Republicans across the country are waging a steady war against the American voter, pushing voter suppression and photo ID bills that will potentially disenfranchise students, seniors, minorities, low-income, and millions of other Americans come 2012. Conservatives insist that this regression in civic rights is necessary to combat a demonstrably non-existent problem, voter fraud.

Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, Occidental College political science Prof. Caroline Heldman endeavored to relieve host Bill O’Reilly of his dogged belief that the infinitesimal rate of voter fraud warrants disenfranchising 5 million people. “You’re harboring the misconception that’s you have lots of people trying to vote [fraudulently]. You face five years in prison and a $10,000 fine if you engage in voter fraud, that’s why almost nobody does it.”

Condescendingly mocking her expertise, O’Reilly rattled off “stats” to prove that voter fraud is rampant in Wisconsin, which Heldman noted is near 0.000001 of one percent. “Great,” she said. “Where is all the legislation that is trying to protect people that are struck by lightning because that’s really the same priority that this should have on the agenda.” Watch it:

Heldman noted that the voter ID bills that are popping up around the country aren’t in response to an actual problem but actually created by the American Legislative Exchange Commission (ALEC) which has written, printed, and pushed an identical voter ID bill in several different states. In fact, “every single one of the five states that recently passed Voter ID legislation had [ALEC] members as co-sponsors of the legislation.” O’Reilly responded, “I’ve never heard of that,” later adding “it doesn’t matter if its common sense.”

“It’s anti-democratic, it’s going to demobilize 5 million legally registered voters,” Heldman tried again, citing the Brennan Center, ThinkProgress, and the ACLU’s research. “ThinkProgress, that’s a far left outfit,” O’Reilly said. “I don’t believe that for a second.” To which Heldman replied, “They’re crunching numbers, Bill. Numbers are numbers.”

Indeed, there’s really only one problem with the numbers Professor Heldman presented to O’Reilly last night — a voter is actually 39 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit fraud at the polls.

As ThinkProgress has reported, congressional Republicans are exploiting the necessity of extending the payroll tax cut and the looming government shutdown to push their conservative agenda. Their radical demands have nothing to do with the matters at hand, and include provisions to restrict abortion in DC, gut life-saving environmental regulations, and raise taxes on Medicare retirees.

Never able to pass up an opportunity to scapegoat immigrants, Republicans have also shoe-horned in a provision prohibiting eligible immigrant taxpayers from receiving a refundable Child Tax Credit. Immigration Impact notes that Republicans are trying to move four million American children closer to poverty, just in time for the holidays:

The tax package that is likely to pass the House and make its way to the Senate this week denies immigrant taxpayers who file their taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) the ability to claim the Additional Child Tax Credit for their U.S. citizen children. This provision will impact 2 million families and up to 4 million U.S. citizen children and take away a tax credit designed to keep children out of poverty.

Child tax credits can only be claimed by those paying into the system and were designed to alleviate some of the burden that tax payment imposes on low-income, working families. Taking away this credit from tax-paying families could drive more than two million families closer to poverty.

The National Council of La Raza issued a statement on the proposal:

“We support congressional efforts to pass tax relief and believe that there are many ways to pay for it that do not result in harming some of the most economically vulnerable families across the nation,” said Eric Rodriguez, Vice President of the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation at NCLR. “The Child Tax Credit is probably one of the most effective ways to provide relief to workers raising children, and the refundable credit is even more critical to workers earning low wages. It’s outrageous that of all the options that lawmakers have on the table to pay for tax relief, this is the one that they would choose.”

Despite paying their fair shares in taxes, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for the vast majority of benefits their tax dollars support. In 2010 ITIN filers contributed an estimated $9.2 billion in payroll taxes, or “ten times the amount that would be saved by stripping the child tax credit away from the children of ITIN filers.”

NCLR notes that poverty among Hispanics is even higher than was previously known, in large part because many are unable to use important anti-poverty programs. Republicans may be taking aim at undocumented immigrants, but they are actually hurting their U.S. citizen children (who many Republicans of course do not consider American at all).

A few weeks ago, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed an idea as ill-conceived as it is unconstitutional: drug-testing any American “before you get any kind of federal aid.”

Gingrich’s idea for a national law came on the heels of a rash of new state legislation this year requiring welfare recipients to first submit to a drug test. The results in Florida showed just how silly the proposal is, with a mere two percent of welfare recipients testing positive for drugs.

ThinkProgress spoke with another Republican presidential contender this week, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, to get his thoughts on Gingrich’s proposal. Santorum poured cold water on the idea, refusing to support a federal requirement for drug-testing individuals who receive aid. “The states should make that decision,” said the Pennsylvania Republican.

KEYES: You talked about welfare reform a lot and your role in bringing it in the 90s. The biggest debate on it recently is whether or not we ought to be drug-testing recipients of that.

SANTORUM: As you know, my feeling was cap it, put two requirements – time limits, work requirement – and let the states make the decisions.

KEYES: So a federal drug-testing requirement is not something you would support?

SANTORUM: That’s not something…it should be a state program, the states should make that decision.

As ThinkProgress’ Tanya Somanader notes, Gingrich’s proposal “would likely run headlong into the Constitution” because “random drug testing is a suspicion-less search,” the likes of which courts have repeatedly struck down. Unfortunately for Santorum, his proposal to allow states to engage in suspicion-less drug testing is also unconstitutional.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is unquestionably the most notorious law enforcement official in the country, infamous for his ruthless and illegal treatment of the undocumented immigrants under his charge. He’s known for cramming detained immigrants into outdoor “tent cities” he proudly likens to concentration camps, and for parading prisoners around in pink underwear to humiliate them.

When the Justice Department first announced it was investigating Arpaio in 2008 for racial profiling and civil rights violations, Arpaio said “bring it on.” But he refused to cooperate with the investigation, stalling the probe for 17 months by withholding records from federal officials.

Moments ago, the Justice Department announced the findings of its three year investigation, concluding that the self-proclaimed “toughest sherrif in America” has indeed committed an extensive array of civil rights violations against Latinos:

The federal government issued a scathing report Thursday that outlines how Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office has committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including a pattern of racial profiling and discrimination and carrying out heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged citizen complaints.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release, is a result of the U.S. Justice Department’s three-year investigation of Arpaio’s office amid complaints of racial profiling and a culture of bias at the agency’s top level.

The Justice Department’s conclusions in the civil probe mark the federal government’s harshest rebuke of a national political fixture who has risen to prominence for his immigration crackdowns and became coveted endorsement among candidates in the GOP presidential field.

In 2010 federal officials filed an unprecedented suit against Arpaio for breaking the law by refusing to turn over extensive records related to booking procedures, inmate interpretation services, and arrests. He also would not give investigators access to his staff or jails. A man who relishes brutally enforcing the law acted as if it did not apply to him.

After officials threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding from Maricopa County, “accusations of mismanagement forced Arpaio to place three top aides on administrative leave, among them former Chief Deputy David Hendershott.”

Arpaio has had a breathtaking 2,700 law suits filed against him between 2004 and 2007. In addition to the DOJ, he has been investigated by Congress, the FBI and a Federal Grand Jury for civil rights violations and abuse of power. In no small part because of Arpaio’s well-documented targeting of people who look foreign but have committed no crime, the majority of inmates in his jails are Latino males.

While Arpaio pursued an obessive, politically motivated assault on immigrants to enhance his national profile, he routinely failed to investigate more pressing cases of violent crime, including more than 400 sex crimes. He ignored dozens of alleged child molestations with some victims as young as two. Unsurprisingly, many of the children were undocumented immigrants.

A study by the Death Penalty Information Center shows that both the number of death sentences meted out and the number of state executions declined in 2011 — developments which the organization says reflect “the growing discomfort that many Americans have with the death penalty”:

The number of new death sentences handed out dropped below 100 this year for the first time in over three decades, according to a new report Thursday.

Just 78 new inmates were sentenced to death in 2011 — the lowest number since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, the Death Penalty Information Center said in the non-profit’s year-end report. The study also found that 43 people were executed this year, a slight drop from the 46 prisoners in 2010.

Overall, the annual number of death sentences is down about 75 percent from 1996, when 315 prisoners were sentenced to death, the report said. And along with executions and new death sentences, public opinion and the number of states with the death penalty also declined in 2011.

Three-fourths of the country’s executions in 2011 took place in the South, with Texas and Alabama topping the list. Capital punishment is legal in thirty-four states and forbidden in sixteen. This year saw Illinois abolish the death penalty, becoming the fourth state in recent years to halt executions. And Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) recently declared a moratorium on the practice while he is in office.

Additionally, in 2012 lawmakers in several states — including California, Maryland, Kansas, Ohio and Connecticut — will push legislation to end the death penalty. After the shocking September execution of likely-innocent Troy Davis in Georgia, a Gallup poll found that national support for the death penalty has fallen to a 39-year low.

A Virginia agency just approved new adoption rules which authorize state-licensed adoption agencies to engage in a breathtakingly broad range of discrimination:

Virginia’s Board of Social Services on Wednesday approved final regulations on adoption that, starting in the spring, will effectively allow state-licensed private agencies to deny the adoption of a child by same-sex couples.

The regulations also will allow the adoption agencies to deny services to prospective parents on the basis of age, gender, disability, religion, political belief and family status.

The regulations, however, will prohibit discrimination based on race, color or national origin.

Let’s be absolutely clear what this means. This means that a loving and generous potential parent could be denied the ability to adopt because they are gay. Or because they are Jewish. Or because they are a woman. Or because they are divorced. Or because they are in a wheelchair. Moreover, these new rules run headlong into voter opinion and scientific research. Fifty-five percent of Virginia adults believe it should be legal for gay parents to adopt, and there is no scientific basis whatsoever for the claim that heterosexuals are superior parents.

Meanwhile, nearly six thousand Virginia children live in foster homes. All of them would have a better, more stable childhood — not to mention one that would better prepare them to succeed in adulthood — if they were placed in a permanent home with a loving, stable and financially secure family. It is baffling why a state would deny these children a fair shot at life just because the family that wants to adopt them doesn’t look like some narrow-minded notion of what a family should look like.