Scenes from a broken government

My fellow Americans, I'm sorry

Key takeaway: 😉

• The US government sucks

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🙄The Customs and Border Patrol borrows a sophisticated anti-drone laser system from the Defense Dept. It plans to use it in the El Paso area and possibly starts testing it. But it doesn’t tell the Federal Aviation Administration. Lasers can disable commercial jetliners and blind pilots, so when the FAA finds out about the CBP laser show, it rushes to close the airspace around El Paso for 10 days, causing chaos.

The Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, says a Mexican drug cartel’s drone was in the area, forcing the airspace closure. But he doesn’t explain why the government would let it fly around for 10 days instead of just taking care of the problem. Maybe that’s because there never was a Mexican drone. Instead, it looks like the Customs agency got in over its head by playing around with some fancy hardware without notifying the guys responsible for air safety.

The 10-day shutdown ends after seven hours. There’s a lot of leaking to the press about who screwed up, but no official explanation.

🙄The vice president, JD Vance, says American athletes at the Winter Olympics in Milan are “not there to pop off about politics.” But all Americans are allowed to pop off about politics any time they want to. That’s the basis for the founding of the country.

🙄The Department of Homeland Security says it is ending a blitz operation in Minnesota after immigration agents killed two nonviolent civilians, Bruce Springsteen wrote a hit protest song and Saturday Night Live lampooned the immigration service as a group of bloodthirsty simpletons.

🙄The government faces the third shutdown in six months as lawmakers dicker over what to do about the out-of-control Homeland Security department. Democrats want rules requiring DHS agents to act like real police officers. Republicans say no. A DHS shutdown means airport security agents wouldn’t get paid, with some possibly ditching work in protest. What does the US government have against air travelers?

🙄The Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, acknowledges that he lied when he said he cut off all connection with repulsive sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2005. Lutnick came clean because he got caught. Newly released government documents show Lutnick visited Epstein at his private Caribbean island in 2012. Lutnick now says he traveled there by boat from another island “with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife.” He doesn’t reveal his family’s nanny-to-child ratio.

🙄In response to criticism of her department’s handling of the Epstein documents, attorney general Pam Bondi notes that the Dow Jones Industrial Average recently topped 50,000 for the first time.

🙄The president, Donald Trump, says the government should “nationalize” or even “cancel” elections—but only in places where his party might lose.

🙄The Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, accuses a senator, Mark Kelly, of sedition, even though Kelly is a decorated combat aviator and space shuttle commander. A judge blocks legal action by the executive branch against Kelly. The executive branch vows to appeal.

🙄The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the federal debt relative to the size of the economy will soon exceed the extreme levels of World War II, which is unprecedented. Interest payments on the federal debt will double as Social Security and Medicare approach insolvency.

Nobody does anything.