Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), pressed by reporter Adam Smith to offer his plan for immigration reform at tonight’s NBC debate in Florida, said he would support “self-deportation” — a policy to make immigrants lives so miserable that they would choose to leave the country on their own:

SMITH: Governor Romney, there’s one thing I’m confused about. You say you don’t want to go and round up people and deport them, but you also say they’d have to go back to their own countries and then apply for citizenship. So if you don’t deport them, how do you send them home?

ROMNEY: Well, the answer is self-deportation, which is people decide that they can do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here. (Audience laughs) And so we’re not going to round people up. [...] Well, yes, we’d have a card that indicates who’s here legally. And if people are not able to have a card, and have that through an e-verify system to determine that they are here legally, then they’re going to find they can’t find work here. And if people don’t get work here, they’re going to self-deport to a place they can get work.

Romney’s position drew laughs from some in the audience. Watch it:

The position is not a new one for Romney — Eric Fehrnstrom, one of the campaign’s top advisers, offered the “turn the magnets off” solution in November — but it does represent a change from his 2008 policy, when he supported mass deportations.

The “self-deportation” policy is a continuation of Romney’s current radicalism on immigration. Romney has the backing of Kansas Secretary of State and anti-immigration zealot Kris Kobach (R), the author of both Arizona and Alabama’s anti-immigration laws. And Romney’s current “self-deportation” position basically boils down to the policy goal of the Alabama law: he wants to make immigrants’ lives so miserable, they choose to leave the country on their own.

Yesterday, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) announced that she would resign from Congress to focus on her recovery from the horrific mass shooting where she was targeted by mentally ill shooter Jared Lee Loughner. Nine days before this announcement, however, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit handed down a decision which could drastically limit lawmakers’ ability to keep guns away from mentally ill potential assailants such as Loughner.

Although the Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller is best known for holding for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep a firearm, Heller also made clear that this right is not absolute. Laws prohibiting concealed weapons, or the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons,” or the carrying of firearms in “sensitive places such as schools and government buildings” are still entirely constitutional, as are laws prohibiting the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill.

The First Circuit’s decision in United States v. Rehlander, however, suggests there is a serious limit on this ability to keep guns away from people who lack the capacity to handle them. Although the court invokes a technical doctrine to avoid saying so definitively, the court strongly suggests that mentally ill individuals must be allowed to carry guns until they receive a fairly elaborate hearing declaring them unfit to use a gun:

Although the right established in Heller is a qualified right, the right to possess arms (among those not properly disqualified) is no longer something that can be withdrawn by government on a permanent and irrevocable basis without due process. Ordinarily, to work a permanent or prolonged loss of a constitutional liberty or property interest, and adjudicatory hearing, including the right to offer and test evidence if facts are in dispute, is required. It is evidently doubtful that a [Maine temporary committment hearing] provides the necessary process for a permanent deprivation.

If this decision stands the test of time (and, potentially, the Supreme Court) it would drastically alter society’s power to keep guns away from the mentally ill. Loughner, for example, was deemed unqualified to join the military and was asked to leave his community college due to mental health issues, but it is unlikely that either of these incidents meet the bar described by the First Circuit as sufficient to allow someone to lose their ability to carry a firearm because they are mentally ill.

(HT: Eugene Volokh)

Abandoning any pretense that they’re focused on job creation, Colorado Republicans have clarified their priorities for the new legislative session: guns rights. Specifically, they are doing their best to ensure that citizens have the unfettered ability to carry guns anywhere — including into elementary, middle, and high schools:

Colorado Republicans are reloading previous attempts to expand gun rights, bringing back legislation that would allow concealed weapons in schools and let businesses use deadly force against intruders.

Republicans say they want to protect Second Amendment rights, but Democrats accuse them of straying from the job-creation platform both parties promised to focus on this year.

A proposal running simultaneously in the House and Senate would allow concealed weapons on school grounds and college campuses if a person has a permit and another bill would let business owners and employees use deadly force against intruders.

Conservatives have twisted school massacres at Columbine and Virginia Tech to argue that there need to be more guns in schools to fight back against armed attacks. Last year more than a dozen state legislatures took up bills that would allow guns on college campuses — and some even considered lifting their gun bans at K-12 public schools. Florida suspended discussion of their controversial bill after the emotional testimony of a father whose daughter was killed at Florida State University when another student accidentally discharged a rifle.

Gun control advocates say the presence of guns makes schools much more dangerous and creates a negative learning environment. The chances of tragic accidents and guns being stolen are also quite high in communal settings. Earlier this month a Texas middle school student was shot to death by police for carrying what turned out to be a pellet gun.

The Colorado legislature is also considering a proposal to eliminate background checks for firearm purchases — increasing the likelihood that guns will fall into the wrong hands. A recent New York Times investigation revealed that ex-convicts are finding it increasingly easy to get their guns back after being released from prison. Thanks to pro-gun lobbyists and Republican legislatures, even felons with histories of stalking and mental health problems have their gun rights restored without any review by judges — a trend that jeopardizes public safety and has already cost lives.

The campaign manager of Arkansas Democratic congressional candidate Ken Aden arrived home last night to find his child’s pet cat murdered on the front porch with the word “LIBERAL” scrawled across its lifeless body.

Aden’s campaign manager, Jake Burris, lives in central Arkansas with his four kids. Blue Arkansas has more on the scene at Burris’s home (emphases are ours):

Last night, Jake and his four kids had come back to their Russellville home. As they were getting out of the car, one of his children discovered their family cat dead on the front porch. One side of the animal’s head had been bashed in and an eyeball was hanging out of its socket. But there was something even more horrifying to be found on the corpse. Written across the animal’s fur in black marker was the word “LIBERAL“.

Here is a picture of the family’s murdered cat:

Pope County, where Burris lives, is a highly-conservative area of Arkansas. Aden has been running for the 3rd congressional district seat, currently held by Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), since August 2011. He released a statement on the matter this morning: “To kill a child’s pet is just unconscionable. As a former combat soldier, I’ve seen the best of humanity and the worst of humanity. Whoever did this is definitely part of the worst of humanity.”

It is unclear at this time precisely who committed this heinous act.

In 2010, the conservatives who controlled the Texas Board of Education caused an uproar when they made radical changes to the history curriculum for the state’s 4.8 million public school students. The changes included referring to the country’s first black president as “Barack Hussein Obama,” and requiring students to “contrast” Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address with Abraham Lincoln’s philosophical views.

To whitewash one of the darkest practices in America history, conservatives proposed that textbooks refer to the slave trade as the “Atlantic triangular trade.”

Now Tennessee Tea Party members are taking their efforts a step further and trying to eliminate references to slavery in American history textbooks. Salon reports that Tea Partiers who fetishize America’s founders are “demanding” that students not be taught that many of them owned slaves:

For a bunch of people who worship the Founders and like to play dress-up American Revolutionary War, Tea Partyers sure hate knowing anything remotely reality-based about the Founding Fathers. Tennessee Tea Party groups have introduced a proposal to take what few minorities there are in American history textbooks out of American history textbooks, along with any negative portrayals of the wealthy white men who led this young nation in its infancy.

At a press conference, two dozen activists presented their proposals — I’m sorry, their “demands” — for the new state legislative session. Among them are sweeping changes to school materials that they probably have not actually read. [...]

Fayette County attorney Hal Rounds, the group’s lead spokesman during the news conference, said the group wants to address “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.”

Many of America’s first leaders, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, owned slaves. Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings, and James Madison actually brought a slave with him to the White House when he became president.

The framers also painstakingly avoided addressing the issue of slavery when they wrote the Constitution, which included a compromise that each slave be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation and taxation.

But recently, conservatives have preferred to gloss over those ugly truths and deprive students of a complete and honest portrait of the imperfect men who founded our country. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), founder of the congressional Tea Party caucus, famously said that the founders “worked tirelessly” to end slavery. Several of the GOP candidates have even signed a pledge that claimed that blacks were better off under slavery than under President Obama.

Two years ago, Justice Scalia cast one of the five votes necessary to unleash unlimited corporate money on American democracy in the Supreme Court’s egregious Citizens United decision. Yet, at a panel in South Carolina this weekend, Scalia tried to lay the blame for the absurd campaign finance system he created at everyone’s feet but his own:

Super PACs have raised more than $30 million just three races into the 2012 presidential race, according to the website opensecrets.org, run by The Center for Responsive Politics. TV advertising alone in South Carolina, which is voting Saturday, is estimated at $12 million, or nearly $27 per voter when calculated using the 2008 Republican primary turnout numbers. [...]

Scalia said the blame for this type of system shouldn’t fall on the Supreme Court, which he said decides merely whether the system is legal under the U.S. Constitution. Instead, he said the ones who have to change things are the politicians who created the system and the voters who often reward the candidates who spend the most money.

“If the system seems crazy to you, don’t blame it on the court,” Scalia said, during a discussion in front of South Carolina lawyers that lasted for more than an hour.

Scalia’s attempt to shift blame is, frankly, ridiculous. While America’s pre-Citizens United campaign finance laws were far from perfect, they were at least adequate to prevent a handful of corporations from buying and selling elections. Congress passed a ban on corporate money in politics 65 years ago. The Supreme Court, with Scalia casting the deciding vote, killed that ban. If it wasn’t for the Supreme Court, the ban would still be in place.

Moreover, while Citizens United is best remembered for opening the floodgates to corporate money in politics, it also led to the creation of “Super PACs” which allow wealthy individuals and corporations to spend unlimited sums of money on shadow campaigns intended to elect particular candidates. Shortly after Citizens United was handed down, a key lower court decision used it to declare so-called “independent expenditures” a free for all for the very wealthy. Billionaires are still forbidden from giving unlimited money to a campaign, but donations to “independent” groups such as Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney’s Super PAC are entirely unbound.

To the extent that Citizens United still allows some leeway to regulate campaign finance, the fact that Congress has not done anything to enact new regulation after the Supreme Court blew our existing system up can be explained with just one chart:

That’s the top 20 spenders on the 2012 election — 17 of whom are conservatives or Republicans. In other words, Scalia’s action in Citizens United doesn’t just mean a flood of corporate and other money, it means that this money overwhelmingly favors one political party. Republican lawmakers are more than smart enough to figure this out, and that gives them all the incentive they need to block any attempt to fix the mess Citizens United created.