Rush Limbaugh: Why are Republicans Hell-Bent on Destroying Their Party with Amnesty?
https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net...601_5982_q.jpg Rush Limbaugh
There's no evidence that this works. There's no evidence that this benefits the Republican Party.
Why are Republicans Hell-Bent on Destroying Their Party with Amnesty?
January 30, 2014
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is just late January. Anything can change. And the big thing that could wipe all of this out is the one issue that could make Republicans stay home, and that would be if the House Republican leadership pushes forward with any kind of immigration reform. There is no reason that any Republican voter can be made to understand why we have to do this, and yet the Republican leadership seems hell-bent on getting this done. It's the end of the Republican Party. That's not even arguable.
All you have to do is look at California and what's happened to the Republican Party there since the last time we did amnesty, which was Simpson-Mazzoli, '86-87, and you see what will happen. I mean, when you flood the country with millions of people who are predestined to vote Democrat, in a vast majority sense, who are inexperienced and low wage, what in the world is going to happen when you bring in that many or legalize that many and you've given up your assimilation, the assimilation aspect of immigration, then you have Balkanization that takes place? There's no evidence that this works. There's no evidence that this benefits the Republican Party.
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So people are looking at this and they're just scratching their heads. And that's why people come up with explanations for it, such as, "Well, these guys have been in the House for all these years, and they make their annual salary, and that's it. But when they leave, if they do the Chamber of Commerce's bidding on this, maybe they'll get a great, great long-term, high-paying gig at a Chamber of Commerce-related business. Or maybe a lobbying company will hire 'em, maybe a donor will hire them at some point, if they do this."
That's why people start coming up with explanations like that. And what those people that assume things like that are actually saying is the Republicans in the House leadership would sell out the party and the country for their own personal gain. That's pretty damning.
That would be a serious charge if somebody actually publicly made it. I'm not. I'm just repeating to you what I've heard from people who believe there has to be a logical explanation for this, and the logic isn't found in the politics of it, so what is it? Well, here's where we are. Reset the table. The Democrats have given -- according to Politico, late January, subject to change, where we are today. It's real, by the way. I think people in this country are so fed up, status quo. It's not that they're fed up with Democrats. That'd be great if they were. I'm not even going there. They're just fed up with Washington, with government. It isn't working on the thing that is, in many people's lives, the most important thing in the world to 'em, and that's their health care and their health insurance and not going bankrupt and not losing everything.
Washington doesn't get that. They're not connected to these people. They use them. They exploit them. They take their votes and they promise them all these things and then lie to 'em. That bond has really been severed here. But it's not because the Republicans have done anything. They haven't done anything that's attracting these people. This is a total anti-vote, if it happens, if the election were today, and it happened the way it's expected, it would be a total anti-vote like 2010 was.
So in the midst of that, why in the world would you sabotage that?
Why would you do something guaranteed to keep your voters home?
Well, the only logical political explanation is that the Republican establishment is willing to get rid of the Tea Party as voters, as members, and conservatives, and willing to live in the wilderness for how many number of years necessary to reassemble a coalition that is made up of moderates. And particularly these guys, who, when this is all over, are gonna be okay job-wise, after they're not reelected, after they're defeated, primaried or what have you. And that is a legitimate political possibility, too.
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You know as well as I do that the Republican establishment is not enamored of conservatives in the Tea Party, and the Republican Party consultant class doesn't like them, and whoever, Palin, Cruz, Mike Lee, don't like them, don't like the voters, and if this can sever them from the Republican Party, that's the only logical political explanation for it. It still doesn't compute.
Mickey Kaus has a piece today at The Daily Caller. And this is about the Republicans who, by the way, if you're just joining us, Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus and the spokesman, the communications director from the RNC, Sean Spicer, appeared this week on MSNBC to tout immigration. I'm sure they know that MSNBC is under a ban on this program. We don't play anything from MSNBC. It's a way to be under the radar. It's a way to curry favor with Democrat voters. I know, folks, if it doesn't compute, don't blame yourself. We've got those sound bites coming up.
But Mickey Kaus. He goes back and forth. Centrist guy, leans left, but is sensible now and then. He's got a piece The Daily Caller about the Republicans and their pursuit of immigration reform.
"This is the Best Scam They Can Come Up With? -- Immigration reform watchers have been waiting to see how the GOP leadership tries to package legislation to trick anti-amnesty conservatives into voting for what in essence is an amnesty.
Curiosity grew after House Judiciary chair Bob Goodlatte gave the impression that the leaders were preparing some sort of 'enforcement first' approach -- or at least preparing to pretend they were proposing an 'enforcement first' approach: 'If we can have a way to get [immigration enforcement] up and operating, I see no reason why we can’t also have an agreement that shows how people who are not lawfully here can be able to be lawfully here.'" That's one of the Republican leaders speaking.
"The problem for Republican lobbyists -- whose clients would deeply appreciate the surge of cheap labor an immigration bill could provide -- is that Democrats will not agree to any bill that actually requires enforcement measures --" meaning securing the border. The Democrats will not agree to any bill that actually requires securing the border, "-- (like an E-verify employment-check, or a system to catch visa overstayers, or a fence) to be 'up and operating' before legalization."
The Republicans are saying, "We're gonna do amnesty, but not at first. We're gonna shore up the border, we're gonna legalize the people here, but not citizenship. They can't vote." And Kaus is saying the Democrats are never gonna support that. That's not what they want. "They want legalization now -- both to please their constituents and to allow them leverage against enforcement later, once legalization has been pocketed."
http://www.rushimg.com/cimages//medi...lag6_large.jpg So, asks Mickey Kaus, "How were Boehner & Co going to sell 'legal status first' plan as an 'enforcement first plan'? Now we know: By pretending that legal status isn’t legal status. That’s something that not even the famously deceptive Senate Gang of 8 tried. According to amnesty champion Paul Ryan, illegal immigrants would at first get 'probationary status' along with a 'work permit.' They could come 'out of the shadows' and live and work here. Then if measures are taken so the 'border is secured' they’d get a 'regular work permit.'"
The idea, according to Greg Sargent, well-known leftist at the Washington Post, "Seems to be that 'Undocumenteds will be allowed to work on probation while the border is being secured, but will not enjoy legal status.'" All that means is they can't vote, and that's all that matters to the Democrats and maybe the Republicans, but really not at first. The Republicans are really trying to satisfy the Chamber of Commerce and their donors. The Democrats want the voters; the Republicans want their donors to keep donating, they want the money.
"So if the idea seems to be that 'Undocumenteds will be allowed to work on probation while the border is being secured, but will not enjoy legal status.' Why not? Apparently because their 'probationary' permits might not be permanent -- the immigrants 'could be kicked off of probationary status if certain security benchmarks aren’t met.'"
And Kaus says, "This is a joke." This is never gonna happen. Who do they think that they are fooling with this? The first thing that isn't gonna happen is secure the borders. That's not gonna happen while we've got 12 million or whatever on probation.
Hey, 12 million, come out of the shadows, we're here, you're here, we love you. There's a job over there, a job over there.
You can do anything, but you can't vote.
Meanwhile, while you come out of the shadows we're gonna go down and we're gonna build a fence, secure the borders or whatever, but while we're doing that, you can't do anything but work and pay taxes. And, by the way, if you do something that makes us mad, we could revoke your probationary permit. You could be kicked off if certain benchmarks for shoring up the border aren't met. And people say, "Come on, that's never gonna happen."
In the first place, the reason it isn't gonna happen is because nobody wants that. That is language in there to appease somebody. That language is to appease the Tea Party. That language is to appease you. It's language designed to appease everybody who opposes this. Because they're trying to convince you that you're worried about these people coming and flooding the voter rolls with Democrat votes and voting, and that's not gonna happen. And everybody and their uncle says, "Oh, yes, it will."
The reason why this doesn't pass the smell test is Chuck Schumer.
It's real simple. We do all of this as it's drawn up, and within two hours Chuck Schumer's gonna find a camera, maybe less than that, and he's gonna start talking about what he wasn't told, and how inhumane this is. (imitating Schumer) "You mean to tell me that we're going to welcome these wonderful, great, real Americans out of the shadows, and we're gonna tell 'em to go do dirt work that nobody really wants to do, and we're gonna tell 'em they've gotta pay taxes, and they can't vote? That is unacceptable."
And the move will be on, legislation to get rid of that probationary status and turn 'em into voters, and nobody's gonna vote that down. And Kaus' point is this is of course what's gonna happen. He's asking, why don't the Republicans see through this? The headline: "This is the Best Scam They Can Come Up With?" He's asking the Republicans, do they not understand how transparent their plan is?
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Kaus says: "This is a joke." He gives four reasons here. "a) Anything that allows formerly illegal immigrants to 'be able to be lawfully here,' ... is legal status." You call it probationary or whatever you want to call it, but it's legal status. If you are going to take them from illegal to legal, you bring 'em out of the shadows, they are legal.
You've just granted amnesty. No matter what you say and no matter how you try to calculate it, you've just granted amnesty.
And he says: "The Ryan plan gives this legal status -- ability to live and work here -- instantly, rewarding people who immigrated illegally with the main thing they were after," and that is legal status. And, by that example, more people, more illegal immigration would be encouraged because future illegals-in-waiting would see what happened. They would see that after a certain passage of time, they're gonna be made legal, too.
So it's not gonna shut down illegal immigration, like the amnesty people tell us, and just like we were told after Simpson-Mazzoli: "We gotta do this and this will stop." Ted Kennedy, remember? We won't have any problem anymore if we do this now. And they're just saying that now.
The second thing. "Nobody is going to re-illegalize previously legalized illegals." That's a tongue twister, but what he's saying here, okay, they bring 'em out of shadows and we make 'em legal. But then we say, if we don't secure the border, if something goes wrong there, then you're gonna go back to being illegal. He's saying that's not gonna happen, who are we lying to? Who are we kidding?
Nobody is going to re-illegalize people that have been legalized if border security goals are not met. How's that gonna happen? We can't even run a website for health care. How in the world is any of this gonna happen? We're gonna legalize 'em, and then they can't vote, can't become citizens until we shore up the border, but if something goes wrong there, then we're gonna re-illegalize 'em. This is never gonna happen.
"The idea," Kaus writes, "is so bad there is zero chance the provision would even make it into final legislation after House-Senate talks. The entire purpose of Ryan’s exploding cigar legalization provision is to give House conservatives a reason to say immediate legal status isn’t somehow really immediate legal status." That's why he says, do these people really think conservative Tea Party people are this dumb that they're not gonna see this for what it is? That's the purpose of Kaus' piece, if I had to sum it up.
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RUSH: Here is the third thing. Even if you accept all of these terms, Paul Ryan's plan does not satisfy the promise of Bob Goodlatte since it allows illegals to be lawfully here before enforcement measures are up and running. See, Goodlatte's out there trying to tell everybody, "Don't worry, we're not gonna legalize anybody 'til we secured the border." No. The plan legalizes people while we secure the border and then claims if something goes wrong with that, we will re-illegalize 'em before they are able to vote.
Kaus says, "Really, this is the best they could come up with? I'm beginning to worry about the lack of ingenuity among America's skilled legislative con artists. Maybe we need to import some better ones from abroad -- a sort of 'guest lobbyist' program. (H-1K visas)," get some people in here who know how to run a scam. Mickey Kaus in The Daily Caller. He said, "
"What's wrong with a straight Enforcement First, Legalization Second approach, anyway? The undocumented have been waiting 'in the shadows' for 25 years. They can wait 5 more while we implement a few measures to prevent another surge of additional undocumenteds..."
What's wrong with a straight enforcement first, legalization second approach anyway? The undocumented have been waiting in the shadows for 25 years. They could wait five more while we implement a few measures to prevent another surge of additional undocumenteds after this." Why the need to do it now, he's asking -- and the answer, of course, is right C of C. It appears, anyway. What's in the public domain is, the reason we gotta do it now is the Chamber of Commerce.
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RUSH: Our old buddy Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation last summer wrote a report, issued a report, published a report, and made the point that if you take a body of 11 million immigrants who have an average education of tenth grade -- and these are statistical numbers. Nobody's insulting anybody here. Just calm down. But that's basically what we're talking about, by definition -- and even that may be somewhat charitable.
http://www.rushimg.com/cimages//medi...PpartyofNO.jpg But we'll stick with. If you take a body of 11, 12 million immigrants who have an average education of tenth grade and you give them access to 80 different means tested welfare programs, including Obamacare, Soc. Security, and Medicare, who is going to pay for that? There is polling data that shows overwhelming majority of such arrivals are not here to join the Tea Party.
They believe in Big Government. They believe in command-and-control government over their lives. It's just what they believe.
You throw this group of people into the mix with no assimilation and immediate access, and you're overwhelming a system that's already incapable of fulfilling its original purpose and charter.
Now, I don't want to anybody misunderstand. I'm actually thinking that Kaus here has nailed it.
I just wanted to share with you a take on this that I found humorous in parts but interesting. You know, I guess my quibble with Kaus would be that this was only meant to be a fig leaf and not a scam.
Immigration itself is the scam. It's the mother of all -- illegal.
Amnesty is the mother of all scams. But this securing the border talk is just a fig leaf that enables the real scam. The scam is not the strategy. That's my quibble with what Kaus said.
He's laughing at the strategy. He's saying, "Can't they come up with a better way to lie? Can't they come up with a better way to scam us, can't they come up with a better plan that will fool people? Where's Bill Clinton when we need him? That's what Kaus is asking. So I don't think their strategy is the scam.
Amnesty is the scam. The substance of this is the scam, not the strategy. That would be my quibble with Kaus' take.
But to each his own.
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RUSH: Bob in Osawatomie, Kansas. Great to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. This is an honor, and we love you in the Midwest and we truly think you're a gift.
RUSH: Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much.
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CALLER: Oh, you bet. It's the truth. I had something on immigration.
I'll be quick as I know that you can couch this better than I can, and perhaps you can see the err of my ways. But I'm strong on Paul Ryan, and I think this may be more brilliant than we think. I read through and listened and found out as much as I could about this proposal. When you have Trumka and Schumer come out so quickly against it, I think we may be on to something.
I think what Paul Ryan may be doing... Most, the vast majority of Americans seem to want some way of getting their friends, the people in their church, some sort of a legalization card. But their sense of fair play won't let them move ahead of people, get amnesty, get citizenship, or just get a free pass in. It seems to me what they're doing is they're forcing Obama into a veto that he doesn't want to make, and I think that's why Schumer's so scared of it like Trumka is so scared of it.
RUSH: That they would veto it?
CALLER: Yes. I think that's what they're doing, or else threatening to do before it even goes anywhere, and then the Republicans take the high ground and say, "Here was an immigration bill," and I think immigrants will see it that way. I think if any of us know any illegal immigrants --
RUSH: Wait. I just want to understand. Are you suggesting that they're proposing this without really thinking it's gonna go anywhere?
CALLER: Or, if it does go somewhere, they win. It's a win-win. If it doesn't go, they take the high ground, and the Democrats, they bluff them out of their position. If it does go, they win the immigrants. You can't lose.
RUSH: That interesting, your take on this.
CALLER: Rush, this is why I think that. First of all, you're making somebody legal, and we all realize that's tough to stomach this, because here in the Midwest --
RUSH: Let me ask you a question, since you seem to be inclined to support this. We do this now?
CALLER: The "now" does surprise me, except I think they may be picking an issue that was at 3% in most of the polls as having importance. Because in other words, when you do a win-win, they're picking an issue that people will flag, that they'll take an interest in, and yet it's a 3% on their radar. And so the Republicans are going to show the hypocrisy of Obama and the Democrats and they're picking an issue that's not huge.
RUSH: No, it is huge. The 3% number in the polls is the number of people who think that it is important and needs to be done -- i.e., only 3% think we need to reform immigration law with amnesty.
We've already got the most generous immigration policy in the world.
But here's another thing: There are a lot of people who, you know, favor immigration because they think it's going to help people escape poverty.
They just do it on that basis alone, just from the compassion side of it; and immigration is not a solution to poverty. It's certainly not a solution to poverty around the world. It's not the solution to poverty in Mexico. You might say it's a solution to poverty for those who emigrate to the country, but not necessarily the illegal immigrants, because they're not assimilating, the majority of 'em.
Now, to your theory. Look, Trumka? I dealt with this at the beginning of the program. Trumka reflexively opposed the Republican plan, came out very angrily opposing the plan, and I think the reason why is to maintain credibility with his base.
After all, these are the dastardly Republicans. Trumka and the Democrats have demonized these Republicans for decades, so any idea they've got has to be suspected.
Any idea they have has got to be wrong, cockeyed, mean-spirited, racist, or whatever. Trumka, even if he likes it, cannot afford to agree with it right off the bat. But I don't think that in any way this entraps the Democrats or Obama. All it does, if it succeeds, is give them what they want, and they are always going to get the credit for it, no matter what. The Republicans...
This is the frustrating thing for me.
The Republicans are never going to be given credit. Even if they pass this law, even if the Republicans are the ones to make amnesty happen, they're not gonna get the credit for it in the media. Obama is. The Democrats are. The Republicans are going to be reported as having gone along with this because of the inevitability of it. "It's the only way they could have survived."
They're not gonna be given any credit whatsoever for this. But it's interesting that Bob here thinks there's something in this, that Ryan's really brilliant on it and we're missing -- and I'm open to that possibility. I mean, I don't close anything off. But it just doesn't look that way to me right now. I don't know why we're doing this. I don't know why we're doing it, period, and I don't know why we're doing it now.
Grab sound bite 24. It's not very long. It's Ted Cruz. It's from Bloomberg TV Market Makers this morning, and he's talking so some guy named Peter Cook. The question's longer than the answer. Basically he's asked: What do you make of this Republican plan? Is this a move Republicans should be making?
Is it time to compromise with the Democrats on this?
CRUZ: I think it would be a mistake if House Republicans were to support amnesty for those here illegally. In my view, we need to secure the borders. We need to stop illegal immigration.
RUSH: And he's gone further, of course, as you know. Why are we doing it, period, and certainly not now. If the Democrats are on the ropes, why do it now? I just... The thing that scares me about it, Bob, is I just think it's the end of the Republican Party.
I look at California, not to mention the end of the country. I actually care about that first.
I appreciate the call. Thank you so much.
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