On this date in 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District, Joe Wilson, who made himself notorious back in 2009 at President Obama’s first State of the Union speech when he took the unprecedented act to disregard all decorum by standing up and screaming, “YOU LIE!” at the leader of the free world during a nationally televised speech. At least when Waldorf and Statler heckle on the Muppets, they make it funny. The GOP closed ranks, and only one member of the GOP voted to admonish him for it. Perhaps that should come as little surprise, because he once expressed his disappointment that nobody in the Democratic Primary in 2008 addressed Obama’s birth certificate. That seems to also fall into a pattern, because Joe Wilson was also a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans while a state legislator, tried denying his former boss on Capitol Hill, Strom Thurmond, had ever had an affair with an African-American woman, calling it “unseemly” and a “smear” that anyone would do so (meanwhile, genetic tests proved it true). In a debate about the soon-to-be Iraq War in 2002, Rep. Wilson denied that the United States supplied WMDs to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s to justify a need for force… and since voting to send our brave young men and women to fight in that conflict, Wilson has voted over a dozen times now against healthcare funding for veterans. He’s still using military conflicts to make irrational political points, though, as he claimed President Obama had only started airstrikes against ISIL because he wanted to distract Americans from Benghazi (where investigators found no administration wrongdoing), the IRS Scandal (where no malicious wrongdoing was found), and Obamacare (which is actually a positive thing). Which is to say, Rep. Wilson spends a lot of time jumping at shadows, as he also was highly suspicious of Planned Parenthood after watching the hoax videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress.
Now in his ninth term in office, Rep. Wilson continues being a regressive moron:
- February 16th, 2017: Wilson votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for Wilsons on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
- March 16th, 2017: Joe Wilson votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge’s written order. We feel safer already.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. Wilson votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses. Well, so much for privacy.
- May 4th, 2017: Wilson votes for the House GOP’s healthcare plan, that would kick roughly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), postpartum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Wilson would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
- June 8th, 2017: Joe Wilson votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
- October 3rd, 2017: Wilson votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
- November 16th, 2017: Joe Wilson votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
So, while Joe Wilson has a district tailor fit to keep electing conservatives, things are hardly copacetic down in South Carolina’s 2nd District. Rep. Wilson hosted a town hall back in April that, quite frankly, devolved into his constituents chanting “YOU LIE!” back at him, because he was feeding them some less-than-honest statements regarding the GOP’s attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. His district’s lean, though, remains at a +12, so at this point, it seems more likely that Wilson will continue to be a disgrace until he decides to call it a career. Pity, that.