Another One Bites the Dog

Dog-killer and and death-squad chief Kristi Noem was fired as Secretary of Homeland Security on Thursday. 

Trump fired her ostensibly over the money she was spending on the latest ad campaign for the agency, but ICE Barbie was in trouble already because of ICE abuses in Minneapolis and other cities and her increasingly obvious affair with Republican operative Corey Lewandowski, with whom she spent a lot of time in airplanes and in the bedroom . . . sometimes at the same time.  At what turned out to be her last congressional hearing, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), not running for re-election this year and free from the fear of receiving death threats, castigated Noem for having killed her 14-month-old dog Cricket and cited his own experience as a pheasant hunter who trains hunting dogs and his knowledge of how to handle young pups who act up, making Noem look even more pathetic than she already is.  She was fired not because of her most severe crimes but because her lavish spending and her idiotic persona had grown so bad it had become a public relations problem.

Beware, though - we might start to miss Noem if Trump gets the Senate to confirm his choice for Noem's successor.  He's chosen Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, which, like Noem's home state of South Dakota, is not a border state and is a state whose residents have little if any experience with border issues.  Least of all Markwayne Mullin.  On to of that, he is not a lawyer, not a security expert, has no experience as a manager, and is prone to outbursts, like when he threatened Teamsters president Sean O'Brien at a 2023 Senate hearing and challenged him to a fist fight, much to the chagrin of Senator Bernie Sanders, who was chairing the meeting.  O'Brien, apparently afraid of getting beaten up, endorsed the appointment of Mullin, a man so stupid he makes Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville look like Aristotle.  He's so stupid, he can't spell his two Christian names without a space between them.  Mullin is the only current Senate member without a bachelor's degree.  (To respond to the inevitable complaint that Abraham Lincoln didn't have a bachelor's degree, he never served in the Senate.  He lost both of his tries for a Senate seat.) 

Mullin is likely to be confirmed not because Republicans want to appease Trump but because Mullin is such an embarrassment to their caucus - and they have several embarrassments - they're eager to get rid of him. 

Noem, by the way, isn't going anywhere.  She will become the new "special envoy" to the Shield of the Americas", which Trump defines as a new organization of Western Hemisphere nations to combat drug cartels.  Sounds like a Marvel Comics league to me.  Such a job is as obviously redundant and unnecessary as being vice president in charge of dress code enforcement.  It's the sort of job you expect someone else to take care of.

Someone like the Secretary of Homeland Security. 

Oh yeah, you're likely to see her back on Capitol Hill in 2027 - answering (or pretending to answer) questions from a House committee probing Trump's corruption if the Democrats take back power this November.