The Weekly WTF: Dept. of Drone Farce
Plus, the "sexy pic" Congressman, the gold medal for crassness, and pizza intel
Keystone Border Kops. The US government shot down its own drone over Texas on February 24, prompting the US government to temporarily close a block of commercial airspace. Makes perfect sense, right?
This was actually three federal agencies operating independently of each other in what looks like a satire of government. The US military (Dept. of Defense) apparently used a laser to shoot down a drone operated by Customs and Border Patrol (Dept. of Homeland Security), prompting the Federal Aviation Administration (Dept. of Transportation) to shut down some airspace because lasers can blind pilots. This comes two weeks after a similar screwup shut down El Paso’s airspace for 10 hours.
The three agencies issued a joint statement saying, “At President Trump’s direction, the Department of War, FAA, and Customs and Border Patrol are working together in an unprecedented fashion.” Translation: This is unprecedented incompetence, and it looks to be systemic, not isolated. Be prepared for worse.
Reminder: My guess for the first Trump Cabinet member to depart is the up-failing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
How to tarnish a gold medal. Could politicians just leave athletes alone? US hockey players are on the defensive now that President Trump has tried to use them as props, politicizing what ought to be a proud sports moment. First, Trump called the men’s team after they won Olympic gold on February 22 to invite them to the White House. On the call, he said he’d have to invite the gold-medal women’s US team as well, joking that he might get impeached if he didn’t. Several of the players laughed. I might have laughed too, out of nervousness or fatigue or maybe it was vaguely funny.
But some people didn’t see the humor. Hilary Knight, captain of the women’s team, called Trump’s joke “distasteful.” Social media slagged the men’s players who laughed at Trump’s joke. A few of the men ended up giving media interviews to explain they weren’t sexist and really were happy for the women’s team, which appears to be completely true.
Then Trump trotted out the men’s team at his February 24 State of the Union speech, pretty clearly trying to piggyback on their champion status. Most of the team appeared, but not all. Same with a White House visit the same day. The women’s team declined a White House invite, citing scheduling conflicts, adding, “they were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.” Good call, and deftly put. Trump wants everything to be political and divisive, and if you’re not into that, just stay away.
[More: Windy speech shows Trump stuck in neutral]
The “sexy pic” referendum. On paper, Tony Gonzales seems impressive. The 45-year-old Republican Representative from Texas enlisted in the Navy, reached the highest enlisted rank, did some schooling at Georgetown and won the House seat representing part of San Antonio in 2020. But he must have skipped the management and ethics programs at Georgetown. Newly revealed text messages from 2024 show Gonzales asking a 35-year-old aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, to send him “a sexy pic.” She said she didn’t like taking pictures of herself. He then asked, “favorite position.” She said, “Yours first?” He answered, “On top pinning your legs.” Then he said, “anal?” She said “never.” Other evidence suggests the two did have some kind of affair.
Santos-Aviles died last September after dousing herself with gasoline and lighting herself on fire. She had an 8-year-old boy and was married, though possibly headed for divorce. Gonzales is married with six kids. This is a sad and messy story, and it isn’t clear that Santos-Aviles committed suicide because of Gonzales’s behavior. But it looks pretty awful for Gonzales, who says, “what you’ve seen is not all the facts.” Wonder if his wife buys that.
Many members of Congress think Gonzales should resign, including some Republican women. He says no. Gonzales, who’s fairly moderate, faces a right-wing challenger in the March 3 primary election. The district is solidly Republican, but the Democratic candidate in November will either face the scandalized Gonzales or a far-right conservative. Trump has endorsed Gonzales and seems to be sticking by his man. Um, voters?
The pepperoni tell. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he might order a slew of pizzas delivered to the Pentagon as a head-fake in the confrontation with Iran. War watchers over the years have noticed that a surge in take-out pizza orders at the Pentagon or CIA sometimes indicates a big operation is underway, with everybody chained to their desks while T-minus-zero approaches. There’s even a social-media account that tracks Pentagon pizza deliveries. An interviewer asked Hegseth about the pizza indicator on February 22, and he joked, “I’ve thought of just ordering lots of pizza on random nights just to throw everybody off.” Maybe they’ll all order Chinese once the attack is on.
Reminder: I’m betting that Trump does not order an attack on Iran. Here’s why.
Cocaine Island. It’s not in the Caribbean, but in the northern Atlantic just off the Massachusetts coast. Officials in Nantucket say there’s been a surge in the amount of cocaine detected in wastewater, putting the tony island’s cocaine-concentration levels at twice the national average. Police aren’t sure why. Famous denizens of Nantucket include Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Elin Hilderbrand, Ben Stiller, Bill Belichick, Dave Portnoy, Joe Biden and many others. If any of you are reading, drop a note and let me know who’s snorting all that coke. 😉
One observation: Trump is making a big show of going after drug traffickers by blowing up their boats and hidey-holes and threatening other takedowns. So if the cocaine flow magically dries up, are users just going to go without? Maybe Trump should start running some “just say no” PSA ads on Nantucket.