Update: Matt Bruenig explains what happened this weekend. 

Michael Tracey raises an interesting question. 

Keith Ellison’s loss is noteworthy for a number of reasons, many of them unrelated to the fact that his victorious opponent will be the first self-identifying Hispanic to preside over the Democratic National Committee. Yes, ethnicity/race did play a pivotal role in this intra-party election, but not in the way that the mainstream media and Democratic shills would have you believe. Perez’s victory is not so much a case of Democrats implicitly rebuking President Trump and his purportedly anti-latino immigration policies as Barack Obama’s man on the inside once again stepping on the Bernie Bros.

The party hatchet-man who did so much to pave the way for Hillary Clinton’s disastrous candidacy, crafting the message which social justice warriors and feminists gleefully vomited at Bernie Sanders and his backers in the Democratic primary, is now in a position to run the Democratic Party. The former President who has done so much to divide his own party, which continues to be riven by the parallel political institutions he created, now has his own Machiavelli steering the course of the DNC.

This is not only a ratification of the open borders, corporatist, elitist vision which animated the Hillary Clinton campaign-progressives be damned-it is yet another slap in the face of African-Americans, i.e. the foundation of the contemporary Democratic Party. How do woke individuals continue to reconcile their support for Barack Obama with the concrete policies and decisions made by a man who, beyond empty gestural politics, has done absolutely nothing for the black community? To the contrary, the legacy of the 44th President is one of neglect and indifference towards the people most responsible for helping him make history.

We have just witnessed an elite cross-section of Democrats from around the country reject someone who is literally a black Muslim in favor of a Brown alum who’s whiter than Steve Bannon, and whose campaign manager would fit in perfectly at a Huffington Post editorial meeting. Don’t expect national Democrats to curtail their moral preening and sanctimony as we enter the Perez  Era. Just as we’re forced to endure lectures attacking this country from a smarmy talking head for The Reconquista whose fame and fortune were given to him by Americans, we will now experience four years of privileged leftists telling us why white people need to check their privilege. Apparently, the new head of the Dems seems to agree that white people are entitled to fewer rights based upon their skin color.

I can’t wait until 2020.

With Election Day imminent, it’s only appropriate that this edition of the Daily Rattle begins with a few news items dealing with important votes taking place throughout the country. One of the most revealing contests does not involve a single political candidate, but is actually a referendum taking place in the deep-blue state of Oregon. Measure 88, a ballot proposition that would invest illegal aliens living in that state with driver’s licenses-just like their fellow lawbreakers to the north-looks to be headed towards a resounding defeat, to the surprise, no doubt, of everyone but those of us who have been paying attention. Thankfully, this ACLU-crafted invitation to further criminality-and potential mayhem in the skies-will be rejected by sensible Oregon voters, even if the pathetic incumbent-along with the lovely, immigration fraud enabler to whom he’s married-remains in the governor’s mansion.

Unfortunately, the political appeal for defending the health and security of American citizens is  a concept that’s all but lost on those currently running the Republican Party. You need look no further than Democratic political consultant-and advisor to former President Jimmy Carter-Pat Caddell to realize the utter stupidity of the GOP neglecting the most important domestic policy issue of our time. His description of the GOP as the Stupid Party encapsulates our feelings on this subject, as most of you already know. For anyone doubting the validity of this assertion, a recent survey demonstrating that the vast majority of Coloradans want all illegal aliens deported-contrary to the pro-amnesty stances proffered by candidates of both parties-should dispel your skepticism. As should the remarkably successful senatorial campaign of Scott Brown, who has bravely bucked the trend of Republican candidates dodging the subject of patriotic immigration reform, no doubt to the horror and consternation of the editors at the Wall Street Journal.

The results of these elections will have momentous consequences, not the least of them being a potential increase in crime unleashed by relaxed-or non-existent-immigration enforcement. USA Today has confirmed what almost everyone suspected regarding last year’s politically-motivated release of thousands of illegal aliens from federal custody during the sequestration process. Namely, that these individuals were not benign Dreamers, but rapists, human traffickers, and kidnappers, insincere protestations  to the contrary  by administration flacks notwithstanding. Kudos to the New Hampshire Union Leader for seeking the disclosure of the names of criminal aliens whose identity ICE bureaucrats were attempting to hide from public. And if you’re under the impression that aliens who’ve committed a serious crime will eventually be punished, no such luck. The case of Cynthia Garcia-Cisneros demonstrates that even killing two children through your own lethal negligence will not ensure prison time, let alone deportation for your crimes.

Whether or not the African immigrant who raped and mutilated his wife will be punished for his acts of barbarity remains to be seen. He does not appear to be a beneficiary of the President’s unconstitutional DACA amnesty, so the chances that he’ll be able to skate on these charges-or illegally cast a ballot in the upcoming elections-appear remote. However, the potential for increased violence visited upon innocent Americans as a result of our government’s open borders policies will no doubt increase in the days ahead, as the President amps up his de facto, patently unconstitutional administrative amnesty. In fact, the Obama White House is making no bones about its intent in this regard, as the recent speech by Leon Rodriguez celebrating its forthcoming abuse of power makes clear, as does the order for thousands of work authorization permits for the illegal aliens who will presumably be regularized once the election is over. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez’s specious assertion that the upcoming expansion of  Obama’s administrative amnesty will result in shared prosperity is no doubt intended to allay concerns over the upcoming deluge. Perhaps these propagandists should tell the scores of IT workers who were blackballed from gainful employment by favor-seeking tech firms-about the benefits of mass immigration.

The Obama administration has had its hands full, what with bypassing the constitutional process, easing the lives of criminal aliens-while simultaneously obstructing any investigation into the release of these domestic threats-and allowing over 100,000 Haitians to come to the United States without visas, but it hasn’t neglected to harm American interests in other ways. I’m thinking chiefly of the obstruction of justice related to the Fast and Furious debacle, which proceeds unabated. Thankfully, Judicial Watch continues to shine a spotlight upon one of the greatest crimes perpetrated by the Department of Justice.

As a result, the public now has access to a Vaughn index describing Fast and Furious records, including a tranche of e-mails detailing Attorney General Eric Holder’s intimate involvement in leading the spin machine devoted to exculpating this administration from blame for the fallout from Fast and Furious. Judicial Watch has also obtained information about the pivotal role Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s Svengali-played in the potential perjury of the outgoing Attorney General before Congress. Like the true dimensions of the invasion coming across our southern border from Central America, most major media outlets have decided to ignore one of the most flagrant examples of Executive corruption within the past five decades.

Another underreported story is the Enterovirus D68 outbreak which continues to claim the lives of young children throughout the nation. In the state of California, the rate of infections has doubled within a week, while questions about its origin remain unanswered, contrary to the tendentious conclusions reached by those acclaimed epidemiologists at Media Matters. Moving on to another lethal virus, the National Border Patrol Council has confirmed that hundreds of foreign nationals from the three African nations devastated by Ebola have been detained at the Mexican-American border over the course of the past year. As others have pointed out recently, a dire scenario involving this epidemic involves the spread of the virus throughout Central America, which would make the recent surge of unaccompanied minors look positively benign by comparison. It’s unclear whether future ebola victims traveling to the United States will be entitled to reap the benefits of Obamacare, but rest assured that the procedures used to handle their cases will be based upon political opportunism as much-if not more so-than common sense.

However we deal with them, I’m sure their treatment will elicit cries of xenophobia and lectures on discrimination from the president of Mexico, who continues to believe that our immigration policies should be contoured to accommodate the aspirations of the corrupt, extraordinarily wealthy elite which rules his country. The fact that there might be legitimate economic, cultural, defense or health reasons to limit entry to the United States never occurs to those ensconced in power, whether they reside in Mexico City or in the Big Apple. Just as the concept of having a unifying culture has become anathema to the ruling class, so has the concept of having a common language which binds citizens.

Overseas, civilizational decline proceeds apace, assisted in no small part by the anti-democratic institutions which have been established to serve as a check on the bien pensant attitudes of their native peoples. More than 100,000 uninvited migrants have breached the border crossing which separates France from Italy, according to Le Figaro. The situation in Spain is not much better, as a violent confrontation between a border guard and migrant which occurred recently in Melilla-one of the last obstacles impeding refugees from access to continental Europe-illustrates. In fact, the reality of this nightmarish situation has become so glaringly evident that many European nations-the United Kingdom among them-are rethinking their support for a rescue program which has only served to encourage more potentially deadly journeys across what the Romans once called mare nostrum. I suppose we should be grateful that some European leaders are at least paying lip service to national sovereignty, although none has been as bold as Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, who wants to know why Third World refugees feel entitled to permanent resettlement in developed, First World nations.

If only America had a leader willing to resist the monolith of multiculturalism and open borders activism. Unfortunately, the one state that has thus far rejected the United Nations refugee resettlement program which has unraveled so many tightly knit, beautiful American communities is led by a man who appears ready to accede to the wishes of the UN and U.S. State Department. The consequences of continuing this long march towards oblivion could not be more dire, as the recent jihadist attacks in Canada make clear. The terror attack in Ottawa was enabled in large measure by the manipulation of the immigration system, as Debbie Schlussel points out in an illuminating post exploring some of the history behind  Michael Zehaf-Bibeau’s attack on Parliament Hill and Canada’s National War Memorial. Given the current state of our relationship with Muslim newcomers, it’s not surprising that even before the terrorist assaults in Canada Western nations were advising their soldiers to become invisible. A perfect metaphor, alas, for our current state of affairs.

The shortcomings of Sean Hannity as a cable news host and interviewer are widely known, yet he deserves some credit for interviewing Dennis Michael Lynch, despite his network’s seeming embargo of any information critical of its CEO’s dogmatic open borders agenda, on the day America celebrated its independence from its colonial master, Great Britain. You can view part of this interview, and read a rush transcript, on the FNC website.

I urge you to pay particular attention to the discussion of the well-organized campaign by Soros-bankrolled, La Raza affiliates like Casa de Maryland to impute racism to the dissent expressed by patriotic American citizens. This tactic will be employed with increasing frequency as the cheap labor lobby and its allies redouble their efforts to push the Gang of Eight monstrosity over the finish line in the House of Representatives. Kudos to Sean Hannity for bringing this issue to the attention of a national audience, however belatedly.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of  a trend.

With the United States Senate rushing headlong into its rendezvous with destiny, i.e. deconstructing what remains of this nation’s anemic and beleaguered economy, and the U.S. House following suit, it  seems appropriate to examine cui bono from these developments. Obviously not American citizens, beyond Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and the politicians who’ll be handsomely rewarded by his corporation as a result of  yet another mass amnesty. Undoubtedly the thousands of immigration attorneys who’ll be enriched through the passage of the Gang of Eight proposal-whose case was pleaded by Laura Lichter, the president of the AILA, in laughably skewed immigration hearings-will accrue some financial benefits after comprehensive immigration reform finally occurs.

Certainly, the individuals and institutions which have collectively spent over a billion dollars lobbying Congress over the past half-decade feel that they have a vested interest in altering this nation’s immigration laws. However, the more immediate beneficiaries will be the millions of illegal aliens who will have their status changed, with the resultant benefits, including those enjoyed by their immediate family members and relatives.

That part of this story is the ostensible focus of Two Americans, a documentary about Katherine Figueroa-whose beatific face you see juxtaposed against the snarling visage of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in the print ad above-a nine year-old girl from Arizona whose Mexican parents were arrested and detained after an immigration sweep at their workplace.

I caught a screening of the film by directors Dan Devivo and Valeria Fernandez, which was sponsored by the Justice Action Center and Racial Justice Project of New York Law School, last week just as the debate-such as it is-about immigration reform was percolating within Congress. As you can tell by the names of these academic centers, the foremost concern among faculty members-and presumably, their students-is achieving a desired political outcome-in this case for preferred racial and ethnic groups-regardless of whether that result is consonant with basic Constitutional precepts, a broader conception of justice according to natural law, or a firm foundation in American history. One of the main problems I have with the legal  assault against immigration enforcement-and the left’s approach to the law in general-is that it relies upon this sort of results-based policy, which is predicated on achieving an outcome that is politically-not deontologically-correct.

In my estimation, this is the polar opposite of “justice,” whose definition has until recently-perhaps before the era when critical legal studies achieved a foothold in academe-meant the application of objective rules which applied equally to everyone, regardless of skin color, ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference. Fortunately, the filmmakers behind Two Americans do grapple with the statutory and constitutional issues, such as habeas corpus, due process, and equal protection, that the enforcement of immigration laws in Arizona-specifically, the suppression sweeps launched by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County-raise. In fact, the film’s focus upon these enforcement actions-and the difficult questions of federalism and the criminal justice system-is arguably the most substantive aspect of this documentary. Personally, I wish the directors had chosen to focus exclusively on these issues, rather than attempt to create an ambitious, almost panoramic-yet not altogether successful-film that often feels like four or five separate documentaries stitched together.

While the film’s promotional materials bill it as an investigation of Joe Arpaio’s expenditure of state funds as head of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, as well as a portrayal of the struggles of young Katherine Figueroa, it actually touches upon at least half a dozen other subjects that could have constituted distinct cinematic projects. From the President’s implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an extension of his administration’s administrative amnesty, to the political struggle over Arizona’s landmark law SB 1070, to the issues of leadership raised by the activities of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, to the relationship between Arpaio and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, to the relentless effort by his critics, such as Randy Parraz,  to dislodge him from office, to the battle between Sheriff Joe and the President himself, this documentary seemingly attempts to cover every angle of the immigration debate within Arizona in its hour and a half running time.

The relationship between the sheriff and Figueroa’s family is tenuous at best, as Dan Devivo readily conceded during a post-screening question and answer session, where he described how Joe Arpaio is merely a stand-in for all of the elected officials and law enforcement officers-however few in number-who are attempting to enforce immigration laws in a robust manner. I was genuinely surprised by the negligible amount of time devoted to Katherine’s dilemma-even the focus on the Figueroa family was divided between interviews of Katherine, her parents, and her custodial relatives. She is a very appealing personality for the anti-enforcement movement-lending credence to Mickey Kaus’s theory that the DREAM Act was merely a stalking horse for a much broader amnesty-and I had made the assumption going into the screening that she would be centerpiece of this film.

Admittedly, I wasn’t moved to tears-a reaction that Andrea Callan, the ACLU advocate who hosted this event, assured us would be forthcoming-at any point during Two Americans. Perhaps I’ve become inured to the barrage of sob stories and media puffery which deluge the American public on a daily basis regarding the plight of the undocumented. However, it’s hard to discount the notion that Katherine Figueroa’s story is tailor-made for a sympathetic human interest story which could have filled the plot of an anti-enforcement film in its own right. The directors chose to focus instead on the political nature of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s public persona, which is often overlooked in discussions about the utility, legality, and impact of his office’s enforcement campaigns.

In truth, Arpaio is, in addition to being the chief law enforcement officer in Maricopa County, a public official whose capacity as sheriff rests upon his popularity with Arizona voters. So it’s not surprising that his most hotly contested public stance generates scrutiny regarding his motives; the filmmakers asserted-both in the film and subsequent Q&A session-that his crusade against illegal immigration is driven solely by political opportunism. It’s a charge seemingly buttressed by the testimony of a former colleague-interviewed throughout this film-who claims that Joe Arpaio jumped on the anti-illegal alien bandwagon in order to prosper politically. However, I feel this critique wanting, not least because Dan Devivo, in response to an audience member’s (translated) question, averred that Arpaio’s support within Maricopa was dwindling with each subsequent election. One wonders why an extremely popular elected official would adopt a stance that would earn him scorn and political antagonism among open borders enthusiasts throughout the country-and certainly generate opposition within his home county-if it wasn’t based at least partially on personal conviction.

Furthermore, the same insinuation can be made of Arpaio’s political enemies, such as open borders socialist Raul Grijalva, whose political fortunes-and campaign bank account-haven’t suffered as a result of his dogged campaign against SB 1070 and the current sheriff of Maricopa County. And while  questions pertaining to Arpaio’s use of his investigatory authority-particularly with regard to his office’s MACE unit-are certainly valid, the misuse and exploitation of power by some of Arpaio’s most powerful opponents is a question never broached by Two Americans. Specifically, the highly politicized tenure of Thomas Perez-President Obama’s nominee to replace Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, but at the time of the administration’s lawsuit against Maricopa County the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights-is never raised, nor is his extensive history of open borders activism.

Given that this documentary is advocacy journalism, I don’t know how much balance on this subject the audience is entitled to expect. However, the narrative thread of this film continuously returned to the bad faith of people who support immigration enforcement, with the implicit accusation that their beliefs are responsible for the travails of Katherine Figuroa, rather than the actions of her two parents. I give the filmmakers credit for highlighting to a certain degree the fusillade of hatred open borders advocates have unleashed upon Arpaio-including the credible death threats he has received in office-yet the reasons why Arizona voters continue to support him are never seriously scrutinized, nor examined in anything but the most cursory manner.

The extensive and sustained public support for laws such as SB 1070 never arises at any point in this documentary, and the only footage of protestors who are critical of illegal immigration focuses, curiously enough, on members of the National Socialist Movement. The many peaceful, multi-ethnic, well-attended rallies supporting this law-which were covered by mainstream, liberal media outlets in Arizona at the time-completely escape the notice of the filmmakers, as do the public statements of  large, representative, reputable immigration reduction and anti-illegal immigration organizations and individuals in this country. In the end, I think that is the biggest shortcoming of Two Americans. Not the sprawling focus, but the refusal to honestly present the arguments made by the respective camps in the immigration debate. It’s a problem that will persist so long as one side refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of their opponents’ beliefs.

If you thought Hilda Solis was bad for American workers-and she was-then wait until you see who Barack Obama has tapped to replace her as the next head of the Department of Labor. Oh-so-mainstream Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, a man that has devoted a large portion of his career to empowering illegal aliens served by organizations like Casa De Maryland, a lavishly-funded, open borders outfit which seeks to not only forcibly impose illegal day laborers upon Maryland taxpayers, but to  eradicate immigration enforcement altogether.

To get an idea of how fanatical this organization and its leaders are, read this WorldNetDaily report on their activities during the last major national debate over immigration reform. This is an entity whose perverse goals Thomas Perez sacrificed his time and energy to help achieve, one which advocated for the interests of illegal aliens over and above those of taxpaying, American citizens-despite the fact that he was ostensibly elected to represent his fellow citizens on the Montgomery County Council. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to state that the upcoming debate over the Perez nomination is a battle between open borders dogmatists and the American public. Thankfully, there are still some members of the United States Senate in our corner; we’ll need them in order to thwart one of the President’s worst nominations to date.

Months of strenuous campaigning, millions of dollars in political advertising, and countless days of retail politicking will culminate in just a few hours, when a select few will decide who will be awarded the first presidential delegates of the 2012 Republican race for President of the United States. Although not always an accurate gauge of who is ultimately nominated by the Republican Party-a fact pointed out rather inelegantly by Jon Huntsman-the Iowa caucuses do have a significant impact upon the results of future contests, particularly the New Hampshire primary.

That’s why it’s important that we scrutinize the words and deeds-and in some cases, rather extensive voting records-of those who seek the GOP nod to face President Obama this November. Specifically, from the perspective of the immigration enforcement and reform  movement. There are a number of recent polls, from Insider Advantage to Rasmussen Reports, which all show more or less the same dynamics at play. Namely, a battle for the top spot between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, a surging Rick Santorum, a rejuvenated Rick Perry campaign, and a large percentage of undecided voters who’ve yet to make up their minds. While Fox News has provided a helpful primer on the state of play in Iowa on the eve of the caucuses, it’s important that we take some time to ponder the implications of today’s vote, vis-a-vis sensible immigration policy. 

We start with a candidate  American Rattlesnake has neglected to cover this primary season, mostly because his support among Republican voters amounted to a rounding error, notwithstanding some noteworthy endorsements by conservative political organizations and evangelical Christian activists. However, times have changed for Rick Santorum, who now finds himself third among Republican presidential candidates in most Iowa polls. This rise allows us to examine Santorum’s record on immigration and border security issues, which is a mixed bag, at best. While his overall record is absolutely atrocious, if we’re going to judge him by his Numbers USA scorecard-which is as good a barometer of fitness as any in this regard-then the former senator from Pennsylvania is near the bottom of the pack in terms of potential GOP nominees. Roy Beck gives a harsh, but fair, analysis of Santorum in an overview for Numbers USA that I suggest you all read.

His record in the U.S. Senate and Congress was respectable, as Beck readily acknowledges, and got significantly better the longer he served-he was a strong “no” vote against the DREAM Act during the lame duck session of Congress convened by Senator Harry Reid. What’s more, he has tried to woo us during this primary-going so far as to condemn the sanctimonious scroungers at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who have turned societal pardon of illegal aliens into an official sacrament. That said, his record on E-Verify, probably the most effective immigration enforcement tool we currently have at our disposal-and a perfect wedge issue, as Mickey Kaus points out-has been positively abysmal, with his past votes and statements regarding legal immigration being a greater disappointment, although not an anomaly in this field, regretfully.

Santorum’s presidential candidacy reflects the essential dichotomy of the Republican field’s relationship to the subject of immigration. While almost every one of the candidates abjures the term “amnesty,” sometimes comically so, and is in a sense an improvement upon the the Republican Party’s previous presidential nominees, and certainly the previous occupant of the White House, almost all of them have serious limitations and flaws with respect to national identity, sovereignty, and the impediments to progress that our current policy of unfettered, mass immigration represents. The reflexive paeans both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney heap upon the disastrous H1-B visa program is but one example of the weakness of the top tier of Republican presidential candidates. Even Ron Paul, who has made admirable strides to highlight pivotal issues such as the insanity of extending birthright citizenship to the children of illegals and subsidizing those in this country who are trespassing, has regressed during this campaign.

Ironically, the wholly antagonistic nature of the Obama administration, which has effectively declared war on large swathes of the American population, presumably comprising  a portion of the electorate he can safely discard, has actually served to enhance the profile of a crop of candidates that has a conspicuously dovish position on the subject of immigration. For even the disingenuousness of a Rick Perry or harebrained, semantic sophistry by a Newt Gingrich doesn’t approach the unremitting hostility this administration has displayed towards enforcing immigration law. From executive edicts that flagrantly defy the law, to implicit sanction given to localities that flout federal directives on immigration enforcement, to politically-driven witch hunts undertaken against those who have the temerity to enforce the law, President Obama has been an unmitigated disaster for  American citizens who don’t profit personally from the illegal alien industry.

So in that sense, any Republican candidate-now that open borders libertarian Gary Johnson has officially abandoned the GOP-would be better than the current resident of the Oval Office. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that every Republican candidate would promote good immigration policy once elected to the presidency. Particularly disappointing has been the flagging campaign of Michele Bachmann, who at one point seemed poised not only to become a prime challenger to Mitt Romney, but also to put the issue of illegal immigration at the forefront of this presidential election. Unfortunately, like the presidential campaign of intrepid congressman Tom Tancredo, Bachmann’s candidacy does not look like it will garner much traction beyond the Iowa caucuses. The fact that Sarah Palin has consigned her to the realm of the Huntsmans of this race certainly does not bode well for her candidacy.

However, that doesn’t mean that the attention she -and even the abortive campaign launched by Herman Cain-gave to the subject of our misguided immigration policy-and the intentional recklessness of this administration in disregarding its duty to protect and defend our borders-did not have an impact on the dimensions of the Republican race. Nor does it mean that this issue will be forgotten any time soon, as the Supreme Court hearing regarding the appeal of an injunction against SB 1070 during the height of the 2012 presidential race ensures. Our porous borders and the devastating consequences of illegal immigration during a prolonged recession will be election issues, regardless of the attractiveness of the eventual GOP nominee. It is our job, as citizens and activists, to push whoever that candidate is in the right direction, and to demand that he make the contrast with President Obama on these issues explicitly clear. Our country can’t afford a return to the days of Obama v. McCain, or Bush v. Kerry…and neither can we.