A shitload of shit happening out there in the world. In an early-evening Friday here in California’s Central Valley it feels like the shit is spinning out of control — there’s concertina razor wire surrounding the nation’s Capitol building, with more National Guard there ‘…than the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.’

Beyond all the insurrection/riot fallout this past week, another bozo appearance of one of T-Rump’s appointees, this time. Christopher Miller, acting Defense Secretary, who held a press gaggle yesterday, with a transcript of it released this afternoon. Miller is an idiot, in a blunt-headed way. (h/t tweets Raw Story):

Gobsmacking incoherent briefing from the US acting defence secretary, Chris Miller, today.
Highlights include "I cannot wait to leave this job, believe me."
"blah blah bluh blah" (actual quote according to DoD transcript).
contd..

— Julian Borger (@julianborger) January 15, 2021

And even more so:

I can’t believe what I just read.

The defense secretary actually said this about Russia:

“Professionally I’m like, wow, they’re doing pretty well, and they’re using a lot of irregular warfare concepts, information, all this stuff, in a way that, you know, like… good on them.” https://t.co/w1isNpsBDq

— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) January 15, 2021

According to the transcript (found here), Miller, when asked about getting enough Guard troops for this weekend and the inauguration next Wednesday, spun weird:

Uh, I needed to look the commander in the eye, because, you know, the president, SecDef, me…I, whatever the correct English is, you guys can clean that up. Should have paid more attention in high school. My wife would be ashamed of me not knowing the proper preposition—and then, uh General VanHerck. So, you know, you just, I said it before, you can have VTCs all day long, you know, but you wanna, like, I wanted to look the guy in the eye and get a sense for his soul and I think he probably needed to do that for me as well. So, you know, that was why I really felt it important to go out and sit down and have a cup of coffee with him, talk about it, small group, think through it, make sure we, kinda, had that mind meld.

And when asked about the Russians:

Russian? I think they’re extremely…uh…I have professional respect for how they do things…I think they’re played a really bad hand of card very, very well. Declining population, single — single source of economic revenue through natural resources. I kind of, you know, like professionally I’m like, wow, they’re doing pretty well, and they’re using a lot of irregular warfare concepts, information, all this stuff, in a way that, you know, like…good on them.

Good for the Russkies, then what about the F-35 program, and I guess, how’s life as it is right now?

I so…I mean, I cannot wait to leave this job, believe me. But part of me is like, I would have loved to have gotten involved in the acquisition process and try…and you know, talk about wicked problem. I wanted to take that one on….F-35s, the case study. Although, I gotta tell you, yesterday we were talking to some guy, some lieutenant colonel, or colonel, said ‘what are you flying?’ Said ‘F-35,’ I was like that’s a piece of…and he was like…and he laughed, and I was like, ‘no seriously, tell me about it,’ and he was…an F-16 guy, F-35, he said…’unbelievable aircraft,’ I’m not…I…that investment, for…that capability, that we’re never supposed to use, ‘well, we have to deter, blah blah bluh blah…Are we fifth generation? You know we…I think it’s hilarious, you know, right now, you know, ‘well we need to invest in the sixth generation,’ I’m like, we have created a monster, but you know that.

And ‘blah, blah bluh,’ sounds maybe a rap song of sorts?

One take on the situation from today’s Task&Purpose, an online publication primarily covering the US armed forces, with the fact Miller seemed like he’s ‘…expending the last f–k he has left,’ and seemed the typical T-Rump tool:

Anyone who’s served in the military, especially on the enlisted side, has felt and likely said the same thing.
The difference, however, is that this sort of off-the-cuff remark is usually made by an E-3 or E-4 making roughly $25,000 to $30,000 a year wrapping up a four-year contract after deploying to dangerous areas for months at a time.
Rarely is this sort of (ill-timed) candor delivered by a well-paid official with an annual salary of about $200,000 sitting at the top tier of government in a position he voluntarily chose to take on and can leave whenever he wants.

That wasn’t the only wild quote from Miller, who went on to point out the F-35’s numerous flaws and at one point said the Pentagon had “a hangover” over the trillions of dollars spent on expensive weapons systems that turned into boondoggles.
…
Answering questions about multi-million dollar pieces of equipment, paid for by taxpayers, is part and parcel of having a top Pentagon post, or the top post in Miller’s case.
But it might have just been one question too many after Miller’s two-month-and-six day-tenure as acting defense secretary.

Though, fortunately for Miller, it sounds like it’ll be over soon.

Another day in the life:

Must we go on…?

(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Agonizing Horse,’ found here),