GOP Rep. Joe Walsh: Obama Is Dumb And a “Tyrant” for Stopping Deportations

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.).<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/5452909326/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Gage Skidmore</a>/Flickr

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Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), a tea-party-backed freshman lawmaker, recently branded President Barack Obama “a tyrant” for announcing that the Department of Homeland Security would stop deporting certain young illegal immigrants who entered the United States as children. Then, doubling down on his criticism of the president, Walsh took back his use of the word “tyrant”—because, he said, Obama “really isn’t smart enough to know what that means.”

Walsh’s remarks were captured by Credo Super-PAC, a political arm of the phone company Credo Mobile. The Huffington Post first reported Walsh’s “tyrant” rant.

Here’s the video and text of Walsh’s comments, which he made last weekend at a town hall meeting in Elmhurst, Ill.:

“And again, fair is fair, you want a debate on the law, fine, have that debate. But right now it’s a law on the books and you just told your law enforcement people don’t enforce it. I was on one radio station and I said my god he’s a tyrant. I don’t know what else you call him. I don’t want to give him that credit because I don’t think he’s smart enough. I think he’s only doing this because he’s campaigning, that’s all the guy knows. So I don’t want to call him a tyrant, because he really isn’t smart enough to know what that means. But in one fell swoop he just made 800,000 illegal immigrants, let’s call it legal, and gave them the ability to work here legally.”

Walsh is one of ten tea-party-affiliated members of Congress that Credo Super-PAC has targeted in this election year. Credo volunteers are following and recording the remarks of the “Tea Party Ten” in their districts.

This isn’t the first time Credo caught Walsh stuffing his foot into his mouth. Last month, Walsh was caught on camera saying that the Democratic Party wants Hispanics to be “dependent on government just like African Americans. Activist and former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson,” Walsh said, “would be out of work if [African Americans] weren’t dependent on government.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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