A tipster emailed me about this little section of today’s WaPo article on Hillary in which they describe some of her dark and brooding stories she spins during stops:
In another story, retold recently in Youngstown, Ohio, she describes a “young woman who lost her husband in Iraq, a lovely young woman who had a daughter.”
“Here’s what happened to her,” Clinton said. “She was given $6,000. She was told to leave the [military] base within 90 days. She was told her daughter was no longer eligible for Army medical care. She was basically on her own. So I said, ‘That’s not right.’ So we began to work to change what was really cruel — you lose your husband, you lose your wife, you lose your mom or your dad, and you’re out, and nobody seemed to care.”
Oh really? Survivor benefits are only 6 grand now?
According to this article and this one it appears the benefits are waaaay higher then that. More to the tune of a half a million dollars. Now, granted, it was 250 grand prior to 2005 but that is still a bit more then 6 grand.
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Hillary lied?
Shocker…
The Democratic primary season is rapidly turning into a Kafkaesque comedy.
From the article you cited:
Your sources show that there was a time when the immediate gratuity payment was $6,000. It’s true that Clinton didn’t mention the other death benefits, but these sources do make it seem that the only immediate cash benefit was $6,000. Was Clinton claiming credit for pressuring the Pentagon to increase death benefits?
From her website:
I don’t think this is a “she lied” moment. Spin, yeah, but not lying.
Let’s see… gratuity doubled in 2003. That would make it under a Republican dominated Congress.
Hillary co-sponsored Military Death Benefit Improvement Act of 2005? Yup… right along with 9 others… how special. We won’t hear about them since they aren’t running for POTUS. Nor does she give credit to the bill’s sponsor, Chuck Hagel. The bill never made it out of committee after being read twice.
All in all, hard to claim “credit” for something that didn’t happen.
she must be inhaling the smoke her husband wasn’t. seriously.
The widow might also receive Dependent Indeminity Compensation of $935/mo + $234 for each child until and unless she remarried.
Here are the rates back in 2002.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LFT/is_1_44/ai_82609389/pg_1
The military just doesn’t kick dependents to the floor once the service member dies. There is the 100K others have mentioned, if the servicemember has SGLI. I believe they also recieve all upaid allowances, any leave that the service member did not use goes to pay There is also free burial, annuities to the wife unless she remarries(ie use of commissary & PX), annuties for the kids until they reach a certain age, etc.
Death gratuity is $100,000 up from $12,000 (not $6,000). That’s a check that the notification teams have with them. The often assign someone to assit the family member with all the details relating to the death of a servicemember. The just don’t kick them to the curb. SGLI can be up to $400,000 depending on what the servicemember SELECTS ! Surviving famil members do have to vacate gov’t quarters since they are provided for the servicemember. The child will retain a military ID card until they are 21 (23 if a full time student) and all benefits and privileges. So did Hillary lie? Well she definitely ‘omittedt’ a few inconvient facts.
Stacy, read the article cited in the original posting. More specifically, read the sentences I quoted. Here, allow me:
A quick bit of searching give us this timeline: pre-1991=$3000, 1991=$6000, 2004=$12000, 2005=$100000. (The original article says 2003=$12000, but the other sources I checked indicate that the change didn’t take effect until 2004.) So, there’s a fairly sizable window in which the benefit was, indeed, only $6000 for some soldiers killed in Iraq.
I also found this, in an February 2005 article on military.com
The article goes on to state that, at the time of the article’s writing in 2005, TRICARE medical insurance did NOT extend to the children of deceased service members; they got three years of paid medical care, and then had to start paying for TRICARE insurance (albeit at the “retiree’s rate,” according to the article). I also learned that some stepchildren are not eligible for TRICARE; it is a case-by-case thing.
So, basically, it’s entirely possible that a widow would receive only $6000, and that her daughter was not eligible for TRICARE after her husband’s death.
Race is the problem with America it is not working well. It is funny when one could travel through a black area’s in any city and view burned out churches one should wonder where the Black believes in. Christianity is literally is burn down by the very people that start it up. Take family values, Black women are in a fifty percent divorce rate. Drugs are abused at an alarming and black work ethics are difficult to define. There is no leadership to encourage a white family to move in to a black area. There is no educational leadership in a majority way thought the centuries where blacks take white under their wing to create things like affirmative action. Actually if one looks at history in depth Slavery was much predominated is an original culture in black society way before Jesus.
One thing is clear Obama is following the Clinton Leadership power curve. For what ever you want to believe is yours to believe, but from my view I do not see any anything very original or new from Obama. All this change the page in history, or we can’t wait all sounds like a child on a rant. Sorry but most all first line Journalist across the spectrum have been fine tuned into contextual word artists that have a single pursuit which is to keep Hillary out of the White House.
Everything and anything the Clinton’s do is discussed as divisive, racist, or her camp is filled with horrible arguments or indecisiveness. All which has the Media again leading America’s bias and fixing the election especially MSNBC. Just as the 2000 election should not have happen on a decision of the Supreme Court is still obvious we are not stupid but a sick society basically the cause of a few elite and powerful drive with the help of the media. It is pretty obvious the real change in America would likely come from Hillary Clinton being in the White House rather than Obama.
It is a concerted effort by many of the old hard line political and corporate leadership that has bought America to where it is now. This is a horrible state of affairs. Huge mistakes have been made, here, the cultural economic slide the Republicans have made so far including mainstream media with the paradox of defining victory under the continuing ideal to relax torture as acceptable is showing what many think out there, that American’s have devalued a core culture of morality. Or American’s are getting stupid. Sometimes one could believe that it was done on purpose to see how totally obnoxious those in power could push the status envelope in moral authority to evil fascist purposes. The same goes for all that tax cutting at the time of war. Look at history and most war needed some revenue base to continue. To me it appears the Republicans with the help of those complicit Democrats have been making so many bad decisions the consequences are choking the economy on purpose. And they know it.
Obama is a nice guy but he is a puppy playing with a lot of big dogs and they play to win. The corporations are liar’s cheaters, and have turned America on its head, especially mainstream Media. The education system is corrupt and loaded with bias corruption and divisiveness, not just on the teachers Union side but prolific and obnoxious on the educational administrative side, way out of control. Why I say that? Look around you the majority of major government operations are of college education that does not work for the six pack Joe electorate.
Posting to the wrong topic, Megalomania?