There are many who support Rep. Joe Wilson calling the President a liar.  Unfortunately, these individuals forgot a very important and pertinent person; Rep. Pete Starks.  During a speech given on the floor of the House, Rep. Pete Starks (D-CA), called Republican’s and President Bush a liar.  It wasn’t TO President Bush’s face during an address to Congress he was giving, but, on the House floor.  The conservative blog HotAir noted that Republicans called for a motion of censure of Rep. Pete Starks at the time with him ultimately apologizing on the House floor.  But, the Democrat’s are merely playing politics with the motion of disapproval of Rep. Joe Wilson for his remarks.  And, unlike Rep. Pete Starks, Rep. Joe Wilson refuses to apologize from the House floor.

 

And, as Steve Miller sings, “here I am, stuck in the middle..”

Rep. Joe Wilson claims that “he won’t apologize again” for his outburst calling President Obama a liar.

The state of South Carolina has turned into one, big, sick joke.  You see it in the state’s politicians.  You see it in The State newspapers reporting, or more importantly, lack thereof.  It was bad enough that the state of South Carolina continually ranked near the bottom of every category, to include unemployment and education, the level of poverty in the state, among other issues.  It was bad enough that for decades, without fail, the electorate continually allowed the Republican Party to stay in power despite its inability to deal effectively with these issues.  Now, like the Republican Party itself, the state of South Carolina has simply devolved into a national joke.

During President Obama’s address to Congress concerning health care reform, Rep. Joe Wilson (SC-R) from South Carolina’s Second District decided to act like this address was a town hall meeting.  Speaking to the full Congress, President Obama addressed some of the misinformation being distributed about health care reform and when he stated that health care reform would not include undocumented, ie illegals, Rep. Joe Wilson screamed out, “You Lie”.

FactCheck.org has already shown that undocumented workers, ie illegals, would not be covered:

   H.R. 3200: Sec 246 – NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS

   Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

You read the title correctly; Dying is now seen as PROFIT venture!

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash – $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The first question should be, who in their right mind would sell their life insurance policy to Wall Street?  Why would people give up the very last of their children’s security upon their death?  Obviously, some are willing to do just that, and, Wall Street, not having missed an opportunity to turn a profit, is ready to capitalize on it.

In this madhouse called “the blogs”, it is actually the bloggers who are getting it right.

One of the most consistent voices is that of Glenn Greenwald who wrote about the very problem I cited (here in July 2008; that the Democratic Party gaining 60 seats in the Senate would change nothing.  But, Greenwald goes further and totally eviscerates President Obama, the Democrats, and their apologists:

Rahm Emanuel, Tom Delay, and the Bush/Cheney White House have left no doubt that where there’s a will to influence the actions of Senators and House members in one’s own party, there’s a way.  But the Obama White House has done nothing in the way of attempting to change the behavior of the supposedly obstructionist Blue Dogs and centrists whom Obama-defenders are eager to blame for the health care standstill.  In fact, they’ve done the opposite:  Emanuel has repeatedly leapt to their defense and attacked progressives who sought to influence or otherwise put pressure on them to change behavior.   White House threats that “you’ll never hear from us again” are issued to defiant progressives only.  Not only are such threats never issued to “centrists” and Blue Dogs who are supposedly impeding the President’s health care agenda, but the White House does everything it can to protect those ostensible obstructionists and further entrench them in power.  Isn’t all of this fairly strong evidence that the White House knew, accepted and likely even desired from the start that — despite the President’s public assurances to progressives — the “public option,” understandably despised by the insurance industry, would be dropped from bill?

Nobody suggests that the President could easily or single-handedly change the behavior of Kent Conrad or Mike Ross.  But there are certainly things — effective things — he could do to try, including making it more difficult for those politicians to stay in office, exactly as they threaten to do with defiant progressives.  But they don’t do that.  They do the opposite.  The reason that Blue Dogs and “centrists” exert such control in the Democratic Party and are able to ensure the Party remains beholden to corporate interests is because that’s how Party leaders want it.  That’s how the Democratic Party has been built and it’s how they continue to maintain their power.