Idiots Respond!

So today the Supreme Court declared most of the draconian Arizona “papers please” immigration law unconstitutional. This was a big, if partial, win for the Obama Administration.

Quickly, however, the Republicans have responded with lies and stupidity. Here’s Mitt Romney’s written statement:

“Today's decision underscores the need for a President who will lead on this critical issue and work in a bipartisan fashion to pursue a national immigration strategy. President Obama has failed to provide any leadership on immigration. This represents yet another broken promise by this President."

"I believe that each state has the duty--and the right--to secure our borders and preserve the rule of law, particularly when the federal government has failed to meet its responsibilities. As Candidate Obama, he promised to present an immigration plan during his first year in office. But 4 years later, we are still waiting.”

This, of course, ignores the fact that the Obama Administration has proposed many immigration reforms, including some bipartisan policies, only to have all of them shot down by Republican filibuster. The failure of reform is entirely due to partisan politics by the Republican do-nothing Congress. Romney also lies about Obama Administration enforcement of the immigration laws. The Administration (for good or ill) has actually deported far more people any other Administration EVER. So Romney both lies and obfuscates.

But he’s not the only one. Here’s Republican party chairman Reince Priebus echoing the same FALSE talking points:

“Once again we are reminded that President Obama has failed to keep his promise on immigration reform,” said Priebus. “In the absence of presidential leadership, states have acted on their own to serve their people and enforce the law, but the issue cannot fully be resolved with a president unwilling to keep his promises. This decision makes that job even more difficult, and it leaves Americans waiting for a plan the president promised to deliver years ago.”

And lest you think it ends there, here’ Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in his friggin’ dissent, of all places:

But there has come to pass, and is with us today, the specter that Arizona and the States that support it predicted: A Federal Government that does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written, and leaves the States’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude. So the issue is a stark one. Are the sovereign States at the mercy of the Federal Executive’s refusal to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws?

A good way of answering that question is to ask: Would the States conceivably have entered into the Union if the Constitution itself contained the Court’s holding? Today’s judgment surely fails that test. [...] If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State. Not only is this a moronically stupid legal argument (would the Southern states have entered into the Union if they had known that one day slavery would be outlawed?), but it repeats the same lie about enforcement.

NOTE TO MORONS: The Obama Administration has been enforcing the immigration laws. Saying that he hasn’t is a LIE. And you’re all supposed to be Good Christians, right? Isn’t lying against your religion?

Wankers.