RUSH: Now, one of the nicest guys on television, I know this guy, I’ve met him, I have been interviewed by him, one of the nicest guys on NPR, and if memory serves me, one of the nicest columnists in the Washington Post, Juan Williams, talking about the amnesty bill, said, ‘It’s just a nice thing to do.’ In five words he summed up the liberal argument for amnesty. ‘It’s a nice thing to do.’ And it really is. Remember the story I told you about the major TV personality in this country getting into an argument with me and a friend of mine out in Palm Springs, California? We fired facts and figures, all kinds, he didn’t care, didn’t matter to him after awhile. He only knew what he had read in the New York Times. Finally he said, ‘I don’t care about any of this. If some poor person from around the world, a person of color, wants to come to my country and make a better life, I’m not going to stand in their way.’ It’s just a nice thing to do. How can anybody argue with that? A nice thing to do? It’s even hard for me, the man who runs America — you know it, and I know it — to argue with that sentiment, ‘it’s a nice thing to do.’
At the same time we were not nice to them. We were mean. As the nation’s of the world’s lone superpower, we were bullies. So it’s nice to have them with their hands around our throats. Of course it was so nice to give a woman a right to choose. Well, it was. It didn’t sound nice to oppose abortion or to tamper with nature. But it did sound nice to give a woman the right to choose. Well, it’s cost us 40 million births, 40 million needed workers since 1973. That’s how many Americans have not been born. And guess what? How many illegals are here, and why do we need them? Because we’re short bodies. We aborted them because it was so nice to give a woman a right to choose. Forty million contributors to Social Security snuffed out because we were nice. But that wasn’t nice enough, it caused us to find these 40 million immigrants, legal and illegal, to fill the bill. Did anything ever sound that nice and end up that not nice? As we now suffer through the nice ideas on immigration and the nice results that we will not get, we can look forward to, gosh, it’s so nice to save the planet from global warming. It’s just nice. Why can’t we just be nicer to people? Why can’t we just get long? Why can’t we just sit around and let the country be destroyed? At least we’ll be nice in the process, and we will like ourselves. But our children or grandchildren will hate our guts.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Kay Bailey Hutchison’s amendment just went down to defeat 53-45. So much for that one, I guess. I’m not going to make any predictions. I’m hearing rumblings that some of these guys, as I said yesterday, that voted for cloture to get debate started on the amendments are going to change their minds tomorrow on the cloture vote. I’m not going to give you names. I’ve heard of one in particular who is leaning that way, but we’ll just have to wait and see on this. The bottom line — you know it and I know it — is they want this amnesty. They’re going to get it done somehow. They’re not going to stop ’til they get it done. Here’s the thing, though. This is the thing that ought to motivate and inspire all of you. If this bill is killed, it’s dead for two years. It is dead for two years and maybe more, in a procedural sense, and so it’s worth still fighting for. Now, get this. I read this story today. I had no idea this was going on, because I’m not a home fixer-upper guy. So I had no clue. I have never been to a Home Depot. (interruption) I’ve driven by them, Mr. Snerdley. Snerdley is all worried that I’m ‘losing touch,’ that if I admit I’ve never been to a Home Depot, that you’re going to think that I’m out of touch, I have nothing in common. I buy things at Home Depot, but I don’t go. At any rate, listen to this:
‘Home Depot is tired of being forced by local governments to accommodate the day laborers…’ I mean, this is what it’s come to. ‘Home Depot is tired of being forced by local governments to accommodate the day laborers who turn up in its store parking lots seeking construction work. So the Georgia-based company turned to Congress for help. The Senate could respond this week by attaching language to the immigration bill that would prohibit city councils from requiring home improvement stores to pay for shelters or other services to help maintain orderly day labor sites. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, is designed to curtail a practice in the California communities of Mountain View and Burbank, where city councils recently have forced Home Depot to build facilities for day laborers onsite or elsewhere, hire security staff and offer bathrooms in order to get the permits necessary for its operations.’ Can I translate this for you, because this is Drive-By Media mumbo jumbo? Home Depot has to go out and build homes, shelters and bathroom facilities, either on their site or somewhere nearby for the illegal immigrants. None of this ‘day laborer garbage.’ It’s for the illegal immigrants who show up every day hoping to find construction jobs.
‘Local governments in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities, including in Illinois and Washington, D.C., have imposed or are considering similar measures. The local mandates, Isakson says, are a costly intrusion for home improvement stores.’ Costly intrusion for home improvement stores? That’s not even the half of it! ‘Services for day laborers, he said in an interview, should be the responsibility of local governments, and forcing specific companies to provide services as a condition of obtaining permits amounts to ‘extortion.” He’s exactly right about that, but it’s even worse than this. In a sense, you’ll be talking fascism with governments requiring businesses to do this, and certainly socialism. ”Yes, the local government is having to deal with the problem, but the root of the problem is the federal government’s lack of enforcement on the southern border,’ Isakson said.’ Well, of course! That is the root of the problem in all these issues. ‘Others say the home improvement companies do have a responsibility to maintain safety and prevent nuisances among the labor markets they attract. Besides, they say, it is not Washington’s business. ‘The overriding issue to me is it’s all about Congress reaching way deep … into the city level and legislating in areas where they really have no business legislating,’ said Laura Macias, mayor of Mountain View, California, near San Jose. ‘We are not a one-size-fits-all country. There are different matters and different needs that cities have.’
‘Home Depot spokesman Ron DeFeo said day labor concerns have arisen in only a only small percentage of the company’s roughly 2,200 stores. In those cases, he said, the company works with local officials to develop solutions. ‘We understand it’s an issue in certain places…” This is outrageous! This is just patently absurd! Now Macias, the mayor of Mountain View ‘said local governments impose requirements on developers all the time based on specific, case-by-case needs. ‘Once you’re part of a community, there are land-use responsibilities, whether it’s a center for day workers or traffic congestion remedies or park fees,’ she said. ‘To have it always fall back on the cities, that comes back on the taxpayers and it just doesn’t seem fair.” So picking on one business is fair, or picking on one industry: the home improvement business. Who do you think is paying for this? Home Depot’s customers are paying for this. But these libs think they’re soaking it to some big business. ‘If you want to build and make tons of money from our community, we’re going to want something in return,’ said the mayor of Mountain View, California. That’s what it’s come to, folks. Nowhere, nowhere in this story is the fact that there are illegal immigrants causing all these to happen mentioned.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: here’s what’s going on on the Senate floor. Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online, their Corner blog has gotten an update from somebody at the Heritage Foundation and says, ‘As if the Senate floor situation couldn’t get any worse, Dingy Harry’s staff is now rewriting the clay pigeon amendment behind closed doors.’ This is this 300-plus page amendment that nobody’s seen. They can’t see it because it’s not finished yet. It’s being written being rewritten, and it is the intent of the majority leader to bring his new unread amendment, bring it up for vote without the Republicans ever seeing it, without them ever seeing the language. Yesterday, Senator Reid didn’t have this amendment ready when he started debate on it, mistakes were made in the initial drafting, but the fact was not discovered until Republicans objected to waving the reading of the bill and the Senate clerk had nothing to read. So shockingly, Dingy Harry scrambled around, put the floor in morning business for a few hours that allowed Kennedy’s staff to make final changes to the amendment. The language was finally made available around 5:30 last night. Reid graciously gave Republicans a night last night to go through it before moving to it this morning. So the bottom line here is that Harry Reid is demanding a vote on these immigration amendments, which is what the cloture vote yesterday was all about, without divulging the actual text. Thought you should know that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We have an online exclusive that has just been posted at the Washington Times by Stephen Dinan and Jerry Seper. ‘The head of a Mexican forgery ring was convinced he could make phony documents that illegal aliens could use to indicate fraudulently that they were eligible for a new amnesty, says a government affidavit recounting wiretapped phone calls the man made. Julio Leija-Sanchez, who ran a $3 million-a-year forgery operation before he was arrested in April, was expecting Congress to pass a legalization program, which he called ‘amnesty,’ and said he could forge documents to fool the U.S. government into believing illegal aliens were in the country in time to qualify for amnesty, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent said in the affidavit. In recounting a wiretapped telephone conversation, ICE agent Jason E. Medica said he heard Mr. Leija-Sanchez tell an associate the forgery ring could ‘fix his papers’ to meet the requirements of a legalization program such as the bill the Senate is debating today.’
I don’t know. We’re in an all-out war here, ladies and gentlemen, it appears. By the way, regarding being in an all-out war, Vice President Cheney and the White House have just been issued seven subpoenas over the domestic spy program. Is this Henry Waxman’s committee that issued the subpoenas? Probably is. Government oversight committee or some such thing. Doesn’t matter. Could be Conyers, I don’t know. This is just part of the ongoing effort to harass the administration. Yet while Bush is trying to give these guys exactly what they want, the immigration bill that the Democrats all — well, most of them, not all — actually, grab sound bites one, two, and three. Not all of them do want this. Here’s Claire McCaskill, who was on Lou Dobbs Tonight last night on CNN, and Dobbs said, ‘Senator, were you surprised at all by the passage of cloture?’
MCCASKILL: I was a little surprised, although I could tell there was serious arm twisting going on, particularly on the Republican side. Several of the senators who voted no on cloture the last time flipped and voted yes today. My sense is they may not be there for the next important procedural vote, which will be Thursday. So I’m optimistic that ultimately this bill will not become law.
RUSH: She’s a Democrat in Missouri. Kit Bond is a Republican. He voted for cloture. She voted against it. One of the reasons I wanted to play the sound bite to you is there had to be all kinds of arm twisting going on yesterday, the tricks, the offering of amendments, various things that are coming from the supporters of the bill to get Republicans to change their mind. Dobbs’ next question was this: ‘In your best judgment, Senator McCaskill, will the Senate find conscience and character and capacity to look to the common good in the national interest, or will they fall in line and pass amnesty?’
MCCASKILL: My best judgment is that the people out there in America should continue to call and write and make the ruckus they’re making. They’re making a big ruckus and it’s reassuring to me that our democracy is as engaged as it is. It will be a close vote, but my guess is that we will not get final passage on this bill this week.
RUSH: Claire McCaskill, Democrat, Missouri, predicting the bill will fail. Now, it’s got two chances to fail. One is if they don’t get their cloture vote tomorrow afternoon, then it’s over for at least two years. If they do get their cloture vote, the final vote will be on Friday, the vote for the final passage will be on Friday, and that would be another attempt to defeat it. But if it gets cloture, it will pass. The cloture vote tomorrow is going to be the key. This morning on the Senate floor during the debate on immigration, Senator Feinstein, who is very much upset at the lack of fairness in radio in America, there is not much correct reporting on radio in America. Senator Feinstein said this.
FEINSTEIN: To fail at this point in time, to continue this situation where 12 million remain unidentified, where they pose a serious risk to national security, where 700 to 800,000 people will enter our country illegally or overstay their visas, over ten years, that’s seven to eight million additional people here in undocumented capacity. Where 400 to 500 people die every year trying to cross the Mexican border.
RUSH: Oh, come on! Save me.
FEINSTEIN: And where four million people —
RUSH: Spare me this.
FEINSTEIN: — continue to wait for a green card.
RUSH: Come on.
FEINSTEIN: We take these problems and we try to solve them in this bill. Now, people who are opposed to the bill say, ‘I don’t like this. I’m going to vote against the bill. I don’t like that. I’m going to vote against the bill.’ And, yes, they can do that, and, yes, they are entitled to do it. But know what you’re doing when you do it.
RUSH: Where has it been established that these people on the left are the brightest bulbs in our sockets? Every time I listen, I don’t care if it’s Algore, if I listen to this woman, if I listen to John Kerry, if I listen to Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, these people are dim wits. They are not intellectual giants. Yet they are praised and treated as though they are. What she just said here is patently ridiculous. To fail at this point in time, to continue the situation where 12 million remain unidentified? Well, for crying out loud, as I mentioned in the first hour — and quite brilliantly so, I might add — we’re going to find these people and send ’em back, the touchback proposal, right? We’re going to find these people and send ’em back. They’re going to come back. How are we going to find them to send them back if we can’t deport them? Nobody is talking about deportation. We have to deport them to get them to come back. It’s not going to happen anyway, listen to this. ‘The Senate on Wednesday killed a Republican proposal to require all adult illegal immigrants to return home temporarily in order to qualify for permanent lawful status in this country.’ This was Kay Bailey Hutchison and her amendment. ‘The vote 53-45 to table her amendment that was one of several proposals designed to respond to conservatives who decry President Bush’s immigration bill as a form of amnesty.’ This is an AP story, by the way. So bye-bye touchback. Senator Lindsey Grahamnesty was pushing this as a way to buy off conservative citizens and voters as well as some Republicans. So the plan to send immigrants home has — Kit Bond cares about this as well. What this is going to mean to the cloture vote, too soon to say.
END TRANSCRIPT
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.