An uneasy cease-fire settles in over Gaza. Let’s hope it becomes permanent. I’m glad to be thousands of miles away from the violence. But reading crap like this doesn’t make me feel any better:

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Vatican Council for Culture, commenting on the war between Israel and Hamas, delivered a severe attack on the Jewish people: “I think of the ‘massacre of the innocents’. Children are dying in Gaza, their mothers’ shouts is a perennial cry, a universal cry”.

The Catholic Church high official equated Israel’s operation in Gaza against terror groups with the New Testament story of Herod’s slaughter of Jewish babies in his effort to kill Jesus.

Ravasi, who is one of the most popular Catholic cardinals and the director of the Church’s policy on culture, called Israelis baby-killers in a shameless form of anti-Semitism which subtly accuses the Jewish State of trying to murder the new Jesus, symbolized by the Palestinian people.

This is from Arutz Sheva. Cardinal Ravasi is a rabid anti-Semite who has cast the Palestinians as Jesus Christ. The pro-settlement press never met a Catholic before, apparently. What a lovely header:

It hasn’t been a bloodbath. It’s been a “PILLAR OF DEFENSE.” And a “War on Gaza Terror.” I can picture Roger Ailes seeing this and nodding quite approvingly. Then lengthening his notes.

This sub-head is something: Not a word was heard all those years Sderot babies were in mortal danger. They began noticing the violence last week. From what I understand, thousands of missiles have been fired on Gaza-adjacent Sderot over the past twelve years. How god-damned disgusting. Utterly abominable. Thirteen people have died. Among them, two four year-olds and a two year-old. It breaks your heart.

But the “PILLAR OF DEFENSE” just killed 177 Palestinians, most of them civilians (the IDF claim the civilian total was only 57). This included thirty women and thirteen children. The terrible bombardment of Sderot would have to grind on for another 151 years to even the score for what the Israelis did in only eight days.

And their losses? Five people. You’d expect a couple of soldiers to have died flying sorties or handling munitions alone. Meanwhile:

An extract of a report sent by a Canadian medic who happened to be in Gaza and helped out in Shifa hospital ER over the weekend says: “the wounded were all civilians with multiple puncture wounds from shrapnel: brain injuries, neck injuries, hemo-pneumo thorax, pericardial tamponade, splenic rupture, intestinal perforations, slatted limbs, traumatic amputations. All of this with no monitors, few stethoscopes, one ultrasound machine. …. Many people with serious but non life threatening injuries were sent home to be re-assessed in the morning due to the sheer volume of casualties. The penetrating shrapnel injuries were spooky. Tiny wounds with massive internal injuries. … There was very little morphine for analgesia.”

This brings home the truth about these conflicts. The Palestinians are perfectly capable and willing to hurl brutality at innocent people at any time, and they frequently do. You’d prefer to call them terrorists? Then they’re terrorists. No problem. But the Israelis are different. They have the technological capability to annihilate at will. And they frequently do. If those people over there are terrorists, these people here are killers. This does not make for a ‘war.’ This makes for a ‘slaughter.’ Let’s stop kidding ourselves.

From time to time, we check in upon the ultra-Christian, ultra-wingnut decapitating Mexican drug cartel, La Familia Michoacana. Breaking: in another setback, LFM’s latest leader has been captured.

Leader of “La Familia Michoacana” captured in Toluca
Milenio online | 3-20-12

Elements of the Public Safety Secretariat (SSC) arrested Juan Carlos Coránguez Gonzalez, “El Rojo,” leader of La Familia Michoacana while staff of the same unit said six other suspected kidnappers, including a woman, were captured during an operation in the south of the state on the border with the state of Guerrero.

Juan Carlos Coránguez González, “El Rojo,” captured

Through its official Twitter account, the security minister, Salvador Neme Sastré, revealed the capture of “El Rojo”, but without giving further details about the operation . .

After La Familia had their founder and spiritual leader killed and had many of their faithful split off into Los Caballeros Templarios, the group hasn’t been as strong as they once were. A couple days ago, rivals of La Familia exacted tit-for-tat revenge:

Mexico police find 10 heads outside slaughterhouse
KSNT.com

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Mexican authorities have found 10 severed heads dumped outside a slaughterhouse in a town in northern Guerrero state. They are still looking for the bodies.

A statement from the Teloloapan police says the heads of seven men and three women were left with a message that appears to threaten the La Familia Michoacana drug cartel. The warning says: “This is going to happen to all those who support the FM.”

Sunday, the cops went out looking for the bodies, and . .

ACAPULCO, Mexico — Gunmen ambushed and killed 12 police officers who had been sent to search for the bodies of 10 people whose severed heads were found in southern Guerrero state, authorities said Monday.

Guerrero state police spokesman Arturo Martinez said six state and six local officers were killed Sunday night on a road leading out of the town of Teloloapan. Another 11 officers were wounded.

These folks are a God-fearing bunch. As that guy is really crazy.

September 10th, 2011. Everybody’s a little nervous about tomorrow, the 10th anniversary of 9/11. As well we should, given Al Qaeda’s preference for big headlines over common terrorist acts.

Intelligence from the Bin Laden strike underscores the wisdom of being wary:

So what is cable television’s leading news network reporting today?

A possible Al Qaeda plot to launch an attack during the 10th anniversary weekend of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is “looking more and more like a goose chase,” a senior U.S. official told Fox News on Saturday. “The threat is looking less and less credible,” the official said, adding that the entire plot as outlined by the source “doesn’t seem feasible” . .

Federal authorities have been questioning all day the credibility of a tip from a previously reliable source that that Al Qaeda had planned to attack Washington or New York, putting though both cities on high alert . .

There’s no way that Fox News would be touting this “scoop” if Bush were president. They would think such a headline reckless and dangerous. With a Republican as president, if Fox even considered printing this, it would end up as something very different: “Officials Still Seeking to Confirm 9/11 Threat.” But with Barack the Democrat running the show, it’s Fox’s job to point out how stupid all this running around is.

And calling the attempt to capture terrorists and defend people a “goose chase”? A single source. One person. Fox tries to bury their partisan bullshit by referring to “Federal authorities,” but they’re flat out lying. See for yourself.

This is Fox News at its worst. If nothing happens tomorrow, then Obama’s an annoying, headless chicken. If, horribly, an attack does materialize, then Obama’s lethally incompetent. It’s a win-win for Roger Ailes, and that’s the actual news, friends.

After last year’s killing of La Familia Michoacana’s notorious leader, Nazario Moreno Gonzales, by Mexican law enforcement, the ultra-Christian ultra-violent Mexican drug cartel split into two parts: a surviving La Familia faction, and Los Caballeros Templarios (the Knights Templar).

Violent fighting has erupted between the two factions as they seek control over the lucrative methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana drug trade in and exported from Michoacan and its neighbor states. The most recent fighting has been brutal, with dozens of message-laden bodies left scattered across Southern neighborhoods.

21 Bodies Found in South Mexico
Patrick Corcoran | 09 June 2011

Twenty-one corpses, seemingly killed by suffocation, were found in Michoacan, a state along Mexico’s Pacific coast known as the base of drug trafficking gang the Familia Michoacana.

. . turmoil among the remaining leaders of the Familia, which has been buffeted by a series of blows from the government in recent months, has precipitated a split, with former Familia boss Servando Gomez, alias “La Tuta,” taking a big chunk of the gang and forming a group dubbed the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar).

The portion of the group still calling itself the Familia is loyal to leader Jose de Jesus Mendez, alias “El Chango,” and the Caballeros have been battling it out for control of Michoacan, which is a valuable site of methamphetamine production as well as home to one of Mexico’s largest ports, in Lazaro Cardenas.

The most recent killings came over the weekend:

23 Bodies dumped in southern Mexico
June 21, 2011

The bodies of 23 murder victims have been dumped at various locations in the southern Mexican state of Michoacan over the past three days, an official told Efe.

Five men were found shot to death Monday in Paracho, a town about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Morelia, the state capital.

The five bodies were left at three different spots in the town, each accompanied by a message claiming responsibility on behalf of Los Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar), a remnant of the La Familia Michoacana drug cartel, the state official said . .

On Saturday, the bodies of eight murdered men appeared on the streets of Lazaro Cardenas, a port city in Michoacan . .

The La Familia faction led by Jesus Mendez is battling the faction led by Servando Gomez and Enrique Plancarte, who formed Los Caballeros Templarios in March, journalists from Michoacan told Efe.

La Familia Michoacana began unraveling after the death in a shootout with Federal Police officers in late 2010 of Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, known as “El Chayo.”

A total of 15,270 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico last year, and nearly 40,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country’s cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

And now, breaking news: La Familia’s leader, Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, got captured by federales yesterday. In the war between the two ultra-Conservative Christianist drug cartels, the advantage swings to the Knights Templar.

After last year’s killing of La Familia Michoacana’s notorious leader, Nazario Moreno Gonzales, by Mexican law enforcement, the ultra-Christian ultra-violent Mexican drug cartel split into two parts: a surviving La Familia faction, and Los Caballeros Templarios (the Knights Templar).

In yet another blow to LFM, their remaining leader, Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, was arrested Tuesday.

Mexican authorities: Top cartel leader captured
CNN Wire Staff | June 22, 2011

Mexico City (CNN) — . . Federal police captured Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, also known as “El Chango,” in an operation in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico’s national security spokesman said.

Spokesman Alejandro Poire called Mendez the “principal head” of La Familia Michoacana cartel and said his capture was the federal government’s “most overwhelming blow” to the group.

“This capture destroys what remained of the leadership structure of this criminal organization,” he said.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon praised the capture on his official Twitter account: “A large blow by federal police to organized crime. One of the most wanted criminals was captured. Congratulations.”

Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office had offered a 30 million peso ($2.5 million) reward for information leading to his arrest, saying Mendez was the mastermind behind drug trafficking, kidnappings and killings.

It’s a significant win for the federales, Calderon, and the people of Mexico:

La Familia Michoacana are extremely twisted, violent and right-wing (see here). The numbers of people that have died at the hands of the Christianist beheaders may total in the thousands.

I wouldn’t bet against their former brothers, now rivals, the Knights Templar, tipping off the federales to Mendez Vargas’ whereabouts in order to eliminate him. Both factions are well-tied to police and other law enforcement personnel.

The President, ultimately, makes the decisions that determine how we travelers are processed at any airport. That’s because the planes that end up in the air, or, more accurately, the passengers aboard, are perfectly capable of killing thousands of people on the ground, and wiping out sizable chunks of our greatest cities, and turning our lives into extended meditations on horror, loss and the former blessings of normal life.

While the former president, George W. Bush, was around, these issues were solemn, daunting and pressing New American Issues. But now that George has been supplanted by a Democrat, the way that this new power pretender carries out any security stuff is wrong. Doesn’t particularly matter how he’s doing it, it’s all wrong.

Jindal blasts Obama administration, calls TSA searches excessive
By Gautham Nagesh | The Hill

. . “I think the American people are worried when they see an administration worried about reading Miranda rights to the underwear bomber,” Jindal said. “[They're] so worried about rights of the terrorists, what about the rights of innocent American travelers?”

Ah, the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Why had they read him his Miranda rights? Because he was an obvious sonuvabitch criminal, an attempted mass murderer. That’s why. And Abdulmutallab’s successful security by-pass and near-mass-murder exposed a terrifying blind spot in universal screening: your crotch.

Once again, we had to come to grips with reality — there were avowed anti-Americans smuggling powerful bombs through security in their shorts. The presidential pretender Jindal very much cares about some bit of this. He really cares, ’round ways, all ways, any way. As long as Obama sucks:

“I’m concerned out of political correctness we’re screening people that don’t need it,” Jindal said, adding that TSA should look at passengers’ travel patterns, how they purchased their ticket and other information to screen which passengers pose a threat.

Well, now that the President’s a different person, terrorism has suddenly become a pretty predictable game. Stop your overreaching political correctness: women, for instance, are not going to be suicide bombers . .




. . . yeah, whatever. We still gotta exempt people from screening. I imagine terrorists will take no interest in these policies.

“It feels too much from this administration like we’re playing a defensive game in the war on terrorism,” Jindal said, arguing the administration was lucky that attempted terrorist attacks in Times Square and by the “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab were unsuccessful.

So the offensive strategy with respect to the Abdulmutallab breach is . . less aggressive airport screenings?

“Luck is not a strategy. We need to be rooting out these networks, we need to be killing these terrorists,” he added. “The bottom line is yes we need to secure our country, but simply playing defense isn’t enough.

So we should have invaded, attacked and rooted out the Abdulmutallab problem back in its home: Nigeria. That’s a hell of a lot easier than changing TSA policy.

. . because you can’t kill everybody, right? Your enemies will always go on, there are too many of them.

So the idea behind terrorism is to soak people in misery. Make it so they can barely go on with life — they can’t think, can’t sleep, can’t step out of the house.

Well, we Americans are flirting with that last little bit right now. ‘Airport Screening’ became this week’s controversy, something equivalent to ‘unscheduled prostate exam.’ And, judging from the level of discourse, as well as toughness willingly displayed in public, we should probably all just give in.

“No more flying for me, Al Qaeda, I’m happy to admit that you won . . .”

Dear Airline, I’m Leaving You
Megan McArdle | The Atlantic Online

But don’t feel too bad. It’s not you, it’s me. Or rather, it’s the TSA.

I’m not going to lie. It’s come between us. If I have to let someone else see me naked in order to be with you–well, I’m just not that kinky. And deep down, I don’t think you are either. I think it’s the TSA making you act like this. Frankly, you haven’t been the same since you started running around together.

Aw, aint she cuuute? See, the airline is like her boyfriend, and . . she’s leaving him. *Sigh* What a poignant tale. Meg will no longer be flying across the country to assault people with her shockingly obtuse opinions. How in the world will she manage to carry on likewise without the aid of jumbo jets?

I hear the telephone! *ring ring!*

‘. . uh, hello?’

‘National healthcare will fail.’

‘Err . . excuse me?’

‘In America. It will kill the country.’

‘. . how ya figure? It’s normal stuff for the rest of the first world.’

‘I just played the whole thing out . . in my mind.’

*click*

‘. . stupid asshole . .’

Then there’s the radio. Actually, Canadian radios, but still, same intelligence bonanza:

Don’t like airport screening? Don’t fly
BY JOHN GORMLEY, SPECIAL TO THE STARPHOENIX

As “don’t touch my junk” emerges from nowhere to contend for 2010′s phrase of the year, there’s been extraordinary pushback on airport security screening . .

[John Tyner] didn’t like security staff looking at his body, even though they’re in another room seeing hundreds of bodies on any given shift and the faces on the digital images are blurred.

I’m no fan of Tyner’s, but, golly gee, if only he’d really thought about the other room and the hundreds of bodies and the shifts full of blurry faces. Which, of course, he had. I’m glad someone finally pointed this out, everybody can stop yelling now. Obviously, it’s not John Gormley’s arguments that are ‘SPECIAL TO THE STARPHOENIX,’ it’s his avuncular presence or spring-fresh aroma.

Pity John didn’t see fit to talk about the overall professionalism of the TSA, or of the actual effectiveness of these maulings, or of the likelihood of porny scans being saved and passed around. Or of the lack of a national debate on how safe people really want to be when they fly. Top-notch safety comes with serious sacrifices. Perfect safety is probably intolerable.

At a basic level, air travel is a commercial transaction between passengers and the airlines paid to fly them. But at another level, with national security and public safety at stake, governments insert themselves to make rules that are often draconian, sweeping and intrusive.

. . and those two levels never intersect? One minute, it’s some new meaning for ‘junkie,’ next minute, it’s a bunch of string theory. Okay. As long as we’re leveling meaningless gazes upon the world: On yet another level, furious space needles hem rainbow cozies.

On yet another other level, what people get from the TSA is to what they really want . . as . . Sylvester Stallone in ‘Over The Top’ is to . . umm . . . C.): Jennifer Grey in ‘Dirty Dancing.’ Yes, Patrick Swayze’s extended junkyard wrestling metaphor, that’s what you want from your Transportation Safety Administration. Except for the ‘metaphor’ crap.

They are intrusive because they can be, using the latest in technology to literally scan the surface of our bodies beneath our clothes.

TEENSY SCANNERS? UNDER OUR CLOTHES? (. . can the government do that?)

This also deters those trying to overcome conventional airport security.

LIKE WETSUITS? CAN THE TERRORISTS DO THAT?

As new advances are made, scanners will also get more sophisticated.

HOW MUCH MORE SOPHISTICATED? JEEZUS CHRIST!

I get the theoretical and constitutional arguments . . But air travel is not a right. If you don’t like airport security then don’t do it. And don’t fly — take the bus.

Sure.

Off to catch an Eco-Greyhound to the Galapagos, toodles. “We’ll be cruising along at, well, the bottom of the ocean. In the event of a terrestrial landing, please use the anchor under your seat as a waterlogging device . .”

The ultra-Christian ultra-violent Mexican drug cartel La Familia Michoacana, having expanded beyond Michoacan, are warring for control of the neighboring southwestern Mexican states of Morelos and Guerrero.

In competing with Gulf, Zetas and Beltran Leyva cartels and with local authorities, they have employed their usual tactics: kidnappings, beheadings, and leaving messages behind for the public and police.

Diario de Morelos, September 5th (Google translation):

La Familia enter the Morelos war

The discovery of an alleged “narco message” signed by La Familia Michoacana, left with a corpse in the colony of Otilio Monta or in Cuautla, confirms that the criminal organization is fighting for control of drug trafficking in Morelos.

. . “from now on the rulers here are La Familia Michoacana” was part of the message that members of the cartel left behind.

. . Military, police, ministerial staff and forensics experts exam-ined a dead man strongly built with short hair, his hands tied behind his back, his face wrapped with duck tape, with a “narco message” left at his feet . .

Excelsior this weekend:

“La Familia Michoacana” increases criminal activity in Morelos

MORELOS, September 18 .- At least five people have been executed in the last 24 hours in Morelos, due to the war between drug cartels vying for control of the area. In addition, ‘La Barbie’ Cartel South Pacific has also entered the dispute with La Familia Michoacana.

These murders confirm the progress of the cartel into the center of the republic, and the group have begun to leave the bodies of their victims with “narco messages” to claim its territorial expansion into the states of Michoacán, Guerrero, State of Mexico and Morelos and others.

Around 11 pm on Friday, the bodies of two young people between 25 and 30 years old were found in the stretch of highway that leads from the Mexico-Cuernavaca Mariano Matamoros Airport . .

The bodies had bullet wounds, were gagged and tied hand and foot, and were left with a La Familia Michoacana “narco message” . . the bodies were also painted with the initials of the criminal cartel.

And yesterday, in Guerrero, the bodies of a number of abducted policemen were recovered. La Familia Michoacana would certainly be suspected in the multiple kidnappings and killings for obvious reasons. In June, they ambushed and killed 10 policemen in a military style attack in nearby Michoacan. In July of last year, after the arrest of a high-ranking cartel member, La Familia went to war with the police, killing at least 19 in only a few days. Lastly, at least two of the bodies were decapitated and their heads tossed into a public area, a trademark of the cartel:

6 abducted police found slain in Mexican state
(AP) – September 19, 2010

ACAPULCO, Mexico — The bodies of six kidnapped police officers, most of them dismembered, were found Sunday in a ravine in the Mexican state of Guerrero, bringing to eight the death toll from a mass abduction of policemen, officials said . .

Two other bodies were found on Saturday, accounting for all nine officers who disappeared Friday after going to identify a body in the community of El Revelado, located about 165 miles (265 kilometers) south of Mexico City . .

Previous La Familia murder and message

Mexico’s government says the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas gang are fighting for control of the region with La Familia Michoacana. The state was also a base for detained drug lord Sergio Valdez Villarreal – alias “La Barbie” – who was fighting for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel with Hector Beltran Leyva.

The bodies found Saturday corresponded to two heads thrown from a moving vehicle into a refreshment stand in the municipality of Coyuca de Catalan in Guerrero, according to a report by the state Public Safety and Civil Protection office.

The first two bodies were accompanied by a note that threatened a similar fate for anyone supporting Hector Beltran Leyva and suspected trafficker Reynaldo Pineda Chavez, saying “Guerrero and Morelos (states) have an owner and they know who it is . . “

New York Times:

Legacy of Torture
EDITORIAL | Published: August 26, 2010

. . Because federal judges cannot trust the confessions of prisoners obtained by intense coercion, they are regularly throwing out the government’s cases against Guantánamo Bay prisoners.

A new report prepared jointly by ProPublica and the National Law Journal showed that the government has lost more than half the cases where Guantánamo prisoners have challenged their detention because they were forcibly interrogated.

The report details how the use of torture abroad, with the silence or assent of the U.S., and the use of George W. Bush’s ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques’ in American facilities have produced a multi-tentacled legal monster, gumming up or destroying case after case against detainees, some of whom are probably legally responsible for crimes against Americans.

Judges have found it impossible to be sure of the detainees’ confessions given the circumstances under which they were obtained.

The government’s case for keeping the Guantánamo Bay prisoner locked away seemed airtight. He had confessed to overseeing the distribution of supplies to al-Qaida fighters battling U.S. forces in Afghanistan, even describing the routes where pack mules hauled the packages.

But a federal judge rejected Fouad Mahmoud Al Rabiah’s confessions, concluding that he had concocted them under intense coercion.

So insidious and long-lasting are the effects of torture that virtually all subsequent confessions become suspect as well:

Al Rabiah

Even statements that the government insisted Al Rabiah had made under noncoercive, or “clean,” questioning were tainted, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled, and she ordered that Al Rabiah be released.

The government has lost eight of 15 cases in which Guantánamo inmates have said they or witnesses against them were forcibly interrogated . .

To wit:

Government lawyers didn’t contest that [Saeed Mohammed Saleh] Hatim, while held for six months at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, had been beaten repeatedly, kicked and “threatened with rape if he did not confess to being a member of the Taliban or al-Qaida,” according to U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina’s opinion. Instead, they submitted confessions he gave after arriving at Guantánamo, under cleaner questioning. But Urbina found that Hatim’s confession was “tainted by torture” and ordered that he be released. The government is appealing the decision.

Does any of this surprise anybody? I doubt it. And the negative legal reach of torture isn’t trivial, moving well beyond the cases of the victims:

Last year, Justice Department lawyers tried to show that Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed was an al-Qaida fighter by using statements from another detainee, Binyam Mohamed, whose “harrowing” interrogation ordeal was described in an 81-page opinion by Senior Judge Gladys Kessler.

Binyam Mohamed, now free

For two years, beginning with his capture in April 2002, foreign interrogators holding him “at the behest of the United States” beat and kicked him, chained him to a wall, kept him half-standing for long stretches and cut him with a blade, including on his genitals. He was “fed information” and “told to verify it.” During that time, he was also interrogated by the FBI and CIA.

The government’s lawyers didn’t contest the allegations of mistreatment but instead argued that the treatment of the informant didn’t undermine the evidence he gave later . .

But Kessler didn’t buy that better treatment had done the trick. Given that, “throughout his detention, a constant barrage of physical and psychological abuse was employed in order to manipulate him and program him into telling investigators what they wanted to hear,” she wrote, it was “more than plausible” that he had also manufactured details in nonabusive questioning.

So, even with American handlers, under reasonable treatment, making statements against somebody else, the evidence is still junk.

Didn’t we all know we’d end up here? I think so.

If you’re considering the use of torture, you’re going to have to change completely the character and habits of a nation in order to be honestly successful. Good nations produce good legal systems. When the use of torture becomes apparent, the system rejects the ‘evidence,’ and the cases die. It’s predictable. Otherwise, you’d have to become Saudi Arabia or Egypt to rack up many wins. It looks bad now, but the tossing of so many cases is actually good news.

Oh, and haven’t the predicted verdicts come in against shortsighted Dick Cheney and his boss, George W. Bush, as well? Losers.

There goes a naked politician. Gohmert’s now caught in a stinking, lumbering lie. Might as well take his embarrassment out on Anderson Cooper.

He apparently thinks that if something could be true, then what’s the diff? No one likes a terrorist, so what does it matter if Louie’s a liar? Sheesh, Anderson.

And the ‘controversy‘ ends.

Does it matter if a politician tells an outrageous, howling lie? Of course it does, it could end his or her career.

Does it matter if a lunatic Republican tells an outrageous lie? Yes it does — how else are they gonna get TV time and fire up the base? Hell, the truth won’t do that for the wingnuts, that stuff is BORING.

Hilarious, screeching lying is the feed of fear farmers, and there’s plenty here. And the biggest bull-milker would be Louie Gohmert.

Reported on June 27, Gohmert (R–TX, of course) took to the House floor, saying that he talked to a retired FBI agent who knew of terrorists bringing in pregnant women to have children here so that the kids would have American citizenship. Then they’d return home, train the kids to be terrorists, and then send the grown-up anti-American murderers back to the states to “destroy our way of life.”

And thus was born the “Terror Babies!” knee-slapper. Sensing a good thing — volcanic bugshit — Gohmert was happy to flog it again, about a week later. But this time, with a twist.

Appearing on Fox Business Channel (?), he trotted out his “Terror Babies!” again. But, oddly, he now had a completely different source for the shocking revelation: someone he personally knew heard about it first hand. From the grandmother of two of the Terror Babies.

You see, as Gohmert and his people were flying to the Middle East on a passenger plane, one of them, just minding his own business, had the woman sitting next to him inexplicably detail the whole thing. Turns out it’s a program being run by Hamas.

Grandma married into Hamas, her son-in-law is Hamas, and she simply had to tell the stranger sitting next to her how they assured the babies’ citizenships by flying her pregnant daughter to HAmerica. Now, some day, you can bet she’ll send them back to, you know, murder us all.

This is some serious stuff. Serious enough that, some day, the bullcrap may sprout legs and walk out of Texas. Just not this week.

Texas State Rep. Debbie Riddle has some shocking news for Anderson Cooper: here come the “Terror Babies!”

COOPER: Representative Riddle, you told my producer that pregnant women are coming here as tourists, having babies, and then going back home — quote — “with the nefarious purpose of turning them into little terrorists, who will then come back to the U.S. and do us harm.” You said it’s part of an organized terrorist element and could cost us lives. Where did you hear that?

RIDDLE: Uh, that is information that is coming to my office from former FBI officials.

WOAH — she’s got Gohmert beat. Her office has talked to several FBI guys.

COOPER: But you have no actual evidence?

RIDDLE: Other than that coming from former FBI folks.

COOPER: Can you tell us who these former FBI folks are, and what evidence they have or what evidence they’ve shown you?

RIDDLE: At this point, uh, I’m not going to reveal that.

Come on, Anderson. Do you expect her to tell you she howls at the moon?

Tobacco Taxes Finance Terrorism by Deroy Murdock
06/07/2010

NEW YORK — The next terror attack on America could be a self-inflicted wound – specifically a cigarette burn.

Tobacco taxes are mostly a states’ thing. The revenues get funneled to terrorists? Really?! This I gotta hear. Gotta be some sorta LeCarre spy thingie where the bureaucrat in charge of moving funds from one account to another is blackmailed by his supermodel mole/lover. He gets killed, of course, with two rounds to the back of his head, all in some fancy beige high-rise hotel. Gets duct-taped in the silken sheets and hurled off the balcony.

Tobacco taxes create a perfect arbitrage opportunity that radical Muslims exploit to collect money for terrorist groups that murder Americans and our allies. Tobacco taxes should be cut, or at least frozen, before they fuel further Islamic-extremist violence.

Consider the first attack on the Twin Towers, which killed six and injured 1,040. As Patrick Fleenor recalled in a Cato Institute study, “counterfeit cigarette tax stamps were found in an apartment used by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad cell that carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center” . .

A $2.70 spread separates Virginia’s 30-cent-per-pack cigarette tax and Connecticut’s at $3.00. Driving 1,500 cigarette cartons (10 packs per carton) from Arlington to Hartford yields $40,500 per trip.

Joint Terrorism Task Force Alert: The terrorists have invented . .

IT’S ALL OVER THEY’VE WON. Who the hell has any idea how to deal with this 9-dimensional ruse? Jesus, I’m not Spock. Other than our knocking down a couple hundred years of gangsters runnin’ hookers and booze and guns and cigarettes, where the hell would we even begin?

We can begin by blaming liberals, who, by hook or crook, become the American Crime Sink. All disgust comes to rest on them, meaning us, because we’re not dumb enough to take the charge seriously.

Thus, Deroy Murdock does as he pleases:

The Sexual Revolution Finances Terrorism
by Deroy Murdock
07/07/2010

VAN NUYS — The next terror attack on America could be a self-inflicted wound – specifically an oozing chancre.

The American indulgence of free sex and depravity finances radical Islamists. Recent intelligence gathering found that terrorists have been launching live-sex websites from Belize. They seek to exploit our weakness to collect money for terrorist groups that murder Americans and our allies. Internet porn should be abolished, or at least frozen, before it fuels further Islamic-extremist violence.

. . or . .

Gun Control Finances Terrorism
by Deroy Murdock
08/07/2010

PEORIA — The next terror attack on America could be a self-inflicted wound – specifically, something like a ricochet.

The government’s obsession with gun control provides the radical Islamists an enticing black market opportunity. Already overstocked with American arms, they sell high caliber weaponry to gun show enthusiasts at a premium by side-stepping background checks and waiting periods. They seek to exploit our constrictive regulatory environment to collect money for terrorist groups that murder Americans and our allies. Gun control should be abolished, or at least frozen, before it fuels further Islamic-extremist violence.