Yesterday, Arizona lawmakers made a handful of changes to the immigration bill Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) recently signed into effect that appear to be in response to many of the criticisms aimed at the bill. One of those changes replaces the phrase “lawful contact” with “lawful stop, detention or arrest” to “apparently clarify that officers don’t need to question a victim or witness about their legal status.” However, the legislature also implemented a third change that some call “frightening.” As part of the amended bill, a police officer responding to city ordinance violations would also be required to determine the immigration status of an individual they have reasonable suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant.

Wonk Room recently obtained an email written by Kris Kobach, a lawyer at the Immigration Reform Law Institute — the group which credits itself with writing the bill — to Arizona state Sen. Russell Pierce (R), urging him to include language that will allow police to use city ordinance violations such as “cars on blocks in the yard” as an excuse to “initiate queries” in light of the “lawful contact” deletion:

To begin with, Kobach’s correspondence affirms that though the bill was proposed and passed in Arizona, the shots are being called by a small group of lawyers whose office is based in Washington, DC. It also indicates that after vigorously defending his bill and its “lawful contact provision” in the New York Times, Kobach may have had second thoughts about the constitutionality of the bill he prides himself with writing.

More importantly, Kobach is basically admitting to Pearce that by allowing police to use the violation of “any county or municipal ordinance” as a basis for inquiring about a person’s immigration status, the bill will still cast a wide enough net to help offset the effect of omitting the “lawful contact” language which would’ve allowed police to ask just about anyone they encounter about their immigration status. The examples Kobach provides, “cars on blocks in the yard” or “too many occupants of a rental accommodation,” suggest that net will mostly end up being cast over the poor.

Our guest blogger today is David Leopold, President-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and immigration lawyer at David Wolfe Leopold & Associates.

In an Op-Ed piece published in today’s New York Times, Kris W. Kobach, who claims that he “helped draft” Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant S.B. 1070, sets out to “rebut the major criticisms” of the new law individually. However, Kobach offers little more than a recital of the fallacious propaganda espoused by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—a group which has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League as a hate group—and its legal arm the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), to which Kobach serves as counsel. Let’s look at Kobach’s central claims:

CLAIM: The Arizona Law simply adds a state penalty to what was already a federal crime—failure to carry proof of immigration status.

FACT: While the federal immigration law requires foreign nationals to carry registration documents with them, Kobach fails to mention that the Arizona law punishes people much more severely than does the federal law. Under S.B. 1070, failure to carry a registration card leads to a prison sentence of six months for a first offense and a $500 fine with substantial enhancements for repeat offenders. In contrast, under the federal law failure to carry a registration document results in up to 30 days in jail and a $100 fine.

Arizona’s new law might sound like a good way to get tough on undocumented immigrants; that is until you consider what would qualify as a crime. For example a mother who leaves her home in a rush to pick up a medical prescription for her sick child and forgets her green card is a criminal under the Arizona law. She is now exposed to a substantial fine and jail—all because she forgot a document. Kobach also fails to note that the federal immigration law prescribes a myriad of registration forms that can be used to show lawful immigration status, including Inspection Records, Arrival-Departure Records, and Crewman’s Landing Permits to name just a few. The Arizona registration provision places local police the untenable position of having to decide whether a particular document is one prescribed by federal law. Incorporating federal registration law into Arizona state law is mistake and an invitation to chaos and abuse.

CLAIM: “Reasonable Suspicion” will not permit police misconduct.

FACT: Kobach tries to convince readers that there is nothing to fear from the notorious “reasonable suspicion” standard because “over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining” the term. He then goes on to claim that under the Arizona law “reasonable suspicion” will only come into play when, under the “totality of the circumstances”, things look suspicious to the police. He offers an example of a car full of passengers speeding on a freeway frequented by drug traffickers.

Frankly, Kobach is intellectually dishonest to claim that “reasonable suspicion” will not turn Arizona into a “show me your papers” state by effectively forcing the police to use racial profiling. What Kobach fails to point out is that law enforcement may question anyone under the Arizona law whom they suspect is an undocumented immigrant once they have made “lawful contact.” Arizona law does not define what “lawful contact” means and, therefore, the phrase is open to very broad interpretation by the police. It does suggest some limit, but that limit is well short of the “reasonable suspicion” standard (articulable facts, along with rational inferences that arise from those facts) set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio. Why else would the drafters of the Arizona legislation have felt the need to use the term “legal contact” and as a pre-requisite to “reasonable suspicion” rather than “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity? For example, if someone approaches a police officer on the street, there is “legal contact”. If the person then speaks English with an accent or “looks Latino” that might raise “reasonable suspicion” that the person is not documented. While “reasonable suspicion” under Terry v. Ohio is based on criminal activity, “reasonable suspicion” under S.B. 1070 is based on a subjective notion of a person’s status. The Arizona law not only doesn’t prohibit racial profiling, it effectively requires it.

CLAIM: S.B. 1070 prohibits racial profiling.

FACT: Here, Kobach simply ignores the plain language of the Arizona law. He assures us that there will be no racial profiling under the law because “Section 2 provides that a law enforcement official ‘may not solely consider race, color, or national origin’ in making any stops or determining immigration status. But read carefully, the law doesn’t prohibit the police from using race, color, or national origin in deciding whether or not to stop someone or checking their immigration status. It merely prohibits the police from only considering race, color, or national origin. Thus, a police officer who hears a brown skin person speaking Spanish may take apparent race and national origin into consideration; as long as there are other factors that suggest unlawful immigration status. But what are those other factors? Manner of dress? Hair style? Shoes? In effect, the law will not prohibit a police officer from stopping or checking the immigration status of a person—even a U.S. citizen—based solely on their appearance.

Simply put, S.B. 1070 is hate speech transformed into law. No amount of fancy legal footwork by Kris Kobach or others at IRLI and FAIR can change that. The law is an affront to all Americans who cherish our democratic values.

When President Obama condemned Arizona’s draconian and potentially unconstitutional immigration law last Friday, he predicted that “if we continue to fail to act [on immigration] at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts to open up across the country.” Indeed, it’s already happening.

Last week, Wonk Room reported on the involvement of the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) — the legal arm of a designated nativist-extremist hate group — in drafting Arizona’s controversial immigration law. IRLI lawyer Michael Hethmon boasting about being “approached by lawmakers from four other states who have asked for advice on how they can do the same thing.” In the aftermath of the passage of Arizona’s law, many states and localities across the country are in fact in the middle of or about to embark on copy cat pieces of legislation:

STATE	BILL	STATUS
Utah	Require immigrants to carry proof of status, require law enforcement officers to question anyone they believe is in the country illegally, and target employers who hire or transport undocumented immigrants.	Legislation still has to be drafted, but Rep. Stephen Sandstorm (R) claims he “has the support to do it.”
Georgia	Nathan Deal (R), who is running for Governor, wants to propose legislation that mirrors Arizona’s.	Tentatively pending Deal’s election.
Colorado	Today, Colorado gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis (R) said that if he were governor, he would seek to pass something “very similar” to what Arizona enacted.	Tentatively pending McInnis’ election.
Maryland	State Delegate Pat McDonough (R) “plans to start sending a survey to every candidate for the General Assembly — along with the candidates for governor — asking them whether they agree with Arizona’s approach.”	McDounough’s survey will start being circulated this week as he hopes to “know who is in favor of the Arizona bill and who is not” by this summer.
Ohio	Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones and Ohio Rep. Courtney Combs (R) sent a letter to Gov. Ted Strickland asking him “to employ” his “leadership role” “to assure legislation is passed that will mirror” Arizona’s.	Strickland’s press person says he “hasn’t had an opportunity to review Arizona law” and is concerned it might be unconstitutional.
North Carolina	Local anti-immigrant groups claim that lawmakers have told them that “the chances similar legislation will be filed here is over 95%.”	The same groups also concede that such legislation wouldn’t “get far” in their state.
Texas	Republican state Rep. Debbie Riddle of Tomball says she plans to push for a law similar to Arizona’s.	Riddle says she will introduce the measure in the January legislative session.
Texas	Farmers Branch, a Dallas suburb of 30,000 people, passed an ordinance written by IRLI lawyer Kris Kobach which would prevent landlords from renting houses or apartments to undocumented immigrants.	Last month, a U.S. District judge ruled the ordinance unconstitutional. IRLI is helping Farmers Branch repeal the District judge decision.
Missouri	The state legislature is considering a law, likely written by Kobach, that would make it unlawful for any person to conceal, harbor, transport, or shelter “illegal aliens” and would also make it a crime for undocumented immigrants to transport themselves.	The bill has been referred to the Missouri House International Trade and Immigration Committee.
Oklahoma	Restrict the ability of undocumented immigrants to obtain IDs or public assistance, give police authority to check the status of anyone arrested, and make it a felony to knowingly provide shelter, transportation or employment to the undocumented.	After IRLI filed an amicus brief in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of HB 1804, the court refused to reconsider its decision that prohibits Oklahoma from enforcing two of the main parts of HB 1804.
Nebraska	Residents in Fremont Nebraska likely will vote in July on a proposed ordinance to ban the “harboring,” hiring and renting to undocumented immigrants.	Last Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that there was no authority to stop an election on the ordinance following a petition filed by Kobach.

The more controversial and problematic a law is, the more IRLI lawyers stand to make if they’re involved. Since September 2006, Farmer’s Branch has spent $3.2 million on the legal fight and may have to spend an additional $1.13 million. In Arizona, IRLI lawyer Kris Kobach makes about $300 per hour to train Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s officers in immigration matters. Kobach has kept busy because Arpaio is currently the subject of a racial profiling investigation by the Department of Justice and has 2,700 lawsuits sitting on his desk as a result of his immigration policing tactics.

Arizona might be their biggest profit-making venture yet considering the fact that civil rights activists are confident the new law will make it to the Supreme Court and there is even talk of the federal government suing the state of Arizona. However, IRLI’s gain is Arizona’s loss. Not only will Arizona’s legislation cost the state in terms of litigation fees, if the law succeeds in reaching its goal of ridding the state of undocumented immigrants, it’s estimated that Arizona will lose $26.4 billion in economic activity, $11.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 140,324 jobs.

The Washington Times profiles Tariq Ramadan, the Islamist intellectual who the Bush administration deemed too dangerous to allow into the country:

American Muslims must not “be obsessed with Islam meaning ‘terrorism,’” he said, referring to efforts by creators of the popular animated TV show “South Park” to poke fun at Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Mr. Ramadan urged his fellow believers to “take a critical distance” if Islam appears to be mocked in the popular culture.

“For people to ridicule religion is part of Western culture and history,” he said. What’s called for, he said, is for Muslims in non-Muslim-majority countries to abide by the local laws, speak the language and be loyal to the country.

“Muslims don’t need a parallel system,” he said, after being asked whether he favored Islamic Shariah law in the West. “They should just abide by the common system.” Muslims in countries such as Australia and the United States “abide by the law and don’t have a problem,” he said.

Anti-Islamist hysterics have for years warned ominously of “stealth jihad ” — defined by neocon loon Frank Gaffney as “using myriad nonviolent measures to insinuate Shariah into non-Muslim societies.” I suppose Ramadan’s comments here would have to qualify as super double-secret stealth jihad.

This is also pretty significant:

“There is only one Islam,” he said, “but many interpretations and many Muslim cultures.” In the West, he said, “we don’t need new laws on blasphemy.” He was referring to laws in Pakistan that levy heavy sentences on anyone suspected of criticizing Islam. “We don’t want to limit the freedom of expression.”

Muslim societies are far from perfect, he said. “There is no freedom of speech in Muslim-majority countries,” he said. “Because there are no cultural discussions, there’s just emotions.”

That’s a pretty explicit endorsement of pluralism and free speech from one of the leading Islamist thinkers in the world. One could interpret this either as evidence that Islamism is not, as has been claimed, irretrievably hostile to Western freedom, or as just more evidence of how devious the Islamists are.

In conservatives rush to attack the New START treaty, many have overlooked a key clause in the preamble of the treaty. While much of the attention on the text of the preamble focused on the connection between offensive and defensive systems (missiles and missile defense), the treaty contains language in the preamble that gets Russia to importantly accept that current US missile defense plans have no impact on Russian security. The language reads:

current strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties.

Jeffrey Lewis of Arms Control Wonk dissects:

The New START Treaty would not last long if the United States developed extraordinarily capable defenses that would allow the United States to negate the Russian deterrent. That is precisely why even the Bush Administration sought to make clear that missile defense did not threaten Russia. On that score, I think missile defense advocates should welcome the preamble… That [language] is going to be useful at some point.

The Bush administration spent the last few years of its tenure desperately trying to convince Russia that US European missile defense plans had no impact on Russian security. These efforts failed. But, as Lewis notes, in this new START treaty the Obama negotiators were able to get the Russians to concede that US missile defense plans do not impact strategic stability. That is quite significant. Hence, far from constraining missile defense this treaty enables the US to proceed with development of its planned missile defense system.

Conservatives have complained that the Obama administration’s overhaul of the Bush administration’s European missile defense system plan last fall in favor of a new “phased adaptive approach” – which puts in place a system that is first directed at short and medium range missiles (the ones Iran actually has) and later develops a long range capability that could take out ICBMs – represented a concession to the Russians. The Russians may have thought that as well. But what became clear over the winter was that the Russians began to realize that the new US program is actually more capable than the old one. Hence, in December Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tried to put the breaks on the treaty. This delayed an agreement, but in the end the Russians gave in. Phil Pan of the Washington Post reported on the Russian response to the START treaty, noting that many Russians felt they had conceded too much to the US, especially on missile defense:

A more obvious retreat by Moscow relates to missile defense, which Putin publicly insisted be included in the treaty as recently as December. Though the Kremlin applauded Obama’s decision to scrap the Bush version of the system, Russian officials have since voiced concerns about the regional shield Obama proposed instead, noting U.S. claims it would eventually use interceptors fast enough to strike a Russian intercontinental missile.

Nevertheless, in another case of the facts not getting in the way of partisanship, conservatives have not stopped trying to use missile defense as an argument against the treaty.

Shortly after signing Arizona’s draconian immigration bill into law, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) attempted to ease concerns about civil rights abuses, stating that she “will NOT tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling in Arizona.” The truth is, she already is.

Arizona’s 3TV News reports that a U.S. citizen Latino commercial truck driver was pulled over at a weight scale check spot and handcuffed and detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Phoenix until his wife came and provided both of their birth certificates. Abdon, who did not want to use his last name, said that though he provided his drivers license and his Social Security Number, police officers wanted more proof that he was legally present in the country. Abdon believes that he was ultimately “targeted for his race and forced to provide his birth certificate.” Watch the 3TV report (starts at 2:16):

The City of Phoenix Police Department is enrolled in ICE’s 287(g) Task Force Officers program which allows local Phoenix police to enforce immigration law — as all Arizona police will soon be required to do. Abdon isn’t the first Latino to fall victim to the deputization of immigration law and he certainly won’t be the last once Arizona’s new law goes into effect.

Maricopa County, in which Phoenix is located, is all too familiar with the problem of racial profiling. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is subject of a Department of Justice investigation into rampant allegations of racial profiling and discrimination and has been named in 2,700 lawsuits. In North Carolina, researchers found that 287(g)’s have “created a climate of racial profiling and community insecurity” in communities across the state. According to a report by the ACLU, racial profiling in Gwinnet County, Georgia has been exacerbated by the 287(g) program. The ACLU received complaints from drivers, pedestrians, and Gwinnett community members showing that police officers are targeting immigrants and people of color for stops, searches, and interrogations.

A representative at ICE told 3TV that the incident was “standard operating procedure.” According to the spokesperson, the agents “needed to verify Abdon was in the country legally and it is not uncommon to ask for someone’s birth certificate.” Abdon’s wife however, has a different take, stating, “It doesn’t feel like it’s a good way of life, to live with fear, even though we are okay, we are legal…still have to carry documents around.”

Just a few days before Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed into law an immigration bill that is essentially based on the presumption that undocumented immigrants are dangerous criminals, a heroic Guatemalan immigrant lay dying in the street in Jamaica, Queens after saving a woman from her attacker. Several people walked by Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax’s bleeding body until someone finally called the police, more than an hour later. While some have identified the circumstances surrounding Tale-Yax’s death as an unfortunate, but fascinating psychological study in bystander behavior, others have pointed to a more simple explanation: immigration status.

The New York Times describes the area where Tale-Yax was killed as a “hardscrabble neighborhood with large populations of Central American immigrants and of homeless men.” At the Iglesia Cristo Peniel, Uber Bautista, who identified himself as a church elder, said that he believed the inaction of Queens residents might have stemmed from undocumented immigrants’ trying to escape detection. “So they’re going to be very afraid to call the authorities if they see something,” he told the New York Times. “It’s not that people don’t care.” Grainy surveillance video released by the New York Post documents what happened:

Undocumented immigrants have traditionally been reluctant to talk to the police, even in places like New York City, where police officers are not allowed to enforce immigration law. In neighborhoods where local law enforcement is empowered to act as immigration agents — as all Arizona police officers will soon be compelled to do — it only makes matters worse. A 2009 report released by the Police Foundation indicated that immigration enforcement by local police exacerbates fear in communities already distrustful of police in addition to diverting scarce resources and increasing law enforcement’s exposure to liability and litigation. One police officer pointed out, “How do you police a community that will not talk to you?”

The bill that Brewer signed off on aims to “identify, prosecute and deport” undocumented immigrants and will give local police officers the power to detain anyone suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. While the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, the Mesa and Arizona Fraternal Order of Police, and the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative have all opposed Arizona’s new law for reasons similar to the ones cited by the Police Foundation, Brewer justified her decision by stating that “there is no higher priority than protecting the citizens of Arizona.” “We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of drug cartels,” said Brewer. “We cannot stand idly by as drop houses, kidnappings and violence compromise our quality of life.”

Aside from the fact that many have pointed out that Arizona’s law will make the state less safe, a century of research has shown that immigrants are not murderous, greedy drug cartel operatives as Brewer suggests. Numerous studies have confirmed that immigrants “are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native born.” While the anti-immigrant right is always quick to jump on stories of immigrant criminality and portray them as the norm, Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, “a Guatemalan immigrant [who] eked out a living working odd jobs” and “recently [was] out of work and lost his home in Queens,” lived a quiet, humble life that more closely resembles the average immigrant experience. His death, meanwhile, represents a sad and violent ending which may say as much about the broken U.S. immigration system as it does about human nature.

Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass turns in a very strange Wall Street Journal op-ed today (rather misleadingly titled, presumably by the Journal’s editors, “The Palestine Peace Distraction”) in which he grants at the outset the key strategic premises of U.S. involvement in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking that the piece is ostensibly devoted to challenging.

“To be sure,” writes Haass, “peace between Israelis and Palestinians would be of real value“:

It would constitute a major foreign-policy accomplishment for the United States. It would help ensure Israel’s survival as a democratic, secure, prosperous, Jewish state. It would reduce Palestinian and Arab alienation, a source of anti-Americanism and radicalism. And it would dilute the appeal of Iran and its clients.

That’s pretty much the game right there. But, for some reason, Haass decides there’s a strawman needs killin’:

There are times one could be forgiven for thinking that solving the Palestinian problem would take care of every global challenge from climate change to the flu. But would it? The short answer is no.

While this is obviously meant as a caricature, it hardly needs pointing out that there is no one — no one — who seriously believes anything like this. The only people who traffic in the idea that “solving the Palestinian problem would take care of every global challenge” are the people who do so to knock it down.

Haass goes on to list a number of problems, in addition to climate change and the flu, that peace between Israelis and Palestinians would not solve: Iraqi political infighting, counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear program, and Arab authoritarianism. Even granting all of these — and I think there’s evidence that, even if it wouldn’t “solve” them, Israeli-Palestinian peace would impact them in a positive way — so what? Given what Haass has already acknowledged that achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians would do, it doesn’t make much sense to back off peacemaking just because it wouldn’t also ease Iraq’s political tensions, rebuild Afghanistan, end the Iranian nuclear program, and reform Arab governments.

But it’s in his discussion of radical terrorism that I think Haass steps seriously wrong:

Alas, neither would terrorism fade if Israelis and Palestinians finally ended their conflict. Al Qaeda was initially motivated by a desire to rid the Arabian Peninsula of infidels. Its larger goal is to spread Islam in a form that closely resembles its pure, seventh-century character. Lip service is paid to Palestinian goals, but the radical terrorist agenda would not be satisfied by Palestinian statehood.

Why is “lip service paid” to the Palestinian issue? Because it’s an issue of great salience among Al Qaeda’s target audience. Resolving the issue wouldn’t end Al Qaeda terrorism, but it would blunt Al Qaeda’s appeal (just as Haass acknowledges it would Iran’s), denying it an important propaganda tool and shrinking its pool of potential recruits.

What is more, any Palestinian state would materialize only amidst compromise. There will be no return to the 1967 borders; at most, Palestinians would be compensated for territorial adjustments made necessary by large blocs of Jewish settlements and Israeli security concerns. There will be nothing more than a token right of return for Palestinians to Israel. Jerusalem will remain undivided and at most shared. Terrorists would see all this as a sell-out, and they would target not just Israel but those Palestinians and Arab states who made peace with it.

Leaving aside that Al Qaeda has already targeted moderate Palestinians and Arab states who’ve made peace with Israel, I find it hard to believe that the president of the Council on Foreign Relations is really offering “the terrorists won’t like it” as a reason to not do something, especially something that he has already acknowledged “would be of real value” to the United States in the region.

When you cut through all the atmospherics, Haass’s argument pretty much comes down to the idea that President Obama shouldn’t announce his own comprehensive peace plan, because the likely failure of such a plan “risks discrediting good ideas, breeding frustration in the Arab world, and diluting America’s reputation for getting things done.” But, of course, as Gen. David Petraeus noted in his recent report to Congress, these are also among the consequences of a lack of progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace. What Haass has given us here, then, is not an argument for abandoning the peace process, but for how important it is — for reasons of both security and credibility — that we not fail.

Our guest blogger is Pablo Alvarado, Executive Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Yesterday, for the first time, President Obama addressed the imminent passage of SB-1070, an Arizona immigration bill he said would “undermine basic notions of fairness” and “trust between police and their communities.” In his brief statement he acknowledged that the federal government’s “failure to act responsibly” has led to the “irresponsibility of others.” Nonetheless, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) irresponsibly signed the bill into law Friday afternoon. While Congress must work to enact just immigration reform, the President must react swiftly to address the crisis in Arizona. The nation is now looking to the President to demonstrate leadership and moral courage to follow his own advice and stop the implementation of this likely unconstitutional and “fundamentally racist” law. How can he do it? He can start by reasserting the federal government’s exclusive authority to enforce immigration laws.

According to the constitution, immigration law has been the exclusive purview of the federal government. Local and state governments are precluded from enforcing it or promulgating their own laws. The inception of the widely acknowledged failed 287(g) program in 1996 which allows local law enforcement to enforce immigration law after entering into an agreement with the federal government, marked a sweeping reinterpretation of the constitution. In effect, the 287(g) program and others like it have created a balkanized system that increases and sometimes sanctions racial profiling, diverts resources from law enforcement, and creates a growing distrust between local police and immigrant communities. SB-1070 is now the culmination of the federal government’s outsourcing of its immigration enforcement authority to state and local police. Arizona is proof that police and ICE partnerships are not only costly and dangerous, they can also be used as a stepping stone towards more radical solutions. The President has the power to immediately halt them.

The President can also direct the Department of Justice to rescind the 2002 Bush era “inherent authority memo” and return to the federal government’s prior conclusion that state and local police are preempted from enforcing non-criminal provisions of immigration laws. The principle behind it is this: the federal government has exclusive authority to regulate immigration (like their exclusive authority to have a military) and that authority can’t be transferred to state and local governments. There’s good reason for this: a uniform immigration policy is fundamental in maintaining national order.

Finally, President Obama could decide that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will simply not participate in SB-1070’s implementation. Arizona cannot implement SB-1070 without the federal government’s cooperation and willingness to detain and deport those who are the potential victims of unjust arrests and profiling. By refusing to help Arizona enforce a bill that will surely be deemed unconstitutional and unjust, the President would send a clear message that the federal government will have no part in enforcing laws that undermine “basic notions of fairness.”

There are moments in history when the country must stand together to uphold its most cherished values and protect its proud tradition as a nation of immigrants in order to perfect the Union. In these moments, we must honor those who fought so hard for the freedom and equality we all must defend. Recent events in Arizona require such a moment.

One of the hot issues in yesterday’s UK Prime Minister’s debate is over whether to replace Britain’s Trident nuclear missile system. The fault lines on this issue have oddly unified Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative leader David Cameron. Both support spending more than $100 billion on this project in order to fully replace the existing Trident program thereby ensuring its existence for the next half century. Upstart Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats on the other hand, has called for its cancellation, arguing that such a program is both inconsistent with President Obama’s calls to work toward eliminating nuclear weapons and is a colossal waste of money that could be better spent on equipping British ground forces – that are suffering severe equipment shortages after a decade of fighting two wars.

In the debate, Cameron and Brown ferociously attacked Clegg on this issue in yesterday’s debate, as Brown even described his foreign policy approach as “anti-Americanism.” Brown derided:

I say to you, Nick, get real, get real. Because Iran, you are saying, might be able to have a nuclear weapon, and you wouldn’t take action against them, but you’re saying we’ve got to give up our Trident submarines and our nuclear weapon now. Get real about the danger.

But Clegg’s position on the trident is anything but “naïve” and “anti-American.” On the contrary, calls to end the Trident program reflect a much more astute understanding both of the role of nuclear weapons and of Britain’s place in the 21st century.

The notion that the UK needs nuclear weapons because of the dangers of Iran demonstrates an outdated world view that sees Britain as isolated and sees security issues in a vacuum. The fact is that the UK is in NATO – which means under Article 5 an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. This means that an attack on the UK is an attack on the US and therefore the US nuclear deterrent is effectively a UK nuclear deterrent as well. If the UK’s nukes just magically disappeared there would be no practical change in its ability to deter a nuclear attack.

The debate over the Trident is therefore at its heart is not about questions of security but about nuclear weapons as a sign of global prestige and clout. The fact is that the role of nuclear weapons has significantly declined following the end of the Cold War, since, as Colin Powell noted, nuclear weapons are militarily “useless.” Clegg is therefore right when he states in defense of eliminating the Trident that “the world is changing, when we’re facing new threats.”

But a Britain that is willing to spend more than $100 billion dollars on a nuclear weapons program that has little real military utility, is not just swimming against the global tide, but is sending an incredibly regressive signal to the world over the importance of these weapons. Countries embedded in the international community that could go nuclear, such as Brazil or South Africa (which gave up its weapons), have chosen not too, because lacking any strong security rationale, these countries have calculated that nuclear weapons actually would diminish – not grow – their international standing. Building a new Trident therefore sends a signal that being international prestige is still tied to the possession of nuclear weapons.

This debate then is intimately tied to Britain’s broader apprehension over its global self image and its loss of its past hegemonic global status. In essence, nukes for the UK are like hair plugs – they have nothing to do with ones health, but everything to do with ones self image. However, a UK that confidently reduced its nuclear arsenal would alternatively send a strong signal to the world about the decreased importance of nuclear weapons and would in fact catapult the UK into a global leader on this issue. Far from losing credibility by passing on Trident, the UK’s international credibility and moral authority would be enhanced.

Finally, investing in a new Trident does nothing to bolster the “special relationship.” The fact is that Britain’s global importance and its military significance to the United States has nothing to do with its possession of nuclear weapons, but everything to do with its possession of a highly capable conventional armed forces that can fight alongside American troops.

There is a huge opportunity cost in having a cash-strapped UK investing billions on its nuclear forces, instead of spending on items that are actually relevant to its security and to the transatlantic alliance, such as equipment for its ground forces, helicopters, and fighter jets. David Cameron suggested in the debate that choosing between funding the two is a false “trade-off.” Well, it is only a false choice if Cameron is going to find that money for defense elsewhere, which he isn’t. If the US was in charge in the UK defense budget, the Trident would be cut in a heart beat.

In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama called for a “non-security” discretionary spending freeze to help bring down the deficit. He proposed exempting “security-related budgets for the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security,” as well as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

On a party-line vote of 12 to 10 yesterday, the Senate Budget Committee approved “a $3.7 trillion budget blueprint” that goes further than Obama’s plan by “slicing $9.5 billion from discretionary spending in fiscal year 2011.” Under the Senate Budget Committee blueprint, approximately half of the savings would come from dramatic cuts to the budgets of the State Department and other international aid programs. Nevertheless, the committee decided to actually increase the Defense Department’s funding:

The 2011 federal spending plan approved by the committee Thursday on a 12-10 vote provides $573.8 billion for the Defense Department, which includes $133 billion for contingency operations. The amount makes the Defense Department one of the few federal agencies to see a budget increase; the non-war funding part of the defense budget would represent a 3.5 percent increase over 2010 funding.

Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Department Secretary Robert Gates supported full funding for Obama’s foreign affairs budget request. In her letter to Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) on April 20, Clinton argued that international aid is actually more “cost-effective” than military spending:

Our investments in development and diplomacy are smart, cost-effective, and squarely in the best interests of American taxpayers and our national security. They are relatively small compared to the cost of active military engagement, and they can end up delivering impactful savings. In Iraq, for example, our $2.6 billion request for State and USAID will allow the Defense Department budget to decrease by about $16 billion — a powerful illustration of the return on civilian investments.

As CAP Senior Fellow Lawrence J. Korb has advocated, the Defense Department should not be exempted from this spending freeze. Freezing “the base defense budget at its current level of about $532 billion would not hinder the Pentagon’s ability to conduct the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Approximately $20 billion in savings could come from, among other measures, cutting missile defense while maintaining funding for its continued research and development, cutting FY 2011 F-35 purchases to twenty, and canceling the Zumwalt-class DDG-1000 at two ships.

The Department of Veterans Affairs also saw a 7.4 percent boost in the Senate Budget Committee’s proposal. The Obama administration requested the increases for both budgets. As the Navy Times notes, this blueprint is “just the first step in the long congressional budget process. The House Budget Committee has not started writing its version of the budget blueprint.”

In what seems to to be an attempt to affirm the wisdom of the Pentagon’s decision to rescind his invitation to speak at National Prayer Day observances, conservative American cleric Rev. Franklin Graham tells the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn that “I don’t speak against the Muslims” but that he does not back down from calling Islam an “evil” and “wicked religion”:

GRAHAM: I do not fight the Muslims, I don’t speak against the Muslims. But the religion — I don’t agree with the teachings of Muhammad. I do not agree with the teachings of this religion.

QUINN: You stirred up some controversy when you talked about Islam being an evil religion, a wicked religion.

GRAHAM: Mm-hmm.

QUINN: Tell me about that, because you later made statements where you sort of said ‘No, I didn’t really mean this’ –

GRAHAM: No, no, no, I never backed down from that. I never retracted that.

QUINN: Tell me what you said.

GRAHAM: Just take women, and what Islam does to women. True Islam cannot be practiced in this country. Okay? It cannot. If you were my wife, I can’t beat you because you didn’t want to have sex with me or whatever. I can’t just get tired of you and say ‘I divorce you’ and kick you out of the house. We have laws that protect you, okay? Just look only at how they treat women. It is shameful. It is wicked. It is evil.

Watch it:

My first response to this is that America deserves smarter clerics. Graham’s impressively ignorant rant about what “true Islam” says about women seems to have been gleaned from a Chick tract. Given that the definition of “true Islam” is sort of a live discussion among many Muslim populations these days (just as is the definition of “true Christianity” among Christians) the idea that a defiantly closed-minded rube like Graham should presume to speak for it is just comical.

Remarkably, having just generalized negatively about Islam, Graham then complains about the tendency of “the media” and “Hollywood” to generalize negatively about Christianity:

QUINN: How would you react if the people you were dealing with said Christianity is an evil religion and a wicked religion?

GRAHAM: I hear that every day from the media. I hear it in Hollywood. Every time they put a minister on TV they always make him out to be some wacko crazy guy who runs off with the church secretary or who steals money, or whatever. And that’s — Hollywood does this.

QUINN: Why do you think so?

GRAHAM: Why? Because I think many of them just hate God.

Because he hates generalizations so much, Graham goes on to insist that, whereas Hollywood is only interested in sex and degrading women, “Jesus lifted women up! Hollywood wants to make women just a sex object for man’s pleasure.”

“This is just how corrupt we have become,” Graham says. “We are a morally bankrupt society.”

Leaving aside whether Jesus himself did, in fact, “lift women up,” there’s simply no denying that Jesus’ followers have, for hundreds of years, found in Jesus’ teachings a justification for keeping women down. Franklin’s own father, the Rev. Billy Graham, wrote in 1969 that “The Word of God teaches that the primary duty of a woman is to be a homemaker,” and “the appointed destiny of real womanhood” is to be “wife, mother, homemaker.” And now the son wants to claim the struggle for womens’ equality for Christianity? Please.

As for Franklin Graham’s condemnation of America as a “corrupt” and “morally bankrupt society,” one should note that this is a point on which he is in strong agreement with a number of famous Muslims.

Full transcript below Read more

As Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) mulls over whether she will sign or veto a bill, SB-1070, recently passed by the Arizona legislature that would set up some of the most draconian immigration laws in the country, other states are already “watching to see whether they should follow in the state’s footsteps or stand back.” Michael Hethmon, general counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) — which helped draft the language of SB-1070 — has stated that he has been “approached by lawmakers from four other states who have asked for advice on how they can do the same thing.” Hethmon boasts that “what’s happening in Arizona just didn’t pop out of nowhere. It’s the latest step in a fairly deliberate process.” Hethmon’s troubling remarks beg the question of who is behind an organization that is strategically working on developing costly and ineffective policies that empower states and localities to take immigration law into their own hands.

IRLI is the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigrant group that has most recently been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Immigration Reform Law Institute calls itself, “America’s only public interest law organization working exclusively to protect the legal rights, privileges, and property of U.S. citizens and their communities from injuries and damages caused by unlawful immigration.” However, the Center for New Community (CNC), has another take on what IRLI stands for. According to CNC, IRLI’s “primary purpose is to push legal causes that unfairly target immigrant communities.”

In a nutshell, the IRLI has been behind most, if not every, local legislative immigration crackdown over the past few years. IRLI has taken part in a class action suit against California educators for allowing immigrant students to attend school. They have been behind a series of initiatives to prohibit members of local communities from renting to undocumented immigrants and sued Secretary Michael Chertoff and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), despite his aggressive workplace raids. In California, the Immigration Reform Law Institute has also aligned itself with a state ballot initiative aimed at overturning the 14th Amendment citizenship requirements and ending pre-natal and non-emergency care and child welfare checks that benefit the U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants. IRLI lawyer Kris Kobach makes about $300 per hour to train Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s officers in immigration matters. Kobach is kept busy considering Arpaio is currently the subject of a racial profiling investigation by the Department of Justice and has 2,700 lawsuits sitting on his desk as a result of his immigration policing tactics. A recent documentary investigated the role IRLI played in an anti-immigrant ordinance proposed in Prince William County:

IRLI may identify itself as a “public interest law firm,” but its efforts come with a serious price tag. The National Employment Law Project has shown that “ill-conceived immigration ‘enforcement only’ approaches” carry “grave economic risks.”

In 2006, the State of Colorado passed a series of bills meant to deny public services to undocumented immigrants, create a new penalty for use of fraudulent documents, enroll all state departments in the federal Basic Pilot program, and require state police to enforce immigration laws. One year later, eighteen state departments had spent a total of $2.03 million on implementation of the new laws and identified zero undocumented immigrants.

In Riverside, New Jersey, a town of 8,000 spent $82,000 in legal fees defending its restrictive immigration ordinance which penalized anyone who employed or rented to an undocumented immigrant.

Currently, IRLI is helping Farmers Branch, a small town of 30,000 people in Texas, repeal a federal district judge decision which deemed the town’s rental ban ordinance unconstitutional. Since September 2006, the town has spent $3.2 million on the legal fight and may have to spend an additional $623,000 this year.

Prince William County supervisors ultimately decided against moving forward with the police enforcement of the immigration law after they found that the price tag would be a minimum of $14 million for five years.

Though the Arizona law is poised to pass, IRLI stands to profit even more from the legislation once it becomes the law of the land. The ACLU has stated, in unequivocal terms, that SB-1070 is downright unconstitutional in that it exacerbates racial profiling and violates the constitution’s Supremacy Clause. If Arizona’s law really is the “leading edge” as Hethmon suggests, IRLI will continue to benefit from the exploitation of the nation’s broken immigration system and the insecurity and fears that come with it.

One of the main conservative attacks on the New START treaty is that it will constrain the development of our planned missile defense system. Despite repeated comments from officials – including Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher who stated bluntly, “definitely, positively, and no way, no how” does this limit our plans for missile defense – conservatives have continued to insist otherwise. John Bennett of Defense News reported:

Republican senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee used the bulk of their time to air their concerns that the Obama administration might stop or slow some missile defense programs “to appease Russia” and keep Moscow from withdrawing from the pact.

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) even accused the administration of lying to him at a speech to the NDU Foundation. Kyl claims that a provision within the treaty prevents retired missile launchers from being converted to uses for missile defense. Therefore Kyl, and the conservative right says this is evidence that the treaty actually does contain “limits” on missile defense contrary to Administration assurances. In fact, Kyl apparently feels so personally slighted that he suggested he would be willing to try to block the treaty over it:

More important to me, the Obama administration negotiators were disingenuous at best in the way they described the wording on missile defense, and some would go further than disingenuous to describe what they did.

But these protestations are disingenuous at best. According to General Patrick O’Reilly, the head of the US Missile Defense Agency, these complaints are simply not true. In fact, New START, as the General says, “actually reduces constraints on the development of the missile defense program.”

The General also dismissed claims that a provision within the treaty that prevents the US from using deactivated missile launchers for missile defense was a constraint of any kind, as conservatives suggest.

Relative to the New START Treaty, the New START treaty actually reduces constraints on the development of the missile defense program… our targets will no longer be subject to START constraints, which previously limited our use air-to-surface and water borne launches of targets, which are essential for the cost effective testing of missile defense interceptors against medium and intermediate range ballistic missile targets in the Pacific area.

…The New START treaty also has no constraints on ballistic missile defense system deployment. Article V section 3 of the treaty prohibits the conversions of ICBMs or SLBM conversion to missile defense launchers and vis-versa, while grandfathering 5 former ICBM silos at Vandenberg Air Force Base already converted for ground-based interceptors. MDA never had a plan to convert additional ICBM silos at Vandenberg. Moreover, we have determined that if more interceptors are added to Vandenberg Air Force Base it would be less expensive to build a new GBI missile field, which is not prohibited by the treaty. Regarding, sea launched ballistic missile launchers sometime ago we examined the concept of launching ballistic missile defense interceptors from submarines and found it an unattractive and extremely expensive option.

Watch it:

These comments coming from the General in charge of the Missile Defense Agency poor cold water on the claims from Republicans. O’Reilly is making two points. First, that the New START treaty removes some of the limitations that existed in the old START treaty – particularly in regards to past restrictions in how we could test the missile defense system. Therefore it removes missile defense constraints.

Second, he notes that the claimed “limitations” only prevent the US from doing something that it had absolutely no intention of ever doing. General O’Reilly is crystal clear that converting retired launchers is unnecessary because it is both more technologically challenging and prohibitively expensive. O’Reilly therefore notes that if it was deemed that we needed to expand the system we could just build more missile silos, since it would be more cost effective to build new ones than retrofit existing silos.

So when Kyl essentially calls the Obama START negotiators liars for insisting START does not limit missile defense, he is in effect also calling General O’Reilly a liar.

The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reports that, despite President Obama’s hard diplomatic work in bringing Russia and China closer to a UN sanctions resolution, “administration officials acknowledge that even what they call ‘crippling’ sanctions could prove ineffective in keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons”:

That stalemate, in the view of many analysts, means that a strategy of containing Iran is inevitable — diplomatic isolation backed by defense systems supplied to Persian Gulf allies.

“I think we are in for a long cold war with Iran. It will be containment and deterrence,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a former top State Department official who is now a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “Iran will muddle along building its stockpile but never making a nuclear bomb because it knows that crossing that line would provoke an immediate military attack.”

Meanwhile, in terms of how we got here, Laura Rozen reports a fantastic pwning by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who, at a hearing of the House Middle East subcommittee yesterday, strenuously pointed out the utter lack of credibility of the Bush administration hawks who not only failed to stop Iran’s nuclear program but whose approach to the Middle East actually provided the Islamic Republic with one of the biggest strategic boosts in its history.

“In terms of U.S. credibility” in the Middle East, Ackerman said, “the Obama Administration inherited, not a partial failure, but a total collapse“:

And from the policymakers and supporters of the previous Administration, who in decency ought to have slunk off in shamed silence for having watched fecklessly as this disaster — like Iran’s steady march toward nuclear weapons-capability — unfolded under their watch, what do they have to say today?

Well, mostly what they have to say involves tiresome repetition of “Munich,” “Chamberlain,” and “appeasement.” Ackerman had some words for this too:

“Appeasement! Appeasement!” they cry, attempting to evoke the days leading to World War II.

This charge is grotesque. Apart from the indecency of comparison with the unique horror and evil of Nazi Germany, the cheap demagoguery of the word utterly fails to capture what the Obama Administration is actually doing. Where, one might ask, is the long list of concessions from America to Syria? Where is the surrender and sell-out of allies? Where is the retreat in the face of challenge? A few airplane parts? A few inconclusive meetings?

The string of defeats and failures that brought us to the current impasse occurred, let us not forget, during the previous Administration. The seeming limits of American power were brutally exposed well before Barack Obama was even elected to his high office.

Appeasement? Shameless nonsense. And more empty words.

It is true that the Obama Administration is pursuing a different policy than the spectacular failure of its predecessor. But that’s just good sense. Everywhere but Washington, not repeating mistakes is considered a good, or even a very good thing.

Heckuva job, Bushie.

Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli security officials are “divided” over whether they need permission from the U.S. should Israel decide to attack Iran over its nuclear program. The Israelis fear that if new sanctions on Iran fail, “the Israeli and American positions on Iran could rapidly diverge — and Israel, if it chooses to attack Iran, would have no choice but to do so on its own.”

While top U.S. officials have been reluctant to focus on a military strike against Iran, let alone endorse an Israeli one, Fox News war hawk John Bolton said last night on the network’s business channel that the U.S should actually “be helping Israel if they’re making a decision that they might use military force against Iran.” However, on the O’Reilly Factor, another reliable Fox News armchair warrior Charles Krauthammer actually acknowledged that attacking Iran could prove pointless:

KRAUTHAMMER: Do we have enough intelligence? Do we know where their stuff is hidden? They have spoken about a second uranium enrichment place. Do they have others? And, also, how deeply buried and how hardened are the targets? Because unless we know if we have access with our equipment, our bombs, they may be ineffective. I think they have got to make assessment on the current intelligence which appears to us, at least on the outside, rather weak.

Watch the compilation:

Krauthammer is right. There is a strong possibility that bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities would be completely “ineffective” at eliminating its program, because, as the New York Times reported in January, “Iran has quietly hidden an increasingly large part of its atomic complex in networks of tunnels and bunkers” which has “shielded its infrastructure from military attack in warrens of dense rock” and has “obscured the scale and nature of its notoriously opaque nuclear effort.”

Moreover, bombing will most likely incentivize the Iranian leadership to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and accelerate its nuclear program toward weaponization. An attack would not only unify the country around the regime but also, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last year, “cement their determination to have a nuclear program, and also build into the whole country an undying hatred of whoever hits them.” “Even a military attack will only buy us time and send the program deeper and more covert,” Gates has said.

The usual venues are raising alarm about a newly released Department of Defense report on Iranian military power that states that Iran could probably develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching the U.S. by 2015 “with sufficient foreign assistance.” While this is certainly worth paying attention to, there’s a significant aspect of the report that pro-war elements seem intent on ignoring.

The report states on the first page that, “Since the revolution, Iran’s first priority has consistently remained the survival of the regime“:

Iran also seeks to become the strongest and most influential country in the Middle East and to influence world affairs. The theocratic leadership’s ideological goal is to be able to export its theocratic form of government, its version of Shia Islam, and stand up for the “oppressed” according to their religious interpretations of the law. In recent years, Iran’s ideological goals have taken a back seat to pragmatic considerations.

To ensure regime survival, Iran’s security strategy is based first on deterring an attack. [...]

Iran’s military strategy is designed to defend against external or “hard” threats from the United States and Israel. Iran’s principles of military strategy include deterrence, asymmetrical retaliation, and attrition warfare. Iran’s nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy.

This is in keeping with the conclusion of 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (pdf) that “Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.” How does all of this accord with claims by various conservative “experts” that Iran is controlled by irrational, suicidal mullahs who intend to use a nuclear weapon to destroy Israel/trigger the apocalypse/provoke the return of the Mahdi? Short answer: It doesn’t, and people who continue to make such claims should be vigorously mocked.

Remember that, after he was captured in 2003, Saddam Hussein told a U.S. interrogator that he had “allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction” in order to project strength and deter what he perceived as the most immediate threat against Iraq: Iran. Behavior that was intended primarily to preserve and defend his regime was interpreted by the U.S. and its allies — reasonably or not — as evidence of Saddam’s aggressive intent, and a pretext for hugely destructive and counterproductive preventive war.

This isn’t to suggest that we shouldn’t be concerned with Iran’s actions, its ties to terrorist groups, or its nuclear program. Iran has proved to be far more skilled and effective than Saddam was at cultivating influence and creating strategic depth in the region. But hysterical nonsense about “messianic mullahs” only serves to obscure the real challenges posed to U.S. interests by Iran, and increases the likelihood of repeating past strategic blunders.

Yesterday, in a fawning Wall Street Journal profile of Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), it was further clarified that Kyl’s support for a New START treaty was contingent on absolutely massive budget increases to the nuclear weapons complex in order to “modernize” the existing nuclear arsenal. Kyl, as paraphrased by the Journal, deemed that there “were signs that the administration wouldn’t produce a modernization plan for the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal that he could accept” and he stated clearly:

I am not going to be a party to getting a treaty ratified if I’m not sure that there’s commitment on the other side to an adequate [nuclear spending] plan.

Kyl’s misrepresentation of reality is now getting some serious push back from George W. Bush’s very own nuclear security administrator. Linton Brooks, who ran the National Nuclear Security Administration from 2003-2007, directly contradicted Kyl, noting that he “would have killed” for Obama’s nuclear budget, which will, if implemented, amount to a 13 percent increase for nuclear weapons modernization.

Brooks as head of NNSA – the agency that deals with the nuclear labs and oversees the nuclear stockpiles – said at an event held by the Arms Control Association that:

you’ll hear concerns by some that the treaty may or may not be a good idea but you can’t possibly accept it because the U.S. nuclear weapons program is in disarray. And I think the administration’s answer to that is the fiscal 2011 budget with a very substantial increase for my former home, the National Nuclear Security Administration. And I will say flatly, I ran that place for five years and I’d have killed for that budget and that much high-level attention in the administration and I just – nobody in government ever said “my program has too much money” and I doubt that my successor is busy saying that. But he is very happy with his program and I think it does put us on a very firm, firm basis… I don’t think there’s any question this is in our interest and should be ratified.

Brooks’ comments expose Kyl’s transparent partisan motivations on two accounts. First, since funding levels were significantly lower during the Bush administration, Kyl’s new found demands for massive budgetary increases are a transparent effort to complicate or block ratification. One has to ask, why wasn’t Jon Kyl demanding massive budgetary increases under the Bush administration?

Additionally, if Kyl were really concerned about the nuclear infrastructure, instead of wastefully demanding absurd increases, he could be working to lobby members on the relevant committees in the House and Senate to, at the very least, fully fund the Administration’s budget request this year. But Kyl as of yet has chosen to demand a payoff and carp from the sidelines instead of rolling up his sleeves.

Yesterday, Glenn Beck warned his Fox News viewers that the “left is lining up” against tea party activists as “radicals in today’s administration” align themselves with “crazy groups” that help assemble the opposition. During his rant, Beck named National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, and then immediately went on to identify MS-13, one of the world’s most violent criminal gangs which originated in Los Angeles and has spread to Central America, as belonging to the same general classification of groups:

The left is lining up against you. Remember, the radicals in today’s administration — the radicals — have connections to everybody. And who is assembling? [...]

La Raza — which if you want to talk about a racist statement — if I called an organization “the race” — wow, that’s…Anyway, La Raza supports drivers licenses for illegal aliens — not for that. They oppose any cooperation between local law enforcement and federal authorities, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and enforcing U.S. immigration laws. Why wouldn’t you want them working together?

Then you have MS-13 — this is a blood-thirsty, this a notoriously violent gang who has often left behind dismembered corpses, decapitated heads. It’s bad. [...]

Watch it:

Beck goes on to explain why NCLR and MS-13 should be lumped into the same category of “crazy groups.” Beck brings up the fact that Justice Sonia Sotomayor is a member of NCLR and that President Obama spoke at one of their events in 2008. He then infers that Attorney General Eric Holder must be connected to MS-13 because he directed prosecutors not to seek the death penalty against three El Salvadoran men with ties to the “decapitation gang” who were being tried on charges that, although shameful, did not involve anything close to decapitation.

While MS-13 is in fact a gruesome, violent gang, NCLR is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with a mission to “strengthen this great nation by promoting the advancement of Latino families.” NCLR believes that “all immigration to the U.S. should be safe and legal” and explains that “la raza” also means “the people” or “community.” Their position against the depudization of immigration law has been justified by research showing that it leads to racial profiling, discrimination, and other civil rights abuses. NCLR has featured a variety of speakers from both sides of the aisle at their events including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), then Gov. George Bush (R-TX), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), and Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL).

Given that Beck has gone as far as to say he likes immigrants more than Americans because they love and appreciate this country, it seems odd that he would slam a group that aims to “create opportunities and open the door to the American Dream for Latino and other families.” In an interview with Sarah Palin, Beck argued that the U.S. should “make the door wider and make it easier to bring people in.” Back in March, Beck stated, “if we don’t have immigrants who love this country, we’re gonna run out of people who love this country.” If anything, Beck’s immigration platform is more radical than NCLR’s, which advocates for “reasonable enforcement with reduction in family immigration backlogs, a legal path for future immigrant workers, and a path to citizenship for those living and working in the U.S.”

Beck also names the Center for American Progress as one of the organizations that Obama administration “radicals” associate with.

BBC reports that an Iranian cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, recently suggested that promiscuity causes earthquakes. “Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society,” said Sedighi, “which increases earthquakes.”

The Weekly Standard’s Gabriel Schoenfeld suggests that such clerical wackiness “can teach us a serious lesson” about Iran:

The question it poses is: How well do we understand the thinking of the Iranian leadership on questions small and large? [...]

The assumption that the Iranians are “rational” in the way we normally understand that term is open to doubt. If promiscuous women can cause earthquakes, what kinds of human behavior, one wonders, might cause a nuclear bomb to detonate or be detonated?

Quite right! What will those nutty, nutty clerics think of next? Maybe gays cause hurricanes? Perhaps feminists cause terrorism? What about abortion causing illegal immigration? Soon they’ll be telling us that God supports political assassinations! Or even that God intervenes in Republican primaries! It’s just so ridiculous.

In reality, off course, those are all views proudly expressed by conservative American clerics, and shared by the millions of Americans who follow them. Which just shows, as I’m sure Schoenfeld would agree, that the assumption that the Americans are “rational” in the way we normally understand that term is open to doubt.