posted September 16, 2009 11:07 AM         

Mr Carter told a public meeting there was "an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president".

Republican lawmaker Joe Wilson was rebuked on Tuesday in a House vote.

He shouted "You lie!" while Mr Obama was delivering an address on healthcare to Congress last Wednesday.

The House resolution of disapproval described it as "a breach of decorum".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8258011.stm

posted September 16, 2009 11:11 AM         

the fact spreak for themselves. what he was saying was a lie. although it was poor taste to point it out during his speech, his statement was true.

posted September 16, 2009 12:07 PM         

it was a publicity grab more than anything else, another ridiculous discreditation attempt by people who could be dealing with any number of more relevant/urgent questions.

whether it was racist or not i dunno. don't know the man though i hear he has made plenty of racist comments/ associations in the past. he's playing this for all the political capital he can get out of it. you know, no publicity is bad publicity...

posted September 16, 2009 01:46 PM         

However,I don't think that Wilson was being racist

but he really disrespected President Obama,and I think that it's highly uncalled for. Other presidents weren't disrespected like that in the past.

This is something that I read online

Ku Klux Klowns

Tuesday 15 September 2009

by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Columnist

How many white, middle-aged, overweight, ****** -off right-wingers does it take to unscrew a light bulb?

Depends on who you ask.

Organizers for this past weekend's anti-Obama protest in Washington, DC, were slinging around crowd-size estimates of two million people before the curtain was thankfully drawn on the thing, despite the fact that the number was actually in the tens of thousands. They were in the nation's capitol, so they said, to protest against too much governmental control over the lives of Americans, to protest taxation in general, to screech about birth certificates, to denounce President Obama and to see and be seen amid a throng of fat, white people who look just like them.

Call it a group hug for the demonstrably deranged. But there was more to it than just standard-issue anti-Obama sentiments being aired in the streets. Layered beneath the whole scene was a hard vein of bitter racism the participants didn't even try to hide.

"Packs of taxpayer marchers shuffled down Pennsylvania Avenue proudly waving signs," wrote author and political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson. "'The Long Legged Mack Daddy,' 'Where's the Birth Certificate,' 'Mississippi Freedom Riders,' 'Whoa Boys Take it from Here' (Obama waving to black and Islamic militants). Many defiantly waved Confederate flags and the Texas state flag (separatist movement emblem). Meanwhile, South Carolina senator Jim DeMint, Congresspersons Mike Pence, Phil Gingrey and Marsha Blackburn, and organizer mouthpiece scandal-plagued former House majority leader Dick Armey profusely swore that the march had nothing to do with race, politics, or even President Obama. The racist flags, symbols and signs, though, gave big lie to their profuse denials. Racism was on full and ugly display on the Capitol Mall. No attempt was made to mask it. Some protesters seemed quite proud to openly send a message about race and Obama."

The Agonist blog provided the following sharp analysis of the overall meaning behind the DC protest this weekend: "These teabag parties represent the newly disenfranchised white, rural voter - the backbone of the Republican Party and its southern strategy. The outburst this week by Rep. Joe Wilson, the obscure South Carolina Congressman who called President Obama a liar during his speech to a joint session of Congress, was prompted by Obama's statement that nothing in the healthcare reform package he is proposing would provide care for illegal immigrants. The fear of immigrants is a primal constant in American politics, but since the adoption of the southern strategy, this fear is at its core a racial concern. Immigration in the past 30 years is no longer about poor white people coming from Europe, it's about brown people coming from Mexico. Now that an African-American is president, protests against illegal immigrants can be a respectable way for people to say what is really on their mind - they cannot accept a black person as president."

Amusing aside regarding Representative Wilson and his rude outburst: "In 2003, Wilson voted to provide federal funds for illegal immigrants' health care. 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."

Well, nobody said you have to be smart in order to become a hero to the far right. In fact, it helps to be dumber than a sack of hair, if only to match wits with the kind of people who were marching this weekend holding signs that read "Bury Obamacare With Kennedy." Stay classy, GOP.

To be fair, not everyone in the Republican Party was thrilled with the nauseating display of hatred and unabashed racism in DC this weekend. Several of the GOP's leading lights have raised deep concerns about the party being overtaken by these insane idiots. "Such insiders point to theories running rampant on the Internet," reported The Los Angeles Times on Monday, "such as the idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is thus ineligible to be president, or that he is a communist, or that his allies want to set up Nazi-like detention camps for political opponents. Those theories, the insiders say, have stoked the GOP base and have created a "purist" climate in which a figure such as Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) is lionized for his 'You lie!' outburst last week when Obama addressed Congress. They are 'wild accusations and the paranoid delusions coming from the fever swamps,' said David Frum, a conservative author and speechwriter for President George W. Bush who is among the more vocal critics of the party base and of the conservative talk show hosts helping to fan the unrest. 'Like all conservatives, I am concerned about this administration's accumulation of economic power,' Frum said. 'Still, you have to be aware that there's a line where legitimate concerns begin to collapse into paranoid fantasy.'"

Frum was being nice, actually, because he knows better than anyone what took place in Washington this weekend. It was a Klan rally minus the bedsheets and torches. These people don't even have enough shame to hide their faces anymore. If more Republicans like Frum don't come forward to denounce such activities from their right flank, that right flank is going to finish the job of taking over the GOP, and hard as it is to believe, this kind of obnoxious craziness is going to seem quaint by comparison to what will be coming next.
http://www.truthout.org/091509R

Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

posted September 16, 2009 02:20 PM         

quote:

---

it excludes illegal aliens, but the part where they had safegaurds or check points in place to prevent that was voted down. so it might read like that, but in reality, there are no safegaurds to ensure it will happen and no filter if you will to prevent it from happening

---

Actually, there was an enforcement mechanism, so indeed it was Joe Wilson who was lying, not the President.

Immigrants and Insurance

September 11, 2009
Several readers have e-mailed us about a report from the Congressional Research Service that they say proves illegal immigrants will have coverage under the proposed House health care plan. In fact, that report says exactly what we concluded yesterday: The bill does not provide coverage for illegal immigrants, but there’s no enforcement mechanism explicitly specified. The newly created Health Choices Commissioner would be responsible for deciding how applicants for the affordability credits would need to prove their eligibility.

The CRS report states, as we have reported, that section "246 would bar unauthorized aliens from receiving any premium or cost-sharing credit." It goes on to address the Republican objections we wrote about in our article on Obama’s health care speech:

CRS, Aug. 25: Some have expressed concerns that since H.R. 3200 does not contain a mechanism to verify immigration status, the prohibitions on certain noncitizens (e.g, nonimmigrants and unauthorized aliens) receiving the credits may not be enforced. However, others note that under §142(a)(3) of the bill, it is the responsibility of the Health Choices Commissioner (Commissioner) to administer the “individual affordability credits under subtitle C of title II, including determination of eligibility for such credits.” Thus, it appears, absent of a provision in the bill specifying the verification procedure, that the Commissioner would be responsible for determining a mechanism to verify the eligibility of noncitizens for the credits.

The Health Choices Commissioner would also be responsible for deciding how and whether credits should be administered to families where some members are unauthorized and others are not, for example a family where a child is born on American soil to a citizen and an unauthorized immigrant spouse.

CRS also found that the bill technically requires illegal immigrants to obtain health insurance, but that’s hardly a benefit and certainly not a cost to taxpayers. In fact, under this interpretation, they could be fined if they fail to obtain it. This is because there is no language distinguishing legal from illegal immigrants in the category of "resident aliens," who are defined for purposes of federal income tax laws as those who have lived in the U.S. at least 31 days in the previous year and 183 days in the previous three years.

The House bill also contains no restrictions on undocumented immigrants buying insurance policies through the new Health Insurance Exchange if they are not already covered. However, they would have to buy it at their own expense, not with any subsidies paid for by taxpayers, just as they do now. In fact, millions of illegal immigrants have private health insurance now. As we”ve written before, about half of undocumented immigrants already have coverage, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center (those who don’t have insurance are usually in jobs that don’t offer it). They receive no government funds for this and cost the taxpayers nothing – and that wouldn’t change under the proposed bill.

If the exchange includes a federal option, illegal immigrants could also participate under the current House bill. But again, this is a matter of paying for their own insurance out of pocket, not receiving taxpayer funds – the federal option is government-administered, but it is not government-subsidized except through the "affordability credits" that the bill says may not be paid to illegal immigrants.

Update, Sept. 12: White House offocials told reporters late on Sept 11 that the president now favors requiring require proof of citizenship before someone could purchase insurance through the exchange, MSNBC reported.

According to MSNBC, the White House issued the following "bullet points" outlining its position on the matter:

• Undocumented immigrants would not be able to buy private insurance on the exchange. Those who are lawfully present in this country would be able to participate.

  
  

• Undocumented immigrants would be able to buy insurance in the non-exchange private market, just as they do today. That market will shrink as the exchange takes hold, but it will still exist and will be subject to reforms such as the bans on pre-existing conditions and caps.

  
  

• Verification will be required when purchasing health insurance on the exchange. One option is the SAVE program (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) which states currently use to make sure that undocumented immigrants don’t participate in safety-net programs for which they are ineligible.

The White House also stated that there would be no change in the present law which compensates hospitals for treating illegal immigrants in emergency rooms. http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/immigrants-and-insurance/

posted September 16, 2009 02:45 PM         

so they did take care of me...i was born in that frigging hospital and knew half the doctors there! ... but they sure made a fuss about it. and ran a bunch of completely unnecessary expensive tests on me while i was hanging on death's door. sometimes i think it would be better if we had NO healthcare!

posted September 16, 2009 04:04 PM         

or under what conditions.

posted September 16, 2009 07:04 PM         

The incidents of disrespect were quite different. Bush wasn't in Congress, and he wasn't giving a speech. He was doing a press conference. Also, it wasn't a citizen of his own country that threw the shoe.

posted September 16, 2009 07:16 PM         

i could really care less. certain things like acorn thugs in his pocket and other things make me think he is less honest than most. i got my good eye on him.

there have been far worse faux paux lately and bigger jerks than him.

posted September 16, 2009 09:10 PM         

A Congressman not a Senator.

posted September 16, 2009 09:19 PM         

You've been hyperventilating all over the threads about Joe Wilson's "YOU LIE" comment.

Besides, O'Bomber resorted to calling those who oppose O'BomberCare liars...and O'Bomber said it first. To say something is a lie requires there be a liar to say them. O'Bomber called Congressional Members liars in their own House.

Besides, it's O'Bomber who was on Lying Road and he got called out for it.

Shouldn't a President be in sufficient control of himself...and his tongue to maintain decorum in an important gathering...televised on broadcast television?

posted September 17, 2009 02:33 AM         

Yes, AG

That's what I meant. I should have made that clear. Thanks for understanding and pointing that out.

also the man that threw shoes at Bush's head was an Iraqi citizen in Iraq.

That's a lot different from a congressman disrespecting the president during a speech.

it's comparing apples and oranges.

peace,

Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"

posted September 17, 2009 02:02 PM         

USA is an Eristic nation

enough said

Raymond

------------------
"Nothing matters absolutely;
the truth is it only matters relatively"