This stew shall pass.

[footnotefetish]

"During one of my visits to [Sheriff] West's office, the sheriff launched into a story of how Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is training the drug cartels in terrorist tactics with the assistance and financing of al Qaeda. And during a break at the May 2010 [Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition] meeting, Deputy Robert Wilson, Hudspeth's grant-writer, solemnly reported that there are Middle Eastern terrorists on the border. 'We know they are coming through,' he said. If that isn't enough to get you terrified about border security, Wilson is convinced that there are Chinese soldiers--and Russians, too--immersing themselves in the Mexican population; one day they will 'just put on their uniforms and come north.' Sheriff West, with his homespun style, silver tongue, and storyteller's bravado, leaves you wondering how much of these border security tales he actually believes, though he is only too happy to collect the federal money they attract."--Tom Barry, Border Wars
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."--H. L. Mencken