Even though the political obituaries of the Clinton dynasty are already being written, it should be noted that due to the undemocratic nature of the Democratic Party primary process she is still ahead of her socialist opponent, Senator Sanders. So don’t expect Hillary to obligingly accept another unexpected defeat at the hands of a leftist insurgent, although trends do not augur in her favor.

An equally fascinating race is taking shape on the GOP side of the aisle, as the worried donor class tries to find a suitably pliant candidate to put forward as the anti-Cruz/Trump standard bearer. Daniel Larison has an astute analysis of this process-and why it is likely to fail-in The American Conservative.

Regardless of which candidates find themselves as the nominees in November, we are in all likelihood going to experience a very interesting presidential race in the months ahead. Buckle up, folks.

Update: Senator Cruz has emerged victorious, with Donald Trump and Marco Rubio rounding out the top 3, while Hillary Clinton and her socialist opponent are virtually even with nearly all of the precincts counted. 

The Guardian is tracking the Iowa vote as it comes in. Follow the county-by-county results here. 

Breitbart is providing live coverage of the Iowa Caucuses as the returns come in. Follow it here. 

After nearly a year of jockeying and polls in our interminably long presidential news cycle, we’ll finally know later tonight who the actual front-runners in the Republican and Democratic fields are. Whether this is truly the year of the insurgent candidate remains to be seen, but rest assured we will be here to cover the results and their political aftermath.

Until then, we recommend checking out some of our good friend Pamela Hall’s photos from the anti-capitalist, pro-Bernie Sanders march which took place in Manhattan this weekend. It would be interesting to find out if they checked in at Starbucks afterwards.

I realize my thoughts on the upcoming presidential race have not been expressed too often on this site-despite the Iowa Caucuses being less than 2 weeks away-but I have written an essay about how I think the next few months will unfold. You can read it in its entirety on Splice Today. Feel free to contribute your thoughts on who will win-or why he or she should win-in the comments’ section below.

It’s no surprise that George W. Bush’s younger brother decided to skip the Iowa Freedom Summit this weekend. The notion of someone who can barely disguise his contempt for American citizens and workers sharing the same stage as Congressman Steve King is fairly preposterous, once you stop to think it over. Instead, the former governor of Florida decided to give a rousing endorsement of mass immigration to a group of car dealers, yes car dealers, in that bastion of American conservatism, the city of San Francisco. Dripping with condescension, the speech was an almost parodic distillation of the fatuousness we’ve come to expect from the Bush family, vis-a-vis public policy recommendations. The sort of exercise in vapidity you would expect from someone whose circle of advisors doesn’t extend far beyond the cabinet of the last Republican President named Bush. 

One way to avoid humiliation at the hands of those benighted conservatives who populate Republican primaries is to join forces with the only other presidential candidate with as deep a familiarity with the culture of entitlement and political privilege as the scion of George H.W. Bush. That’s right, Hillary Clinton. Although being the sidekick to Bill Clinton’s wife would probably not be his first choice, it would be a suitable match for someone who’s moved past this whole Americanism thing.

Good luck trying to sell your message of illegal alien exceptionalism, Jeb. I’m sure the folks in Ames will be eager to hear it.

The breadth of support enjoyed by BALA in its March for Jobs and equitable treatment of American workers can be seen in the lengths to which so many patriotic citizens traveled in order to attend this rally. From South Central  Los Angeles to the tip of New England, angry Americans of divergent ideologies and different races joined hands in order to stand up for the besieged workers of this nation.

One group represented was the indefatigable New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement, whose members can be seen marching towards Freedom Plaza in the photo above. Joanna Marzullo, President of NY ICE, gives her impression of the rally below the fold.

July 15, 2013, Washington, DC.  NY ICE Members joined national groups and individuals opposed to amnesty for those illegally in the U.S. at the DC March for Jobs.  This video is from the event.  The video is 2 minutes long and very inspiring and worthwhile.  

Particularly noteworthy in the video is Steve King’s statement, when referring to the extreme heat on that day, that “I think it’s altogether fitting and proper that we should sweat here today as we stand up for the American worker”.

The emphasis of this march was on the detriment of the illegal alien stampede to the American worker, and it was organized by black Americans. Black Americans were there to say that illegals undercut the wages of jobs that have often employed the black American worker, stealing jobs from the black American worker and their families.

But illegals only want to frame their story in terms of their families, and never mention the harm the net drain of their illegal alien presence does the black American (or any other American!) family.  They never concede that the U.S. is supposed to be a sovereign country.

NY ICE has long maintained that there are no jobs that Americans won’t do, only wages that Americans will not work for.  When illegal aliens trespass into the U.S. and illegally obtain jobs (let us not forget that it is illegal for an illegal alien trespasser to even have a job, as well as it is illegal for the employer to hire them), they undercut the wages for those jobs.  Illegals are often working in the cash economy, so employers can often pay them whatever they want, and this, of course, is unreported and untaxed income.  

This is an amenable situation for the illegal alien because they are often sending the money back to their home countries, where the American dollar goes further, and many plan to “live like kings” upon their return.  

Illegal alien trespassers have no sympathy for the American and legal immigrant families that they are undercutting and the U.S. resources that they are draining.

Americans owe illegal aliens nothing.

Breitbart News had fantastic live coverage of both Representative Steve King’s press conference and the Tea Party-led Audit the IRS rally yesterday. Despite encountering resistance from the Capitol police, hundreds of patriotic conservatives were able to listen to Rep. King’s message of securing the border  period, not first, or in addition to. Kudos to Steve King and the departing Michele Bachmann for speaking up in defense of the American people, not special interest lobbies, the ethnic grievance industry, corporate welfare hogs, or Big Labor apparatchiks.

We urge all of our readers to follow their advice, and call their senators immediately! Tell them to oppose the kabuki theater Schumer and Rubio are scripting in order to win over malleable Republicans. We have less than six weeks to kill this bill, and without the voices of ordinary Americans being heard in Washington D.C., we very well might lose this battle. That’s a chance we can’t take.

As sundry pundits, political consultants, and elected officials search for answers in the wake of the GOP’s decisive election loss, it’s worth noting that while the Republican Party yielded ground in the Senate, House of Representatives, and various state legislatures-to say nothing of its presidential nominee’s defeat-there were several important races where immigration patriots won, or open borders shills were soundly beaten. Overall, it was a much better night for those believe in responsible immigration policies than the reelection of El Presidente might initially suggest.

Contrary to the self-serving narrative constructed by professional Hispanics and those eager for an endless supply of government-bankrolled cheap labor, the Republican Party’s losses this November did not stem from its allegedly rigid opposition to illegal immigration, as the resounding defeat of  an anti-SB 1070 exemplar in the state of Arizona demonstrates. This is not so startling when you consider that 62% still believe that stopping illegal immigration is extremely important, according to a post-election Gallup survey.

Although Hispanic voters overwhelmingly favored the reelection of President Barack Obama, and increased his margin of victory in several densely populated blue states,  they did not play a decisive role in any of the major swing states. Of course, as the rest of the country inexorably turns into California, that could very well change in future presidential elections. However, the one way to ensure that those races are not competitive is by enacting those schemes which so many in the Republican Party believe-or purport to believe- will ingratiate them to Hispanic voters.

In order to understand why this is a fatal delusion, I recommend you read a lengthy and data rich, but nonetheless illuminating, post by Tino Sanandaji on his Super-Economy blog which delineates in painstaking detail why Hispanics are natural Democrats. His analysis, unlike the siren song of open borders Republicans such as Linda Chavez and rootless, neoconservative ideologues like Jennifer Rubin is grounded in empirical evidence, not self-deluding fantasies.

We’ve trod this ground many times before at American Rattlesnake, but it’s worth revisiting because the same insipid arguments for embracing amnesty-which are as ethically obtuse as they are intellectually bankrupt-will be marshaled once Congress reconvenes in 2013, if not sooner. You need to be armed with factual, incontrovertible evidence that demonstrates why embracing the path of amnesty is a strategy of failure, for the nation, for future generations saddled with non-working age immigrants partaking of our vast welfare state, and for a party which seems intent upon legislating itself out of existence.

This is a fantastic interview of Congressman Steve King-conducted last month after the President’s unconstitutional administrative amnesty-which I urge you all to listen to. Rep. King is one of the few members of Congress willing to stand up to Barack Obama’s subversion of the legislative process. A dogged opponent of multiculturalism, King is exceptional in his willingness to resist the tide of political correctness in all its multifarious manifestations.

Show your support for a true patriot!

A few observations about last night’s Republican presidential debate, at least as it pertains to the subjects of immigration and border control:

-Newt Gingrich, despite his previous record of supporting amnesty, acquitted himself quite well. At least, rhetorically. His suggestion that American citizens be able to review prospective immigrants, although impractical in theory, does put the emphasis of immigration in the right place. Namely, in the hands of Americans who are seeking the best and the brightest, rather than simply empowering those who want to settle in this country. Millions, perhaps billions, of individuals would immigrate to the United States if afforded the opportunity, but I think it’s our responsibility to consider the opinions of all Americans, naturalized and native-born citizens alike, rather than simply assume that every single person seeking to come here is doing so in good faith. 

-Herman Cain nicely defused the accusation that he’s a xenophobic vigilante, vis-a-vis the issue of border control, by explaining that he favored the construction of fences as well as welcoming new, legal immigrants who sought to contribute to American society. He noted that you can be both generous and firm on this issue, and that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. I also thought he tackled the amnesty question with aplomb, noting that there does exist a “path to citizenship,” which entails immigrating to this country legally. It would have been nice if he had coupled this with pragmatic suggestions about how to eliminate much of the byzantine federal bureaucracy that currently impedes the process for highly talented, law-abiding foreign nationals.

-Ron Paul continued to attempt a precarious balancing act which entails pandering to the liberal, open borders faction among libertarians, while retaining some of the pro-enforcement, hawkish paleocons who have supported past campaigns. Personally, I don’t think he succeeded. Yes, the welfare state is an attractive nuisance to people from across the globe, and is a huge part of any discussion, but to merely focus on that aspect to the neglect of every other problem unfettered immigration poses-particularly the allocation of scarce resources-is misguided. And although I agree with Rep. Paul that employers are put in an unenviable position-punished for employing illegals yet also prohibited from inquiring into their legal status in many instances-I do believe that a sovereign government has a right to determine who is and is not admitted to its country. And as long as states can Constitutionally establish labor laws, I think it’s hard to proclaim that they don’t also have the ability to proscribe the employment of people who are living in this country illegally.

-Jon Huntsman attempted to run away from his uniformly dreadful record on immigration and immigration enforcement issues to no avail. I suppose he should be credited for at least rhetorically stepping away from the default Bush/McCain stance, although I doubt his sincerity.

Other than that, there’s not much to be said about last night’s Republican presidential primary debate as far as immigration is concerned. We didn’t hear many new proposals, and despite some good answers regarding illegal immigration, there was not enough focus on proactive approaches to reducing immigration levels to a sustainable level in the near future. For a brief recap on what was said at the debate, check out the Twitter stream of Numbers USA, the nation’s premiere, grassroots organization lobbying on behalf of immigration enforcement and reform.