Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) in a hearing this week exposed the logic behind Senate Republican opposition to the START treaty — the Soviet Union is out to get us. DeMint during the hearing not once, but twice referred to Russia as the Soviet Union in a line of questioning about needing to protect the US against a Soviet missile attacks:

DEMINT: When the Russians speak of missile defense, they feel the START treaty is a clear limitation of the US ability to develop any strategic defense system against multiple missiles such as those that could be fired by the Soviet Union. When we speak of having flexibility with missile defense we mean it is a nominal defense system that could shoot down isolated missile that was fired by a rogue nation or one that was fired accidentally by a super power…is it your understanding that the START treaty is an agreement that the United States will not attempt to develop a missile defense system capable of shooting down multiple missiles fired by the Soviet Union.

Watch it:

DeMint’s Freudian reference to the Soviet Union, is reflective of the right’s continued Cold War outlook toward Russia that still fundamentally sees it as an enemy. Heritage Foundation in its missile defense propaganda movie, 33 minutes, in fact even depicted Russia’s leadership, along with Iran and North Korea as enemy threats.

The right’s Russia paranoia is also a fundamental driver of its opposition to the New START treaty. DeMint and the Heritage Foundation want to develop a fanciful missile shield that is technologically impossible to build for the foreseeable future and would be astronomically expensive in order to insulate the US from a potential attack from Russia, thereby eliminating the current strategic reality of mutually assured destruction. The ultimate problem with this vision is that all that would happen is the Russians would massively build up their nuclear arsenal to overwhelm any new missile defenses. Thus, a massively dangerous and expensive nuclear arms race would be instigated that would in the end still leave us with the current strategic situation of mutually assured destruction.

Yet, even if you are in favor of a new Cold War like DeMint and believe a new arms race is a price worth paying for this mythical star wars type system, it still doesn’t make any sense for the far right to oppose the START treaty.

Importantly, the right is not objecting to the limitations on nuclear warheads included within the treaty – in other words, they aren’t saying the nuclear cuts are too much. Instead, they are saying that because Obama really wants this treaty the Russians will be able to constrain our missile defense development by threatening to withdraw from the treaty. But no matter what, this administration is not going to change 20 years of US policy and go in the direction advocated by Senator DeMint where the US explicitly targets Russia.

But even if the START treaty were ratified that would not limit a future president, such as Jim DeMint for example, from being able to develop his mythical system, since there is nothing in the START treaty that would prevent such future developments. If the treaty did limit the US, it would be in the treaty, not in some non-binding unilateral statement expressed by the Russians after the treaty was signed. Yes, the Russians would probably withdraw from the treaty, as they said they would, if the US did what President DeMint wanted, but why would DeMint care – he was thinking about voting against the treaty anyway!

But it is not just that START does not inhibit missile defense, it also has strategic benefits that even a President DeMint would think are important. For instance, as a DeMint administration was preparing to push the US into a new Cold War the US would possess real tangible intelligence of Russian nuclear forces as a result START’s verification measures (something that our military finds very valuable) and, since he believes Russia is a threat, with the START treaty in place tangible limits would have been placed on Russia’s nuclear forces. Therefore, if you are a right winger and want a new Cold War with Russia, it makes sense to have the START treaty in place until DeMint can be elected President.

This is why this treaty should be so uncontroversial. It doesn’t prevent us from doing anything we could conceivably want to do.

Today, Ben Smith of Politico reported that California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (R) reminded California Latino voters of her opposition to Arizona’s controversial immigration law in an ad set to air on the Spanish-language broadcast of today’s Mexico-France World Cup game. “The ad marks a dramatic tack a way from a primary in which Whitman was at times visibly uncomfortable with her campaign’s hard line, denying at one point — mistakenly — that her campaign was airing ads with images of a boarder fence,” writes Smith. Whitman is also taking a two-faced approach that’s straight from pages of the failed McCain-Palin playbook: say one thing in English and then turn around tell Latino voters something completely different in Spanish.

Given the fact that she co-chaired the national presidential campaign for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2008, Whitman should be pretty familiar with the McCain campaign’s disastrous Latino voter outreach strategy. However, her repetition of his mistakes suggests maybe she forgot. Before launching his presidential bid, McCain was highly regarded by the Latino community as a level-headed champion of comprehensive immigration reform. However, once McCain started running for President, his rhetoric changed. By January 2008, he was saying he wouldn’t even vote for his own immigration bill again if given the chance. However, once McCain got through the primaries he started saying something very different to the Spanish language media. In a Spanish-language ad released in September 2008, McCain suggested that then Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Democrats were not on the side of Latino voters and were responsible for killing immigration reform in 2007. However, besides referring to a piece of legislation that McCain had previously stated he would no longer support, the bill actually died when it failed to get key Republican votes. McCain left the door wide open for Obama to come back at him with an ad that highlighted the “two faces” of the Republican Party. In November, Latinos voted for Obama over McCain by a margin of more than two-to-one.

Whitman may find herself in a similar predicament. Before her race against her Republican opponent, Steve Poizner, got tight, Whitman supported immigration reform and a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants. When Poizner began portraying Whitman as soft on immigration, Whitman toughened up and told voters that she only supports a temporary worker program and more border security. And while her new ad boasts of her opposition to California’s Proposition 187 — an Arizona type law that was ultimately deemed unconstitutional — in a radio spot just a few weeks ago, she featured one of the ballot initiatives biggest proponents: former Gov. Pete Wilson (R-CA). In the ad, Wilson affirmed that Whitman will be “as tough as nails” on immigration. The ad was such a turnaround for Whitman that the California Nurses Association launched an ad on Spanish-language radio to let Latino voters know what Whitman didn’t “want you to hear.”

As Wonk Room pointed out last week, Whitman will have a hard time winning the general election without significant Latino support. While it makes sense for her to soften her stance on immigration again, she probably should’ve thought of that during the Republican primary. Whitman may not realize it, but most Latino voters in California understand Spanish and English. In fact, 33.4 to 73.5% of California’s foreign born Latino population is proficient in English.

Watch Whitman’s Spanish Language Ad:

Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) brought the debate over Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan substantially closer to the gutter by invoking the dread specter of ISLAMIC SHARIA LAW.

“New information has come to light,” Sessions ominously intoned, “suggesting that Ms. Kagan may even have been less morally principled in her approach than has been portrayed.”

SESSIONS: Around the same time that Dean Kagan was campaigning to exclude military recruiters, citing what she saw as the evils of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Harvard University accepted $20 million from a member of the Saudi royal family to establish a center for Islamic studies and Sharia law. The Obama State Department report concerning Saudi Arabia and the Sharia law concept noted “under Sharia as interpreted by Saudi Arabia’s sexual activity between two persons of the same gender, is punishable by death or flogging.” She was perfectly willing to obstruct the military, which has liberated countless Muslims from the hate and tyranny of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban but it seems she was willing to sit on the sidelines as Harvard created a center funded and dedicated to foreign leaders presiding over a legal system that would violate what would appear to be her positions. She fought the ability of our own soldiers to access campus resources but not those who spread the oppressive tenets of Shari’a-type law.

Watch it (portion begins at 5:36):

Mediaite’s Frances Martel explains what a ridiculous apples-to-armchairs comparison this is:

In actuality, the Center for Islamic Studies, unlike the military, was not meant to be an extracurricular, optional activity but, rather, a mini-school with its own set of professors who would teach on Islamic culture and society. The “Sharia Law” part of that center seems to have been made explicit only to Sessions, as well, as the original report from the time that the Saudi prince donated the money describes the allocation of funds as being explicitly “to launch a University-wide Islamic studies program and to endow four senior professorships, according to a press release. [...]

Also, as a separate school, Kagan did not have any jurisdiction over it the way she would have over an extracurricular activity (like ROTC) existing on her campus — protesting the Center for Islamic Studies wouldn’t be much different for a Dean of Harvard Law School to do than, say, protesting the Kennedy School of Government’s existence.

The idea that learning about Islamic faith and culture is, in and of itself, a form of indoctrination into extremism is a common trope on the goofball right. Unsurprisingly, World Net Daily is already touting the Sessions speech, likely soon to be followed by Commentary, the Weekly Standard, National Review, and Frank Gaffney claiming that Elena Kagan “may still be a Muslim.”

Honestly, I’m really not sure what’s more troubling here, the idea that the study of Islam necessarily connotes/inculcates support for Islamic extremism, or that Sessions thinks the conservative base is ignorant and bigoted enough to believe this. Or that he may be right.