AP Fact check needs a fact check of its own

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Daily Star does not do fact checking. When it publishes a fact check article, it typically is an AP (All Propaganda) fact check report, like today's AP report. Dueling immigration claims aren't always the whole truth.

What I found interesting about this fact check is that President Obama is fact checked only once, and the remainder of the article fact checks the shameless shapeshifter and pathological liar, Willard "Mittens" Romney.'

But the one supposed fact check of President Obama by the AP is "misleading" and needs a fact check of its own. The offending passage reads:

Here's a closer look at Obama's statement, Romney's assertions and how they match up with the facts:

OBAMA: "We should have passed the DREAM Act a long time ago. It was written by members of both parties. When it came up for a vote a year and a half ago [2010], Republicans in Congress blocked it. The bill hadn't changed. The need hadn't changed. The only thing that had changed was politics."

THE FACTS: Five Senate Democrats voted against sending the DREAM Act to the Senate floor for full consideration. The bill would have created a path to citizenship for many young illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children. Last week, Obama announced plans to stop deporting illegal immigrants who would have qualified for the DREAM Act. The policy change does not include a path to citizenship.

So according to the AP fact check, the DREAM Act "failed" in the Senate because of five Democratic Senators. The AP does not acknowledge the Republican filibuster and suffers under the delusion that 60 votes are required to pass a bill in the Senate.

Did you know that the DREAM Act has received a majority vote of the U.S. Senate three times? In October 2007, the DREAM Act was offered as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill. It received 52 votes in favor of passage. In 2010, the DREAM Act was again incorporated into the Defense Aurthorization bill. In September 2010, it received 56 votes in favor of passage. The bill was reintroduced, and in December 2010, it received 55 votes in favor of passage.

In each case, the DREAM Act "failed" only because of the abuse of the Senate cloture (filibuster) rules by Senate Republican leadership.

And about that 2010 vote: four senators did not vote, including Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a previous sponsor of the DREAM Act.

Only three Republicans – Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bob Bennett of Utah, and Richard Lugar of indiana — voted for the Dream Act in December 2010. It is important to note that Bob Bennett was a lame-duck, having lost his senate seat in the GOP primary to a teabagger earlier that year. Lisa Murkowski as well had lost her GOP primary to a teabagger earlier that year, but was reelected in November as an "independent." Richard Lugar recently lost his GOP primary contest to a teabagger this year.

That is why 36 Republicans, many of whom had voted for the DREAM Act previously and even sponsored the legislation, like our own Sen. John McCain, voted against ending the GOP filibuster in December 2010. They live in fear of the radical teabagger terrorists who have hijacked the GOP.

The five conservadem Senators who voted against ending the GOP filibuster in December 2010 — Max Baucus (MT), Kay Hagan (NC), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AK), and John Tester (MT) — should be ashamed of their vote. But the "failure" of the DREAM Act was due to the GOP strategy of obstruction by abusing the Senate cloture (filibuster) rules. But for GOP filibusters, the DREAM Act would already be law.