◼ Rush clears up a few things about Reagan's immigration policy. - CNS
Liberal supporters of President Obama's executive amnesty claim that Obama is only doing what the conservative Ronald Reagan once did.
"Reagan never did this," an indignant Rush Limbaugh told his listeners on Wednesday.
"If Reagan did this, then why did Obama once say he didn't have the power to do this?" Limbaugh asked. (President Obama on numerous occasions has said he does not have the power to change immigration law without Congress. "I'm not the emperor of the United States," he told Telemundo last year.)
"Well, why didn't he say, 'Wait a minute, yes, I can. I can be a dictator 'cause Ronald Reagan was, everybody knows.' Why didn't he cite Reagan back then?" Limbaugh asked on Wednesday. "Why didn't he cite Reagan last week, last year? Why let this controversy gin up? If Reagan did it, why not say it at the outset and then shut up everybody?"
Limbaugh described himself as "almost speechless" as he prepared to explain to his audience "just how big the Left is distorting this."
Far from issuing an executive order, Reagan in 1986 signed legislation passed by Congress -- the Simpson-Mazzoli Act.
"Congress debated and passed a law to grant amnesty to three million illegal immigrants, and Reagan signed it. They are saying that's exactly what Obama's going to do. They are claiming that Reagan signing legislation, thereby making it legal, is the same thing as an Obama executive order. It's breathtaking what they're trying to say here.
"Reagan had a statute behind him," Limbaugh continued. "The statute was called Simpson-Mazzoli. The very law that Reagan had signed was signed after it was passed by Congress. What Obama is about to do is write a law, or rewrite a statue all by himself."
Limbaugh said Obama's executive amnesty is "totally different," because "the president cannot write law. The president can't make it up. ...The Constitution does not say, 'In case the Congress refuses to cooperate with the president, the president may, in that case, create his own law.' It doesn't say that. And Obama knows it doesn't say that...
...Writing in The Atlantic on Nov. 18, David Frum also said there are ◼ "huge differences" between Obama's executive amnesty and the actions of Reagan did in 1986 and George H.W. Bush in 1990.
