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Friday, October 20, 2017

Dishonorable Discharge

This past week should prove to be fateful, as in foreboding impending doom for this shitshow of an administration, but because the universe hates us and nothing matters anymore, we'll just have to see. But consider this recap of how things unfolded:
  1. A twelve-member Special Forces team on a Foreign Internal Defense (FID) operation near the Niger-Mali border was ambushed by about 50 Islamic terrorist types. Four Green Berets were killed. That happened on October 4th. The fourth Green Beret, LaDavid Johnson, was found 48 hours later.
  2. By October 16th, nothing had been said by the administration about the mission or the fallen soldiers. Clownstick held a Rose Garden press conference to spread some manure, and got asked about that lack of communication.
  3. Instead of some anodyne bullshit about how we're looking into things and our thoughts and prayers are with our heroes and all that, Clownstick immediately went into default what-about-Obama mode, hastily concocting a hilarious -- and easily fact-checked -- lie about how Obama and other predecessors didn't call or write.
  4. Tuesday, because these people are all a bunch of unprofessional retards, they went into panic mode and Clownstick calls Johnson's widow when she's on her way to see her husband's coffin, tries to pull that tough-guy "he knew what he signed up for" bullshit that veterans tell each other, but leaders should never say to a grieving widow in a condolence call. Then Clownstick compounds the fuck-up by lying about it, saying he has "proof" he didn't say that.
  5. By Wednesday, Clownstick and his trusty mutt John Kelly are trashing Representative Frederica Wilson, who also happens to be a lifelong friend of the Johnson family. Clownstick even has the balls to use Kelly's son Robert, who was killed in action in Afghanistan, as rhetorical cover in the escalating argument.
  6. Thursday, Kelly one-ups his boss and uses his own son in the same fashion, in a bizarre tirade that included reminiscing Archie Bunker-style about the good ol' days when people -- especially uppity black women -- knew their place and respected their betters. Kelly also flat-out fabricated Rep. Wilson's role in dedicating a law enforcement center in Florida, but hey, facts schmacts, amirite? Incidentally, Kelly also inadvertently revealed that Clownstick actually did say what Rep. Wilson and LaDavid Johnson's widow said that he had said in the first place, just that Clownstick's tone was misunderstood or something. Pro tip:  There is no "right tone" for what was said in that context to a grieving widow of a fallen soldier.
  7. To her credit, Rep. Wilson immediately aired her own grievances and explained exactly how Kelly was LYING about her. When that was brought up at the White House press briefing today, cankered soul Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned against challenging Kelly on his lies. Because for these assholes, as always, "free speech" means the freedom to swallow their FUCKING LIES.
  8. Turns out that Dickhead's blow-up daughter-in-law, who runs his internet swag 'n' propaganda arm, read an actual transcript of the announcement and calls that were supposed to have taken place well before the Rose Garden press conference on the 16th, but for whatever reason had not occurred. Only the best people, folks.
Maybe the biggest thing to take away from this unfortunate sequence of events is that the whole thing was completely unforced and unnecessary. There is something wrong -- completely off and wrong -- with this fucking clown. No matter how large or small the stakes, he cannot simply take a hint and allow for corrective action. He has to escalate needlessly.

Since he's always had that reverse Midas touch, the ineffable ability to fuck up things that should be slam dunks, everything and everyone he contacts with his leper touch gets the disease. It's funny how someone whose fans love that "he says what he means" keeps having to send out subordinates to explain what he said and what he meant.

It's General Kelly's turn to be exposed as a cynical, polluted soul. Whatever else he's done in his 67 years on this planet, selling out his son's tragic death for a worthless boss is what he'll be remembered for most.

Not that Kelly was a "good guy" anyway. Consider how much the bar has been lowered in just nine months, that since Kelly took over as White House Chief of Staff, people have been lauding the supposed "efficiency" and "seriousness" of the military junta running the joint, as if Kelly, Mattis, and McMaster didn't attain their ranks by being consummate company men.

The other thing people are sporting some wood for is the stray dissenting voices in the gloom -- Fredo Arbusto, Poor Ol' Straight Talk, and now Chocolate Hussein Thunder, the latter of whom we dearly miss. These men have all, in the past few days, given speeches expressing clear disdain for the way things are going. But none of them name any names.

Every horror-fantasy reader knows the trope of using the demon's name:  it is both dangerous and necessary. Saying the name aloud summons the demon, but using with power and conviction is also necessary to banish it back to the pits of hell.

Fredo Arbusto is stumping for Ed Gillespie, a lifelong Gooper machine hack who's running a Willie Horton campaign in the Virginia governor race. Gillespie is about as close to being a human shit-stain as possible, without having the last name of Von Clownstick. And Straight Talk was more than happy to vote for the budget, and has a history of going along after squawking for the cameras. He is sounding more and more like a man who truly has nothing to lose, and hopefully continues along that path.

But the point is that you either call out the asshole, or you don't. Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. In the continuous trashing of intangibles like "norms" and "decorum" and "institutions," the danger is that the office itself is going to be severely undermined. Executive power has steadily over-reached since the Cheney reign of error, but it is increasingly likely that Clownstick will eventually do something catastrophic, and the power of future executives will be rolled back too far.

And let's face it -- a brazen oaf like Fuckface Von Clownstick doesn't happen without Fredo and Straight Talk paving the way. They don't get a pass just because they don't like the cut of his jib. He's simply saying aloud the things they used to tell each other more quietly. Arbusto is still a fucking idiot, and Straight Talk lowered even that bar with his veep pick. So a couple of speeches where they don't have the guts to summon the demon by name is barely a start in making up what they've done to this country. Let's not forget that.

The ironic capper on all of this is that the Niger ambush may very well end up being Clownstick's Benghazi. There wasn't nearly enough air cover for the FID mission, and in fact a no-bid contractor only had one fixed-wing and one rotary-wing aircraft in the area, neither of which were armed. After the aircraft came in and grabbed the squad, including three of the dead, they inadvertently left LaDavid Johnson behind. Johnson's beacon went on, meaning that he was still alive. His casket had to remain closed, meaning that he was probably mutilated, dead or alive.

So a private contractor fucked the dog on this thing, and left a Green Beret behind to be brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists. It's a giant fiasco from snout to tail, and we're just starting to hear the details.

Again, this all could have easily avoided with a few simple phrases:  We're looking into that, and will announce when more information about the tragic incident becomes available. Our nation deeply appreciates your husband's service and sacrifice. We apologize if our sincere condolences were taken in a way we didn't intend, and we hope the family finds peace during this tragic moment.

It's not that fucking difficult, if you're a human being. It should be abundantly clear by now that that was always too much to ask of these vile people. Every goddamned one of them needs to be living in a van down by the river, and selling oranges at the freeway off-ramp, when we are finally deloused.

Also, too.

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