Causing a stir on the Internet and throughout Capitol Hill, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted “you lie” during Pres. Obama’s health care speech to a joint session of Congress. Rep. Wilson, who claims that his emotions got the best of him, made the inappropriate outburst as Pres. Obama stated that people who immigrated into the country illegally would not be covered under his health care plan. From CNN:

Two words, delivered with index finger punctuating the air and directed at the president of the United States, made a little-known South Carolina congressman one of the most controversial men on the Internet -- at least Wednesday heading into Thursday.

Following the initial outburst, after Pres. Obama stated “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions,” Rep. Wilson then shouted out “not true.”

People For the American Way President Michael B. Keegan issued the following statement:

“Representative Wilson’s behavior last night was inappropriate and deeply disrespectful of the President, the Congress, and the millions of Americans who want to hear a reasoned discussion of health care reform. Mr. Wilson was right to apologize, and GOP leaders were right to distance themselves from his behavior.

Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing this as a skit on Saturday Night Live.

A must read, today’s E.J. Dionne column in the Washington Post “The Real Town Hall Story,” recounts a side of the town halls that was missing from television news coverage: that the “highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion” and “most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt.”

According to the Dionne, many television networks have sent stringers to scout boisterous and hostile town halls:

The most disturbing account came from Rep. David Price of North Carolina, who spoke with a stringer for one of the television networks at a large town-hall meeting he held in Durham.

The stringer said he was one of 10 people around the country assigned to watch such encounters. Price said he was told flatly: "Your meeting doesn't get covered unless it blows up." As it happens, the Durham audience was broadly sympathetic to reform efforts. No "news" there.

Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello (D), who represents the district formerly held by conservative Virgil Goode for more than a decade, described three different groups that he’s encountered in his 17 townhalls:

When I reached Rep. Tom Perriello last week, he divided the crowds at the 17 town halls he had held to that point in his largely rural Virginia district into three groups: conservatives, for whom the health-care battle is "about big government, socialism and all that"; the left, for whom "it's about corporate accountability"; and a "middle" for whom "it's about health care costs" and the problems with their coverage.

But the only citizens who commanded widespread media coverage last month were the right-wingers. And I bet you thought the media were “liberal.”

Have you looked at the news coverage of the health care debate and wondered where are the ordinary Americans in town hall meetings who support health care reform? They’re in the cities and suburbs, and rural America too. Or maybe you’ve been to a town hall meeting, and prepared yourself for loud, angry, violent opposition only to find reasonable voices on both sides of the debate willing to hear what their representatives had to say. Unfortunately, the media has ignored those voices in favor of tabloid TV.

Don't miss today's New York Times article on the steps Attorney General Eric Holder is taking to restore the Civil Rights Division's historic focus on high-impact enforcement against policies that have a discriminatory impact on minorities. Also underway are plans to beef up hiring of career attorneys and an administration-wide effort to enforce regulations that bar those who receive public funds from advancing policies that have a disparate impact on minorities.

Now all the Attorney General needs is for an end to the Republican obstruction that has prevented the confirmation of Tom Perez to head the Civil Rights Division, not to mention Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel and Chris Schroeder to head the Office of Legal Policy. By the time the Senate returns from its August recess, these nominees will have waited nearly 8 months, more than three months, and nearly one and a half months, respectively, for a vote by the full Senate following approval of their nominations by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It's time to stop the obstruction and to give the Attorney General the assistance he needs in returning justice to the Justice Department.

Check out this classic piece by Rachel Maddow, illustrating how far the Republicans are willing to go as the Party of No.

In Sunday’s Washington Post, historian and journalist Rick Perlstein offers up an insightful historical perspective on the teabaggers, birthers, and deathers who’ve been thrust to the forefront by the media, claiming to speak for all Americans in opposition to everything from health care reform to President Obama’s citizenship.

One parallel: When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was introduced, opponents said that it would “enslave” whites. Those claims don’t sound much nuttier than the allegations that a health care provision to help senior citizens who want to write a living will would actually have created “death panels.”

When John F. Kennedy entered the White House, his proposals to anchor America's nuclear defense in intercontinental ballistic missiles -- instead of long-range bombers -- and form closer ties with Eastern Bloc outliers such as Yugoslavia were taken as evidence that the young president was secretly disarming the United States. Thousands of delegates from 90 cities packed a National Indignation Convention in Dallas, a 1961 version of today's tea parties; a keynote speaker turned to the master of ceremonies after his introduction and remarked as the audience roared: "Tom Anderson here has turned moderate! All he wants to do is impeach [Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl] Warren. I'm for hanging him!"

Before the "black helicopters" of the 1990s, there were right-wingers claiming access to secret documents from the 1920s proving that the entire concept of a "civil rights movement" had been hatched in the Soviet Union; when the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act was introduced, one frequently read in the South that it would "enslave" whites. And back before there were Bolsheviks to blame, paranoids didn't lack for subversives -- anti-Catholic conspiracy theorists even had their own powerful political party in the 1840s and '50s.

We’ve all heard the saying that history repeats itself. Perlstein’s analysis is, without a doubt, a must read.
 

Dr. Joseph Lowery, civil rights icon and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was awarded the nation’s highest honor today, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama:

Calling him a “giant” of the civil rights movement, President Barack Obama on Wednesday awarded Atlanta’s Rev. Joseph Lowery the nation’s highest civilian honor Wednesday.

Lowery was one of 16 recipients of the Medal of Freedom. Less than 60 years after he and other black men were denied seats at white’s-only lunch counters and on buses, Lowery stood aside a Supreme Court judge, actors and actresses and some of science’s brightest minds in accepting the honor.

The rest of the awards went to Sidney Poitier, Jack Kemp, Stephen Hawking, Nancy Goodman Brinker, Pedro Jose Greer Jr., Billie Jean King, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Harvey Milk, Joseph Medicine Crow, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Muhammad Yunus, Janet Davison Rowley and Chita Rivera. In today’s ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Pres. Obama said the 16 honorees represent "what we can achieve in our lives . . . [and] the difference we can make in the lives of others."

PFAW’s Voters Alliance had the pleasure of working with Dr. Lowery last year for an ad on behalf of Georgia Senate candidate Jim Martin. Congratulations, Dr. Lowery for recognition for your years of service.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in on this Saturday, and today President Obama hosted a reception to celebrate her confirmation and her new role.  His remarks are right on the money.

Justice Sotomayor's rise from humble beginnings to the height of achievement is yet another symbol of that faith -- faith that the American Dream still endures; faith that "equal justice under the law" is not just an inscription in marble, but an animating ideal of our democracy; faith that in this great nation, all things are still possible for all people.

This is a great day for America, and I know that all of us here are proud and honored to have been a part of it.

People For put out a statement last week when the Senate confirmed her nomination, but it doesn't hurt to say it again: congratulations, Justice Sotomayor.

Patrick Leahy is fed up and he should be.

Dawn Johnsen, President Obama's nominee to head the all important Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, has been awaiting action by the full Senate since mid-March.

David Hamilton, President Obama's first judicial nomination, has been waiting since the beginning of June. 

Marisa Demeo, nominated to be an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia has been waiting since the end of May.

These are just three of the 15 Justice Department and Judicial nominees that Republicans have been stalling for months! "The Senate has to do better," says
Judiciary Chairman Leahy — and we couldn't agree more.

Click here to read more.

And take action by signing onto our petition urging the Senate to confirm Dawn Johnsen.

Legendary broadcaster Walter Cronkite, who passed away earlier this month, publicly came out as a liberal at PFAW’s Spirit of Liberty dinner held just days after the 1988 election. As the New York Times reported, “Walter Cronkite had always been more comfortable delivering the news than making it. But something was gnawing at him, and when the opportunity arose one evening not long after George Bush was elected President, Mr. Cronkite made a speech in defense of liberal values that surprised people more than he could have imagined.” Cronkite’s critique of Democratic politicians and call for liberals to forcefully advocate for their values are just as relevant now as then:

From the AFL-CIO's blog:

United Farmworkers founder César Chávez is an unfitting role model for students, and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is not an appropriate historical figure. So say “expert reviewers” in their report to the Texas State Board of Education, which recommends removing the two U.S. leaders from the social studies curriculum taught to its 4.7 million public school students.

The ranting of these extremists has the potential to turn into mass censorship—Texas is such a mega-purchaser of textbooks that the state’s required curricula drives the content of textbooks produced nationwide.

Read the whole post here >