This past Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) railed against Democrats for using the lame duck session simply to make Republicans “look bad.” More specifically, Graham announced on CBS’ Face the Nation that Democrats pushed the DREAM Act simply to hurt the GOP’s reputation amongst Latinos:

The last two weeks have been an absolutely excruciating exercise — Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — a controversial topic. Some say the civil rights issue of our generation, others say battlefield effectiveness was passed in the lame-duck session without one amendment being offered. The DREAM Act we’ve had two votes on the DREAM Act. Controversial immigration, there was no efforts to find a common ground there, passed without the ability to amend to try to make Republicans look bad with Hispanics.

Watch it:

It’s impossible to deny that some sort of political calculation was made by Democratic leadership when the DREAM Act was brought up for a vote. However, when it comes to Republicans looking bad with Latinos, that is largely the GOP’s own doing.

“I want to hear Republican leaders stand up and say, ‘The Republican Party absolutely loves the Hispanic-American community; we resonate with your values; we are the party for you,’” the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, recently told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “Instead, I’m just hearing xenophobia and racism. If they keep it up, all I can say is good luck in an increasingly diverse, multicultural America.”

Meg Whitman’s former lead spokesman Rob Stutzman similarly told the Los Angeles Times, “They [Republicans] sit around at cocktail parties and they [Latinos] listen on talk shows and hear their parents referred to as ‘illegals.’ And we wonder why these people [Latinos] don’t want to register as Republicans.”

Even if Democrats were out to merely tarnish the GOP’s reputation by bringing up the DREAM Act (which it doesn’t appear they were), Republicans eagerly took the bait. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) called the bill a “nightmare for the American people.” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) claimed it contained loopholes for terrorists. Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) stated that it was “sacrilegious” and “disrespectful” to ask the Senate to vote on anything so close to Christmas.

Perhaps the most stinging remarks came from Graham himself. Minutes before the DREAM Act failed, Graham took the senate floor to tell all the young undocumented immigrants who visited his office that they were “wasting their time.”

Jose Delgado, op-ed contributor at the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, has never shied away from attacking Democrats. Today, he wrote in La Opinión:

When Senator Harry Reid mentioned that not a single Hispanic should vote for the Republican Party, he did it for political reasons. And though Reid said that out of convenience, today, all Hispanics that hope for our community to become a vibrant element of American society should consider this possibility. [...]

Where is “compassionate conservatism,” where are the “family values?”

A couple of recent reports provide important information on the reality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and highlight again the imperative of ending that occupation. The first, Unsafe Space: Israeli Authorities’ Failure to Protect Human Rights amid Settlements in East Jerusalem, was published by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), and “draws attention to an alarming reality that is taking hold in East Jerusalem“:

The authorities have sided with well-organized political groups, whose purpose is to “Judaize” Palestinian areas of Jerusalem and especially the Old City and its environs. The result is that Palestinian residents of the city are increasingly subject to hostility and violence, and their rights and needs are disregarded and violated.

Last year, a report from the European Union similarly “accused both the Israeli government and the Jerusalem municipality of working deliberately to alter the city’s demographic balance and sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank.”

Last year, when the Obama administration showed some moral leadership and reprimanded Israel for its evictions of Palestinian families to make way for Jewish settlers, a Congressional delegation led by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) went to Jerusalem — and backed the evictions.

The second, more recent report is from Human Rights Watch. Entitled “Separate and Unequal“, it shows that “Israeli policies in the West Bank harshly discriminate against Palestinian residents, depriving them of basic necessities while providing lavish amenities for Jewish settlements“:

The report identifies discriminatory practices that have no legitimate security or other justification and calls on Israel, in addition to abiding by its international legal obligation to withdraw the settlements, to end these violations of Palestinians’ rights. [...]

Israel operates a two-tier system for the two populations of the West Bank in the large areas where it exercises exclusive control. The report is based on case studies comparing Israel’s starkly different treatment of settlements and next-door Palestinian communities in these areas. It calls on the US and EU member states and on businesses with operations in settlement areas to avoid supporting Israeli settlement policies that are inherently discriminatory and that violate international law.

Predictably, NGO Monitor (an organization created to attack anyone who thinks countries should honor their humanitarian commitments when the country in question is Israel) criticized the HRW report without actually challenging any of its claims, complaining that it “strips away the context of Arab terror.” This suggests that Palestinian violence provides necessary context for Israel denying Palestinians equal access to water and electricity in territory it occupies. But I would suggest that the reverse is true: The systematic denial of equal access to water, electricity, and other basic services by the Israeli occupation provides necessary context for understanding Palestinian violence.

It’s also worth noting that when Palestinians relinquish violence and seek relief through international legal means, they get attacked by NGO Monitor and other right-wing groups for “legal lawfare.” It’s almost like it’s a rigged game or something.

Obviously the best way to deal with this problem would be for Israel to end the occupation and stop ruling over Palestinian subjects for whose well-being it feels no responsibility. But, given his ongoing efforts to both further entrench the Israeli presence in the West Bank and poison negotiations by conditioning them on complete Palestinian acceptance, in advance, of Israel’s “security concept,” this doesn’t seem to be part of Netanyahu’s vision for peace.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) confronted Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) immediately after he spoke on ratification of the New START treaty this morning. McConnell’s complaints about the process being rushed were too much for Kerry, who had overseen the treaty’s ratification and has frequently bent over backwards to appease Republican concerns. Kerry ripped McConnell:

I would say to my friend from Kentucky: Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true. Our friends on the other side of the aisle have a habit of repeating things that have been completely refuted by every fact there is. … The facts are that this treaty is not being rushed.

This treaty has been delayed at the request of Republicans. It was delayed 13 times… to have more time to deal with the modernization issue, which the administration has completely, totally, thoroughly dealt with in good faith. I’d like to know where the good faith comes from on the other side. They [the administration] put extra money in, they sat and negotiated, they sent people to Arizona to brief Senator Kyl personally. For weeks we delayed the process of moving forward on this treaty in order accommodate our friends on the other side of the aisle. And now fully accommodated, with their requests entirely met, they come back and say ‘oh its being rushed.’ Well Mr. President today marks our sixth day of debate on the New START treaty. That’s a fact. … I mean is there no shame.

Watch it:

The primary complaint of Senate Republicans in regards to the New START treaty has centered on Senate process. But as Kerry’s remarks indicate these complaints are entirely unfounded. Instead, it was Senate Republicans who constantly advocated delay. In fact, prior to the election, Senate Republicans even suggested that the lame duck period was the appropriate time to have a vote. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) was for a lame duck vote on the treaty in August before turning against it.

Yesterday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) complained that the Democrats’ decision to force a vote on DADT repeal and the DREAM Act this weekend had “poisoned” the Senate and that he would now consider voting against START merely some sort of protest.

As Major Garrett, the former Fox Correspondent said this morning, “When you can’t argue substance, you argue procedure.”

Max Blumenthal has a deeply reported new piece, The Great Islamophobic Crusade, tracking the growth of the network of think tanks and front groups cultivating and exploiting hostility toward Muslims and Islam for conservative political gain:

Erupting so many years after the September 11th trauma, this spasm of anti-Muslim bigotry might seem oddly timed and unexpectedly spontaneous. But think again: it’s the fruit of an organized, long-term campaign by a tight confederation of right-wing activists and operatives who first focused on Islamophobia soon after the September 11th attacks, but only attained critical mass during the Obama era. It was then that embittered conservative forces, voted out of power in 2008, sought with remarkable success to leverage cultural resentment into political and partisan gain.

This network is obsessively fixated on the supposed spread of Muslim influence in America. Its apparatus spans continents, extending from Tea Party activists here to the European far right. It brings together in common cause right-wing ultra-Zionists, Christian evangelicals, and racist British soccer hooligans. It reflects an aggressively pro-Israel sensibility, with its key figures venerating the Jewish state as a Middle Eastern Fort Apache on the front lines of the Global War on Terror and urging the U.S. and various European powers to emulate its heavy-handed methods.

Meanwhile, Adam Serwer flags a Washington Post story noting that members of this network have been advising U.S. law enforcement on Islam:

Walid Shoebat, a onetime Muslim who converted to Christianity, also lectures to local police. He too believes that most Muslims seek to impose sharia law in the United States. To prevent this, he said in an interview, he warns officers that “you need to look at the entire pool of Muslims in a community.”

When Shoebat spoke to the first annual South Dakota Fusion Center Conference in Sioux Falls this June, he told them to monitor Muslim student groups and local mosques and, if possible, tap their phones. “You can find out a lot of information that way,” he said.

As Blumenthal’s piece notes, Shoebat markets himself quite profitably as an ex-terrorist, speaking before conservative Christian and Jewish audiences to condemn Islam as a “satanic cult.” Numerous people have challenged Shoebat’s stories of his extremist past, and he’s widely regarded as a fraud.

It gets better, though. The article reports that Frank Gaffney, yes Frank Gaffney, “said his team” — that would be the team that wrote CSP’s “Shariah: The Threat to America” report — “has spoken widely, including to many law enforcement forums“:

“Members of our team have been involved in training programs for several years now, many of which have been focused on local law enforcement intelligence, homeland security, state police, National Guard units and the like,” Gaffney said. “We’re seeing a considerable ramping-up of interest in getting this kind of training.”

Government terrorism experts call the views expressed in the center’s book inaccurate and counterproductive. They say the DHS should increase its training of local police, using teachers who have evidence-based viewpoints.

Using teachers who have evidence-based viewpoints would be hugely beneficial to U.S. homeland security. This would, one expects, disqualify people who think that Obama is a Muslim, question whether Obama is an American citizen, or believe that the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s new logo is a sign of the president’s “submission to sharia.”

News over the weekend that the leadership of the GOP in the Senate, Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will both oppose the treaty was only notable if you weren’t paying attention. No one ever counted on the support of Kyl and McConnell and it merely confirms that the White House and Senate Democrats made the right decision to push ahead and hold a vote now, since the promise from Senator Kyl for a vote in January or February was clearly a false one. Meanwhile, START still has enough support for ratification.

The primary complaint from most persuadable Republican Senators now seems to have little to do with the treaty and everything to do with process. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) echoed those comments when he said that the lame duck had been “poisoned” because he was forced to vote on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the DREAM Act. This may be a new low for process petulance.

Complaining that you can’t vote for nuclear arms treaty that the US military wanted ratified yesterday, because you found it distasteful that you had to vote on unrelated legislation you didn’t like is child like petulance. Seriously, suck it up — and make a judgment on the treaty based on the treaty not on superfluous other issues. As Major Garrett, former Fox correspondent, said on MSNBC this morning “When you can’t argue substance, you argue procedure.”

But that being said, there is also a reason to believe that the process whining is just disguising the real Republican fear that ratification of New START would be another win for the White House. That reason is because in fact nothing about the ratification process has been unusual.

First, more days of floor time will be devoted to New START than the original START treaty. When the Senate finally votes on New START it will have devoted seven or more days — exactly the number of days Senate Republicans demanded and two more days than START I. That treaty was not just more complex because there were more nuclear weapons and it was the first of its kind, but because it was between multiple countries (US, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan) and was ratified just after the break up of the Soviet Union. In fact, the original negotiating partner, the USSR, no longer existed when the Senate voted on ratification. As Senator John Kerry (D-MA) noted:

We have now spent 5 days having a very good debate on New START and proposed amendments. That is as much time as the Senate spent on START I, and more than it spent on START II and the Moscow Treaty combined, but we are looking forward to continuing the debate this week.

Second, switching from executive session to legislative session is expressly permitted under Senate rules and is commonly done when dealing with treaties. Republicans complain that this has allowed Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to get around their delay tactics. For instance, when a cloture motion is filed it takes 30 hour to “ripen” in a sense nothing can then happen on legislative issues. But by switching to executive session, Reid has prevented Republicans from keeping the Senate idle and has allowed for ample floor time for the START treaty. Reid has not done anything out of bounds and has stayed within the rules of the Senate. Yet Republicans who have stretched the limits of Senate rules and who have used kinks in senate process to obstruct and delay all kinds of legislation, seem to insist that a different more strict set of unwritten rules apply to Democrats and this treaty.

Third, complaints about the treaty being rushed are total nonsense. The treaty has been in front of the Senate for eight months. Moreover, leading Senators on arms control, including Senator Kyl, were involved in the negotiations and even traveled to Geneva to confer with the negotiating team. The Senate committees held more than 20 hearings, featuring a disproportionate number of Republican witnesses. More than 1,000 questions were asked of the administration, all of which have been answered. The vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was even delayed in the summer by Senator Kerry, over the objections of Senator Richard Lugar, until after the August recess in order to appease Republican demands. When the treaty was voted out of committee, Democrats did not bring the treaty to the floor, because Republicans warned that a treaty could not be voted on before an election – no matter this was the case with the original START treaty.

Finally, Republicans said that the lame duck time was an appropriate time to get the treaty done. This summer Kyl spoke to Reuters who paraphrased:

It could be difficult to satisfy his [Kyl's] demands before November and thus the vote on New START might need to take place during the lame duck session if the Senate wants to vote on the treaty this year.

Additionally, a number of significant legislative items have been accomplished in past lame duck sessions, such as the impeachment of President Clinton.