Category: What the Actual Fuck?

‘Our long national nightmare. …’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
The Wolf Moon. What a howler.

… is not over.

It wasn’t over on Aug. 9, 1974, when Gerald R. Ford trotted out that boogeyman-be-gone bullshit upon assuming the presidency vacated by Richard M. Nixon, a rat fleeing the ship of state he did his best to sink.

And Ford went on to be even more stunningly full of shit when he added:

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. 

A month later, Ford finally achieved escape-velocity, bullshit-wise, when he granted “a full, free and absolute pardon” to his predecessor, a man whom Hunter S. Thompson called “so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.”

Some of us thought that was as bad as it was ever going to get.

Ho, ho, as the Good Doktor would say. We were wrong.

We have elevated some remarkably stupid, ineffectual, and/or venal hombres to the presidency since then. Not Ford, though. Nobody voted him into the gig, but he certainly got voted out in ’76 when the nation decided, well, fuck it, they’d rather have a Georgia peanut farmer in the Oval Office than the knucklehead who waved Tricky Dicky off to San Clemency with nothing but his pension and related benefits to keep him warm in retirement.

And even now, when we appear to have reached our political nadir, the creaky national machinery in the tiny palsied handsies of a senile, shambling, burger-gobbling narcoleptic, a convicted felon with a mean streak a mile wide and an unquenchable thirst for wealth, power, and vengeance, who apparently has a joy buzzer installed in his diapers so an aide can shock him awake, however briefly, to unleash a torrent of non sequiturs to be dutifully chronicled, analyzed, and excreted by the press corpse, well … I’m not about to tell you that this is as bad as it’s ever going to get.

Pogo — himself a candidate for the presidency in 1952 and ’56 — hit the nail on the head back in 1971, when Tricky Dicky was still kneewalking drunk around the White House, arguing with the paintings and looking for an exit that didn’t involve a perp walk in cuffs. Had we insisted upon it, we might have been spared some of what was to come.

But we didn’t. And so it goes.

“We have met the enemy and he is us,” said Pogo. Truer words, etc.

Julius Seizure’s bananas republic

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Gilbert Shelton, being right as usual.

The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. … This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. — Plato, The Republic

The Congress shall have Power to … declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water. … — the U.S. Constitution

Christmastime in Washington

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
“Frigate? Frig it, I wanna battleship.”

Well, I see Admiral Palsy wants some new toys to sail round his salty dog while he frolics in the tub (Gulf of America™).

Tom Nichols of The Atlantic has a few thoughts about this vanity fleet:

Trump announced that the new Trump-class ships will be “battleships,” but they seem to be supersize versions of the existing workhorse of the Navy, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. … The Navy has also announced the development of a new class of frigates. Destroyers and frigates, as the Navy knows (and as the commander in chief should know) are not battleships. Battleships are huge and powerful, and are meant to dish out — and withstand — serious punishment. Destroyers and frigates are less rugged, and perform missions that require more speed and agility than battleships can muster. But none of that matters: The goal, apparently, was to give a childlike president a new toy, named after himself, in exchange for gobs of money that the Navy will figure out how to spend later.

Jesus H. Christ on a tugboat. Swear to Dog, this egomaniac would put his name on his dingus if he could find a sharp-eyed tattoo artist used to a small canvas.

“Sorry, dude, I’ll be lucky to get a ‘T’ on this thing. Yeah, right, gold, I heard you the first three or four times.”

The only thing I want to see his name on is a tombstone, after the profligate sonofabitch chokes on a mummified Filet-O-Fish that did too much hard time in the Mickey D’s storage cabinet (bad food, unlike bad presidents, doesn’t get good lawyers on the taxpayers’ dime).

And on that glorious day I plan to be well hydrated, with a little Steve Earle on the headphones.

Come back, Woody Guthrie. …

Collateral damage

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
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.

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.”