Month: September 2009

Question:If you, Republican Joe Wilson, show a utter lack of respect for the office of the presidency, a breech of protocol, a total lack of decorum, and a complete disregard for the level of professionalism expect by your elected position, what happens?

Answer: In less than 12 hours, 1362 people raise $45,475 to help elect Democrat Rob Miller as your replacement in the House of Representatives.

Update: 20 hours later, 4531 people have donated $155,362.

Update: 24 hours later, 5832 people have dontaed $203,070. Along with other Rob Miller campaigns on ActBlue, volunteers have donated a total of $592,075 to see Democrat Rob Miller displace Republican Joe Wilson in South Carolina’s 2nd district US House Representative.

See also: Joe Wilson is your pre-existing condition and career finance.

Update: Wilson health care industry darling and this is not the first time he has gone off at the mouth. See also and 2002 Joe Wilson lies about Saddam.

Update: Rich points to a youtube video of Democrats applauding during a state of the union address about blocking a bill as an example of Wilson like behavior. I understand their message in applauding goes against the President’s desires but it matches the excepted decorum on the Senate and no one outright demeaned the President.

The House is considering responding to Wilson’s actions.

"It is a clear violation of the rules of the House, and it needs to be resolved on the floor of the House either by an apology or by a resolution," said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

House rules and precedents provide substantial guidance on how a House member can and cannot refer to the president while speaking on the floor, and the guidelines state that it has been found impermissible to call the president a liar. The House was in formal session at the time of the speech.

[Source, New York Times, Heckler’s Behavior May Bring Action in House]

The White House has stiffened its stand against providing health care to illegal aliens. Whether this is what Obama said he was going to do or a response to Wilson won’t ever be known but is irrelevant as the end result is the same.

Here’s a tricky one. Joe Wilson Voted to Provide Taxpayer Money for Illegal Immigrants’ Healthcare. This is the crap that happens in our Congress.

However, in 2003, Wilson voted to provide federal funds for illegal immigrants’ healthcare. The vote came on the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, which contained Sec. 1011 authorizing $250,000 annually between 2003 and 2008 for government reimbursements to hospitals who provide treatment for uninsured illegal immigrants. The program has been extended through 2009 and there is currently a bipartisan bill in Congress to make it permanent. [Source, OpenCongress, Joe Wilson Voted to Provide Taxpayer Money for Illegal Immigrants’ Healthcare]

The misleading part of this is that the bill was "a much larger bill that contained many Republican priorities." Our bills should not be large bills with unrelated or concession type riders that force our lawmakers to let things slip through. I do not think this serves the people as much as it opens doors to serve the politicians and lobbyists with back scratching. "I’ve vote YES to your bill if you add this minor section."

Craig Ferguson’s response to Wilson.