Last week, news broke that Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) erroneously claimed that the majority of undocumented immigrants “are coming here and they’re bringing drugs” during a primary election debate on June 15th. She also stated on Fox News that SB-1070 is a “good bill” that’s necessary because of the “drugs, and the kidnappings, and the extortion, and the beheadings.” This past weekend, on a local Arizona political show, Brewer defended her remarks, explaining that police have found beheaded bodies in the desert:

HOST: Which beheadings in Arizona were you referring to?

BREWER: Oh, our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert — either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded.

HOST: Well, we hear from politicians in the course of this debate on national news there’s a picture of Arizona that seems to be far from what many folks experience. I could not find any beheadings in any kind of news search in Arizona.

Watch it:

After investigating Brewer’s claims, the Arizona Guardian found them to be completely unsubstantiated. Local medical examiners told the paper they have “never heard” of beheading attacks in Arizona. A spokesman for Brewer commented, “I’m not aware of any statements where the governor specifies where any crimes were committed” and indicated that Brewer must have been referring to beheadings that have occurred in Mexico which Brewer is trying to prevent from spreading to Arizona.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has also often conflated violence in Mexico in an attempt to argue that U.S. border is not secure enough to undertake comprehensive immigration reform. However, what both Brewer and McCain fail to mention is the border is reportedly safer than it’s ever been. Indeed, the fact that U.S. violent crime at the border has been steadily decreasing during the same time period that thousands of people were being kidnapped, murdered, and beheaded in Mexico attests more to just how secure the U.S.-Mexico border is.

(H/T: TPM)

Dear Bill,

You love, we know, war. Love it. Always trying to get America into new and bigger ones. It’s your thing. We get it.

But we think you’re being unfair towards RNC Chairman Michael Steele. Sure, he was wrong when he said that Afghanistan “was a war of Obama’s choosing” and “not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.” But as you correctly note, his entire term has been marked by “gaffes and embarrassments” — such as telling African Americans they “don’t have a reason” to vote Republican, by suggesting Republicans are “drinking that Potomac River water” and “getting high,” and telling the public that it has “no reason, none, to trust” the GOP. But none of this produced from you the slightest peep of protest.

You express concern that Mr. Steele breaks from Republican orthodoxy by voicing his criticisms of the Afghanistan war. But when Mr. Steele broke from Republican principles and expressed his view that abortion should be an “individual choice,” we didn’t hear your call for his resignation. (In fact, your publication defended him.)

What really irks you is that Mr. Steele has the temerity to suggest that the continued war in Afghanistan is not a good idea — which is a debate worth having. It’s therefore no surprise that the one thing that should motivate you to call for the resignation of Mr. Steele is his suggestion that it’s a bad idea for the U.S. to continue to “engage in a land war in Afghanistan.”

For the crime of questioning an American war, you feel that Mr. Steele must pay. This shouldn’t be a political issue — members of both parties have concerns about the current course in Afghanistan, and members of both parties should be having this debate. Not just Democrats.

So Mr. Kristol, instead of calling on Mr. Steele to resign, challenge him to a debate on Afghanistan to discuss your foreign policy views. And as for Mr. Steele, we hope he stays.

Sincerely yours,

The Think Progress team

Last night, President Obama signed into law a new Iran sanctions bill that will put into place the harshest sanctions ever lodged against Iran. While acting tough on Iran has been the one issue that has seemingly united Republicans and Democrats, President Obama also took time to note the importance of the New START treaty – something that Republicans in the Senate have yet to broadly support – to the effort to isolate Iran. The President started off his short address saying:

As President, one of my highest national security priorities is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. That’s why my administration has aggressively pursued a comprehensive agenda of non-proliferation and nuclear security. Leading by example, we agreed with Russia to reduce our nuclear arsenals through the New START Treaty —- and I’ve urged the Senate to move forward with ratification this year. And with allies and partners, we’ve strengthened the global non-proliferation regime, including the cornerstone of our efforts —the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now, in the entire world, there is only one signatory to the NPT — only one — that has been unable to convince the International Atomic Energy Agency that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. One nation. And that nation is Iran.

Making the link between START, Iran sanctions, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is essential and is one that the right frequently overlook and fail to grasp. The US could pass unilateral sanctions until we are blue in the face and still fail to isolate Iran, as we have already largely sanctioned ourselves out of relevance. Since Iran is not dependent on trade with the United States, it is impossible for the US to unilaterally isolate Iran.

The key to isolating Iran, is for others to do more. The framework for which the United States can organize strong broad-based international sanctions against Iran is through the non-proliferation regime, which is codififed by the NPT. The fact is that to isolate and punish Iran for its violations of the NPT there has to be strong international support for the NPT. Yet under the Bush administration the non-proliferation regime greatly frayed, as non-nuclear states increasingly questioned (and for good reason) US commitment to the treaty. As a result, the 2005 NPT review conference (which happens once every five years) ended in abysmal failure, leading many to fear that the fledgling regime would collapse.

This is where START comes in. The non-proliferation regime rests on a grand bargain where nuclear-armed states agree to work to reduce and abolish their nuclear stockpiles, while non-nuclear states agree not to pursue nuclear weapons. At the 2010 review conference, the New START treaty – by reaffirming US commitment to the grand bargain – was crucial to bolster the non-proliferation regime and in getting 189 signatures to recommit to the treaty. Without a new START treaty this would not have happened.

But for the START treaty to take effect it has to be ratified by a bipartisan supermajority of 67 Senators. And many on the Republican side are positioning themselves to oppose the treaty. Yet should START fail to be ratified, our ability to tighten international pressure on Iran would diminish, as START’s failure would lead other non-nuclear states to question what is the point of punishing a country like Iran for violating the NPT, when the United States itself is failing to adhere to its treaty commitments. Without a strong international commitment to the NPT, the major mechanism used to isolate Iran would be gone.

Should the NPT collapse, there is always what seems to be the preferred option of the right – empty rhetoric, or of course, war.