Rep. Joe Wilson acknowledged Tuesday that he’s under investigation by the House ethics committee for his use of travel funds while on at least one congressional trip to Afghanistan.
Wilson, a South Carolina Republican in a tough re-election fight with Democrat Rob Miller, said the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — the official name of the ethics panel — is looking into his purchase of six goblets for $12 while in Afghanistan in August 2009.
“As a member of the House Armed Services Committee visiting troops in Afghanistan, Wilson was provided $13 a day for travel expenses,” said Pepper Pennington, his congressional spokeswoman.
“Wilson purchased six small tokens of his appreciation — under $2 each — for Afghanistan (war) veterans and their families,” Pennington said.
Oh, puh-leeeeze. 12 stinking dollars? When I first saw the title of this very biased “Pravda” article “‘You lie’ Rep. Joe Wilson probed for use of travel expenses” I thought I was actually going to read about real abuses of travel expenses, like $100,000 flights for him and 60 of his friends and stays at 5 star resort hotels, because we all know that never happens…..
Do you know what this is? This is the Ethics panel opening up an investigation over $12 as vengeance against him for shouting “You lie!” during the state of the union address earlier this year. They want to try to damage his reputation right before the election to help Miller’s Congressional run against him. And why else would McClatchy even take time writing an article on it unless they were going to point out the absurdity of the whole thing? Those people really do deserve to be labeled state run media. What a pathetic waste of time and resources.
Miller, a former Marine Corps captain who served in Iraq, has called Wilson’s trips to Afghanistan junkets
Naturally, because everyone knows that Afghanistan is on the top of everyone’s list of vacation hot spots to throw away money on luxurious junkets.
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is a taxpayer watchdog group that for years has been tracking and monitoring the wasteful spending being undertaken by our members of Congress. When I say waste I mean real waste, things that most all of us regardless of political ideology and views could likely agree on. Wasted spending like $1,454,000 for mosquito trapping research or $2,573,000 for potato research. Better yet, right here in our own backyard, UNC Charlotte received $762,000 for interactive dance software.
CAGW has a searchable database containing the 9,129 pork-barrel projects in the 2010 Congressional Pig Book. They also do a ranking of every member of Congress with a score of 100 indicating a taxpayer superhero and a score of 0 being a wasteful taxpayer abuser. Unfortunately, here in the Carolinas we have several big fat zeros. That list is below:
Congressman Joe Wilson (R) and his Democratic challenger Rob Miller are trading barbs as the race for South Carolina’s Second Congressional District is heating up. Miller sent out a press release yesterday accusing Wilson of accepting $5,000 in campaign donations from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Likewise, the Republicans have attacked Rob Miller for accepting thousands in donations from the radical leftist group Moveon.org. South Carolina Adjutant General Stan Spears condemned Miller yesterday morning for accepting donations from the very same group that ran the “General Betray Us” ads in 2007. Miller is retired from the U.S. Marine Corps.
The Republicans are claiming that Miller’s accusations of Wilson accepting Abramoff money are false and I searched around the FEC Web site and was not successful at finding any myself, however I did find several donations from Moveon made to Miller.
COLUMBIA — Conservatives in U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s district are facing facts: They’re angry that he voted for the 2008 Wall Street bailout, but they know opposing him could send his Democratic opponent to Congress.
Exhibit A is GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley, who declared in April that Wilson should “absolutely not” get another term but said Thursday that she now supports his re-election.
“This is about electing the most conservative candidate,” Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said. “In November, Congressmen Wilson is clearly the most conservative of those two candidates.”
Wilson, best known for shouting “you lie” last year while President Barack Obama was addressing Congress, is in a rematch against Democrat Rob Miller.
Wilson beat him two years ago with 54 percent of the vote, and this year’s contest is one of the nation’s most expensive U.S. House races, mostly because of the money that poured in to him and Miller after Wilson taunted Obama. Wilson’s most recent campaign finance report, filed May 19, shows he’s raised nearly $4 million while Miller has raised nearly $2.4 million. Their next reports are due next week.
Jane Kenny, organizer of the Tea Party Patriots of Bluffton at the foot of Wilson’s district near Beaufort and Hilton Head Island, said there’s no question that tea party activists are unhappy about Wilson’s bailout vote.
But, she said, “at this point in time we have a choice between Mr. Miller and Mr. Wilson. Mr. Miller is telling us he supports the Obama agenda, so by default, Wilson is our man.”
I don’t think Joe Wilson has a whole lot to worry about. Unlike Barrett, who in my opinion ended his political career when he voted for the bailout, I agree that Wilson will escape the fury. The first point is what Ms Kenny already stated. If you are a conservative or even a moderate in Wilson’s district and your alternative to Wilson is a candidate who supports the incredibly unpopular Obama agenda, who are you going to vote for? You’re going to vote for Wilson.
Second, as much as his behavior at the State of the Union address helped fuel Rob Miller’s candidacy, ironically it may have actually saved Wilson. While he took a lot of flack over the “You lie!” outburst, people are realizing he was right. Obama is a liar. He marketed himself as this enlightened politically centrist figure who could bridge the gap between an increasingly divided America. In actuality he’s become more polarizing than George Bush and he turned out to be the radical leftist that smart people like me knew he would be.
Right now, Democrat is a dirty word. We’re in a total 180 from where we were politically the last two election cycles. The momentum has been and I think will continue to be behind the GOP all the way up to Election Day and that will put Wilson over the finish line regardless of the mistakes he’s made.
Do you remember a month ago when I warned you about a piece of legislation called the Disclose Act? Well, it passed the U.S. House about an hour and a half ago. Just to recap the dangers this bill presents:
The point of the legislation would be to force corporations sponsoring a political ad to disclose their identity, even to the extreme of the CEO having to appear at the end of the ad in a disclaimer. However, it’s the more ominous language in the bill that has raised the eyebrows of those in the blogosphere and questioning if this legislation could unconstitutionally impact us as well. The issue is with the language.
Under the bill, the F.E.C. would have the authority to require disclosures regarding the funding of “coordinated communications,” defined in the bill as “a publicly distributed or disseminated communication that refers to a clearly identified candidate for Federal office” and is publicly distributed or disseminated within four months prior to an election. In other words, political ads. And this bill would specifically target those paid for by someone or some entity other than the candidates.
The bill specifically exempts certain forms of media from being considered “coordinated communications” and regulated by it, but blogs aren’t specifically listed.
And that is what is sounding the alarm. Here is the language of the bill stating who exceptions apply to.
‘(4) EXCEPTION- The term ‘covered communication’ does not include—
‘(A) a communication appearing in a news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate;
There is no mention of blogs in the list of communication and there is no language specifically exempting the communication of a private individual like myself and others who write Web sites like this.
It’s uncertain if this bill will make it through the Senate. After all, as the saying goes the Senate is the place where legislation goes to die. If they do pass it then we have an open door to Stalinism right here in the United States. Think it’s out of the question that the Federal government couldn’t abuse this law to shut down Web sites like this one and others that they feel are a threat to their power just like they do in countries like Iran, China, and Singapore? Think again.
The following Congressmen from North and South Carolina voted for this bill today:
Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
David Price (D-NC-04)
Larry Kissell (D-NC-08)
Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)
Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
John Spratt (D-SC-05)
Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)
The following members voted against the act to preserve freedom of speech:
Remember all the hubbub about Joe Wilson exclaiming “You lie!” to the President during the State of the Union address earlier this year? Of course you do. Despite the chastising he has taken since then by the left and even some on the right for his outburst there is one little problem hanging over the heads of Wilson’s critics. He was right. Both the House health care bill and the Senate health care bill still do not encompass provisions to screen out illegal immigrant workers from the mandate on businesses that they provide health care coverage for all of their employees.
The House bill mandates, and the Senate bill strongly encourages, businesses to extend health care coverage to all employees. But the bills do not have exemptions to screen out illegal immigrants, who usually obtain jobs by using false identities and are indistinguishable from legal workers.
A rough estimate by the Center for Immigration Studies suggests that the practical effect of the mandates would be that about 1 million illegal immigrants could obtain health insurance coverage through their employers.
Democrats who wrote the House bill said that employer coverage for illegal immigrants is not intentional, but rather the outcome of people breaking the law.
Technically, that may be true. People are breaking the law by hiring illegals, but let’s stop playing games here. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have taken serious steps to crack down on the hiring of illegals. In fact, under this administration and the direction of Janet Napolitano, INS raids on businesses known to employ illegals have all but stopped. The Feds aren’t going to do anything about this problem and the Democrats who wrote this House bill know that full well. Hence, they know they are to blame for the coming crisis if this bill becomes law so they are trying to pass the buck now.
The longer this drags out and receives more attention, the more Joe Wilson may turn out to be a hero to his district rather than an embarrassment.
Congressman Joe Wilson will be the guest of honor at the York County Republican Party’s Christmas fundraiser. Interesting choice. The event will take place on Friday, December 11th in the Magnolia Room at Laurel Creek beginning at 6:30PM. More details below courtesy of The Herald.
This year’s featured charity is Toys for Happiness, which collaborates with United Way of York County and various other groups to help families in need.
Guests are asked to bring items to benefit children from birth through 14 years. These items range from educational toys, gifts for infants/toddlers, sports equipment, arts and crafts supplies to $10 to $15 gift cards for ages 12 through 14.
Tickets are $50 a person or $95 a couple and include a festive buffet of heavy hors d’eouvres and a cash bar. For more information, e-mail Diane Carr at dianecarr1@bellsouth.net.
That’s the total raised by both candidates combined in the 29 days following “Liargate.” According to campaign finance reports Rob Miller has raised a little under $1.8 million and Joe Wilson a little under $3 million. While it would seem on the surface that Wilson is the primary beneficiary of his own outburst, remember that Miller does not need anywhere near the amount of money Wilson has in order to be competitive. He only needs to raise a few million to mount a strong challenge, enough to buy advertising and get the word out about why he would be a better representative for the second district than Joe Wilson has been. He’s easily going to raise that amount and more. So when you get down and really look at the nitty-gritty of things, this isn’t that great of news for Wilson, in my opinion.
The Post and Courier also points out that the bulk of the cash donated to both campaigns have come from out of state, 77% of Wilson’s new backers and 86% of Miller’s. They may have struck a chord with folks around the country, but money raised from people outside the district really doesn’t reflect the feelings of those in the district and who will actually be voting for who.
This will undeniably be one of the most watched races next year and I expect to see a decent amount of polling on it over the next year to keep track.
Congressman Joe Wilson pulled in a cool $2.7 million this quarter receiving donations from more than 50,000 individual donors from all over the country. He’ll need every penny of it next year. The infamous “You lie!” outburst has riled up both his base and that of Rob Miller’s whose third quarter report has not been filed yet.
North Carolina state Sen. Andrew Brock said wakeupamerica.com has bought time for the 30-second ad in Columbia, Greenville and Hilton Head Island for two weeks starting Monday.
The Mocksville, N.C., Republican, said the ads are needed to back up Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who shouted “You Lie!” at Obama as he pitched overhauling health care.
Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed a requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs.
Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits.
Grassley’s amendment was beaten back 10-13 on a party-line vote.
The bill, authored by committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would require applicants to verify their names, places of birth and Social Security numbers. In addition, legal immigrants would have to wait five years, as under current law, after obtaining citizenship or legal residency to access federal healthcare benefits such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program or receive tax credits or purchase insurance through the exchange created by the legislation.
But the would not require them to show a photo ID, such as a drivers license. Without that requirement, the bill “remains dearly lacking when it comes to identification,” Grassley said. “Frankly, I’m very perplexed as to why anyone would oppose this amendment,” he said.
There is nothing perplexing about it. The opposers of this ammendent want American citizens to pay for the health care of illegal immigrants in the hopes that some day they can grant amnesty to those illegal immigrants and they will vote for their political party. It’s not hard to understand.
By a vote of 240-179, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to shake their finger at Joe Wilson and say “shame on you” for calling Obama a liar during last week’s press conference. And that’s about all this bill does. There is no official punishment that can result from it, just wasting time on childish partisan politics.
I guess they will make him into a martyr. The Congress is like a bunch of school yard kids.
WASHINGTON – Bitterly divided over an accusatory outburst — “You lie” — lawmakers neared a vote Tuesday on admonishing one of their own for his jarring interruption of President Barack Obama.
The proposed resolution of disapproval against Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina added to the already-toxic atmosphere of partisanship in the House. Democrats said Wilson’s behavior during Obama’s speech to Congress last week was an egregious display of disrespect for the president that could not be ignored. Republicans accused the majority party of hypocrisy and wasting the taxpayers’ time.
“That’s a very serious breach of decorum, and if it goes unaddressed then we will probably see other, worse breaches in the future,” Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said before floor debate began.
But Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, a member of the Republican leadership, countered, “Our economy is struggling, families are hurting. And yet, this Congress is poised to demand an apology from a man who has already apologized. It’s a disappointment to millions of Americans.”
Everyone knows the story now. The President gave a public address to the Congress on health care. Congressman Joe Wilson called him a liar. There was “shock” and “outrage.” Wilson apologized. His opponent raised a ton of money. The White House accepted Wilson’s apology. Life moves on, right? Maybe not.
So, with all this going on, of course, the Democrats would just step back and let Wilson and the Republicans stumble around, right? They would follow that old adage of not getting in the way of your opponents when they’re in the middle of self-destructing, right?
Apparently not.
House Democratic leaders plan to bring a resolution to the House floor next week to admonish South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson if he does not apologize on the House floor for his outburst during President Obama’s joint address to Congress, according to several House Democratic leadership aides.
“He’s violated the rules of the House with inappropriate conduct and he’s subject to reprimand,” said Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for House Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, D-South Carolina.
Earlier, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had said that Wilson violated House rules — but also said that it was “time for us to talk about health care and not Mr. Wilson.”
Pelosi would be wise to get her troops in order and not let this resolution gather any steam. This looks like the Democrats piling on one member who has already apologized both in an official statement and in a personal call to the White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Obama took the high road Thursday, accepted Wilson’s apology and said it’s time to move on. Trying to keep the story going into a second week makes congressional Democrats look like they’re more interested in crafting political advantage than in trying to uphold parliamentary protocol. Besides, a case can be made that Wilson might, technically, not have violated House rules. A determination would ultimately come down to a party-line vote. But do Democrats really want to have a lengthy debate that might come down to the parsing of the president’s words in a speech — and Wilson’s interpretation of them? Probably not.
George has a valid point. If the Democrats keep the feigned outrage going they risk looking like bullies and Stalinists attacking a member of the Congress for expressing an opinion they don’t like. The public is tired of political shenanigans. They make great political theater for the mindless masses, but ultimately, the public is not that interested. They just want things to get done.
Upon heckling the President in his speech the other night, both Congressman Joe Wilson and Democrat Rob Miller have lined their campaign coffers with cash for next year’s election. As of yesterday, Wilson had slightly outraised Miller in the past couple of days, but post polling shows the race now a dead heat.
Republican Congressman Joe Wilson trails challenger Rob Miller 44-43 in the wake of his shouting out ‘you lie’ during President Obama’s speech to Congress on Wednesday night. Wilson defeated Miller 54-46 in the 2008 election.
Now whether or not this lasts remains to be seen. It’s not unusual nor surprising that Miller would get a huge bump off of Wilson’s gaffe. Obama has also enjoyed an uptick of support concerning health care after delivering another one of his classic eloquent, yet empty, speeches. Once the furor over the incident dies down and people start focusing on the real issues again then Wilson will know if he’s in any real danger or not. Regardless, Rob Miller has a lot of reasons to be smiling right now and Wilson will be on offense for quite some time.
Joe Wilson’s foot in mouth disease had made for some major bank for his Democratic opponent Rob Miller. As of 5:30 PM today, $880,745 has been raised for Miller since Wilson’s outburst a few days ago.
Update: However, Wilson’s cure seems to be a prosperous one. According to Politico, he’s raised over $1 million in the past 48 hours!
Read it for yourself and decide. This is an email that was sent to Erick Erickson, editor of the conservative Web site RedState.
From: Henry Lowe hlowe1@hotmail.com
Subject: Red State conservatives
Date: September 11, 2009 8:26:19 PM EDT
To: contact@redstate.com
I pray DAILY that all of you racist, right wing conservative TRAITORS die poor, disenfranchised, and disgraced…and VERY SOON! Joe Wilson and all of you confederate TRAITORS who think like and support him should all find no safe haven in this country.
May Joe Wilson live in constant fear that he will be neutralized, at his favorite restaurant, in a shopping mall, or on a family vacation. I pray some patriot gives that racist demon what he deserves, very soon.
I see a day soon when all of you racist conservative TRAITORS will be attacked on a daily basis. I pray you are extincted politically and socially, America’s democracy depends on it. You are all a cancer on this country. May your days on this earth be days of profuse and intense suffering, and may your reservations in hell be filled very SOON! You TREASONOUS sons of bi*ches are domestic terrorists, and I pray we use the Patriot Act to rid our nation of you hypocritical, inbred, racist, ignorant scummy pigs and dogs.
I KNOW my prayers will be answered before long.
Wow! That is pretty brazen. Joe Wilson needs to look over his shoulder everywhere he goes? He’ll get what he deserves? Henry Lowe KNOWS that his prayer will be answered?
All of this hatred from a man just because Joe Wilson exercised his freedom of speech and called the President a liar.
What’s the matter with South Carolina? That’s the question asked by Politico columnist Alexander Burns. Indeed, South Carolina has been a focal point of hot bed politics and political scandal recently, but as former State Republican Chairman Katon Dawson points out, it’s really nothing new.
Dawson agreed, citing the state’s long and tempestuous political history as a mark of pride: “South Carolina’s been yelling from the top of our lungs on national politics since this nation was formed and entered the union.”
Consider the attention, sometimes unwanted, that we’ve received over the past year. You could write a whole book on Mark Sanford. The Governor went from being the favorite son of conservatives and economic libertarians to rumored presidential candidate only to then fall from grace as his scandalous extra-marital affair became headline news around the nation. Sanford’s status rose quickly when he was the only governor to fight the wasteful stimulus package thrust on us by the Federal government. He received endless and thunderous applause at the Greenville Tea Party earlier this year, yet in a flash all of that respect and fame soured to notoriety and disappointment as details of his Argentine “soul mate” Maria Chapur pierced the airwaves.
Look at conservative rising star Senator Jim DeMint who has made it his career to call out waste and corruption in Washington D.C. and be the general in the battle against the unconstitutional overreaching grip of the Federal government. DeMint took flak earlier this year when referring to health care as Obama’s “Waterloo”, but was he necessarily wrong?
On the flip side is Republican Congressman Bob Inglis who hasn’t wavered in ruffling the feathers of the conservative base of his Congressional district. He has taken an onslaught of criticism for his changing opinion towards accepting the fraudulent theory of man made climate change. Even more recently he riled the far right at a town hall meeting when he told them to turn off Glenn Beck. Inglis has earned himself several primary challengers in next year’s election.
Let’s also not forget former State Treasurer Tom Ravenel who was sent up the river for the distribution of cocaine. Then of course, Joe Wilson has become the most well known Congressman in America over the past couple of days for his outburst during Obama’s Congressional address accusing the President of lying.
Is this bad for South Carolina? Are we embarrassing or are we emboldened? We did fire the first shot in the Civil War, after all. I guess the impression of our state is in the eye of the beholder. We certainly aren’t perfect, but we definitely could be worse. We aren’t in a full fledged melt down like California. We aren’t chasing every business and hard working American out of the state like New York. Our own scandals really aren’t any less comparative than those of Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio.
Personally, it gives me a lot to write about and opine on. I’d probably be pretty bored with writing if I lived in Vermont.
