Back in September, the judges of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request by Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R) to be a party in the federal government’s legal challenge to Arizona immigration law, SB-1070. Pearce, who sponsored SB-1070, claimed he has a “unique perspective” on SB-1070 and wanted to use his own attorneys to convince the appellate judges that all provisions of the law are legal. According to the Yuma Sun, Pearce seems to believe that there is evidence that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ), who is defending the law, does not believe that the statute in its entirety is legal. “Sen. Pearce is uniquely qualified to provide this interpretation of SB 1070 as its author and chief sponsor,” wrote his lawyers.

Pearce has never been known to give up easily, and this case is no exception. Coffee Today reports that Pearce introduced a bill, SB-1117, which would give the Senate President (who happens to be Pearce) and the leader of the Arizona House of Representatives the power to hire lawyers to initiate SB-1070 legal proceedings before state and federal courts, along with an unlimited power to use public funds to defend the controversial law. The bill states:

Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate may direct counsel to initiate a legal proceeding or appear on behalf of their respective chambers or on behalf of the legislature in any challenge in a state or federal court to laws 2010, chapter 113 and any amendments to that law. [...]

This act is an emergency measure that is necessary to preserve the public peace, health or safety and is operative immediately as provided by law.

As of the end of July 2010, lawyers defending SB-1070 have billed more than $1 million. So far, Brewer has been using money from the “defense fund” she set up which has attracted approximately $3.6 million in private donations. Pearce — who brags about being recognized as a “Hero of the Taxpayer” by Americans for Prosperity — essentially wants to reinvent the wheel by defending a law that Brewer’s administration already seems pretty committed to fighting for. All while the state’s budget deficit looms over the heads of lawmakers and the state legislature continues to uphold deathly cuts to the state’s medical transplant funding program.

Last week, history was made as enormous street protests toppled Tunisia’s autocratic leader President Zine El Abadine Ben Ali, marking the first time in modern history that an autocratic Arab leader was forced to step down following pro-democracy protests. Reactions from across the globe have generally been positive, with some commentators even believing that it could be the start of a wave of pro-democracy revolutions across the region.

Yet as the world celebrates the downfall of an autocratic leader, it’s important to remember that just a few years ago, high-ranking officials in the Bush Administration were moving to increase links between the United States and Tunisia and downplay human rights concerns. As Al Jazeera’s Imran Garda notes, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Bush Administration officials are “admirers” of Ben Ali, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said the country provided “constructive leadership in the world“:

It is worth rewinding and noting some choice words that former US secretary of state Colin Powell had to say about the country when he visited in December 2003. “Our bilateral relationship is very, very strong,” said Powell. “We are great admirers of Tunisia and the progress that has been achieved under president Ben Ali’s leadership.” [...]

A visit to Tunisia by defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld in February 2006 proves even more revealing: “We have a very long relationship with Tunisia,” Rumsfeld remarked after the meetings. “Tunisia is a moderate Muslim nation that has been and is today providing very constructive leadership in the world. The struggle that’s taking place within that faith is a serious one, an important one. There’s a very small number of violent extremists on the one side against a broad, overwhelming majority of people who are moderate.”

Additionally, Rumsfeld, during a visit in 2006 seeking greater ties to Tunisia — where “freedoms of the press, association, and expression [were] extremely restricted” and much electoral opposition was outlawed — was quoted by the Associated Press as calling the country a “democracy“:

It should be noted that while high-officials in the Bush administration continued to lavish praise on Tunisia’s autocratic leader and seek closer ties to the country, American diplomatic staff bravely documented much of the government’s corruption and abuses towards its people. In a leaked American embassy cable dated June 23rd, 2008, an embassy staffer wrote that “the excesses of President Ben Ali’s family…inspire outrage” among Tunisians and that the “lack of transparency and accountability that characterize Tunisia’s political system similarly plague the economy, damaging the investment climate and fueling a culture of corruption.”

For more on the situation in Tunisia, see today’s Progress Report, “Arabs Doing It For Themselves.”

As ThinkProgress and The Progress Report have documented, there is a growing coalition of both Tea Party-backed conservatives and stalwart progressives who are coming together to demand cuts to the bloated defense budget. This coalition was given further momentum in late November, when 23 top conservative leaders wrote an open letter demanding that defense cuts be part of any comprehensive deficit reduction effort.

This morning, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) — “a group of over 165 House Republicans organized” around drafting and promoting conservative legislation — introduced its Spending Reduction Act. RSC Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), joined by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) — who plans to introduce a Senate companion to the bill — explained their legislation in today’s Washington Examiner. They advocate for cutting “non-defense discretionary spending to 2006 levels” and freezing spending at that level until 2012.

One thing they do not include are any cuts to military spending. In fact, the legislation does not even mention the Department of Defense. This completely flies in the face of the demands of many in the tea party movement and tea party-backed Republican politicians that back cuts in defense spending. Here are just some of these leaders in the Tea Party movement who advocated for defense cuts that did not make it into the RSC’s plan:

– GOP Sens. Pat Toomey (PA), Johnny Isakson (GA), Mark Kirk (IL), Bob Corker (TN), Mike Lee (UT) and Rand Paul (KY): All of these senators ran for office with the support of the Tea Party and all of them promised at one point or another to either cut waste or reduce the overall defense budget. The RSC plan does neither.

- Numerous GOP Reps., such as Eric Cantor (R-VA), Kevin Brady (R-TX), and John Campbell (R-CA): Most Republican members of the House of Representatives courted the Tea Party during this recent election. Campbell, a Tea Party-backed Republican, said recently that there should be “huge” cuts to the defense budget. Brady recently unveiled a proposal that would slash defense procurement by 15 percent. And Cantor has said that “everything has to be on the table” for spending cuts. And all three of these congressmen are actually members of the RSC that just ruled defense cuts off the table.

- Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips and Freedomworks CEO Matt Kibbe: As the head of their large right-wing advocacy organizations, Phillips and Kibbe both spent millions of dollars building and driving the Tea Party movement and electing Republicans. Both of them joined onto a letter of major conservative leaders written last month to the GOP leadership requesting that defense cuts be part of any deficit reduction package.

In addition to the growing calls for reducing military spending from the Tea Party movement, it is important to note that most Americans also view cuts to defense spending as the best place to make cuts. In a CBS News/Vanity Fair poll released earlier this month, cutting defense was the most popular option for reducing the deficit; five times as many people want to cut defense than want to cut popular social programs like Medicare and Social Security.

It appears that the leadership of the RSC — and DeMint, who warned shortly after the recent election that Republicans should “heed the call” of the Tea Party — is comfortable allowing Tea Party voters to bring them to power, but is now intent on ignoring what they actually want. The question is, will Tea Party activists demand that the legislators they brought into office listen to them, or will they simply allow their wishes to be ignored?

Via Steve Clemons, a number of prominent diplomats, analysts, and journalists have signed a letter to President Obama urging him “to instruct our Ambassador to the United Nations to vote yes” on a new UN resolution condemning Israel’s settlements and demanding that Israel “immediately and completely” cease all settlement activities “in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

The letter states:

The time has come for a clear signal from the United States to the parties and to the broader international community that the United States can and will approach the conflict with the objectivity, consistency and respect for international law required if it is to play a constructive role in the conflict’s resolution.

While a UNSC resolution will not resolve the issue of settlements or prevent further Israeli construction activity in the Occupied Territory, it is an appropriate venue for addressing these issues and for putting all sides on notice that the continued flouting of international legality will not be treated with impunity. Nor would such a resolution be incompatible with or challenge the need for future negotiations to resolve all outstanding issues, and it would in no way deviate from our strong commitment to Israel’s security.

The administration has made clear that it doesn’t currently support the resolution, even though it essentially reiterates the administration’s own stated position on settlements. As Tony Karon points out, the Palestinians taking the issue to the UN (again) is clearly “a vote of no-confidence in U.S. peacemaking efforts.”

While it would be great if the Arab states would put half as much time into supporting Palestinian reconciliation and state-building as they put into these kinds of UN gestures, it’s important to keep in mind that the settlement issue is not simply a matter of concern between the Palestinians, Israel, and the U.S. Stopping their construction is not some favor the U.S. is asking of an ally (even though Israel already committed to do so under the 2003 Road Map), but a matter of international law regarding the administration of occupied territory.

As former Palestinian peace negotiator Hanan Ashrawi writes in the International Herald Tribune today, “It is universally recognized that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, and that without a full cessation of all settlement activity, Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and the two-state solution are both doomed.”

This is not rocket science. Settlements are built on occupied Palestinian land. They also entail the exploitation of Palestine’s natural resources, including water. Both belong to a future Palestinian state. Without them, no Palestinian state can be viable.

The true impact of Israeli settlements is measured not only by the way they undermine the two-state solution; it is also the enormous damage they inflict on countless Palestinian communities.

There’s been a very active campaign by conservatives to downplay the significance of the settlements, but such arguments are unconvincing to anyone who’s actually visited the territories and and observed the deleterious impact on Palestinian life that’s required for the settlements’ ongoing growth, maintenance, and security. While it’s true that the settlements are only one of a number of key issues bedeviling negotiations, more than any other, it’s the issue that can — and will, if they haven’t already — make the two-state solution into an idea whose time has passed.