Open thread! Feel free to discuss anything other than the angry boar oinking madly from the No-Ballsroom at the Orange House.
Go hog wild
Category: Small hat sizes
Shiver me timbers
Cap’n Piggy is pissing on Nicolás Maduro’s shoes, saying the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy have snatched up an oil tanker off Venezuela.
The usual deeply considered, stable-genius, hold-my-Big Mac-and-watch-this planning applies, of course. Asked what would happen to the oil aboard the tanker, the cap’n replied, “Well, we keep it, I guess.”
Well, I guess it couldn’t be long before he added piracy to his list of crimes. Might we expect Piggy to shift his allegiance from Mickey D’s to Long John Silver’s?
A quack in our armor
The New York Times editorial board marches on with its “Overmatched” series. Today’s installment: “The Pentagon’s Gilded Fortress.”
An excerpt:
In 2011, the Army decided to get its soldiers new pistols. The odyssey that followed included a 350-page list of technical specifications, years of testing and a protracted battle on Capitol Hill between competing gun makers. The Pentagon won’t complete delivery until 2027 at the earliest. The Army could have raised an infantryman from birth to within two years of enlistment age in the time it will have taken to get him a new handgun.
Unsurprisingly, our elected representatives are part of the problem:
As the House and Senate work toward the country’s first trillion-dollar defense budget, over $52 billion is for things members of Congress added, unbidden, to the Pentagon’s wish list, according to the independent budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Jaysis. Planes that can’t fly. $13 billion sitting ducks. Millions for retrofitting Vietnam-era helicopters to carry and launch drones. For Ike’s fabled Military-Industrial Complex it’s like robbing the same bank, over and over and over again, because you have a guy on the inside. You don’t even need to bring that pistol you can’t seem to acquire for some mysterious reason.
Collateral damage
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.
And he may have holed an admiral below the waterline.
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.”
O, brother. …
I’ll spare you my “hot take” on the latest capitulation by the Democrats, noting only that if we were ever to get serious about governance in this Republic, we could revive the domestic splintery rail, tar, and feather industries in a fortnight. Maybe less.
Jesus H. Christ on a flatcar. I believe these eejits could fall into a barrel of tits and come out sucking their thumbs. Bringing a knife to a gunfight would be a remarkable escalation for this lot. A one-armed monkey could carve a better party out of a banana, using a single strand of al dente pasta.
Fuck these people. I’m going back to the commies. At least they go down swinging.
Meanwhile, to any who remain with the Jackasses: Primary ’em all, let God sort ’em out.
Mad Blog Media 