RUSH: We have audio sound bites here from Jeb Bush. A number of things the former Florida governor’s said in years past have come to light. Some of them, many people think, are really odd. Some people think they’re really strange. One of the ideas that Jeb has touted is that since Detroit is failing, just repopulate it with immigrants. Just make it Tijuana North, or Cabo North. Pick a whatever, put the illegal immigrants there, and renew Detroit and bring it up out of the ashes.

The immigrants can do it, the illegal immigrants.

He said it is the perfect place to do it. I don’t know what the current town council, city council population would think about that. Probably have a pretty good idea when they hear about it. First up, this is Jeb yesterday afternoon in Detroit at the Detroit Economic Club. The moderator is Detroit regional Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Sandy Baruah. He’s moderating, talking to Jeb, and he said, “Where does this nation need to go in terms of immigration reform, and what are its prospects for actual success?”

JEB: Immigration’s not our problem. The immigrant experience in our country makes us unique and special and different, and it is part of our extraordinary success. We need young, dynamic people that can make an immediate contribution to our economy. We shouldn’t be fearful of this. We should say, “What an incredible opportunity.” And so I would hope that that mentality of shifting this to an economic issue rather than a political issue will be helpful, and it starts with regaining confidence that the federal government can enforce the border. They need to secure the border, first and foremost. There’s no denying that.

RUSH: Yeah, but it’s not the first thing he said.

So, anyway, you note there’s a theme running all of these open-borders guys? Jeb has done it here, too. “We need young, dynamic people that can make an immediate contribution to our economy.” He said, “The immigrant experience in our country make us unique and special and different, and it is part of our extraordinary success. We need young, dynamic people that can make an immediate contribution to our economy. We shouldn’t be fearful of this. We should say, ‘What an incredible opportunity.'”

What about the young people already here?

We just got through talking about the fact that there aren’t enough jobs for people here already. There certainly aren’t enough jobs in careers for people who are here already. What is this fascination? The open borders crowd has it, and I really would like to know: What is the fascination? Why are the immigrants that we want to import better suited to, say, rebuild a city like Detroit than people who live there now or anybody in America?

What’s the magic?

What am I missing?

Seriously.

(interruption) What…? (interruption) Yeah, they’re Hispanic, but what does that mean? I mean, why…? (sigh) Look… (interruption) Okay. All right. I know it’s all about votes. I know that all of this is about registering these people as voters. The Republicans want ’em and the Democrats want ’em and everybody knows that Democrats are gonna get most of them, but the Republicans think they can get enough of ’em to be competitive.

But why not just say that instead of this…? (interruption) Of course it sounds too political, but why is it not offensive that the only way we can rebuild our cities, the only way we can really launch our economy is to import young people from outside the country? What about the young people already here? What, is this a tantamount admission that the young people of this country have already thrown in with the worthless and they’re unsalvageable? They already got their benefits?

They got no motivation to go out and save a city? “They don’t have to work. We need people who want to come in here and work.” Oh. So this is a tantamount admission our welfare state’s gotten so big, we don’t actually have enough people willing to work? Is that what you’re saying? So we need to import people who want to work because we have destroyed the work ethic in our country by giving out so much welfare, so we want to import people who will work?

But what we really want is for them to vote.

What we really want out there, is we want them to also be on the welfare rolls so they will become further and forever dependent on us and government. So that after they vote the first time they will always vote for us! (That would be the cynical view.) I mean, the question is: What contribution to our economy do uneducated, unskilled people add? (interruption) That’s who the illegal immigrants are. Nobody makes any bones about that. They’re undereducated.

They’re in poverty, the vast majority of them. That’s the reason we’re supposed to open the border to ’em! We’re supposed to open the border to ’em because they’re undereducated and they’re poor, because the places they’re leaving are in such bad shape and this is the land of opportunity. Okay, so I want to know: What contribution to the economy do uneducated and unskilled arrivals add? Meanwhile, only 44% of adults in America have full-time jobs.

What’s the youth unemployment number, up around 12%? So what is all this? And, by the way, why do we also want or need a new measles outbreak? ‘Cause that’s happening, too. (interruption) The youth unemployment rate for December was 12.4%. Citizens. I don’t know what the illegal immigrant unemployment rate is. I don’t even know if it’s counted. One more. Jeb Bush. One final comment here at the Detroit Economic Club, at least in the sound bite roster that we have.

JEB: How do we create high, sustained economic growth? And that’s to shift away from family reunification being almost the sole driver of legal immigration to narrowing that to what every other country has — spouse and minor children — and dramatically expanding immigrants that are coming to work, a guest-worker program to deal in the areas where there are shortages.

RUSH: Shortages. Okay.

So shortages of certain kinds of “workers” in America, and rather than support illegal immigration because we want to reunite parents with their children? No, that’s a losing proposition. No. We want to bring in “workers.” (sigh) I wonder how many that would eliminate if you’d tell ’em, “Before you come here, you have to work.” Anyway, that’s Jeb Bush. And then last night on Special Report with Bret Baier, during the All-Star Panel, A.B. Stoddard from TheHill.com was talking about all this. Bret Baier asked A.B. Stoddard, “Will Jeb Bush’s position on immigration, will that fly in Iowa, A.B.?”

STODDARD: (whispering) The immigration issue is what, um, talk radio is fired up about now, and, um, is already bashing him over. It’s a long way to Iowa. He doesn’t really know today’s Republican Party. It’s not popular with the conservative wing of the party. Very touch issue for Jeb Bush.

RUSH: Talk radio. There we are again. See, we have all the power in the world when they think we’re standing in the way of what they want. “Talk radio, damn ’em! Damn it, talk radio cares about this! Talk radio is standing in the way of what the Drive-By Media wants.” When the Drive-Bys are getting what they want, then, of course, the story is that talk radio is inconsequential, doesn’t matter anymore. “They’re just a bunch of extremist entertainers anyway.”