Regular readers know me as someone who is rarely surprised by political events. I’ve usually got my ear to the ground, my nose to the grindstone, and my finger on the nation’s pulse. Which explains my four consecutive national Twister championships in the 1990s.
Where was I?
Oh yeah. ADHD.
Anyways (to quote a certain Latina with a Juicy Booty – her words, not mine), I’m not often surprised by political events. But I was definitely caught off-guard when I heard that Trump took away Joe Biden’s security clearance on Friday.
Mostly because… why on earth would Joe Biden still have a security clearance?!
He couldn’t stay awake for his briefings when he was president. And now he’s a civilian, and has signed with famous talent agency CAA – I’m not making that up… because I couldn’t – and is working hard on memorizing his lines for the starring role in “Weekend at Bernies 3: This Time it’s Presidential!” So how could he possibly find time to receive intelligence briefings? And for what purpose?
When I looked into this, I was surprised to find that we generally allow former presidents to keep their security clearances and receive intelligence updates, even though they no longer have any ability to act on them, or any reason to know what’s in them. So we should cut that out immediately, for all past presidents.
But good lord, for Joe Biden? That guy couldn’t be trusted with secret information when he was a hack senator, or a hack VP, or a hack president. And that was before he lost his marbles!
In addition to these other reasons, Trump was justified in yanking Biden’s clearance as an act of karmic justice, since Biden had yanked Trump’s clearance as soon as Biden became president.
Or, as Trump so Trumpily put it in his announcement, “[Biden] set this precedent in 2021, when he… [stopped] the 45th President (ME!) from” receiving intel details. He also threw in another crisp jab (as is his wont), saying, “The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime,’ could not be trusted with sensitive information.”
Ouch! By the way, has there ever been a more justified used of scare quotes than referring to Joe Biden’s “prime?” And you’ve got to love that all-caps “ME!”
Still, it’s got to be humiliating to have your security clearance publicly and justifiably taken away. (Just ask the corrupt 51 Hunter-laptop-denying “national security officials,” who can no longer sell themselves as knowledgeable insiders, even to the dozens of gullible, tin-foil-hat-wearing shut-ins who make up the audience of CNN.) So maybe it’s a mercy that at least Joe Biden didn’t live to see this happen to him.
In other news, you’ve probably heard the cliché that “all heroes don’t wear capes.” Well this past Friday we learned the truth of that saying, when we met one of my new idols: the anonymous security guard outside the Education Department HQ’s front door in Washington.
Instead of a cape or a uniform, the guard wore earth-tones, a pair of glasses perched on his head, and an expression half-way between a poker face and the iconic picture of Ben Affleck with his eyes closed in tortured world-weariness.
That lone paragon of virtue stood his ground when confronted by a motley mob of far-left malcontents from the bowels of the Crazy Caucus in the House of Representatives, bent on forcing their way into the building and staging an idiotic yet telegenic (they hoped) show of resistance to Trump.
The unassuming hero had neither a badge, nor a gun, nor pepper spray. Nor even narcissist spray, which would have been super useful against the empty-headed camera hogs bearing down on him.
But he had a few things that his foes were unprepared for: the patience of Job, a resting heart rate that never went above 50 beats per minute, and an expression of barely contained contempt, along with implacable boredom. That’s a guy you’d want next to you in a foxhole!
Put yourself in his place. He’s used to standing guard while an endless line of dead-eyed, low-T mediocrities trudge into and out of the unnecessary building, to engage in a variety of foolish tasks, all of them utterly useless.
The highlight of his year is probably when some sad parade of protestors marches by, featuring signs with ridiculous slogans like, “Pay me not to Work!” “Fiscal Prudence is Racist!” or a perverted version of the Gadsden flag reading, “Don’t Misgender Me!”
But on that fateful Friday, he looks down the street and sees a shambling clot of pitchfork-carrying mouth-breathers slouching toward the building he’s sworn to protect from the likes of them. Then he sees, in the middle of the pack, some pitiable, damned soul who was apparently in some sort of a terrible fire. The skin of her face appears to be sloughing off the front of her skull, her mouth just a garish red smear of—
Oh no, wait. That’s just Maxine Waters.
(Which is plenty bad enough, even though it’s not a horrific creature out of a Stephen King novel like he initially feared.)
As she got closer, he could tell that she hadn’t been in a fire. Because if she had, that unconvincing wig she’s got on would have gone up like a Roman candle, producing a plume of coal-black smoke like a tire fire on the edge of town.
Still, the sight of Melting-Face Maxine up close would be enough to send lesser men screaming into the night, or falling to their knees and trying to gouge their eyes out. If we could have found a way to deploy her to Kandahar when a Marine patrol was under heavy attack from the Taliban, she could have leapt up from ambush and stared at the enemy, croaking in her gravelly voice.
What followed would look like a Fourth of July fireworks show, as hardened jihadi fighters up and down the line triggered their suicide vests, just to escape from that hellish vision.
Anyway, it was spectacular, and I’ve added that video to my short list of things to watch whenever I need a little pick-me-up. I had two favorite moments in particular.
1. Arrogant Maxine tried to bully the guard, insisting that he show her his ID. It’s a tribute to his fortitude that he didn’t growl in her face, “I thought IDs are racist, you hideous crone. Begone!”
2. One congresswoman in the back of the pack – in an obnoxious variation on, “Do you know who I am?” – called out, “There are no thieves or thugs here. We are MEMBERS OF CONGRESS!”
Quick, somebody call Kamala, because this lady needs a Venn Diagram to explain the flaw in her thinking.
As with so many events over the last three weeks, the internet had a field day with the guard, coming up with names and titles for him. Among my favorites are, “Captain DOGE,” “Gandalf the Chill” (“You shall not PASS!”), or the new “Secretary of Zero F’s to Give.”
This incident is just one more proof that the Dems are still in such disarray in the face of Trump’s whirlwind of EOs, surprise announcements, and verbal groin kicks. The poor dopes don’t know whether to scratch their watches or wind their butts, as the old saying goes.
They’ve made numerous pathetic attempts to stop the Trumpkrieg™ (copyright by me, right now). They raised pointless filibusters to several of Trump’s nominees, which only resulted in those nominees being confirmed a day or two later than originally planned.
They’ve also gone out to microphones in front of several government buildings, where one pol after another got up and railed, grunted and gibbered about Orange Hitler this, and dictator that, and the “he can’t do this” other thing.
One scary-looking congress-troll howled that he was filing impeachment papers against Trump, while he swung around a cane that looked like something a Democrat would beat Frederick Douglass with in 1861, right before the GOP armies marched south and whipped the Demfederacy and freed their slaves.
Chuck Schumer also showed up – cameras were there, so duh! – and he was creepier than usual. He leaned down into the camera with his hands half-curled near his face, which gave him a look I can only describe as Nosferatu-esque.
He then started the saddest chant I’ve ever seen, saying, “We will win. We will win.” After a minute, Melting-face Maxine jumped into the frame (forcing me to recoil and say, “GAH!!” scaring Cassie the Wonder Dog and my wife), and he grabbed her hand and raised it, as the pathetic chant was dying out.
Then Maxine croaked out a common refrain that many Dems have latched onto lately, and which I can’t figure out. “Elon, nobody elected your ass!”
Does the Democrat base not understand that most of the people who actually make our government run – for good or ill – are not elected? Chiefs of staff, spokespeople, 99% of every department and agency – all are unelected. Even cabinet members, though confirmed, are not elected.
Let me put this in the form of a Q&A so simple that even AOC can understand:
Q: Can Elon Musk cut the budget of USAID, or close it down, or fire the ne’er-do-wells who work there?
A: No, because he is unelected. But he can recommend to his boss (who is super-elected) to do those things, and that guy can do them, or not.
Q: Guess who else is unelected in the big DOGE vs. USAID battle?
A: ALL of the USAID bureaucrats.
Q: Guess which branch of government USAID is part of?
A: The executive branch. (Even though USAID bureaucrats don’t seem to believe that.)
Q: Guess who leads the executive branch? (Hint: He is often called the “Chief Executive.”)
A: That’s right, the President.
Q: What is the old-fashioned phrase that describes the USAID bureaucrats’ employment status with the President?
A: They “serve at the pleasure of the President.”
Q: Do you think that the President is pleased by corrupt, obstructionist a-holes who are trying to sneakily undermine all of the policies he was elected to execute?
A: He is not.
Q: Finally, what is the word that describes someone who does what some of the USAID bureaucrats have been doing, i.e. refusing a legitimate President’s legal orders and secretly colluding to prevent him from doing what he was democratically elected to do? (Hint: You’ve heard this word a lot in recent years.)
A: Insurrectionist.
Keep flailing, Dems.
Hogg/Warren 2028!
Martin Simpson 