SALON

Wednesday, Apr 17, 2013 8:18 PM UTC

Marco Rubio is giving away free phones too?

Conservatives launch an attack on the Florida senator after fatally misreading a new immigration bill

By

Topics: Marco Rubio, Marco phone, Obama phone, Immigration, Laura Ingraham, conservative echo chamber, ,

Marco Rubio is giving away free phones too?Marco Rubio (Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

Hey, at least wacky conservative rumor-mongers are fair, in their own peculiar way. They seem just as willing to fire their brain-dead artillery at members of their own party as they are at Obama.

Remember the “Obama phone” — the completely ridiculous right-wing obsession on the idea that the Obama administration was handing out free phones to welfare recipients? Which turned out actually to be a Reagan-era program that provided discounts to low-income phone users?

Well, now there’s a “Marco phone” — as in Sen. Marco Rubio, proponent of a new immigration bill filed this week.

The Florida politics website the Shark Tank “reports”:

According to the newly filed bill, immigrants who are allowed to enter the United States under a work visa, will be “granted” a taxpayer funded cellular phone. Move over “Obama phone,” we present the new ‘Hola, Como Estas?!’ MarcoPhone.

Pretty much every word in that paragraph is incorrect, as Rubio hastened to explain during an interview with conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday.

The actual language of the bill refers to a program for subsidizing the purchase of satellite phones for U.S. citizens who live in border regions without cellphone coverage. The purpose of the program is to enable those citizens to report suspicious border activity to law enforcement authorities. It is, as Rubio tried to explain to a remarkably obtuse Ingraham, part of the border security package in the immigration bill, and not any kind of handout to immigrants.

Poor Rubio. His national political aspirations are going to come under more than enough heavy fire from the left for any potential presidential candidate to handle. But when your own side tries to drown you in half-baked conspiracy theories … well, it just goes to show, as Josh Barro tweeted, that “no argument is too dumb for the conservative echo chamber.”

Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More Andrew Leonard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 2 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Would we give up burgers to stop climate change? New study suggests if we reduce our intake of animal products by 25%, we can halt climate change
510 points511 points | 186 comments
vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
231 points232 points | 21 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
137 points138 points | 54 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
43 points44 points | 16 comments
vote
Capitalism, not feminism, killed home cooking–and fixing our broken food system is gonna take a lot more than some privileged women embracing “new domesticity”
30 points31 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations