RUSH: The DREAM Act in the first hour of the program. The DREAM Act is a stealth maneuver. Before I describe to you the end result of the vote today, let me describe for you what the DREAM Act is. It is a sleeper piece of legislation. The DREAM Act is in the Senate. It’s a Dick Durbin special with Dingy Harry flying shotgun here. It would grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. The Democrats need those people as voters. Now, Dingy Harry has crafted it in a way that has gained not very much media attention, which means he might, at some point, get away with it. Well, he’s not going to get away with it now because they failed to get cloture. The motion to bring the DREAM Act to the floor of the Senate for debate failed 52-44. It is dead in the water. The DREAM Act is a nightmare for Dick Durbin and Dingy Harry, as of now. Democrats can bring it back up at a later point and go for it all over again, and they will. But before they do, we’re going to spend some time here to inform you just what the DREAM Act is.
I know a lot of you already know what it is, but for some of you who don’t, it’s a stealth maneuver that would ‘grant conditional legal status to any illegal alien who claims to have arrived in the US prior to age 16,’ which opens the same old can of worms and questions: ‘Well, how do we know that?’ How can we prove it? How can they prove to us that they arrived in the US before they were 16 years of age? ‘Any illegal alien can apply for the program that the DREAM Act would enact, and those who would gain legal status via the DREAM Act provisions could sponsor any family members, allowing additional millions to access the program,’ without a DNA test, by the way. They wouldn’t have to prove they’re family. They’d just say, ‘They’re my family.’ No DNA test. This is what Sarkozy is trying to get done in France, by the way: a DNA test to prove that these people’s family members are actually family members. There would be a ban — you follow me on this already. Anybody who was here before the age of 16, they claim, could apply for ‘conditional legal status,’ amnesty, if they say they were here before they were 16. They could bring their family members in with no test to make sure they are genuine family members, and once anybody applies for amnesty, ‘conditional legal status,’ they are thus banned from being deported.
There would be a ban on deportation for anybody who applies, with no test. Felons, child molesters, all an illegal would have to do is show up and say, ‘I was here before I was 16.’
‘Fine! Well, then, great. You’ve got conditional legal status here, and you can’t be deported — and, by the way, why don’t you go grab your family and bring ’em in, too.’
They would be ‘granted ready acceptance into colleges and universities.’ It’s everything that we fought to stop in the amnesty bill. This is the sequel. This is amnesty two. There’s nothing about border security in it. There’s nothing about extra law enforcement to secure the borders, sanctuary cities. Plus this: ‘Illegals who apply for the DREAM Act can count their green card status toward the five years needed to attain citizenship, which lawful immigrants cannot do.’ (interruption) You’re right, Dawn. It’s very sad, and it’s not right. All this is… The DREAM Act is nothing more than fast-tracking of illegals over others. I think what this all adds up to is the Democrats know that they cannot win, folks. They cannot win without getting more victims, more people on the dole, more dependents — and they cannot win unless they get some more people to put into the voter rolls illegally. This is how they are counting on keeping power without one thought to the unintended consequences of any of this. I have another story here. Get this.
This is the Washington Post, and the headline is: ‘Poll Finds Virginia Focused on Illegal Immigrant Issue Could Sway State and Local Races — After years of simmering in the background, illegal immigration has quickly emerged as one of the key issues in Virginia’s November 6th election, particularly northern Virginia, where voters say they are seeking candidates who will address it, according to a new Washington Post poll.’ Snerdley, help me out here. We had a story yesterday out of the Boston Globe that was about the special election up in Massachusetts district number five. The Tsongas babe won it, but by a much smaller margin than was expected, and there was another story that I read that the Drive-By Media was stunned that illegal immigration was an issue, a national issue. It was another Washington Post story. That’s right; it was another Washington Post story. So we’ve had two stories in a row from the Washington Post, where the reporters are stunned that illegal immigration is an issue that might sway elections.
Where were they during the amnesty debacle? They live inside the Beltway or in their newsrooms or whatever, and they are so disconnected to real events in this country — which is why they get all hot to trot and excited when Barbara Boxer blames the war in Iraq for a forest fire and a lack of National Guard troops to put it out. The lieutenant governor of California, John Garamendi, does the same thing and takes some gratuitous swipes at Bush. Yeah, they love that! They absolutely love that, and anybody else out there who wants to take a swipe at the war for depleting National Guard troops. But in terms of understanding exactly what’s happening in the country, I don’t think they have a clue. Let’s look at the libs first. It’s hard to separate the libs from the Drive-By Media, but let’s not. Let’s just bundle them together like they already are. You are in California. You have lost your home, or you know family members and friends who have lost their homes, or you are about to lose your home because the fire is raging on a fast track for you. You turn on the TV, and you hear Harry Reid blame it on global warming and then six minutes later deny he said it. We have the audio.
You hear John Garamendi, your own lieutenant governor (paraphrased), ‘Well, if Bush comes out here we’ll be civil, but I don’t know what he can do, maybe bring our troops home from Iraq,’ and then you hear Barbara Boxer, one of your senators, basically say the same thing. You think some of these Californians are saying, ‘Screw you, libs! We’ve got a disaster out here, and instead of politicking about this, come out and help us, because we’re already on the front lines trying to save our homes, save our schools, and everything else that’s burning up out here.’ Do you think they have any idea how this is impacting the people who have been touched by this tragedy, at all? I’d be interested to know — and then Claire Shipman. We played this audio in the last hour. Claire Shipman of ABC was trying her best to drum up bad news about the lack of fire-fighting airplanes and so forth, and Schwarzenegger says (paraphrased), ‘You are not going to find bad news. You’re not going to get me to admit bad news. You’re looking for bad news, but you won’t find it. The good news is good news. The news is good here, in terms of how we’re fighting this and how we’re dealing with it,’ and, as I mentioned, Schwarzenegger has gone across the line. He’s crossed the aisle now. He’s calling himself a centrist. He wants everybody to go to the center with him, but he’s still got those conservative instincts, and the media light ’em up. So when Claire Shipman tried to get him to pile on with all this bad news, he basically swatted her away like a little pesky fly.