Posted on 09/08/2007 5:46:57 AM PDT by Josh Painter
Video Link: Charlie Rose Interview with Fred Thompson, Apr.24,1995
Fred does say, he is "a conservative" on that video. That was 12 years ago. Fred`s still a conservative today. And when the choices are between a liberal, a centrist, a moderate or a conservative, I know who I'm gonna vote for.
“Beat Hillary Clinton like a rented mule”
I’m savin that one!!!!
Could you clarify #6? Fred didn’t vote for the 1986 immigration bill.
Fred`s a solid conservative with tons of gravitas, but its his support for Federalism that sets him apart from his GOP opponents. Fred wants to resurrect Reagan's Executive Order #12612, which ordered each government entity look at ways to adhere to the Founder's ideas of original intent, aka. federalism.
President Reagan EO #12612, Federalism, October 26, 1987:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, and in order to restore the division of governmental responsibilities between the national government and the States that was intended by the Framers of the Constitution and to ensure that the principles of federalism established by the Framers guide the Executive departments and agencies in the formulation and implementation of policies, it is hereby ordered as follows:
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Just wait though, now that he has joined the race, he will be portrayed as the most despicable, under a rock resident degenerate that humanity has ever experienced via the MSM.
Yep!
My mindset also and it doesn't even have to be a step backwards into RINOism to do so.
But no candidate is "the most conservative out there" on every issue. Thompson has a solid record on illegal immigration, and a great record on foreign policy -- both prerequisites for me. But he's also much more conservative than Hunter on cutting spending, fighting entitlements and over-regulation, and returning Constitutionally dubious federal power to the states. Both are good men and good candidates -- I don't think it's accurate to term one or the other "the one true conservative."
A sirens song so pleasing to my ears!
To my recollection not a single Republican ever stated that they favor illegal aliens, just stating compromise to alleviate the problem without a true fix.
Fred Thompson has never taken such a stance.
I can envision a lot of "I don't recall" coming from Hitlery again. ; )
There is a lot of misinformation floating around out there about all candidates and all issues. In order to clarify Thompson’s immigration stance specifically, I looked at S. 1664, the most significant immigration enforcement bill that came up during his time in the senate. Because cherrypicking factoids can easily distort the record (the reporting from Iraq is a good example of this), I catalogued every Thompson vote on every amendment that was brought to the senate floor during the debate on this bill.
Here’s my summary, followed by the actual votes so people can draw their own conclusions.
In a nutshell, Thompson voted in favor of the toughest, most-extensive anti-illegal-immigration bill that came up during his tenure in the Senate. In the debate on this bill, he voted consistently against repeated attempts to extend welfare benefits to both legal and illegal immigrants, voted against attempts to make deportation more difficult, and voted for measures that toughened border enforcement and made it easier for INS agents to arrest illegals.
He did vote against two amendments dealing with chain migration, because it had been established in the Judiciary committee that questions of legal immigration would be dealt separately from illegal immigration. He also voted against efforts to shut down debate on the Abraham amendment and implement a defacto social security national ID card for employment enforcement. Finally, he voted against establishing a $100 million employer verification office within the INS. I don’t have his own testimony to know why he voted against this, but in the floor debate there were questions about the effectiveness of the employer verification program proposed in that bill (e.g., a program that forced employers to verify all applicants could have negative implications for government intrusion into citizens’ lives; a program that only verified non-citizens would be ineffective because illegals could just claim to be citizens to avoid verification).
I’ve also learned in my research that several of the claims against Thompson related to his immigration record are misleading or outright false. For example, he did *not* vote for amnesty for Cuban and Nicaraguan illegal immigrants, as Numbers USA has reported (more information on the Mack amendment is upthread).
In addition, there have been reports slamming Thompson for voting against several Simpson amendments (e.g., claiming that he opposed Simpson’s attempt to increase penalties for falsely claiming citizenship). These claims are either ignorant or deliberate misrepresentation. What actually happened was that Teddy Kennedy tried to attach a minimim wage hike to three Simpson anti-immigration amendments. This forced Simpson — along with Thompson and the other senate republicans — to vote against his own amendments to block Kennedy’s little games.
Here are the votes:
-Thompson voted against Chafee’s proposal “to provide that the emergency benefits available to illegal immigrants also are made available to legal immigrants.” (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00106)
-Thompson voted against Graham’s amendment 3759 that would permit state and local governments to ignore federal immigration enforcement law if enforcement compliance cost more than would be saved in benefits (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00105)
-Thompson voted against Graham’s amendment 3764 that would have allowed legal immigrants who arrived before enactment of the new law to continue collecting Medicaid (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00104).
-Thompson voted against Simon’s amendment 3813 that would have made it easier for legal immigrants who arrived before enactment of the new law to collect welfare (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00103).
-Thompson voted against Simon’s amendment 3810 that would have made it easier for legal immigrants who became disabled after arriving in the US to collect welfare (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00102).
-Thompson voted against tabling/killing Abraham’s amendment that aimed to prevent use of social security cards as a national ID card (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00101)
-Thompson voted against Leahy’s amendment 3780 that would have made it harder to deport illegal immigrants who claimed persecution (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00100)
-Thompson voted against Bradley’s amendment 3790 that would establish a $100 million office of employer sanctions within the INS (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00099)
-Thompson voted for Feinstein’s amendment 3776 that would allow deportation notices to be printed in languages other than English ((http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00098)
-Thompson voted against Simon’s amendment 3809 that would have allowed legal immigrants to stay even if they had received some types of public assistance for a year or more (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00097)
-Thompson voted against Kennedy’s amendment 3816 that would have limited employers’ ability to demand additional documents for employee verification (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00096)
Thompson was absent on 4/29-4/30/96
-Thompson voted with other Republicans (including Simpson) to table Simpson’s amendment 3671 (penalties for falsely claiming citizenship) because Kennedy attempted to attach a minimum wage raise to it (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00088)
-Thompson voted with other Republicans (including Simpson) to table Simpson’s amendment 3670 (pilot program for nonimmigrant foreign students) because Kennedy attempted to attach a minimum wage raise to it (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00087)
-Thompson voted with other Republicans (including Simpson) to table Simpson’s amendment 3669 (prevention of free education for some immigrants) because Kennedy attempted to attach a minimum wage raise to it (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00086)
-Thompson voted to push the overall bill forward in a party-line vote (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00085)
-Thompson voted to table Feinstein amendment 3740 related to chain migration on the grounds that legal immigration should be addressed separately ( http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00084)
-Thompson voted against Simpson amendment 3739 related to chain migration on the grounds that legal immigration should be addressed separately (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00083)
-Thompson voted to table Dorgan’s amendment 3667 that social security should be excluded from any balanced budget amendment (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00083)
-Thompson was one of only 20 senators to vote in favor of repealing the ban on INS agents searching open fields if they have probable cause to believe an illegal act has occured (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00080)
Talk is cheap.
Look at the record of the two and compare.
There's an awful lot of "I was for it, before I was against it" that goes on when the election cycle is on the horizon.
If political rhetoric is the sole reasoning behind voting decision, heaven help us.
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