When you make a living by terrorizing and intimidating innocents, it is but a matter of time before one of your victims retaliates. This is not a normative statement, just a factual one.
It’s hard to know how else to frame the actions of Paul Anthony Ciancia, aged 23. Murder is wrong. Wrong! But can it be said that Ciancia’s shooting to death of a Transportation Security Administration agent at the Los Angeles International Airport, today, was without motive?
… a law enforcement official told The Times that a note was found on the gunman expressing “disappointment in the government” and noting that he had no interest in hurting “innocent people.” Ciancia also sent a sibling a text message last week suggesting that he was prepared to die, officials said.
It appears the gunman targeted Transportation Security Administration agents, who are not armed. Authorities said he approached several people cowering in the airport terminal, pointed his gun at them, asked if they “were TSA” and then moved on without pulling the trigger if the answer was no. A witness said the gunman cursed the TSA repeatedly as he moved through the terminal.
J. David Cox Sr., president of the union that represents 45,000 TSA flight screeners, called the shooting a “heinous act.” The gunman was not a TSA officer and “never had been,” according to the union, the American Federation of Government Employees.
From “‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp'”:
… As a mother—as a human being with a heart—it was particularly hard seeing children subjected to the cruelty of strangers. Watching footage of the kids down whose miniature trousers TSA goons have been reaching (including the heroic, iconic little Mandy Smith and her father in his reprehensible abdication)—I could not help but wonder: Where in all this has the FLOTUS been?
Never-ever could I condone such state sadism. Not against innocent adults. And most certainly not against children—not even against the president’s kids. Yes, it occurred to me, if only fleetingly, that the thought of Malia being mauled or Sasha scanned might make their mother speak up. The girls’ only flaw, however, is to have been born to a dreadful cur.
Make that two.
If Michelle Obama had experienced a gut reaction to the ordeal inflicted by her husband’s administration (begun under his predecessor) on travelers and their tots—she was not letting on. The First Lady, as you know, is in touch with her gut—and the gut of every kid in the country. The FLOTUS of the fat-based initiatives “cares” enough to decide what America’s bloated babes will ingest, but not enough to weigh-in when their bodies are being invaded by state workers.
WHERE ARE THE MEN in all this? This is no country for men. Emasculate them, feminize them, make them over in the image of woman—and they’ll sacrifice their own children to the state. Having been “liberated” from the natural instinct to protect their own, one can hardly blame men. Women most certainly don’t have a case against their compliant partners. The state as parent and protector: Is this not what most modern women have strived for?
It’s safe to say that the moms of the Fox News Blond Squad were with The FLOTUS. One of these interchangeable females implied that the interminable complainers at the terminals were no more than an insignificant group of noise-makers. Kirsten Powers, a liberal member of that squadron, expressed her satisfaction with the porn protocol. Her sympathies, she said, go out to TSA workers.
Yes, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”
From “Congress: Call Off Your TSA Attack Dogs!”:
When the large African-American woman ? in the employ of the American taxpayer to torment the same subjects at the Miami International Airport ? summoned me with a crooked finger for a pat down, I thought of the film “Midnight Express.” And in particular, the scene where Billy Hayes’ far-from-delightful Turkish jailer schemes to enjoy some time alone with the young American. My tormentor wore the same sadistic, atavistic expression. Her giant digits were soon upon my chest and between my legs.
In front of me, a frail woman was struggling to stand upright as the same goons, brows furrowed, studied her walking stick for traces of semtex. Once I had reached the safety of a privately operated cafe, I watched the agents of the Transportation Security Administration lunge at a middle-aged man’s groin.
Most recently ? and to banshee yelps of, “We have an Opt Out!”, “Opt Out!” ? the TSA attack dogs swarmed a young woman by the name of Meg McLain, who had declined the ostensibly optional full-body scan. The TSA’s website describes its scanners as consisting of “two types of imaging technology, millimeter wave and backscatter.” With the aid of stimulus loot, this rogue agency has acquired an additional “450 advanced imaging technology units,” which, of course, are “safe for all passengers,” tiny and tall. “The technology meets national health and safety standards,” we are assured.
A cursory perusal of the literature on the cumulative effects of ionizing radiation confirms that there is no consensus about this modality’s safety. However, truth in the TSA universe is adjudicated by coercion ? by forcing a captive audience to choose between the Scylla of the scan and the Charybdis of the “enhanced pat down.”
Properly cornered, Ms. McLain was escorted to a cordoned-off area. “This girl here has all kinds of opinion on how we’re doing our job, y’all,” boomed one of McLain’s TSA masters. Heeding the call of the wild, this employee’s manager left, only to return with a dozen cops to backup the seven pack animals already snarling at the young woman. As the malicious, out-and-out assault on her person and property continued, Ms. McLain soon found herself cuffed, her belongings confiscated, and her ticket ripped to shreds in malicious spite. She knows not how close she came to being seriously hurt for her defiant speech. (Ask the grieving family of Carol Anne Gotbaum, who met her demise not in a Pakistani or Saudi airport, but in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor.) …
So many atrocities, so little time. Search under TSA, here and here.
UPDATED I (Nov. 3): Some sources on TSA terrorism:
* “Congress: Call Off Your TSA Attack Dogs!”
* “TSA: Home Grown Terrorism (& Cretinism)”
* “‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp'”
* “The TSA’s Trayvon Martin Revenge”
* “Boston (And America) Betrayed”
* “The Republic of Rub-a-Dub-Dub Genitalia”
* “Rational Profiling: Cabbies Do It Too”
* “WHOSE PROPERTY IS IT ANYWAY?”
UPDATE II (11/3): Paul Ciancia’s motive and purpose, via USA Today:
Investigators recovered a rambling note from the bag the shooter allegedly was carrying, which detailed an intent to “kill” TSA officers, said two federal law enforcement officials familiar with the message’s contents.
Bowdich said the handwritten note made it clear that the suspect intended to kill “multiple” TSA employees and to “instill fear into their traitorous minds.”
