Listen to the full skewering of Jerry Brown’s sidekick here.

And listen to the Adam Carolla Show.

We don’t often cover the sporting news at American Rattlesnake, but after Cain Velasquez’s decisive victory over mixed martial arts rival Junior Dos Santos yesterday I thought it appropriate to revisit a post from last year where we examined the identity politics behind these fighters’ first matchup. Although MMA pioneer and uber-promoter Dana White would like us to believe that the  ’Brown Pride’ tattoo emblazoned upon this fighter’s chest is nothing more than an innocuous expression of ethnic pride-akin to the collective sense of accomplishment felt by those in Little Italy or Chinatown when a native son succeeds on the national stage-you have to wonder if this is truly the case. After all, this tattoo doesn’t express “Mexican-American Pride,” or even “Mexican Pride,” but is instead an explicitly racial affirmation.

Granted, I’m by  no means an expert in the minutiae of MMA, and his explanation of the reasoning behind this marking strikes me as benign as far as it goes-but the inherent double standard of publicly touting the achievements of one race while execrating another for things that might be completely devoid of racial context seems a bit hypocritical, at the very least.

Nonetheless, congratulations to Mr. Velasquez on his victory in a spirited contest. It should be noted that his financial success and surging popularity probably would not exist if his father had decided to remain in his homeland, rather than come to Salinas, California and marry an American woman of Mexican descent. Perhaps Cain Velasquez will find a place on his skin for the phrase “American Pride” during his next tattoo session. If for no other reason than perhaps enlarging his burgeoning fan base. Just a thought.

Update: Here’s a link to a story our good friend at The Silent Majority No More wrote describing a vigil NY ICE held on the first National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Illegal Aliens. Scroll down for video footage of the event. 

Today is the second annual National Day of Remembrance for those who’ve been killed by illegal aliens living within the United States. As we were reminded recently by the death sentence given to Pedro Espinoza, the criminal alien who murdered Jamiel Shaw Jr., the victims of our government’s negligent immigration policies are numerous. From San Francisco to our very own city, the toll these perpetrators have taken is truly staggering. Illegal aliens continue to act with reckless indifference and little fear of detention, let alone punishment, justifiably so in most cases. We’ll just have to wait for the obituaries that will inevitably result from this callous disregard.

This commemoration of the forgotten victims of America’s open borders policies was   introduced by Congressmen Steve King, one of the few members of Congress willing to acknowledge the tremendous cost our government’s adamant refusal to address this problem exacts from the American people. The victims of illegal alien crime are many, but the public officials willing to stand up for their memory are few and far between, as this occasion reminds us.

Let your voice be heard for the voices that were silenced forever.

The moving video message by Jamiel Shaw Sr., father of a brilliant young student-athlete murdered by a ruthless, criminal alien gangbanger, is part of a larger campaign to persuade Governor Jerry Brown to veto a bill which would effectively grant carte blanche to criminal aliens residing in the Golden State. for more details, check out the story by Fox News. For information on how you can send a message to the governor, click on the latest action alert in the activism tab of this website. Also, access the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s website. They’ve been doing great work on this issue.

This month’s Rattle brings us a host of stories that the mainstream media didn’t cover sufficiently-preferring instead to shower accolades upon the man responsible for abandoning immigration enforcement in the name of political opportunism. We’ll cover everything from the latest spate of violent crimes committed by illegal aliens to Barack Obama’s continued roll out of administrative amnesty, which now includes directives to ignore both interior enforcement and border security.

But first, we’ll examine this administration’s ongoing obstruction of Congress’s investigation into the ever-broadening gun-walking scandals. Courtesy of Sipsey Street Irregulars-whose coverage of Fast and Furious is non pareil-we learn that the White House is blocking testimony from Kevin O’Reilly, a former staff member of the National Security Council who wants to speak with the Senate Judiciary Committee and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This administration’s invocation of executive privilege is just the latest example of obstruction of justice  relating to Fast and Furious.

It should be recalled that last July the acting head of the ATF told Congress that his agency was paying FBI agents to ignore the law in pursuit of this administration’s bizarre and opaque political goals. Immigration control, not gun control, is a solution that Barack Obama’s Justice Department dismisses out of hand. We can only hope that, as Katie Pavlich reports in Town Hall, Chairman Darrell Issa pursues this investigation to its conclusion, which hopefully will result in a more than a few stiff prison sentences. Speaking of Katie Pavlich, she has a fantastic new book about Fast and Furious entitled-appropriately-Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal, which I urge you all to read.

Obfuscation and evasion are hallmarks of this administration, especially as it pertains to immigration and border security, as an insightful commentary from Michael Cutler published by Fox News Latino illustrates. The former INS agent and current immigration watchdog points out that Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security is effectively “cooking the books” by relying solely upon  documented arrests-a misleading statistic-in order to pretend that this administration is cracking down upon illegal entry into the United States. FAIR’s Legislative Update further dissects this policy, which is drawing increasing scrutiny from Congress-particularly Chairman Darrell Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz- notwithstanding what Tom Tancredo accurately describes as a bipartisan conspiracy to hobble border security and immigration enforcement. By not logging and tracking the number of illegal border crossers who were not detained, Customs and Border Protection is painting a rosy picture of a much more dire situation.

The deceit of this administration extends beyond the CBP and encompasses virtually every aspect of immigration enforcement, both at the border and inside of the United States. Even though ICE is touting the Cross Check raids it initiated earlier this month-intended to apprehend ostensibly violent criminals, absconders and  fugitives from justice-this is merely a political expedient designed for election year consumption. The truth is that Barack Obama’s administrative amnesty proceeds apace, with four cities ordered to halt deportations, according to the Dan Stein Report. Remarkably, the Executive Office for Immigration Review has closed San Francisco’s immigration court and plans to completely halt its proceedings for the entire summer. Jim Kouri reports on yet another component of Barack Obama’s administrative amnesty, the decision to suspend deportations of illegal aliens with “families,” inside of the United States.

And while illegal aliens are not being deported, they will be able to enjoy state-of-the-art detention facilities, including some new amenities such as beach volleyball and cable TV. Lamar Smith excoriates this administration for its skewed priorities in a must-read op-ed published in The Hill. Although this new detention manual  might seem farcical, it’s far from a laughing matter. As Jim Kouri points out in his Examiner column, the Department of Homeland Security has taken virtually no action against foreigners who overstay their visas. This negligence persists over a decade after the September 11th massacres, which were committed by a cadre of jihadists whose visa applications are symptomatic of our country’s dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy. This is not merely an hypothetical problem, even after the destruction of the World Trade Center, as the case of illegal alien Amine El Khalifi demonstrates. The fact that this indifference to the lives of American citizens continues unabated, despite repeated pressure exerted by the GAO serves to illustrate this administration’s fundamental lack of accountability.

Even as it lags behind in locating and detaining criminal aliens, the administration of Barack Obama has deigned to grant Temporary Protected Status to thousands of Syrians living in the United States. As we’ve pointed out in the past, Temporary Protected Status is anything but temporary. In fact, it is merely another expedient used to grant de facto amnesty to a group of illegal aliens who can prove “hardship” circumstances, most of which persist indefinitely-making their stay in the United States permanent. This is even more disturbing when juxtaposed against the State Department’s recent decision to bar inspection of a visiting Egyptian delegation consisting of Muslim Brotherhood officials. Of course, Egypt isn’t the only country where the Ikwhan has a strong foothold.

The problem is that Barack Obama’s ostensible opposition, i.e. congressional Republicans, are doing virtually nothing to investigate the egregious overreach of his administration on immigration matters. Quite the contrary, some are hard at work developing proposals that would only worsen the situation, such as DREAM Lite, in hopes of  cultivating the ever-elusive Hispanic vote. Republican leaders in the states are not faring much better in this regard, as the difficult struggle in New Hampshire to prevent illegal aliens from capitalizing upon in-state tuition benefits demonstrates.

In an update to a story that we’ve covered recently, the North Carolina General Assembly held another hearing on illegal immigration and potential enforcement mechanisms. Unfortunately, according to NC Listen, it was dominated by illegal aliens and their supporters in the legislature, including some of the very people who had disrupted a previous hearing about these problems. Heading further south, we learn that the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act has been killed in the Mississippi State Senate. Apparently, Judiciary Chairman Hob Bryan has caved knuckled under to the Mississippi Poultry Association and its desire for cheap labor, notwithstanding the harm such a decision may inflict on innocent Mississippians. Its neighbor to the East, Alabama, has revisited HB 56, the landmark legislation that targeted illegal aliens living in that state. Rep. Micky Hammon has decided to alter some of the provisions that have been enjoined by a federal court, but maintains that he and his fellow Republicans will not repeal the law, which is welcome news.

In not so good news, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has decided to defy Immigration and Customs Enforcement and refuse detainer requests for criminal aliens housed in her county’s jails. Saul Chavez is one beneficiary of Preckwinkle’s benevolence, having fled the country upon being released from jail after killing William McCann. The carnage our government’s policies wreak is not limited to the odd vehicular manslaughter though, as the massacre at Oikos University in California makes clear to any impartial observer. Limits to Growth has an insightful story about mass-murderer One L. Goh which explains the circumstances surrounding his rampage which the main stream media willfully ignores. Oikos was apparently more concerned with harvesting tuition payments by foreign students-often with loans backed by American taxpayers-than ensuring the safety of its student body. It brings to mind  9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whose entrance to the United States was facilitated by a campus administration eager to recruit students from the Middle East, heedless of the potentially deadly repercussions.

The fact that there are visa mills exploiting the F-1 Visa program should come as no surprise to people who are aware of the extensive fraud and exploitation present in the legal immigration system. Just as in Canada-which recently charged attorney Sandra Zaher with inventing false refugee claims-the United States is plagued by immigration fraud so pervasive that the conviction of Earl Seth David, aka Rabbi Avraham David, head of a New York law firm, headlines an ICE press release. The irony of an agency headed by John Morton-who’s tasked with expediting illegal immigration-spotlighting the conviction of someone for immigration fraud is apparently lost on this administration.

In another prime example of abuse, a lawsuit by two former employees of Larsen & Toubro InfoTech Limited Inc alleges systemic fraud at the India-based IT firm for which they once worked. Joining an earlier class action filed against the firm, this suit asserts that the plaintiff was forced to not only forge documents related to H-1B visas-a program rampant with corruption and fraud-but told not to report the crime to outside authorities. Read the sickening story for yourself, if you feel you have the requisite stomach. The baffling purposes of the H1-B visa program weren’t illuminated by a recent decision by Judge Gregory Frost, who ordered suppressed almost all information related to the case of  Geza Rakoczi, who is described thusly,

…a young alien man with a mysterious legal status, probably an illegal alien, who has a bachelor’s degree from a marginal educational institution, a private one that accepts all applicants, and his employer, a mortgage finance company in trouble in two different states.

Putting the lie to the idea that these visas are reserved for “highly-skilled” immigrants. More often than not they are merely convenient bodies used to replace the more demanding, highly-compensated Americans who they’ve made redundant. If you don’t believe me, just ask the wife of unemployed semiconducter engineer Darin Wedel, who is still waiting to hear back from President Obama. But do not fear, the virtual border fence is back on track,which I suppose is small comfort to the thousands of hard-working Americans like Mr. Wedel.  However, India is not the only nation to take advantage of the nebulous, easily exploitable H1-B visa program. As Phyllis Schlafly  points out, the Islamist Gulen movement in Turkey has used these same visas in order to indoctrinate Muslim students in American charter schools. The dangers posed by the Gulen movement have been explored ad nauseam in other forums, but it should be noted that even if you ascribe the most benign of intentions to the Gullenists, the idea that fundamentalist Muslim teachers are somehow highly skilled workers is implausible on its face.  Focusing on yet another rising Asian power, the New American has an interesting story about the PRC’s use of the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program in the state of Idaho which is well worth reading.

Returning to more timely issues, we discovered this past week that it’s not all that difficult to register to vote using a fabricated identity, or even assuming the persona of the current Attorney General  of the United States. Thanks to James O’Keefe we’ve discovered how simple it is to game the system, although officials at the increasingly misnamed Justice Department don’t seem to agree. Of course, acknowledging that vote fraud exists would require the Obama administration to prosecute those responsible for it, which wouldn’t bode well for the electoral prospects of Barack Obama’s party. From New York to Florida, from Indiana to Arizona, stealing elections has become quite commonplace, even as the White House-and its complaisant cronies in the media-scoff at the notion. Some Democrats, though, readily admit that trying to manipulate the outcome of elections is a routine practice, and a few even have the integrity to support measures that would rectify this betrayal of democracy.

In an ironic twist, labor unions-which were some of the most vehement supporters of President Obama’s Stimulus plan-are now complaining about some of the jobs stemming from stimulus projects going to Korean workers. I suppose the lesson is to be careful what you wish for, especially if it is over 700 billion dollars worth of taxpayer-financed boondoggles.

In more border violence, two illegal immigrants were murdered just northwest of Tucson on Thursday by two camouflaged gunman, echoing an attack that occurred  near the same city in 2007. This sort of bloodshed is rare but not unheard of in Arizona, especially in the Tucson sector, where over forty percent of this nation’s  illegal aliens come through. It is yet another reason why the constitutionality of SB 1070 must be upheld by the Supreme Court, in spite of the hostility of open borders dogmatists such as the misleadingly named Democrats in the House of Representatives.

Our final story is related to our relationship to the state as individuals, and how that relationship is changing as a result of our government’s decades-long recalibration of this country’s demographics. Courtesy of the Pew Hispanic Center, we now know that over seventy percent of Latinos want the government to provide more services to Americans, not less. Limits to Growth has a fascinating summary of the survey’s other findings, which include a belief among Hispanics that they should learn English in order to succeed in the United States, but not in order to integrate into the broader society. The findings about faith in government are worth exploring though, because they reinforce something that our side has been saying for a very long time. Namely, that Hispanic voters’ support for Democrats and generally left wing political candidates has very little to do with the GOP’s position on immigration, but a lot to do with their endorsement of redistributive economic policies.

The findings of the Pew Hispanic Center demonstrate that the cause and effect most often cited in declining Republican Party affiliation among Hispanics-embodied by the specious narrative about Pete Wilson and the waning fortunes of the California GOP-is reversed. Hispanics do not support the Democratic Party because it advocates open borders, the Democratic Party supports open borders because it enhances its ability to win future elections. In effect, what is happening is that the political elite is electing a new people. This dynamic needs to be remembered whenever we hear mealy-mouthed Republicans exhorting us to abandon any attempt to impose reason upon an anachronistic immigration system that is designed to thwart the wishes of the vast majority of the American public.

It’s going to be a long, tumultuous election year.

Update: Our friend Anthony Bialy also had the pleasure of meeting Andrew Breitbart during his cross-country tour for Righteous Indignation. Read his account of Monday’s tribute at Conservative Commune.

Thanks, Karol! 

Monday night I had the honor of attending a tribute to the late Andrew Breitbart held in Hell’s Kitchen. I’m not sure what I was expecting from the evening, but what happened is something that can’t quite be put into words, although I’ll try my best. Over the course of three hours, over a hundred people filtered into a cramped, slightly raucous Manhattan bar that-as one of my friends remarked at the time-Andrew himself might have enjoyed. After all,  he spent more than a few pages of Righteous Indignation cataloguing the extracurricular activities he engaged in while matriculating at a university in the heart of the nation’s party capital, New Orleans.

This was not a party, of course, nor could it have been given the circumstances. Yet, you couldn’t help but feel the joy-however subdued-present in that room filled with friends, followers and comrades-in-arms of the man who revolutionized how grassroots activism and citizen journalism were practiced in this country. No one was more dedicated to altering the status quo of society, a state he termed default leftism, or educating the public about their power to illuminate (deliberately) hidden truths than Andrew Breitbart. He was driven by a passion for truth and justice; not justice as conceived of by society’s levelers, nor truth filtered through the prism of an historically marginalized gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation extolled by critical studies departments in order to diminish our national heritage, but common sense, bourgeois, patriotic, universal values that were instilled in him as a child and which were shared by millions of Americans who feel disenfranchised by what they see on the nightly news and read in their daily newspapers.

This passion was leavened by a richly sardonic vein of humor familiar to anyone who read his work or heard him speak. That’s why the witless postmortem attacks on Andrew-which, as Mickey Kaus points out, have nothing to do with his combative persona-need to be put into their proper context. Breitbart was an individual who reveled in the contempt of the institutional left, and embraced the slanderous broadsides of his most febrile stalkers for what they were, i.e. proof that he was doing his job! The hatred he attracted was, in a perverse sense, a compliment. It was a testament to Andrew Breitbart’s skill at exposing the malefactors in government, the mainstream media, and bottom-feeding political factions like ACORN that earned him this bile. That is why one of the most rabid, obscure left wing talkers is positively overjoyed at his death. If Andrew could see some of the reactions to his passing by his avowed enemies he would impishly grin-and probably retweet some of the more bilious attacks-while being discomfited by the startlingly civil reaction by Media Matters for America, his notorious bete noire.

The gathering in Manhattan commemorating his legacy was necessary, but it was also edifying in the sense that it illustrated how broad Breitbart’s reach was, how unifying his message was-notwithstanding the libelous attacks upon his character-and why his death is such a profound loss, not just for his widow, his four children, and his father-in-law Orson Bean, but for all of us. In that small, cramped bar there were white, black, and Asian friends and admirers of Andrew’s that were there to pay tribute to the man who brought them together.  Mormons, Catholics, Jews and people of no particular religious affiliation mingled amiably while focusing on our commonalities, not their religious or philosophical differences. Neoconservatives, libertarians and anarcho-capitalists, as well as everyone from brilliant policy wonks to the self-described “morons” who form the online community known as Ace of Spades interacted  with each other and debated various issues without a hint of reproach or acrimony.

This sort of ecumenism is something that would never have come about had Andrew Breitbart not been willing to join the cultural maelstrom that many traditional conservatives have either ignored or consciously abandoned. He not only engaged in a war with the left-successfully refuting nostrums that it long ago stopped defending on empirical grounds-he defeated the left on its own territory, inspiring new generations of conservative, patriotic activists who are using the model he devised. Breitbart refused to cede the moral high ground to people whose fundamental philosophy was immoral. He was a happy warrior, but a warrior all the same, a dichotomy epitomized by his orgy of truth-telling at the Netroots convention, a forum that provided him with the opportunity to not only expose the hypocrisy of his ideologically blinkered detractors, but also to engage in a surprisingly substantive debate with one of the “progressives” willing to listen to his point of view. For all the talk of Breitbart being a provocateur, he probably engaged in more robust, legitimate debate with those who disagreed with him than any of his perennial critics, who continue to misrepresent what he stood for, even in death. That’s because he believed that the best means of changing this country for the better was through open and honest intellectual combat. The theatrical trappings Andrew Breitbart assumed were merely intended to emphasize fundamentally sound principles he sincerely believed in.

That’s why honoring him this week was so important. Karol Markowicz-who, along with David Bernstein and Robert George, did a fantastic job of successfully orchestrating what was by necessity a last-minute event-spoke for many of us when she gave an impromptu speech that touched upon both the tremendous personal tragedy represented by this evening, but also the tremendous loss Andrew Breitbart’s absence represents for both the immediate and distant future of the conservative movement. She vocalized the thoughts of many of those gathered in that bar room-most of whom are either in the same age cohort or slightly younger than Andrew was when he left us-by reflecting upon the fleeting nature of life, as well as the necessity of capitalizing upon our short time here, a concept no one was more aware of than Andrew himself.

Pamela Geller, of Atlas Shrugs, picked up on that theme as she spoke to the crowd, emphasizing the necessity of continuing the fight that Breitbart began, and of not letting America’s critics monopolize the public sphere simply because one of conservatism’s most resonant voices has been prematurely silenced. Pamela demanded that we all be Breitbart, as she pointed to the suddenly iconic gravatar that has come to symbolize the movement he spearheaded during his tragically brief life. She recounted how Andrew came to her defense even when other conservatives abandoned her out of self-serving “prudence” and fear of the potential repercussions to their own careers. Then she brought the discussion back to the present, invoking the unyielding guerilla campaign by the left to silence Rush Limbaugh, the most widely-heard and popular conservative voice of the past two decades. She averred that Rush “wasn’t controversial,” but that it was Katie Couric and the drive-by media-which form the consensus of elite, Beltway opinion-which should be viewed as controversial and beyond the pale.

It should be noted that this crusade doesn’t merely involve a relentless campaign to mau mau sponsors and syndicators of Rush’s program-which, though perfectly legal, serves as a rough indicator of the left’s tolerance of dissent-but a concerted effort to use extraconstitutional arms of the government to suppress his First Amendment rights.

Pamela made the trenchant observation that Andrew would have been the first to defend Rush from the Gramscian left, which not only wants to compel you to pay for their “choice,” but wants to prevent anyone who disagrees with this policy from voicing his or her objections in the public arena. This Catch-22 was something with which Breitbart himself was intimately familiar, as followers of the numerous boycotts initiated by official grievance mongers against Andrew’s presence anywhere will recall. He would have not taken the sustained propaganda campaign against another conservative icon lying down, but would have instead fought tooth and nail to debunk the lies and half-truths being propounded by Rush’s antagonists. Breitbart would not have relented until the truth outed.

And that is what we must keep in mind as we recall Andrew Breitbart. He never slacked for a moment when he saw good people’s reputations besmirched, or when the media narrative of a news event contradicted reality. His intensity was not a pose or an affectation adopted for the cameras, it was a fire born of genuine conviction and the knowledge that life is permanently impermanent. The best way of honoring and perpetuating the legacy of Andrew Breitbart is by continuing it in his spirit, and standing up for what we know to be right while we still have the privilege of doing so.

Update: Thank you 9/11 Families for a Secure America for highlighting this entry on your Facebook page. Peter Gadiel-who lost his son James in the September 11th massacre at the World Trade Center-serves as an inspiration to us all for continuing to hold politicians’ feet to the fire on border and national security issues. Thank you, Peter. 

Sunday, as most of you who’ve followed the past few updates probably know by now, was the day when Occupy Wall Street demonstrators decided to link up with open borders advocates a few blocks from City Hall. Of course, a number of  speakers invited to the event were themselves illegal aliens, including the young girl sporting a disfigured American flag fashioned into a graduation gown. She was entreated to deliver a ten minute-long speech which-if the consequences were not so grave-would have been jaw-droppingly hilarious.

In addition to lamenting the misfortune that has befallen her family merely for consciously and premeditatedly breaking the law, she decried the injustice that made her at times ingest dirt. Yes, that’s right. In order to elicit sympathy from her audience-which was unnecessary, considering the crowd-she recounted an anecdote about being forced to eat cakes made of dirt. However, unlike the Haitians forced to eat dirt cookies in Cite Soleil, I doubt the veracity of her tale, not least because it would mean she didn’t avail herself of the free school lunch program in this city, that her parents somehow missed the lavishly funded network of Catholic services intended specifically for the benefit of illegals, and that everyone in her immediate family-including those proficient in the English language-ignored the dozens of open borders advocacy groups-at least half a dozen of which participated in this event-located in the Tri-State Area. 

The political exploitation of children was a recurring theme, as was the deliberate obfuscation of the issues, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who followed last year’s debate over Congress’s possible approval of the DREAM Act. There was even a “family” that dragged itself to Foley Square, although the integrity of parents willing to subject their kids to sub-freezing temperatures in order to be propagandized is questionable.

Left unasked was the question, “why should families be separated?” Apparently, these adults graduated from the Elvira Arellano School of Parenting.

I’m not quite sure what the pink, artificial flowers signified, but they were ubiquitous at the demonstration, as plentiful as the palm fronds at a previous, equally absurd demonstration opposing the concept of enforcing immigration laws.

It took a while for the crowd to fill out-perhaps some would-be participants were scared off by La Migra-but eventually 70-80 illegals, their supporters, as well as Occupy Wall Street stragglers, made their way into the area the NYPD had cordoned off beforehand.

The folks in the red arm bands-one of the speakers described them as “orange,” so perhaps I’m color blind-were ostensibly there in order to provide security and protect their “community.” Evidently, the 100+ uniformed police officers did not constitute a sufficient force to deter a few dozen aging Communists and inept soccer players.

It wouldn’t be an unfocused, left wing demonstration without a number of platitudinous, seemingly incoherent placards, and this day was no exception. The one below would seem to imply that diversity is a necessary prerequisite for a functioning society, although as Adam Carolla has pointed out, true diversity seems to be the last thing on the minds of people agitating for unfettered immigration.

The artistic dimensions of this protest were manifold, although aside from the more ardent defenders of Roman Polanski, who’ve been taken to task elsewhere, I don’t know of many people who would consider obeying the law an esthetic choice.

There was also, perhaps unsurprisingly in a post-OWS world, a marching band.

We will not be silent. A call to arms, or-considering the talent level of the musicians in question-an implied threat?

Some of the demonstrators even brought their pets along, including this daschund. I don’t think I’m being presumptuous by taking it as a given that she was one of the few present with legal papers.

The only possible response to this sign? Too late, pal.

There was at least one activist who made a passing reference to the May 1st Coalition, a militantly open borders organization that stages anti-American protests each May Day. This website, as well as NY ICE, has tangled with them in the past.

Again, the signs on display expressed sentiments that ranged all the way from utterly vacuous, to incoherent, to utterly inaccurate and ahistorical. The one below is just one such example. Apparently, dignity isn’t a state that you earn through deeds your fellow man deems worthy of esteem, it’s something that you demand of the people you’re imposing youself upon-in this case, illegally. One wonders whether this person thinks about the dignity and self-worth of the millions of Americans rendered unemployable by our government’s deliberate actions, or the people who have to bear the costs associated with its inability to pursue a rational immigration policy that revolves around America’s interests. Somehow, I doubt he has.

Another trusty standby, immigrants pay taxes. There are only two problems with this one.

1. Illegal aliens are not immigrants.

2. The taxes paid by the cohort of immigrants this country currently absorbs are vastly outweighed by the amount of taxpayer funds they consume in the form of costly social welfare benefits.

Other than those two minor quibbles, she presents an irrefutable, logically airtight argument.

Ironically, many of the signs on display simply reinforced the arguments that this website and its supporters have been making for years. The ones decrying workplace exploitation of illegal alien workers, for example, did not convey any concept that Roy Beck hasn’t articulated quite vociferously and eloquently over the past two decades.

The generic nature of some of the signage began to get tiresome after a while. The banner below serving perhaps as the apotheosis of vapidity. Immigrants represent a better future for whom? The utterly superfluous nonprofits and advocacy organizations that suck up taxpayer subsidies in order to justify their existence? The political elite  that cultivates them in order to remain ensconced in office and wielding power over the rest of us indefinitely? The media gatekeepers who intentionally squelch an honest debate about this issue? The beneficiaries of our current open borders policies were never specified.

The most obnoxious-to say nothing of historically inaccurate-sentiment expressed at this rally was the notion that “we,” the collective noun in this case referring to nonwhite Hispanics or Amerindians, were here first. The incandescent stupidity of this assertion was illustrated by a brief conversation conducted with the woman holding the sign seen below.

When I asked her who the referent was in the statement “we were here first,” after stammering for a few seconds she replied that it was the North Americans who were here before the Europeans. She averred that she was a Puerto Rican and that they had been there forever. Not quite satisfied by her answer, I pressed and was told that we referred to “brown people.” When I brought up the counterexample of Kennewick Man, who most assuredly wasn’t brown-unless the Ainu are now conidered members of La Raza- she demurred.

Unfortunately, her mistaken belief was echoed by many others in the crowd, including this woman, who seems to be operating under the misconception that there really is a North American Union.

This startingly incoherent banner expressed similar sentiments:

After glancing at the back of his oak tag, I realized that he was referring to the realignment of political cartography that resulted from this nation’s military victory in the Mexican-American War. Although the origin of the war between Mexico and the United States is an extraordinarily complex topic, and the political boundary between the two nations has been questioned by many since Abraham Lincoln served as a Whig congressman from Illinois, I don’t remember the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo including any mention of New York, current demographic trends notwithstanding.

The demonstrators attempt to play on the heartstrings of the overly emotional and credulous was consistent, as evinced by the banner below. Not surprisingly, the families torn apart by illegal aliens did not merit any sympathy among those in attendance.

Of course, the legality of enforcing any immigration law was brought into question by the protestors. Although it’s possible that she was referring to something else, “double jeopardy” in the context below means trying and/or deporting an alien because he or she was charged with a crime for which the defendent has already been acquitted. What puzzles me is why she went through the trouble of devising such a specific sign when in all likelihood she doesn’t believe any illegal alien-even those who have been subjected to fair legal proceedings-should be deported.

Note for the unitiated: La Migra, not to be confused with the Mexican grupera artists of the same name, refers to any immigration enforcement agency within the federal government, including ICE, the  U.S. Border Patrol, and Customs and Border Protection. A popular staple of pro-immigration art, including a somewhat clever gloss on a Ramones’ classic, the anti-migra spirit was pretty abundant this weekend, although how much illegals have to fear from la migra is open to debate, especially in light of this administration’s rather lenient record with regard to these matters and this city’s lackluster record of cooperation with federal immigration agents.

This was one of the more unintentionally amusing signs I spotted:

Although the analogy between explicitly discriminatory and unconstitutional ordinances targeting African-Americans and laws intended to punish people who’ve disobeyed the law-and usually have no constitutional right to remain in this country-has been made many times  in the past, this fellow must be commended for actually going to the trouble of drawing and inking two menacing looking crows, as well as a jubilant Rich “Uncle” Pennybags. Why a wealthy oligarch would be in favor of immigration enforcement is not delineated; Mr. Monopoly would certainly be an anomaly in that regard. There is a relationship between the corporate world and federal immigration enforcement agencies, although not in the way implied by this wholly misleading sign.

The Occupy Wall Street movement operated as the hinge of this protest, and there were a number of attempts to tie it to the open borders advocacy which was the ostensible reason for this event. The linkage between the two was made explicit by several demonstrators.

Although sectarian leftists and assorted Marxists attempted to monopolize the conversation, as they are wont to do. There were the Wobblies-yes, they still exist.

As well as Trotskyists hoping for a Fourth International.

The unconsciously ironic hipsters of the Party of Socialism and Liberation were also there.

And it wouldn’t be a full-throated, left wing NYC demonstration without a contingent from the brutally Communist, hard-line Leninist Workers World Party.

Some of the participants seemed eager to relive the halcyon days of the Contra wars of the 1980s, which-given their age-probably shouldn’t have been that surprising. However, unlike in past May Day rallies, I didn’t spot anyone holding aloft FMLN banners.

Our good friend, who henceforth shall be known as Button Man,  seemed to combine the two predominant themes of the afternoon, espousing support for unrestricted immigration and an adherence to doctinaire Marxism.

His vest expressing support for the left’s favorite executioner, Ernesto Guevara Lynch…

In addition to Fidel Castro’s quintet of bumbling spies, whom El Jefe’s American fan club view as political prisoners.

The fervor seen earlier in the day seemed to die down as the crowd marched towards Zuccotti Park, but I did manage to snap a few interesting pictures before calling it a day. This banner proclaims that we will die on our feet before we will kneel. Those of you more proficient in Espanol, feel free to correct any errors in translation.

One of the last shots is a photograph of a duo representing the Ecuadorian Socialist Party of New Jersey. Yes, there is an Ecuadorian Socialist Party of New Jersey. Why there isn’t one in New York City is beyond my ken.

No more capitalism! We are constructing socialism. Isn’t that a sentiment that all Americans can get behind? No? Really?

Although the demonstration gradually dissipated, law enforcement remained.

Perhaps to keep an eye on Santa?

The assault against Secure Communities continues apace, as we learned yesterday from the Los Angeles Times. In a lopsided vote, the Los Angeles City Council decided to make participation in this successful immigration enforcement program purely voluntary; an idea that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has already scotched, at least rhetorically.The problem is that despite the seemingly inflexible stance of  the Obama administration, administration officials have not seen fit to punish the states and localities that are openly flouting the guidelines of his Department of Homeland Security. If even a tenth of the energy the White House has expended in order to punish Arizona for having the temerity to enact SB 1070 were directed at cracking down on sanctuary cities, the public debate about illegal immigration would be wholly different.

As Doug McIntyre, the incomparable host of Red Eye Radio, pointed out in his opening monologue today, the craven politicians who enact bills such as the one passed by the L.A. City Council are driven by one thing: votes! They see the masses of illegal aliens and their supporters as a future, inexhaustible supply of votes in future elections, and will do anything it takes, including eroding American sovereignty, imperiling our national security, and harming American citizens, in order to tap into that rich vein of political power. Unfortunately, it seems like Los Angeles-and on a broader scale, the state of California-might be too overwhelmed by the sheer numbers  of aliens to stem this tide.

The good news is that there is still time for those of us living in states like New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts-whose governors have all recently prevented Secure Communities from being implemented-to fight back. I’ll suggest some practical ways to do so in the coming days underneath the activism column of this website.

My apologies for beginning this entry with such a startlingly vulgar image, but I thought it appropriate to visually demonstrate the level of debate I encountered from open borders anarchists during the May Day rally held at Foley Square. These two characters-who obviously eschew fasting as a form of political protest-are from the very violent, yet strangely ineffectual, organization known as Antifa. They oppose what they describe as “fascism” by replicating the methods and tactics of brownshirts. More on them later.

I will begin our journey into the depths of Marxist inadequacy, however, chronologically. I, Joanna Marzullo, in addition to several members of her organization, New York Ice-as well as the inestimable Marinka Peschmann-began our counter-protest by situating ourselves across from Union Square, an historic gathering place for political demonstrations of all stripes from the time of the Civil War to our own confused political era.

As you might also notice, the message the organizers of this rally intended to send to the general public was incoherent, to say the least. In addition to those hailing the recent legal victory of notorious cop-killer Wesley Cook, as well as the rich political legacy of Fidel Castro’s favorite executioner, there were anti-war critics of President Obama-a consistent theme of this year’s events:

The union representing CUNY teachers: 

Clinically obese supporters of one of Mexico’s most resonant fashion icons:

A curiously anachronistic, but nonetheless enthusiastic, group commemorating the service of America’s finest Stalinist mercenaries-probably veterans of the Spanish Civil War, now that I think of it. 

And one man who held aloft a sign that I would have immediately classified as racist, had he not assured me he was no longer a member of the Tea Party. 

There were also those generic Marxist-Leninists and anarcho-Communists whom we’ve all come to love and admire. Or at the very least, smirk at knowingly as they enter Starbucks to buy their Triple Mocha Latte. 

Although by this point in my photo-essay you could be forgiven for assuming that the May Day rally in support of “immigration reform” and “labor” was actually an incoherent grab-bag of left wing fetishes, there were actually some indications-however nebulous-that at least a handful of people were actually aware of the purpose of the May 1st rally. This photograph, for instance, tries to evoke compassion for those poor anchor babies whose families are the victims of deportation raids. What makes the tableaux all the more unsettling is the fact that this young girl is obviously going to contribute greatly to American society through her peace activism, which hopefully will be more focused than that of the people who conceived of this event.  

I also met perhaps the two most polite and civil protesters of the day, who also happen to be an inter-ethnic couple: 

I don’t know whether that man’s Mexican husband is undocumented, but there is no denying that he has a distinctive fashion sense that Americans, at least those Americans at this particular May Day rally,  are sorely lacking. Interestingly enough, I met another man by the name of Scott Sanchez who is also married to an immigrant. In his case, a Scottish woman, which would explain the royal Scottish flag he was holding when I spoke with him for this website. 

He was also extraordinarily civil. Unfortunately, he was the singular exception at the main protest rally held in Foley Square, which I shall explore in greater depth in tomorrow’s post. Keep watching for my thoughts on the Antifa theater of the absurd, as well as some pictures of respectable American citizens who want everyone to be equal under the law.