Sen. Kyl Blames Obama for 2007 Immigration Reform Failures

A definite pattern has emerged from Republicans on how to deal not only with the future but with their past.  I've well documented how Republicans blame Obama for not fixing fast enough the economy they crashed.  Ditto for the more than $1 trillion of new spending under Bush and the $1.5 trillion budget deficit entirely created by Bush policies (not to mention his endless war program).  It's all Obama's fault, they claim.  But how about immigration reform that Bush championed in 2007?  Oh that's a failure of Obama too!

In a statement Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) tried his hardest to rewrite history to fit the GOP narrative:

 “I note that in his response to today’s Supreme Court ruling, President Obama called on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. I also note that the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill I helped draft in 2007 was killed — in part — by then-Senator Obama,” Sen. Jon Kyl (AZ), a Republican leadership member, said in a statement.

As TPM notes, Barack Obama voted in favor of Kyl's immigration bill.  It was Kyl that sided with his Republican Party to filibuster the bill.  "The motion to advance the bill in June 2007 went down 45-50, falling short of the 60 votes needed to break the filibuster. Thirty-eight Democrats and 6 Republicans, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), voted in favor, while 38 Republicans, including Kyl, and 11 Democrats blocked it."

The bill failed not because Sen. Obama helped kill it like Kyl is now trying to claim.  It failed because Sen. Kyl and his GOP led a filibuster against President Bush's legislation.  Just like in the post below where Kristen Billy now claims an entirely different comment and wants to ignore just how horrible a situation President Obama inherited, so too is Sen. Kyl and the brain dead GOP trying to rewrite history to fit their Fantasy World.  They have no morals.  No souls.  They simply want power and will say or do anything to get it. 

I can say whatever I want and the media will never make me own it

Yet Again Mittens Has No Clue What He's Talking About

Given that Mittens Romney has failed to tell anyone his stance on immigration-- or anything really--, it hasn't stopped him from making up complete lies to paint the Obama administration as having failed on the issue.  In a speech to wealthy donors tonight Mittens had this to say:

“[G]iven the failure of the immigration policy in this country, I would have preferred to see the Supreme Court give more latitude to the states, not less,” he said. “And there are states now under this decision have less authority, less latitude, to enforce immigration laws.” Because Obama hasn’t acted, he said, “it’s a muddle.”

Just not true.

Romney has numerous times used complete lies to paint a totally different version of reality in hopes to confuse just enough voters to get him elected.  He routinely says the president is on a spending binge.  However, data clearly shows there's no truth to that in any way whatsoever.  Romney also routinely says the president has made the economy worse, which is not true in the least.  Spending under this president has shrunk and the economy is in better shape now than what Obama inherited.   Conversely, the Obama administration has enforced current immigration law way more than Bush and the GOP did when they were in control.

Once again, the issue has changed but the tune remains the same.  Republicans blasting Democrats for doing a better job than them.  How Republicans cope is to make up complete lies and have Fox News repeat it a hundred times every day.

Immigration Laws

I don't know a whole heck of a lot about AZ's immigration law.  I know enough to get by, which is probably more than the average person does.  But I'm no expert on the law and have a lot of qualms with it.  Yet this is one part I agree with: "Brewer is cheering the the Court’s decision, arguing that the justices preserved the “heart” of the law which “lets police check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws if ‘reasonable suspicion’ exists that the person is in the United States illegally."

I come from a long family line of police officers.  And if they pull someone over for speeding and there's reasonable cause to check immigration status then so be it.  I really see nothing wrong with this, especially for border states.  Police have reasonable suspicion for a number of things.  If they think there are drugs in your car, or have a suspicion to think so, and they ask you to get out of the car and you refuse, they can legally pull you out by your ears and drop you like a hot match if they wanted to.  But they can't check to see if you are committing a crime by being in the country illegally?  Really?

Quickies- SCOTUS Edition

• No ruling expected today on HCR.

• The Court upholds its recent Citizens United decision by tossing out Montana's challenge.

• In a mixed bag the Court threw out some of Arizona's controversial immigration law but left some of its most heated parts intact. 

• The Court also ruled in Miller v. Alabama that life in prison without parole for juveniles is unconstitutional.  Or at least that's what I think it says.

Gas Prices

Honestly I would rather see the president invest his time and energy into fighting high gas prices rather than rehashing immigration reform.

Did Arizona Sheriff's Deputy Really Shoot Himself?

Since officially losing power in 2008, there have been no shortage of crazy right wing conspiracy theories and/or tall-tales used to justify their return to power and the policies they seek. In addition to wanting to repeal numerous Constitutional Amendments they feel burden their ideology, and wanting to reinstate Jim Crow laws to help guarantee their victory at the polls, right wing extremists Republicans have also seized upon immigration as a cause to garner their return to power.

Over the summer it was evil Mexican drug lords had invaded Texas and occupied ranches.  When that lie failed to stir up anti-immigrant hysteria and was without a doubt proven as a complete lie, the right wing moved onto other completely false stories.  Not to be outdone, incumbent Republican governor of Arizona stated publicly that raging Mexican aliens had been beheading people in the desert.  She later admitted she had no proof of that ever happening.

But the one that takes the Idiot Prize for fear mongering in hopes to advance Republican policy has to be Arizona sheriff's deputy Louie Puroll.

Puroll, being in full support of AZ's new immigration policy, used a story that he had been shot in the AZ desert while chasing illegal Mexican aliens who also happened to be smuggling drugs.  It's not that people are coming into this country illegally to do jobs Americans won't do.  It's that evil Mexicans are sneaking into this country to force drugs onto our youth to thwart America's future.  At least that's always the story from Republicans.

As it turns out Puroll's story was so questionable some local media enlisted expert help to collaborate his story.  Yeah, that doesn't prove so well for right wing moonbattery.  Suffice to say the Puroll case has been reopened.

Elected Republican: Anchor Babies Are Little Terrorists

No denying the new chic term for the fringe right wing that controls the Republican Party is terrorist. It hit their vernacular in 2001 but since the Greatest President Ever who defeated terrorism worldwide has left office, it's really become their favorite word.

Post-WWII the right used the word communist to spread fear.  But since our president now is a communist, the word doesn't have the same fear magnetism that it used to.  So they've moved on to terrorist.  That's why everything Republicans oppose, like non-white immigrants, relates in some way or form to terrorism.

Texas state Rep. Debbie Riddle (R) on CNN:

COOPER: Representative Riddle, you told my producer that pregnant women are coming here as tourists, having babies, and then going back home — quote — “with the nefarious purpose of turning them into little terrorists, who will then come back to the U.S. and do us harm.” You said it’s part of an organized terrorist element and could cost us lives. Where did you hear that?

RIDDLE: That is information that is coming to my office from former FBI officials. 

The Red Scare all over again.  Except we'll call this one the Brown Scare.  Wheee!!

I have to disclose, out of blogger ethical standards, that I am a product of illegal immigration.  My great grandparents (on my dad's side) came to America from Ireland illegally.  They stayed and gave birth to "anchor babies" just so their kids could have a better life.  They succeeded in that regard. But the Irish are white and so am I so that makes it all okay.  It's the brownies and their hippie supporters we have to watch out for.

Disagreeing With Obama's Immigration Policy

I knew in 2007 when talking to Senator Obama's legislative director, Chris Lu, that when the senator ran for president he would probably win, that I would be supportive of the campaign and that I would have some policy disagreements with an Obama administration. One of those disagreements I knew I would have would be on energy. Another would be immigration.

Reading through some of the president's ideas on immigration reform, it all seems a little too George Bush to me. Even some reporters at the LA Times concluded the same thing. I disagree with providing a path to citizenship for those that are here illegally.  I don't, however, support deporting all illegals.  I think that task would be impossible and illogical.  But I think those that are here illegally and are arrested for other crimes they have committed while here should be deported.  I don't think we need a law that makes people of Hispanic/Mexican/brownish skin origin automatically have probable cause for police to check their citizenship.  We might as well have them wear arm bands to prove it if we are going to do that.

Immigration has always been an issue in America.  Right now, I think more focus should be applied to the businesses and corporations that are recruiting, hiring, and transporting illegals into this country.  Meat packing plants are the worse about this. The clothing industry is a close second.  Large fines don't seem to be doing the trick. Jail time, larger fines and more law enforcement applied in this direction rather than only border patrol I feel would help dramatically.  But a pathway to citizenship for those that had no regard for our laws in the first place only invites another generation to ignore our already liberal immigration policies.

*Update:

As luck would have it, a friend emails me a link to the latest statistics showing deportations have increased dramatically under the Obama administration.  The new administration has deported more illegals in 17 months than the Bush administration did in his first four years combined.