Why Lomeli and Not the Other 49,999?

The unthinkable has befallen one of the TSA’s gate-rapists: he has not only been arrested in the performance of his “duties,” he’s actually facing charges.

Take a moment to recover: the shock immobilized me a good while, too. The Thieves and Sexual Assailants have pawed men, women and little kids for 19 very long, torturous years at Amerikan airports, plunging their hands up shirts and down britches, strip-searching grandmothers, chortling over naked passengers, stealing second base on the pretext that women hide bombs in their bosoms, and fondling boys. In short, the TSA hourly commits all manner of atrocity—and with nauseating impunity, too. Each time a victim cries “Rape!”, the agency’s blatantly false boilerplate claims that it “strives to treat every passenger with dignity and respect…” Adding insult to injury, it “investigates” itself and—surprise!—declares its sadists innocent. To choose one example from millions: after “British singer Morrissey said” that a “San Francisco TSA worker … went straight for my private bits and then he put his finger down my rear cleavage,” the TSA averred that its “officer followed standard operating procedures in the screening of this individual.”

Need we further testimony that sexual assault is not only the TSA’s “job” but its official policy? However violent or offensive its degenerates’ depredations, it vigorously defends both.

Until now. For reasons no sane serf can fathom, the State of California and the TSA itself are denouncing one of the latter’s leches for what he is: a criminal. Halestorm--A Novel of ... Akers, Becky Buy New $2.99 (as of 11:05 UTC - Details)

This being the government, though, its immensely delayed justice doesn’t even begin to satisfy. For starters, prosecutors have charged 22-year-old Johnathon Lomeli not with molestation but with “one felony count of false imprisonment for intentionally and unlawfully detaining an individual through the use of fraud or deceit. ” Second, they imply that he and he alone of the TSA’s 50,000 goons is guilty of sexual assault. And for proof, they offer two specious, microscopic distinctions.

Which is to say that though a pale imitation of due process finally caught up with ol’ Johnathon, his fellow fiends may safely continue wallowing in depravity. I despise Lomeli as I do all the TSA’s brutes, but even I couldn’t blame him for asking, “Why me? Everyone else gets away with it!”

Lomeli kicked off his criminal career last summer at Los Angeles International when he “allegedly trick[ed] an airline passenger into showing him her breasts and letting him look into her pants.”

Nothing new there: despite its protestations that it does not strip-search passengers, the TSA in fact does. Frequently. And I’ll bet Lomeli didn’t even break a sweat while “tricking” his prey: given the debauchery travelers expect from these blue-gloved barbarians, he probably barked but a single command before the poor woman was unbuttoning her shirt.

That brings us to the first of those distinctions without a difference: the TSA insists that only “an officer of the same gender” will grope us. Why its cretins imagine such abuse will soothe passengers when the Feds not only tolerate but encourage sodomy, we cannot begin to guess. And even if we pretend that none of the TSA’s pervs are that perverted, assault is assault regardless of the predator’s sex. I have yet to hear any survivor of rape lament, “Oh, if only a person of my own sex had attacked me, I wouldn’t be nearly as traumatized!”

Ergo, since the male Lomeli ogled a female, the government damns his vice rather than paying him for it. (Wonder whether his lawyer will advise Lomeli to plead that he felt up–sorry, felt like a woman that day, and therefore no crime occurred…)

And here’s our second distinction without any substance: after that first flash of flesh, Lomelli “took” the lady “to what he said would be a private room for more security screening … But once they were alone on an elevator, she said he told her he could do the screening right there. The woman said Lomeli told her he had to make sure she still had nothing in her bra, requiring her to lift her shirt ‘to show me your full breasts.’ He also again looked down her pants, she said, before telling her she was free to go and adding that she had nice breasts.” Abducting Arnold--A No... Akers, Becky Buy New $2.99 (as of 10:30 UTC - Details)

Lomeli’s leering diverges very little from other way-too-close encounters with the TSA—unless you’re a statist. Then you discern all sorts of fanciful contrasts: as California’s attorney general solemnly thundered, “The felony allegedly occurred outside of the primary security screening area.” Ah, yes, that magical “primary security screening area”! It whitewashes crime and renders sexual assault “a welcome reassurance of safety.” Those few yards of enchanted real estate, dear reader, make all the difference.

Nor do Our Rulers fret about creating checkpoints that confuse passengers into allowing or even cooperating with such grotesque violations as Lomeli’s. Meanwhile, the prosecutor huffs, “Women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect everywhere … There is no excuse for this kind of alleged behavior. It’s not okay on the street, it’s not okay in our schools, and it’s certainly not welcome at the airport.”

Tell it to the TSA, buddy. Forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine of its savages still infest airports, degrading women every moment of every day.

Not to be outdone in hypocrisy, the TSA “called [Lomeli’s] alleged behavior ‘unacceptable and an affront to the hardworking [sic] and committed members of our workforce [sic].’”

An “affront”? C’mon: it was job-training.