While last night was Rep. Joe Wilson’s national coming out party as the Republican’s new poster boy for mindlessness, the truth is he has been really stupid for a while now.

Much has been made of the previously unknown Congressman screaming out, “You lie!” during President Obama’s address to Congress last night. His outburst came as Obama was talking about barring illegal immigrants from receiving benefits in his health care reform plan.

As the non-partisan site Politifact pointed out, this was not a lie at all; it was completely true. However, that did not prevent Wilson from defending his assertion today as he fought back tears outside his office.

Not surprisingly, this is not Wilson’s first brush with ignorance. Here he is in 2002 calling Rep. Bob Filner a liar and accusing him of “hating America” for asserting that we originally gave Saddam Hussein most of his chemical and biological weapons (which, of course, we did.)

And then there was this embarrassing incident from 2003 which he also had to apologize for:

Flashback to mid-December 2003, when Essie Mae Washington-Williams came forward with the bombshell that she was the illegitimate daughter of the recently-deceased patriarch of South Carolina politics, Sen. Strom Thurmond.

Rep. Wilson, a former page of Thurmond’s, immediately told The State newspaper that he didn’t believe Williams. He deemed the revelation “unseemly.” And he added that even if she was telling the truth, she should have kept the inconvenient facts to herself:

“It’s a smear on the image that [Thurmond] has as a person of high integrity who has been so loyal to the people of South Carolina,” Wilson said.

Of course, Williams’ story was entirely true — and never really in doubt. Thurmond was 22 and Williams’ mother, a black maid working in his family home, was 16 when Williams was born in 1925. Thurmond supported Williams financially for decades.

“I have the utmost respect for Essie Mae Washington-Williams and wish her and the Thurmond family all the best,” he said.

Six days and several furious letters to the editor later, Wilson was forced to apologize. But, amazingly, he maintained that Williams should not have gone public.

(via TPM)

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

Only one of these segments was supposed to be a joke. Can you tell which one?

This is from The Onion:

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

And this is Liz Cheney explaining why waterboading isn’t torture on This Week with George Stephanapoulos from earlier today.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

“Well, today, we lost a truly remarkable man. To paraphrase Shakespeare, I don’t think we shall ever see his like again. I think the legacy he left was not just with the landmark legislation he passed but in how he helped people look at themselves and look at one another.” –Joe Biden, yesterday, reflecting on Ted Kennedy’s life

When people talk about the political skills of Barack Obama, they often say, “he’s a great speaker, probably the best I’ve ever seen.” Even the President’s biggest critics will readily admit the man gives a speech like no one in the modern era.

Yet he had nothing on Ted Kennedy.

Kennedy could channel anger and emotion into prose like it was his second nature, while losing none of the complexity and eloquence of Obama. So much so that after watching him at his best, it really is hard to imagine we will ever see it again.

Listen to him at his best in these two clips. The first is Kennedy chastising Republicans on the Senate floor for not supporting an increase in the minimum wage. The second is his beautiful eulogy to his brother Bobby.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

In my short lifetime, I have never seen a politician speak in person more than I have seen Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

As a political science major at a college in Boston, witnessing a Ted Kennedy speech was almost a requirement for graduation. Remarkably though, for a man that was elected to the United States Senate a record nine times, none of the appearances I attended were ever on behalf of or in promotion of himself. As Vice President Joe Biden said this morning as he choked back tears, “unlike many important people in my 38 years I’ve had the privilege of knowing, the unique thing about Teddy was it was never about him.”

The first time I saw Ted Kennedy was at my alma mater Northeastern University where he gave a speech promoting higher education. I was crowded in the rear, by the door, and to my surprise, the Senator walked in the back way though the people instead of the taking the much easier route in the front. He was frail, as he was just getting over an illness, and much shorter in person than I would have guessed. He walked with a heavy limp, steadied by his cane, slowly and methodically to the front of the room. So slow in fact, I wondered whether he would ever make it to the stage. But as he drew closer, I saw there was no need to worry. You could see it in his face. His piercing, deep blue eyes conveyed a power and conviction that no television camera could ever capture; it was only something you could feel in person, standing next to him. And any lingering doubts completely ceased as soon as he spoke.

He had some prepared remarks on the podium in front of him, but he barely glanced them.  He also had a microphone, and though he was speaking before a hundred people or more, there was no need for it. His booming delivery carried throughout the room with such authority that you could hear a pin drop were he to pause mid sentence. He brought with him many charts and graphs explaining the positions he was advocating for, yet his voice gave more strength and power to his argument than any chart ever could. Everyone left that room that day with more than a lesson on education funding, they left in awe of his leadership and authority.

More than four years after I first heard him speak, I saw him for the last time in Hartford as part of his nationwide tour on behalf of the candidacy of Barack Obama. He was, of course, older then, and perhaps frailer looking than before, but his voice was even louder, more passionate, and more enthusiastic than it had been on that first day. As he left the stage to Obama to thundering applause, you could see the appreciation in the future President’s eyes, and perhaps a little wonderment. Could he–or anybody for that matter–ever do it better than Ted?

Longtime Democratic strategist Bob Shum remembers Kennedy’s ability and commitment to inspire a crowd.

…I saw it all again on that journey to Denver in 2008. He was taken to a hospital almost as soon as we arrived, was released and then was rushed back again. He was in agony — not from the cancer but from a sudden attack of kidney stones. He was determined to speak to the convention and left his hospital bed just a little more than an hour before his appearance, which much of the press and most delegates regarded as improbable or impossible. I stood and cried as he walked onto the stage. In 1980, he had gone there at the end of a long, hard quest through the primaries. This night was the expression of a lifetime’s undiminished commitment, the culmination of three weeks of drafting and daily practice sessions — we live only 25 minutes apart on Cape Cod — and then a harrowing day and a half in Denver. It was courage and conviction about the true purpose of politics that brought him to this moment. He spoke of economic justice, of equality, of health care as a fundamental right, of war and peace. He passed the torch to Barack Obama — to whose candidacy he had given a decisive endorsement the winter before. And he touched millions of hearts one more time: “The work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.”

But as many, including myself, remember the passion and eloquence with which Kennedy spoke, his enduring legacy has almost nothing to do with words, but with actions–achievements that are felt by every day, by every American, no matter their political affiliation. As Northeastern Journalism Professor Dan Kennedy so effectively put:

But what did Kennedy actually do? The answer: More than I can possibly detail here. He was the author of more than 2,500 bills and the driving force behind many of the most important liberal initiatives of the past 50 years. His biographer Adam Clymer wrote in 1999 that Kennedy “deserves recognition not just as the leading senator of his time, but as one of the greats in its history.”

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

Recently, President Obama had the audacity to suggest that everyone get a living will to prevent confusion during end of life care. He explained that both he and Michelle Obama have one and it lets you decide specifically how you would like to be treated if you are close to death. This simple suggestion (most likely a recommendation of every doctor in the country as well) has morphed into a bizarre fabrication on the right–a claim that a “Death Panel” would euphanize both disabled people and the elderly in macabre attempt to save money.

Sarah Palin even went so far as to say Obama’s  healthcare plan was “downright evil” because his “Death Panels” would have decided to kill her own Down’s Syndrome baby. The next day she  obliviously called for “civility” in the health care debate.

Staying on the Death Panel theme, Human Events, the conservative opinion publication, printed an Op-Ed talking about the United Kingdom’s socialized medicine and their supposed Death Panels, and said this about renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffers from ALS:

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless…”

Stephen Hawking was, of course, born in the UK and has lived there his whole life, rendering the argument ridiculous. And, of course, there are no “Death Panels” in the UK or in any of the bills in the House or Senate, but why would Republicans be beholden to such facts?

The screaming, violent protesters (organized by insurance companies under the guise of grassroots, populous anger) that have been showing up at Democratic town hall meetings certainly are not. In fact, one of the ignorant rabble rousers who started a fist fight and got hurt in the process is now asking for donations because he recently lost his job and has no health care. The bill he was so adamantly opposed to would bar insurance companies from dropping someone when they lose their job. It goes without saying that the irony of it all probably escaped him.

If he or anyone else cared about reality, they would watch this 60 Minutes piece on the free health clinics put on across the country that are normally reserved for third world countries. The heartbreaking story tells the story of thousands of people traveling hundreds of miles just for a simple mammogram or new set of glasses because–even with insurance–they are priced out of the market.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Or they would watch this Bill Moyers interview with a former health care industry whistle blower in which he describes all the despicable things those companies do to make a profit.

If they did, maybe they would all realize there already are Death Panels in this country. They’re called insurance company bureaucrats.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

I spend a lot of time ripping on members of Congress who are lining their pockets with money from insurance companies while trying to scuttle meaningful healthcare reform. But make no mistake, there are a lot in Congress who are on the right side of this issue. One is Rep. Anthony Weiner from Brooklyn. Here he is introducing an amendment to eliminate Medicare, or as some people know it “single payer socialized medicine.” He voted no, but he dared Republicans to put up or shut up when it comes to the evils of government run insurance.

And how many Republicans voted to kill an idea they supposedly despise? Zero, of course.

Here is Rep. Weiner on Rachel Maddow explaining his amendment.

Oh, and apparently the Congressman was roommates with Jon Stewart after college so that might explain why he can cut though bullshit so well.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain

The two committees with absolute and total control over whether a health care bill will pass Congress in the next few months are the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. The Heath Care Committees of both houses have, of course, released their own bills. And those bills are–of course–much more beneficial to the American public.

But they’re just the Health Care committee. Why would Congress ever look to them for health care reform?

But I repeat myself.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

• Jon Stewart makes Bill Kristol admit government health care is the best.

• Bill O’Reilly says Canadians have a larger life expectancy than Americans because we “have 10 times as many people” therefore “ten times as many accidents, crimes, and down the line.” Flawless logic as always.

• A homeless man left $4 million dollars in his will to NPR.

“Support for NPR comes from the estate of Richard Leroy Walters, whose life was enriched by NPR, and whose bequest seeks to encourage others to discover public radio.”

• Nate Silver shows how the Health Care bill, which will pass out of the Senate finance committee soon, is poorly designed, incomplete, and void of accurate math. Just another example of how, with all the staggering geniuses we have working on the Finance Committee, the handling of the greatest financial crisis in 80 years is in safe hands.

• Christopher Hitchens tells some amusing police stories and points out the real problem in Henry Louis Gates’ arrest was not his skin color, but the Constitution.

I can easily see how a black neighbor could have called the police when seeing professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. trying to push open the front door of his own house. And I can equally easily visualize a thuggish or oversensitive black cop answering the call. And I can also see how long it might take the misunderstanding to dawn on both parties. But Gates has a limp that partly accounts for his childhood nickname and is slight and modest in demeanor. Moreover, whatever he said to the cop was in the privacy of his own home. It is monstrous in the extreme that he should in that home be handcuffed, and then taken downtown, after it had been plainly established that he was indeed the householder. The president should certainly have kept his mouth closed about the whole business—he is a senior law officer with a duty of impartiality, not the micro-manager of our domestic disputes—but once he had said that the police conduct was “stupid,” he ought to have stuck to it, quite regardless of the rainbow of shades that was so pathetically and opportunistically deployed by the Cambridge Police Department. It is the U.S. Constitution, and not some competitive agglomeration of communities or constituencies, that makes a citizen the sovereign of his own home and privacy. There is absolutely no legal requirement to be polite in the defense of this right. And such rights cannot be negotiated away over beer.

• The Death of the Music Magazine

• Via Bill Simmons: Allen Iverson breaks down at his press conference for his scholarship program. Simmons says this about an upcoming documentary on Iverson:

For ESPN’s “30 For 30″ documentary series that premieres this fall, one of the first films is called “The Trial of Allen Iverson” (directed by Steve James of “Hoop Dreams” fame). I have only seen a rough cut. It has a chance to become one of the most important sports documentaries ever. Why? Because you will never think of Iverson the same way again. You will like him. You will feel bad for him. You will connect with him. You will admire him in a way that you never imagined. After witnessing what he endured legally and racially — how unfair it was, how un-American it was — and marveling at the dignity he showed as he put his life back together afterward, I promise, you will never bet against this guy.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

Simply put, everyone should watch this. This is nothing short of a dissertation on the ins and outs of health care policy in America as it stands now and everything we have to gain from undertaking reform.

The president explained what reform will do, what it won’t do, how we’ve already decided how to pay for 2/3 of it, the different options we have for paying for the last third, how it’s not going to hurt the deficit, how it will help the deficit in the long run, why the insurance and pharasetucial industries, doctors, nurses and hospitals all agree on major parts of it, why it will literally saves everyone money except for millionaires, AND the only reason anyone wants to destroy it is for pure politics, which they openly admit.

While explaining all this, the president spouted out facts, statistics, ideas, and analysis to both back up his claims and shoot down his critics. Just an amazingly detailed and sophisticated argument.

So naturally when I first saw the Politico headline and accompanying video, “Pundits unimpressed with Obama’s press conference,” I was flabbergasted.

No matter how bad they get, it never ceases to amaze me how genuine, educational information can be considered so un-newsworthy to the news media. But I guess after a week of focusing on how the irrelevant Bill Kristol said Republicans should kill health reform just for politics; or how Senator Jim DeMint said health care will “be Obama’s Waterloo” and will “break him;” or how Michael Steele not only didn’t know what an “individual requirement” was, but couldn’t even tell us what company provides his own health care; I guess its no wonder the whole thing flew over their heads.

Paul Krugman summed up the whole spectacle like this:

I found Obama’s health care presentation so impressive — so much command of the issues — that it had me worried. If I really like a politician’s speech, isn’t that an indication that he lacks the popular touch? (A couple of points off for “incentivize” — what ever happened to “encourage”? — but never mind.)

Seriously, it’s really good to see how much he gets it.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

When the news broke that Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates (who’s excellent work for the New Yorker is profiled here) was arrested in his own home in Cambridge a couple days ago in a widely reported racial profiling incident, many people were understandably shocked. But I would guess Dave Chappelle was not.  He was more likely nodding his head when he heard the news, saying, “I told you so.”

This is Chappelle from 2000:

“My house is too nice! I mean it’s not that nice…but they’ll never believe I live in it.”

And for those who question how you can get arrested in your own home for yelling at a police officer, here is a breakdown of the Gates incident, the charge of “disorderly conduct,” and how  it cuts against free speech.

———————–

And on a side note, I am always a little amused (and I’m guessing cops are too) when I end up reading about some police report where the guy getting arrested gets quoted as saying something like “You don’t know who you’re messing with!!” Of course, this is almost always the point in the story when the person is sitting in the back of a cop car, with his hands cuffed behind his back. If I was a police officer, hearing “You haven’t heard the last of me!” would probably be my favorite part of the job.

So even if the officer doesn’t want to apologize (and in all honestly, he seems like a decent guy), I just hope he just can admit, after watching the President of the United States call him out in a prime time news conference on national television, that he unequivically–and without a doubt–did not know who he was messing with.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer

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