It happens again. For the purposes of whatever argument, the conservatives turn loose their most robust intellectuals and I’m surprised to see how feeble they are. I expect a series of vigorously-constructed arguments to make their way to me. But no. I’m struck by the strained logic of Fox News. It makes you curious to find out who’s running the intellectual fort. Or if it even exists.

Enter John Yoo. He helped run President Bush’s justice department, now he’s a six-figure salaried professor at Berkeley’s Boalt law school. He should be capable of making a legal argument to tie me in knots. Without any problem, really. But John can do no better than Condie, or Rummy:

I continue to think that invading Iraq was the best option in light of the information we had then — I am finishing a book on war in the 21st century, where I make the case for preemptive and preventive war, and I argue that the proper way to think about these questions is based on the information available before the decision, not after.

Oh, aren’t you cute? The people who made the right call are fantasy leaguers because they weren’t there, man. Oh yeah? Try this then, Mister Reality: Pretending that the ‘information’ you had wasn’t just administration-manufactured bullshit amounts to a criminal coverup. When preparing to commit large-scale killing you don’t get to favor flattery and fabrication over intelligence because of loyalty, or paranoia, or any other fatal flaw of yours. Or you’re just a war criminal. It doesn’t matter why you did it, you committed mass murder and you belong in jail. For the rest of your life, really, John.

In law, we often come upon a situation after an event — a crime, an accident, etc. — and we must decide what to do based on the knowledge we have now. Courts award damages based on the harm to the victim and the harm to society. Suppose you thought that the Iraq war was a mistake. If so, isn’t the proper remedy to restore Saddam Hussein’s family and the Baath Party to power in Iraq? If you are unwilling to consider that remedy, aren’t you conceding that on balance, the benefits of the war outweigh the costs?

Good lord. Permit me to argue. A legal question like this emanates from some desire to make things right — but only between members within our society. What applies to people cannot be applied to countries. Unlike citizens, all governments are not created equal. They frequently show little interest in defending civil rights or in living in harmony with their neighbors. And no justice system can effectively discipline them, imprison them, or execute them.

Most are frankly crude constructs. But until we can all agree on what passes for justice, they’re all we’ve got. So when we destroyed Iraq, though we were wrong to do it, their government became our responsibility. Given that, I don’t think it does the locals any good to re-instate their tormentor. You couldn’t figure this out, John?

We owe Iraqis a lot more than that. A couple trillion in damages to start, and senior Bush administration officials stowed deep in the belly of a prison ship destined for Umm Qasr. Let us know how you get along, John.

Days before the November election, Tucker Carlson’s garbage shop rolled this out:

Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.

In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000-acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.

. . The other woman recounted, with apparent bitterness, receiving from an intermediary only $100 of the $500 she had been promised. “He lies,” she said of Menendez. “He says one thing and does another.”

He even welches on his whores! Let’s not vote for this guy.

Well, it didn’t work, Menendez got re-elected. That didn’t stop the Daily Caller from keeping at it though, piling up lurid stories on and accusations against him: –Long-time escort. –New call girl charges. –Prostitution spree. –Only 16 years old. Actual DC headline: “Dominican prostitute: Sen. Bob Menendez ‘likes the youngest and newest girls’” Also: “Bob Menendez’s hometown a major sex-trafficking destination” Even his hometown was into hookers!

Well, we learned today that the whole thing was a smear job. A professional political hit.

The Washington Post:

An escort who appeared on a video claiming that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) paid her for sex has told Dominican authorities that she was instead paid to make up the claims and has never met or seen the senator, according to court documents and two people briefed on her claim.

The woman said a local lawyer had approached her and a fellow escort and asked them to help frame Menendez and a top donor, Salomon Melgen, according to affidavits obtained by The Washington Post.

And Tucker hyped the ‘scoop’ as big election news. It was actually a conspiracy.

The escort, Nexis de los Santos Santana, 23, said in an affidavit she was hired by lawyer Miguel Galvan to do a taped interview with journalists in mid-October. Galvan explained to her that a false account was needed for a divorce case. De los Santos said she was surreptitiously taped implicating Menendez, Melgen and prominent Dominican lawyer Vinicio Castillo Selmán, Melgen’s cousin, in hiring prostitutes.

“Those are my words and that is me, but it does not reflect the truth,” she said in her affidavit.

In his statement, Galvan said the other attorney misled him about the purpose of the tape, saying he was working as a divorce lawyer for a client and simply needed someone to confirm infidelity on tape.

Now we get to see who was behind the crime to pay Caribbean hookers to subvert democracy in New Jersey. It’s a good thing they chose the Daily Caller for their conduit because, you know, complete joke. Otherwise this could have been a serious and sad episode, where the defeated Menendez, career over, could only say “I told you so” for the rest of his tarnished life.

There is something wrong with this league.

Jovan Belcher, a starting linebacker for the Chiefs, murdered the mother of his child shortly before 8 a.m. Saturday. He hopped in his car, drove to the Kansas City Chiefs practice facility, thanked Romeo Crennel and Scott Pioli — and shot himself in the head in front of his coach and general manager around 8:10 a.m.

Within two hours, the NFL instructed the Carolina Panthers to travel to Kansas City as scheduled in preparation for Sunday’s noon kickoff. By 3 p.m., the Chiefs announced that Crennel and team captains had decided to play Sunday’s game as planned.

This is a horrific, nauseating crime. Why must the NFL go on as usual? Is the game so important? Or are women so trivial? Perhaps ‘carrying on’ is so much a feature of football psychology that it dictates to civility. Being tough guys, they’d like to tough it out. They’d like to go on as usual, and let’s not make a big deal of it.

Whatever it is, that’s the problem.

In 1999, Jim Brown was convicted of vandalizing his wife’s car. He also was charged with “making” terrorist threats to her, a charge later dropped.

The court gave Brown the option of doing community service and receiving counseling, rather than doing jail time. He refused, taking the six-month jail sentence, released after four months. While in jail, he went on a hunger strike for two weeks.

Brown is perhaps the greatest football player who ever lived. And some fans hold him in high regard for choosing jail instead of anger management classes. No one talks about what his wife had to endure. But Jim, he toughed it out.

At 12:10 am on June 13, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found murdered outside Brown’s Bundy Drive condo in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson had divorced two years earlier. Evidence found and collected at the scene led police to suspect that O.J. Simpson was the murderer. Nicole had been stabbed multiple times in the head and neck with defense wounds on her hands. The wound through her neck was gaping, through which the larynx could be seen, and vertebra C3 was also incised.

O.J. is another of the NFL’s greatest players. He beat Nicole Brown until the police noticed and he couldn’t do it any more, so then he essentially decapitated her. And though he was all but caught literally red-handed, he got away with the crime because nobody could believe the Greatest Buffalo Bill would be capable of such butchery. Americans’ memories have a lot to be desired.

–[Lawrence Taylor's] latest run-in with the law was the most serious. Taylor was charged with statutory rape involving an incident with a 16-year-old call girl. He ended up pleading guilty to one count of patronizing a prostitute and one count of sexual misconduct.

–Lawrence Phillips may be the poster boy for anger control problems. He has been convicted several times of assaulting women. The most notable probably came into college when he broke into his ex’s dorm and then dragged her by the hair down three flights of stairs.

Philips is currently serving a 30-year sentence after he tried to run over a group of teens after they got into an argument during a pick-up football game.

–Jim Dunway’s ex-wife was found dead in a swimming pool. Autopsy reports indicated that she died from a fractured skull prior to be being placed in the pool.

Dunaway was charged with murder, but not indicted. He later was found guilty in a wrongful death suit filed by his children.

–Rae Carruth’s girlfriend, the woman carrying his baby, was shot four times in a drive-by shooting. She survived long enough to call 9-1-1.

She described to the dispatchers that Carruth pulled up in front of her and stopped his car so that she could not move. The assailants soon drove up next to her and shot her. Carruth received an 18-24 year sentence for his involvement in the crime.

–Tommy Kane is currently serving time after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. The charges stem from the murder of his wife.

The allegations were that Kane and his wife got into an argument after she said she wanted a divorce. They then say he grabbed her by the hair, dragged her into the kitchen, smashed her head against the floor and stabbed her in the neck.

And on Saturday, Jovan Belcher placed his name in the pantheon of the NFL’s biggest monsters. He prevented his languishing in a penitentiary for the rest of a wretched life by killing himself, so his death is hardly sad. It’s mostly strategic. And a bit romantic. Women, you know, make men crazy. Isn’t the whole thing tragic? No, spare me.

Why the NFL couldn’t see this for the recurring nightmare it is, I don’t know. Why they couldn’t use this as a ‘teachable moment,’ as the President might say, I wish I knew. Call off the game. Make everyone notice. Force the players to sit in their quiet locker rooms and come to terms with it. Jovan might have been a nice man as regards his teammates, but his definitive public act was as the incarnation of pure evil on Earth.

How many women has Ben Roethliberger sexually assaulted, incidentally? Groans, craning of necks, averted eyes. Scratching of heads. The league apparently thinks that this latest stain will wash away with time, and with more games. Always with more of the games. So nobody at the league will talk about how women, even the players wives, are badly treated. Chad Johnson head-butted his wife of four months and ended up in jail. Jerramy Stevens assaulted Olympic goaltender Hope Solo on a Friday night and then got bailed out in time to marry her on Saturday. This is not normal behavior.

As to addressing that, I’ll tell you what might make a difference right now. Now that the best opportunity to address the problem of the beating and stabbing and obliteration of women has passed like a well-salaried thief in the night.

The Coach who was forced to watch Belcher’s pathetic suicide could address the problem. After he manages to re-compose himself, if that were possible. Romeo Crenell could say: “As to Jovan, let me be clear. If you’re on my team and you hurt your girlfriend, if you beat or you kill your wife, I don’t want you to come see me. I don’t want anything to do with you. I won’t even look you in the eye, so don’t bother. The coaches don’t want anything to do with you, the Kansas City Chiefs don’t want anything to do with you, and the NFL doesn’t want anything to do with you. Turn yourself in to the police, accept responsibility for what you’ve done and serve your debt to society. By the way, professional football is over for you.”

But you and I know we won’t hear that. Not while the NFL only pretends to be shocked by what their players do to women.

Dear Southern Poverty Law Center: Thank You.

This is the first time a “conversion therapy” practitioner has been directly sued for deceptive practices, SPLC officials said.

“JONAH profits off of shameful and dangerous attempts to fix something that isn’t broken,” said SPLC deputy legal director Christine P. Sun. “Despite the consensus of mainstream professional organizations that conversion therapy doesn’t work, this racket continues to scam vulnerable gay men and lesbians out of thousands of dollars and inflicts significant harm on them.”

Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing deserves to be vigorously sued, please, right into a modern century. Go on and drag them to court by their pant loops. Litigate them to dust. Thanks.

As for you — clear out a forehead-sized spot on your solid desk. And then read one of JONAH’s testimonials from a ‘wife,’ if you can:

Now I’ll let you into a little secret…..I am not the type to suffer in silence! So, as I kept trying to work out what the problem was, I involved David in my quandary: “Dave, why don’t you like to get intimate?” “Dave, why don’t you try doing this?” “No, not like that!”…how about this?”………I just didn’t get it! And apparently, neither did he!

Eventually, he couldn’t take my constant (and yes, in hindsight incredibly insensitive) hounding. Things obviously weren’t going according to plan. I’m not exactly sure what the plan was. I do know that he had been advised to get married and everything would work out for the best! . . Well, approximately 8 weeks after we were wed, David told me that he’s gay.

. . and after throwing all their money away first on hypnotherapy and then sessions at JONAH, the problem was ‘solved.’ Or ‘paralyzed,’ with plenty of pain and confusion. How tragic.

Now on behalf of JONAH, American Thinker explains how sex really works:

The witch hunt against “ex-gay therapy” must be explained with some context. First, it makes sense to speak in terms of “ex-gays” only if you begin with the false assumption that bisexuality does not exist.

The wha?

Every respectable therapist I know acknowledges that sexuality exists on a spectrum, and people develop attractions to different kinds of people under different circumstances. Think of how few jokes we’d have about prison if it were impossible for people to redirect their sexual desire to a new object based on context.

Like when Bubba the Psycho suddenly falls in love with you in the shower. And then everybody, even the Aryan Brotherhood, tiptoes out so the two of you can honeymoon. That’s homosexuality.

The state of Florida just did what the city of Sanford and Seminole County wouldn’t do: investigate the death of Trayvon Martin, and file charges against his killer, George Zimmerman.

George Zimmerman Arrested for 2nd Degree Murder
Reuters | Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:31pm EDT

George Zimmerman is under arrest, charged with second degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a Florida special prosecutor announced Wednesday.

Angela Corey

Zimmerman, 28, who’s been in hiding since news of Martin’s killing gained worldwide attention, turned himself in on an arrest warrant, called a capias, Special Prosecutor Angela Corey said at a news conference.

“I can tell you we did not come to this decision lightly,” Corey said in remarks broadcast live on TV and online. “We do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition. We prosecute based on the facts in any given case, as well as the laws of the state of Florida.”

I gotta tell you, this feels much better.

I look forward to hearing Zimmerman’s side of the ‘confrontation’ between him and Martin under oath. I fully expect the jury’s bullshit meter to be pegging the dial. I hear that the maximum sentence for second degree murder is life in prison. Good. Meantime, I continue to welcome the sparkling commentary, redolent of Africans!, from you law and order types . .

Good Ole’ Michael Kobulnicky. Supra-American. Sick with Tea Party values.

SAN DIEGO TEA PARTY LEADER ARRESTED FOR KIDNAPPING, RAPE
By Miriam Raftery | East County Magazine

March 17, 2012 (Lemon Grove)—Lemon Grove resident Michael John Kobulnicky, 50, a leader in the San Diego Tea Party and former regional director of the Southern California Conservative Party, is under arrest for allegedly kidnapping and raping a local woman on Fiesta Island . .

“. . He dragged her out of the car and sexually assaulted her pretty brutally,” San Diego Police Lt. Andra Brown told ECM news partner 10 News in late February, shortly after the February 25 assault occurred . .

. . On his website, http://www.michaelkobulnickyusa.com, Kobulnicky lists his leadership roles as “currently the co-organizer and public relations representative for the San Diego Tea Party.”

After Kobulnicky’s arrest, the San Diego Tea Party issued a statement indicating that Kobulnicky took leave the group in January for personal reasons and had not been in touch since then.

Fox News is absurd. Below, see a bit of broadcasting serving as a potent example of their other-worldliness. Anchor Eric Shawn interviews Liz Trotta. They discuss what should be an alarming fact: there’s been a dramatic rise in violent sexual assaults in the armed forces.

Bare with me. The reason I post this isn’t because it’s some uniquely insulting flotsam of Fox’s evil ways. They throw crap like this at you all the time. Instead, I post this because I’d like to point out something many people don’t realize.

Being extremely protective of its branding and propaganda potentials, Fox is crazy careful to vet potential on-air personalities. But it doesn’t actually script these gargoyles. They do know fully well what their ‘stars’ are about, what their particular issues and pet peeves are, but they really don’t know what a contributor like Trotta will say once the cameras start rolling. This would be a great example of a spontaneous on-air disaster, even by Fox’s gnarly standards.

Trotta’s dismissive battle-axe schtick goes wildly astray. Regardless of what side of the political divide you live on, you’re shocked to hear anyone speak so derisively of the welfare of soldiers.

. . just a few weeks ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta commented on a new Pentagon report on sexual abuse in the military. I think they have actually discovered there is a difference between men and women. And the sexual abuse report says that there has been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect? These people are in close contact . .

Of course there’s been an explosion in rapes and violent sexual assaults. Men and women have gotten near each other. What else did you expect?

Trotta figures it’s normal for humanity, especially the male part of the species (people like me), to become sexually violent once “close contact” occurs. She’s pointing out how stupid feminists are, therefore, to flog this issue. She’s also pointing out how stupid the military are for being pawns in the hippie chick agenda. One wonders if Liz believes these rapes really occur, or if they’re negative experiences in any way. By extension, one wonders what Fox News thinks about rape. Good? Bad? Circle of life?

“The budget for the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office leapt from $5 million in fiscal 2005 to more than $23 million in fiscal 2010. Total Defense Department spending on sexual assault prevention and related efforts now exceeds $113 million annually.” That’s from McClatchy Newspapers.

So, you have this whole bureaucracy upon bureaucracy being built up with all kinds of levels of people to support women in the military who are now being raped too much.

Now there’s a money quote. There’s no context within which a Fox contributor can say that and not bruise the brand. Her handlers trust that Liz will cuff the government for liberal spending and for turning the military into a bunch of squishes. They do not expect her to aver that rape is a normal and proper consequence of serving your country. This is cheerleading for the sort of crime that would normally leave an animal rotting his life away in a penitentiary. Liz allows for it to go down in the military, though, because they’re special and awesome, and, also, Republicans rock. You can imagine what she believes football players should get away with on college campuses.

Shawn: Well, many would say that they need to be protected, and there are these sexual programs, abuse programs, are necessary—

Trotta: That’s funny, I thought the mission of the Army, and the Navy, and four services was to defend and protect us, not the people who were fighting the war.

Why should a waiter need to eat? It’s his job to serve you the food. Why do CPR on a cardiologist? He’s supposed to be saving your heart.

What an example of staggering stupidity. Why bother giving soldiers tanks and guns? Don’t they know how to throw a punch? Why can’t they love their country? I guarantee there are Fox executives cringing at seeing this. As bad as it is, though, Trotta won’t be fired. Fox News is an emotional experience more than an intellectual one, and we’re talking to and about the great unwashed masses, after all. Still, there’s no way to spin how this shocks people who are sane. Military folks. Stockholders, too. Bummer.

Shawn: Well, you certainly want the people fighting the war to be protected from anything that could be illegal.

Trotta: Oh, look, I mean, that’s—nice try Eric.

It’s only rape. Get a life.

This Mark Berndt case is so vile, so disgusting, it turns your stomach. It troubles me in so many ways, it’s difficult to be analytical about it. Miramonte Elementary is only about 12 miles from where I live, a couple miles east of the infamous Florence and Normandie intersection dubbed the ‘flashpoint’ of the 1992 riots. In Los Angeles’ terms, it’s a stone’s throw away. In neighborhood terms, it’s in another world. I haven’t even begun to wonder if poverty plays any role in this. Anyway, I can’t wonder while I’m sitting here holding my head.

Los Angeles teacher charged with lewd acts
Scott Gold, Richard Winton and Paloma Esquivel | Los Angeles Times

In the fall of 2010, a drugstore photo technician was running a batch of 35-millimeter film when a disturbing image tumbled out of the machine — a child, blindfolded with a white cloth and gagged with clear packing tape. From that first photograph, detectives spent the next year following a trail that led them to a South Los Angeles elementary school.

They say they found acts of staggering depravity.

There were more photos, it turned out — 400 more, traced to an apartment in nearby Torrance, then to a bustling schoolhouse in South Los Angeles. There, officials alleged Tuesday, a veteran third-grade teacher sought sexual gratification by spoon-feeding his semen to his students.

The question today is: If they had photos of his “staggering depravity” in, say, October of 2010, why was he fired in March 2011? Why was he arrested only this week? There’s an extraordinary time lapse between his acts being discovered and his being put in jail.

I can understand that some evidence may be difficult to gather. The victims were often blindfolded, meaning they couldn’t even act as witnesses to some of what was going on. They maybe never knew they were being photographed. That no one reported him earlier and that he was a veteran of 30 years of teaching tell us he knew his victims and the school system well enough. He exploited both for his own ends, with horrific results.

But why wouldn’t these facts cause authorities greater alarm? Given the potential nightmare being visited upon the victims and the Miramonte school system (whose working class reputation is probably now forever shrouded in horror), why did it take months to identify him? Why would it take so long to remove him and then fire him?

The authorities’ likely assertions of the need to gather evidence should be scrupulously vetted. Perhaps the most shocking ‘report’ (we don’t yet know if this is true) is how they ‘proved’ he was feeding his semen to children.

Others depicted girls with what appears to be a spoon up to their mouths as if they were going to ingest a clear-white liquid. Children were fed Berndt’s semen from a spoon or on cookies, Marquez said.

Kids reported being fed something distasteful. A blue plastic spoon and container found in the trash in his classroom tested positive for his semen, authorities said.

Police recommended the children in the photos be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. There also may be more victims given the length of time that Berndt taught at the school, Marquez said.

If the above is correct, even though the photographs had been discovered, Berndt was allowed to continue doing as he pleased. They merely kept him under some surveillance. But for some reason they wondered about the spoon he threw in the trash . . ? So they tested it and found his semen. The authorities are going to have to explain how they couldn’t have prevented that particular child from being victimized.

And after that, it only took how long to arrest him? 10 months? Wow.

So horrifying:

Teacher accused of taking elementary student ‘bondage’ photos
By Alan Duke, CNN

Los Angeles (CNN) — A Los Angeles elementary school teacher allegedly took bondage photos of more than two dozen students in his classroom, including some with suspected semen-filled spoons at their mouths, investigators said Tuesday . .

“They thought they were being blindfolded and gagged as a game,” [Sgt. Dan Scott] said. “And they were rewarded with cookies or spoons full of sugar (but) they did not realize the spoon contained semen.”

The man’s name is Mark Berndt:

While the investigation began more than a year ago, the arrest came soon after lab testing matched Berndt’s DNA with semen found on a spoon recovered from his classroom, Scott said. Investigators persuaded the suspect to voluntarily give them a DNA sample just two months ago, he said.

There are going to be so many questions as to why it took so long to find, fire and then arrest this guy. Cases like this make you ashamed to be an adult.

. . nycgirlupstate writes: “howzabout something like: ‘Didja hear the one about the Republican/Tea Party freaks running an honest election? No? Neither have I . .’

Conservatives Plot to Burn, Shred, and Sabotage Scott Walker Recall Effort
Andy Kroll | Mother Jones

A group of self-identified conservatives say they plan to sabotage the effort to recall Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker, which begins on Tuesday, by burning and shredding recall petitions they’ve collected and misleading Wisconsinites about the recall process . .

They say they’re petitioning people, enlisting hundreds of signatures, and then shredding the paperwork. And they’re bragging about it on Blurbook.

Politiscoop covers the story:

Tea Party Plans Premeditated Felony
Paul I. Tascoupe | Nov 11 2011

Madison — The kick off campaign to recall embattled governor Scott Walker kicks off in just four days and with that date approaching, the tea party has plans of its own. Politiscoop has received several screen shots of tea party and right wing activists planning to pass themselves off as those circulating petitions to recall the governor.

They dug into the Facebook links and such, and they came up with this photo of an auto repair guy who’s’ a fan of the recall target, Scott Walker (skinny):

Dude, perhaps ‘Matt Wynn,’ could be the fool who’s bragging about committing felonies just to embarrass hippies:

Yeah, slashing tires? Illegal. Gathering signatures? NOT illegal.

My petitions say “Should we recall Scott Walker on them.” The morons signing them do not even know what a real one looks like.

If it’s real, it’s a major crime. I can tell you that ‘Charles Atlas Shrugging’ appears to exist. This is a note from the Spartanburg Tea Party website:

With proper attention being paid to a shocking BBC Two documentary, the suddenly exposed truth of what went on in Spain between 1940 and 1990 hit many of us like a bombshell. Reading articles on tonight’s debut broadcast, I couldn’t believe it: the Catholic Church had stolen and sold up to 300,000 babies.

Today, BBC news continued to tell the story:

Spain’s stolen babies and the families who lived a lie
By Katya Adler | BBC News, Spain

I first met Manoli Pagador in Getafe, in a working-class suburb of Madrid. She was attending a meeting for people affected by the scandal Spaniards call “ninos robados” – stolen children. She has three daughters and lots of grandchildren, but she has never got over the loss of her first-born – a son – nearly 40 years ago.

She had come to think she was crazy for believing he was alive, instead of dead and buried as hospital doctors had told her. “Now,” she said, gripping my hand tightly. “Look around the room at the other women here. All like me. The same background. The same experience. I’m not mad and my family finally believes me.”

In 1971 Manoli, who was 23 at the time and not long married, gave birth to what she was told was a healthy baby boy, but he was immediately taken away for what were called routine tests. Nine interminable hours passed. “Then, a nun, who was also a nurse, coldly informed me that my baby had died,” she says.

They would not let her have her son’s body, nor would they tell her when the funeral would be . .

“Doctors, nuns?” she says, almost in horror. “I couldn’t accuse them of lying. This was Franco’s Spain. A dictatorship. Even now we Spaniards tend not to question authority.”

Manoli’s child was gone. Like so many other children, her son had been stolen and sold to a ‘better’ Catholic family, somewhere else.

The scale of the baby trafficking was unknown until this year, when two men – Antonio Barroso and Juan Luis Moreno, childhood friends from a seaside town near Barcelona – discovered that they had been bought from a nun. Their parents weren’t their real parents, and their life had been built on a lie.

Juan Luis Moreno discovered the truth when the man he had been brought to call “father” was on his deathbed. “He said, ‘I bought you from a priest in Zaragoza’. He said that Antonio had been bought as well.”

The pair were hurt and angry. They say they felt like two dogs that had been bought at a pet shop.

See the article here. I am trying to dig up a source to view the documentary. When I find it, I’ll post it.

I am, again, just this close to dumbstruck. Whatever gets torn in an attempt to grasp boundless evil, this tears it. Where to begin to speak of crimes so depraved and so towering in number?

In a period between 1940 and 1990, in perhaps the most successful human trafficking effort since America’s slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries, Spain’s Catholic Church stole up to 300,000 newborn babies from their mothers. The children were then sold to Spanish Catholic customers.

The BBC have produced a documentary on the half century of nearly unspeakable crimes. It’s slated to air on Tuesday night:

Journalist Katya Adler, who has investigated the scandal, says: ‘The situation is incredibly sad for thousands of people.

‘There are men and women across Spain whose lives have been turned upside-down by discovering the people they thought were their parents actually bought them for cash. There are also many mothers who have maintained for years that their babies did not die – and were labelled “hysterical” – but are now discovering that their child has probably been alive and brought up by somebody else all this time.’

I’m having a hard time fathoming this. If it had come to light that one — only one — child had been abducted by American hospital administrators and sold to their friends, I can’t imagine the holocaust of press people and news coverage and police and Oprahs and governmental agencies and politicians that would descend upon the scandal. Criminal trials, civil trials, interviews, reunions — these would go on for years. The Catholic Church perhaps stole and sold as many children as there are people currently living in Pittsburgh.

How? How could this be possible? How will these people become reunited with their true mothers, fathers and families, their own flesh and blood? How will the legal system deal with it? How will people live with the decisions they made and the actions that were forced upon them? What an agonizing mess.

One thing we know: how the Catholic Church will react. They will, slowly and surely, across the years, over the decades, offer occasional and slightly more heartfelt apologies. Meanwhile, they’ll be furiously lobbying against criminal and civil sanctions with authorities. That’s what they always do.

I’ve had enough of this for now, my head’s pounding.