He Should Apologize for the Lousy Apologies

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First things first:

H. R. 3200Close Comm

To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.

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.

Pretty clear to me, but as the old saw goes, let's walk a mile in Rep. Addison Graves Wilson Jr's shoes:

• In September 2002, on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, while engaged in a debate on the possibility of going to war in Iraq, Wilson called Congressman Bob Filner (D-California) "viscerally anti-American" and charged that he had a "hatred of America" after Filner suggested the United States supplied chemical and biological weapons to Saddam Hussein. Wilson said later that he didn't intend to insult his colleague.
• In 2003, following Essie Mae Washington-Williams' revelation that she was the illegitimate daughter of Wilson's former employer, the late Senator Strom Thurmond, Wilson was among those who publicly doubted her claim. Wilson said even if her story was true, she should not have revealed it because "it's a smear" on Thurmond's image was a way to "diminish" Thurmond's legacy.^[13] After Thurmond's family acknowledged the truth of Washington-Williams' revelation, Wilson apologized but said that he still thought that she should not have revealed that Thurmond was her father.
• Wilson is a member of the Southern heritage group, Sons of Confederate Veterans, which favors secession and defends slavery.
• Wilson went against his own party and voted with seven lone right-wingers to keep the Dixie Rebel flag flying over the South Carolina state capitol building.
• As a federal lawmaker, Wilson became a member of the House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC), a group of (mostly Republican) representatives founded by former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) with the mission of stopping “the explosive growth in illegal immigration,” “reversing the growth in legal immigration,” and halting “amnesties.”
• Other notoriously anti-immigrant members of HIRC include Steve King (R-IA), who described immigration as a “slow-motion Holocaust,” and Lamar Smith (R-TX), who equates undocumented immigrants with “terrorist weapons.” HIRC members Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), and King all proclaimed that undocumented immigrants would receive health care benefits long before Wilson’s outburst. The two Republican representatives, Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) and Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV), who proposed amendments to the House health care bill that would’ve added stringent citizenship verification mechanisms are active members of the HIRC as well. Heller and Deal also lead the fight to overturn the 14th Amendment and end the policy of automatically granting anyone who is born in the country US citizenship. (Addison hangs with the coolest crowd!)
  
• Wilson has co-sponsored several pieces of English-only legislation and supported efforts to report undocumented immigrants who seek emergency medical care. In 2006, he declared “it is time to curtail the invasion of illegal aliens.”

It's almost as if he has a professional responsibility to "lose it" when the topic of brown people is being spoken of by all things, a brown person! Unless, of course, this was just performance art, an attempt to bring a little tea party to the Joint Session. By that standard Rep. Wilson was timid. At least he's consistent with the pathetic apologies.

Thanks to La Fronterra Times for some of the items in this post. Photo of Sen. Strom Thurmond.

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