Knight of the long knives (updated)

S.M.O.M.
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Coat of arms.

The flag.

Hearkens back to a more famous church order.  The one founded by this man.

Saint Bernard de Clairvaux

Who was the patron of the Knights Templar.  There is much of Templar history which is shrouded in mystery as well as much that has been spun into wild stories and wacky speculation.

One of the best explanations for the final disposition of the Templars is that they ended up insinuating themselves into other orders of the church and, perhaps, into what would later become initiatic Masonic orders.

Christopher Knowles on his blog the Secret Sun has also posited a connection between The Normans/Vikings and the Phoenicians/Venetians/Templars.  One of the settlements of the Norman people in their expansion from Scandinavia is Malta.  This from Chris' blog post:

"The Normans too were intrepid sailors and almost certainly financed their military adventures in part through piracy. From icy Norway they settled in the rainy northwest of France, before establishing island kingdoms in England, Sicily and Malta, in addition to their conquests of Antioch and northern Africa."

But we are not here to talk about the Templars.  The SMOM was created in 1050 in Jerusalem under the name of the Knights Hospitaler.  In 1099 it became a military order.  It operated from Rhodes for over 200 years and Malta for over 200 years until being ejected by Napolean after which they settled in Rome, after a brief sojourn in Russia which may, or may not, have led to a split in the group, more on that later.  The Order is recognized as a sovereign state under international law and has permanent observer status at the UN.

Both the Templars and the Knights of Malta were direct tools of the Roman Church.  The grandmaster of the Order holds the status of Cardinal within the Church, and during the Holy Roman Empire held the title of Prince.  This was and is a hugely influential order in international affairs.  Ultimately the Order, at least on paper, answers to this man.

Emperor Palpatine Pope Benedict (note the Templar crosses...)

The Order is probably best known for the people who are and have been members, as well as the history of those folks.

In 1927 the Order established a branch in the United States.  Among the first members were industrial magnates and tycoons, in other words the American aristocracy.  John J. Raskob, Chairman of GM, and named a conspirator in an attempted coup against Roosevelt, was one of these first members.  Some others included John Farrell President of US Steel, Joseph Grace of W.R. Grace Co., Joseph Kennedy, and Cardinal Spellman.  All of them very powerful and influential people, and most involved with some kind of illegal, immoral or unethical activity.  In Spellman's case it was a financial hold over the Church, his homosexuality (immoral only in the sense that he was an official in the Church which viewed this as immoral) and his sledgehammer tactics toward Latin America as well as encouraging the US to enter the Vietnam war to prop up the Roman Catholic ruling class there.

Spellman

Bootlegger and family patriarch Joseph Kennedy, SMOM

Most of the membership of the SMOM comes from European aristocracy.  Franz Von Papen was a member that paved the way for Hitler to come to power in Germany.

He was prominent in the early Nazi government until marginalized and finally forced out after Nacht der Langen Messer (Night of the long knives).  In relation to the Nazis it is well established history that the Church was largely silent in the face of the atrocities they committed.  Also one needs to remember that the Vatican, and also the SMOM, were implicated in helping wanted war criminals escape from Europe after the war.

Klaus Barbie

Mengele

I think you can see where this is going.  In the twentieth century SMOM was involved in a lot of intrigue and nefarious activity.  One might come to the conclusion that SMOM serves as a dirty tricks department of the Vatican.  This included Project Paperclip which led to many strident Nazis coming to the US to work for us after the war.  Italian aristocrat and SMOM member Baron Luigi Parilli served as a go between in some of these negotiations.

Baron Parilli would surface again after the war working again with the OSS/CIA in Italy to prevent a communist government.  James Jesus Angleton (SMOM) was a key player in this affair as well.  He had been sent into Italy to collect and protect Prince Valerio Borghese, a SMOM member, who would survive he war to be an integral part of the rightist/fascist element in Italy and also connected to the notorious P-2 lodge.

These connections would place SMOM in the middle of Operation Gladio which served to destabilize Italy for decades after WWII.
There are many members of the US intelligence establishment that have connections to the SMOM.  Many of these folks coalesced around the JFK assassination and continued to be prominent on up to today.

When one talks about the Kennedy assassination you are confronted by a curious group known as the Shickshinny Knights of Malta.  Which is an alleged splinter group from a time that the Knights had been centered in Russia after their expulsion from Malta by Napolean.  If possible this group was even more hard right and fascistic than the SMOM itself.  It also does not have a definitive standing in the Church which could just be a way of distancing the Church from their activities.  Some of the members of this organization are Phillip J. Corso, which obviously brings to mind..

as well as Charles Willoughby, General MacArthur's chief of intelligence.  This group was the single most active group of people to promote the idea of a deeply embedded mole within the CIA.  That, of course, led to the witch hunt of James Angleton.

  Which brings us to the current crop of presidential candidates.  It is not easy to confirm that Newt Gingrich is a member of the Order but Rick Santorum definitely is a member.

Note the crazy eyes to go along with the lunatic mind.
Santorum certainly makes waves and a name for himself by his ridiculous stance on many issues that are so far right that he'd hit the wall, if there was one.  Hi early career had him as a lawyer for the firm Kirkpatrick and Lockhart, which became K&L Gates which happened to make the headlines in recent years in Pittsburgh when an employee, George Sodini, shot up an LA Fitness center.
His career in politics started in the House of Representatives, where, apparently he still was more or less human because he did vote against NAFTA as well as voting in favor of a bill that would prevent employers from permanently replacing striking workers.  Once he made it to the Senate all semblance of humanity left him and he made a concerted march to the hard right and has kept moving ever since.  SMOM has always been affiliated with the hard right, particularly fascism and extremism of the right.  Santorum fits right in.  He added an amendment to the No Child Left Behind act that would have allowed schools to teach intelligent design as a science in their schools.  That provision was later removed before passage.
He was involved in some ethical problems involving the National Weather Service and a private weather company Accu-Weather, which seems to have "donated" money to Santorum to propose legislation that would have prohibited the NWS from releasing weather data for free if there was a private company (presumably Accu-weather) that could provide the service.  That bill did not pass but it did earn him points on the corruption meter.

Where the real pay dirt is to be found in an analysis of Santorum is in his regard to women's issues, reproduction ,abortion and foreign policy.
Santorum has stated that rape victims that conceive as a result of the brutal act should view the child as a broken gift from God, and apparently opposes abortion on any grounds.  (Even though before running for congress he described himself as pro-choice.)  He has been highly critical of one's "right to privacy" saying that it is his belief that the constitution does not guarantee that right.  This is the basis for his stance on contraception (a no-no) and apparently abortion.  He radically opposes same sex marriage and has been decidedly vehement in his opposition to anything related to homosexuality.  It is my experience that the more vehemently one comes out against homosexuality the more it is a repressed feeling that the person has.  It would not surprise me in the least if Santorum were gay.  One must keep this in mind in light of the huge scandal of molestation in the Church, mostly of the same sex variety and the allegations that homosexuality is rampant in the Church and Church orders.  Interestingly Santorum wrote on the Church scandal and attempted to blame "liberalism" rather than the priest pederasts and rapists.
One of the more grotesque displays put on by Santorum was the handling of the unfortunate death of one of his children, which happened shortly after birth.  The corpse was brought home and introduced to the family prior to funeral and burial.

Santorum is firmly in the Neo-Con camp in foreign policy and is gung ho for war with Iran.  He has stated that Iranian scientists being murdered is a good thing and that there should be more of them being killed.  He is a solid tool of imperialism and military adventurism.
Santorum is part of the dirty tricks team of the Vatican, the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta.  Having a title of a foreign nation is proscribed by the constitution (accept if approved by Congress) for any public officer but lacking penalty it seems to be largely unenforceable.
Santorum is another avenue to far right theocratic governance that would seek to outlaw or spurn any deviance from accepted Church doctrine.

  Are we ready for a Knight of the long knives in the US?  I rather think not.  And this does not even attempt to delve into the Opus Dei of which Santorum is also a member.....