http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/o ... he-weekend

By Bridget Johnson - 12/12/10 07:53 PM ET

If Sen. Bernie Sanders captured the web's attention Friday with his filibuster against President Obama's tax-cut deal with Republicans, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher staged his own weekend tweet-buster against the DREAM Act.

The California Republican continued his war of tweets into Sunday over the bill that provides a pathway to citizenship to children of illegal immigrants with certain military and schooling requirements, but shifted his arguments toward another Twitter user.

Rohrabacher began debating a user named @alesolo who identified herself as being from the OC -- Orange County, in his district falls -- after on Friday she retweeted video of a floor speech in which the lawmaker said, "Those voting for this so-called DREAM Act are voting to relegate the position of non-minority American citizens to behind those who are now in this country illegally."


On Saturday evening, the debate had come to this tweet by Rohrabacher:

@alesolo My kin arrived in 1709 before gov benefits & racist preferences. Should your family's educ/medical$ go to illegals? Are U selfish?

To which she responded:

@DanaRohrabacher so early immigrants did not take "benefits" in the form of resources and land from native Americans?

And the congressman replied:

.@alesolo Indians lost their country to foreigners. I'm not letting that happen to us w/out a fight. Which side are you & your friends on?

Rohrabacher also responded to another handful of Twitter users:

.@theSoniaG @izofice @rigo_ @P1Lal @raylab @LouiShoeGem You know you've won when opponents call you names rather than address your argument

@alesolo chimed back this tweet:

@DanaRohrabacher nobody is trying to "take" this country. We are all welcome here and we will coexist. That's the beauty of humanity.

•Rohrabacher, Round One
But both she and the congressman moved on to new DREAM Act sparring partners, with Rohrabacher engaged in tweet warfare with a blogger in San Francisco, Denis Yurchikov, who fired several tweets including:

@DanaRohrabacher Your only argument seems to be that white people will be hurt by the legalization of students. That's illogical.

The congressman fired back:

.@yurchie Illegals bid down the wages of taxpaying Americans. Health care & ed then provided to illegals. Americans lose. DANA

@yurchie said:

.@DanaRohrabacher You might be betraying your country by not helping out your new generation of innovators and educators.

And Rohrabacher tweeted:

.@yurchie Do u believe people who are here illegally should have preference over US citizens. Is this not a betrayal of our fellow citizens?

.@yurchie Racially based preferences for-among other things- jobs, admission, loans, training programs are mandated by various laws.

And the blogger responded:

@DanaRohrabacher You've gone completely off-topic. This isn't about racial preferences.

@DanaRohrabacher You're all about white people huh?

As the weekend drew to a close, the congressman kept firing:

.@yurchie Americans=every race. All should have priority over illegals. Amnesty triggers pref already in law. Pointing this out isn't racist.