You can’t blame ’em. They’re being promised a brand-new, giant, welfare state paid by the rest of us, and they’re out there saying, ‘I don’t like this. I don’t like having to go home. I don’t like having to go back. I’m not sure I want to pay these fines.’ Don’t worry! You’re not going to have to go home. You’re not going to pay any fines. It’s not going to happen. Once this bill passes, they’ll be talking about, ‘It will split up families! We can’t split up families,’ and of course, you can’t pay the fine because the libs will say, ‘Well, we’re taking food out of the mouths of poor children by making their parents pay these ridiculous fines,’ even though it’s in the legislation. You might wonder, why are the Republicans doing this? I’m going to get into this in great detail as the program unfolds. There are different reasons for different Republicans, depends on who you’re talking about. I once told you that you could legalize rape in this country if you simply called it the Civil Rights Act of 2007 because nobody on Capitol Hill’s got the guts to vote against anything that claims to be broadening or creating civil rights. It’s codeword. What’s happening here is that the proponents of this — and it’s not new. They’ve actually been laying the groundwork for this.
‘If you oppose this, why, you’re a racist! Why, you’re cold-hearted. You’re cruel. You’re mean-spirited. You don’t like people of color,’ and, of course, you start telling an elected official that he’s a racist and a bigot and anti-Hispanic or whatever, he’s going to turn on a dime, because the last thing in the world he wants or she wants is to have that said about them, and to show up in a campaign ad the next time they come up for reelection. Then you have people like Senator McCain. I’m going to just read this, and see what I have very quickly here with McCain. I’m going to read it. McCain said, ‘We can and must complete this legislation sooner rather than later. We all know that this issue can be caught up in extracurricular politics unless we move forward as quickly as possible.’ Now, that is unbridled, unknown arrogance. Can I define a term for you here? When he says, ‘We all know that this issue can be caught up in extracurricular politics,’ that means you — YOU — can stop this, the American people. You start debating this, and you are ‘extracurricular politics.’ What that means is, ‘We in the Senate, we in this exclusive club, we are not going to listen to you. We don’t care what you think about this. You are extracurricular politics. We gotta move forward as quickly as possible before you people find out what’s in this bill and get really mad and stop it.’ It’s too important. Senator Kennedy is saying the same thing. Here’s Kennedy. Grab audio sound bite number five and not number four. Here’s Senator Kennedy yesterday. The Senate held a news conference out there.
KENNEDY: We must strike while the iron is hot. I’ve been around here long enough to know that opportunities like this don’t come very often. The American people are demanding a solution.
RUSH: They’re not.
KENNEDY: The president is committed, Senator Reid has made this a priority. Senators from both parties are now determined to solve this crisis. Politics is the art of the possible, and the agreement we just reached is the best possible chance we will have in years to secure our borders, bring millions of people out of the shadow and into the sunshine of America.
RUSH: All you gotta do is send journalists to where they live and they’ll come out of the shadows. You don’t have to give them free access to our hammocks and our welfare state. But here you have it, ‘We must strike while the iron is hot. I’ve been around here a long time.’ He’s right. He’s been there 47 years! It is too long, folks. These people are dinosaurs. The Senate is becoming Jurassic Park. ‘The American people are demanding a solution.’ Yes, but not yours! ‘The president’s committed.’ Yes, and I’ll tell you why in a moment. Senator Reid has made this a priority. Oh, by the way, Dingy Harry and Nancy Pelosi are also in the crowd, saying, ‘Well, I’m not sure we like this,’ and that’s just strategic maneuvering. The reason they’re doing this is, they want the bill to appear to be moderate — and with Senator Kennedy involved, of course, it’s moderate. So they’re out there objecting to it. ‘Ah, there are provisions in here I don’t like here.’ They’re just trying to toughen it up. They’re trying to make it even more unwieldy, but it’s a strategic maneuver. They love this. It’s going to have some problems in the House, if it gets out of the Senate in its current form.
Here’s Ted Kennedy on immigration. Let me give you some quotes from Senator Kennedy from 1965. 1965! Let’s do the math here. Thirty-five plus seven. That’s 42 years ago. Senator Kennedy in 1965: ‘The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society, it will not relax the standards of admission, it will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.’ This is immigration bill in ’65. It did exactly that. In 1986, Simpson-Mazzoli, ‘This amnesty will give citizenship to only 1.1 to 1.3 million illegal aliens, will secure the borders henceforth. We will never again bring forward another amnesty bill like this.’ That’s Senator Kennedy 1986! Senator Kennedy said yesterday, ‘Now is the time for action: 2007 is the year we must fix our broken system.’ Let me tell you the dirty little secret. This is exactly what Ted Kennedy wanted in ’65 to happen. It’s what he wanted to happen in ’86. He knew it was going to happen. All this is a bunch of BS. He’s very excited that this is happening now. These are future Democrat voters. It’s an opportunity. They need new victims. With new victims, they get to create and expand the welfare system paid for by all of us.
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RUSH: We’re discussing the Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act, today, and the Republicans are too idiotic to figure out that that’s what this is. What the liberals are trying to do is tear this country down institution by institution and rebuild it in their image, and this is one of the steps that they’re trying to do this. Now, this bill, if it comes out of the Senate in its current form — and it’s highly doubtful that it will, because we’re going to turn this into the next Dubai Ports Deal, folks. Get ready to get mobilized here. If it comes out in its present form and goes over to the House, they have a whole bunch of House freshmen in there that are not going to vote for this because they want to get reelected. The opposition of this crosses party lines. There are Democrats in California and Arizona and Texas and Virginia. Look, we’ve lost California. It used to be a Republican state. We’ve lost it. It’s gone. We don’t even compete there, do we? When we elect a Republican governor, look what he has to do to stay in office: become one of them. If we lose Virginia and we lose Florida, folks, it’s over. I’m talking about electorally here. This is very, very serious stuff. These Democrats will get hurt, some of them will, particularly the freshmen in the House. The Senate Democrats, the Democrats would love for the Republicans to be the ones seen as passing this bill.
They would love two things to happen: the bill get passed, and they get to build their new welfare state. You know, one of the provisions in this is scary. It allows family members to come on in — and, by the way, don’t believe this business that they gotta go back home, come back, get in line and so forth. The minute this bill passes in whatever form — the minute the president puts signature on it — they are legal. That is something everybody’s missing. They are legal without having to leave the country or go home or come back and do anything. The fact of the matter is that the Democrats would love for this thing to get passed and create their new welfare state — and then the anger in the country over it be directed at the Republicans. The key to this is, there’s a Republican president that’s going to sign it! So if you don’t think that Democrats can shift the credit for this, they’re focused on the end results here. Now, let me share a couple things here out of the news. Los Angeles Times: ‘Illegal Immigrants Skeptical About Overhaul.’ Who cares? You know, who else can we confer legal status on? How about bank robbers? I just saw that a guy held up a bank somewhere. Why are we trying to do this, stigmatizing these people? Who else are we going to find in our society breaking our laws that we feel guilty about that we are going to confer legal status on them and get rid of the stigma?
Al-Qaeda! (Very good answer, H.R.) Let’s confirm legal status on Al-Qaeda — and, by the way, I have to ask. You know, we have. We have terrorists and Al-Qaeda, and they’re going to get released at some point. Bring ’em in! They’re just seeking a better life, in their terms, in their own way. Are they going to get immediate access and their family? This family business, these people are going to bring in their families. We’re not talking 12 million. We’re talking 48 million — and if you think that’s not going to happen, the bill provides for it. If you think it’s not going to happen, wait ’til you hear the Senator Kennedys and even some on our side caterwauling about how we’re splitting up families. ‘We’re already doing that. We gotta let these people in! We can’t charge these fines. Why, that’s taking food out of the mouths of hungry babies,’ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we’re looking at a profound demographic shift in the makeup of the population of the country, and that’s another one of the things that’s getting some attention. So much of this… I went to the Library of Congress website where I looked at the bill. I didn’t even have time to print out the text of the bill, just the headers. It’s massive! It’s over 700 pages. There’s nobody that’s read the whole thing. Anyway, the LA Times has a story with the illegal immigrants ‘skeptical’ about the overhaul bill.
Of course, what I said yesterday is given life in quotes today: ‘Well, you know, those fines are a lot of money. I’d have to leave and go home! I don’t like that provision. I don’t want to have to leave and go home, and I don’t want to pay that fine. That’s a lot of money. Being a single mother with three kids, that would be very hard on me.’ Oh, well, we’re sorry! We’ll rescind the fine, and we won’t make you go home. Why that’s just going to cost somebody some transportation. You can see how this is going to shape up, but we sit here and we’re on the defensive. We’re acting like we’ve committed the crime here, that we owe these people an apology. ‘Legally, the program isn’t going to work. We need amnesty for everybody without requirements.’ This is another illegal immigrant saying this. ‘Amnesty without requirements.’ Then in the LA Times: ‘Immigration Bill Faces a Wall of Opposition. — Bill Nelson of Florida wants legal immigration fixed before amnesty. Charles Grassley doesn’t want info sharing.’ You know, that’s Patriot Act times ten. He doesn’t want violation of civil rights. There’s opposition from both sides of this story.
Here in the New York Times in a story by Robert Pear and our old buddy Jim Rutenberg: ‘John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., denounced the bill from a different angle, saying it would create ‘a massive guest worker program.’ ‘All workers will suffer because employers will have available a ready pool of labor they can exploit to drive down wages, benefits, health and safety protections, and other workplace standards,’ Mr. Sweeney said. Senator Byron L. Dorgan,’ Senator Helmet Head from North Dakota, ‘said he would offer an amendment to eliminate the guest worker program from the bill.’ So there’s opposition out there. Some of the opposition on the part of Democrats is clearly strategic posturing. Hugh Hewitt on his blog today at Townhall.com said something really, really good, and I want to share this with you. He wrote: ‘GOP Leader McConnell has got to recognize the spreading disaster and call a very public halt to it, and do so with transparency, something along the lines of ‘Well, we tried, but it is clear that our party is opposed to the only bill the Democrats would allow to get to the floor, so it is shelved until after 2008. The presidential candidates will have to debate it as will our respective parties, but the GOP is for border security first.”
That’s what he would like McConnell to say — and that’s, by the way, make this a debate issue for the presidential candidates, absolutely right. Why ram this thing down everybody’s throats? Because it can’t stand that kind of scrutiny, that’s why. The reason it’s not being debated, the reason… Do you realize no common Senate procedure was followed in putting this together? We always have oversight hearings. They have witnesses come in to discuss the impact of this element of the legislation. There was none of that. None of the usual stuff that goes into this boiling cauldron of garbage that produces legislation happened here. The compromise occurred behind closed doors, between members of the Republican Party and the Democrat Party in the Senate, and they come out and say, ‘We have a bill.’ That’s not how it happens. It’s not illegal, but this is just not normal Senate procedure, and Hewitt’s point here is right on the money — and McConnell can do this. McConnell can kill it.
He’s got all kinds of procedural options at his disposal, and to say, ‘Look, our party doesn’t like this, and this is the only bill, the only bill the Democrats are gonna allow to get to the Senate floor? Well, we’re going to put this off until 2008. We need this to be a part of the presidential debate.’ It’s an excellent, excellent point. So when you boil it all down here, we’re looking at a total sellout. The Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act of 2007. You know what? Citizenship is not the issue here. This is another thing.
You know, there’s so many terms that the supporters of this are using to try to capture your heart and to wrest control of your emotions. This is not about citizenship. To say it’s about citizenship is a diversion. All of these people will become legal the moment Bush signs the bill. Whether they become citizens or not, they become legal — and the courts have ruled that we gotta educate the children of illegals in some states. We have to educate the children of illegal immigrants! Even though they’re not citizens, we have to pay their health care. Hello, new welfare state-sanctioned simply by the signature on the bill. Don’t get caught up in citizenship. Get caught up in the word ‘legal’ and what that will mean legally and financially.
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RUSH: I want to make this point again that citizenship is not the issue here. That’s a diversion. When the president signs this immigration bill — all this is down the road — all of these illegals become legal, and that’s the key. When they become legal, they are conferred with rights and benefits. Those rights and benefits are immediately conferred upon them. They are here legally. They cannot be deported. They can work wherever they want. They can live wherever they want. They receive the same due-process rights as the rest of us. This is the big lie in the bill, where they tell us all the measures an illegal has to take to become a citizen, have to pay $5,000, have to go home, come back and so forth. They become legal immediately. All of that is just window dressing to make you think there’s going to have to be some sort of effort made on these people’s part for this to happen, but it’s not. Once they become legal, citizenship or no citizenship, then it’s over. They are legally entitled to the welfare state. They are legally entitled to whatever any other citizen is entitled to, even though they’re not citizens. Ted Kennedy knows this. The ethnic groups that had veto…
Do you know that the Democrats had La Raza and other activist organizations in the negotiations with Republican senators to put this bill together? In other words, they let activist illegal immigration organizations craft the legislation. Can you imagine if Dick Cheney…? Well, he wasn’t in the Senate. Pick a senator. Let’s say Mitch McConnell, putting together a new energy bill, and in there writing it is Big Oil, the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Shell, wherever. Can you imagine? That’s exactly what happened here. So Kennedy knows what’s up here. The ethnic groups that had veto power, if they didn’t like something that they heard, they had the right to veto it, in the negotiations between House and Republican senators. In addition, they plan to allow 400,000 new aliens to come to this country every year who will be on a fast track to legalization. We are not just talking here about legalizing the 12 million or 15 million or whatever the number is. We’re going to now add 400,000 more per year on a fast track, in addition to that number — and each one of them, the 12 million, 15 million who are here, the 400,000 who come each year legally can bring certain members of the family with them, on average at least four.
You bring husband. You got wife, you got kids, you got parents. We are talking tens of millions. We’re talking a profound demographic shift, radical demographic shift on this, and what’s this about? Let’s get into the politics of this because it ain’t about citizenship, and it isn’t about compassion. It isn’t about leading the poor, the tired, the worn-out to brighter futures and brighter lights. The liberals and the Democrats in this country are changing the electorate so they can destroy the Republican Party and guarantee victory for as far as the eye can see.
Anybody out there who thinks that these new millions who are coming in here are going to somehow become conservatives when they don’t have to… Why do we have so many people in the welfare state now? Because it’s easier! Conservatism is hard. Self-reliance is a tough thing. When you come into the country that you’ve always wanted to come into anyway, and the minute you get here, you’re legal, and then you have access to all these benefits. You contrast the value of that, compared to your lifestyle from the country that you left to come here, why in the world take up this notion of hard work, working for yourself independent of all that? They are going to be wards of the Democrat Party, and the Democrat Party knows it.
Check out who’s behind the sponsorship of this bill, check out who had veto power, check out all liberal organizations. Check out who runs these protests on illegal immigration, and look at how many people show up. If you think you’re looking at a pool of future Republican conservatives out there, you need to look again. This is about getting a brand-new electorate, reshaping it and being able to win election after election after election. These are socialists, folks. I’m not talking about the illegals. I’m talking about the liberals. They are socialists who want a big government, and they want a big state, and they want people in need and dependent on that state. They are running out of victims. Hence, this is part of it. I assure you that I am right about this. This bill, this piece of legislation assaults virtually every aspect of our belief system. Let me run down the list here for you. I wrote some things down. We are giving benefits and rights to lawbreakers. That’s not conservative. That’s not even American. We’re expanding massively the size of entitlement programs. Meanwhile, Social Security is on the brink, Medicare is about to fall apart, and what are we doing? We are redistributing wealth to subsidize all the poor people who flow into our country from the Third World. We are leaving border security to another day — and these phony arguments that they’re beefing up the border, that’s just strategeric posturing as well.
They haven’t built the 700-mile wall. They’re not in a rush to do so. In fact, they built like 28% of it. This is going to be a huge push down the road to give all these people the vote. ‘Look how hard they’re working.’ Even if they don’t become citizens, that’s the next thing that’s going to happen because that’s what this is all about. ‘Yes, these people, must have the right to vote! They’re hard workers. They are among us. They are contributing to this country’s GDP. They must have the right to vote on their representation.’ I can hear it all now. They work hard. Get the violins out, folks. ‘They work hard. They pay taxes. They contribute to our society. Why shouldn’t they vote? This is slavery,’ Ted Kennedy will say. ‘It’s slavery. Why, it’s bigotry,’ and it will all, of course, be blamed on the Republicans.
‘Republicans are racists and sexists and bigots! They don’t want these people in the country! Oh, they don’t want them voting and all that,’ and of course, sadly, there will be some Republican types — you can name the names — out there agreeing with them when they try to change the definition or terms in this legislation, like giving them the vote before they become citizens. At the end of the day here, what we’re talking about is the marginalization, if not the destruction of the Republican Party. Look, it’s time to be blunt here. I said I’m going to stop carrying the water last November, and I’m not carrying the water. The current crop of Republican leaders has not only lost the Congress, the current crop of Republican leaders is on the way to destroying the base by signing on to this kind of legislation.
People are livid out there, and actually it crosses the aisle. Democrats are, too. The Republican leadership is destroying the movement that Reagan built. We’ve gotten No Child Left Behind. We’ve gotten the McCain-Feingold bill, which legitimized infringement on free speech, the First Amendment. We’ve gotten massive new farm subsidies and a massive new prescription drug program. We’re just growing the government here. It will be worse when the Democrats get in charge if you think it’s bad now, but all of these virtues, all of these aspects of our belief system are assaulted in this bill that is coming out of the Senate.
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RUSH: Look, folks, I’m sorry. I can’t shut up on this. I’m going to get to your phone calls, I promise you. We don’t need 700 pages of legislation to make this happen. Monopoly, Parker Brothers, had one card, one card saying ‘Get Out of Jail Free.’ Well, let’s just confer a card, get into the country legally. Give ’em a card, one page, because everything else in this legislation is meaningless. Well, it’s not meaningless and worthless, because it’s a piece of legislation that creates brand-new government programs, brand-new bureaucracies. It just expands this already bloated government beyond its current imaginable size, and I’ll tell you something else. Nobody’s talking about this — and that’s why I’m here, folks, to bring up things that nobody else thinks of. I do that well. I do it often. We have an entire mentality in this country now that discourages assimilation. You notice nobody is talking about assimilation here? That used to be the point of immigration. They have to learn English. Yip yip yip. Do you realize how that’s not going to happen?
Don’t give me this. You sound like you’re buying into this, ‘They gotta learn English.’ Right! There’s no focus on assimilation. We have an entire mentality in this country that discourages it in fact. It’s called multiculturalism, it’s called bilingualism. What in the world is there? What’s necessary about assimilating? We used to have — we still do; it’s at risk — a distinct and unique American culture, and immigrants wanted to become Americans. They didn’t want to become hyphenated Americans, and they didn’t come here and Balkanize it. They kept speaking their native tongue but they learned the language. They assimilated into society. There’s no discussion of that. Affirmative action is another program that argues against assimilation or is an obstacle to people assimilating. We don’t even have in our society this desire for this to happen now. This is all about bringing in workers, guest workers, it’s all about appearing compassionate. If you’re Republican, it’s all about not being a racist or a sexist or a bigot or being called that. Folks, I’m going to tell you something. This is, along with the war on terrorism, this is the battle of our time because these two issues — the war on terror, which the Democratic Party has already surrendered the United States to defeat — are going to define America for generations.
This illegal immigration argument and the war on terror. This is not some sterile policy debate. We have to stop this. We’re being run here by a bunch of political elites — both parties, apparently — who are undermining the foundation of our country for their own special desires: reelection, power, growth of government, and who knows what else. Some of this is so inexplicable to me. I’ve even come up with theories to explain the inexplicable. I’ll get to at some point in the program, but the people haven’t voted for this, and the people will not get a chance if the politicians have their way. The whole thing was negotiated in secret. We don’t still have a finished bill to even look at. In the meantime, the spinners are already out there telling us why this is such a great thing before we can even read it. They don’t have the guts to show it to us. We’re supposed to believe them. It’s such a great example. Show it to us. Show us what’s in this thing! It’s 736 some-odd pages. If it’s so great, let’s see it. If it’s so great, start singing every detail. If this bill is so wonderful, put out ads! Have the government printing office in Pueblo, Colorado, wherever the hell it is, print up copies and mail them to every citizen. It’s so wonderful, tell us what’s in it. Here’s Laura as we start on the phones, in Parkville, Maryland. Nice to have you on the program.
CALLER: Hi. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: My pleasure.
CALLER: My question originally was based on an assumption that these illegals who will be signed legal if the bill goes through, will there be a registration process? Will they need to come forward? And if so, will there be consequences to those who don’t come forward?
RUSH: Well, yeah, these are all great questions. We’ve discussed them on earlier busy broadcasts. Yes, they have to come forward and say, ‘I’m here illegally,’ and then they have to, supposedly, go back to their home countries and get back in line, and come back in — some of them do — and then they have to pay a fine. What I’m telling you, Laura, is that none of that’s going to happen. After the president signs the bill and it starts being implemented, we’re going to hear a bunch of complaints, ‘It’s too arduous. I mean, we can’t deport 12 million. How do we expect 12 million to go back home? We can’t do this! The fines are too repressive. We’re taking food out of the mouths of starving babies.’ Your question is, ‘What if they don’t do it?’ It doesn’t matter.
CALLER: Will they need documentation, then, legal documents saying that they are legal, or it doesn’t matter?
RUSH: Yeah, it’s called the Z visa. Stands for zero. You gotta do nothing to get it.
CALLER: (Laughing.)
RUSH: Absolutely —
CALLER: Will they have to pay taxes or —
RUSH: Oh, yeah! Absolutely, they have to pay taxes. Now, the first thing the Democrats will do is take them to a massive voter registration place. I’m joking about that. There isn’t any enforcement. There’s no incentive. When the purpose of the bill is to grant permanent — or guest worker — status, it’s amnesty. The purpose of the bill is to grant amnesty to 12 million people, why enforce it? What is there to enforce? Once they’re legal and they’re legal with the president’s signature, they’re legal whether they have documents or not. If they got a document that says, ‘Hi, I’m here illegally!’ Not anymore. The president just signed the bill. This is what everybody’s misunderstanding. It’s not about citizenship. It’s not about going out and getting documentation, green cards. Once the president signs the bill, they’re legal. Anyway, Laura, I can tell you’re worried about it. You should be. Here’s Harry in Washington, DC. Harry, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Mega dittos from Washington.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I actually work on Capitol Hill, and I just want to thank you for all the work you do to promote conservative principles.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: We’re getting absolutely flooded today with people all across the country who are very upset with the Senate immigration bill, and I have a feeling it’s a lot of your listeners.
RUSH: Are they identifying themselves by party?
CALLER: No, they are not, Rush. Most of them are from the districts they live in, but they’re not identifying themselves by party. I don’t think Americans really care about party affiliation on this.
RUSH: That’s what I think, too. I think this issue, like the Dubai Ports Deal, crosses the spectrum. I think many Democrats are having their lives affected by this, too. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Arizona, Virginia, Florida, everywhere you go. Well, obviously if you’re calling to tell us about the heavy volume of phone calls, it must be much more than normal?
CALLER: It is much more than normal.
RUSH: What impact is it having on the elected officials? Like, you’re a congressional guy. What impact is it having on your congressman or senators — and I don’t know if you have, I’m assuming, since you’ve said you work on Capitol Hill. What impact is it having on elected officials?
CALLER: Well, I know a lot of times when people call, they don’t think it has much impact. But when it comes from people that are taking their own initiative to call, it’s not from an organization, it makes a huge difference; it gets everyone’s attention, and —
RUSH: Exactly right.
CALLER: — public policy.
RUSH: You tell people up there that there may be other people giving out the phone number up there, but I don’t. People, if they’re calling on their own — which is happening, I am certain of it — then the country is being heard from. I’m glad you called, Harry. Thanks so much.
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RUSH: We just heard from a staffer up on Capitol Hill in the last caller. The guy said the phones over there are going nuts. They are hearing from you. I have not given out the phone number. I’m sure other people have. I, as a practice, don’t give out the phone number because I want the calls to appear genuine. The staffer said, these calls appear genuine, there’s so many of them — and it reminds me, back in 1994 or ’95, TIME Magazine did a cover on me. They Photoshopped it. They had me smoking a cigar with a churlish look on my face and smoke wafting out of the corner of my mouth, and the headline was: ‘Is Rush Limbaugh Good for America?’ H.R. just reminded me that Newsweek also did a story (they were trying to be competitive with one another), and their cover story was, ‘Is there too much Democracy in America?’ Is there too much democracy! It was aimed at me, too. You know, talk radio was new and people were getting riled up, and Republicans had won the House. ‘Oh, my God! There’s too much democracy going on out there.’ Well, the Drive-Bys are getting in gear here, ladies and gentlemen. The sob songs, the victims, the rest of the propaganda aimed at convincing us the bill doesn’t go far enough, and that’s what the criticism from Dingy Harry and Pelosi is really all about, strategic maneuvering.
‘It’s a moderate bill. We should all just get behind this,’ and I’ve got a story, this is an AP story: ‘Mexicans Fear U.S. Immigration Plan — Congress’ new immigration plan was bad news for tens of thousands of poor Mexicans who depend on a U.S. guestworker program for temporary jobs in agriculture and other seasonal work, such as landscaping and construction. Millions of would-be migrants have been holding tight to President Bush’s promise that they could one day apply for temporary visas to get a glimpse of the American dream.’ Aw, grab the violins. See? The bill is still too harsh, folks. ‘At the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, which hands out more temporary visas than any other consulate or embassy in the world, Edmundo Bermudez, a 36-year-old from the northern city of Durango, said the plan rewards those who have already entered the United States illegally while shutting out those who stayed home hoping to gain legal passage. He was especially offended by the plan to give preference to migrants with degrees and skills. ‘The United States already has enough people with college degrees. Who is going to cut their tobacco?’ asked Bermudez, who has been working intermittently in the U.S. for the past eight years.
‘In Mexico, he makes about $10 a day, while in the U.S. he earns almost that — $8 — in an hour. … Many in Mexico — and U.S. employers who say they need workers for low-skilled jobs — had hoped Congress would expand the guestworker program and allow more to cross legally…’ They have, word just hasn’t spread. Four hundred thousand of them, folks! It’s in there. I found it. ”We don’t want the house or the latest car in the U.S. We want to go and work so that our families can have a good life in Mexico,’ said’ another Mexican. So the sob stories have begun and the Drive-Bys now are kicking in full gear. ABC Radio News at the top of the hour said that the compromise, the Senate compromise, ‘is receiving positive response from the Hill and from the president, but the critics may try to pick the measure apart.’ Hey, AP! Hey, ABC Radio! Get with what’s happening here. ‘Critics may try to pick the measure apart’? So the Drive-Bys have chosen sides, and if this doesn’t tell you something about what’s in this legislation and what its aim is… I’m telling you, this is the Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act of 2007. I so dubbed it that when I opened the busy program. I got an e-mail last night and somebody said, ‘Rush, I don’t understand this. I don’t understand what happened here. Senators of both parties get together and negotiate, and they come out, announce they’ve got a bill, and then they’re going to debate the bill? I don’t understand this Senate procedure. I’ve never heard of this.’
I thought it was a great question because I myself was asking the same thing. What the hell? They go behind closed doors, and then we find out La Raza’s in there with veto powers on things they don’t like. The fact of the matter is that what happened here is not Senate procedure. Senate procedure requires committee hearings by oversight committees and appropriations committees, votes in those committees. It would require the marking up of the bill. When we look at the bill, we see things we don’t like, and kick that out of it, put that in it, or whatever. They would have to entertain motions for amendments, and in the Senate possible filibuster, and it would require publicly debating the bill on the floor. That’s how normal Senate procedure is supposed to work. But, this bill is so contrary to the interests of Americans in this country, they’re not going to do it this way. They will do all they can to railroad this through without anybody ever having seen it. Now, there are always enough Republicans to go along with this, because they want to be viewed as compassionate, as opposed to hard-hearted, right-wing racists, which is what the media will characterize anyone as who opposes this, and that’s why McCain and Graham get on board this. The people say, ‘What about the president? What is this about the president?’
I remember discussing the president’s stick-to-itiveness on Iraq, amidst all the criticism, all the pressure. He doesn’t waver. He just doesn’t care what they say. He’s immune to it. People ask me, ‘Why do you think that is?’ and I could only hazard a guess, and I’ll repeat what my guess was. The president, as we know, if you listen carefully (ah, you don’t even have to listen all that carefully) is a man of deep conviction, deep faith, and I believe that he, in the case of Iraq, is confident he’s doing the right thing. He is helping to establish a beachhead of democracy in that cauldron of hatred and racism. He thinks that he’s doing the right thing here. When you hear him talk about the yearning spirit of freedom that every human being is created with, that is one of the indications — and I think here pretty much the same thing. I think he looks at the United States as the bright, ‘shining city on the hill,’ as Reagan described it. It’s the greatest place in the world, and here are some people from downtrodden backgrounds. They’re poor. They’re desperate. They’re hungry. He wants those people to have salvation. He wants those people to have hope and opportunity, and he thinks it’s his mission to do this. In that regard, he believes that it’s proper for the United States government to engage in making this possible.
You can see it in some of the domestic policy that the president has pushed: the faith-based initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act. When he was governor of Texas he was against Prop 187, and his roots as governor of Texas, I think, are important here if you want to understand his position because there he had a reputation of bringing all sides together. Democrats and Republicans loved each other. The Hispanic population there was very much supportive of the president. I just think that there is a… Look, second-term presidents look for legacies. His is, he wants to be ‘compassionate.’ In the campaign of 2000, I remember we jumped down his throat when he used the old liberal phrase, we’re ‘not going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor’ in my administration. Don’t start using lib lingo. That’s going to harm you. So this is good works to him. This is good works to him, and this is the greatest of his good works, this and the war on terror. It ‘brings people together.’
He doesn’t want to be viewed as hard-hearted. Liberals say conservatives, Republicans oppose anybody, and they’re hard-hearted. They’re cold-hearted, mean-spirited, cruel and all of this, and that sucks a lot of Republicans in on legislation like this, and makes them support it because they’ve gotta go out and get reelected and if they have their opponents start throwing these labels out… Liberals run that town. Liberals run the Beltway. Look at tax cuts. He supports tax cuts because he believes it’s supply-side economics, but the second component of it, reducing spending, didn’t happen. He believes in the usage of government to do good works, for the downtrodden, for the poor, wherever they are in the world. That’s the only thing I can come up with, and I’m not even critical of this. I’m just trying to explain. Politically, it’s the Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act of 2007. He’s not looking at it that way. He’s not looking at this through a political prism. Senator Kennedy and everybody else is. He’s not. This is good works for him.
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RUSH: Bruce in Waller, Texas, you’re next on Open Line Friday. Thanks for calling.
CALLER: Thanks for having me on.
RUSH: Well, you bet.
CALLER: I won’t bore you with details, but suffice to say I’m an American who has Canadian children. One of my children came to visit me and was here for about six months and was told to leave the country and that if she wanted to stay here, she would have to apply for citizenship just like everybody else. Well, if that applies to her, why doesn’t it apply to all these illegals?
RUSH: Great, great, great question. Well, because it’s easy to deport your one daughter. It’s impossible — we put a man on the moon, we’ve sent satellites, we’ve sent spacecraft to Mars and Jupiter. We can’t find 12 million people. Can’t deport them. Your one daughter, how old was she?
CALLER: She’s 23.
RUSH: How did they even find her?
CALLER: They had checked her entry point when she came into the states and found that she had been here too long.
RUSH: Okay, but she enters the country through the Canadian border, right?
CALLER: Correct. She flew in to Memphis, Tennessee, and I guess they found out through her entry credentials, I believe she was using a passport at the time, I’m not sure, but they found out that she had not returned back to Canada.
RUSH: I wonder if that’s from the NSA spy program. Might have thought she was a terrorist.
CALLER: Well, I don’t know, but if this law passes, if this bill goes into law, this is going to not just destroy the Republican Party, it’s going to tear America down from within.
RUSH: I know. That’s the purpose of it. People think that I’m a little bit extreme when I say this. But, folks, I know these liberals, I know what their objective is, and I know how raging angry they are over their loss of power in 1994. They think they had the election stolen from them in Florida in 2000. They don’t lose elections. They don’t lose power. They only acquire it and acquire more. They are filled with rage. This is specifically about tearing down institution by institution this country and remaking the country in a liberal image, a socialist state, whatever you want to call it, big government, brand-new entitlements and so forth, big tax increases to support it. Redistribution of wealth. Look, that’s a central element to this. You’re going to have these illegals proclaimed legal, but their financial status isn’t going to change that much. Still going to make what they make, but they’re not going to make enough to support themselves in all of their needs, certainly not their wants. But we will. Because the courts have ruled, they are entitled to health care, they’re entitled to education, they’re entitled to all these things, and guess who’s going to pay to make up the difference of what they can’t afford and what they’re going to get? You and I.
It’s redistribution of wealth, and the libs love that. Prevents the creation of wealth. Creates as many people dependent as possible. You know all this. This is specifically about remaking the country and trying to marginalize the Republican Party in such a way that they’ll never win another election. Not ever. I actually think it could work. It’s a long shot. That’s what they’re trying. You might say, ah, Rush, you’re overreacting to this, they couldn’t pull it off anyway. Well, maybe not, but that’s only because there are going to be people fighting — just can’t sit around — somebody said, ‘You think this is a tipping point?’ Could be, but it’s not going to be a tipping point on its own. People just can’t sit around and wait for the tipping point to happen and wait for the tipping point itself to be the weight that falls on this legislation. It’s going to take involvement by people to let elected officials know where they stand on it. And that always works if it’s in genuine and in large volume. This is Cortez in Houston. You’re next on the EIB Network, sir. Nice to have you with us on Open Line Friday.
CALLER: Thank you very much, Rush. Husker dittos. Long-time listener, first-time caller. I’ve actually been listening to you for 15 years and I credit a lot of what you’ve said to the success I’ve had in my career and life so far. So thank you very much, sir.
RUSH: Well, thank you. I appreciate your saying that.
CALLER: You know, I’m a conservative Republican, black American, not African-American, because my parents were actually born here and so were my grandparents, but I’d say that the solution is just kick out all immigrants who have come in, hundred years or less than that. You know, that will solve a lot of problem, and it will kind of get us started back to where we were before.
RUSH: Yeah, the legal immigration, with assimilation has always been the immigration objective in this country. Yeah, I understand your frustration. That kind of thing isn’t going to happen. You’re basically saying we need to start over. But that is an interesting thought. It’s an interesting philosophy to express and to contrast with what this legislation would do. This legislation gives up, this legislation gives up on the whole premise of legal immigration in this country. It gives up on the whole notion of it. Assimilation, preserving and expanding a distinct American culture. There’s no pressure to assimilate. In fact, there’s no need to. We’ve got all these obstacles in the way of assimilation so we’re free to have the country Balkanized if people desire that. Make no mistake, even though there are people all over the world who envy us and they envy our economic power and our success, that sometimes breeds dislike and hatred. You know it’s out there, and guess what party stokes that, by the way? Guess what political party in this country encourages the hatred in this country? It’s the Democrat Party. All of this is so pernicious.
I remember — I’ve told this story, immigration has always been a volatile issue for the people of this country. There’s never been a time that it hasn’t been. I remember, I went home, my grandfather, who died at 104; he was a lawyer; he worked ’til he was 102. I went home one day, one weekend for a trip to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and had a conversation with him. He wanted to know the big thing happening on my radio show that previous week. I said, ‘Pop, immigration, people are just going nuts about immigration.’ He started laughing. He said, ‘You know, back when I had to do my high school debate,’ he was a senior in high school, I guess like 1908, something like that, he said, ‘Yeah, we’ve been debating that since early 1900s.’ His debate proposition was resolved: immigration of southern Europeans had to be stopped because they were dirty and filthy and destroying the country. He just laughed and said this is something that’s always gotten people riled up. He had to argue both sides of it for his debate class, I think he told me, but obviously the proposition, it was just a high school debate proposition, but it was an argument, it was reflective on what was going on in the country. But even back then there were steps people had to take. The Ellis Island routine. People had to take steps to get in here. They had to prove they weren’t carrying diseases when they came in. Plenty of people were rejected. It’s not that way anymore, and there are warning clouds all over the horizon about this.