[Hoot Gibson]

I keep watching for Fox News to cover this story, but it looks like they may wait until after the South Carolina primary election to cover it, if they cover it at all. I am not opposed at all to arming our soldiers fighting ISIS and other Muslim terror groups with weapons tainted with pig's blood, but shooting defenseless prisoner? I draw the line there, as should any American citizen.

Two things about this story scream for coverage. First, there is the implication that shooting defenseless prisoners is okay with Donald Trump. The second thing is, it strikes me as stupid to repeat an easily debunkable internet hoax as fact for political gain. Is Trump just plain stupid or is this just blatant propaganda, where he has intentionally disregarded the truth for a story that he believes is too good to check?

Trump hails torture, mass killings with ‘pigs blood’ ammo in SC

Donald Trump closed his South Carolina campaign on Friday with a rambling speech highlighted by a giddy, almost childlike, enthusiasm for torturing and summarily executing the suspected enemies of America in the name of safety.

Trump was in free-association mode ahead of Saturday’s primary, dwelling for an extended time on one topic, like heroin in New Hampshire or Japan’s monetary policy, and then jumping to another.

“I’m really good at the trade,” the billionaire told a crowd of thousands. “I’m really good at the borders.”

RELATED: Polls say Trump is losing ground in South Carolina

The standout topic, however, was terrorism and national security. Trump repeated – favorably – an apparent myth about how General John Pershing summarily executed dozens of Muslim prisoners in the Philippines with tainted ammunition during a guerilla war against the occupying United States.

“He took fifty bullets, and he dipped them in pig’s blood,” Trump said. “And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the fifty people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the fiftieth person he said ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.’ And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem, okay?”

The story appears to be a hoax spread via e-mail forwards, according to rumor tracker Snopes.com, with no evidence it occurred.

The moral of the tale, according to Trump: “We better start getting tough and we better start getting vigilant, and we better start using our heads or we’re not gonna have a country, folks.”