Will Mainstream Media Call Out The Big Lie In Mitt Romney’s Immigration Speech?

[Tx4obama]

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney delivered a hotly-anticipated speech to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) on Thursday, hotly anticipated because he was supposed to address his position on President Obama‘s recent immigration policy change. Think what you will about Romney’s speech, but he failed to answer whether he would reverse that policy, and built the immigration portion of his speech around a naked lie.

-snip-

What the mainstream media really ought to be focusing on, though, is the outright lie that Romney told the NALEO conference, coupled with a very misleading, but popular, misconception:

For two years, this President had huge majorities in the House and Senate – he was free to pursue any policy he pleased. But he did nothing to advance a permanent fix for our broken immigration system. Instead, he failed to act until facing a tough re-election and trying to secure your vote.

Last week, the President finally offered a temporary measure that he seems to think will be just enough to get him through the election. After three and a half years of putting every issue from loan guarantees for his donors to Cash For Clunkers before immigration, now the President has been seized by an overwhelming need to do what he could have done on Day One.

The popular misconception that Romney alludes to is the notion that President Obama had controlling majorities in both houses of Congress for two years, when in reality, the Democrats only controlled filibuster-proof majorities for a total of about 14 weeks. Romney escapes pant-immolation because he used the less-specific “huge majorities.”

-snip-

http://www.mediaite.com/online/will-mainstream-media-call-out-the-big-lie-in-mitt-romneys-immigration-speech/

===


See here details regarding 'the 14 weeks' here:

Morning D’oh! Chris Christie Falsely Claims President Obama Had Filibuster-Proof Majority For 2 Years
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/morning-doh-chris-christie-falsely-claims-president-obama-had-filibuster-proof-majority-for-2-years/

It takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the US Senate, which is now the default to get pretty much anything done. As Scarborough well knows, the Democrats didn’t reach that 60-seat threshold in the Senate until Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) was sworn in on July 7, 2009. They lost that majority upon the swearing-in of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) on Feb. 4, 2010, just under seven months later. While state politician Christie can possibly be forgiven such an error, someone with Joe Scarborough’s reach and influence ought to have better than a 71% margin of error.

As Mother Jones‘ Kevin Drum points out, though, the actual amount of time the Democrats held a filibuster-proof majority, when you factor in the late Sen. Ted Kennedy‘s illness and the winter recess, amounts to 14 weeks.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. This is becoming obnoxious

Somebody needs to hammer them for this, as well as the fact that Democrats DID, in fact *pass* the Dream Act in both the House and Senate in that it got MAJORITY votes in BOTH chambers. Problem is that it failed to equal or exceed the "REPUBLICAN-IMPOSED 60-vote threshold", so it technically "passed" yet was ultimately defeated b/c their "huge majorities" couldn't exceed that artificially imposed threshold.


In retrospect, maybe they should have passed it within that 14-week window but nobody knew if or how long that window would last and, besides, it would've still taken extreme party discipline to get it through and even though a majority of people clearly wanted it, it didn't get to 60 votes to break the impasse. Had the Republicans allowed a straight-up vote, however, it would be law by now. People, especially hispanics, NEED to be educated about this STAT!

[SoutherDem]

2. I guess Romney feels 14 weeks were enough to do everything.

What I want to know is what would he be saying today, if during those 14 weeks, President Obama and his Democratic majority would have push through a very progressive agenda. I can think of a few things on my list;
Single payer health care
Fair immigration policy
Gay marriage
Remove debt ceilings
End Bush tax cuts for rich
New progressive tax system with the 1% paying at least 50%
BIG stimulus bill geared toward pubic works
Bank regulations
End corporate welfare
Fix Social Security
Fix Medicare
Fix Medicaid
Strict environmental regulations

I could continue but you get my drift.

[Tx4obama]

3. Be sure it read the FULL article in the OP up above, it also contains this ...

-snip-

But the idea that the President “did nothing to advance a permanent fix for our broken immigration system” is a provable lie, one that the President will surely call out when he speaks to NALEO tomorrow.

Compounding the lie, however, is the fact that Romney expects this audience not to realize that the DREAM Act, the very piece of legislation that inspired the President’s policy change, the bill that Romney claims the President “did nothing” to advance, was killed by a Republican filibuster.

-snip-

and more ...

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. Good

I bet that will make more than a few heads spin. I think that the debates are going to be even more interesting- to have Obama call Romney out on all this to his face!

Popcorn ready, yet?

[Life Long Dem]

5. Today he also called it an executive order.

"Some people have asked if I will let stand the president's executive order," Romney said.

http://legalnews.findlaw.com/article/08600mQ8yR3Lo?q=Mitt+Romney

[siligut]

14. Yes, he either thinks his audience is naive or that they don't keep up with politics

Or maybe he doesn't keep up with reality, that would be my guess.

[tanyev]

6. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no.

[gregoire]

7. Why give the Party a pass on the 14 weeks?

.

[Tx4obama]

8. Huh? What exactly are you saying? n/t

[Jim Lane]

20. I give them a partial pass because of the Blue Dog types.

That there were 60 Senators caucusing with the Democrats doesn't mean that there were 60 reliable votes for progressive initiatives.

Of the 58 nominal Democrats, there were several, especially those looking ahead to tough re-elections in red or purple states, whose main concern was to avoid being labeled as "liberal" (which they saw as a political liability).

Then, even if you hold all 58 nominal Democrats, Lieberman can sabotage you.

It's certainly no more than a partial pass, though. They should have done more. Reid and Obama should have been more willing to knock heads together to get the caucus in line.

[rufus dog]

9. was it 14 weeks?

The Senator from South Dakota was out with his brain tumor, will have to go check the records but was there ever more than a few weeks?

[Tx4obama]

10. Edited.

Tim Johnson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Johnson_%28U.S._Senator%29
Note: My mistake - he IS a Democrat.

==============================

Senator Franken (D) was sworn in July 7, 2009

Senator Kennedy (D) died August 25, 2009

Kennedy's seat remain empty for a full month

Senator Kirk (D) filed Kennedy's seat: September 24, 2009 – February 4, 2010

Senator Brown (R) was sworn in February 4, 2010

Subtract (the time Kennedy was on his death bed and couldn't travel to the Capitol) and the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks - and that will be the number of weeks we had a filibuster-proof senate.

[rufus dog]

11. Tim Johnson Democratic Senator from SD

Actually he returned prior to the 2009 session.

[Tx4obama]

13. Yep, he is a democratic. I was looking at the FULL chart and read the column wrong

here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_Senators

I think my eye must have caught the word 'republican' next to Thune's photo

[jenmito]

12. I tweeted Andrea Mitchell & Tamron Hall pointing out those lies. And I did it before today, too,

whenever a Repub. was on TV using this same BS and it went unchallenged.

[Wild_Dog]

15. We must do what we want the main stream media to do

The main stream media (whatever the hell that means) has shown how they are going to handle lies. They leave the lies on the table unchallenged!

We must handle the job they are not doing and figure out how to reach people. Corp Media will not do for us what must do for ourselves.

[Rosanna Lopez]

16. The Loss of 60 Seats

Unfortunately, a series of events transpired which prevented the Democrats from having a 60-seat majority for very long. Some of it was their fault, and some of it wasn't. Sen. Norm Coleman and the Republicans dragged out the Senate legal battles in Minnesota for as many months as they could in order to prevent the Democrats from seating Sen. Al Franken.

Unfortunately, Senator Kennedy's decision to run for re-election in 2006 meant that he stayed in office longer than he probably should have because of poor health. That meant that when we lost him in 2009, we then had to have the special election to fill the seat. Martha Coakley and the DNC didn't campaign properly, and the seat fell to Scott Brown.

Then Obama and the DNC allowed the Republicans to hi-jack the health care agenda and did not fight the rise of the Tea Party, so the Democrats lost more seats in 2010.

Now heading into 2012, we are at risk of losing control of the Senate altogether. It was foolish of so many incumbent Democratic Senators to leave the party in the lurch (eg. Sen. Kent Conrad, Sen. Herb Kohl, Sen. Jim Webb etc.) The failure of Obama and Harry Reid to persuade these guys to stay on for another term has meant we now have more vulnerable seats to defend. Elizabeth Warren has also been off her game in Massachusetts, and while still tied with Scott Brown, does not have the 5-point lead she had earlier in the year. Tammy Baldwin is really struggling in Wisconsin, and Clare McCaskgill is on the ropes in Missouri. Bill Nelson will probably hang on in Florida, but the there's about a 60% chance of the Senate going Republican right now.

[Tx4obama]

17. Two things

Her named is spelled: Claire McCaskill

And where on earth did you get the talking point of: "60% chance of the Senate going Republican right now" ???

I would say that it's more likely that there's a 75% chance of the Democrats keeping the Senate

and that there even a chance of picking The House back up

It will all depend on voter turnout

[Rosanna Lopez]

18. U.S. Senate

1. Sorry for the spelling error. Just typed her name from memory, but didn't check it. : )

2. Based on the prediction and statistical projections I have seen, the Republicans have the edge in winning the Senate. Do you have a projection model that shows the Democrats with the advantage in keeping the Senate? That can certainly happen, but we won't know until later in the year.

At the moment, I would say:

-we will lose the Senate seat in Wisconsin (the vacant seat of Kohl), as well as the Senate seat in Nebraska (the vacant seat of Ben Nelson)

- the Missouri seat (McCaskill) and the New Mexico seat are very much on the line. So is the Montana (Tester) seat. Bill Nelson will likely hang on in Florida, and obviously Feinstein is safe in California, Gillibrand is safe in New York, and the same likely goes for Casey in Pennsylavnia, Brown in Ohio etc. Sanders (I) will be re-elected in Vermont. There's a question mark on Maine. We had a shot of winning it when Olympia Snowe retired, but with King (I) throwing himself in, it's going to go to him instead of the Democrat. Hopefully King will caucus with the Dems, but he won't say until after November.

- Unfortunately I don't think Carmona (D) will get enough support to take Arizona, (although in a strong year for the Dems it might be possible.)

- The Dems can probably take Connecticut (vacant seat of Lieberman (I), although McMahon (R) is polling better than she did in 2010.

- Donnelly (D) will have a tough time against Mourdock for the vacant seat of Lugar (R) because Indiana is trending away from Obama this year.

- Carper and Cardin should obviously be solid in Delaware and Maryland. Stabenow looks like she is beating Hoekstra in Michigan.

- New Mexico (vacant seat of Bingham) is up in the air, but Kaine (D) probably has the edge over Allen (R) in Virginia.

- Warren (D) can probably beat Brown (R) on election day in Massachusetts if enough people vote straight ticket when they vote for Obama, but if lots of Independents split ticket and vote for Brown, it might not happen.

Anyway, that's how I would look at the Senate. Very uncertain right now.

3. Polling for the House is definitely better for the Democrats than in 2010 and there should certainly be pickups. The Pew poll today gives a lead to the Democrats I think, but it's going to be close. I think the average at RCP is 50/50.

[Tx4obama]

19. Senate Forecast Maps

Compilation of SEVERAL sites on Chart here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2012#Latest_predictions

Electorial-Vote.com: http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Senate/Maps/Jun21-s.html

RCP: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/2012_elections_senate_map.html

Sabato's Crystal Ball: http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/category/2012-senate/

Rothenberg: http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/ratings/senate
http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/ratings/spectrum/2012-senate-ratings-june-15-2012/senate

Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/11/1082263/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Senate-race-ratings-2012