Frisch slams Boebert for ‘anti-military stand’ in National Defense Authorization Act debate in Congress

Democrat Adam Frisch, a former Aspen Town Council member, recently called out his likely 2024 congressional opponent, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, for her very vocal support for controversial culture-wars amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act.

Frisch, a moderate Western Slope businessman who lost to the far-right Republican Boebert by just 546 votes in the Colorado 3^rd Congressional District race in 2022, issued a press release blasting Boebert for “her anti-military stand” on the House floor on Friday.

From the release: “After voting in favor of an amendment that would ban reimbursing active duty military for costs related to seeking reproductive health care, Boebert applauded efforts to freeze military promotions over objections to the Defense Department’s reproductive health policies. She said such efforts are ‘dealing devastating blows’ to the ‘woke military.’”

The highly polarizing Boebert, who lives in Silt, represents the majority of Colorado’s Western Slope, including part of Eagle County. Frisch has been outraising Boebert by large margins in the latest campaign fundraising reports.

“Members of our military deserve dignity and respect as they make the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Instead, Rep. Boebert and the other members of the angertainment industry have made our service members the latest pawn in their partisan political games,” Frischsaid in his release. “Boebert’s support for blocking military promotions is a direct affront to our troops and weakens our national security. Not only that, but she is impeding on the freedoms of our service members by restricting access to reproductive health care. Those who serve our country deserve freedom and respect, not political games and government interference in their healthcare.”

Boebert has made curtailing reproductive rights a central theme of her reelection campaign, targeting Frisch and his family personally on the topic.  

Colorado Newsline on Friday reported that “Boebert introduced three amendments that got onto the bill, including one that prevents Department of Defense Education Activity schools ‘from purchasing and having pornographic and radical gender ideology books in their libraries.’ DODEA schools are for military-connected students from kindergarten through high school. 

“Speaking as a mother of four boys, enough is enough. I don’t send my boys to school to receive indoctrination from the woke mob or to be sexualized by groomers,” Boebert said when introducing the amendment. “And the same can be said for our service members, who are also parents sending their children to DODEA schools.”

Newsline continued: “Boebert cited examples of books she found in DODEA libraries that she claimed include sexually explicit material, as well as multiple LGBTQ-themed books. Book bans targeting material about LGBTQ people, particularly transgender people, have increased across the U.S. and in Colorado. Colorado’s representatives voted along party lines on Boebert’s amendment, with Democrats opposed.”

The website then reported that Colorado Democratic U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Army veteran who represents Colorado’s Front Range 6^th Congressional District, “said he voted against the NDAA for the first time since serving in Congress because of added restrictions on abortion access for service members.”

“Instead of addressing recruitment and retention challenges, they’re actively pushing partisan measures that will deter the best and brightest from joining our Armed Forces,” Crow said in a statement. “Instead of addressing climate change, they’re ignoring science and threatening military readiness, our economy, and way of life.”

Politico on Tuesday reported Boebert’s amendments, and those offered by other far-right Freedom Caucus members, are non-starters as the Senate takes up its version of the NDAA, which will then have to be reconciled with the House version that narrowly passed.

From Politico: “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer swiped at House Republicans on Tuesday, calling the upper chamber’s $886 billion bill ‘a prime example’ of bipartisanship on national security issues, in contrast to the House measure that cleared largely along party lines. The New York Democrat also called for both parties to reject hardline measures included in the House bill.”

“I certainly hope we do not see the kind of controversy that severely hindered the NDAA process over in the House,” Schumer warned on the Senate floor. “Both sides should defeat potentially toxic amendments and refrain from delaying the NDAA’s passage. So far, we have thankfully avoided all of that.”