July 11, 2014, - 5:43 pm
Fact-Checking Rush Limbaugh on Immigration, the Border Crisis, Bush & Obama
Rush Limbaugh is spreading disinformation on who is responsible for the BUSH immigration law that made it illegal for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Border Patrol to deport children who come into the border from non-border nations. And it must be corrected, lest the many ignorami on the right (who apparently exist in numbers mirroring their counterparts on the left) repeat him.
I was incredibly annoyed when, on Tuesday, I heard Rush, on his nationally-syndicated radio show, make shameless excuses for and just flat-out misinform about the law Bush heavily lobbied for and signed at the midnight of his Presidency–THE law which made it illegal to deport alien kids from non-contiguous states. Rush blamed it on Bill Clinton, who has NOTHING to do with it. Nothing. And then he blamed it on Joe Biden. And then he claimed falsely that two Republican Senators voted against it, which is funny ‘cuz the Senate voted for it by UNANIMOUS CONSENT, which last time I checked means they ALL voted for it, thus the words “unanimous” and “consent.” And, by the way, the House voted for it in a voice vote, and not a single Republican demanded a record roll call vote. Gee, I wonder why not.
Then, Rush said, “I guarantee you nobody knew this was in the bill,” which is also funny because as I told you over two weeks ago, the Bush Administration lobbied heavily for the passage of this bill and for the “protections” BUSH (not Clinton) created to prevent the quick deportation of illegal alien kids. I showed you the press release put out by the Bush Administration quoting his press secretary saying so. Also, I think it’s funny that we are now, according to Limbaugh, supposed to excuse Republicans for not reading bills they unanimously pass, while we blame Dems who don’t read the bills, such as the ObamaCare bill.
I detest Obama and the Obama administration and Bill and Hillary and the Clinton Administration as much as anyone. But stop lying. Clinton and Obama have enough crappy things they’ve actually done. We don’t need to make stuff up. Bush pushed for and signed this law and bragged about it, and he deserves all the credit for that “achievement” along with all Members of Congress and all Senators who passed this and didn’t ask for recorded votes. The excuses are laughable. And, by the way, this is another stark example of why you simply cannot believe what you hear on conservative talk radio any more than you can believe what you hear in the liberal media, although the liberal media has its facts right on this, and Rush created new “facts” that simply aren’t true. Not even close.
Here’s a fact check:
Rush Limbaugh said the bill passed in 2008 by both houses of Congress was not a Bush bill (gee, who was President that year? George Washington?), but a Bill Clinton bill. How does he come to that conclusion? Because, he claimed, it’s a renewal of a bill first passed and signed under Bill Clinton. The bill was renewed by Congress and signed by Bush three times, as I told you over a week ago. However, the part about preventing the instant deportation of children from non-contiguous countries was never part of the legislation until 2008 because, as the Bush administration itself bragged, Bush wanted to provide “extra protection” to women and children and keep them from being trafficked and then quickly sent back to their home countries. This was a big push in Bush’s ICE under Julie Myers a/k/a “The ICE Princess,” as I told you when I discussed this in-depth on the site nearly three weeks ago.
Um, is it really not predictable to anyone with a brain that making it near impossible to quickly deport illegal alien children is going to mean exactly that: making it near impossible to quickly deport illegal alien children? Yet, Limbaugh says, “I guarantee you nobody knows this was in the bill.” Uh, I guarantee you they knew exactly what was in the bill. They bragged about that in their press release. As I noted earlier on this site, Bush
signed the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (full name: “the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act to combat Human Trafficking”), which mandated that illegal alien kids (particularly the OTMs) be transferred to HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement within 24 hours of setting foot on U.S. soil or as soon as reasonably possible. Yes, Bush signed this law. And your Congressman and/or Senators probably voted for it, after Angelina Jolie lobbied them on it. But you won’t be able to find out for sure because the House passed the measure by a voice vote, not a roll call vote, and the Senate passed it by unanimous consent (so all of you in America can blame your Senators for the current crisis). Here’s an ICE press release heralding the Bush sneak expansion of child illegal alien rights:
On December 23, President Bush signed into law a bill that enhances measures to combat human trafficking. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Assistant Secretary John Torres were among 16 federal agency and private organizational leaders in the Oval Office who witnessed the signing of H.R. 7311, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. Elyse Smith, daughter of Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), also attended the signing event. The bill, which was passed by voice vote in the House and unanimous consent in the Senate on December 10, authorizes appropriations for FY 2008 through 2011 for the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
The legislation enacted today is in keeping with the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 (which amended the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000) to direct the United States Agency for International Development, the Department of State, and the Department of Defense to incorporate anti-trafficking and protection measures for vulnerable populations, particularly women and children, into their post-conflict and humanitarian emergency assistance and program activities.
Prior to the signing, White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto, said that the bill “has been a priority issue for the administration in preventing the trafficking of persons around the world. So this is a piece of legislation we’re very proud to sign.”
The trafficking bill signed today was named after English abolitionist William Wilberforce, who led the Parliamentary movement against the British slave trade in the early 19th century.
Rush Limbaugh then claimed on his show that Joe Biden rammed this bill through Congress. Really? How does all Republican Senators UNANIMOUSLY voting for it constitute Joe Biden “ramming it through”? And how does the House of Representatives voting for it and not demanding a record roll call vote constitute Joe Biden “ramming it through”? And where was a single Republican in the House or the Senate speaking out against it or demanding a recorded vote? Nowhere to be found. And by the way, in the House, the bill was sponsored by Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey, a conservative Republican who sees himself as the liberation theology shelterer of illegal aliens of the Right. So why does Rush Limbaugh not mention him and instead credit Joe Biden for “ramming it through,” a statement which has zero basis in fact?
Rush Limbaugh says that because this happened at the very end of Bush’s Presidency this somehow relieves Bush of the blame for signing (and quickly sneaking it in at the end when he knew he wouldn’t be held responsible for it or the consequences)–rather than vetoing–the bill he and his administration heavily lobbied for and bragged about in a press release. Huh? Did somebody put a gun to his head? Bush proudly and eagerly signed it. Had Bush vetoed the bill, it would have died because Congress wouldn’t have been able to take a vote overriding his veto, since they were already on vacation. But, in the world according to Rush, this somehow means that it is all Bill Clinton’s fault. Interesting, since Republicans and conservatives are constantly whining about Dems and Obama blaming Bush for what goes on in the Obama Administration (and Obama deserves credit, as I noted for the DACA–Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals a/k/a DREAM Act executive order which is attracting the illegal alien kids). But, here, Rush Limbaugh goes all the way back to the Clinton Administration to find someone to blame for a horrible bill Bush signed and both Democrats AND Republicans mostly voted for.
In the future, you should question any “facts” that conservative talk show hosts present you with (if you aren’t questioning them already). They have enough facts on their side with which to excoriate liberals. They don’t need to make up new “facts” that are simply false to make their cases.
Although in the case of Bush creating, pushing, and signing this horrible law, maybe they do need to lie.
Because the truth is pretty embarrassing for those on the right who say Obama isn’t enforcing the law by not instantly deporting the youthful illegal aliens. Sadly, he is enforcing that law because it says he can’t deport them.
And that law was signed by Bush. Not Clinton, not Obama, not anybody else.
If you care about this country, you will focus on principles rather than parties and personalities. Unfortunately, with his embarrassing set of excuses and non-facts about the Bush immigration law, Rush Limbaugh has shown he’s only about the latter two.
That, or he’s terrible at doing research.
***
One other thing: don’t forget that Rush was a big proponent of turning over our ports to Dubai because Bush was for it and he wanted to oppose Democrats and unions, who were on the right side of that issue. This is more of the same.
Limbaugh is a bloated a$$hole. WIsh he’d have ODed and died on his Vicodin.
DS_ROCKS! on July 11, 2014 at 6:08 pm