X said this" or "Y claims that." Which is almost always factually true if they can find one person who made the claim. It's why all those trashy tabloids are still in business: they are careful to add "according to a source" or similar to all their articles.

I was the hero at Balaclava during the Crimean war.

I served 3 tours in the Hundred Years war. I would have served a 4th, but I took an arrow to the knee.

I would have been the hero at Sebastopol but I too, got an arrows to the knee.

I was the hero at Balaclava during the Civil War.

What, you haven't heard about that one?

Totally classified, you see. Already said too much.

but I don't think we need to waste time arresting them and putting them through the court system. They will most likely be found out and humiliated anyway.

from watching a bit on Faux or CNN - yes, I know it was Faux or CNN ...

I tend to think this is an overreach, but if the Legion and other veteran groups are pushing it, it is hard to go against them.

I'm in total agreement; with the internet today it's pretty much impossible to lie about anything without getting caught. And, in the case of stolen valor, publicly disgraced.

separately.

I know there's groups that make a point of discrediting the herds of people claiming to be, e.g., Navy Seals.

On this side of the border, Victoria Cross claimants are probably the funniest as far as the "who do you think you're fooling?" people go.

and the subsequent humiliation. That type of justice is sort of - like - criminal. Sad!

Flag lapel pins indicated that the wearer was a veteran. When Newt got to DC he did not like the fact that a far higher percentage of elected Democrats were entitled to wear the pin than were Republicans. So he decided to ignore the rule, start wearing it himself and encouraged his fellow Republicans to join him in this deception.

And, of course, a *lot* of people were fooled into thinking Republicans were military veterans.

As far as I know that rule has never been changed.

them. Can you please cite some sources?

A lot of these guys, my father included, were furious when Gingrich started doing that. So far as they were concerned Gingrich was pretending to be a veteran.

Everybody does it now, of course. Gingrich and company took that symbol away from the veterans.

I've been AD USAF for 21+ years and I've never heard of your claims.

vets, but I had 25 years in uniform and never heard that one. Plenty to dislike about Gingrich - but I wouldn't include that. He was elected ion 1978 - and according to Time, the lapel pins predate that.

"It was during the culture wars of the late '60s and early '70s that the flag lapel pin truly took off and became the simultaneously uniting and divisive symbol that it is today. Republican candidates in the 1970 congressional race wore them as a symbol of patriotic solidarity against anti-Vietnam protesters like Abbie Hoffman — who donned a shirt made of the flag — or others who stitched the flag onto the seat of their pants. But it was Richard Nixon who brought the pin to national attention. According to Stephen E. Ambrose's biography Nixon, the President got the idea for sporting a lapel pin from his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, who had noticed a similar gesture in the Robert Redford film The Candidate. Nixon commanded all of his aides to go and do likewise. The flag pins were noticed by the public, and many in Nixon's supposed "silent majority" began to similarly sport flags on their lapels. Over the next few decades, the pin sporadically surged in popularity. During the Gulf War, they sold briskly alongside flag patches and yellow ribbons."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1820023,00.html

I was working on Capitol Hill when Gingrich was speaker and I can tell you I certainly never heard such a story. Newt's as low as they get. Don't need to make up stuff to make him look bad.

When I retired from AD after 27 years, I put away the uniforms, medals & ribbons, plaques and certificates and concentrated on the future. The only thing displayed in our home reminding us of our military career is a picture of our quarters at Ft Benning when I was a major. My wife likes it because the photo is composed so well and she loved that house.
It's pretty easy to detect the liars -- ask them where they were and they usually say, "I was all over that damned place" or "It was a black op that I still can't talk about."