The Demonization of Marco Rubio

For the past week, the conservative establishment has been trying to destroy Marco Rubio. It’s time to debunk the lies, the distortions and the smears.

● Lamar Smith I: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) attacked the Rubio bill the moment it came out. Lamar said, “This bill guarantees there will be a rush across the border to take advantage of massive amnesty.” Except, as Lamar knows, the law provides that they need to have arrived prior to December 31, 2011, so any rush to come here now would be pointless – those people will be deported.

● Lamar Smith II: Smith also attacked the bill as “offer[ing] to legalize the relatives of illegal immigrants outside the U.S. and even others who have already been deported back home.” In other words, he wants you to believe that people who were deported can come right back as can the families of those already here illegally. That’s a lie to.

Under the bill, family members of those here and those already deported need to go through the same immigration process everyone else does. What Lamar is really saying is that these people would not be permanently banned from the US, but he’s phrasing it in a way to mislead you by falsely implying that they would instantly be made residents. He’s lying to you.

● The Regulatory Canard: Bunches of conservatives have whined that this bill would result in new regulations. This is misleading. ALL LAWS RESULT IN NEW REGULATIONS. Regulations are how laws get implemented and the government acts on regulations, not laws. So screaming that a law will result in regulations is beyond disingenuous as the same criticism could be made of ANY law.

● It’s Big Government!! I: The Daily Caller attacked the bill because it would impose “big government” upon us. How you ask? Well, all those poor conservative farmers and small businesses would be FORCED to use the “intrusive” E-Verify system. The horror... the horror. Keep in mind that every conservative advocates using the e-verify system, so attacking the bill for using that is sheer hypocrisy.

● It’s Big Government!! II: The Cato Institute argues that improving border security means big government because it means we would need a stronger “biometric” system to monitor who comes and goes. In other words, conservatives argue that the bill must be stopped because it doesn’t fix the borders, yet the bill also must be stopped because fixing the borders would mean big government.

● The $3,000 Canard: There is real deception going around about the idea that the “bill gives the newly legalized a $3,000 hiring edge over US Citizens.” That’s Drudge’s headline and it’s been repeated ad nauseum by conservatives everywhere. Sounds like the law was meant to favor THEM over US, doesn’t it?

Well, the basis for this claim is that these people won’t be allowed on Obamacare, so they will cost employers $3,000 less. Only, that estimate is false. It will be closer to $500 and it will only be true for companies who choose to pay the Obamacare fine rather than providing healthcare to their employees. Secondly, it ignores the fact these people have a massive advantage over Americans already because they don’t get minimum wage or withholdings. These same conservatives simultaneously whine that the problem with the bill is that these illegals will actually get our precious Obamacare.

● They’re Going To Ruin Welfare!: Jim DeMint and basically every other conservative is whining that these illegals will now get welfare and other federal benefits like Obamacare. They ignore the fact that the law expressly precludes that. That makes their argument a lie.

Many, like Ann Coulter, get around this fatal flaw in their attacks by further whining that there’s no way to enforce that part of the law. That’s a lie too. And even if it wasn’t, it’s a disingenuous argument because you could make the same attack on all laws. Why ban abortion if it might not be enforced right?

Heritage did a “study” in which they laughably claim that expanding welfare to include these people will cost $2.5 trillion. That number is bogus. As mentioned above, these people can’t get welfare, so the actual cost is $0. Moreover, there are 50 million people on welfare today and the system costs $1 trillion. Adding all 11 million illegals (a nonsensical assumption) should at most cost another $200 billion.... less than a tenth of what Heritage is pimping. If only 10% apply (which is still far too high) then Heritage’s number is 100 times greater than reality. It is safe to say that Heritage is lying.

● 400 waivers... and a mule: The Daily Caller ran a headline warning that Rubio’s bill includes 400 waivers, exceptions and exemptions. This was meant to scare you into thinking that Rubio’s real intent was to hand Obama the power to not enforce the law and then to grant a secret amnesty. Of course, this is nonsense. For one thing, that’s not a valid way to find waivers, exception or exemptions in a law. Further, anyone who has ever read laws knows that most exceptions are procedural only and therefore meaningless. Most importantly, the fact that only one “exception” has become subject to conservative whining tells us this was false analysis.

That exception is the border security commission. The bill provides that Homeland Security will have five years to secure the border with biometric identification measures. If DHS fails, then that role gets stripped from DHS and goes to a commission to handle. Rubio described this commission as consisting of representatives of border states.

Conservatives pounced on this. First, they accused Rubio of “failing to stay awake in his civil procedure class” in law school because they claim that an error in the way it is written means that the commission could be wiped out if someone challenges the validity of the commission and the Supreme Court takes more than ten years to decide the matter. But there are problems with that. First, the Supreme Court won’t take ten years to decide the issue. Secondly, the fence (the conservative placebo) can’t be challenged. Third, it’s not clear the commission could be defeated in this way in any event. Fourth, even if the critics are right, then the fix is to add a sentence to the bill making sure that doesn’t happen... not to whine like children that the whole bill must be defeated.

These conservatives also squealed that Rubio “lied” when he said the commission would consist of border state representatives because the President, the Senate and the House also would appoint members in addition to the border state governors.

● Ann Coulter: Finally, we come to Ann. Ann smeared Rubio in an article titled, “If Rubio’s amnesty is so great, why is he lying.” I was going to dissect her article and show you the kind of crap she’s using to call Rubio a liar, but it’s just too depressing. Essentially, she invents a quote for Rubio, then she disagrees with a subjective adjective she included in her invented quote, and on the basis of her disagreement with her own invented adjective, she says that “Rubio was the Mount Vesuvius of lies about his immigration bill.”

It is, therefore, rather ironic that Coulter led off her article with this quote: “When Republicans start lying like Democrats, you can guess they are pushing an idea that’s bad for America.” Yes, Ann, that’s true... but Rubio isn’t the one lying.

If conservatives want to object to Rubio’s bill, that’s fine. But it’s not fine to lie, to distort, to scaremonger and to attempt to destroy Rubio in the process. This is a credibility killer, especially as I see this on issue after issue now from the narcissists who run the “genuine conservative” movement. At this point, I simply no longer believe anything they say until I can find the proof independently. . . they have become MSNBC to me.

I’ll tell you what I like about Rubio though, and why I am thinking it is increasingly likely that he will be our next president. Rubio has an unflinching positive attitude. He doesn’t grouse or whine or hide in a bunker telling himself that he’s the purest of them all. He seems genuinely interested in finding conservative solutions to problems and with making the world better. He is everything the above “genuine conservatives” are not. He’s also not afraid of the “genuine conservatives,” which is the kind of person it’s going to take to not only fix the Republican Party but to save conservatism from narcissists who speak for it now.