God of War Henery “Pistol Pete” Hegseth (major, National Guard, ret.). Apologies to Chuck Jones/Warner Bros.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and God of War Henery “Pistol Pete” Hegseth is no exception.
Left unsatisfied by (and roundly criticized for) sinking small craft in America’s Oceans® — including a double-tap that finished off a couple survivors of one such strike — the retired National Guard major and Faux News foghorn set out after bigger game.
Not that he’s taking the credit for that particular kill, mind you.
Writes Stars and Stripes:
“Secretary [Pete] Hegseth authorized Adm. [Frank M.] Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Adm. Bradley worked well within his authority, and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States was eliminated,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
The buck stops where? Tell you what, grunt — uh, pardon me, admiral, sir — you don’t want to be on duty when that particular dollar lands in your lap.
Just ask Herbert “Spermwhale” Whalen, a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve who flew in World War II and Korea before joining the Los Angeles Police Department. Speaking of a superior officer in Joe Wambaugh’s novel “The Choirboys,” the burly street cop observed:
“I always knew he was behind us. I felt him there many times.”
“Welcome, Dick. Been a long time since we struck our bargain back when that other Dick was running the White House.”
If you can’t say anything nice … well, let’s get started!
Dick Cheney was smart, mean, and a brass-balled traitor to the spirit of America who thought the Constitution a motley collection of outdated recommendations and never missed a chance to pants Lady Justice whenever she had her back turned.
He made his bones in Richard Nixon’s White House, hitching a ride there on Donald Rumsfeld’s coattails, and then hung around DeeCee in various capacities, improving the nation’s governance in the same way an untended and freshly dead raccoon under a porch improves a home’s resale value.
A five-deferment draft dodger turned back-office warmonger, Cheney helped leave a trail of bodies, ours and theirs, in Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He shot one of his own friends in the face during a quail hunt and the friend apologized for all the fuss. But Cheney never copped to fucking up, in that instance or any of the other bloody debacles in which he played a role.
Cheney was a big fan of the sort of fascist cosplay we’ve come to see from the present occupant of the Oval Office — the USA Patriot Act, warrantless surveillance, indefinite detentions sans hearings or charges, brutal interrogations, etc. — but only when he had the president’s ear. Thus he was not a fan of his fellow draft dodger, the serial bankrupt and convicted felon presently turning the White House into a Gilded Palace of Sin (h/t Gram Parsons and Charles P. Pierce).
So, when he finally got the “strong, robust executive authority” of his dreams, Cheney decided he didn’t care for it. It wouldn’t take his calls.
Now he’s off to join his old mentor Rumsfeld in the afterlife, where — according to some religious traditions, anyway — another strong, robust executive authority awaits him.
I don’t know whether that head of state will require his advice, either. He seems to be doing just fine without it. Shucks, Hell isn’t half full.
The Shit Show! Coming to a … well, it’s already here. Has been since Jan. 20.
Is there a wall left unbeshitted in the Benighted States? If he flings it, it might stick?
“Department of Defense” to be rebranded as “War Department?” OK, one syllable instead of two, so I suppose he might be able to say it without drooling all over his tie. And he could even spell it, maybe. The first word, anyway. If someone spots him the “W” and the “r.”
But when his country wanted him to go to war Cadet Bonespurs was all about playing defense, right here at home.
Hundreds of Koreans ICEd at the construction site of a Hyundai-LG battery plant in Georgia as our two nations struggle to negotiate one of his fabled “deals?” Are these the drug mules with cantaloupe-size calves that screeching racist dipshit Steve King was raving about when some folks — the press, mostly — gave a runny shit what he thought or had to say?
No, this lot had to cross an ocean instead of a river. Talk about your “bad hombres.”
And taking over the 9/11 memorial and museum in New York City? Which commemorate a disaster in which he did … fuck-all? Other than jack his jaw in complete and utterly pampered safety, like the REMF he is and always will be, that is.
Damn. Those Epstein files must really be the shit. He’d bomb Harvard to keep that story out of the news cycle.
I’m gonna go out on a snowy limb here and say it was probably a good idea that the Soma Pescadero and I had our maiden voyage yesterday rather than today.
Yesterday it was knickers and arm warmers; today it’s green tea and bloggery.
Cruel it isn’t, though. Not at the northern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, where we haven’t seen any sort of precip’ in the better part of quite some time.
Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains Which are mountains of rock without water If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand If there were only water amongst the rock Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain
Whew! That Eliot feller would’ve made one helluva blogger, amirite? “The poet’s mind,” he once said, “is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.”
He also wrote: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
Good training in case they have to go up against the Houthis anytime soon, I suppose.
But at first glance this “emergency response” to crime hereabouts seems to have a lot of wobble to it.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, the planned deployment follows “a March 31 request from APD Chief Harold Medina for the military to fulfill ‘non-law enforcement duties’ such as providing security at crime-scene perimeters and transporting prisoners, among others.”
But Medina says this thing “has been in the works for months after the NMNG offered help.”
APD is to monitor the “pilot project” with an eye toward measuring its success, says the chief. But the executive order from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham “left the timeline for the NMNG’s presence open-ended.”
The 60-some-odd Guardspersons are to provide security at the courthouse, airport and other facilities, and medical support for the unhoused along East Central. Medina said this “would free up 20 to 30 officers for law enforcement and crime-fighting.” I’m not sure Skippy the Dipshit and his DOGEbags would call this efficient, but hey, what do I know? Onliest thing I run is this keyboard here.
Oddly, in making their case for bringing the Guard to town, Medina and Duck! City Mayor Tim Keller cited quarter-year stats indicating “large decreases in crime, compared with 2024.”
The mayor explained thusly: “What we want to do is double down on what’s working … and what’s working is technology and civilians … freeing up officers to fight crime and keep those statistics going in this powerfully good direction.”
P.S., he added: The city isn’t picking up the tab.
Neither Medina nor Keller offered any idea of how long the Guardspersons would be needed. Medina hopes to have a bunch of new cops on board — about 150 of them — before the bugler sounds “Retreat.”
The GOP said what the GOP usually says, which explains why it has as much influence on state politics as some poor sod living in a Glad bag at Wyoming and Central.
Likewise, the ACLU views with its usual alarm. Daniel Williams, policy advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, said in a press release that the assistance was “a show of force, not a show of solutions.”
“History has shown that military collaboration with local law enforcement often leads to increased civil rights violations, racial profiling, and criminalization of vulnerable populations, particularly those experiencing homelessness and poverty,” he said.
The troops are to be unarmed and clad not in uniforms but rather in polo shirts (we can only hope that pants will be included). I do get that breezy feeling from the rear that our pants are being pulled down here, but you know what they say about paranoia.
Mad Blog Media 