Last night, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) filed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010.

The bill establishes a path to legalization, but also outlines a set of border enforcement “triggers” that must be met before any unauthorized immigrants can apply for permanent residency. Once those benchmarks are reached, undocumented immigrants will have the opportunity to register with the government, undergo a background check, learn English, and pay fines and taxes on their way to becoming American citizens.

The legislation also includes the DREAM Act which would allow undocumented youth to regularize their status by going to college or serving in the military. AgJOBS, which would establish an earned legalization program for undocumented farmworkers and revise the existing H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program to provide farmers with a steady flow of labor they need is additionally attached to the bill.

Republicans have already blasted Menendez’s bill. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) called it nothing more than a “cynical ploy for votes.” Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) called the push for immigration reform “for effect rather than reality.”

In fact, Hatch responded by introducing an immigration bill of his own today. According to the Deseret News, Hatch’s bill, Strengthening Our Commitment to Legal Immigration and America’s Security Act, “would require participation in key law enforcement programs, clamp down on identify theft, streamline the visa system, track the amount of welfare benefits being diverted to illegal immigrant households, curb serious abuses of immigration laws and help prevent Mexican cartels from using national parks and federal lands to grow marijuana.” However, it doesn’t do anything to address the status of the 11-12 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. and the lack of visas available to migrants who want to work in the U.S.

Menendez doesn’t deny that the election will make it difficult to get any significant amount of floor time for an immigration debate this fall. However, his bill does show Latino voters what has been the reality all year long: Democrats have been more than ready to introduce and vote yes on immigration reform while Republicans have stalled and obstructed the issue. Menendez told Politico, “clearly, you see the difference between those who are willing to move forward and get a reform and [those who are] not, and for the Hispanic community, clearly they understand who stands on their side and [who does] not.”

As I predicted with the formation of the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative last year, the neocons have been hard at work to repair their reputations and position themselves to push America into all kinds of new, staggeringly expensive and disastrously counterproductive military adventures. Yes, the people who brought us the Iraq debacle — and, by under-resourcing Afghanistan for years as a result of Iraq, the Afghanistan crisis too — are trying to get America into yet another war in the Middle East, this time in Iran.

Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, leading Congressional neocon Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) declared “It is time to retire our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table”:

It is time for our message to our friends and enemies in the region to become clearer: namely, that we will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability — by peaceful means if we possibly can, but with military force if we absolutely must.

Leaving aside the other reasons, which I’ll get to in a second, why it’s important for Americans to reject Joe Lieberman’s warmongering, there’s the rather significant fact that his central proposition is an exercise in question begging. It’s entirely unclear that the U.S. can, even if it decides to do so, stop Iran’s nuclear program through military means.

As Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman General James Cartwright stated in testimony to the Senate Armed Services committee in April, strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities would, at best, only delay the Iranian nuclear program for a few years, while at the same time solidifying Iranian domestic support for the regime and removing any hesitancy that may have existed over the necessity of obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Gen. Cartwright was then pressed by Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) on whether the only way to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear capability was “to physically occupy their country and disestablish their nuclear facilities?”

Gen. Cartwright answered: “Absent some other unknown calculus that would go on, that’s a fair conclusion.”

Gen. Cartwright’s comments track squarely with those of retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, who, in discussing the various scenarios and likely consequences of a strike on Iran, concluded: “If you follow this all the way down, eventually I’m putting boots on the ground somewhere. And like I tell my friends, if you like Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ll love Iran.”

Which brings us to Iraq and Afghanistan, two disasters for which Joe Lieberman bears as much responsibility as any American politician. As Eli Clifton helpfully points out, Lieberman is now simply repurposing his Iraq arguments for Iran. Which is, of course, what all the neocons are doing. (No, these are not particularly imaginative people.)

How does Lieberman get around the Iraqi elephant in the room? By ignoring it, basically. In a 3,000 word speech entitled “The Future of American Power in the Middle East,” the word “Iraq” — a country where we have lost over 4,000 troops, taken over 30,000 casualties, and spent nearly $800 billion — appears twice.

First, to lament “the anxieties in the region” about American power that resulted from “the mismanagement of the early years in postwar Iraq,” implying that the surge had magically solved that problem, which is as unsurprising as it is false. And then to note that Iran’s “dream of replicating the Hezbollah model in southern Iraq was rolled back by the Iraqi and U.S. forces,” a baldly disingenuous rendering that ignores Iran’s key role in ending the fighting in southern Iraq, as well as its continuing influence in a post-war government made up largely of its clients and proxies.

What this gets at pretty starkly is that Joe Lieberman, as with others in the neoconservative faction, either doesn’t grasp, or simply refuses to admit, that the Iraq war has had hugely negative consequences for the United States and our allies in the region. Why? Well, obviously, because now they want to run it again.

But make no mistake: fantasies of “surgical strikes” aside, another invasion and occupation are what Joe Lieberman and the neocons are talking about when they press for “military action” against Iran. It will not be “surgical,” however, and it will not be quick. These are facts that Joe Lieberman needs to be made confront.

Today, Fox News Channel owner Rupert Murdoch testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law Membership on the “Role of Immigration in Strengthening America’s Economy.” In his testimony, Murdoch called for comprehensive immigration reform which includes a path to citizenship that brings 11-12 million new people into the U.S. tax base. According to Murdoch, “it’s impossible to secure our borders without an overall package of reforms”:

Our partnership advocates reform that gives a path to citizenship to responsible, law-abiding immigrants who are in the U.S. today without proper authority. It is nonsense to talk about expelling 11 or 12 million people. Not only is it impractical, it is cost-prohibitive. A study this year put the cost of mass deportation at $285 billion over five years. There are better ways to spend our money. [...]

A full path to legalization: requiring unauthorized immigrants to register, undergo a security check, pay taxes, and learn English would bring these immigrants out of a shadow economy and into our tax base. According to one study, a path to legalization would contribute an estimated $1.5 trillion to the gross domestic product over ten years.

Earlier this year, Murdoch indicated that the media should be involved in the push for comprehensive immigration reform. However, Fox News employees don’t seem to agree. More than any other network, Fox News has repeatedly and consistently advocated against immigration reform and referred to Murdoch’s proposal as “amnesty.” Fox News superstar Bill O’Reilly called it outright “crap” that undocumented immigrants pay taxes. Fox News host Eric Bolling similarly claimed that American citizens “pay taxes,” as opposed to “illegals not paying taxes.”

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) called Murdoch out on the blatant contradiction later in the hearing, pointing out, “it does not appear that what you are talking and the way you are discussing it is the way it is discussed on Fox.” Murdoch defended his position and his network:

We are home to all views on Fox. [...] We don’t censor that or take any particular line at all. We are not anti-immigrant on Fox News. [...] We certainly employ a lot of immigrants at Fox. In all arms of Fox. We have many immigrants there and we do not take a consistent anti-immigrant line.

Watch it:

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) supported Murdoch’s defense of Fox News, saying most people think that the network is “the most fair.”