Recently, an independent report was released documenting the spending habits of the annual college football Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona. Investigators found that several Arizona lawmakers accepted gifts from Fiesta Bowl lobbyists. One of the politicians embroiled in the controversy is Arizona state Senate President Russell Pearce (R). The state lawmaker who rose to the limelight after introducing Arizona’s tough immigration law is reportedly among the public figures who were flown out to football games and accepted thousands of dollars worth of free tickets. The Arizona Republic reports:

The Fiesta Bowl investigative report clearly states, however, that Fiesta Bowl employees paid for and were reimbursed for non-Fiesta Bowl tickets given to Pearce in 2007 and 2008. The September 2007 tickets for the Navy/Air Force matchup were valued at $2,140. The September 2008 tickets to the University of Southern California/Ohio State matchup were valued at $4,060, the report said.

Lawmakers are required to report any single gift or accumulated gifts in excess of $500 or more in personal financial-disclosure statements. However, in many cases they did not appear to properly follow those reporting rules.

Pearce, for example, stated on a financial-disclosure statement covering May 2007 through May 2008 that he received a gift from the Insight Bowl. But more recent reports do not list any such line items. Pearce’s older reports were not immediately available for inspection, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Pearce prides himself as being a defender of the rule of law. In fact, he has often claimed that his moral rectitude is deeply intertwined with his Mormon faith. Yet, as the Arizona Republic notes, Pearce may have broken the law. Arizona state statutes prohibit state employees and elected officials from accepting tickets or “admission to any sporting or cultural event” for free. Pearce is also a tea party conservative who assumed his post promising a “bottom-up approach that listens to the people’s will on fiscal accountability issues.” As chairman of the Senate’s Appropriations Committee, he has stated, “I am the gate keeper not the gift giver.” Apparently just a gift receiver.

He has not responded to numerous requests for comment.

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ), Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John McCain (R-AZ) are also implicated in the Fiesta Bowl controversy.

Speaking with the Scranton Times-Tribune on Tuesday, freshman lawmaker Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) expressed mixed opinions about the Obama administration’s actions in Libya. He told the paper that he “supports” the intervention, but wishes that the administration had consulted with Congress first.

Marino, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House subcommittee on issues related to African foreign policy, then posed an odd question:

“Where does it stop?” he said. “Do we go into Africa next? I don’t want to sound callous or cold, but this could go on indefinitely around the world.”

Competing for the most confused assertion on Libya, Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA), Marino’s colleague in the House and the other lawmaker quoted in the Times-Tribune article, echoed an argument made by Libya strongman Muammar Qaddafi by floating the idea that the idea that al Qaeda may be in control of the rebel forces in Libya. As the paper noted, “At the moment, there are no indications of al-Qaida influence among the rebels.”

Two weeks ago, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) signed off on a bundle of immigration bills that were introduced as proactive alternatives to the Arizona copycat bill which was also signed into law. One of the measures will allow undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements to carry a state-issued guest worker permit. A separate bill will create a migrant worker partnership with Mexico and the third will allow Utahns to sponsor migrants wanting to work or study in the state.

Today, opponents of those bills launched a new website called www.repeal116.com. The site was started by the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration which includes the Citizens Council on Illegal Immigration, CitizensForTaxFairness.org, Constitution Coalition, Constitution Party of Utah, Utahns for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, the Utah Eagle Forum and the Utah Minuteman Project. Brandon Beckham, a Republican state delegate with his own new media firm which helped develop the site hopes to use the website to “emphasize the consequences of our elected officials’ actions…while also encouraging them to step up and do the right thing — repeal HB116.”

As part of that effort, the front page of the website contains a video featuring state Rep. Chris Herrod (R). Herrod lamenting that “political correctness is used to shut down debate.” Herrod calls on “brave individuals” to face down the threat of being called “racist”:

Many fail to realize how radically different immigration trends are today than in the past. Our melting pot is in danger. Tolerating illegal immigration is wrong, sometimes we’re not quite sure how to explain it. Tolerating illegal immigration is actually a racist position.

Most of us simply understand the importance of the rule of law and that it is wrong to discriminate against the millions of immigrants who are waiting patiently in line to come to the country legally.

Watch it:

Herrod goes on to complain that a large portion of undocumented immigrants are poor Latin American immigrants and not middle class Mexicans and Europeans who want to come to the U.S. He’s not the first person to accuse immigration advocates of reverse racism.

Yet, the U.S. immigration quota system already takes into account the number and makeup of immigrants who can legally enter the United States — something which actually puts countries like Mexico at a disadvantage because the demand to legally enter the U.S. is so high. Mexicans who want to come to the U.S. may have to wait 18 years or more for a visa.

Herrod is right about the fact that several members of his party have a difficult time talking about immigration without being called racist. For example, there’s the Kansas state Representative who said we should shoot immigrants like “wild swine” and the Alabama state Senator who advised Republicans to “empty the clip, and do what has to be done” to stop immigrants from “destroying” his community. Meanwhile, no one is really talking about tolerating illegal immigration. The debate is largely divided between those advocating for tolerance and constructive solutions and those who promote just the opposite.

The Christian Broadcasting Network’s Erick Stakelbeck reports that “New evidence has emerged that the Iranian government sees the current unrest in the Middle East as a signal that the Mahdi–or Islamic messiah–is about to appear”:

CBN News has obtained a never-before-seen video produced by the Iranian regime that says all the signs are moving into place — and that Iran will soon help usher in the end times.

While the revolutionary movements gripping the Middle East have created uncertainty throughout the region, the video shows that the Iranian regime believes the chaos is divine proof that their ultimate victory is at hand.

But according to Israeli Iran analyst Meir Javedanfar, who has seen the the never-before-seen video, it actually shows no such thing. Javedanfar — who wrote a biography of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which he devoted an entire chapter to beliefs about the Mahdi — said via email that the video “is so inaccurate in its contents and predictions that it has raised the ire of the senior clergy at the Bright Futures Institute, which specializes in all matters relating to the issue of the hidden Imam, and is the highest religious authority in Iran with regards to this matter”:

According to an article in the Tehran based Tabnak, which is owned by Mohsen Rezai, the former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Hojjatolislam Javad Jaafri, a member of the board of the Bright Future institute called the movie a “deviation” and asked for its makers to be confronted by the law.

In Iran, predictions about the Mahdi’s imminent return are not in short supply. Some con men do it to make a quick buck, others do it for political purposes, such as members of the Basij. None have religious standing, nor do they have an impact on the decision making of the Supreme Leader who has the final say on all matters, because he is not a messianic.

The video “seems to have been produced by Ahmadinejad’s hardline Basiji supporters, and its biggest goal is to discredit the opposition which consists of Mousavi, Karroubi and Rafsanjani,” concluded Javedanfar. “It’s a political video. It has little religious substance.”

Javedanfar’s comments about the absence of messianic beliefs driving Iranian policy also concur with the analysis of Mehdi Khalaji, an Iran analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who spent years studying Shia theology in the Iranian seminary city of Qom. In a 2008 report entitled “Apocalyptic Politics: On the Rationality of Iranian Policy,” Khalaji wrote that there is no evidence that Iranian strategy is guided by a desire to hasten the Mahdi’s return, and that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is much more concerned with the here and now:

Not one of [Khamenei's] speeches refers to any apocalyptic sign or reveals any special eagerness for the return of the Hidden Imam. As the theory of the guardianship of the jurist requires, the most significant task of the Supreme Leader is to safeguard the regime, even by overruling Islamic law.

It’s true that some Iranian leaders, most notably President Ahmadinejad, believe in the return of the Mahdi and the End Times. It’s also true that Ahmadinejad, a pious conservative Muslim, lards his speeches with references to the Hidden Imam, so much so that he’s been publicly chastised in the past by leading Iranian clerics, who told him he “would be better off concentrating on Iran’s social problems…than indulging in such mystical rhetoric”:

“If Ahmadinejad wants to say that the hidden imam is supporting the decisions of the government, it is not true,” sniped Gholam Reza Mesbahi Moghadam, the spokesman of the conservative Association of Combatant Clerics.

“For sure, the hidden imam does not approve of inflation of 20 percent, the high cost of living and numerous other errors,” he said, according to the Kargozaran daily.

Ali Asghari, a member of the conservative Hezbollah faction in parliament, told the president not to link the management of the country to the imam.

“Ahmadinejad would do better to worry about social problems like inflation … and other terrestrial affairs,” Etemad Melli daily quoted him as saying.

As for the video “evidence” that Iran’s leaders are itching to trigger the apocalypse, it seems that what we have is here is a work of intra-Iranian factional propaganda produced by an Iranian version of Glenn Beck or Frank Gaffney, which has already been roundly criticized in Iran by far more authoritative scholars and clerics, but is now being peddled to credulous Americans as a secret look into the minds of the madmen who run Iran. Iran certainly represents a challenge for U.S. interests and allies in the region, but promoting this sort of hysterical nonsense actually detracts from our ability to effectively meet that challenge.

It’s enormously amusing, of course, that this story should originate with CBN News, of all places. Elsewhere on CBN’s website, CBN founder Pat Robertson answers your questions about the End Times, which he, like other clerics John Hagee and Franklin Graham, has been scheduling for years.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a young Mexican police sheriff — Marisol Valles — who had fled her post in one of the country’s most dangerous regions to seek asylum in the U.S. While it’s clear that Valles certainly is one of many people to be in that situation, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) recently released a report which sheds some light on the number of people who are coming to the U.S. from Latin America as a result of drug cartel violence in the region.

According to the report, “by the end of 2010, as many as 5.4 million people were internally displaced due to armed conflict, violence, and human rights violations in the Americas.” In comparison, 3.9 million were displaced in the Middle East at the end of the year largely due to armed conflicts. The IDMC claims that, in Mexico alone, about 230,000 people have been displaced because of drug violence. While approximately 115,000 of those Mexicans were internally displaced within the country, the IDMC notes that the other half of those displaced “crossed the border into the United States.” These figures don’t include the Central American nation of Guatemala, which is also experiencing high levels of violence.

Meanwhile, those who seek asylum face an uphill battle. In order to qualify, asylum applicants must prove “credible fear” based on their membership in a social, political, religious, or ethnic group that has been targeted for persecution. While asylum applicants who are fleeing Latin America’s drug violence can usually prove they have a good reason to fear for their lives, persecution is difficult to establish. Less than two percent of the 3,800 Mexican asylum petitions were approved last year.

While some legal experts are advocating for a broader set of asylum criteria, the courts have been slow to respond and it seems unlikely that all 115,000 displaced people would meet even the most expansive asylum standards that have been discussed. Others have suggested lobbying the federal government to grant drug war victims “Temporary Protected Status,” a temporary immigration status that is available to individuals from a small number of federally-designated countries suffering armed conflicts, natural disasters, or other extraordinary circumstances. However, that option is highly controversial.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) also released a report this week which warns, “the unchecked power and violence of these Mexican DTOs [drug trafficking organizations] present a substantial humanitarian concern and have contributed to forced migration and numerous U.S. asylum requests. If the situation were to worsen, a humanitarian emergency might lead to an unmanageable flow of people into the United States.” According to CFR, the U.S. bears part of the responsibility “given that U.S. drug consumption, firearms, and cash have fueled much of Mexico’s recent violence.” They recommend “bolster[ing] U.S. domestic law enforcement efforts to curb illicit drug distribution, firearms smuggling, and money laundering” and making “an overall commitment to preventing and treating drug abuse and other societal ills caused by drugs and reevaluate the effectiveness of current U.S. and international drug policies.”

Ultimately, it’s probably safe to say that many — if not most — of the immigrants coming to the U.S. are driven by economics more than the drug war. Yet, as the drug-related violence in Latin America escalates, dealing with migration to the North may start to require addressing U.S. drug and gun policies along with the nation’s broken immigration system itself.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) held a town hall meeting at the Alaska Business Roundtable last week where he covered a variety of issues in discussions with his constituents, including his intention to vote against any funding for combat operations in Libya.

At one point, Benjamin E. Brown, a member of the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, asked Young for his feelings on Western military intervention in Libya. Before the congressman addressed Libya, he pointed out that he supported the war in Iraq but opposes the war in Afghanistan, citing imperial blunders by previous world powers in the region:

YOUNG: I’m a hawk. I supported the Iraqi war. I think it was the correct thing to do. But this [referring to Libya] deeply disturbs me. I do not support the war in Afghanistan. Because there is no way you can be successful in that arena. Alexander the great tried it, the British tired it, the Russians tried it, now we’re trying it.

Watch it:

Young’s criticism of the Afghan war is laudable, especially at a time when polls show that two-thirds of Americans want an end to the conflict. There’s just one problem: Young’s voting doesn’t match his rhetoric. Exactly one week before the event at the Alaska Business Roundtable, Young voted against a resolution calling for an end to the war in Afghanistan — and when he was campaigning for his seat last fall, he claimed that leaving Afghanistan would be tantamount to “surrender.” Young’s constituents deserve to know the truth about his voting record and he shouldn’t tell them he believes one thing and then vote a different way.

Shirley Matson, a county assessor in central Nevada’s Nye County, was reprimanded last Friday for blasting out “blatantly racist” emails to the local sheriff asking him to investigate the citizenship status of workers building a new county jail. According to county commissioners, Matson violated the county’s personal conduct policy.

In her correspondence to the sheriff, Matson wrote that her staff and the public “can plainly see that the construction employees are all Mexican/Latino non-English speaking and I’m getting complaints.” Matson went on to say, “When I worked for Pardee Homes in San Diego that got fined for using illegals millions of dollars because of the shabby construction work, illegals can’t read blueprints, duh! let alone any other important construction instructions. I could go on and on…..but I need to go to work.”

The county assessor’s criticism wasn’t limited to immigrant construction workers. “I would never have a uneducated illegal hater of Americans watch my children or clean my house, they can’t read and have no idea what directions are listed on cleaning supplies, that’s just one example,” wrote Matson.

Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo responded that he has “no legal reason to investigate the workers’ status.” “That’s what we call racial profiling,” DeMeo told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I’m in favor of supporting the Constitution,” DeMeo said. “People (like Matson) want to wrap themselves in the flag but they don’t think the law should apply to anyone but them.” Commissioner Joni Eastley publicly scolded Matson, stating, “Your racially charged and insensitive comments were wholly inappropriate and volatile and they were sent under the seal of Nye County…We don’t tolerate racists.”

Although utterly reprehensible, Matson’s comments pale in comparison to recent remarks made by other local Republican elected officials across the country. From the Kansas state Representative who said we should shoot immigrants like “wild swine,” to the Alabama state Senator who advised Republicans to “empty the clip, and do what has to be done” to stop immigrants from “destroying” his community, hate speech against immigrants is unfortunately nothing new in mainstream politics.

The Nye County commissioners “could do little more than issue a public reprimand” because Matson is an elected official. Matson is reportedly “unapologetic.” However, the five county commissioners who unanimously agreed to stand up against Matson’s troubling remarks should set a precedent that will hopefully be followed in Kansas where over 55,000 people have signed on to a petition seeking the resignation of state Rep. Virgil Peck (R).

ThinkProgress filed this report from the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines, IA.

For years, former UN Ambassador John Bolton has been on a one-man mission to open up a new war in Iran. Last fall, he called for an immediate attack on Iran “in the next eight days.” When that didn’t happen, Bolton pointed to the downfall of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak this winter as a reason to “speed that timetable up” on an Iranian attack.

ThinkProgress spoke with Bolton, who is weighing a run for the Republican presidential nomination, at the Conservative Principles Conference in Iowa. Despite current military engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, Bolton urged the United States to also keep its focus on “the great risk” of Iran. When asked whether our bombing of Libya means we’re shifting focus away from Iran, Bolton argued for attacking both, declaring “I think a president’s got to walk and chew gum at the same time”:

KEYES: You’ve been a real leader on engaging in confrontation with Iran. Do you think the situation in Libya makes that more or less pressing to engage and potentially attack Iran?

BOLTON: I think Iran is currently taking advantage of the turmoil in the Middle East to advance its own hegemonic aspirations in the region. It’s clearly interfered in the situation in Bahrain and it would like to interfere in Saudi Arabia. I think the real essence of the problem long-term is Iran’s continuing support for terrorism, it’s continuing pursuit of nuclear weapons. As we focus on Libya or Egypt or other headlines of the day, we shouldn’t lose sight that the great conflict, the great risk is an expansive Iran.

KEYES: Would you say we’re taking our eye off the ball of attacking Iran?

BOLTON: I think a president’s got to walk and chew gum at the same time. Part of the problem is the president doesn’t even like to be involved in the foreign affairs field, and when he does get involved his attention appears episodic. Having sent American forces into combat in Libya, he went to South America.

Watch it:

Despite Tea Party rumblings about the size of the federal debt, Bolton is urging the country to get engaged in another costly and open-ended war. As ThinkProgress noted, in FY2011, the Afghan war alone cost $113 billion, enough money to pay for over 1.6 million teachers, firefighters, or police officers.

Yesterday, I wrote about Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) proposal to deny pregnant undocumented women access to prenatal care assistance. I argued that Walker’s position runs counter to his vehemently “pro-life” crusade. In the post, I also mentioned that when the state of Nebraska debated a similar proposal, anti-choice groups strongly opposed denying undocumented women prenatal care because it put “borders ahead of babies.”

It turns out that many of their worst fears have come true. The Lincoln Journal Star reports that preventing undocumented women from accessing prenatal care assistance has had “dramatic effects”:

The elimination one year ago of Medicaid funding for prenatal care for about 1,600 low-income women has had dramatic effects, doctors and health clinic administrators reported Wednesday. At least five babies have died. Women are traveling 155 miles to get prenatal care. Babies have been delivered at clinics, in ambulances and hospital emergency rooms. [...]

Andrea Skolkin, chief executive officer of One World Community Health Centers in Omaha, said that in the past year, only about half of uninsured women are receiving any prenatal care. The health center has more premature births to uninsured women, compared to insured women. Uninsured mothers were twice as likely to deliver through cesarean section, which is more expensive. [...] Four infants died in utero at the Columbus health center, she said. In the previous seven years, the clinic had never had an in utero death.

Nebraska state Sen. Kathy Campbell (R) has introduced a bill that would reinstate the prenatal care. “We need to be pro-life from cradle to grave, to err on the side of compassion and stay grounded in family values,” stated the Rev. Howard Dotson of Omaha’s Westminster Presbyterian Church who testified in support of the bill.

However, opposition to Campbell’s bill is largely ideological. “Our position is that we shouldn’t be spending any money for people who are here illegally,” stated Vivianne Chaumont, director of the state’s Medicaid division who testified in opposition to the bill. Dr. Caron Gray, from Creighton University Medical Center and clinics called Chaumont out, stating, “We can sit here and talk about costs as much as we would like, but I think we really need to be honest about what this is truly about … political beliefs and standing on what to do with immigration.”

Meanwhile, while Nebraska is forcing some women to watch their babies die due to lack of prenatal care assistance, another woman also had to experience the same “torture” because the state would not allow her to terminate her pregnancy even after doctors told her that her child would not live.

ThinkProgress filed this report from West Des Moines, IA.

On Wednesday, ThinkProgress broke the story of presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich’s brazen flip-flop concerning the American response to the crisis in Libya. After our article was published, Gingrich’s campaign offered one incoherent and contradictory response after another, even committing another flip-flop last night on Fox News in the process. The flap earned Gingrich a “full flop” from the non-partisan PolitiFact’s Truth-o-Meter.

ThinkProgress confronted the former House Speaker over his evolving position on Libya at an event in Iowa today. Gingrich stuck to his guns, declaring that it was “inaccurate” of PolitiFact to say he had flip-flopped on Libya. When asked to respond to his own 2004 declaration that “you can’t flip-flop and be commander-in-chief,” Gingrich brushed off his own standard, maintaining that if people “look at what I actually said[,] they’ll find I didn’t flip-flop”:

KEYES: Is it possible to get your thoughts real quick on the Libya situation? I know that PolitiFact said that it was a total, a “full flip-flop.” What’s your response to that?

GINGRICH: It’s inaccurate. I have responded since the middle of February to this situation as it changed. And obviously as the facts change the analysis changes. I’ve consistently worked through exactly where we were at any given moment.

KEYES: I know in 2004 you were quoted as saying that “you can’t flip-flop and be commander-in-chief.” What would you say to critics who would point to that?

GINGRICH: I would say that they should look at what I actually said and they’ll find I didn’t flip-flop.

Watch it:

If you take a look at “what he actually said,” you’ll find that Newt has flip-flopped not once, but twice. Watch them both:

As ThinkProgress reported Wednesday, former Speaker of the House and current presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has had a hard time defining his position on American intervention in Libya. While Gingrich may be the most high-profile flip-flopper, he’s certainly not the only one to have changed his position. In fact, ABC News reports that multiple Republican members of Congress have conveniently shifted their positions on Libya to keep themselves on the opposite side of the issue from President Obama.

In a Feb. 26 press release, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) called for a no-fly zone, saying:

“[S]tronger penalties must be imposed in order to hold the regime accountable for its heinous crimes, and to prevent further violence against the Libyan people. … Additional U.S. and international measures should include the establishment and enforcement of a no-fly zone.”

Ros-Lehtinen, however, expressed new-found reservations in a March 26 release, saying she is “concerned” about the enforcement of the no-fly zone.

Similarly, on March 9, House Armed Services Committee Chair Buck McKeon (R-CA) criticized President Obama for not taking action, saying, “He’s doing a great job of doing nothing on Libya.” But eleven days later, after Obama announced the intervention, McKeon held a different position:

I am concerned that the use of military force in the absence of clear political objectives for our country risks entrenching the United States in a humanitarian mission whose scope and duration are not known at this point and cannot be controlled by us.

And then there is Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s panel on the Middle East. McCaul announced Thursday that the administration had missed its window of opportunity for a successful intervention. “We had an opportunity ten days ago,” McCaul said. “We failed in that.”

However, just six days before deciding Obama was 10 days too late, McCaul supported the administration’s decision to use military force.

“Gadhafi’s heinous crimes against his own people warrant prompt action in order to mitigate the loss of life, to allow for uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid and to ensure a more peaceful resolution of conflict between the Libyan government and its citizens.”

Not to be outdone, Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), who sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security, called for intervention in a Feb. 22 press release:

“The United States Must Support These Brave Men and Women Who are Seeking to Throw Off the Shackles of Tyranny in Libya.” “The unrest in Libya is another sign that our nation must take action to protect our vital national interests and support the efforts of those who are seeking freedom across the globe,” she said then.

And yet, after Obama took action, Miller accused him of doing so without “clearly stating to the American people the compelling national interest” of intervening.

Last night, Gingrich hinted that his apparent flip-flops were actually just individual responses to positions taken by Obama. Apparently, these four lawmakers were reading from the same playbook. No matter the decision Obama makes, they’ll be there to oppose it.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich went on Fox News last night to “attempt[] to clarify [his] stance on Libya,” as Fox itself put it, but only ran into more trouble. Gingrich has been in hot water since ThinkProgress caught him doing a complete 180 reversal on his stance regarding intervention in Libya — from demanding intervention “this evening” to saying “I would not have intervened.”

Gingrich has since tried multiple times to rectify the two conflicting statements, failing to do so each time. And last night with Greta Van Susteren, the same show where his Libya problems first began, Gingrich only dug himself deeper when he attacked Obama for making a “fundamental mistake” by relying on air power to protect civilians in Libya:

GINGRICH: If they’re serious about protecting civilians, you can’t do that from the air. Gadaffi is going to use light infantry, he’s going to use his secret police. He’s going to be in the cities, he’s going to be inside buildings. Your not going to be able to do that with air power. This is a fundamental mistake. And I think is a typical politician’s over-reliance on air power.

But two weeks ago on the exact same program, Gingrich said “all we have to do” to stop the Qadaffi regime from “slaughtering your own citizens” is use air power:

GINGRICH: All we have to say is that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable, and we’re intervening. And we don’t have to send troops, all we have to do is suppress his air force, which we can do in minutes. And then we have to say, publicly, that he is gone, that the military should switch sides now. … The fact there’s no more Libya air power, and the fact that the United States has come out decisively for replacing him, I suspect the military will dump him.

Watch a compilation:

Gingrich tried to explain his incoherent stances by telling Van Susteren that he is merely responding to what Obama does. “I was responding in each case to changes in Obama’s positon,” he said last night. Indeed, no matter what Obama does, Gingrich will be sure to oppose it — even if he supported that exact policy two weeks ago.

When Arizona passed SB-1070 last year, the state began to feel the economic pain almost immediately due to a boycott that was organized in response. This past fall, the Center for American Progress, along with the consulting firm Elliott D. Pollack & Company, found that the boycott itself could cost the State Convention Industry 2,800 jobs and $141 million.

Today, the Center for American Progress, together with the Immigration Policy Center, released a report that details the more long-term economic effects of the law itself. According to the study, the SB-1070 approach “would have devastating economic consequences” if its goal of driving out undocumented immigrants was accomplished. “Driving the undocumented immigrants out of Arizona would lead to significant losses of jobs for both native-born and foreign-born workers,” states the report. “It would trigger a significant contraction of the state economy as it struggles to grow its way past the Great Recession. And it would lead to substantial lost tax revenue for the state government which is already reeling from the recession and high unemployment.”

The report compares the cost of mass deportation versus the economic benefits associated with legalizing Arizona’s undocumented population:

Deportation effects in Arizona

Decrease total employment by 17.2 percent

Eliminate 581,000 jobs for immigrant and native-born workers alike

Shrink state economy by $48.8 billion

Reduce state tax revenues by 10.1 percent

Legalization effects in Arizona

Increase total employment by 7.7 percent

Add 261,000 jobs for immigrant and native-born workers alike

Increase labor income by $5.6 billion

Increase tax revenues by $1.68 billion

The report does not include an analysis of the costs associated with defending SB-1070 in court. Since Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) signed the bill into law in April, the state of Arizona has spent over $1.5 million fighting legal challenges against it and will likely spend even more as the lawsuit moves its way through the courts.

Arizona is currently facing an estimated $825 million budget deficit. Brewer has already proposed a budget containing $1 billion in spending reductions to Medicaid and other services. Republicans are now demanding another $600 million in additional spending cuts, including $200 million from K-12 education.

Describing Islamism as “a relic of the 20th century, a discredited orthodoxy of limited appeal to the Arab masses,” Ray Takeyh warns that “History has shown“, however, that well-organized parties of circumscribed appeal can nevertheless assume greater influence by exploiting the disarray of transition periods and divisions within democratic camps”:

The problem is compounded by the temptation among many in the West to appeal to the “political” wing of militant organizations such as Hezbollah or to reach out to “moderate” elements of Islamist parties. The challenge for Washington today is not to cling to some kind of ecumenical spirit but to actively choose sides and fortify the political center against forces of intolerance.

Many in the West presume that once Islamist parties are integrated into the political order, the burdens of governance — compromise, coalition-building and constituency maintenance — will inevitably lead them to dispense with their ideological past. Such liberal conceits do a disservice to the Muslim Brotherhood and its many offspring, denigrating their commitment to their dogma.

Whether or not Islamism is a discredited relic of the 20th century, as Takeyh claims, he’s quite right that well-organized factions with limited appeal can exploit periods of transition to ensconce themselves in positions of influence (he should go down the hall and ask his CFR colleague Elliott Abrams about that). But the U.S. simply should not be in the business of picking winners in the new Middle East. Our focus should be on assisting in the creation of strong, accountable and transparent processes and institutions, not on selecting the people who should run them.

As for Takeyh’s claim that Islamists are not likely to “dispense with their ideological past,” we should note that, at least as regards their embrace of the democratic process, the Islamists of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood have already dispensed with a significant part of that past. Their critics among hardcore Salafists like Al Qaeda, who’ve labeled the Brotherhood a bunch of Westernized sell-outs, certainly seem to think so.

I would also offer — and I’m continually struck by how curious it is that an Iraq war critic like me has to be the one to keep pointing this out — that the behavior of Islamist politicians and parties in Iraq offers evidence against Takeyh’s claim. Despite being “discredited relics of the 20th century,” and despite U.S. attempts to empower slick, Westernized hucksters like Ahmad Chalabi, Islamist parties have consistently done pretty well in Iraqi elections. Once in power these actors immediately began transforming Iraq into an Islamic state behaving like politicians, squabbling over power and resources, both on behalf of themselves and on behalf of the constituencies to which they are now accountable. Iraq is still bedeviled by enormous problems, and probably will be for some time, but its elected Islamist leaders plotting to transform Iraq into the seat of the new Caliphate does not appear to be among them.

As I wrote in the American Prospect shortly after the Egyptian demonstrations began, developing a coherent approach to the fact of political Islam is imperative to establishing a new U.S. relationship with the peoples of the Middle East, one not governed by the transactional imperatives of counter-terrorism or access to oil (though, of course, both of those things will continue to be important, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise). Obviously its important not to kid ourselves that Islamists are liberals in Islamic dress, or that they represent some sort of “authentic” voice that secular Arabs do not. But it’s unrealistic to think that we can marginalize religion in the politics of the Middle East, any more than we can in our own. And, frankly, given the religious nature of our own politics compared to those of other Western countries, Americans should know better than others that faith and politics can co-exist non-violently, if not always peacefully or comfortably, if contained within pluralistic systems that secure peoples’ basic rights.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has been criticized for going after students, teachers, seniors, and poor people in his attempt to balance the state budget without raising taxes or fees.

ThinkProgress recently reported that Walker is also proposing to repeal Wisconsin’s Contraceptive Equity Law that requires insurance companies to cover prescription birth control. It turns out that while Walker wants to deny women the right to plan their future, he also wants to prevent undocumented women who are already pregnant from accessing prenatal care.

Walker’s prenatal care proposal contradicts his own anti-choice position which has essentially translated into a crusade against abortion. Walker has often described himself “100 percent pro-life” and opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest. “I believe in protecting life from conception to natural death,” states Walker on his website. As an assemblyman, Walker fought to ban “partial-birth” abortions that could save a mother’s life and prevent state and local government employees from “promoting, encouraging, or counseling in favor of abortion services.” During his campaign for governor, he made a pledge to Pro-Life Wisconsin, an organization that opposes abortion without exception, that he would seek an absolute ban on abortion.

Anti-choice groups have embraced Walker’s position on abortion, but they may not agree with his attack on undocumented women. Anti-abortion activists have often been staunch supports of ensuring that undocumented women have access to prenatal care assistance, arguing that it “improves the chances that a woman will choose to give birth rather than seek an abortion.”

When Nebraska debated the prenatal care issue, Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, stated, “We don’t accept that borders should be put ahead of babies.” In 2010, a local newspaper reported that at least seven women in Nebraska had abortions because they couldn’t afford the cost of prenatal care since the state stopped paying for it.

In the long term, Walker’s prenatal care proposal will probably cost Wisconsin more money than it saves. Undocumented women who choose to follow through with their pregnancies give birth to U.S. citizens who are entitled to benefits. Jennifer L. Howse of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation argues that “the cumulative weight of many studies is that prenatal care saves lives and money by reducing the number of babies born needing expensive neonatal care.” Dan Agin of the University of Chicago further notes that inadequate prenatal care is a tremendous health risk for both the mother and her child. “No pediatrician will deny this,” writes Agin.

Walker also wants to repeal in-state tuition for undocumented students and eliminate Food Share benefits for legal immigrants. He supports passing an enforcement-only immigration law modeled after Arizona’s that will likely cost his state millions of dollars.

Earlier today, ThinkProgress exposed that Newt Gingrich completely reversed his position on Libya. On March 7th he criticized Obama for not acting on Libya and said he would “exercise a no-fly zone this evening.” This morning Gingrich said, “I would not have intervened.” Watch:

What’s followed has been a series of convoluted and contradictory explanations. The latest is a first person statement posted to his Facebook page. The thrust of his Facebook post is that he believes Obama should not have publicly stated that Qaddafi needed to go on March 3:

On March 3rd, President Obama said publicly that “it’s time for Gadaffi to go.”

Prior to this statement, there were options to be indirect and subtle to achieve this result without United States military forces. I made this point on The Today Show this morning, saying “I would not have intervened…there were a lot of other ways to affect Qaddafi…I would not have used American and European forces.”

The president, however, took those options off the table with his public statement.

But in February, Gingrich said precisely the opposite on Fox News. He very clearly stated that Obama should publicly support the ouster of Qaddafi. From Politico on February 22 (text and video):

“If you are the Libyans…you are able to to suppress your people and the American government stays quiet”

…

“I wish the administration — the Obama administration was as enthusiastic about democracy in Libya and in Iran and in other countries as it was in Egypt, which was our ally.

“Qadhafi’s been our enemy for years. This is an opportunity to replace that dictatorship, and I think the United States ought to be firmly on the side of the Libyan people in replacing this administration.“

Gingrich has now responded on Twitter, through a spokesperson and on Facebook. Each time, Gingrich only further contradicts his prior positions, digging his hole deeper.

As ThinkProgress noted this morning, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has undergone a remarkable transformation in his views about intervening in Libya. On March 7, before President Obama acted, Gingrich said that if it were up to him, he would “exercise a no-fly zone this evening…the United States doesn’t need anybody’s permission.” Then, less than 24 hours after President Obama signed off on a no-fly zone, Gingrich accused him of “opportunism,” and this morning on the Today Show, said plainly that “I would not have intervened.”

When asked by Rolling Stone on Twitter this afternoon about the contradiction, Gingrich offered a confusing reply:

First, Gingrich’s assertion that he would use “allies” and not Americans — which he also said on the Today Show this morning — is a direct contradiction to the earlier interview in which he dismisses the need for allies. “We don’t need to have NATO, who frankly, won’t bring much to the fight. We don’t need to have the United Nations,” he said earlier this month.

Gingrich’s explanation that that Obama “changed the choice” on March 3 makes no sense. That excuse ignores the fact that both of Gingrich’s contradictory statements came after March 3. Again, he strongly advocated intervention on March 7 and slammed Obama for doing so on March 20.

Obama has been consistent about his desire to see Qaddafi relinquish power, as have other world leaders. Obama joined an international effort to protect the rebels, which is what Newt originally advocated (“All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening,”) before explicitly denouncing that justification. (“The standard [Obama] has fallen back to of humanitarian intervention could apply to Sudan, to North Korea, to Zimbabwe, to Syria this week, to Yemen, to Bahrain.”)

So what is Newt’s point? That’s not really clear. Except that Obama is wrong.

This morning, a bomb struck a bus in downtown Jerusalem, killing one person and injuring dozens more. Jerusalem police called it a “terrorist attack,” the first in Jerusalem in seven years. President Obama condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayad have also condemned the attack.

Even before the street had been cleared, however, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee blasted an email out to its supporters in a crass attempt to raise money off the attack:

While Jerusalem has been relatively quiet over the past years, the occupation of the West Bank — which, despite the lack of attention to it, is a constant, humiliating reality of Palestinian life — ensures that tensions always remain at a simmer. Settler activity over the past couple years in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem like Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families have been evicted to make way for Jewish ones, have ratcheted up tension to an alarming degree. The horrific murders in the Itamar settlement earlier this month added more fuel to the fire, and the recent exchange of fire between Hamas and the Israeli army in Gaza has added more. There is a real danger now of things spiraling out of control. It’s disgraceful that AIPAC’s first response to this tragedy is to try and monetize it.

Earlier this month, former Speaker of the House and current presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich was hammering President Obama for not intervening in Libya. Asked, “what would you do about Libya?” Gingrich responded:

Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … We don’t need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.

During appearances that same day, Gingrich also said that he would provide help to the Libyan rebels on top of the no-fly zone: “This is a moment to get rid of him. Do it. Get it over with.” He later mocked Obama for filling out an NCAA bracket while France took the lead on intervention.

Now that Obama has initiated a no-fly zone over Libya, Gingrich has completely reversed his position with no apparent explanation. He told Politico over the weekend — less than 24 hours after Obama took action — that “it is impossible to make sense of the standard for intervention in Libya except opportunism and news media publicity.” This morning on the Today Show, he said plainly, “I would not have intervened”:

GINGRICH: The standard [Obama] has fallen back to of humanitarian intervention could apply to Sudan, to North Korea, to Zimbabwe, to Syria this week, to Yemen, to Bahrain. … The Arab League wanted us to do something. The minute we did something, the Arab League began criticizing us doing it. I think that two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a lot. I think that the problems we have in Pakistan, Egypt — go around the region. We could get engaged by this standard in all sorts of places. I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Qaddafi. I think there are a lot of other allies in the region we could have worked with. I would not have used American and European forces.

Watch it:

Speaking of “opportunism and news media publicity,” there is no other reasonable explanation for Gingrich’s complete flip-flop, which went unchallenged by Today Show host Matt Lauer.

In an additional dose of hypocrisy, Gingrich said of the Libyan intervention: “This is about as badly run as any foreign operation we’ve seen in our lifetime.” This shows once again that Iraq War hawks like Gingrich have very short memories.

Last week, Arizona state Senator Lori Klein (R) read a letter on immigration on the state Senate floor as the legislature considered a bill that would have required public schools to verify immigration status. The letter was written by a substitute teacher who complained about an “invasion” of Latino students in his class who didn’t want to say the pledge of allegiance and would rather join gangs than go to school:

I have found that substitute teaching in these areas most of the Hispanic students do not want to be educated but rather be gang members and gangsters. They hate America and are determined to reclaim this area for Mexico. If we are able to remove the illegals out of our schools, the class sizes would be reduced and the students who wanted to learn would have a better chance to do so and become productive citizens.

I applaud and support your efforts to stop this invasion into our state and country. When the citizens of a country are forced to speak the invaders language, adopt their customs, and forced to support them, are we not a conquer nation? I do not want to see our state and nation turned into a third world country. Thank you for standing up to this invasion.

Watch ABC15′s news coverage:

Initially, the name of the letter’s author was not released. However, when people started to question whether the letter was doctored, the man’s name was released. Tony Hill claims that “an unusually disheartening day” at Glendale middle-school motivated him to write a letter to state Senate President Russell Pearce (R). He reportedly stands by his statements but regrets sending the letter because of the media attention it has attracted.

However, Hill’s colleagues don’t agree. David Hume, spokesman for the Pendergast Elementary School District, told a local news station that the observations in Hill’s letter “do not represent any typical educational environment in Pendergast schools. The remarks do not warrant any legitimate response.” Danielle Airey of Peoria Unified School District similarly stated, “The type of behavior described in this letter is not typical of our 8th grade classrooms. What you would expect to find as typical in our schools are classrooms where teachers are focused on instruction and students are engaged in learning. We would expect any of our teachers, including substitute teachers, to handle inappropriate behavior through our discipline process or by bringing it to the attention of the principal.”

Whether the behavior described in the letter is “typical” or not, there is certainly reason to question whether it’s true at all. “Some people can’t handle the truth,” proclaimed Pearce as he was defending the letter. An editorial in the Arizona Republic replies, “More to the point: Some people can’t take time to find out the truth before passing along unfounded accusations.”

Meanwhile, actual statistics paint a different picture of young Latinos. Although “a persistent educational attainment gap remains between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites,” nine in 10 Latinos say it’s “necessary” to get a college education to get ahead in life — more than any other ethnic group. However, language barriers, parental involvement, and a sense of responsibility to helping support their families has created a “divide between aspirations and reality.”

Ultimately, a testimony by a teacher who worries about a Latino invasion says a lot more about the biases of the instructor himself than it says about any of his students.