RUSH: I got an e-mail this morning from Cal Thomas, and he got an e-mail from Jim Pinkerton. You all know who James Pinkerton is. Pinkerton is on the Fox News media analysis show. And this is a story from the UK Telegraph that these guys were sending back and forth to each other. Cal Thomas sent it to me. The headline of the story — and it’s dated today — “US Weapons ‘Full of Fake Chinese Parts’ — Thousands of United States’ warplanes, ships and missiles contain fake electronic components from China, leaving them open to malfunction, according to a US Senate committee.”

And then a pull-quote here from the story: “However, Song Xiaojun, a former Peoples’ Liberation Army officer who has become a nationalistic commentator in the Chinese media said the US had ‘got itself into the position it is in. The US has been dismantling its factories since the 1960s. And since the Clinton government, the US has turned a blind eye towards military requisitioning. As it keeps cutting its procurement budget, weapons dealers will keep providing cheaper quality products. This attack on China is political, given the forthcoming elections. But it should not be blaming China, this is a free market issue. The only solution the US has is to buy its components from Korea or Japan instead, but then its costs will rise a hundredfold.'”

So this ChiCom guy is saying the US, since Clinton, has been cutting its defense budget, been closing our own manufacturing factories. You have to go overseas to get this stuff. We’ve been buying stuff from the ChiComs. They’re manufacturing cheap stuff, and some of the parts are fake. Some of the electronic parts are actually fake. They don’t function. Some of them are in jets. Some of them are in missiles. Some of them are in ships. Fake electronic components. And the ChiCom guy, “Hey, this is the free market at work. If you want stuff that works, go to Korea or go to Japan. But you’re gonna pay a lot more there.”

Now, before you pooh-pooh this, remind yourselves of all the stories a year or two ago about all the paint that was coming in from China that had lead in it that was poisoning our precious children. And then how about the ChiCom drywall scandal. Remember that? Buying drywall for home construction and repair, remodeling. We found out that stuff was cheap and what did it have, did it have some stuff in it that was — (interruption) Right, when it got wet. But did it emit something that was the poison? There was something about it that I thought it caused. Yeah, I know it had to be ripped out ’cause it was cheap stuff, it got wet, it disintegrated. My memory is that, did it not emit fumes of some kind? Yeah, okay.

And there’s another weapons story today that Vladimir Putin — let me find this. It’s down in the Stack. I intended to get to this. In fact, I intended to be finished with the CNN stuff by now, and I haven’t even really started it. Sit tight. It’s coming up in mere moments. As soon as I find this Russian story. It’s about new a kind of weapon that Vladimir Putin’s developed. It’s a radiation gun that turns people insane. No bullets. It’s from the Herald Sun. I don’t know what Herald Sun. Sounds like it’s Australian.

“While many believed it to be an April Fool’s Day joke, Vladimir Putin has confirmed Russia has been testing mind-bending psychotronic guns that can effectively turn people into zombies.” Well, I think they probably are using it already, say, at MSNBC. There’s zombies already at MSNBC. Half the country’s zombies. How do we know that Putin’s not already… now let’s be serious a second. “The futuristic weapons — which attack their victims’ central nervous system — are being developed by scientists and could be used against Russia’s enemies and even its own dissidents by the end of the decade. Mr. Putin has described the guns, which use electromagnetic radiation like that found in microwave ovens, as entirely new instruments for achieving political and strategic goals.”

Now, before you pooh-pooh this I want to remind you of something else. Some years ago, probably four or five years ago, a bunch of Chechen rebels infiltrated an opera house or some theater in Moscow and they took it over and they had a bunch of hostages in there. And the Soviets — sorry — Putin, the Russians, the KGB, solved the situation by using a weapon that nobody knew existed. There is an opiate, it’s a pain drug that’s used in hospitals called fentanyl. Putin found a way to turn that into a gas, and he simply piped a bunch of it in the ductwork. In high amounts it kills you by stopping your respiratory system. You fall asleep and you die. It’s not violent. In fact, there’s some euphoria attached to it. It could be said you die happy. That’s what he did. And I remember when it happened, “Wow, nobody’s ever done that.” It was a chemical weapon. People said they’d never heard of this having been done before. It was a derivative of fentanyl. I’ll never forget it.

So look at what we have. We have a report here in the UK Telegraph of fake ChiCom electronics in our military jets, missiles, and ships. Let’s not even… ‘Cause this hasn’t been asserted, so let’s not even consider that they’re not fake but they’re sabotaged it to malfunction. Let’s not even think about that. The ChiCom guy simply says, “Nope, nope. We’re just putting fake stuff in there and charging you market prices for it. It’s called the free market.” There is so much wrapped into the ChiComs ripping the free market. It’s the kind of thing the Obama administration would love. “This is what happens the free market! The people involved in it sell you cheap, fake stuff that doesn’t work; blame us for it for our defense cuts, our manufacturing.”

I mean, there’s so much wrapped up in this little story that just fits every template the left has about what’s wrong with this country. We’ve stopped our manufacturing. We’re cutting our defense spending. We’re farming out all of these defense contracts to the ChiComs. The ChiComs are putting lead in our paint; selling us cheap, worthless drywall; and now fake electronics. And telling us, “Hey, this is what you get if you have a free market. If you want stuff that works, go to the Koreans or go to the Japanese. But you’re gonna pay a hundred times what we’re charging you.” This is made to order for what Obama is trying to do here! Now, the Russians…

This needs to be said, too: The Russians always publish stories about their new miracle weapons. Many of them never pan out. So this electromagnetic radiation gun, I fully expect them to test it on their own dissidents. That’d probably be their primary use for it. A bunch of protesters show up in Moscow and they’ll just irradiate ’em. Turn ’em into zombies. Make ’em all like NBC anchors and CNN people. There’s even a Washington Post story on this. “Chinese Counterfeit Parts Found in US Weapons.” It’s a story from last November. Chinese drywall contains hydrogen sulfide, which is the same stuff we spend billions to scrub out of coal-fired power plants.

Oh! And speaking of that. Some high-ranking coal official is out with a story today saying Obama said he was gonna put us out of business, and he’s doing it. It’s out. We even did a Morning Update on this. So the Russian security services pumped an aerosol anesthetic. It was later conjectured to be weaponized fentanyl. (If you want to look it up, it’s f-e-n-t-a-n-y-l.) Now, let me tell you about fentanyl. I’ll tell you how powerful it is. It comes in a patch, and it is given to end-of-life patients to handle their pain. And what the Russians did was aerosolize it or gasify and just pumped it right through the venting — the heat duct system — inside wherever the theater was where the Chechen dissidents and their hostages were. It was the Moscow Opera Theater. And this drug, after the news got out, it violated all international bans on chemical weapons. And they did it. They used it. So you have to take this stuff seriously.