In a press conference in which he was supposed to talk about the Phoenix light rail, Mayor Gordon called on Arpaio to distance himself from his extremist allies:

GORDON: He has given a sense of recognition to the Nazis and neo-Nazis that he’s associated with…and so I ask the Sheriff today to publically disavow his associations with these hate mongerars and apologize so we can begin righting the ship.

Joe Arpaio, America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff,” has won right-wing praise for his controversial immigration enforcement tactics and is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for allegations of “discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures…and of allegations of national origin discrimination.”

The Anti-Defamation League recently noted that well-known white supremacists showed up at a march protesting Arpaio’s anti-immigrant tactics and hurled racial epithets to “incite violence in support of Sheriff Arpaio.” Arpaio posed for a picture with his neo-Nazi supporters and a video was released shortly after of them assuring Arpaio, “Sheriff, we have your back.” Watch it:

According to Arizona’s KTAR radio, “Arpaio has responded to Gordon’s comments by calling him a liar and saying his accusations are false.”

As Dana Goldstein indicates, the newly minted conservative position on Iran is that, regardless of all the time and effort they’ve spent over the last four years setting up Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the new Hitler, it really doesn’t matter who the president of Iran is, because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is in charge. In the event that Ahmadinejad is defeated at the polls, expect a landslide of conservatives making this argument. I suspect that even John McCain — who famously refused to hear anything about it last year — will suddenly magically discover that the Supreme Leader is actually the supreme leader.

For example, check Daniel Pipes‘s new line. Back in 2006, Pipes ominously warned of “The Mystical Menace of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad“:

[T]he most dangerous leaders in modern history are those (such as Hitler) equipped with a totalitarian ideology and a mystical belief in their own mission. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fulfills both these criteria.

Last week, however, speaking at a Heritage Foundation event, Pipes stated that “the president of Iran, despite his title, is not the final arbiter in [national security] matters.”

The president tends to have power in the areas — in the soft areas — having to do with culture and religion and education. And it is the Rahbare, the Supreme Guide of Iran, Khomeini at first and now Khamenei who has control of the military, the law enforcement, the judiciary system, the intelligence agencies. So its not clear that the president matters that much.

As Daniel Luban reported, Pipes was at least forthright enough to admit that, were he a registered voter in Iran, he would “vote for Ahmadinejad…I would prefer to have an enemy who is forthright and blatant and obvious.” Interestingly, Pipes’ thinking neatly mirrors the thinking of extremists elsewhere, such as the contributor to an Al Qaeda-linked website who declared that “Al-Qaeda will have to support [Sen. John] McCain in the coming election,” as McCain would be more likely to continue the policies of George W. Bush, which produced a propaganda and recruiting bonanza for the terrorists.

Pipes also flatly insisted that “when it comes to building a nuclear weapon…there is a wide consensus in the Iranian leadership that building these weapons is something that is desirableand there is no known dissent from that viewpoint .”

This is untrue. There is in fact rather well known dissent from that viewpoint — in the form of a 2003 fatwa (religious-legal decree) issued by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei which declared that Islam forbids the development and use of all weapons of mass destruction. It’s true that later statements and actions have called this position into question, but it’s flatly false to suggest that there is “no dissent” among the Iranian clerical leadership regarding the production and use of nuclear weapons.

Interestingly, the event at which Pipes spoke was called “New Thinking for Old Problems.” The old problem, I take it, being “how to gin up a war with Iran,” and the new thinking being “insist that a reformist electoral victory will be meaningless.” Of course, if Ahmadinejad wins, he’ll still be the new Hitler and the presidency will once again matter a lot.

Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Tomorrow, Iranians will go to the polls to choose their next president. This election (and the possible run-off) will be far from free and fair – who can and cannot run for president is determined by the Guardian Council, the unelected theocratic body that approves all candidates for elected office. Despite this circumscribed choice, Iranians do have options in these elections.

Current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, well-known as a radical conservative to the outside world for his inflammatory rhetoric, faces the internal opposition of reformists and pragmatic conservatives in his quest for a second term. These groups believe Ahmadinejad’s outlandish behavior on the international stage and economic mismanagement are driving Iran to ruin. They include people like former president and 2005 Ahmadinejad opponent Hashemi Rafsanjani, who recently accused Ahmadinejad of lying about his [Rafsanjani’s] public service record in a letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad faces three challengers, two relative reformists and one moderate conservative. Of these, the challenger perceived to have the greatest support is the moderate reformist Mir Hussein Mousavi. A former conservative and prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war, Mousavi has cultivated the support of students and women. In a recent televised debate, Mousavi accused Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy of “adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism, and superficiality.” Other opponents include Mehdi Karroubi, another reformist who promises to appoint a female minister if elected, and Mohsen Rezai, a pragmatic conservative and former Revolutionary Guard head who warns Ahmadinejad is leading the country to a “precipice.”

The biggest issue facing Iranian voters, like those in much of the rest of the world, is the economy. Ahmadinejad’s economic policies have bought him the political goodwill of the rural poor at the cost of rampant inflation – 23.6 percent according to Iran’s own central bank. The IMF estimates that Iran’s economic growth has slowed from 8 percent in 2007 to 4.5 percent in 2008, and projects that it will further decrease to 3.2 percent this year. All three alternatives are promising to end the current president’s economic mismanagement and take a less confrontational approach to foreign affairs.

But will it really matter who wins? As Laura Secor observes in The New Republic, all four presidential candidates are playing on essentially the same rural, conservative political terrain. Urban Iranians with more liberal attitudes “are so disenchanted with the Islamic Republic that they are as a whole increasingly disinclined to vote.” And even if one of the alternatives to Ahmadinejad wins in the end, he will not be the most powerful person in Iran’s convoluted political system. That honor goes to the Supreme Leader, to whom all roads of political power ultimately run in the Islamic Republic.

To be sure, an Ahmadinejad defeat would be a good thing. Replacing an ideological blowhard with a more pragmatic or even reformist figure will certainly make it politically easier for the United States and Iran to engage one another after 30 some years of estrangement. But the United States can’t bank its Iran policy on who occupies an office with powers that ebb and flow on the whim of an unelected senior cleric. We must deal with the byzantine Iranian political structure as it is, not place unfounded hope in individual changes in positions with fluctuating status and power.

While railing about the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to temporarily halt the deportation of widows and widowers of U.S. citizens, Fox News’ Glenn Beck yesterday slammed “anchor babies,” the U.S.- born children of immigrants, and called for the overturn of the 14th Amendment which grants natural-born citizenship:

BECK: You know the anchor baby thing has already really hacked me off. You know the anchor baby, you know what that is. That’s when somebody — a child that is born here — becomes a citizen. And they help the illegal parents here become citizens. Remember empathy, oh empathy — no one wants to separate that family. Oh that baby is a child — it’s an anchor — it’s an anchor to stay here.

Watch it:

Aside from repeatedly demonizing U.S. citizen children with a derogatory term that equates their birth with a mud hook, Beck challenges the concept of U.S. citizenship and ignores the benefits of family immigration which include significant economic, social, and tax contributions.

Beck also overlooks the fact that so-called “anchor babies” aren’t even allowed to file a visa petition for their parents until they are 21-years-old. According to the law firm of Scott and Associates, Attorneys at Law PLLC:

The Restrictionists present this information as though it then becomes a simple matter of filing paperwork. What they don’t tell you is that if the parent entered without inspection, the parent is not able to apply for a green card from within the US…As the child is not a qualifying relative for a waiver of this ground of inadmissibility, she [the mother] would not be able to return to the US legally for ten years despite have a US citizen child over age 21…Despite the fallacy of the Anchor Baby Myth, Restrictionists keep pushing it.