You are reading the 1,500th (extended) post to American Rattlesnake, a project which began in the febrile imagination of my friend and colleague, Michel Evanchik. If you had told me in 2010 that over half a decade later this website would exist, let alone be flourishing, I would have scoffed. Those of you who are regulars know how fond I am of hyperlinking  useful information that illustrates a relevant point. One of the discoveries you make while curating these old posts is how ephemeral this medium is, as many of the sites linked to have long since disappeared into the Internet ether. The fact that we continue to make our voices heard in one of the most important election cycles in living memory is an achievement in itself.

This project began in the wake of SB 1070, a controversial Arizona law designed to punish, rather than reward, illegal aliens living in that state. Although the intent of this law was supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans, the political backlash it engendered among the ethnic grievance industry and the hispandering political class-as well as their stenographers in the news media-made it clear to us that we needed a venue to amplify the beliefs and concerns of ordinary American citizens. The idea of actually upholding and enforcing our nation’s immigration laws was untenable to the corporate-collectivist axis which has governed American immigration policy for the past half-century, which is why they directed their concentrated fury upon the one woman courageous enough to defy them.

Whatever you may have thought of Jan Brewer before 2010, her singular courage in resisting the forces that have bought and paid for the entire political class of this nation forced immigration patriots across the country to stand with her, and to stand with Arizona. The modest contribution made by my webmaster and myself took the form of a Web portal called American Rattlesnake. A wholly unique tool which harnessed news, analysis, and activism on behalf of patriotic immigration reform and the traditional values of indigenous Americans that have been under assault since the latter half of the 20th century. Located in the heart of this country’s half-century experiment with multiculturalism and unfettered, mass immigration from the third world, we have a very distinctive perspective on the cultural, political, social, and economic problems posed by the Californianization of the United States.

And while we’ve brought you firsthand accounts by those besieged by the invasion of our southern border, we’ve tried to explore how virtually every state in this new America has been transformed into a border state. Whether through the resettlement of unassimilable refugees in the mid-west and the deep South, the importation of thousands of Central American families, or simply the abandonment of any pretense to enforce federal immigration law by the current administration, we must recognize that our rulers have and continue to irreparably alter the nation once known as the United States of America. We have also tried to explain the refugee crisis in Europe, many years before Angela Merkel decided to turn her country into a hostel for Muslim rapists from the developing world. The fact that those in power both in Europe and the United States have chosen to level the full force of the state against critics of this insane policy, which amounts to cultural suicide, rather than confront the virus overwhelming Western civilization, speaks volumes about their priorities.

Even as countries which gave us the Enlightenment are besieged by those dedicated to its eradication, and purportedly free people become hostages within their own countries because of their leaders’ malfeasance and hatred of their people, those individuals brave enough to tell the truth becomes targets, both literally and figuratively. The ruling class and its rabid pets are seeking to silence truth-tellers, which makes sites like American Rattlesnake all the more necessary. As the marriage between online media monopolies and the leviathan state solidifies, and the denial of reality proceeds apace, the importance of independent, honest voices will only increase.

There are so few people willing to risk the consequences attendant upon telling the truth in a world where political discourse is shaped by lies. That’s why this website, however small its impact on the wider world, needs to be. It’s why me and Mr. Evanchik are extraordinarily grateful to our audience, which has been with us and grown over these past 6 years. I hope you’ll stick around for the battles ahead.

One of the defining features of our society is its strange approach to citizenship. We live in the only major Western nation which operates under a policy of unrestricted jus soli, which means that individuals seeking to acquire American citizenship for their children need only birth them on United States soil in order to do so, even if they have no tangible ties to this country. The absurdity of this situation becomes evident when you realize that nearly 10% of children born in any given year have parents who are illegal aliens.

The fact that this warped approach to citizenship is finally starting to be challenged in the public sphere is an encouraging sign. The Arizona Civil Rights Conference aims to question some of the assumptions underlying birthright citizenship and the dubious historical case for open borders. It will be taking place tomorrow morning at Burke Basic School in Mesa-all of the details can be found here-and I encourage any of our readers who live in that area to attend. For those unable to participate in this event, I would ask you to join the American Unification Movement, which the great American patriot Ted Hayes has brought to my attention.

One of the chief means of undermining this nation’s sovereignty is through the distortion and manipulation of its founding documents. Only by correcting these distortions can we begin to return to a true understanding of what it means to be an American.

The chaotic, lawless status quo maintained on our southern border is one of our least-reported domestic catastrophes. This isn’t surprising when you consider the fact that our news media view themselves primarily as a platform for immigrants, illegal aliens and their benefactors more than objective outlets designed to convey pertinent information to the broader American public. Even when the invasion of American territory is grudgingly acknowledged by the press, it is framed in such a way as to make those trying to protect the integrity of our borders seem like mendacious, reactionary charlatans. The fact that human smugglers and brutal narco cartels are exploiting our government’s beneficence in order to ply their trade is not nearly as compelling to news anchors as the plight of doe-eyed DREAMers.

Thankfully, there are American citizens who are unwilling to put up with the wanton destruction of their property, subversion of their rights, and defamation of their character. One of these intrepid individuals is our friend Cindy Kolb, who has been reporting from the front lines of this undeclared war for many years. The latest incursion being Dicks Peak Fire, whose cause is still unknown but which would not be out of character for illegal aliens trespassing onto American territory. Whatever the cause of this particular forest fire, the danger posed to our national treasures and beautiful natural wilderness remains great as long as our public officials refuse to take their oaths of office seriously.

Thanks, Cindy, for alerting us to the public hazards created by our public officials!

For those who believed the departure of Eric Holder from the national spotlight would be put an end to troublesome questions about Fast and Furious-and the obstruction of justice and abuse of power its failure unleashed-I have some bad news for you. The trial of several members of a Mexican rip crew for the death of Agent Brian Terry has reignited the discussion over how BATF-supplied weaponry made it into the hands of vicious Mexican criminals. Naturally, the federal prosecutors of these Mexican mobsters want to suppress any questioning and evidence that implicates the criminals who worked for the Obama administration, who are the chief culprits in the death of Brian Terry-to say nothing of the hundreds of Mexicans and Central Americans who may have lost their lives as a result of this debacle.

Whether or not they succeed in their ignoble quest remains to be seen. However, justice demands that the full truth of Agent Terry’s death-including the responsibility of those sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution and protect the lives of American citizens-be  revealed. Let’s hope this case helps speed it along.

Ignore the misleading headline; the actual institutions “tackling” the purported scourge of merchandise unapproved by the National Football League are local law enforcement agencies and the Department of Homeland Security. That’s right, the cabinet-level, taxpayer-funded agency designed to ensure the safety of American citizens is acting as the Pinkerton (agency) for Roger Goodell’s incredibly flush, tax-exempt, legally protected monopoly.

Beyond the dubious assertion of privilege-the NFL has a history of legally threatening small business owners-there’s the obscenity of ICE and CBP allocating extraordinarily scare resources-or so we’re told-to matters which have absolutely nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Is it any wonder that virtually no illegal aliens, in any substantial numbers, are being deported?

If this post seems like a broken record, it’s probably because you remember reading identical complaints in years past. As Mark Steyn has observed, the more the state grows, and the more duties accrue to its subsidiary arms, the less proficient it becomes at managing one of its chief duties, i.e. ensuring the survival of its citizens from foreign threats. There’s no better illustration of this maxim than the transformation of the Department of Homeland Security into the enforcer for the NFL. It’s something to contemplate as you sit down to watch Super Bowl XLIX later today.

For those of you who believed the carnage wrought by this administration’s criminally negligent-if not intentionally malicious-Fast and Furious program had ceased-or even abated-I have some troubling news to report. Thanks to the indefatigable attorneys at Judicial Watch we continue to discover weapons implicated in violent crimes which can be traced back to the ATF’s gunrunning  obscenity. Although most of the devastation and loss of human life has been confined to Mexico and Latin America, gang-related violence involving Fast and Furious firearms has struck American cities as well.

You can read the Judicial Watch press release describing one such incident, which occurred in Phoenix, Arizona last year. Despite the usual obstruction and resistance by this administration, it was also able to obtain crime scene photos that reveal the identities of the victims and the serial numbers of lethal weapons our Justice Department placed in the hands of ruthless criminal entities. Even if the mandarins of the Washington press corps prefer to bury one of the greatest Executive crimes of the past five decades, it’s reassuring to know that those who care about the Constitution and journalism refuse to give our teflon President a free pass.

Today is All Souls’ Day, when we pray for the deceased, particularly those close to us-family and friends-who’ve passed. It also marks the fourth annual National Day of Remembrance for the those who have lost their lives at the hands of illegal aliens. From New York’s own Adrienne Shelly to the young scholar-athlete Jamiel Shaw Jr. of Los Angeles, the promising lives which have been snuffed out by our government’s cosseting of these criminal aliens are legion and continue to grow, as even the open borders fanatics at the New York Times acknowledge.

Arizonans, as well as those throughout the nation, are planning on commemorating the lives lost as a result of our ostensible leaders’ gross negligence, even as they demand that these crimes not be visited upon more innocent Americans. We would urge you all to participate in today’s remembrance, even if only to offer up prayers for those murdered in cold blood by aliens who’ve transgressed all law and notions of morality.

A list of memorials taking place nationally.

Kudos to intrepid investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson for bringing attention to a noble cause. As most of you know, the investigation into the death of Agent Brian Terry at the hands of Mexican narco-insurgents has gone nowhere for nearly the past four years, in no small part due to the obstruction of this administration. Even so, the friends and family of Brian have never stopped speaking out on behalf of justice.

One of the ways they have done so is by establishing the Brian Terry Foundation, which not only spreads awareness of the Obama administration’s Fast and Furious gunwalking debacle but helps out those who have been victimized by the failure to secure our nation’s borders.

To that end, Erik “Trek” Utrecht will bicycle from his hometown of Flat Rock, Michigan, Brian Terry’s hometown, to Bisbee, Arizona-home of the Brian Terry Border Patrol Station-beginning September 15th. You can find more information-including how you can contribute to it-on the Brian Terry Foundation website.

If there’s one thing this administration is proficient at, it’s squandering the hard-earned wealth of its subjects. Sorry, its citizens. A perfect illustration of the contempt Barack Obama and his flunkies have for the American people is the newest budget request intended to “deal with” the flood of Central Americans gushing over our southern border. Contrary to the typically inaccurate reporting on this issue, almost all of this money will be earmarked for the resettlement of these uninvited guests in the interior of the United States.

Former Congressman Ernest Istook Jr. explores a much more cost-efficient option in an op-ed for the Washington Times, which we recommend anyone confused about the precise details of the President’s plan read in its entirety. We also would like to highlight a remarkably scathing critique of this latest scheme to bypass immigration controls by open borders advocate and proud Gang of Eight member Jeff Flake, who was invited onto yesterday’s PBS Newshour to debate La Raza alumna Cecilia Munoz.

Just remember, the Obama administration has never told the truth about immigration, so why should it start doing so now?

The mendacity of our current administration is at times stunning, even for those of us who should by now have become inured to the lies regurgitated by the Obama administration and its factotums for the better part of two terms. The disavowals by La Raza graduate Cecilia Munoz and village idiot Joe Biden notwithstanding, the systematic emigration of unaccompanied minors from their homelands to the southwestern United States is nothing if not a ploy designed by those in power to destroy whatever prophylactic measures the government currently takes to prevent the complete dissolution of our nation’s system of border controls. 

-You need look no further than ICE itself, whose bureaucrats acknowledge that a contract request to escort these youths was publicly advertised as early as the beginning of this year to realize how fatuous the current administration’s protestations of innocence are. The fact that this crisis is completely and utterly contrived seems not to have dissuaded the usual suspects in the mainstream  news media from putting the most appealing face on what has become an untrammeled invasion. Perhaps predictably, the fact that those tasked with protecting our nation’s security are now the functional equivalent of babysitters to carriers of lethal, communicable diseases has only exacerbated the existing tendency among press outlets to treat every breakdown of public order and security risk as a vessel for the classic illegal immigrant sob story.

-That the public is being largely denied pertinent information about the risks posed by these cherubic children-or a rational debate over whether surviving custodians/parents are practicing child abuse by forcing them to make a potentially lethal, 120+ mile trek through the Mexican desert-should come as no surprise. While concerned citizens might be surprised to learn that many of these “unaccompanied minors” are in fact vicious gang members, the fact that this tidbit is being overlooked by every single national broadcast network is nothing new when it comes to immigration coverage, unfortunately. Even the question of whether these individuals are being released into the care of human traffickers is probably not going to be raised by reporters invested in the wholesale erasure of American sovereignty.

-What galls, however, is the deafening silence by the fourth estate regarding the manipulation of access to the detainment cells and way stations, including military bases, housing these uninvited guests from Central America. Naturally, any critics of this administration’s  calculatedly disastrous immigration policy are being denied entry to the facilities housing the latest cohort of illegal aliens, as Arizona Speaker Andy Tobin learned recently. Likewise, any reporters seeking to engage in journalism-not merely act as stenographers for LULAC or the ACLU-are obstructed from practicing their craft, even as the Border Patrol officers who would seek to assist them are threatened with prosecution by their superiors, a la Fast and Furious. Thus, the freedom of information whose death the press routinely sheds crocodile tears for ends, not with a bang, and barely a whimper from the credentialed hypocrites.

-In contrast to the brick wall greeting those few genuinely patriotic lawmakers and intrepid journalists seeking the truth, the Spanish-speaking subjects of so many glowing personal interest stories over the past month are being provided with the best in legal representation that your tax dollars can buy. Someone should inform President Obama and his sidekick that these star-studded legal teams are promising their clients amnesty, which is open to them through a variety of means, including the notoriously porous refugee resettlement program.

-These unaccompanied aliens-and presumably, the adults who are assisting their perilous voyage north-are acting upon an entirely rational, understandable impulse. Namely, to leave behind a third world life of desperate poverty and lack of security in order to live in a, relatively speaking, prosperous and safe environment-one in which attempts to circumscribe their access to any welfare program will be met with howls of rage by indignant, open borders fanatics. They’re doing so because they have concluded that they will not be deported to their countries of origin, and despite the disingenuous protestations to the contrary by this administration and its apparatchiks, this is a largely accurate assessment of the situation, as columnist Ross Douthat has pointed out in the pages of the New York Times.

News & Notes

-Perhaps predictably, the political earthquake that vaporized Eric Cantor’s future career arc  doesn’t seem to have reached the denizens of Capitol Hill, K Street, or the White House. Valerie Jarrett’s recent comments about Rupert Murdoch and Dave Brat only serve to underscore the cosmic disconnect between those who make their living manipulating the political process in order to serve their financial and political interests and the people throughout the country laboring to sate their avarice. Unfortunately, just as we seem to be stuck with Murdoch, there is no prospect of Ms. Jarrett returning to Iran any time in the near future. GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, unlike his Australian counterpart, was actually born in the United States, therefore should presumably have a deeper attachment to American sovereignty and the quality of life of this nation’s citizens. Unfortunately, as Breitbart reports, that is simply not the case.

-One group that passionately detests the United States-at least, as it’s currently constituted-is the National Council of La Raza. Shockingly, they seem to have drawn all the wrong conclusions from Eric Cantor’s epic primary defeat, demonstrating yet again the utter futility of hispandering in  hopes of garnering that ever-elusive, much-heralded latino vote. One man who does not tailor his message in order to appeal to segmented ethnic groups is the gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo, a man whose praises we have sung repeatedly on this website. Of course, the open borders elites who control the GOP machinery despise Congressman Tancredo, which is all the more reason registered Republicans in the state of Colorado should go out and vote for him in today’s primary.

And with that important admonition, we conclude today’s Daily Rattle.