Since Rick Santorum seemed to have some level of
difficulty in being able to name a single ‘achievement’ that would justify, in
some weird way, his endorsement of Marco Rubio, I decided to spend some time,
like maybe Rick should have, to find out for myself if there was anything that
could be called an ‘achievement’ of Mr. Rubio’s that was accomplished during
his brief time in the Senate. Although I
am not, personally, a supporter of Rubio I decided to take it upon myself to
throw Santorum, and anyone one else who might choose to support the very smooth
Mr. Rubio, to prevent him, and others, a rope to keep all from being stymied
the next time that question may be posed.
Because while he was unable to name a single ‘achievement’ of the man he
thought to be worthy of his endorsement, I managed to find several noteworthy
ones.
Listed
below are but a few of the ‘achievements’ that, had he bothered to go looking, Rick
Santorum could have easily identified as being credited to the recipient of his
recent endorsement, the honorable Senator Rubio:
(1)
The Rubio-‘Chuckie’ Schumer Gang of Eight ‘Amnesty’ Bill:
The
Washington Examiner’s Byron York has described the 2013 Rubio-Schumer bill as
Rubio’s “signature accomplishment.” Although Santorum seemed reluctant to
mention it, Rubio’s immigration bill is probably the first accomplishment that
comes to mind when anyone thinks of Rubio’s very brief career in the U.S.
Senate. Rubio’s immigration bill would
have tripled the issuances of green cards, doubled the dispensation of foreign
worker visas, and granted citizenship — and, thereby, welfare access and voting
privileges — to illegal immigrants.
Reports
ranging from the The National Review, to the Tampa Bay Times, to the Washington
Post, to the New Yorker have all suggested that the “Gang of Eight” bill would
have likely not passed the Senate if not for Rubio’s tireless efforts. Indeed,
Rubio was the key salesman of the Barry “Almighty”-backed immigration agenda. As Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker reported at
the time, Rubio served as “the Gang’s official ambassador to the right,” and
was able to convince prominent conservatives to promote the open borders
legislation.
It
was also Mr. Lizza who wrote: “[Democratic Senator Bob] Menendez told me that
Rubio’s role was to ‘work over the conservative universe, particularly the
conservative opinion-maker universe,’ in order to ‘neutralize them’ and, in
some cases, ‘proselytize them.’ Schumer said, ‘He’s the real deal.’” Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin told Lizza,
“[Rubio] has been invaluable… He’s willing to go on the most conservative talk
shows, television and radio, Rush Limbaugh and the rest.”
Moreover,
Rubio was also able to successfully strike down all conservative amendments to
the “Gang of Eight’s” proposal. As Sen. Rand Paul pointed out, “Marco and
Schumer basically had a secret deal to block all amendments.” Indeed, Rubio
joined Chuck Schumer in voting down an amendment offered by Sen. Thune, which would
have required the completion of a double-layer border fence. He also
successfully defeated an amendment offered by Sen. Vitter, which would require
the implementation of an exit-entry tracking system in order to prevent foreign
nationals from illegally overstaying their visas.
(2)
Obamatrade:
It
was also Rubio who cast the 60th and deciding vote to fast-track the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. By giving Barry fast-track powers,
Rubio essentially helped to ensure the passage of not only the TPP, but all
subsequent trade pacts, which are now liberated from Senate filibuster,
amendment process, and constitutional treaty vote. This represents a significant legislative
victory for the young Senator, who previously endorsed TPP and described Barry’s
trade deal as the “second pillar” of a President Rubio’s three-pillar foreign
policy strategy.
Moreover,
Rubio was also successful in promoting foreign currency manipulation by helping
to vote down a provision to crack down on the illicit practice that had been
proposed by Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman.
(3)
Blocking Curbs to Muslim Immigration:
Rubio
told Sean Hannity he’d “hate” to block funding for Barry’s refugees, and
suggested that curbs on Muslim migration would be unconstitutional. This pro mass-migration
offensive helped give House Speaker ‘RINO Paul’ Ryan the space he needed to
wave in a vast new group of Muslim migrants.
Rubio further lent aid and comfort to ‘RINO’ Ryan by joining a large
group of Senators in voting down a proposal offered by Sen. Rand Paul to curb
Muslim migration. Sen. Paul’s amendment would have suspended visa issuances to
more than 30 Muslim countries with active Jihadist populations.
Oh,
and by the way Rubio has also been one of the most ardent champions for
increasing Muslim migration. The U.S. has admitted roughly 1.5 million migrants
from Muslim countries since 9/11 on a permanent lifetime basis. Yet Rubio has
sought to grow that number vastly. In 2015, Rubio introduced an immigration
bill which would have allowed for an unlimited increase in Muslim migration.
(4)
Enabling His Corporate Backers to Replace Americans With Foreign Workers:
In
2015, Florida Disney laid off scores of Rubio’s constituents and replaced them
with low-wage foreign workers brought in on H-1B visas. However, before
terminating their American employees, Disney forced those same constituents of
Mr. Rubio’s to train their lesser-skilled foreign replacements.
If
Rubio had spent his political capital in 2013 trying to reform the H-1B
program, instead of massively expanding it, he could have saved the careers of
these Disney workers, instead of enabling their termination by leading the
charge for more foreign workers. In 2013, Rubio’s aide even told Ryan Lizza
that “There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it.
There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star
performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to
do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly because–.” And it was at this point that another Rubio
aide jumped in, asserting, “But the same is true for the high-skilled worker,”
to which the first Rubio aide replied, “Yes, and the same is true across every
sector, in government, in everything.”
Shortly
before the Disney workers got the axe, Rubio introduced legislation in January
of 2015 to massively expand the H-1B program. Rubio’s 2015 Immigration
Innovation Act would have tripled the number of H-1B visas. Interestingly, the
bill was endorsed by Disney’s CEO Bob Iger via his immigration lobbying group,
the Partnership for a New American Economy. According to Open Secrets, the Walt
Disney Corporation is one of Rubio’s biggest financial backers, having donated
more than $2 million.
Unfortunately,
Rubio’s success in protecting his corporate backers’ ability to increase their
bottom line has gone virtually unreported by our state-controlled media. This
perhaps explains why so few are able to list his Senatorial achievements. For instance, Julia Preston of the ‘New York
Times’ has written numerous articles about the Florida Disney’s H-1B scheme.
Yet Ms. Preston fails to mention the fact that Rubio introduced legislation to
triple the H-1B program, nor does Preston like to mention the fact that Disney
is one of Rubio’s financial backers. And
in an effort to prove my point, here are several stories in which Preston
writes about Rubio’s corporate backer replacing Rubio’s constituents with
H-1Bs, yet makes no mention whatsoever of Rubio nor Rubio’s H-1B legislation:
a)
Pink Slips At Disney, But First Training Foreign Replacements
b)
In Turnabout, Disney Cancels Tech Worker Layoffs
c)
Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded To Replace U.S. Workers With Immigrants
d)
Disney Has No Comment On The Recent Reversal of Layoffs
e)
Senator Seeks Inquiry Into Visa Program Used At Disney [The Senator mentioned
here in Preston’s story is Florida’s Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. In contrast to Sen. Rubio — who provided
cover to Disney’s cheap-labor practices by pushing to expand H-1Bs — Sen.
Nelson joined Sen. Jeff Sessions to propose legislation that would reduce the
number of H-1Bs and eliminate visas for low-wage jobs. Preston’s story makes no
mention of Sen. Rubio nor his desire to expand H-1Bs.]
(5)
Blocking Food Stamp Reform:
In
2011, Rubio voted against a Republican proposal which the Congressional Budget
Office projected would save the U.S. government $10 Billion by reining in the
abuse of the food stamp program. The measure was backed by almost all
Republicans and opposed by virtually all Democrats. The measure, as Sen. Jeff
Sessions explained when he proposed it, would have eliminated what is known as
the “categorical eligibility” for food stamps, which makes people
“automatically eligible” to receive government benefits even if that household
has “substantial assets.” Rubio was one of only seven Republicans to oppose the
measure, but his no vote helped stall momentum for food stamp reform– which
remains elusive. Rubio’s campaign did
not respond to requests for explanation as to why Rubio voted against the 2011
food stamp reform.
(6)
Benghazi:
As
George Will has pointed out, Rubio gave his “enthusiastic support of the Barry
“Almighty”/Hitlery Clinton intervention in Libya.” And it was the Washington
Examiner that reported at the time in a piece by Bill Kristol, entitled “Rubio
takes the lead to support Obama’s war in Libya:” “Rubio proposes that the
Senate authorize the president’s use of force in Libya, and that the
authorization state that the aim of the use of force should be the removal of
the Qaddafi regime.” And it was Will who
also noted that “Rubio supported this third adventure in regime change in the
Muslim world since 9/11, perhaps on the principle that practice makes
perfect.” The destabilization and chaos
that resulted from the overthrow of Qaddafi not only provided an operating
ground for ISIS, but also provided the conditions that led to the 2012
terrorist attack in Benghazi.
(7)
Worst Attendance Record:
Reports
note that Rubio has amassed one of the worst attendance records in the Senate,
which is quite an achievement in itself. The Washington Post writes, “Since the
beginning of the year, Marco Rubio has cast votes about two-thirds of the time
he could have — the worst attendance of any senator seeking a presidential
nomination.” The Sun Sentinel editorial board noted, “Rubio has missed more
votes than any other senator this year. His seat is regularly empty for floor
votes, committee meetings and intelligence briefings. He says he’s MIA from his
J-O-B because he finds it frustrating and wants to be president, instead… But
two other candidates — Sens. Rand Paul and Sen. Bernie Sanders — have missed
only 10 Senate votes during their campaigns for the White House. You, on the
other hand, have missed 59, according to a tally by Politico.”
By
contrast, Iowa’s Sen. Chuck Grassley set the record for the “longest temporal
stretch of perfect attendance in senatorial history,” as Roll Call reported
earlier this month. Roll Call notes that the Senator has “not missed a recorded
vote in 22 years, six months and six days.
Now since you’d be pretty hard-pressed to find any
of his ‘achievements’ being reported upon anywhere in the state-controlled
media, perhaps it’s understandable that Mr. Santorum has a difficult time in
coming up with any. And although the state-controlled
media seems to be more than a bit hesitant to report it, Rubio has been one of
the most ardent and successful champions of the donor-class’s open borders
trade and immigration agenda. While
other establishment Republicans have been unsuccessful in promoting the
donor-class’s priorities, Rubio has repeatedly demonstrated his rather adept
ability to deliver for his donors. This
perhaps explains why Rubio’s campaign has been enthusiastically embraced by
some of the most powerful mass migration advocates, like Paul Singer and Larry
Ellison.
So, I guess my point here is that if it was easy for
me to track down these ‘achievements’ of candidate Rubio, then why was it that
Mr. Santorum was unable to come up with even one. Or is there, perhaps, another reason that he chose
not to mention any of these ‘achievements’?
And as if Santorum’s decision wasn’t bad enough, I was very disappointed
to hear how it was that former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal has also now
decided to throw his support behind Rubio.
Jindal is apparently another who, while he makes a great deal of noise
about being a ‘conservative’, is very obviously, not a conservative. Santorum and Jindal, and Rubio as well,
appear to be little more than posers, so would it be fair to ask if we actually
have a bona fide conservative anywhere on our list of remaining candidates?
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