Cross-posted at Daily Kos.
This was a big week in anti-immigrant ranting for Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-AL), the leader of the “Gang of Hate.” It’s becoming more and more clear that Sessions is on a mission to defeat immigration reform. You might even call it an obsession.
At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week, Sessions welcomed his allies from the anti-immigrant movement, including Kris Kobach, the mastermind behind Mitt Romney’s self-deportation strategy. Sessions was a big supporter Kobach’s self-deportation law, HB 56, in his home state of Alabama–but thankfully, that law is now mostly unconstitutional and self-deportation eventually led to Mitt Romney’s crushing 2012 defeat.
Yesterday afternoon, Sessions took to the Senate floor — and again started ranting about the Gang of 8 immigration bill. Which was when we learned something interesting: Sessions and his crack apparently staff don’t understand the bill. As Sessions himself said:
Our diligent staff has been trying to read it and absorb it, and they are having a great deal of difficulty sifting through this complicated 844-page bill.
His “diligent staff” is having difficulty? Maybe, just maybe, if Sessions’ staff spent more time studying what’s in the bill instead of spreading lies about it, they’d have a better handle on it. Last week, Buzzfeed reported that the chief counsel to Senator Sessions, Danielle Cutrona, was pushing around false stories about the legislation and how it would give immigrants “Marcophones”. But now, Sessions is whining about the supposed “gobbledygook” that’s in the bill–otherwise known as basic legislative language:
This is gobbledygook. My staff tells me every time they go back and read it, they see more difficulty. I have not even had a chance to look at this.
After 17 years in the Senate, one would think that Sessions would have a veteran staff equipped to understanding legislation. And his last line, ” I have not even had a chance to look at this,” makes us wonder if Sessions has even read the bill himself.
As Sessions concluded his Senate floor rant, he said:
I look forward to doing the best I can to examine it carefully.
Shorter Sessions: “I look forward to doing the best I can to kill immigration reform.”
