Florida Democratic Congressman Frederica Wilson (shown) claimed that President Donald Trump’s call to the widow of an American serviceman living in her district was “horrible” and “insensitive.” She claimed President Trump told the widow that the soldier “knew what he signed up for,” as if he were somehow responsible for his own death. She later added that the president couldn’t remember the soldier’s name. Trump denied the assertions, saying there were multiple people in his office who could verify his version of events. The gist of the conversation was that Trump apparently told the widow that her husband was very brave man who knew what he faced yet did it anyway. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said in reply to Wilson, “It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me.… I thought at least that was sacred.” And then he directed his ire at that congresswoman, saying that Wilson was part of “the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise.”
It must have been an off-news day for the anti-Trump mainstream media because it jumped on the original story, making it headline news for days afterward. Too, they were delighted to take Kelly’s response to Wilson and allow it to take over the headlines just when that original story was fading into history. On Sunday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s AM Joy, host Joy Reid asked Wilson, “Would you like to have an apology from John Kelly?” Wilson took a deep breath and then irrupted this:
You know, John Kelly is almost — I guess you could say he was a puppet of the president and what he was trying to do was divert the attention away from the president on to me, and he basically just lied on me. I don’t like — I don’t appreciate people lying on me. And that’s what he did.
I’ve been in politics a long time and most things don’t bother me, you know, it just rolls off my back. I’ve been lied on before, but the character assassination that he went through to call me out of my name, an empty barrel, and all of the work that I’ve done in this community. Not only does he owe me an apology but he owes an apology to the American people, because when he lied on me he lied to them, and I don’t think that’s fair, and I think that’s wrong. And, yes, he does owe the American people an apology for lying on one of their congresswomen.
Correction, please, Ms. Wilson, it’s you who owes the American people an apology. Let’s review the reasons:
• Your voting record would make Karl Marx proud: Your Freedom Index score, which rates congressmen on their fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, since 2011 averages 21 percent, with one term earning you a nearly treasonous 11 out of 100. Despite your taking an oath to support and defend the Constitution, you instead have attacked it at every turn;
• For considering “illegal alien” a racist term, and promoting the view that since they’re here, even illegally, they deserve to become American citizens, despite the fact that their presence means less jobs for poor and poorly educated Americans, especially blacks, and that Americans have to pay as much as $100 billion a year in carrying costs for them (though the country is broke);
• For supporting affirmative action, racist preferences that harm Asians and whites, as necessary to compensate today’s blacks for historical injustices done to their ancestors;
• For decrying school vouchers for taking away “vital resources” from the failing public schools, though public schools fail more and more dramatically each year and though studies show that alternative educational options provide much better educational opportunities;
• For restricting the Second Amendment by any means necessary, even though self-defense is a right of all people, such as the minorities and women you say that you champion;
• For your characterization of the Tea Party as “the real enemy” of the United States that was holding Congress “hostage”;
• For saying that George Zimmerman “hunted down Trayvon Martin like a rabid dog. He was shot in the street. He was racially profiled.” You said this even after the jury heard all the evidence and declared Zimmerman innocent;
• For being a member of the Democratic Party about which Norman Thomas, the six-time Socialist Party candidate for the U.S. presidency, said in 1944: “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened…. I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform”;
• For being a member of the Congressional Black Caucus that sent a delegation of seven of its members to Cuba in April 2009 to enjoy Fidel Castro’s hospitality, with one of the CBC’s members, Representative Bobby Rush, telling an adoring media upon his return that speaking with Castro “was almost like listening to an old friend”;
• For being a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) whose agenda in its “Progressive Promise” included “Socialized medicine; a federal minimum wage ‘to ensure that working families can live above the poverty level … with dignity’; a federal jobs program; and the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ to purge conservative voices from the airwaves; fight global warming by promoting ‘environmental justice’ through government force”; all of which harm young and old and reduce freedoms in our country; and,
• For allowing your membership in the CPC to “provide an important lever that can be used to advance workers’ issues and move the debate to the left in every congressional district in the country,” as noted by Joelle Fishman, chair of the Communist Party USA’s Political Action Committee.
No, Ms. Wilson, John Kelly doesn’t owe you the time of day. Instead you owe the American people the sincerest of apologies for all of your anti-American votes, behaviors, and support for issues that line up with those of the Communist Party USA. Your apology should note especially your regret for violating your oath of office by taking that oath and then violating it over and over again.
Photo of Frederica Wilson: Screenshot of Wilson’s official website
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
