I’m cranky enough to write an Irksome Things screed today. We had 2 power outages in 13 hours. We’re having a cold snap, and it was colder than a billionaire banker’s heart when the lights, and more importantly, the heater went out. Heckuva job, Entergy.

That felt better. Let’s move on to our theme song:

Things have been blowing up in Team Trump’s face ever since the first missile was fired on Tehran. Most of the problems have been caused by the Insult Comedian’s big fat bazoo. He’s incapable of not offering his opinion on everything. He’s clearly never heard of the first rule of holes: When you’re in one, stop digging.

Is that all? It feels more like 30 years of MAGA malevolence, malakatude, and incompetence.

First Draft has a category that’s been largely dormant since 2020: Your President Speaks. It began as a compendium of Bushisms. I tried keeping up with Trump’s moronic comments, but it wore me out, so the category went in the deep freeze.

Consider this a brief defrosting. It’s the sort of egregious bullshit that can’t be ignored: It’s idiotic even for the Kaiser of Chaos:

“Trump told the NBC News on Saturday the US strikes “totally demolished” much of the oil export hub and warned of more attacks on the island.

“We may hit it a few more times just for fun,” said the US leader.”

Bombing is fun? War is neither fun nor funny; only a sick and stupid motherfucker would say such a thing. That’s President Pennywise in a wingnut shell.

Nat has something to say about that sickening comment:

Nat King Cole is my idea of a monarch: elegant, classy, and talented. Mad King Donald is tacky, crass, and talentless.

The Kaiser of Chaos isn’t the only who thinks war is fun, so does Pete Hegseth who, as Lawrence O’Donnell is fond of saying, is the only Secretary of Defense who promised to stop drinking to get confirmed.

I’ve had one of Hegseth’s predecessors on my mind. Robert McNamara was JFK and LBJ’s man at the Pentagon. He oversaw the build-up of US forces in Vietnam. The job eventually got to McNamara who was a fundamentally decent man. He was horrified when a guy named Norman Morrison doused himself in kerosene and set himself ablaze in protest against the war outside McNamara’s office at the Pentagon in 1965.

How would have that fundamentally indecent man, Pete Hegseth, have responded? Would he have brought marshmallows or weenies to roast? I think he’d have poured gasoline on Morrison to ensure a successful immolation. It’s called giving your enemies no quarter, which by the way is a war crime.

In addition to being a war-lover, Hegseth is a vain bastard. He’s banned news photographers for taking unflattering pictures like this:

Hegseth thinks he’s pretty. The banned photos captured:

Repeat after me: Everything Team MAGA does backfires.

In other news, uber MAGA maggot Joe Kent quit as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. It’s a post for which this election denying mook was unqualified. He went out on a characteristically anti-Semitic note. This sick freak is an exception to the rule that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Kent’s only friends are Tulsi Gabbard and neo-Nazi creep Nick Fuentes. Talk about an appointment that backfired:

Finally, Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing was yesterday. There’s a gobsmacking piece by TPM’s Hunter Walker about the whoppers Mullin has told over the years. He’s the Okie Commander McBragg, an analogy I used during Trump’s first term in a post called The World Of President* McBragg:

“The World Of Commander McBragg was a segment on the Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo, and/or Bullwinkle shows. McBragg was a retired British officer who claimed to be at the center of world events and was not shy about bragging about his legendary accomplishments. Sound familiar? As the Commander would say, “Quite.”

Mullin hopes to transition from Senator McBragg to Secretary McBragg. How much worse can he be than Cosplay Kristi? As far as we know, he’s neither killed a puppy nor fucked Corey Lewandowski. He does, however, claim to have smelled war whatever that means. Who the hell does he think he is: Robert Duvall?

Mullin’s appointment is a backfire waiting to happen. Another president wouldn’t have selected a fabulist, but the Insult Comedian digs his fellow liars. It’s a plus for him. I can’t, however, wait to hear what Trump says about Mullin after he fails at DHS. Will it be Markwayne, we hardly knew ye?

Repeat after me: Everything Team MAGA does backfires.

The last word goes to Jefferson Airplane: