The chairmen of President Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission released a report outlining their recommendations to reduce the budget deficit today. The report — which outlines billions of dollars in defense cuts, in addition to other cuts — is sure to spark a furious debate over what measures should be taken to reduce U.S. debt.

Former Bush Secretary of Defense made his recommendations for deficit reduction yesterday through his Twitter account, @RumsfeldOffice. He tweeted, “Tough fiscal choices ahead: Reforming entitlements should top the list – cutting the defense budget should not“:

The position that Rumsfeld is advocating for — reducing spending on “entitlements” like Medicare and Social Security while declaring military spending off-limits from waste trimming — is exactly the opposite of what polling shows the American people want. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted just days before last week’s election, a plurality of voters said that their top priority for cuts in government spending was “national security.” Cuts in Social Security and Medicare were ranked second to last in popularity (cuts to education spending were least popular, with only 8 percent of Americans in favor).

Additionally, Rumsfeld is placing himself in opposition to a growing movement of both Tea Party-backed conservatives and progressives who are coming together to call for cuts in the defense budget. Numerous U.S. Senators, including several Tea Party-backed Republicans, have demanded that defense cuts be on the table:

– Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA): Isakson, who has been a featured speaker at Capitol Hill Tea Party rallies, told a local news station last month that deficit reduction “begins with the Department of Defense.”

– Sen.-elect Pat Toomey (R-PA): Toomey, who has in the past called the Tea Party a “very constructive movement for positive change,” criticized Congress for voting for “programs the Pentagon doesn’t even want” during a debate with Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA).

– Sen.-elect Mark Kirk (R-IL): The week before Toomey’s statement, Kirk, who has received backing from the tea party movement, said that we need “across-the-board” reductions in defense spending during a debate with his Democratic opponent Alexi Giannoulias.

– Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN): Corker has gone out of his way to accrue Tea Party support. “We embraced the tea party spirit when it was in its infancy last August,” said Todd Wom­ack, his chief of staff. Three weeks ago, Corker said on CNBC that defense cuts have to be “on the table” because there’s “a lot of waste there.”

– Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY): Tea Party “darling” told PBS’s Gwen Ifil during the campaign that that cutting defense spending “has to be on the table.” Paul reiterated his call for reducing the military budget this weekend while appearing on ABC’s This Week. He tweaked Republicans for “never” saying “they’ll cut anything out of military. … There’s still waste in the military budget. You have to make it smaller.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK): Tea Party-backed ultra-conservative Coburn used the op-ed pages of The Washington Examiner last weeks to praise Paul’s “courage” in calling for a smaller military budget and said he looks forward to “working with him” toward that goal. “Republicans should resist pressure to take all defense spending off the table. … Taking defense spending off the table is indefensible. We need to protect our nation, not the Pentagon’s sacred cows,” he concluded.

– Progressive Sens. Pat Leahy (D-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT): These four stalwart progressive senators joined with 55 members of Congress, including conservative Republican Reps. Ron Paul (TX) and Walter Jones (NC), to send a letter to the President’s Deficit Commission urging it to “subject military spending to the same rigorous scrutiny that non-military spending will receive. … We strongly believe that any deficit reduction package must contain significant cuts to the military budget.”

In opposing cuts to the defense budget and instead taking aim at entitlements, Rumsfeld is facing off with both the American people and a rising Tea Party-progressive coalition in the halls of Congress. While defenders of the status quo will likely pull out all the stops in order to defend a bloated defense budget that fails to properly serve America in the 21st century, this rising coalition has defense contractors worried. At a “closed door meeting” last month between Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn and Wall Street analysts, one senior defense industry executive said that he expects “real pressure” from Congress over defense spending. “The grim reality is that the midterm elections are going to have a significant impact in terms of accelerating the contraction in defense funding,” Jim McAleese, a Virginia-based defense consultant, told Reuters.

The Missouri Supreme Court will soon decide whether an undocumented Guatemalan mother will be allowed to keep her 4-year-old son who was taken from her and put in the hands of an adoptive white couple in Missouri. At issue is whether undocumented immigrants have the same legal rights as U.S. citizens when it comes to child custody.

Encarnación Bail Romero was caught up in a 2007 immigration raid at a Missouri poultry processing plant where she worked. Romero left her infant son with family members who later passed the child on to a pastor. It was then arranged that Seth and Melinda Moser would care for the baby. A few months later, Romero learned her son was adopted by them. An appeals court has already ruled that the adoption should be voided. That ruling was appealed by the Mosers to the state Supreme Court where they find themselves today.

Watch a report on the facts of the case:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri maintains that Bail Romero was denied proper legal representation. Her attorney was hired by the Mosers to represent her during court proceedings intended to terminate her parental rights and approve the adoption -- a clear conflict of interest. Meanwhile, Rick Schnake, the Mosers' attorney, has indicated that even if the adoption was illegal, Romero abandoned her son. Schnake notes that the child has lived with the Mosers for nearly three years and only speaks English. According to him, he "would be better off" staying with them.

But Bail Romero's new attorney, Chris Huck, noted, "Best interest also includes the presumption that you preserve the natural parent-child relationship. If you're gonna break that bond, if you're gonna sever that tie and if you're gonna take away that fundamental right, then you have to do it in compliance with the statutory procedures." Schnake also doesn't mention that the Mosers had been previously denied an application to become foster parents, in part because of Mr. Moser's criminal record and a history of abuse on Mrs. Moser's side of the family. Bail Romero, meanwhile, was imprisoned under a law that was later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

However, the case is much more complicated than that. The New York Times reported that, "It is unclear how many children share Carlos’s [Bail Romero's son] predicament. But lawyers and advocates for immigrants say that cases like his are popping up across the country as crackdowns against illegal immigrants thrust local courts into transnational custody battles and leave thousands of children in limbo." How the Court rules could set a dangerous precedent and essentially render undocumented immigrant parents powerless when it comes to the custody of their U.S. citizen children.

Ultimately, the only thing more messed up than changing the Constitution to deny the American-born children of undocumented immigrants citizenship is deporting their parents, snagging the U.S. citizen kids, and giving them to an American couple. "Children of undocumented immigrants should not be given an adoption without their consent, should not be given an adoption just because they are here illegally. That is no grounds for taking a child away from his or her mother," affirmed the Guatemalan Ambassador Francisco Villagran de Leon.

The predictable pessimism over New START is growing. The far right is stirring, leading to dour predictions from some in the mainstream media and some progressives. And now today we have the breaking news that the New York Times op-ed page gave black-helicopter seeing John Bolton and torture-enabler John Yoo space to stun absolutely no one with a drab and redundant op-ed opposing the START treaty. Oh no, this changes everything! Except it doesn’t.

While the New York Times oped page may have thought it interesting to confirm that the far right opposes the START treaty, no one else should. Instead of following the Bolton-Heritage crowd noise, reporters and START followers should pay attention to three things when looking at the prospects for START.

First, the New START vote ultimately will not be determined just by Republicans. It will also be determined by Harry Reid’s willingness to push for a floor vote.

To win the vote, Reid and the White House have to be willing to lose the vote. The danger now is that all the hemming and hawing from the far-right makes Reid and the White House lose their nerve.

Sure, by needing 67 votes, Republicans will ultimately decide if the treaty gets ratified. And assuming Reid were to get New START to a floor vote Republicans may stand unified in opposition based of some procedural mumbo jumbo. This is a very real possibility – see Don’t Ask Don’t Tell where pro-repeal Senators stood unified in opposition because of some asinine procedural justification. But while the Republicans can certainly use any procedural complaint to justify a no-vote, this will always be the case.

What should light a fire under Reid is that the chances of the START treaty getting ratified in the new congress are very very slim. In essence, it’s now or never. So no matter what the far-right fringe says over the next six weeks, it is still worth it for Democrats to force a vote. The worst thing would be to allow Republicans to kill this treaty quietly next year by just ignoring it. If they are going to kill it, make the GOP do it publicly.

Second, the Republican leadership has never said they oppose the treaty. Read more