With the unfortunate news that Eric Holder is going to remain in his position as head of the Department of Justice for the second Obama term-at least for the foreseeable future-it’s only fitting that we take a cursory glance at the defining moment of his tenure as Attorney General. I refer, of course, to Operation Fast and Furious, which let high powered arms-of the sort demonized by anti-2nd Amendment demagogues and Holder apologists Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein-walk into the hands of ruthless Mexican drug cartels with the encouragement and under the leadership of Obama appointees in the ATF and Justice Department. 

One of those individuals is former Phoenix ATF Assistant Special Agent in Charge George T. Gillett, Jr., a man who was entrusted with overseeing Fast and Furious for over half a year, beginning in late 2009. It’s now been confirmed that a gun from this lethally stupid operation has been traced back to Mr. Gillett personally. Anyone who’s followed the fallout from perhaps the single most outrageous abuse of power by the Obama administration is familiar with the casualties which have resulted from this scheme, which are spread across the entire hemisphere.

The lack of accountability throughout this administration for those officials responsible for its implementation-including Mr. Gillette and others who have been promoted in spite of their criminality-should be astonishing, but is in fact reflective of the habitual blame-shifting and hypocrisy at the heart of Barack Obama’s presidency. What’s more, it reflects the inherent double standards that animate our government, which seeks to deny innocent American citizens their constitutional rights even as its leaders promulgate illegal policies that lead to the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians abroad.

The same Capitol Hill gasbags eager to erode the 2nd Amendment in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, a campaign based upon non-existent facts, are the first to defend Eric Holder and Justice Department officials under whose purview Fast and Furious unfolded, and who have done everything in their power to obstruct congressional investigations into their actions.

Whether we will make any progress in achieving justice during the President’s second term is debatable. Will the media-with a few commendable exceptions-continue to cover up for the malicious actions of government officials? Will the senators who installed Eric Holder into his lofty position begin to question their unfailing loyalty to an Attorney General who has lost the confidence of the American public and, to a great degree, Congress?

We shall see. Something that this latest revelation confirms is that elections do have consequences, some of them fatal.

Most of you are probably aware of Univision’s groundbreaking investigation of Fast and Furious, which aired last night. For those of you fluent in Espanol, you can watch the first part here. There’s also a Spanish-language interview of Univision’s two investigative reporters by Jorge Ramos, which focuses on the bloody history of Eric Holder’s anti-anti-gun trafficking initiative and includes a brief excerpt from an interview with the late Agent Jaime Zapata’s grieving parents.

You can read an English-language transcript of  a somewhat disjointed interview Gerardo Reyes conducted with Hugh Crumpler, an FBI informant currently behind bars, about Operation Castaway, which we’ve explored in the past. You can also listen to a brief sound file of Crumpler describing how he first involved himself with the ATF. Finally, you can read more details of the report and its potential consequences, in English, from Hot Air.

Despite the theatrical exodus of its most useless faction of lawmakers, Congress coalesced into a bipartisan coalition this week to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his obstruction of investigations into the Fast and Furious debacle. Here’s the roll call for the contempt vote. Kudos to the seventeen Democrats-including New York’s own Kathy Hochul and Bill Owens-who broke with their party in order to hold the head of the Department of Justice accountable for his malfeasance in office. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, also deserves commendation for introducing into the public record evidence from a March 2010 wiretap application which belies Eric Holder’s repeated protestations of ignorance regarding gunwalking south of the border. 

Hopefully, this momentous vote means Congress will continue its oversight of a rogue administration that seems incapable of policing itself. 

I’ll delve more deeply into President Obama’s Unemployment For Americans Act in future updates, but today I’d like to highlight a speech made by the intrepid Michelle Malkin at this weekend’s Right Online conference. It’s particularly apt in light of the President’s continued policy of lashing out at dissenters-not a new phenomenon, unfortunately-such as the Daily Caller’s Neil Munro.

Find more videos of Right Online at The Right Scoop.

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.

That is our current attorney general Eric Holder, give or take a decade and a half, exhorting a receptive audience to delegitimize the right to keep and bear arms, which is a bedrock of our Constitution’s foundation, the Bill of Rights. While it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the man at the heart of the gunwalking fiasco known as Fast and Furious should want to nullify our Second Amendment rights, it’s always refreshing to have freedom’s enemies on the record. 

You can watch a longer excerpt from Holder’s speech, which-if you ignore the somewhat dated reference to Martin Lawrence’s burgeoning career as a comedic actor-is still incredibly relevant as it relates to the drive to strip away law-abiding citizens’ fundamental constitutional rights.

A man dying in the prime of his life, even as he was ascending to the summit of his vocation, is something that rarely occurs in this country. Even my paternal grandfather, and his son, i.e. my own father, whose lives were tragically cut short by bad genes-as well some unwise personal decisions-lived long enough to see their children graduate from college, and in some cases, bear children. That was not the case, unfortunately, with respect to Andrew Breitbart, someone who was kind enough to inscribe my copy of Righteous Indignation-his stirring memoir cum polemical call to arms-and provide me with some useful advice on the art of political warfare during our sole meeting, which was chronicled on this website last year.

In addition to the remarkable photojournalist Tim Hetherington, he was the second person in his early forties I’ve met in the past year whose life has ended abruptly. And while it would be callous to say you ‘expect’ anyone that vibrant to die at such a premature age, I would be lying if I told you that the tragic killing of a photographer who routinely worked in war zones such as Iraq and Libya stunned me. Andrew’s passing, on the other hand, was inexplicable when juxtaposed against the frenetic, dynamic-albeit slightly jet-lagged-individual I met last April.

Like Tim Hetherington, however, Andrew Breitbart was a remarkable individual who left a mark upon our culture that’s impossible to quantify at this close remove. While most media obituaries have focused upon the instrumental role he played in exposing-figuratively speaking-disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner, illustrated by this Radar headline, Andrew’s accomplishments in his brief time on earth eclipse the downfall of any one venal, supercilious politician. Yet the Weiner scandal, and Andrew’s ultimate vindication, epitomize the essence Breitbart’s mission.

What began with a seemingly prurient allegation against an arrogant Democratic member of Congress beloved by the D.C. and New York press corps rapidly turned into a media witch hunt against a conservative icon who embodied everything that the drive-by media viewed with disdain. His impromptu press conference  is a tour de force defense against media and government libel and manipulation, which will long outlive the petulant screeds penned by his most small-minded, ideologically hidebound critics.

So too will his struggle to defang the left’s most potent, and regrettably, effective, weapon against conservative ideas. Namely, racial stigmatization. Uncovering the Pigford scandal-an extensive scheme to defraud American taxpayers couched in terms of racial reparations and social justice-is probably the most impressive feat of Breitbart’s meteoric career as a muckraking journalist-activist, although you’ll struggle to find mention of this achievement in any obituary published by mainstream media organs. Instead, you’ll read a steady stream of misrepresentations about what is one of the most frivolous class action lawsuits-and pusillanimous abdications by Congress-in recent memory.  Luckily, Andrew was his most capable defender on this score.

As heartbreaking as the loss of Andrew Breitbart is-not least to his widow and their four children-we must not forget that his ideas and spirit will persist. James O’Keefe, the young man who singlehandedly dealt a body blow to the institutional left’s keystone organization, continues to crusade for accountability among taxpayer-bankrolled political arms of the Democratic Party. As does Lila Rose, who has done to Planned Parenthood what her colleague did to ACORN, i.e. expose the underlying corruption of an organization shielded by its benefactors in Congress and allies in the media.

Both owe a debt of gratitude to Breitbart, as do all Americans whose eyes were opened by investigations credentialed journalists were unwilling to initiate due to timidity and ideological affinity for Breitbart’s targets. The complaisant relationship  the press had with organizations and individuals it was ostensibly charged with covering was a recurring theme of his Andrew’s work, and highlighting the vast gulf between how the fourth estate views itself and what it actually does will ultimately be one of his most enduring legacies. The grassroots, investigative journalism that Breitbart encouraged is thriving-just look at who uncovered this administration’s coverup of Fast and Furious-even as media dinosaurs totter and topple.

That is the real bequest of Andrew Breitbart. He inspired-or should inspire-people to get off their asses and take charge of their country. To shake off the listless torpor our nation’s rulers and gatekeepers have conditioned us into complacently accepting and to effect real, lasting change in our communities. Not the sort  driven by Harvard Law School or the Columbia School of Journalism, but change designed to expand the sphere of individual choice and autonomous decision-making. To reject the pretensions of power by those with no moral authority and to expand the freedom to do what you want to, regardless of how bien pensant it might seem at the National Press Club or in Hollywood production meetings.

That’s why the best way you could honor the memory of Andrew Breitbart is to emulate him. Go out there and do what Breitbart has done. A great way to start is by buying Righteous Indignation, which in addition to being a very entertaining autobiography is a wonderful how-to manual for grassroots political activists and citizen-journalists. Go and see Hating Breitbart when it’s released later this year, and discover what made this man tick. You’ll probably discover that it’s the same things which drive you, i.e. family, loved ones, and an abiding love for this country. Even if our passions take a different form, or our temperament is slightly more even-keeled, we all have some animating force that drives us. The job in this life is to cultivate and exploit that passion while we’re here, and whatever his shortcomings that is something that Andrew Breitbart always did, and it’s an example we should all try to follow in the short time we’ve been allotted.

Kudos to the Hon. Sandy Adams for holding Eric Holder’s feet to the fire, and reminding him that for some Americans the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was not merely a tragedy, but the result of premeditated actions taken by this administration in order to perpetuate its comprehensive attack upon our 2nd Amendment rights. Let’s hope that the boldness of Rep. Adams, and not the pusillanimity of Speaker Boehner, carries the day.

Our last Rattle of 2011 runs the gamut, all the way from an immigration enforcement success in Pennsylvania to a disappointing judicial setback in South Carolina. However, we begin the final roundup of the year with a must-read essay in The American Conservative by W. James Antle III. It looks at the immigration scorecard in a sober, realistic analysis that takes into account the substantive victories of immigration reformers-such as continued nationwide support for SB 1070 and its clones-to the unquestionable failures, including a seismic change in the language of the immigration debate, which has turned the phrase “immigration reform” into a synonym for wholesale amnesty. It’s a piece that anyone who is concerned about this subject-as I know most of you are-should read in its entirety. 

We continue by highlighting a great post over at the American Thinker that poses several questions that Newt Gingrich has yet to satisfactorily answer about his dubious proposal to create a tiered system of permanent non-citizen workers out of the pool of 11-20 million illegal aliens currently living here. Be John Galt  expresses some other concerns that have yet to be addressed by Newt while emphasizing the points made by Mickey Kaus in his own analysis of Newt’s plan. Something that conservatives supporting Gingrich-but who are ostensibly opposed to amnesty-need to answer is why they’re backing a candidate whose immigration platform mirrors the one put forward by open borders, libertarian economist Bryan Caplan.

Staying in the field of presidential politicking, American Rattlesnake wholeheartedly endorses the statements of Mitt Romney, vis-a-vis President Obama’s illegal alien uncle, Onyango Obama. For those of you who might not recall, Omar Onyango Obama is not only residing in this country illegally-much like the President’s beloved Aunt Zeituni-but is the owner and operator of a liquor store in Boston, despite his recent DUI conviction.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney’s opponent Rick Perry continued his tough on the border pantomime in Iowa, decrying the inability of the federal government to control our southern border with Mexico, as well as declaring that he would withdraw the Justice Department’s lawsuits against states like Arizona and Alabama. The pull quote from this article is “the border has to be shut down for the future of the United States of America.” One wonders what he would do with the estimated forty percent of illegal aliens who overstay their visas. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see how serious Governor Perry is about his newfound posture of immigration hawk.

It does seem that the current crop of presidential candidates is being forced to address the concerns of Republican voters, however reluctantly and haltingly. That said, VDare has a fascinating piece exploring the damage that refugee resettlement has caused in Manchester, New Hampshire, and why the national GOP has been completely AWOL on this issue, despite its ritualistic paeans to the role of New Hampshire as the first state in the nation to hold its presidential primary. The politically courageous current mayor of Manchester is standing up for his constituents, even if the federal government and parasitical members of the refugee resettlement industry won’t. Perhaps the boldness of Ted Gatsas will serve as an example for his timorous counterparts in the national GOP to emulate. We can all hope.

The internal strife caused by the U.S. State Department in Maine is mirrored in Florence, Italy, where the tragic deaths of two Senegalese street merchants is being exploited by media organs to condemn the “racism” of ordinary Italians. Sadly, the exploitation of tragedies like this for political purposes is nothing new to the multicultural zealots spearheading the militant, Gramscian left. Nor is the equation of patriotic, reasonable opposition to mass immigration to racism an anomaly, unfortunately. It seems like these sorts of ad hominem attacks come with the territory, as Peter Brimelow pointed out in yesterday’s post.

Heading down to Washington D.C., we find that the usual rogue’s gallery of open borders demagogues is trying once again to foist amnesty upon an American public, and a Congress, that has consistently rejected it since it was first introduced over a decade ago.  The tireless efforts of Dick Durbin to give the bird to American taxpayers and hard-working students wouldn’t be newsworthy in itself, if not for the fact that a Philippine newspaper is now leading the charge to see the enactment of the DREAM Act. Media bias in reporting of immigration issues is nothing new, especially from foreign newspapers who hold no reverence for American law. However, the fact that a member of the United States Senate is cribbing notes from a newspaper overseas in order to undermine the country he’s ostensibly representing is a sad commentary on the state of politics in America in 2011.

Taking a short jaunt to Baltimore, we say farewell to WBAL institution Ron Smith. Before being struck down by cancer at the age of 70, Smith was a resonant voice of reason and integrity in a world where too may fall prey to the lure of the D.C. cocktail circuit. Gregory Kane has a fitting tribute to him in the Washington Examiner. Michelle Malkin testifies to the humanity of Ron on her website as well. Like the late, great Terry Anderson-another immigration patriot who died last year-Ron Smith will be missed by many people across the country, most of whom never knew him personally. Rest in Peace, Ron.

In slightly cheerier news, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has approved a bill that would penalize employers who hire illegal workers. Fox News Latino has the entire story, which touches upon similar bills that were eventually enacted in states like Alabama and Arizona. On the other hand, the drive for immigration enforcement suffered a blow in South Carolina, where a federal judge has enjoined a law that cracked down on human smuggling and gave law enforcement officers the opportunity to detain those arrested for unrelated crimes if they were illegal aliens. As Governor Nikki Haley’s spokesman has said, the ultimate resolution of this case rests in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Our neighbor to the north is having its own immigration problems, which  have been amply documented by American Rattlesnake in previous updates. Canada’s capable Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is tackling them in stride, initiating the largest crackdown on citizenship fraud in recent memory. Of course, his proactive initiatives-including an innovative tip line ordinary Canadians can use to report cases of immigration fraud-have earned scorn from the usual suspects. Notwithstanding the carping from bottom-feeding immigration attorneys and radical, open borders socialists, Kenney has earned respect from the public and his adversaries across the aisle, as this National Post article demonstrates.

If only our president had cabinet members willing to stand up for their fellow countrymen. Instead, we have Hilda Solis, the U.S. Secretary of Labor, doing everything in her capacity to empower illegal aliens instead of the Americans who are struggling beneath a crushing unemployment rate and prolonged recession. Even as the unemployment rate plummets in the Yellowhammer State because of HB 56, Solis tries to find ways to double down on the failure of the Obama administration to provide economic opportunities for American citizens. Combined with the administration’s decision to remove the last remaining National Guard troops from our southern border, Barack Obama has demonstrated his disdain for the concerns of the American electorate.

In other administration news, the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Alan Bersin, has resigned from his post. An unconfirmed recess appointment by President Obama, Bersin will be replaced by David V. Aguilar. But don’t worry open borders enthusiasts, Mr. Aguilar is four square in favor of amnesty, although he prefers to call it something else.

Finally, the ongoing congressional investigations into Operation Fast and Furious and this administration’s persistent coverup continue apace. We now have Senator Joseph Lieberman, previously known for his atrocious record on immigration issues, directing the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which he currently chairs, to investigate the interagency “miscommunication” that lies at the heart of the Fast and Furious debacle. Let’s hope that he and Senator Grassley can elicit a more responsive reaction by administration officials than we’ve seen in the past. What is certain is that the men and woman who were killed, including Agent Jaime Zapata, as a result of the Justice Department’s and ATF’s negligence will never return to the warm embrace of their loved ones. If nothing else, let’s push for some measure of justice and accountability for those still alive.

Hat Tips: The Tea Party Immigration Coalition NCFreedom and NAFBPO

But first, we tackle the burgeoning scandal known as Fast and Furious, which has already claimed an untold number of lives on both sides of the border and continues to unravel, despite the best efforts of the Obama administration to obstruct congressional investigations of rogue DOJ and BATF officials. The U.S. Senate has unanimously adopted an amendment authored by Senator John Cornyn that would prohibit Congress from funding future gunwalking operations. The chairman of the House Oversight Committee and the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary have written a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, asking him to account for the discrepancy between what DOJ “sources” told the press and what an official DOJ report revealed about Agent Brian Terry’s death. Based upon the history of obstruction of Congress relating to any investigation of Fast and Furious, I wouldn’t expect Senator Grassley or Congressman Issa to receive a definitive answer any time in the near future. Finally, documents obtained by CBS News-which has done an exceptional job covering Executive malfeasance that much of the mainstream media seems intent on ignoring-demonstrate once again how deeply entangled Attorney General Eric Holder is in the Obama administration’s multifaceted gunwalking debacle.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has begun to implement the vast adminstrative amnesty set in motion by the Morton Memos. In keeping with the administration’s strict policy of rewarding lawbreakers-but only if they came here from another country-the illegal aliens who have been amnestied will be able to work at jobs  that those 14 million Americans who are unemployed apparently won’t do. And what will these newly empowered non-legal residents need to do in order to cause the immigration bureaucracy to reconsider their statuses? Not much, according to Chris Crane, the president of the union representing ICE officers who has revealed the Obama adminstration’s policy of not apprehending felonious, criminal aliens. All self-serving press releases to the contrary, ICE leadership is systematically dismantling immigration enforcement in a brazen example of political expediency.

On the heels of news that the world’s most-wanted fugitive, and head of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel, has an inamorata who’s birthed two children on American soil, Mexico’s current El Presidente has insinuated that “El Chapo” Guzman may in fact be living in the United States himself. Although I doubt that’s the case, considering the open borders policies of this administration, it doesn’t surprise me that some are making the allegation.

The most recent GOP presidential debate gave immigration analysts plenty to chew over, especially on the issue of border fencing. While Michele Bachmann-the best candidate on this issue who has thus far emerged-reiterated her promise to construct a double fence on the Mexican border, Mitt Romney emphasized the priority of interior enforcement, and cutting off the access illegal aliens currently have to jobs within the United States. Some of those jobs, of course, once involved landscaping Governor Romney’s estate, as was made clear once again by his inadvertent gaffe during the debate. Rick Perry, of course, opposes any sort of obstruction to illegal ingress for Mexican border crossers, but that stance was not what made headlines this week. No, the truly stunning revelation involved a plane chartered by the Perry campaign that had been used by Mexican drug smugglers in the past. Although it doesn’t appear that Rick Perry or his campaign was aware of the illicit use to which the plane had been put, it does certainly present bad optics for a presidential candidate whose lax stance on illegal immigration has already been rightfully skewered by his opponents.

Finally, our least-favorite incompetent New England governor/all-around nitwit is back in the news. Lincoln Chafee, proving once again that political nepotism is never a good thing, has given an interview to a local news station where he declares that his sanctuary state policies will not attract more illegal aliens to Rhode Island. As you can see by watching the exchange, his assertion is not very convincing. Perhaps Canada had the right idea after all.