The Florida Democrat who criticized President Donald Trump this week for being “insensitive” toward the widow of a U.S. soldier slain in Africa might be facing similar criticism herself.
It turns out that U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson has frequently voted against measures intended to help veterans and their families, according to VoteSmart.org, a vote-tracking site whose founding board members included former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.
The measures that Wilson opposed included a bill that could have ensured that families of four soldiers slain in Afghanistan in 2013 received death and burial benefits.
In fact, Wilson’s voting record on veterans issues may call into question the sincerity of her recent defense of U.S. service members and their families.
Despite Wilson’s claim to be “committed to honoring our service members, not only with words but with deeds,” she has voted against most bills ensuring continued funding for veteran benefits, including payments to widows of fallen soldiers, the vote-tracking site shows.
She has also opposed measures designed to improve the Department of Veterans Affairs.
In March 2013, Wilson opposed the “Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act,” which prevented a government shutdown and provided funds for the U.S. military and the VA.
The bill, which passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law by the Obama administration, provided funding to the military and the VA until the next government shutdown showdown.
More at Fox News
The Demac-RATS were never friends to the vets after all one of the Demac-RATS was a Draft Dodger and their always trying to cut back on defense spending(So they can spend it on illegal aliens and Eco-Wackos)and they want to cut back on benifits to retired vets after all General Patton said POLITICIALS ARE THE LOWEST FORM OF LIFE ON EARTH LIBERAL DEMACRATS ARE THE LOWEST FORM OF POLITICIAN
So, a man dies while serving our country, Trump calls the widow to offer condolences which obviously didn’t go well, and DJ abets Trump in attacks and character assasinating rather than owning up to Trump’s blotched message.
Assuming Trump meant well, I would think and hope that if my condolences to a grieving mother were deemed offensive and someone pointed it out, I would have the decency to apologize or at least let it be known it wasn’t my intentions rather than going into a public humiliation pay back tantrum to discredit them with dishonest mud slinging.
But much like Trump, DJ is void of decency and bountiful on dishonesty.
Was that their only, or even their main intention? Most of them also go after employee protections, the union, and collective bargaining, though that isn’t readily apparent from the wording. Then we have H.R. 1181.
H.R. 1181 forbids VA determinations that a veteran is mentally incompetent from being passed on to the D.O.J. for use in flagging them for a firearm purchase. Great idea, right? A VA psychiatrist knows perfectly that a particular person is suicidally or homicidally deranged, or simply not rational enough to handle their own personal affairs, but that information can’t be passed on.
Reasons for voting as one does are usually a bit more complicated than a bill being for or against one specific thing.
Rep.Wilson’s problem is that she made Trump’s sh-t list by being publicly critical of Trump. He uses his Twitter account like a dog whistle to point and signal a right wing media pile-on. They’ve even gone after her hats.
@Greg: Her voting record is clear enough, not any type of character assassination, just the facts.
As for her silly hats…why is she trying to be sheriff.
What character snoops on a phone call of any kind, but to make her a superstar of the MSM she gladly sold her soul, if she had one.
@Ajay42302:
Wilson is a dirtbag trying to score political points off of a dead soldier for her re-election campaign.
A Midnight Cowgirl.
@DrJohn: Rodeo clown, the one that hides in the barrel.
Are Frederica Wilson’s hats or votes really the important part of the story?
A Timeline — And Questions — About The Niger Firefight That Killed U.S. Troops
Yeah, there are some serious unanswered questions here. If the name Obama or Clinton were somehow involved, you’d probably be asking them. But we’re talking about a “whacky” woman’s hats.
The French air support never fired on hostile forces. The government of Niger forbids French forces there from conduct airstrikes. So, that was our air support. Our troops were traveling in unarmored vehicles. They were in open pickup trucks. The helicopter that came later wasn’t even a military aircraft. We hired a frickin’ private contractor, Berry Aviation, to get our people out of there, and they failed to take a headcount before bailing. They didn’t immediately realize they’d left somebody behind. His body was recovered two days later. And not at the original location of the firefight. I’ll let you figure out for yourself what that might suggest.
Perhaps Ms. Johnson blames the government for her husband being killed. That is wholly understandable. Perhaps she is angry that she is not getting what she feels is the full story about his death. THAT is understandable. Perhaps Ms. Johnson is a bitter never-Trumper that would not accept ANY condolence from Trump (which her comments tend to lean toward). THAT is understandable, as many have succumbed to the media blitz of anti-Trump propaganda. She has my condolences and respect for her fallen husband and the sacrifice she has made.
However, Wilson and the media taking a President of the United States offering his heartfelt condolences to the widow and turning it, as they do everything else in the world, into a political weapon is THE most despicable of despicable acts, though no real surprise. The left does not hide its disdain for the military, as we see with the disrespect shown the national anthem and our flag, so this is their MO, but it is still shockingly low and despicable.
Defending it is the same. Excusing it is the same. Thinking Trump called Ms. Johnson and just said, “He knew what he signed up for. See ya.” identifies the most useful of useful idiots.
Rep. Wilson’s Reaction To John Kelly’s Somber Presser: “I’m A Rock Star” (Video)
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/10/father-soldier-slain-niger-blasts-controversy-not-trump-damn-phone-call-son-knew-signed/ http://www.redwirenews.com/2017/10/20/listen-soldiers-widow-shares-call-with-president-trump/” rel=”nofollow”>These are some of the other families that have lost soldiers and received calls from Trump and they had different opinions.This is partisan politics driven without any doubt. Again, it is the lowest corner of the cesspool that would consider such a thing, but, again, the left never hesitates to utilize tragedy and misery or their own political benefit.
@Greg:
The questions are being asked, as they always are. There are always after-action reports and investigations. Let’s see if anyone blames it on a video, though, before we begin to make comparisons. Some on the left, working hard to get as much mileage out of this as possible, are calling this “Trump’s Benghazi”. Sorry, but for this to be comparable, Trump would have to lie about every aspect of the incident, blame it on a video and the media would have to participate in covering it up. Trump didn’t lie to Ms. Johnson like Obama and Hillary did to the Benghazi victim’s families, he just didn’t console her to her satisfaction. No, not even close. Wilson is a despicable fool, an attention-addict, as those ridiculous headgear prove, and wallowing in her self-proclaimed “rock star” status achieved by attacking Trump with a lie.
Perhaps Trump should have made this one of Obama’s legacy messes he left behind a priority to clean up. After all, we ALL know why ISIS is there and where they came from, don’t we?
Oh, the left will have to go some to pull something lower than this. But, I know you are up to the challenge.
“The French response included armed fighter aircraft, armed helicopter gunships, medevac helo that lifted out our wounded,” Mattis said.
But the first American aircraft to arrive was an unarmed helicopter operated by a U.S. contractor who was hired to provide support to the 1,000 American troops . Now that pilot has steel ones.
American troops are in Africa because terrorist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al Qaida are there. So, as Mattis said, any mission — even one in which no enemy contact is expected — carries a risk.
They were heavily outnumbered and fortunate that any got away alive.
US officials said that French jets did have authority to bomb but did not because pilots could not readily identify enemy forces in this firefight and did not want to risk hitting US and Nigerien troops.
We know what Islamist do to Americans the pictures of an ambassador flash up.
We will know more in the days to come but I dont expect someone to blame it on Youtube.
Wilson has called the attack, “Mr. Trump’s Benghazi.”
BUT….American soldiers died in Niger for the same reasons that Americans died in Benghazi.
Both were fallout from the Arab Spring.
It wasn’t President Trump who deployed our soldiers to Niger.
That was Obama.
It wasn’t Pres Trump’s policy to have soldiers in Niger without a direct combat role.
It was Obama’s policy.
Obama could take credit for ending all the wars (he officially ended the Iraq War twice even before the rise of ISIS) while still keeping soldiers deployed in war zones. But soldiers in a war zone without an official combat role are far more vulnerable and more likely to be underequipped for a firefight.
American forces in Niger were providing “advice and assistance to Nigerien security force counter-terror operations”.
“Advise and Assist” missions were a staple of Obama era counterterrorism.
He often embedded American troops within local forces that were unreliable or compromised.
But the Obama doctrine put pr ahead of the lives of American soldiers.
Obama worked hard to avoid naming Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organization.
Although often photoshopped, this is the original:
Senators were shocked to learn the US has 1,000 troops in Africa — but the Pentagon just said the total is actually over 6,000
@Greg:
Call me when Trump blames a video
@Greg:
Yeah? Who put them there?
@Greg: I guess Obama didn’t tell them everything, huh?
@DrJohn:
That’s pretty strong coming from one who exploited the death of those in Benghazi for none other than political purposes.
As far as Wilson’s re-election, she won in 2016 with 78.4% of the vote and in 2014 she won by 86.2% so your argument is either of ignorance or your usual dishonesty.
As to your accusation of Wilson being a “dirtbag” and granted, I’m not exactly sure of that meaning but based on your either uneducated or intentional flawed diatribe (or both), my response would have to be, “said the kettle”.
@Ajay42302:
How did Dr. John exploit the deaths of those left to die in Benghazi?
Hey… that reminds me.
What is your substantiation for calling Trump a racist?
Does Hillary dropping N-bombs make her a racist (and, by extension, all of her supporters)?
Is ANTIFA committing violence?
Shouldn’t the left be demanding Yale University change its name because Elihu Yale was a slave trader and the school was built with support from slave traders?
Tell us of how Trump “breached the Constitution”.
Why do liberals get to make vile, unsubstantiated accusations in media but conservatives get fired if they voice a non-liberal opinion?
How is questioning Obama’s demonstrably dubious birth records racist?
Are immigration laws expected to be enforced?
Who is justifying “mass murdering people not of their heritage”?
Who has ever asserted that “all Hispanic and Latinos are murders, rapist, and drug dealers”?
When did Trump ever grab anyone’s vagina and who was it?
What did Trump lie about?
Whose wages did Trump steal?
What is the nature of Trump’s “con”?
How did I indicate your answers would be meaningless?
What answer have you provided that has been ignored?
Can you show us an incident when conservatives overreacted to a tragedy and accused the wrong responsible party?
Do you denounce those who are rejoicing in the slaughter in Las Vegas and using it for obscene political gain?
Trump said a word. Weinstein groped, fondled and… whatever else that shall be revealed. Are you intellectually incapable of understanding the difference?
How has Trump been a “KKK sympathizer?
How has Trump shown himself to be “Neo-Nazi” friendly?
@Ajay42302:
So you’re saying I blamed the video for Benghazi? LMAO
Lower then a snake in a wagon rut and frankly she needs to resign in total disgrace but what am i saying she will stick like like gum on the bottom of a shoe
@DrJohn:
You’d be better served leaving it up to your robo-trolls to incorrectly reiterate my statements.
I’m saying you viciously exploited the deaths of those killed in Benghazi on a daily basis for no more than political reasons and to help sell your bigoted hatred of Obama and Dems. What part of that do you have trouble understanding.
Its sadly interesting that now that your ilk no longer needs Benghazi as a tool to defeat Hillary and that Obama is now gone, it’s no longer an issue, kinda went silent on it. Now you cowardly protect your sexually assaulting con man after a very similar attack under his watch.
Aside from your dishonesty and overwhelming hypocrisy, you are indeed a very disturbing and disgusting individual.
@DrJohn:
Apparently, to some on the left, demanding answers to how we could have been so stupid as to leave an active consulate undefended in light of specific terror warnings and on the anniversary of the most revered date terrorists hold dear is “exploitation”.
@Ajay42302:
How can this be true if the left is CONTINUOUSLY accusing conservatives of “obsessing” on it? You must have several distinct and different realities you live under. However, what is a fact is that most of the facts of the Benghazi matter are now known; Hillary had warnings of terror threats against the consulate, Ambassador Stevens had asked for (and been denied) additional security that during the attack Hillary and Obama decided to stand down and deny aid and reinforcements to the consulate and then they knowingly LIED about the cause of the attack. While it would have been to the benefit of Hillary and Obama to cooperate with the investigations and hearings, were these NOT the facts, they decided to lie and stonewall.
Speaking of which, you COULD answer these questions you leave unanswered to reduce your OWN dishonesty and hypocrisy (in addition to cowardice):
What is your substantiation for calling Trump a racist?
Does Hillary dropping N-bombs make her a racist (and, by extension, all of her supporters)?
Is ANTIFA committing violence?
Shouldn’t the left be demanding Yale University change its name because Elihu Yale was a slave trader and the school was built with support from slave traders?
Tell us of how Trump “breached the Constitution”.
Why do liberals get to make vile, unsubstantiated accusations in media but conservatives get fired if they voice a non-liberal opinion?
How is questioning Obama’s demonstrably dubious birth records racist?
Are immigration laws expected to be enforced?
Who is justifying “mass murdering people not of their heritage”?
Who has ever asserted that “all Hispanic and Latinos are murders, rapist, and drug dealers”?
When did Trump ever grab anyone’s vagina and who was it?
What did Trump lie about?
Whose wages did Trump steal?
What is the nature of Trump’s “con”?
How did I indicate your answers would be meaningless?
What answer have you provided that has been ignored?
Can you show us an incident when conservatives overreacted to a tragedy and accused the wrong responsible party?
Do you denounce those who are rejoicing in the slaughter in Las Vegas and using it for obscene political gain?
Trump said a word. Weinstein groped, fondled and… whatever else that shall be revealed. Are you intellectually incapable of understanding the difference?
How has Trump been a “KKK sympathizer?
How has Trump shown himself to be “Neo-Nazi” friendly?
How did Dr. John exploit the deaths of those left to die in Benghazi?
Come on. Be a man.
That’s exactly what they did. And we have the dangerous incompetent that’s presently in the White House because half of America is extraordinarily susceptible to such manipulations. They’re repeatedly told that anyone who doesn’t believe the propaganda they’re spoon fed on a daily basis has been manipulated.
Seven formal Benghazi investigations, each coming up empty, and they still believe the same bullshit Benghazi rumors from unnamed sources that FOX News & company rolled out day after day. And when one act wears thin, they just move on to some new bullshit conspiracy theory.
We’ve now got a populace demagogue of a president who’s telling his followers on a daily basis that they can’t believe any media source that is critical of him or takes issue with him. He’s actually said that the media should be stopped from saying such things—and this doesn’t register as a red flag.
@Greg:
They didn’t come up empty. Not at all. We know there were clear warnings prior to the attack of terrorist threats. We know THEY knew it was a terrorist attack but thought they could fool the dimmer of wit (which they did) into believing it was simply a riot over a video. We know they could have launched a rescue attempt, successful or not, but simply didn’t bother.
We found out that Obama and Hillary LIED to the grieving loved ones of those killed in Benghazi, right to their faces. Now, you are pretending to be offended because Trump did not fully console Ms. Johnson. Such hypocrisy. Such disgusting, deplorable, low, scummy hypocrisy.
In other words, we found out Hillary was totally incompetent and that she AND Obama will lie about anything. We found out Obama was vastly overstating his success against terrorists. I can only HOPE the revelations, in some part, cost Hillary the election.
We found out quite a bit. It just wasn’t anything that those who don’t care much for American lives or national security are interested in.
@Ajay42302:
Silly boy.
obama and company lied through their teeth about Benghazi. They put Stevens there to broker weapons for Syrian rebels (i.e. ISIS) after they toppled Gaddafi for no good reason. The video excuse was an atrocity. I wasn’t near as hard on them as I should have been.
Like I said, call me when Trump blames a video.
@DrJohn: They had reasons for toppling Gadaffi, He wouldnt tolerate terrorists, he had plans on putting Lybia currancy on a gold standard. He posed no threat to the US. But now they achieved a flourishing slave trade, an open beach to float to Europe chucking every Christian they find overboard.
The guy that made the infamous video was jailed for a year just to reinforce the lies.
Benghazi DID NOT occur in a vacuum. None of you ever seem willing to acknowledge that the video in question led to outbreaks of deadly mob violence and embassy demonstrations across much of the Muslim world. The Cairo embassy was under siege and its outer perimeter was breached only hours before the Benghazi attack. The flag was torn down and ripped apart. It was entirely reasonable to conclude hours later that the anti-Islamic film had something to do with events in Benghazi, as it had in Cairo and many other places. That initial theory changed as more facts became known.
Basically, the right latched onto early comments and their inconsistency with facts that only emerged later as fuel for a rapidly expanding, politically useful conspiracy theory. They’ve never put everything about Benghazi into a proper and consistent context, and the distorted picture that resulted is entirely deliberate. They exploited the hell out of the Benghazi tragedy, and continue to try to do so.
Reactions to Innocence of Muslims
It’s interesting how readily the explanation for Niger is being accepted. Apparently the team was pursuing an ISIS recruiter. How that squares with the official report that they expected no hostile contact is a bit puzzling. They weren’t following a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman back to his home office.
@Greg: The video had nothing to do with Benghazi and Obama and Hillary KNEW it didn’t when they LIED and claimed it did.
Period. End of debate. Settled science.
Actually, that’s just the point where you’ve decided to stop thinking.
The Benghazi attack occurred in a context—that context being mass demonstrations occasioned by viral reports of the video in many locations, with more than one turning violent and resulting in deaths and property damages. American embassies were the common focus of the rage.
These events actually occurred. Everybody knows provocations like the video will predictably trigger outbreaks of violence. Some of the ultra-conservative Islamists will kill over a newspaper cartoon. That’s a fact. The initial theory about Benghazi was based on that understanding.
Should we have expected to immediately hear a backstory about a secret CIA operation that was also underway in Benghazi?
@Greg: Nope. It’s what happened. Hillary’s own emails prove she and Chelsea discussed it was a terror attack. The communications in real time revealed it was a terror attack. Of course, they were forewarned OF a terrorist attack. Nothing hinted at a video being the cause, but it made for a better excuse, since Obama had been bragging he had kicked terrorism’s ass, than a terrorist attack on the anniversary of the Mother of all terrorist attacks, a day we should NEVER have our guard down.
Then, they lied about it. They just lied about it. Lying is always their first reaction because they can rely on the dishonest liberal media to help cover for them.
Period. End of debate. Settled science.
@Greg:
If you remember, I wrote that the US was the ONLY country to not vacate its diplomatic staff.
WHY?
There was no extra security despite that.
WHY?
@DrJohn: Greg believes (or says he does) that when the FBI showed an interest in Hillary’s secret, private, unsecured email server and she culled out and deleted, erased and Bleachbit 33,000 emails, it was because they were about weddings, funerals and yoga. What’s more, he believes it because that is what Hillary says. So, questioning WHY he believes incredulous things is not going to yield satisfaction.
@DrJohn, #29:
It certainly wasn’t because they wanted to set the stage for an attack in which an American ambassador, an American foreign service officer, and two CIA contractors were killed. I don’t know what the full answer is, but a significant CIA presence likely had something to do with it.
Why, in an increasingly dangerous world, did the republican-controlled House cut the State Department’s requested budget for embassy security by $296 million over the two years preceding the attack?
When a spending budget is cut, some things you might more readily do don’t get done. Somebody’s requests get denied. Sometimes you don’t know which were critical until there are consequences. So far as I know, no one has looked at the volume of denied spending requests from embassy and diplomatic outpost staff where nothing serious happened. The reports of requests from Benghazi have been seriously exaggerated. Some republican investigators publicly reported there were nearly 600—failing to differentiate requests from routine reports taking note of passing daily concerns. The actual number of specific security requests was somewhere around 20.
Did someone think the CIA presence made less diplomatic-specific security staff necessary? That’s possible. It’s also possible that the size of diplomatic outpost security was deliberately kept lower in an effort not to draw attention to the CIA’s activities.
During the second Bush administration, there were 13 attacks on U.S. embassies and consulate facilities around the world that resulted in 60 deaths. There’s seems to be great disparity between the interest that was taken in those events and Benghazi. Why would that be?
@Greg:
Except Hillarys bar tab http://www.newsmax.com/US/U-Sgovernment-State-Department-alcohol-spending. Much less than 1 50 cal requested, shows priorities.
It was sad this Goldstar wife was not consoled. At least she wasn’t with this group of 30 families https://thepoliticalinsider.com/flashback-time-obama-went-wishes-30-gold-star-families/
@Greg:
Had Hillary and Obama not stonewalled, perhaps we could have found out.
Funding cuts not the problem; funding in 2011 more than in 2008.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2012/10/12/blaming_benghazi_on_budget_cuts_292904.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/barbara-boxers-claim-that-gop-budgets-hampered-benghazi-security/2013/05/15/d1e295cc-bdb0-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_blog.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/24/republicans-challenge-clinton-claims-on-budget-cuts-benghazi-cable/
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/330408/libya-isnt-about-funding-cuts-katrina-trinko#
They had enough money to buy a new fleet of electric cars.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/11/rep-questions-state-department-green-energy-spending-amid-security-concerns/
We can always tell when a liberal has run out of excuses; they start back and the top of their list and try to rerun the old ones.
Not American deaths, each one was investigated and NO videos were blamed for any of them.
@kitt: The only honor gold star families get from liberals is the honor of being a political ornament. Same with when papers used to publish lists of the war dead… at Christmas time.
You seem to be far more interested in endlessly arguing about the past than thinking about current events. I think it all comes down to a recognized need to maintain continuous distractions.
@Greg:
No, Greg, that is not true and I know I wrote about it.
@Greg: You seem to be losing it, in the face of the avalanche of liberal scandals.
From Propublica, August 7, 2018 — The Shadow Rulers of the VA — How Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administration’s veterans policies.
Does anybody care? Hard to say, since hardly anyone knows.
@Greg: I guess we care as much as you cared about Obama running guns to Mexico or Hillary taking a bribe to sell our uranium to the Russians.
@Greg: You are right no one cares the union bosses have been doing the same thing for years and VA hospitals deteriorated