In June, California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (R) reminded California Latino voters of her opposition to Arizona’s controversial immigration law in an ad that aired on the Spanish-language broadcast of the Mexico-France World Cup game. A few weeks ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Whitman had also put up billboards throughout the state saying she (would have) opposed Proposition 187 and opposes the controversial Arizona immigration law, SB-1070:

[No to Proposition 187 and no to SB-1070 in Spanish]

However, despite touting her opposition to SB-1070, Whitman told English-language talk show hosts this Wednesday that the law should be able to stand in Arizona. Whitman explained that the only reason she opposes implementing the Arizona law in California is because it is a “much bigger state with much bigger geography”:

You know, I’m running for the governor of California so I had to make a decision, does the Arizona law make sense for California? And I have said no, I don’t think the Arizona law makes sense for California because we have a much bigger state with much bigger geography. [...] Hey I understand that immigration is a federal issue, but I would say that the states have got to be able to decide what is right for the state, so I would let the Arizona law stand for Arizona. [...] My view is you gotta let the states do what they gotta do until the federal government proves they can secure these borders.

Listen here:

Whitman likely understands that she will have a hard time winning the general election without significant Latino support. However, she also built much of her tough primary campaign around an image that portrayed her as a tough immigration hawk. The catch is that 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.

Whitman’s stance on Proposition 187 is also a contradiction in itself. During her primary campaign, Whitman released an ad featuring former Gov. Pete Wilson (R-CA) who affirmed that Whitman will be “as tough as nails” on immigration. Wilson’s endorsement might have scored some points with right-wingers, but it also meant a lot to California Latinos who remember him backing Proposition 187 — an Arizona type law that was ultimately deemed unconstitutional. The law never really went into effect, but Republicans are still hurting from it. After 1994, Latino voters helped California Democrats win every presidential, U.S. Senate, and gubernatorial election until 2003. Allan Hoffenblum, a longtime Los Angeles-based GOP strategist is worried about the potential fallout from Whitman’s primary campaign. “This is bringing back all the fears that the Republican Party is a white man’s party,” Hoffenblum told Politico. “It’s depressing.” Wilson now serves as campaign chairman for Whitman.

In her interview, Whitman also claimed that the stimulus package has not created jobs and bragged that the tea party “likes” her “fiscal conservatism.”

Today, Time magazine reports that the border is “one of America’s safest places,” pointing out that the Arizona’s overall crime rate dropped 12 percent last year and 23 percent between 2004 and 2008. However, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) seem fixated on the right-wing myth that the bloody Mexican drug war has spilled over the border and that violence is, as McCain puts it, “the worst I have ever seen.”

In that vain, Kyl and McCain proposed legislation last night that would direct $701 million towards 1,200 additional Border Patrol agents, 500 more Customs and Border Protection officers, three new border-enforcement bases, grants to support local law enforcement, two drones, and additional resources for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Kyl and McCain’s proposal is almost identical to the legislation recently pushed and passed by Democrats in the House, however, the troubling difference is that they’re proposing to use unspent stimulus money to pay for it:

The legislation we introduced today will provide additional resources to help gain control of our border, without impacting our nation’s deficit. It is our hope that Democratic majority will swiftly work with us to ensure passage of this bill. We also look forward to working with the Administration toward the adoption of our 10-Point border plan, which will provide the additional resources that are so desperately needed by so many living along the border in Arizona.

Repealing what is left of the stimulus translates into taking away money that’s dedicated to middle class tax cuts. The stimulus cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans, and there are still $55 billion in tax benefits that have yet to be expended. Pat Garafolo explains that “repealing the stimulus to pay down the deficit amounts to raising taxes on all of those people.”

It would be one thing if Arizona’s economic woes were over and the stimulus funds dispensable. However, the state is still on the road to economic recovery. Though University of Arizona economist Marshall Vest recently declared the recession officially over in Arizona, he also noted that “it will be months before a recovery is evident and years to repair all the damage that’s been done.” Indeed, Arizona is now $10 billion in debt. The unemployment rate is slightly below the national average, hovering at 9.7 percent. Arizona is one of the four states responsible for the top 20 metro foreclosure rates. Meanwhile, CNN reports that the state’s new immigration law, SB-1070 — which McCain and Kyl support — is furthering economic woes. “[A]necdotal evidence from business owners, real estate agents and community leaders indicates the mere specter of the bill [SB-1070] has created a culture of fear among Hispanics in Arizona that’s slowly paralyzing sectors of the economy,” wrote CNN correspondent Emanuella Grinberg.

McCain initially dubbed the stimulus bill “generational theft” in 2009 and criticized it for being “full of unnecessary spending.” Kyl has been on a crusade since 2009 to scrap unused stimulus money, arguing that it’s not working. He’s also fought tooth and nail against extending unemployment benefits because it would supposedly be a “disincentive” to those who can’t find jobs. Both senators criticized the stimulus for containing too much pork. “It doesn’t stimulate, it just spends,” said McCain.

However, while Kyl and McCain appear to think that the stimulus is a failure and a lost cause, economists Alan Blinder and Marc Zandi believe it “probably avert[ed] what would have been called Great Depression 2.0.” The Congressional Budget Office further estimates that the stimulus’ effects on “output and employment are expected to increase further during calendar year 2010″ and predicts that it’ll start fading away in 2012.

Today, Countdown to Zero – a new documentary from Lawrence Bender and Participant Media – opens in many cities throughout the country. The documentary has gotten rave reviews and may be for nuclear weapons what Bender’s other documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was for climate change – a massive national wake up call.

The film is in many ways a real-life horror movie. One reviewer described it as “smart, swift and scary as hell.” Sometimes the truth is terrifying and being awoken to it is unsettling. Nuclear weapons issues have faded from national consciousness. The Cold War is two decades gone and now many college students were actually borne after the Berlin Wall fell. Yet the dangers from nuclear weapons and nuclear materials remains.

Watch the trailer:

The film effectively goes through each of the four baskets of nuclear dangers – nuclear terrorism, nuclear proliferation, nuclear war and a nuclear accident. On nuclear terrorism it walks the viewer through how easy it is to acquire nuclear materials and how easy it is to smuggle into the US – acclaimed Harvard national security expert Graham Allison mockingly notes that a terrorist could hide it in smuggled shipments of marijuana. On nuclear proliferation, it explains that there no longer is any “magic” to developing a nuclear weapon and that should the nuclear non-proliferation regime collapse their could be a cascade of nuclear proliferation.

But the threat of a nuclear accident is perhaps the most unsettling due to its inherent randomness. As the movie so vividly exposes, accidents happen. Mistakes happen. And most troubling these things have happened in the past, but fortunately we as a world have gotten lucky. While a nuclear incident caused by accident is unlikely, who would have thought that the biggest news story of this year would be a massive catastrophic oil spill. Well you might say environmentalists have for years been warning of the potential dangers of oil extraction but no one paid attention. The same applies to nuclear weapons. Experts for years have been warning of the dangers of a nuclear accident and nuclear terrorism yet the sense of urgency has been lacking – until perhaps now.

President Obama outlined the visionary goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. Thus far he has gotten the US back in the arms-control business with the New START treaty and has worked to strengthen and bolster the nuclear non-proliferation regime at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. He has also vitally prioritized the issue of securing loose nuclear materials and stopping nuclear terrorism and held the largest numbers of head of states in Washington since the founding of the UN at the Nuclear Security Summit in April.

Yet there is much much more to do and this agenda has fierce opponents some who are stuck in their attachment to the nuclear bureaucratic legacies of the Cold War and others who want to build and test more nuclear weapons, are clueless when it comes to addressing the transnational challenge of nuclear terrorism and securing loose nuclear materials, and even want to rekindle a new arms race with Russia. Countdown to Zero exposes the absurdity of such views and demonstrates that the status quo as it exists today is immensely horrifying.

Yesterday, on his radio show, Thom Hartmann challenged Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s strategy of going after poor, undocumented immigrants rather than focusing on the wealthy business owners who hire them. Hartmann urged Arpaio to become an advocate for “going after rich white guys” who are “making all this happen.” Arpaio wouldn’t exactly commit to lobbying for immigration laws that target employers, but he did say he would arrest anyone who breaks the law — including “rich white guys”:

HARTMANN: By and large the people who are the most energetic, the most outspoken, and the most active like you are…are gung-ho to go after poor brown people. But when it comes to talking about laying their hands on the rich white guys — the guys who own the companies, the guys who own the companies that own the companies, the guys who are creating the demand — I’m not hearing your governor out there yelling and screaming about that. I’m not hearing you talk much about that. [...] Why aren’t you and Jan Brewer advocates for laws against the rich white guys that are making all this happens?

ARPAIO: I’m the only one grabbing the people and raiding these businesses! [...]

HARTMANN: I know, but my point is, you’re doing a lot of media, you’re out there, and you could be a voice for “Hey, let’s go after these rich white guys.”

ARPAIO: I say that!

HARTMANN: Will you go on the record right now and say “the rich white guys should be in jail?”

ARPAIO: Of course, I’ll go after anybody. Give me the evidence and I’ll go after them.

Listen here:

However, Arpaio doesn’t just go after “anybody.” For the most part, the Sheriff has gone after low-hanging fruit. Arpaio has raided businesses 37 times. He has been responsible for 26,146 deportations, but has only arrested a business person under the state’s employer sanctions law once. Earlier this year, Arpaio even admitted that his deputies were arresting “very few” non-Hispanics.

In his interview with Hartmann, Arpaio argued that he had “weak, Mickey Mouse” employer sanction laws to enforce. However, the problem isn’t necessarily that laws targeting employers are weak, it’s that they’re rarely enforced. Immigration lawyer David Kotick notes that “[e]mployers who hire undocumented aliens face steep fines and the loss of their business licenses. Some laws even mandate jail time for repeat offenders.” If an employer is shown to have engaged in a “pattern and practice” of violating the immigration employment laws, that person could face a prison sentence of up to six months. Arizona recently passed even tougher employer sanction laws that are being challenged in the Supreme Court by the Chamber of Commerce.

Meanwhile, working in the U.S. without authorization is considered a civil violation. However, Arpaio has been creatively interpreting the law in a way that allows him to arrest and jail thousands of undocumented immigrants for being “co-conspirators” in their own smuggling. Arpaio and his former accomplice, the ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, were the only state officials in Arizona bringing charges of conspiracy to commit human smuggling against individuals paying to be smuggled.

In all fairness, while unscrupulous employers that hire and exploit undocumented labor should be punished to the full extent of the law, abiding by immigration employment laws isn’t an easy task. It is often difficult to distinguish between a valid Social Security document and a fake one. And while Arizona’s new laws require employers to electronically verify the status of their workers, studies have shown that the E-verify program fails to catch half of all undocumented workers.

Our guest blogger is Farha Faisal, a national security intern at the Center for American Progress.

Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed to implement coalition commander General David Petraeus’ new plan to develop local police forces as a “temporary solution” for securing remote areas against the Taliban. However, this poses serious concerns for long-term stability, peace, and reconciliation in Afghanistan. While the idea of “partnering with tribes” to protect neighborhoods (as advocated by Maj. Jim Gant) seems enticing given the slow-paced training efforts of the formal Afghan security forces, we must not forget recent history. Training local militias has been tried in the past in Afghanistan—and failed.

In the 1980s, Afghanistan’s communist government spent thousands of dollars on Russian-recruited local militias, since its own security forces were unable to suppress an Afghan uprising beginning in 1979. After the Soviet withdrawal, these militias grew into powerful private armies controlled by brutal warlords, who terrorized the population as they fought each other in a devastating civil war in the 1990s, until the Taliban seized power in 1996.

Our current efforts could produce a similar outcome. By multiplying arms in local communities, coalition forces may well promote, rather than quell, the conflict. U.S. military officials and the Karzai administration retain hopes that the incorporation of these forces under the Interior Ministry, as “government formed, government paid, and government uniformed” units, will prevent such disaster. Their hope is founded on Petraeus’ earlier success in implementing such militias in Iraq in 2006 by hiring large numbers of Sunnis as local protection fighters against the insurgency. This rosy picture of local security, however, has fundamental problems.

First, the use of such local police units has been tested in the past year in Afghanistan with the creation of the Afghan Public Protection Program (2008) and the Local Defense Initiative groups (2009), but they have not yielded promising results. The efforts stumbled upon several obstacles, including units demanding bribes and imposing taxes, as well as major vulnerability in the face of insurgent attacks. NATO even disbanded their local police programs due to legitimate concerns about sedition, which still remains a worry amongst Afghan officials and even Ambassador Eikenberry. They fear individuals who will change their allegiance to the Taliban.

Second, the ethnic and political make-up in Afghanistan is vastly different from that of Iraq—the “tribal” understandings of Afghanistan do not accurately depict the social landscape, in which there are numerous forms of social organization. Yet, such tribal assumptions could actually heighten ethnic cleavages, and possibly lead to civil war. This seems even more plausible with Karzai’s current reintegration efforts. By moving the Taliban, who are mostly Pashtun, back into the political process, this could easily anger other minorities -– the Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Hazaras — who could then mobilize their local police forces on ethnic lines.

The creation of these local police forces could present a serious issue for the central government over the long term. Such units could participate in the corruption and bribery that plagues the government structure. And the attention and resources directed at these units will inevitably undermine the training efforts of the Afghan National Security Forces, which is more integral to securing our long term security objectives in the country, particularly if we hold to Obama’s July 2011 call for initial withdrawal of combat forces. Afghans themselves have expressed concern over the use of local militia in recent polls. A BBC poll from December 2009 found that 68 percent were either “not very” or “not at all” confident in the ability of local militias to provide security in their neighborhoods, and a survey by the 2004 Afghan Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium found that 88 percent wanted to reduce the power of former warlords.

Regardless of the name, arming local groups in Afghanistan for short-term security is a risky bet. History illustrates the potential for powerbrokers to attract the unpredictable loyalty of local armed units. With the region’s stability and long-term U.S. security objectives at stake, failure could be costly.

The debate over the new START treaty is essentially over. Today all but one former commander of the US Strategic Command – the Generals and Admirals in charge of our nuclear weapons – came out in support of the New START treaty. In a letter these Generals write:

As former commanders of Strategic Air Command and U.S. Strategic Command, we collectively spent many years providing oversight, direction and maintenance of U.S. strategic nuclear forces and advising presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush on strategic nuclear policy. We are writing to express our support for ratification of the New START Treaty… We will understand Russian strategic forces much better with the treaty than would be the case without it.

The letter was signed by Generals Larry Welch, John Chain, Eugene Habiger, Bennie Davies, Lee Butler and Admirals Henry Chiles and James Ellis. We can now add them to the endless and constantly growing list of military leaders and former senior Republican officials and defense experts that support that treaty.

The debate over START has essentially reached its end. No matter what evidence is shown, the far-right consisting of Senators Jim DeMint and James Inhofe, as well as the Heritage Foundation, will oppose the treaty. After months of back and forth it is clear they do so not because of the specifics of the treaty, but because it is both a treaty and it is arms-control. They are extreme ideologues that oppose arms-control, want to build new nuclear weapons, and want to restart a new Cold War with Russia by developing and then targeting a mythical missile defense system specifically at Russia. While this is entirely nuts, their opposition is at least because they are ideologically and substantively opposed to the treaty.

But fortunately for America, they are also really in the minority. Besides DeMint and Inhofe, and perhaps a sign of declining influence, few Republicans in the Senate are publicly taking Heritage’s stance on the treaty.

In fact, having made little headway on the merits of the treaty, many Republicans, such as Senators Bob Bennett, Lamar Alexander, and Bob Corker, are now signaling that they may support the treaty. But of course there is a but – and that brings us to the leadership of the Senate GOP, specifically Senator Kyl. While Heritage at least openly oppose the treaty on ideological grounds, Senator Kyl has chosen to make this not about START but about shaking down the Administration to put even more funds into the nuclear weapons complex.

In other words, Kyl and the Senate GOP aren’t talking about the START treaty anymore – they know they have lost the factual debate – and they aren’t even really talking about how the Senate is “rushing” the treaty, since the debate is now going in repetitious circles – they are now talking about what they can extract from the Administration in exchange for passing the treaty. After all their complaints about backroom health care deals, they are now threatening to kill a treaty they now concede is vital to our nuclear security just for some more wasteful nuclear pork.

When Arizona legislators enacted SB-1070, they argued that it would compel police to uniformly enforce immigration law, rather than relying on discretion or local community policing policies. However, the Arizona Republic reports that “there is anything but a uniform approach.” Although all Arizona officers have reviewed a training video, according to a survey of local law enforcement agencies, many “have supplemented that training with their own policies.” The Arizona Republic summarizes the distinct approaches that five different law enforcement entities plan on taking if and when they are required to check immigration status:

• Arizona Department of Public Safety officers will work through the agency’s dispatch centers, which will determine whether officers should contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection or federally trained local agents to verify the immigration status of a suspect.

• Flagstaff has instructed officers to enforce the statute as written, although Lt. Ken Koch said the statute isn’t entirely clear. “That statute is subject to interpretation,” he said. “It’s a very fluid and dynamic situation.”

• In Yuma County, where sheriff’s deputies patrol an area that includes a shared border with Mexico, deputies will continue to work with Border Patrol agents when there are questions about a suspect’s immigration status, sheriff’s Capt. Eben Bratcher said.

• Phoenix police officers will be required to contact federal authorities to verify the immigration status of everyone they arrest, regardless of whether the suspects have one of the “presumptive IDs” such as an Arizona driver’s license that the statewide training outlined.

• Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s department, the most fervent agency in the state when it comes to rooting out illegal immigrants, won’t be attempting to determine anyone’s immigration status unless deputies are taking that suspect into custody for another crime.

Reporter Jeffrey Kaye notes in the Huffington Post that the training process itself has been inconsistent across Arizona. “Some agencies require officers to attend sessions of three hours or more and distribute manuals; others simply oblige their officers to watch a 94-minute video,” writes Kaye. Meanwhile, the 287(g) program which was established by Congress and allows police to cooperate with federal immigration agents in enforcing immigration law provides a four-week training program. Despite the fact that 287(g) participating officers receive significantly more training than Arizona police will, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general released a stinging critique of the 287(g) program last year.

The Obama administration has argued that it is suing the state of Arizona in part because the U.S. cannot have a “patchwork” of immigration laws. The vague provisions of SB-1070 have only added to the confusion within the state of Arizona. The law requires police officers to verify the immigration status of individuals, when “practicable,” during a lawful lawful stop or detention if they establish “reasonable suspicion” that they are undocumented. However, SB-1070 doesn’t define “practicable” or “reasonable suspicion.” And though a federal judge enjoined several of the most problematic provisions of SB-1070, including the provision requiring police to check immigration status, Judge Susan Bolton still has to issue final rulings on the multiple lawsuits challenging the law. All of her decisions will likely be repealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, regardless of how she rules.

This afternoon, in a long-awaited decision, federal district court judge Susan Bolton enjoined several major provisions of Arizona’s immigration law, SB-1070. While it was speculated that Bolton would block parts of SB-1070 relating to warrantless arrests and document requirements, the judge also ended up striking down the law’s most controversial and significant provision: the requirement that police check immigration status. Bolton blocked the following sections of SB-1070 arguing that “the United States is likely to succeed on the merits in showing that…[they] are preempted by federal law” and the “United States is likely to suffer irreparable harm” in the absence of an injunction:

Portion of Section 2 of S.B. 1070: Requires police to inquire about the immigration status of anyone they stop, detain, or arrest if they reasonably suspect the person is in the country illegally.

Section 3 of S.B. 1070: Criminalizes the the failure to apply for or carry immigration documents.

Portion of Section 5 of S.B. 1070: Criminalizes the solicitation, application for, or performance of work by an undocumented immigrant.

Section 6 of S.B. 1070: Authorizes the warrantless arrest of a person where there is probable cause to believe the person has committed a public offense that makes the person “removable.”

Bolton also echoed the criticisms made by SB-1070 opponents over the past few months, noting that “requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is check.” She additionally found that the burdensome verification requirement “will divert resources from the federal government’s other responsibilities and priorities.” However, a few problematic sections remain including the one which allows Arizona residents to sue local police if they believe they are not enforcing what remains of SB-1070 and the creation of a separate crime for knowingly transporting an undocumented immigrant under any circumstance, even in an emergency.

Ironically, on the recommendation of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) — an ardent proponent of SB-1070 — Bolton was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona by President Bill Clinton back in 2000. During her confirmation hearing, Kyl stated:

Well, there is one person in our state who’s a real expert on this in the judiciary, and that’s Judge Bolton. And because of her expertise and fairness, all of the contending interests from Arizona have been willing to place their concerns before her to be resolved, and she is right in the middle of this important litigation right now. They will be very sorry to see her leave in Maricopa County Superior Court bench. So, I have some mixed emotions in helping to nominate or to confirm Judge Bolton, but that’s how highly thought of she is.

Prior to the announcement of her decision, Kyl speculated that “she will parse the law, that is to say she will perhaps extract certain portions of it that she think might be problematic and might enjoin those portions calling additional briefings from the parties.” Before learning of Bolton’s decision, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) stated, “I’m confident Arizona will prevail.” Bolton has been described by her peers as an “impeccable” and “fearless” judge whose rulings are “well-reasoned and unambiguous.”

In anticipation of his big Dolchstoss speech tomorrow at the American Enterprise Institute — in which he will apparently make his case for a right-wing Christian foreign policy through references to the writings of a famous leftist and a famous atheist — Newt Gingrich has an item in Human Events indicating that the speech will also come with a huge helping of crude, irresponsible Muslim-bashing.

Newt’s basic argument is that Americans are so good and religiously tolerant that we just fail to see the imminent threat that “creeping sharia” — i.e. observant Muslims — represents to the American way of life. To illustrate this threat, Gingrich draws a few anecdotes from Andrew McCarthy’s recent book, The Grand Jihad. This alone should probably be enough to discredit Gingrich’s argument. But let’s take a look anyway at the “examples” Gingrich offers of how “the American government and major public institutions have been unwilling to assert the protections of American law and American values over sharia’s religious code.”

GINGRICH: In June 2009, a New Jersey state judge rejected an allegation that a Muslim man who punished his wife with pain for hours and then raped her repeatedly was guilty of criminal sexual assault, citing his religious beliefs as proof that he did not believe he was acting in a criminal matter. “This court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.“

Leaving aside the fact that husbands abusing and raping their wives is by no means a practice unique to any one religion, this was a pretty horrible decision by the court. Interestingly, an appellate court thought that too, and reversed the decision, something Gingrich notes. How this demonstrates the unwillingness of the American government and major public institutions to assert the protections of American law and American values over sharia’s religious code is unclear.

GINGRICH: In May 2008, a disabled student at a public college being assisted by a dog was threatened by Muslim members of the student body, who were reluctant to touch the animal by the prescription of sharia. The school, St. Cloud State, chose not to engage the Muslim community, but simply gave the student credit without actually fulfilling the class hours so as to avoid conflict.

Yes, school administrators responded in what appears to be an irresponsible fashion, taking the path of least resistance in order to “avoid conflict.” As those who’ve interacted with college administrations before know, this is something that only ever happens when Muslims are involved.

For some reason, however, Gingrich doesn’t mention that the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) came out in support of the student: “The moral and legal need to accommodate individuals using service dogs far outweighs the discomfort an individual Muslim might feel about coming into contact with a dog, which is one of God’s creatures,” said CAIR-MN Communications Director Valerie Shirley.”

Maybe Newt would interpret this as just more evidence of how stealthy those jihadists are. Because that’s how conspiracy theories work.

GINGRICH: In a similar instance in November 2000, a high school senior in Owatonna, Minn., was suspended in order to protect him from the threat of violence by radical Islamists when he wrote an essay about the special privileges afforded his Somali Muslim counterparts in the school environment.

A Minneapolis Star-Tribune article on the incident reported that Owatonna High School Principal Don Johnson “said the problems began when two white students wrote papers in recent weeks that were ‘inflammatory and very disrespectful.’ One student handed out copies of his paper to friends, while the other posted his on a class blog. Both were suspended from the school of 1,600 students — about 100 of whom are Somali.”

Another article in the Owatonna People’s Press describes the atmosphere of harassment faced by the school district’s Somali minority — unfortunate, but not unlike the tensions that new immigrants have faced throughout America’s history.

None of this, however, justifies the threat of violence by radical Islamists. But wait, according to the Owatonna People’s Press:

“No threats were made,” [Owatonna High School] Vice Principal Julie Sullivan said Wednesday about the Nov. 6th incident. Sullivan did say that she was approached that day by several Somali students who were upset about what the boy had written on the class blog.

As for the idea that these nonexistent threats came from “radical Islamists,” as best I can tell that’s something that McCarthy simply made up, and Gingrich credulously repeated. Needless to say, all of this doesn’t come close to demonstrating the threat of “creeping sharia” that Gingrich is peddling.

Gingrich obviously wants to be president very badly. But he really needs to think hard about the sort of rhetorical tactics he’s embracing, and the sort of sentiments he’s cultivating, and the sort of company he’s joining in order to achieve that.

Last week, before the state Farm Bureau Federation board of directors and an audience of farmers, Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) once again declared that the Supreme Court should look into whether the children of undocumented immigrants qualify for citizenship under the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment clearly states that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” However, Paul argues that it’s unclear whether undocumented immigrants and their children are subject the jurisdiction of the U.S. government and its laws:

There’s never been a court case based on this. [...] There’s never been a Supreme Court case decided on if you come here illegally are you under the jurisdiction of our country or under the jurisdiction of a foreign country still. [...]

There is some question that these people came here illegally and their legal jurisdiction, their legal domicile is still in Mexico.

Watch it:

Paul recognized that there was one case, “Wong Ank [sic],” or U.S. v Wong Kim Ark, that touched on the issue. Yet, Paul dismissed the case because it was decided back in 1898 and dealt with the issue of whether a child of a legal immigrant could be considered a U.S. citizen. The truth is, the court didn’t make a distinction between “legal” and “illegal” immigrants and it’s not clear what category Wong’s parents fell into. What was made explicitly clear was that Wong’s parents were “subjects of the emperor of China” and he was not. Therefore, the court ruled that since Wong was born in the U.S. and subject to its jurisdiction, he was automatically a citizen, regardless of what jurisdiction his parents were under.

There is also a second case that Paul didn’t mention. The 1982 Plyer v. Doe decision established that unlawful status does not preclude one from being subject to U.S. laws. The court wrote, “the Fourteenth Amendment extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State’s territory. That a person’s initial entry into a State, or into the United States, was unlawful, and that he may for that reason be expelled, cannot negate the simple fact of his presence within the State’s territorial perimeter.”

In practice, there are only a few exceptions (diplomats and their children) to the jurisdiction of the U.S. and there’s a good reason for the inclusivity of U.S. law. If undocumented immigrants and their children were only under the jurisdiction of their respective foreign governments, they could not be prosecuted and punished in the U.S. if they break our laws. It could even be argued that if undocumented immigrants aren’t under the jurisdiction of U.S. laws, they are by extension immune to immigration laws. Paul’s creative interpretation of the 14th amendment could create a situation in which, rather than being legally defined and treated as removable “illegal aliens,” undocumented immigrants could only be declared personae non gratae — a legal term under international law used to refer to “unwelcome” foreigners, usually diplomats, who are inherently under the jurisdiction of their home governments. Paul would probably have a problem with the fact that the persona non grata designation is completely discretionary and “[e]xpulsion is not the automatic consequence of the declaration.”

Yesterday, on Univision’s Sunday political show, Al Punto, host Maria Elena Salinas asked state Sen. Russell Pearce (R-AZ) and sponsor of SB-1070 about his immigration views and how they relate to his faith as a member of the Mormon church. For much of the interview, Pearce refused to talk about religion and would not say whether the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should reject or denounce its undocumented immigrant members. However, Pearce rejected the Mormon church’s teaching of compassion and helping those in need and stated that he would support sanctioning or criminalizing fellow Mormons who “deliberately” aid undocumented immigrants:

[Translated from Spanish]
PEARCE: We [Mormons] believe in the rule of law, All I’m gonna say our church teaches the rule of law, absolutely.

SALINAS: It also teaches compassion, no?

PEARCE: Which compassion, what about the child molesters, should we have compassion for them too?

SALINAS: That’s what the church says, that we should not turn…

PEARCE: Hang on, hang on. We should have compassion with child molesters, burglars, rapists, right? They still go to jail. The laws are going to be enforced. You break the law, there are consequences. Don’t have compassion for people who break the law. There are consequences. We are a nation of laws.[...]

SALINAS: Should the Mormon church be criminalized or sanctioned for helping undocumented immigrants?

PEARCE: If they do it deliberately, treat them as you would treat any other person. I do not support law breakers.

SALINAS: Even if they are Mormons?

PEARCE: I don’t care what church they’re part of. Illegal is illegal. The law is the law.

Watch it [in Spanish]:

Pearce also insisted that undocumented immigrants make up a very small minority of the Mormon Church. While the actual number of undocumented Mormons isn’t really known, it is clear that Mormon Church doesn’t turn people away because of their immigration status. Meanwhile, the church’s international growth has been directly connected to its recruitment of Latinos at home and Latin Americans abroad. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is often said to be the fastest growing religion in Latin America with 5.2 million members and 5,500 chapels. The number of Spanish-speaking Mormon congregations nationwide in the U.S. has grown by 90 percent in the past decade, up to more than 700. For the most part, these new members come from populations that abhor Arizona’s immigration law. Latin American governments have blasted SB-1070 as “racist” and an overwhelming majority of Latinos in the U.S. oppose it and believe it will lead to racial profiling.

Meanwhile, Latinos of Mormon faith are demanding answers from their church. More specifically, they are asking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to take a position on the immigration issue. While other socially conservative denominations, including the Southern Baptists and Catholics, have come out strongly supporting a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants, the Mormon church has remained notably neutral. Mormon Latinos have responded by launching a letter-writing campaign to Latter Day Saints Church President Thomas S. Monson, asking him to define the church’s official position on immigration. “This is affecting our families,” Tony Yapias, who launched the campaign, stated. “Where’s the church in this? The longer they stay quiet, the more political it gets, the more divisive.”

The Mormon church has come under even more pressure in the wake of the disturbing release of the names of 1,300 suspected undocumented immigrants by citizen vigilantes in Utah. In response, the church released a statement simply calling for “careful reflection and civil discourse when addressing immigration issues.” While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lags in defining a position, Pearce is becoming its default poster boy. The Arizona Republic reported that his association with SB-1070 has “tarnished the Mormon Church’s image among many Latinos.” And while he didn’t want to talk to Salinas about religion, he has said in the past that his anti-immigration efforts have been guided by the Mormon Church’s 13 Articles of Faith, which includes obeying the law.

While there is no evidence that the Mormon church has actively aided undocumented immigrants in need, other denominations, most famously the Methodist church, have provided assistance and refuge to undocumented immigrants who seek their help.

Three weeks ago Mitt Romney said hyperbolically that New START was Obama’s “worst foreign policy mistake.” After getting absolutely slammed, Romney is back today with a piece in the National Review that signifies a significant rhetorical retreat. Far from being the “worst mistake,” Romney now merely says there are eight problems and the “Senate should not ratify the treaty until they are resolved.” Romney’s climb down from his hyperbolic and factually flawed op-ed is notable.

Yet he still goes about reiterating the same false and disingenious arguments that have been made before by him and his friends at the Heritage Foundation. There is nothing new to see here. Based on how thoroughly Romney’s laundry list of eight problems have been rebutted and answered again and again, all this issues have in effect been “resolved” and the debate over the treaty specifics is essentially over.

And that in and of itself demonstrates that the claims of Senator Kyl that the Senate is “rushing” START through to be patently absurd. Every one of Mitt Romney’s points have been made and refuted countless times. I have the posts to prove it – on missile defense preamble, on the conversion of missile defense silos, on the bomber counter rule, on rail-mobile missiles, on tactical nuclear weapons, on telemetry, on MIRVing missiles, on verification, on prompt global strike. The debate over START has been exhausted. The facts are out, the Generals, the experts, the lab directors have all spoken in support of the treaty. Nothing new has been revealed, and nothing new is being said.

Since the debate over the specifics of the treaty has been exhausted. Two different approaches toward the treaty are being revealed on the conservative right.

The first is the rationale for the steadfast opposition to the treaty from Mitt Romney, the Heritage Foundation, and Senators Inhofe (R-OK) and DeMint (R-SC) is all about pure ideological extremism. It’s driven by ideology not facts. They simply are opposed to arms-control and view the Russians as out to get us. They don’t want to reduce nuclear arsenals, they want to buld and test new nuclear weapons. They don’t want cooperative relations with the Russians, they want to bury Russian nuclear power status by showing them we are nuclear superior. That is why they harp on the fact that we have to cut a few more weapons and launchers than the Russians as a huge weakness of the treaty. But really the only reason to care about who cuts slightly more is if you are still completely stuck in the Cold War. The fact is that if we were to expand our nuclear arsenal, the Russians would scrounge up the rubles to do the same. It is pointless and would kill off any efforts to deal with nuclear terrorism – something the right seems to totally not comprehend – and would needlessly waste billions on new useless nukes.

The second approach is more practical and is being pursued by nuclear neo-con ideologues like Senator Kyl who, realizing that opposing the treaty is really politically difficult given the overwhelming support for it, are now trying to slow the process down to extract greater concessions from the Administration. This “slow down” approach is a standard GOP obstructionist ploy in the Senate. To Kyl, the START debate isn’t really about START – he even called the treaty “benign” – it is about defeating or doing whatever he can to hamstring further arms-control efforts. Therefore Kyl is needlessly calling for a delay until the next budget cycle, claiming he needs proof that the money will be in the budget. In reality, he just wants to get next year because he thinks there will be more GOP Senators, thereby increasing his leverage.

In the end, even Fred Hiatt’s neoconservative Washington Post op-ed page today is advocating calling Kyl’s bluff and ratifying the treaty this year. The facts are out and the entire US military brass and almost every sensible foreign policy thinker is supportive of the treaty. Mitt Romney is clearly neither of those.

The Wikileaks disclosure of thousands of pages of military documents dealing with the war in Afghanistan today highlight, among other things, “how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents.”

This is a particularly important disclosure in light of a report released earlier this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). NBER’s report, titled “The Effect of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq,” studied the blowback among the population from civilian casualties caused by international forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It concludes that blowback is a considerable problem faced by International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. It finds “strong evidence for a revenge effect in that local exposure to ISAF generated civilian casualties drives increased insurgent violence over the long-run.” The BBC notes that NBER’s report finds that “in areas where two civilians were killed or injured by Nato…there were on average an extra six violent incidents between insurgents and US-led troops in the following six weeks“:

They say that in areas where two civilians were killed or injured by Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), there were on average an extra six violent incidents between insurgents and US-led troops in the following six weeks. The report concludes that civilian deaths frequently motivate villagers to join the ranks of insurgents.

“In Afghanistan, when Isaf units kill civilians, this increases the number of willing combatants, leading to an increase in insurgent attacks.” “Local exposure to violence from Isaf appears to be the primary driver of this effect.”

The report also notes that General Stanley McChrystal’s new rules of engagement that he imposed upon soldiers under his command in Afghanistan “led to a decline in attacks by insurgent fighters.” General David Petraeus, who has just taken command of American forces in Afghanistan, is currently reviewing McChrystal’s rules and is considering altering them.

Earlier this month, law professor Marjorie Cohn and Iraq Veterans Against the War board chairman Geoff Millard attended a reception to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam and spoke with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). When Millard introduced himself to the Arizona senator, Cohn reports that McCain dismissed the relevance of Millard’s organization:

When Geoff introduced himself as chairman of the board of Iraq Veterans against the War, McCain retorted, “You’re too late. We already won that one.”

McCain is now the second U.S. official to declare “mission accomplished” in a war that continues to ravage the people and land of Iraq.

From the run-up to the war through to his 2008 presidential campaign and up to now, McCain has regularly displayed a lack of understanding and shear incompetence about the war he fought so hard to start and continues to defend. Despite the misgivings of his “hero” Gen. David Petraeus, McCain has been quick to declare “victory” in Iraq or say the U.S is “succeeding” or “winning” the war. Just last March, McCain claimed there had not been “a single” American casualty in Iraq in the three months prior despite the fact that 12 U.S. servicemembers had died there and and least 93 wounded.

And in case McCain hasn’t checked, there’s still a war going on in Iraq. Last month, 216 Iraqi civilians died in attacks across the country. And just weeks prior to McCain’s most recent statement, two Americans were killed in an IED attack in Diyala, Iraq and just six days after his comment, 1st Lt. Michael Runyan was killed by an IED. One wonders whether the families of these U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians would consider the war there to be over.

But regardless of the level of violence in Iraq and even long after every last American servicemember withdraws, declaring the debacle that is President Bush’s war in Iraq can never be considered a “victory.” Juan Cole noted last month:

[I]t would be a huge mistake to see Iraq either as a success story or as stable. It is the scene of an ongoing civil war between Sunnis and Shiites that is killing roughly 300 civilians a month. It can’t form a government months after the March 7 elections. … The political vacuum has proved an opening for Sunni Arab insurgents, who have mounted effective bombing campaigns and more recently are targeting the banks.

“Let’s understand,” the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss has written, “there is no plausible scenario in which the decision to invade Iraq can or will ever be vindicated. In the best case, we will have simply averted disaster.”

In a recent interview with the right-wing Christian Zionist Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, neoconservative pundit Daniel Pipes shared his view that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should threaten to use nuclear weapons against Iran as a means of “applying pressure” on the United States.

“I think it’s realistic for the Israelis to attack and do real damage,” Pipes said. “Now, what constitutes success, I’m not exactly sure. There are many, many questions“:

PIPES: If I were [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, I would say to [U.S. President Barack] Obama, “Why don’t you take out the Iranian nukes? Or else we will And we will not do it by trying to fly planes across Turkey and Syria or Jordan or Saudi Arabia. We will do it from submarine-based, tactical nuclear weapons. You don’t want that; we don’t want that; but that’s the way we can do this job for sure. You do it your way so we don’t have to escalate to that.” That would be a way of applying pressure. There are so many details which I’m not privy to. But that would be my kind of approach if I were the Israelis.

Neoconservatives have long desired a war with Iran, even though U.S. officials like Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen have stated that such a war would have disastrous consequences for U.S. troops and interests in the region.

Ignoring these views, the neocons have recently begun to openly exhort Israel to attack Iran as a means of spurring American action. Pipes’ suggestion that Israel should threaten to nuke Iran represents a significant escalation in their rhetoric.

Earlier this week, eleven nations joined a strongly worded declaration protesting Arizona’s draconian new immigration law:

According to the declaration, these 11 countries consider the law to be “racist, xenophobic and anti-immigration of any kind”. Besides these considerations, the declaration recognizes the efforts of Barack Obama and his “personal compromise to push forward a comprehensive immigration reform.”

Apart from Chile, the countries that signed were Mexico, Uruguay, Ecuador, Guatemala, Cuba, Turkey, Panama, Bolivia, Micronesia and Senegal. The president of the Parliamentary Assembly in Europe and Mevlüt Covusoglu, from Turkey, also signed.

And this declaration is but the latest sign of the international community’s disdain for Arizona’s anti-immigrant policy.  Mexico recently filed a brief supporting the Obama Administration’s challenge against SB1070, and Mexican President Felipe Calderón slammed the law in an address to the US Congress.

None of this opposition should come as a surprise, however.  Indeed the Supreme Court predicted it almost 70 years ago.

In a case called Hines v. Davidowitz, the Supreme Court struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring “every alien 18 years or over” to register annually with the state.  As the Court explained, state laws which intrude on immigration policy can have grave consequences for US foreign policy:

One of the most important and delicate of all international relationships, recognized immemorially as a responsibility of government, has to do with the protection of the just rights of a country’s own nationals when those nationals are in another country. Experience has shown that international controversies of the gravest moment, sometimes even leading to war, may arise from real or imagined wrongs to another’s subjects inflicted, or permitted, by a government.

As Hines establishes, “the supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution.”  This is because the decision of a single rogue state to engage in abusive behavior towards immigrants reflects upon the United States as a whole.  Thus, the Constitution gives the national government sole authority over immigration policy because Americans who live in the other 49 states should not be forced to pay for one state’s bad decision.

Arizona’s SB1070 is no different than the Pennsylvania law struck down in Hines.  Just as Pennsylvania could not be allowed to define our foreign relations in 1941, Arizona also cannot be allowed to shape US diplomacy in 2010.  Americans elected Barack Obama to drive our foreign policy, we did not elect Jan Brewer.

Earlier this month, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) signed a bill into law that allows people to bring concealed weapons into places of worship. Anyone who passes a background check and completes “eight hours of tactical training each year” can be designated “as part of a security force” for “churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship” that allow carriers of concealed weapons. USA Today reported this week that Catholic churches in Louisiana will still not permit congregants to bring guns to their services:

Concealed handguns won’t be allowed in Roman Catholic churches, despite a new state law allowing them.

“We don’t think it is appropriate to have guns in churches,” Danny Loar, executive director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops — the church’s public policy arm in Louisiana, said Monday. …

Bishops discussed the issue when reviewing bills, Loar said.

“The bishops decided that, if the bill became law, the bishops would let their pastors know that this would not be permissible in Catholic churches,” Loar said.

The previous law let only law enforcement officials carry concealed weapons into churches.

Local faith leaders began speaking out against the proposal even before it became law. In June, Catholic Archbishop Gregory Aymond said, “Church is supposed to be a place of sanctuary. The idea of guns there — I’m pretty skeptical.”

And, even though the bill’s principal champion, state Rep. Henry Burns (R), claimed that the new policy would make houses of worship in “declining neighborhoods” safer, local clergy deny that concealed weapons would be any help. “We’ve been here 29 years, and there’s never been a time that a gun would have solved anything,” said John Pierre, a church elder in “a gritty Central City neighborhood.” Reverend John Raphael, whose congregants “had to duck for cover when gunfire suddenly broke out nearby” after one Sunday service, still “said an armed presence in the sanctuary is incompatible with what a church is supposed to be.”

(h/t TPM)

- William Tomasko

My colleague Ian Millhiser has already addressed the falsehoods upon which neocon conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney‘s latest attack on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is built, but it’s worth taking a look at the issue of sharia compliant finance that has poor Frank so frothy.

Gaffney accuses Kagan of “enabling… the penetration of Shariah into our capital markets through the Harvard Law School’s Islamic Finance Project“:

The purpose of that project is, according to an excellent essay by Mr. McCarthy, “Elena Kagan’s ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ Shariah Policy,” published last week in National Review Online “to promote Shariah compliance in the U.S. financial sector.”

This is accomplished via legal support to an industry known as Shariah-compliant finance (SCF). It was invented in the mid-20th century by Brotherhood operatives as a means of facilitating and underwriting the penetration of Shariah into Western societies by mainlining it into their capitalist bloodstreams.

Yes, that’s right — Gaffney actually cites Andrew McCarthy as an authority on Islam. It should come as no shock that McCarthy is, in fact, completely wrong about both the origin and purpose of Shariah-compliant finance. It’s not part of some Islamist conspiracy to steal our vital essence — and I understand that by writing that, in Gaffney’s and McCarthy’s view, I have become a part of the conspiracy — but rather a far more practical effort to enable economic activity among pious, observant Muslims.

As Jawad Ali explained in a 2007 interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, “Sharia-compliant financing is done by investors who chose to invest their money in a manner that is compliant with Islamic sharia”:

The basic principle of investing on a sharia-compliant basis is that when you are introducing any leverage, any financing, that leverage has to be compliant. This means you cannot receive or pay interest on borrowed money. In conventional finance, there is a distinction between usury and interest. Regulators in the United States and western jurisdictions regulate and distinguish between interest rates that are considered reasonable and interest rates that are considered usurious. Under Islamic sharia, any interest—even 0.01 percent—is usurious. There is no distinction between acceptable interest and unacceptable interest. So if you are financing a sharia-compliant investor, you have to figure a way to inject that financing other than borrowing and charging interest.

As Ali notes, sharia-compliant finance is a very fast-growing industry,growing by about 35 percent to 40 percent per year. And the reason more and more banks are getting into the sharia-compliant finance game is that they’ve discovered — and you should prepare yourselves for the sinister tale I’m about to unfold — that there’s a huge, under-served customer base. As CNN noted last year, the global economic recession has also sparked greater interest in banking practices and forms of investment that aren’t based upon the sort of “financial products” gamesmanship that led to the crisis.

As scholar Vali Nasr, currently an adviser to Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, argued in his recent book The Forces of Fortune, the growth of Islamic finance and the growth of an observant, global Muslim middle class that it portends has serious positive implications for stability in the societies in which these entrepreneurs operate, and therefore for U.S. national security.

“The reason… that all of this economic vitality around the blending of Islam and capitalism is so important for the West to take note of,” Nasr writes, “is that it reveals so much about the nature of the new middle class that is driving this growth, and is in turn growing ever larger and more influential“:

Some members of this new middle class are the children of the old haute bourgeoisie, their families tied to large, venerable industries and the type of state patronage that the West is familiar with. But a far larger percentage — and here is the key — comes from the provincial and lower social classes. These sons and daughters of the poor and the provinces who have made the jump to the middle class have done so by accepting the requirements of modern economies and latching on to the economic realities that define modernism. They have embraced the rules of the market, responding to its incentives, and are guided in their decisions by the desire to serve their economic interests. So energetic is their commitment to the capitalist credo that their activities now account for most of the real economic growth in the region. The consumerism of the general population is largely the result of their handiwork. Ambitious and resourceful, they fill the ranks of the professionals, the entrepreneurs, the corporate businessmen, and the traders. It is they who have established for the next generation a new economic model of the good life here on Earth.

The interests that this economy is creating, and the ties with the global community that it is forging, offer ample opportunities for engaging this “critical middle” that has come to be the center of gravity in one Muslim-majority society after another. In coming years, that middle is only going to get bigger, and richer… Globalization and rising middle classes with big wallets — and a continuing interest in living as observant Muslims — have gone hand in hand.

The crucial aspect of this “critical middle” that is difficult for those in the West to grasp is that for this population, Islam is a powerful supporter of the drive to modernity. The great majority of Muslims think that Islam improves their lives. They want heaven later, and wealth in the meantime — and think that handling the latter well can help lead to the former.

There’s a bit of neoliberal messianism in there, but the basic argument is sound: Given the option, most people would rather do business. Gaffney, McCarthy and associated hysterics want us to believe that by engaging in sharia-compliant finance, Islamic extremists are getting one over on the West. But the truth is actually the opposite: Facilitating the participation of aspiring and ambitious Muslim entrepreneurs in the Western-led global economic system creates a hedge against extremism. By helping to grow this religiously observant middle class, we’re helping to create an anchor of stability for the societies in which they live, and building powerful new constituencies to oppose the sort of discord that extremists are offering. It’s one thing to try and get people to eschew extremism because you think it’s bad. It’s quite another to them to do it because it’s bad for their business.

Yesterday, 45-year-old parolee Byron Williams opened fire on Highway Patrol officers in Oakland, California. After a brief shootout, Williams, who was wearing body armor, was shot and is currently in an emergency room in stable condition at a local hospital.

In an interview with the local news, Williams explained that her son was unemployed, angry at “left-wing politicians,” and upset about Congress “railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.” Williams went on to say that she kept guns in her house which her son stole. She also warned of a coming “revolution”:

She said her son, who had been a carpenter and a cabinetmaker before his imprisonment, was angry about his unemployment and about “what’s happening to our country.” Williams watched the news on television and was upset by “the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items,” his mother said. [...]

Janice Williams said she kept the guns because “eventually, I think we’re going to be caught up in a revolution.” But she said she had told her son many times that “he didn’t have to be on the front lines.”

ABC News 10 talked to Mrs. Williams and investigated the crime scene. She told the station that her son was “upset with the direction the country is going.” Watch it:

Earlier in the year, disgruntled software engineer Joe Stack used his plane to launch a suicide attack against an IRS building in Austin, Texas. Stack left behind a suicide note detailing his grievances against the government. Right-wing hate radio hosts and pundits have denied that their rhetoric is provoking violence against the government.

In a powerful and hard-hitting address at the Center for American Progress this morning on the New START treaty, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle took treaty opponents to task for playing politics with America’s nuclear security.

The New START treaty — which needs 67 votes to be ratified — is entering a critical phase as a vote is expected soon with hearings having concluded in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Daschle noted that Republicans in the Senate face a stark choice in their upcoming votes between politics and governing, between Mitt Romney or “the entire U.S. military establishment“:

There is no clearer example of plain and simple short-term politics at play than on New START, and we can’t afford to let that rule the day, especially when it comes to nuclear weapons. … But New START is so widely acknowledged to be the right move that it presents conservatives in Congress with a clear choice: They can choose politics, or they can choose governing. They can choose Mitt Romney, or they can choose the entire U.S. military establishment. They can choose a world with a greater risk of nuclear disorder, or one with less. On this issue, there is simply no in between. Some have already decided that denying the President a victory is more important than America’s national security interests. But I know there are many who don’t share that view, and to them, I say that the consequences of choosing politics over governing are real.

Watch it:

In his 25-minute address, Daschle also called out by name the seven Republican Senators who voted for the original START treaty, which passed 93-6. He noted that “common sense says they should be consistent,” since the reasons for continuing with the START treaty framework have only grown. He also pointed out that any Republicans that are suspicious of Russian intentions should vote for the treaty, because the New START treaty allows the US to put boots on the ground to monitor and inspect Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Therefore, every day that goes by without New START our military is losing valuable intelligence. This is why the senior leadership of the US military unanimously endorsed the treaty.

Daschle also explained why the failure to ratify new START could have huge consequences. He noted that there is an asymmetry in the treaties impact. While New START is modest and largely maintains the nuclear status quo, its failure in the Senate could have tremendously dire implications for our national security – potentially leading to an international state of “nuclear anarchy.” He explained:

What international unity currently exists to stop nuclear proliferation, to counter nuclear terrorism, and to confront Iran would fray and possibly even collapse. Should New START fail… American credibility on nuclear issues would evaporate. Countries belonging to the NPT would then ask a very simple question: If the U.S. is unwilling to live up to its commitments, why should we live up to ours? And if the U.S. is unwilling to ratify even a modest arms-control treaty, what obligation do we have to maintain the status quo and not pursue nuclear weapons ourselves?

That is how we fall past the nuclear tipping point – the point at which the nuclear dam breaks and countries large and small, from Latin America to Southeast Asia, from the Middle East to Africa, decide that their national security interests would be enhanced by possessing the bomb… Rejecting New START has real potential to push the world into a state of nuclear anarchy.