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.
A few hours later, he complied in a written statement, saying “I let my emotions get the best of me,” The Associated Press reported. “While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.”
The timing could not have been worse: Wilson’s son, Alan Wilson, launched a bid Tuesday for state attorney general.
And Wilson himself is facing the possibility of a credible rematch of his narrow 2008 victory over Marine Corps veteran and Democrat Rob Miller, which Wilson won with 53.7 percent of the vote.
Miller received a flood of online donations in the hour after the speech, according to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee officials, with one estimate pegging the number of contributions at more than 200.
Whether or not Wilson’s outburst will hurt him next year really depends on how the voters in his district view Obama. If his popularity continues to fall then I doubt Wilson’s actions are going to do any harm. If people are more upbeat about Obama next year, then it could spell trouble and Rob Miller is certain to seize on this. According to RedState, Miller raised $100,000 in donations in the past 18 hours.
Did y’all hear Congressman Joe Wilson stand up and yell “You lie!” to Obama tonight when he said illegal aliens won’t get covered under government health care? It was clearly audible on the television and it made the Dalai Bama pause for a second or two. It’s already hit YouTube.
R.D. Anderson Applied Tech. Ctr.
Moore, SC 29369
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Start Time: 7:00 PM
New Prospect Elem. School
Inman, SC 29349
Monday, August 24, 2009
Start Time: 7:00 PM
Lake Forest Elementary
Greenville, SC 29615
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Start Time: 7:00 PM
Senator DeMint (R-SC)
Town Hall Breakfast on Daniel Island in Charleston at 8 a.m. on Monday August 17.
Town Hall Lunch at Sea Captain’s House in Myrtle Beach at noon on Wed. August 19.
Town Hall Breakfast at Tommy’s Ham House in Greenville at 8 a.m. on Thurs. August 20.
Town Hall Lunch at Wade’s Restaurant in Spartanburg at noon on Thurs. August 20
Town Hall Lunch in Sun City at noon on Friday August 21.
Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
Town Hall at Midland’s Tech NE Campus, 1151 Powell Rd. Columbia 6-7 p.m. on Aug.17.
Town Hall at Lexington Town Hall 6-7 p.m. on August 20.
Town Hall at 10 a.m. on August 22 at USC Beaufort North Campus, Performing Arts Center, 801 Carteret Street, Beaufort.
Town Hall meeting at 2:30 p.m. on August 22 at Hilton Head High School, Visual and Performing Arts Center, 70 Wilborn Rd. Hilton Head.
I’m a little behind the ball on this one, but Lexington town councilman Danny Frazier (R) has decided to seek the Republican nomination to run for the 69th State House seat in South Carolina. The seat is being vacated by State Representative Ted Pitts who is running for Lieutenant Governor next year.
Frazier caused a minor controversy last year when he referred to Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC-02) as a “wussy” for his refusal to ask for earmarks. I would consider Wilson’s refusal as standing up for principle and fiscal responsibility, but perhaps Frazier is another one of those big government “conservative” types that thinks Federal money is free.
This still has to pass the U.S. Senate of course and that is nowhere near certain. They need 60 ayes just to be able to vote for it and I imagine there will be Democrat defectors there just as there were in the House.
Those who voted to raise your energy bills by about $1500 a year to “save the planet” are as follows:
G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
David Price (D-NC-04)
Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)
Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
Jack Spratt (D-SC-05)
Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)
Those who voted to protect your liberty, labor, and livelihood were:
