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Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) on Thursday warned his colleagues in the Senate that people who were "wearing some form of turban" were illegally immigrating into the United States by crossing the Southern border.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to consider amendments to the bipartisan immigration reform bill, Cornyn asserted that he had "anecdotal" evidence that only 25 percent of undocumented immigrants crossing the border were caught by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

"In fact, anecdotally, the border patrol last -- on Sunday and Monday were telling me, they think they maybe catch one out of every four people coming across the border," he declared. "Maybe one out of every three. And that's a problem."

The Texas senator argued that this made the case for an amendment offered by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), which establishes "triggers" that prohibits legalizing undocumented immigrants until the Department of Homeland Security has established "effective control" of the border for six months.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), however, pointed out that a 2012 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the Border Patrol had a 82 percent effectiveness rate at catching illegal border crossings.

"I would love to see that report because I don't believe that's the case," Cornyn replied. "The problem is the effectiveness rate you referred to doesn't take into account the people that cross illegally and the department is not tracking. In other words, it doesn't take into account the people that get away, which could, according to the anecdotal reports, be two out of every three, three out of every four."

Cornyn added that he had also been told during his recent visit to the southern border in Texas that "we're not just seeing the border penetrated by people from Mexico or Central America."

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Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) on Sunday said that he opposed a bill to close the so-called gun show loophole and expand background checks to Internet gun sales because only better mental health laws will ensure that the Newtown mass shooting victims "did not die in vain."

"In my meeting with the Sandy Hook families, they told me that -- and of course, who wouldn't have sympathy and empathy for these people who have suffered a terrible loss -- but what they told me is that they wanted to make sure their loved one did not die in vain, that something good would come out of this," Cornyn told Fox News host Chris Wallace. "And so I think -- that's why I'm focused like a laser on the mental health component."

"But forgive me, sir," Wallace interrupted. "They are focused on tougher gun control. Specifically, the background check."

"Well for example, [Newtown shooter] Adam Lanza stole his mother's guns," Cornyn explained. "A background check would not have stopped that problem, that incident. A background check should have stopped James Holmes in Tucson, it should have stopped the Virginia Tech shooter."

"In other words, I think the mental health issue is the common element that we ought to be focused on, and I think we can do some good things," the Texas Republican added. "But I'm not for symbolism over substance. I think we can't just pat ourselves on the back and say we're going to pass some enhanced penalties for trafficking or other issues or background checks when they don't really go to solve the problems that cause these terrible tragedies."

Cornyn pointed out that the bipartisan legislation proposed by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) would not have prevented any of the four most recent mass shootings.

"The [Newtown] parents say that doesn't matter," Wallace noted.

"Well, what matters to me is that we not just engage in a symbolic act and pat ourselves on the back and say we've done something good and left the problem unsolved," Cornyn insisted. "I would like to try to solve the problem by focusing on the common element of these recent tragedies, which is the mental health issue."

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Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham -- who once accused opponents of the Iraq invasion of trying to "subvert America" -- is now blasting the The Wall Street Journal for beating the "war drums" because the editorial board expressed support for President Barack Obama's use of drones.

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked Ingraham what she thought of the split within the Republican Party after Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) criticized Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) filibuster of CIA Director John Brennan over speculation that President Barack Obama might target citizens inside U.S. borders with drone strikes.

"John McCain, Lindsey Graham and The Wall Street Journal editorial board, extremely dismissive of Rand Paul," Ingraham pointed out. "Wall Street Journal said, 'Calm down;' said, 'You don't have to do more than fire up impressionable libertarians in their college dorms.'"

"I thought to myself, when is the last time a Republican managed to capture the imagination of young people, some people on the left, Mitch McConnell, John Thune, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio?" she added. "There was a wide range of Republicans and people on the left who said, 'You know something? I think the attorney general should be able to answer a simple question [about the use of drones] with an unequivocal yes or no.' He couldn't do that, and Rand Paul served an enormously important function during that filibuster. He wasn't waving his hands and ranting and raving, contrary to what the Journal condescendingly said."

Liberal contributor Juan Williams argued that the targeted killing policy needed to have transparency and judicial review, but Paul was "grand standing" with his filibuster.

"But the fact is that no U.S. citizen has ever been targeted or killed by a drone on U.S. soil," Williams explained. "And secondly, the Constitution gives the president authority to go after a U.S. citizen if that U.S. citizen is somehow involved in colluding with an enemy of the United States."

"I just want to say that I love the fact that we have the hawk, Juan Williams, and the dove, Laura Ingraham," Wallace snarked.

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Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) says that President Barack Obama only announced support for same sex marriage because "he can't run on his record."

"He's trying to raise divisive issues up to solidify his base and to divide the country," Cornyn told CNN's Candy Crowley on Sunday. "We have two looming things that are going to happen in December and January. And the president is AWOL on both the largest tax increase in American history that will occur when about 130 different tax provisions expire on December 31 and a sequestration in January, which will be half a trillion dollars in what Secretary [Leon] Panetta, his own secretary of Defense, said would be disastrous cuts to the military."

"Where is the president?" the Texas senator continued. "He's trying to raise issues that aren't going to be resolved between now and then in an attempt to distract the country from his record."

President Barack Obama last week declared that “same sex couples should be able to get married.”

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are incredibly committed, monogamous, same sex relationships who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and, yet, feel constrained now that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is gone because they’re not able to commit themselves in a marriage," the president told ABC's Robin Roberts.

"At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think that same sex couples should be able to get married."

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Jon Stewart hit the hypocritical Republicans this Tuesday night for their apparent problems with basic math and their opposition to passing the Buffett rule after attacking the money spent on Planned Parenthood:

STEWART: So, let's see if I can get this straight. $47 billion in millionaires’ money is less than $300 million in mammograms and birth control.

They might care about the public noticing their blatant hypocrisy if they were capable of feeling shame, but they've made it obvious over the years that they are not.

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Why shouldn't same sex couples have equal rights? According to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), it's because equality is just too expensive.

"Repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) would actually result in an expansion of federal benefits and spending at a time when we know that federal spending is way out of control and our entitlement programs are unsustainable," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

"Repealing the Defense of Marriage Act would actually increase the cost of Social Security that is already insolvent," he added. "No one has paid into the Social Security system expecting benefits to be paid to same sex partners."

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) later explained that same sex couples, like everyone else, deserved the benefits of the system they had been paying into.

"If you have a same sex couple, both of whom have paid into Social Security, both of whom have fulfilled all the things required, that somehow it would be wrong if they got the same benefits as an opposite sex couple would," he said. "Fair is fair. They paid. They should be allowed. ... I think if you're paying the taxes, you're fulfilling the obligations, you ought to get the same benefits as anybody else."

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) added that a 2004 Congressional Budget Office report found that legalizing same sex marriage would actually slightly decrease the Social Security burden.

In the end, the committee voted 10-8 along party lines for the bill to repeal DOMA. It is not expected to pass the full Senate even if it does comes up for a vote.

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Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said Sunday that it was a mistake to argue that it is unconstitutional not to raise the debt ceiling.

Section 4 of the 14th Amendment reads: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

On a conference call last week, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters that the idea that the 14th Amendment requires the debt ceiling to be raised was "certainly worth exploring."

"That's crazy talk," Cornyn told Fox News' Shannon Bream. "It's not acceptable for Congress and the president not to do their job and the say somehow the president has the authority to then basically do this by himself."

"We ought to sit down and work together, and it shouldn't take the form of press conferences like the president gave last week, where he was essentially the schoolmarm, scolding Congress for not getting its job done when, in fact, he is the one who has not stepped up and given us a proposal," he continued.

In May, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner pulled out a copy of the Constitution and read the 14th Amendment during a discussion with Politico about raising the debt ceiling.

"This is the important thing -'shall not be questioned,'" Geithner said.

For his part, President Barack Obama has sidestepped the question.

"I'm not a Supreme Court justice so I'm not going to put my constitutional law professor hat on," the president told NBC's Chuck Todd at a press conference last week.

From The Senate Democrats, Republicans are finally taking a little bit of heat in the press for their hypocrisy on earmarks.

Republicans Say One Thing In Washington And Something Else At Home:

Senate Republicans took a lot of heat yesterday for stuffing a bill with millions of their own earmarks, then trying to claim they oppose earmarks. but Republicans’ earmark hypocrisy is even starker when you compare what they are saying in Washington, DC to what they are saying to their constituents back home.

In D.C., DeMint Decries Earmarks: “Americans want Congress to shut down the earmark favor factory, and next week I believe House and Senate Republicans will unite to stop pork barrel spending…Instead of spending time chasing money for pet projects, lawmakers will be able to focus on balancing the budget, reforming the tax code and repealing the costly health care takeover.” [The Hill, 11/9/10]

…But In South Carolina, DeMint Defends Earmarks: “U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint said fellow senators are ‘playing politics’ in blocking his colleague's efforts to secure a $400,000 earmark to study deepening Charleston Harbor.” [Herald Online, 9/11/10]

In D.C. , Cornyn Poses As An Anti-Earmark Champion: “I believe the public discontent can be accurately sourced, and Congressional earmarking process has become a symbol for wasteful and undisciplined federal spending. Earlier this month, I joined a bipartisan group calling for a one year moratorium on all earmarks. That effort failed. We missed a major opportunity to show we are serious about tightening our Congressional belts during a difficult economic period.” [Everyone Loses in the Earmark Game, 3/31/08]

… But In Texas, Cornyn Downplays Significance Of His Earmark Opposition, Emphasizes That It’s Only Temporary: Cornyn told the Dallas Morning News that the earmark ban, “’basically is a timeout while we reassess this whole earmarking process, which has been in some instances abused,’ said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the GOP leadership… Cornyn, like some other moratorium supporters, said the policy should not and won't last indefinitely but agreed that for now, ‘it will have an impact on Texas, just as it will have an impact on the rest of the country.’” [Dallas Morning News, 11/26/10]?

… And Requests Millions In Earmarks For FY2011. [Senator Cornyn FY2011 Appropriations Requests]

In D.C., Thune Lambasts Earmarks: “The bill is loaded up with pork projects, and it shouldn't get a vote. The bill was crafted behind closed doors, and it hasn't gone through the proper oversight or the proper channels.” [Press Conference, 12/15/10]

In South Dakota, Thune Defends Pet Projects: “He has backed similar moratoriums in the past but the proposed 2011 spending bills Congress will consider in the coming weeks include almost 30 Thune-requested projects, such as money for highway projects, water systems and safety programs on Indian reservations… ‘If you include [South Dakota] projects like Lewis & Clark, you end up costing taxpayers much more in inflation and lost economic opportunities,’ Larson said Monday. ‘We applaud responsible efforts to rein in earmark spending, but if that effort wrongly includes authorized projects like Lewis & Clark, it's counterproductive.’ Thune agrees. ‘There are ways that you can do this that really legitimize Congress spending money, and one is authorized projects that went through the normal process and passed the House and the Senate,’ he said last week. ‘To me, that's a very different thing than an earmark that gets dropped into an appropriations bill in a conference committee that hasn't passed the House and the Senate.’” [Argus Leader, 11/16/10]

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On CNN's State of the Union, Candy Crowley tries to get NSCC Chairman John Cornyn to reply as to whether he agrees with some of the Republican's new batch of wingnut candidates and their views on privatizing Social Security and lowering the minimum wage, and rather than answer her, he calls what they've said "fear mongering" by Democrats and says he doesn't want to "relitigate them here." He also tries to pretend that their backtracking doesn't mean that's what those candidates really believe.

What's really pathetic is that those views that he's trying to paint as "extreme" here are what most Republicans actually do believe. They're just not allowed to say what they think out loud and these unpolished new comers that have swept in there under this "Tea Party" mantra apparently didn't get that memo before they opened their mouths. It's leaving them exposed to having to actually defend those positions. Rather than defend them, Republicans like Cornyn are pretending that what these candidates have said out loud is not what Republicans actually think.

The truth of the matter is, they hate any social safety nets. They hate that we have a minimum wage. They do want to dismantle Social Security and privatize it. They hate anything that helps working people in America and that does not help their big corporate donors who'd happily see us turned into a country with nothing but rich and poor and no middle class. And they've been doing their damnedest to take us there. And as Sen. Robert Menendez pointed out, it's not fear mongering to point out what someone has said they want to do.

Full transcript via CNN.

CROWLEY: So, getting back to the question I wanted to ask you, which is about Senator DeMint, it seems to me, if I were a betting person, that there may, when you return to Washington in January, be a kind of DeMint wing inside the Republican Party on the Senate side, sort of a party within a party.

So when you look at that, how is that going to work? Because you may get some candidates here who want to get rid or who want Social Security privatized. Some have said they want to lower the minimum wage, things like that. How is that going to work inside the party? Are those things you can sign on to?

CORNYN: Well, some of those are, of course, Democratic talking points, trying to scare people, and of course ,the candidates where those issues have been raises have explained themselves. And I'm not going to relitigate them here.

But let me just say that, I think, when it comes to restoring checks and balances, that's what we're going to see. And a lot of these candidates that Senator Menendez and Democrats have tried to scare people about are taking mainstream positions, and what they feel is that what's really extreme is what we see coming out of Washington, with almost double-digit unemployment, runaway spending and debt. And that's what they want us check...

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I know it's his job as Chair of the NRSC to paint a happy face on this, but Sen. John Cornyn does his best to pretend that the right wing Tea Party candidates who are pushing the Republican Party even further to the right aren't going to do any damage to the chance of them regaining a majority in the Congress this mid-term election.

As Steve Benen pointed out after the hacks over at The Politico called some of the GOP right wing candidates "offbeat", the party's run to the right might not work out so well for them:

But there's one point I'd disagree with here. The crux of the piece is that the "offbeat" candidates are winning because they bring a non-traditional background to the table. This year, the argument goes, credible, relevant experience in public policy and/or government is a turnoff to voters seeking a wholesale break with the status quo.

That's not a bad argument, but I don't see the landscape this way. These bizarre candidates won major primary campaigns because of their far-right, often radical, ideologies. That they're coming from outside the world of government and politics is just gravy.

Did Linda McMahon win in Connecticut because she ran a wrestling company? No, she won because she spent a lot of money, and convinced Republicans her primary opponent was too moderate. Ken Buck won in Colorado for the same reason -- his party-preferred rival was deemed insufficiently right-wing. Dan Maes got a boost from McInnis' plagiarism scandal, but he capitalized because the party's base appreciated his extreme ideology.

And in Kentucky, Rand Paul didn't thrive because primary voters were impressed with his "outsider" ophthalmological background; they liked his radical worldview.

This isn't, in other words, a year for "offbeat" candidates to thrive; it's a year for right-wing candidates to win GOP primaries, without much regard for electability.

John Cornyn also claims that we need more Republicans in the Congress to move President Obama "toward the middle". I'm not sure what he's been smoking if he actually believes that himself, but sadly the propagandized viewers at Fox will believe his bull pucky.

Transcript below the fold.

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