Washington – A South Carolina Republican lawmaker shouted “You lie” at President Barack Obama as he addressed Congress on Wednesday, prompting a GOP senator to call for an apology.
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In his speech in the House chamber, Obama was telling lawmakers that the Democratic plans for health care overhaul do not cover illegal immigrants.
“The reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally,” Obama said.
“You lie!” Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted from his seat, jabbing a finger in the air.
Following the speech, it was Obama’s Republican rival from last year’s presidential race for the White House who defended the president.
It was “totally disrespectful,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CNN of Wilson, a conservative who has opposed Obama’s economic remedies. “There is no place for it in that setting, or any other, and he should apologize for it immediately.”
Wilson’s spokesman Ryan Murphy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Wilson’s outburst caused Obama to pause briefly. Behind him House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., could be seen glaring in Wilson’s direction, but there was no move by Democratic leaders to censure Wilson. First lady Michelle Obama, in the visitors’ gallery, shook her head from side to side disapprovingly.
Neither the House nor the Senate health care overhaul bills would provide coverage for illegal immigrants.
Wilson’s wasn’t the only interruption during Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress.
Earlier, Republicans laughed when Obama acknowledged that there still were significant details to be worked out before a health overhaul can be passed.
According to TPM below is a statement from Rep. Joe Wilson
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) has apologized for breaking with protocol and calling the President a liar during his speech before Congess this evening.
“This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill,” Wilson said. “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.”
I guess that’s 90 percent of an apology, but politically, it may be too late to undo the impression that the GOP is handling the health care fight uncivilly.
I see a republican have gone to a new low.
PS wilson lied it clearly states that no money will go to insure illegal immigrants.
maybe he cannot read
H.R. 3200 includes a provision that specifically says that there will be no federal funds spent to cover illegal immigrants:
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.
These Republicans are in a state of panic because they know that the President will run them over on the health care reform issue and sign a bill into law. Even McCain knows that Wilson is mentally unstable and tried to paper over the outburst. His belated apology is too little too late. By’irtzah hashem, by this time next year, all Americans will have access to quality health care.
Actually Mr. Formally you lie and Wilson is right. They don’t offically pay for illegals now, but they cover them after the fact. These illegals use hospitals, clinics (fed funded and regular) and afterwards these places bill our State and Federal gov. They get a lot of the money back. Do you think for one second that these medical centers would treat these people if they knew they weren’t getting a cent in return?!
All Details of Obama’s Plan are not known to 99.99% of Americans and was not spelled out by Obama tonight.
I also heard some “Boooos” in middle of the speach.
I thought this is interesting. It starts looking like the Parliment on England, and the Isaraeli Keneset.
I say, awriiiight!!!
Intresting,there are still details to be worked out,but i thought health care shuould have passed by august.Thank you for admitting your critics were right about how wrong you were and are to try to rush it through.
one of the biggest reasons california is broke is because illegals get all benefits and don’t pay a dime for anything. and by the way there was i lot more lies in the speech.
That’s my man!! Yeah stand up to the truth!!!.
First of all, Under H.R. 3200, a ‘Health Insurance Exchange’ which will begin operation in 2013 would offer private plans alongside a public option…H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens—whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently—participating in the Exchange.
Also “undocumented aliens” who have a “substantial presence” in the US would be required to buy health insurance (page 4) through the exchanges in HR3200. They would also become eligible for “emergency Medicaid,” although not normal Medicaid (page 6) for up to five years!
Second, Harry Reid has called Town-hall protesters “evil-mongers”. When is he going to offer an apology?
I’m glad to see that your skewed thinking applies to everything, not only Jewish matters.
In NY and other states illegals receive many benefits that include free education, free medical care(child health plus/medicaid) and are not turned away from emergency care regardless whether they can pay or not.
While I agree that it was very disrespectful.. I also think that the speech was full of lies..
As a small business owner, I’m very scared of the government forcing me to pay for health insurance for my 15 workers..
I pay way too much $$ in taxes.. And this will put me out of business.
I just don’t understand one thing why was the s.c. senater called dissrispecteful when the president of the unidet states mr. obama dissrespects the country he reprisents by selling a boguss speach and falls information in front of congress witch he alone knows is not true whom dose he think he is folling ? he should be called to apalagize for not being true with the american peaple time and time over and over !! finally some one stude up for the truth !!
yea, but Mr Obama ostracizes others who do not beleive like him, and says “they are liers”. He is very smooth talker. listen to his speech from yesterday he said others “are liers”. his words
Because the bill does not explicitly provide hospitals and providers from refusing coverage to undocumented and illegal aliens, by default this bill enables the government to cover illegals through the use of such payment Methodologies as the DISH (Disproportionate Share) made to safety net providers.
The larger underlying issue here is that all versions of this bill fails to address the true underlying root causes for the current short comings in our health care system. instead it introduces a new process which will just create a new set of issues without fixing any of the existing set of issues. I have a feeling that It is also probably unconstitutional to force anyone to purchase a product or service they do not wish to purchase. Automobile insurance unlike heath insurance is designed to protect others from harm you may inflict upon them. If I choose to go with out insurance I am harming no one but myself. The law should say if you dont have health insurance and cannot show proof of funds required for treatment then no health care providor is required to treat you, that will encourage people to go out and buy insurance, which will cause risk sharing to increase lowering risk for the insurance companies who can then charge less per patient..
A government healthcare plan will ultimately be another version of socialism or as our illustrious Harvard educated dimwit of a president likes to call it … wealth distribution. We dont need a government healthcare plan, what we need a reduction in fraud, operating costs, malpractice costs, and tort reform and an increase in liabilities for providers, insurers and patients respectively. One thing I have to say is insurance companies that operate as for profits have a serious conflict of interest.
As for Medicare; if the government spent an additional 25 Million in fraud prevention and investigation we could probably reduce fraud, waste and improper billing by 25% which would easily be a 500 million dollar savings.
Most of this “plan” is nonsense and Washington would be be wise (i know using and “Wise” and “Washington” in the same sentence is ridiculous) to veto the damn thing and redirect their energies toward fixing the system we got today instead of creating new systems which will create new problems which we will need to fix in the future along with the current problems which will likley still be in existence years from now.
Its funny that while their leader Obama admits that the plan is not a 100% worked out my democratic congresswomen by her town hall meeting which I attended B.S about how the plan is final and how great its going to be.
I am starting to notice how every article posted on this website about politics their a core group of libs who seem to attack with a vengeance I just hope their getting paid for selling their soul to the Obama machine because it would be a shame to do it for free
John McCain is right. Wilson is an embarassment to his state, his party, the senate and the country. The Senate should censure Joe Wilson for his inexcusable and deplorable behavior dueing the presidential address.
He mixed up Obama speeches and acted like a first grader in the senate while the first graders behaved like senators should but didnt. )Besides the fact, the doofus handed Obama a victory just like that.)
It’s fascinating that some republicans who claim to be pro life only extend their pro life support to fetuses. Once someone is born, they don’t want them to have access to lifesaving care if they are an illegal alien. They want hospitals to have to check a person’s immigration status before providing care. They also don’t want many american citizens to have healthcare either.
This senator yells out at Obama during a speech and the media clobbers him. Some Islamic yahoo throws a shoe at Bush during one of his speeches and he’s celebrated in the media as some kind of clear-thinking progressive. What a world we live in.
Obama, The truth hurts
Right, because Nancy Pelosi never called President Bush a liar before… or said that the CIA lied to her…
A nincompoop and ibicile who disrespects this once great nation and its citizens day after day, deserves no respect. Even if he was elected president by a minority of Americans combined with a majority of mexicans.
Obama is owed nothing by anyone in this country, least of all respect. If I hit him with my car by accident, I would not apologize.
If Obama wanted to do the respectful thing, he would apologize to the American people, and take a permanent vacation to Hawai. And he should take his back stabbing boyfriend Rahm with him.
This guy should get re-elected easily! The Truth Shall Set You FREE! And Nancy ‘Pansy’ Pelosi… ha ha… you would have thought someone yelled out her low IQ score! Those liberals just kill me… and are trying to you…
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) wrote this in his op-ed in ‘The Hill’
H.R. 3200 contains gaping loopholes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits. And these loopholes are no accident. The legislation contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants do not apply for benefits. Republicans offered an amendment to close this loophole — it would have required verification using the existing methods that are already in place to verify eligibility for other federal benefits programs. But, when they were asked to put the language of the bill where their words were, in a party-line vote, House Democrats rejected the amendment to require verification and close this loophole.
Our media, unfortunately, don’t seem to understand. They persist in an Obama-friendly minimal analysis, saying simplistically that the bill excludes coverage for illegal aliens. For example:
•A recent Associated Press story devoted to “myth vs. fact” states simply, “THE FACTS: The proposals being negotiated do not provide coverage for illegal immigrants.”
•The website Factcheck.org claims it is “false” that “illegal immigrants will be covered.”
•Consumer Reports calls it “the myth that will not die.”
Those media evidently believe government can magically exclude illegals even in the absence of a screening system.
But history shows our social welfare bureaucracy is quite adept at finding loopholes to help illegal aliens. One example is food stamps.
Federal regulations [7 CFR 273.4 (b)] explicitly require that immigration authorities must be notified if they learn that an illegal alien is within a household applying for Food Stamps.
However, a “Catch 22” was created by the Clinton administration. In an “Interagency Notice (65 Fed. Reg. 58301, Sept. 28, 2000), bureaucrats were told that unless a person has already had a hearing and been formally determined to be an illegal immigrant, no government agency really “knows” that they are illegal — so they need not be turned in.
It’s just another example of how laws are bypassed when it comes to illegal immigration.
Only if you believe that our immigration laws are well-enforced can you believe that HR 3200 will not expand public benefits for illegal aliens. And if you believe that, I’ve got a certain bridge you might want to buy.
We need more like him to stand up to this crook
bush and the conservative did bang up job, i can see why you are distressed by Obama. You are just craving for another 8 years of bush cheeny
Maybe Mr. Wilson felt this was his only opportunity to tell it how it is. After all, if anyone dares to say anything negative about the President, his dog, his policies, his choice of tie, he/she is racist. On national TV no one would publicly accuse him of that as it is so patently not the case.
WHEN are the Dems going to get over the fact that Obama is black? Who cares? I certainly don’t. I care that Obama is a Marxist & is killing they country.
Mr. Wilson apologized for basically being rude, but not for his opinions. It was a perfectly acceptable apology. Because he did speak the truth.
How come illegal children get to go to public school and we pay for it? How come they go to the emergency room and we pay for it? How come if the child is born here, even though the parent is illegal it makes them a US citizen? how come they can get Social Security if their parent dies or is disabled? Food stamps? WIC? And we pay for it? THe system is broken.
What I find particularly troubling is the extraordinary breakdown in basic civility and the negative message that outbursts like this send our children. You don’t interrupt and scream while the president is speaking to congress just like you don’t interrupt and scream while a teacher is talking. The complete inability of some people to have a civil discussion over important and difficult issues is scary. We see it with people screaming “nazi” and “socialist” and at each other at every drop of a hat and extraordinary fear mongering. It’s fueled by talk radio and all the shouters on the cable so called “news” shows. We see all this extreme diatribe and lack of basic civility and decency in many comments on VIN and other news sites. The level of hate and polarization going on is very troubling. We need to return to the days when we have smart, articiulate legislators who can talk to each other even when they disagree, just like McCain and Kennedy or Hatch and Kennedy could talk to each other without name calling.
Just try to imagine if this scenario were reversed — if a Democrat had shouted “you lie!” when George Bush was lying to us about weapons of mass destruction at his State of the Union Address. Try to to imagine.
We would never hear the end of it from Republicans exhibiting their phony outrage and lecturing us all all about respect for the “position of the presidency.”
Instead, they will make excuses and condone the most blatant breach of congressional protocol that this country has ever seen.
The message is clear: the most basic aspects of derech eretz shall be neglected in the name of political partisanship. I weep for the future of this country.
It’s truly amazing how jews who have wandered from nation to nation over the centuries and who were admonished to remember that they were strangers in Egypt (where they, as economic migrants found food and shelter) hate immigrants so much. Perhaps all the right wing jews are the true “self-hating” jews because the immigrants they hate so much remind them of themselves. Aren’t we supposed to have some compassion? What has our wandering taught us?
Agree or disagree this was a breach of respect. Halacha says that we make a bracha when we see someone like Obama and we say tfila lishlom hamidina. We are fortunate that this government allows full dissent – we should do so with respect.
But Obama was lying!
Particularly when he said the deficit would not rise because of this bill.
He needs to be stopped before he completely destroys this country.
obama should invite wilson for a beer
i find it interesting that it is always all the anti torah anti rabbonim, anti chareidi bloggers that are the pro obama pro liberal etc. it seems to imply that they go hand in hand
Obama did lie. Pure and simple. As he always does. By the way, have you forgotten when Obama accused Bill Clinton of telling ‘Bald-Faced Lies’?
it is coming out now that this joe wilson guy is actually a little crazy and has lost self control in the past. he most definitely has anger management issues and doesnt know how to excersize appropriate behavior.
I, for one, am ecstatic to see someone finally stand up to our long-winded, agenda-pushing President. He has proven that he couldn’t care less what average Americans have to say about his bill. It seems to be that my opinion has been represented in Congress and I’m proud of Senator Wilson. Maybe President Obama should try making a better impression on the people that are in control of voting this bill in.