Today, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and David Vitter (R-LA) announced that their introduction of an amendment to the small business tax credits bill that would “prohibit President Obama’s administration, including the Department of Justice and other agencies, from participating in lawsuits seeking to invalidate the recently enacted Arizona immigration law.” More specifically, the amendment disallows the public funding of any lawsuits that challenge the law. In their press release, the two senators explained their reasons for the amendment:

“States like Arizona shouldn’t be prosecuted for protecting their citizens when the federal government fails to do so,” said Senator DeMint. “The federal government is rewarding illegal behavior and encouraging many more to enter our nation illegally when they refuse to enforce our laws. States along the border are facing kidnappings, drug trafficking, human trafficking and gang violence and they have a duty to keep their residents safe. Instead of suing states for doing his job, the President should get serious and stop holding border security hostage to pass amnesty and score points with his liberal base.”

“The state of Arizona is simply taking responsibility for a problem that the federal government has neglected for years, but Washington’s only response is to oppose these new enforcement efforts and take them to court. The Obama administration should not use taxpayers’ money to pay for these lawsuits that the American people overwhelmingly oppose,” said Senator Vitter.

DeMint mischaracterizes the lawsuit. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is not prosecuting Arizona for “protecting their citizens when the federal government fails to do so,” nor is it “suing states for doing his job.” The lawsuit is based on the notion the Arizona law is federally preempted and makes the job of enforcing immigration laws a lot harder for the federal government. In relation to the lawsuit, the DOJ has carefully cited a series of legitimate legal complaints ranging from the fact that both the intent and several provisions of SB-1070 depart from federal immigration law to the consequences of allowing a conflicting “patchwork” of state and local immigration laws to prevail.

Vitter’s stated motivation is even more troubling. Apparently, Vitter believes that the Department of Justice (DOJ) should avoid pursuing legal cases that are unpopular with the American public. Thankfully, the DOJ’s decisions are not meant to be guided by public opinion — they are guided by the laws. And in this case, the lawsuit against Arizona is guided by a very specific law in the U.S. Constitution which states that federal law preempts state law “in any area over which Congress expressly or impliedly has reserved exclusive authority or which is constitutionally reserved to the federal government, or where state law conflicts or interferes with federal law.” Ironically, it’s actually Vitter’s responsibility as a senator to represent the will of the American people — and the majority of the American people, across party lines, support comprehensive immigration reform. Both Vitter and DeMint have done more to block legislative action on immigration reform than encourage it.

Chris Good of The Atlantic points out that it’s “unlikely that this amendment will see a vote.” “Reid preempted amendments when he brought the bill up, but Republicans and Democrats have been negotiating over how to proceed, with the Senate voting on some,” explains Good.

One of the most common talking points immigration reform opponents have used over the years has been that legalizing undocumented immigrants is a form of amnesty that rewards and encourages illegal behavior. For the most part, politicians have gotten away with equating the term “amnesty” with an earned path to legalization. Today, at a House Immigration Subcommittee Hearing, Mathew Staver of the Liberty Counsel informed Rep. Steve King (R-IA) that the definition of “amnesty” that he and many of his colleagues use is not “consistent with the rule of law”:

KING: I would define amnesty this way [...] — to grant amnesty is to pardon immigration lawbreakers and reward them with the objective of their crime. And I just submit that definition to you and ask as a lawyer, an attorney, as a pastor, and as someone who has studied this thoroughly, how you would react to that definition. [...]

STAVER: Congressman King, that definition would not be consistent with the rule of law. It would not be consistent with the definition that is Blackstone or Black’s Law dictionary. Amnesty would be forgiveness — complete forgiveness — where you have absolutely no penalty. That’s what Ronald Reagan did, I don’t support what Ronald Reagan did. I don’t suppose that that is what I’m proposing here. [...]

KING: Then I would submit then Reverand that the path that you’ve described here is pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English. Those things are designed to provide the objective of the person who has already broken the law. [...] I don’t see that as a penalty or any kind of recompense for breaking the law. [...]

Watch it:

Staver isn’t exactly an open-borders liberal activist either. In fact, he and King probably agree on more issues than they disagree. However, Staver does make a valid point. For too long, politicians like King who adamantly oppose comprehensive immigration reform have mischaracterized its legalization component. And in the case of immigration, semantics matter a lot. The public has typically been opposed to any solutions that sound like or are described as amnesty. However, when a path to legalization is accurately described as a process involving penalties and requirements, Americans are far more accepting. America’s Voice argues that a path to legalization is polled as being “the most convincing reason to support comprehensive immigration reform” when it’s understood as requiring immigrants “to get legal and pay their fair share of taxes.” In fact, a recent ABC News poll found that 61 percent of Americans support giving undocumented immigrants “the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and meet other requirements.” Even 59 percent of Republicans support such a solution.

Immigration hawks are only partly to blame for the misunderstanding. Reporters and respected media outlets have largely failed to make a distinction between “amnesty” and an earned path to legalization. Though the ABC News polling question excluded the term “amnesty,” when the news was reported, the network used the two phrases synonymously. Politicians who want to avoid taking a firm position on the issue also exploit the ambiguity. When probed on her comprehensive immigration reform position, California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (R-CA) has consistently stated that she opposes “amnesty.” Her response is a crowd-pleaser, but amnesty isn’t even on the legislative table. Whitman is smart enough to know that what is on the table is an earned path to legalization — something Whitman supported in the distant past but hasn’t brought up since her race heated up.

Staver pointed out to King that “we only have three options”: “deport every body, give them all complete forgiveness with no consequence, or deal with them somehow.” Most Americans understand that the first option is “impractical and impossible,” the second is unfair, and that the only tangible solution is to find a tough but viable way to deal with the millions of undocumented immigrants currently in the country.

This morning, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, headlined the CAP event “Strengthening America’s Security: Identifying, Preventing and Responding to Domestic Terrorism,” which discussed with ways Muslim Americans and American intelligence and police agencies can work together to combat domestic terrorism.

Afterward, Think Progress interviewed Ellison and asked him about another facet of America’s counter-terrorism strategy: the use of Predator drones to assassinate suspected terrorists. When asked about the efficacy of the drone strikes, Ellison was critical of their use. While conceding that the drones may be an effective tool if used judiciously, the Minnesota congressman said that we have yet to make a proper “legal, political, and moral” calculation as to when their use is appropriate, going as far as to say that Congress has no “consensus” as to when these assassinations are justified, and that the U.S. hasn’t “really thought through this thing at all”:

TP: There have been increasing reports of expanded drone strikes and military operations in Pakistan. Do you think these operations help or hurt the U.S. strategy in combating extremism?

ELLISON: I think that there is a case to be made on both sides of the question. But what I want to say about it is, I’m very concerned because I don’t think as Congress we have any consensus or really any idea as to when a targeted assassination would be appropriate, meaning what quantum of proof would be necessary to show that this person has waged war on America, led to the death of Americans, and this action in some legal format might be justified. We haven’t looked at what level of additional persons who killed other than the target are acceptable. [...] We haven’t really thought this thing through at all. [...] [We run] the risk that we’re not going to be careful, responsible, judicious, and critical about the use of this technology.

The problem is not the drone, that is a piece of machinery. The problem is making a decision about a targeted assassination without the necessary legal, political, moral calculation in place. Which I see no evidence that we’re making. And I tell you, it’s somewhat scary. Clearly there have been a lot of reports of wedding parties being killed, clearly that is incredibly destructive. And if they hit somebody who is truly a bad actor, dangerous to Pakistan and the United States, and that’s the only person they get, and they got the proof for it, and there’s no one else killed associated with it, that might be justifiable and something that enhances security. But it’s way more complicated than that and I don’t think we’re approaching this with the requisite amount of care, safety, and apprehension.

Watch it:

Earlier in the year, counterterrorism experts Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann at the New America Foundation released a comprehensive study of the casualties of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. Their research concluded that nearly 1 out of every 3 people killed by the strikes was a civilian. Although extremists remain deeply unpopular in Pakistan, with only four percent saying they have a positive impact on their country in a recent survey, the drone strikes are overwhelmingly opposed by the Pakistani public as well, with a poll last year finding that only nine percent of Pakistanis agreed with their use.

Last year, Center for New American Security military expert and former adviser to General David Petraeus David Kilcullen called for a cessation of drones strikes. “If we want to strengthen our friends and weaken our enemies in Pakistan, bombing Pakistani villages with unmanned drones is totally counterproductive,” he said.

For New START to get ratified, all that is needed is for the Republican Senators that voted for the initial treaty the first time around to vote for it again.

Arms-control agreements have long received overwhelming bipartisan support. The original START treaty passed in 1992 by a vote of 93-6 and many of the Senators that voted for the original treaty remain in the Senate today. Eight current Republicans and one independent voted for the original START treaty. Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Richard Lugar, Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley, Kit Bond, and Thad Cochran all voted for the START treaty in 1992. Joseph Lieberman and Richard Shelby both Democrats at the time also voted for the treaty.

These votes — along with the Democratic votes — would be enough to ratify the treaty. Now, one could say that a lot has changed since the early 1990s. But when it comes to arms-control and US-Russia nuclear relations whatever has changed since 1992 has changed for the better.

First of all, there is more stability in the Russian government than there was during the last START ratification. In fact, the country with which the original treaty was negotiated — the Soviet Union — ceased to exist during Senate ratification. This level of instability could have given Senators immense pause, but after a brief delay the Senate overwhelmingly ratified the treaty.

Secondly, there was much greater uncertainty about the impact of the START treaty in the early 90s, since the treaty at the time was unprecedented. The Senate had no experience with the extensive verification and monitoring measures and had to start from scratch in studying their impact. Yet, the latest START treaty before the Senate essentially amounts to an update and extension of the original verification and monitoring measures. These nine Senators, unlike in 1992, can actually assess the significance of the START agreement. And since it is clear that the original START treaty helped lay the basis for nuclear stability between the US and Russia for nearly two decades, these Senators should in fact be more confident in voting for New START than they were in the 1990s.

Furthermore, during its early years the Bush administration insisted that long detailed treaties between the US and Russia were unnecessary, since the US and Russia were now good friends and friends could trust each other and didn’t need elaborate protocols to ensure that the other side was doing what it said it would do. As a result, President Bush signed and the Senate ratified the three page Moscow (or SORT) treaty in 2002, which trusted the Russians to reduce nuclear arsenals. Yet conservative opponents to START are not arguing that a treaty is unnecessary because we can trust the Russians, they are arguing that the US can’t trust Russia and therefore shouldn’t have a treaty with them. This has it exactly backwards. We have a detailed monitoring and verification regime because we don’t fully trust them.

For these START-1 supporting Senators, the fact is that if any of the dynamics have changed in the intervening years, they have changed in a direction that would make these Senators more amenable to ratification. In other words, should these Senators oppose START, it isn’t because the treaty has changed, it is because they and their politics have changed.

Not only would their opposition further demonstrate the conservative moment’s massive shift to the right, but it would also indicate a willingness by these nine Senators to put politics above the security of the country. Having supported the principle of arms-control in the past – unlike Sen. DeMint for instance who has consistently opposed such an approach — these Senators, should they oppose the treaty, should have to explain why they have shifted.