THE WINGNUTS FOUND THEIR "GROUND ZERO MOSQUE" FOR 2014, AND THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THE CHILDREN IN THE CROSSHAIRS

A post up at Gateway Pundit sounded the outrage alarm today for all of Wingnuttia:

FEDS TO OPEN $50 MILLION RESORT FOR ILLEGAL CHILDREN -- Complete With Tennis Courts, Sauna & Pools

The Obama administration has awarded a $50 million contract to a charitable group to buy a Texas resort hotel and transform it in to a 600 bed facility for juvenile illegal aliens.



The beautiful Palm Aire resort and hotel has an indoor Olympic sized pool and an outdoor pool. Free Wi-Fi and cable TV are included in the simply decorated guest rooms....

The Palm Aire Hotel and Suites currently advertises amenities such as two outdoor swimming pools—one Olympic sized—Jacuzzis, sauna, steam room, two racquetball courts, outdoor tennis courts, picnic area with grills and a fitness center with twenty machines and free weights....

A group called BCFS, formerly known as Baptist Family and Child Services, had plans to open this center for undocumented, unaccompanied minors. BCFS has been in operation since 1944, when it opened an orphanage for Hispanic children, who weren't allowed in orphanages for white or black children.

All of this is explained in the linked story, from local TV station KGRV. A blogger at Little Green Footballs watched the story and debunks the notion that this is a swank hotel:

The fact that Baptist Child & Family Services is even putting in a bid on this property would indicate that it is not a flourishing luxury resort, but a defunct, rundown motel in an undesirable location. It is doubtful that many of the luxury amenities that the Palm Aire may have once included are still kept up. As the final paragraph explains, the request still has to be approved and voted on.

If you watch the video at the link you will see that the property is quite run down.

Yup -- here's a freeze-frame from the video:



Not exactly the Ritz-Carlton. Really, it's just an average hotel with a few amenities.

Luxury? Here are a couple of the Google reviews:

What a disgusting experience we receive in the hotel we stay over this weekend in rooms 119 & 120 in both we find spiders and roaches; plus some plumbing problems in the shower....

****

worst motel ever all rooms smell molds ! dont get fooled with web ads its bad bad motel no more i will stay by this trash

****

dirty, old, smelly, not worth the price

And from Trip Advisor:

“Will not stay here again”
1 of 5 stars

The pool was green....

****

“Terrible Hotel”
1 of 5 stars

This hotel needs a lot of work and oversight. The staff is what it is. But the room (suite 306) has the following issues: mold and musty, sunken couch, broken knobs on AC controls, broken handle on shower (couldn't control temperature without pliers from my tool box), water damage on popcorn ceiling from previous leak, stained sheets (we brought our own sheets sort of expecting this), no ability to take back because drain plug was missing, dead flies on bathroom floor. It's appalling how bad a hotel can get when there is no management oversight or care. Not a chance I'd rebook.

There are positive reviews at this and other sites, but, as the LGF post notes, clearly this is a place that's not in top shape (which might partially explain the projected cost of the overhaul). And it's not for the 1%, as Expedia reviewers note:

Very near the border to Mexico at Nuevo Progreso for people who like to go there to get dental work and buy medicines at very low costs.

****

A perfecto hotel for a shopping trip

This Hotel is very near to the Rio Grande Outlets....

Also, as is noted in the LGF post (and in the KRGV story), the point is to convert the hotel, or part of it, to a facility that will be similar to BCFS's facility for immigrant children at Lackland Air Force Base, which looks like this:



****

But it doesn't matter, because the mobs were being summoned today, and, as Fox News's Todd Starnes (who was also demagoguing this) now informs us, they got their victory:

Fed-backed group drops plan to buy fancy hotel to house illegals

A plan to house hundreds of illegal immigrant children at a multimillion-dollar hotel complex in Texas was scuttled after the prospect of taxpayers footing the bill for luxury lodging proved too much of a public relations obstacle....

Starnes has been spreading negative information about BCFS's facility at Lackland for days. Here's Starnes at FoxNews.com alleging -- based on the word of "at least a half dozen anonymous sources" -- that "tuberculosis has become a dangerous issue at both the border and the camps." BCFS responded, in an online post titled "Correcting Misinformation about Lackland Operations":

To date, 127 children have been treated for lice, 24 children have been treated for scabies, and 1 child was sent and admitted to a local children's hospital where they were diagnosed with the H1N1 Flu. The most common illnesses seen at Lackland are fever, headache, upper respiratory colds, and ingrown toenails (another result of the children’s travels from Central America).

But who's a wingnut going to believe? A social service agency that treats these kids as human beings? Or the True Patriots at Fox and their unnamed sources?

The KRGV story told us that at the new facility "medical staff will be on hand so children with diseases or injuries will not be transferred to local hospitals." That's obviously a response to the rumormongering of Starnes and others. (But now, of course, there won't be a facility of this kind in place of the hotel.)

There were also reports that preachers were not being allowed to visit the immigration camps; one of these reports was a piece at Christian Post written by ... um, Todd Starnes. Today it was reported that a Baptist minister preached to children at the Lackland facility. But the damage is already done.

The rabble have clearly been roused -- BooMan looked at the comments section of the Gateway Pundit post and issued this warning to readers:

Steel yourself before heading over there because it's a rancid cesspool of bigotry, intolerance, paranoia, and hate. There are suggestions that we simple carpet bomb the area of Mexico that borders our country, or that we start military exercises with live fire. There are already over 2,700 comments, almost all of them demonstrating a shocking level of disregard for the children who would be spending an estimated 15 days each at this resort.

I wish I believed in God, especially the just God I was raised to worship, because that God's judgment on people who spend their days stirring up hate this way, without regard for the truth, and just so that their side will score political victories, would surely be to sentence them to burn in hell.

****

UPDATE: Sorry to make this post longer, but here's a word about the right's "$50 million" claim, from another Little Green Footballs post:

The Obama administration did not "award" a $50 million contract. Here's where that dishonest claim comes from: Nonprofit Seeks Approval to Make Palm Aire Hotel a Child Immigrant Facility. (h/t: @tettes.)

Hidalgo County leaders, including Judge Ramon Garcia and Pct. 1 Commissioner A.C. Cuellar, have been proponents of the project.

“I think we could use something like that in Weslaco,” Cuellar said. “Anytime that humanitarian problems happen I'm interested, especially when it involves kids.”

He added that the project, which BCFS said will employ 650 people and have an annual economic impact of some $50 million, would be a major development boon.

Hidalgo County commissioner A.C. Cuellar said the project would have an economic impact of $50 million, because of the people it would employ and the services it would use. There's no "annual contract worth $50 million."

They lie. They lie and lie and lie, and then lie some more.