Will Trump dump Petey Piranha? By Hal M. Brown

A normal president would fire Pete Hegeseth.

Here’s the article from RawStory speculating that Pete Hegseth may not be long for the top job in the Department of Defense. This is from RawStory:

'Full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon': Hegseth reportedly 'unlikely to remain in his role'

Here’s a Politico article about this:

It is significant to consider who wrote the following:

It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership.

President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account. Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.

The president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon. Given his record of holding prior Cabinet leaders accountable, many in the secretary’s own inner circle will applaud quietly if Trump chooses to do the same in short order at the top of the Defense Department. (Read his entire article here)

It is by John Ullyot. He is a “former chief Pentagon spokesman and led communications at the National Security Council and the Department of Veterans Affairs in President Donald Trump’s first term. He resigned from the Pentagon last week. He was a senior communications adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign.” He wrote:

I am a longtime backer of the secretary. In December, when his Senate confirmation was in jeopardy, I wrote an opinion piece arguing strongly that he was the best man to shake things up at a Pentagon in need of serious reform.

Hegeseth’s most recent fuck-up is his sharing Yemen attack plans with his wife and brother on a yet another Signal chat. This has been all over the news for two days. Along with the Pope’s death, it is the lead story on MSNBC this morning:

You can be forgiven if you don’t know who the Petey Piranha in my illustration is. He is…

… a large mutant Piranha Plant first introduced in Super Mario Sunshine. He is the leader of the Piranha Plants and a loyal follower of Bowser, often appearing as a boss in the Super Mario franchise.

He has multiple abilities that set him apart from other Piranha Plants, including spitting goop and the ability to create tornadoes. His leaf-like arms can also be used as wings, allowing him to fly. Petey Piranha also makes frequent appearances in sports and spin-off games, where his sheer size causes him to often be depicted as even stronger and heavier than regular powerhouse characters like Bowser and Donkey Kong. However, he often lacks stamina and his stubby legs make him very slow on the ground, while his massive head leaves him top-heavy and easy to knock over.

The above text is from the Super Mario Wiki and is available under a Creative Commons license. Attribution must be provided through a list of authors or a link back to the original article. Source: https://www.mariowiki.com/Petey_Piranha

I don’t need to highlight why I chose this nickname for Hegeseth.

How egregious does something someone Trump appointed have to be for the man with the monstrous ego to admit he was wrong? Hegeseth should be an embarrassment to Trump. He would be to a normal human being. But then again, RFK Jr. should be an embarrassment, but Trump has gone out of his way to show his support for him. Consider who had the “honor” of sitting just behind him at a cage fighting match the other day:

Ah, to be or not to be a normal human being, that is the question.

In the sense that normal often means both conventional and psychologically healthy, Trump is neither. You don’t have to go further back than yesterday, Easter Sunday, to find proof that Trump is not normal by reading his holiday post.

Considering that Pope Francis used his final speech to blast Trump’s policy on immigrants it is a wonder that he posted “Rest in Peace Pope Francis! May God Bless him and all who loved him!“ on Truth Social. I doubt he bothered writing this himself.

It is considered newsworthy enough that this was a Hallmark card kind of condolence message for media like The Independent to title an article this way: Trump pays tribute to Pope Francis despite pontiff’s criticism of policies.

Normal people can admit they are wrong when there is overwhelming evidence that, indeed, they were wrong. Trump will not admit he was wrong about Hegeseth. Hegeseth could pull a Hulk Hogan at a Pentagon press conference and rip his shirt off and Trump would be hard pressed to use this as a reason to justify his being fired.

This doesn’t mean that Hegeseth will survive the week as Secretary of Defense. Since this is his religious belief, he could say he’s leaving to take a leadership role the major Christian Reconstructionist church, The Restored Church of God.

He could say something like “sometimes the Higher Power calls you to put God before country” although this might offend Trump.

Addendum:

If by some miracle Trump were to replace Hegseth, who now sits in the honored Cabinet seat next to Trump (Little Marco is on the other side), I wonder if he could find someone equally muscle bound who actually played Rambo in the movies to replace him. Unless his political views have changed (see article), Sylvester Stallone might be willing to take the job.

He might actually be a stabilizing force at the Pentagon. He’s reported to have an IQ of 160, the same as Steven Hawking (reference).

Read my previous Substacks here.

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