Jewish Space Lasers Shoot Down 99 Luftballons, Pete Hegseth Still Somehow Has Job
Say, you didn't need that airspace over El Paso, did you?
In the kind of multi-factor clusterfuck that used to lead to scandal, firings, and agency reorganizations, Defense Secretary Drunky Pete McDrunkerson let US Customs and Border Protection dipshits play around with a military anti-drone laser weapon based at Fort Bliss, close to the airport in El Paso, Texas. The idea was to test whether the laser weapon could shoot down drones that cartels on the Mexican side of the border have allegedly been using to observe Border Patrol movements, or maybe even to smuggle drugs, allegedly. (Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says nah.)
Sometime early this week, the CBP dipshits went ahead and used the laser against airborne targets they thought were cartel drones, but which turned out to be party balloons, according to multiple insiders who spoke to several media outlets, presumably while stifling giggles at how stupid it all was.
But because neither the military nor CBP bothered to coordinate their game of laser tag with the Federal Aviation Administration, the aviation agency freaked out and abruptly shut down the airspace over El Paso late Tuesday, saying flights into and out of the area wouldn’t be allowed for 10 days. That’s longer than the nationwide flight shutdown after 9/11. The restriction was ultimately ended Wednesday morning when the White House got involved. The government then lied that it had thwarted an “incursion” by cartel drones into US airspace, but the truth quickly leaked about how all the Captain Kirks at CBP shot down balloons instead.
Then, we presume, everyone involved got a medal and a promotion.
The Cover Story: Drones Downed, Doom Deferred
The debacle even made it into Pam Bondi’s mean-girl temper tantrum in Congress Wednesday, when she lectured the House Judiciary Committee about how it should pay attention to important stuff like the cartel drone invasion instead of wasting its time asking her about the Epstein Files.
Nope. They shot down party balloons.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, attempting to explain the sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace, issued a tough-sounding, entirely fictional statement, claiming
The FAA and [“Department of War”] acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region. The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming.
Again, no drones. Party balloons.
The Defense Department even posted a weird tweet (archive link) with a picture of an eagle in front of a photoshopped/AI image of a laser beam shooting down drones, with the caption “DEFEND THE HOMELAND.”
The idiots were so proud of it that, as of blogtime, they still haven’t removed it, possibly because it doesn’t specifically reference the incident near El Paso.
Here, let’s fix that thing.
The Ugly, Hilarious Truth: Ya Drone Fucked Up!
It’s starting to look like this wasn’t simply a Fool-Hand Luke “failure to communicate.” Instead, it appears to be part of an actual turf fight between the FAA, which is responsible for aviation safety (such as it is under Trump), and the Pentagon and CBP, which really want to play with all the cool technoweapons they can possibly enlist in Trump’s war against threats at the border, real or imagined. The Wall Street Journal reports (gift link; MSN reprint link if you need) that the weird jurisdictional slapfight “sheds light on a longstanding spat between the FAA and the Pentagon over which government authorities are responsible for taking down drone threats over major airports and military bases, and the use of laser weapons to do the job.”
The aviation community considers the high-powered lasers a serious threat, even if they aren’t yet science-fiction blasters powerful enough to blow a jet out of the sky. Even lower-powered laser devices can temporarily blind or distract pilots, which you don’t want happening during landings or takeoffs. But the military — or rather, its current “leadership” — likes shooty things that can bring down drones without all the bother and imprecision of firing a missile.
Secretary Drunky Pete is in the thick of the mess, the Journal reports. In January, he approved lending the Army’s super-secret “Locust laser weapon system” to CBP for use at Fort Bliss, where the Army has been testing the thing. (Fort Bliss is also home to a huge ICE concentration camp for deportations, but let’s not give the fuckers any ideas.)
According to anonymous insiders who spilled the tea (Earl Grey, hot) to the Journal, Tuesday’s sudden airspace closure had been brewing since earlier this month, when
CBP notified the FAA that it wanted to use the laser weapon in the vicinity of Fort Bliss, according to one of the people. The FAA pushed back, warning about the risk to commercial aviation, the person said. CBP ignored the warning, and fired the weapon on Monday, taking down multiple objects operators at the time thought were Mexican cartel drones.
The FAA “went nuclear,” according to one of the people. On Tuesday night, the FAA published a notice that it would restrict the airspace over El Paso starting at 6:30 a.m. local time the next morning for the next 10 days, without first notifying officials at the White House, Pentagon or DHS of the airport closure, according to one of the administration officials.
To add to the confusion, once the cover story about Our Brave Military Shooting Down Drones went out, officials in the Defense Department got mighty defensive over being blamed for the airspace closure, and they “began making frantic phone calls within the government and Capitol Hill colleagues to find out what had happened and how to best push back.”
In the meantime, law enforcement investigators found the “wreckage” of what the CPB dipshits shot down, and quickly determined that “the objects were found not to be drones but party balloons, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.” We bet it was the charred visage of Spongebob Squarepants or the slightly melted glittery “Feliz Cumpleaños” lettering that gave that away.
It wasn’t all just idiotic internecine backbiting and drama for El Paso, though. Even the relatively brief closure of airspace around El Paso (and part of southern New Mexico) caused “chaos” in the city, according to El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson. Johnson told the Texas Tribune that the failure to inform local officials of the test, or to warn of the closures, was “unacceptable.”
Because of the closure, Johnson said a lot of surgical equipment destined for city hospitals didn’t show up and an unspecified number of medical evacuation flights were also forced to divert to Las Cruces, New Mexico, more than 40 miles away.
The El Paso International Airport reported 14 cancelled and 13 delayed flights Wednesday, according to FlightAware.
Well boo hoo, mister mayor, everyone knows that nobody in Mad King Donald’s administration tells mayors what DHS is doing, because that would spoil the surprise. Besides, mayors are almost all Democrats, even if they’re elected in non-partisan contests like El Paso’s.
Even after a briefing from FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, podcaster and sometimes Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) could only say that the “Department of War” is rightly worried about security threats, and that the FAA is also right to be concerned about keeping the airspace safe. “And so,” he sagely concluded, “at this point, the details of what exactly occurred over El Paso are unclear.”
We’ll assume that, just to be on the safe side, Cruz promptly booked a flight to Cancun, holding a mirror to his ass to deflect any laser fire.
And somehow, Pete Hegseth still has his job, at least until the next fuckup actually brings down a plane. If the passengers are mostly white, he might be in trouble, the end.
[NBC News / NYT (archive link) / CBS News / WSJ (gift link) (MSN reprint link) / Texas Tribune.]
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The Department of Defense, working closely with General Dynamics, is developing a monster bat to bring down cartel pinatas.
I called in my Safeway's floral department to DHS this morning for selling instruments of aerial terrorism right out there in the open.