Pentagon insists US military will only interfere in foreign elections
By Addison Blu
As President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim he won the 2020 presidential election, wary Pentagon officials insisted on Monday that this year the U.S. military would only interfere in foreign elections.
“It would be wrong to use our troops in a place where the law and the democratic process is already sufficient,” said Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman. “Unless this was happening anywhere else on Earth, in which case we’d be ‘spreading democracy’ there, like, yesterday,” Hoffman added while making finger pistols and shooting from the hip.
“We can’t use military power to endorse a specific regime,” said Gen. James C. McConville during a Sunday speech at the unveiling of the Forever Wars Veterans Memorial in Washington.
“This isn’t Panama, Honduras, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea, China, Greece, Costa Rica, Albania, Syria,” said McConville, stopping for a moment to stretch and take a sip of water, adding: “Burma, Egypt, Iran, Guatemala, Paraguay, Indonesia, Lebanon, South Vietnam, Iraq, Laos, Brazil, Chile, Cambodia, Bolivia, Uruguay, Ethiopia, Angola, Zaire, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Chad, Grenada, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, Libya, or Yemen.”
The transition from a Trump administration to a Biden administration has been bumpy. Starting delays, unexpected pauses, and hours-long smoke breaks from the Trump team have made it all but clear that they are holding out for any chance of changing the election results, though defense officials deny such charges.
“I totally want to transition power,” said acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller in a recent text message to Biden transition officials. “But I have family over for the next couple weeks, and then I’ve got to take my car into the shop the week after. Maybe we could do it after that, if ur not busy?”
Still, experts say Americans should not worry about an unpredictable right-wing strongman in charge of the greatest military on earth who refuses to concede an election he lost at the ballot box and in the courts.
“Yes, the Trump team is still technically in charge of the military and law enforcement and could be using delays to insulate its team from resistance to a coup,” said Dr. Mark Gershovitz, professor of political science at Columbia University. “But they wouldn’t take the risk. If they try and fail, how would that look on their résumés?”
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F-35 blows New Year’s resolution, gains $25 billion
By Jack S. McQuack on Jan. 1, 2016
LANCASTER, Calif. — The F-35 is experiencing yet another setback in development after reportedly blowing its New Year’s resolution of “losing a couple billion dollars” in just the first few days of the calendar year.
Joining nearly 92% of Americans who fail to achieve their New Year’s resolution, the F-35 was reportedly found alone in a dark hangar at the far end of an Edwards Air Force Base runway gorging itself on taxpayer dollars in silent shame.
“Ever since it lost the dogfight to the 1970’s era F-16, the F-35 has been really depressed,” said Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry Baskin. “We have been telling the F-35 that it was because it was not wearing its ‘stealth coating,’ but deep down it knew it was because of its over-sized engine nozzle.“
While the news comes as a shock to friends and co-workers, those close to the program are not surprised. Navy test pilot Lt. Ben Robbins, who now flies an EA-18G Growler after his F-35C gained a whopping $64 million in 2015, is not surprised at all.
“Yeah, yeah — I have heard it all before,” said Robbins. “‘This is the year the F-35 is going to improve its turn radius and show bullies around the world that it is worth the $1.5 trillion dollar price tag. Whatever.”
“Lockheed software developers need to upload a Waste Watchers app during the next update,” he added. “This isn’t She’s All That.”
After its most recent relapse, numerous health professionals and aerospace engineers have offered their services pro bono to help the F-35 overcome its demons. Dr. Lisa Belle, a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in binge consumption, suggests radical interpersonal psychotherapy to deal with the F-35’s key enablers.
“Rather than letting the F-35 fail and overcome every time it faces an obstacle or Congressional review, the Department of Defense jumps right in and comforts it with more money,” Belle told Duffel Blog. “The F-35 feels as though it is only around because of some government sunk-cost fallacy and, because of the ‘too big to fail‘ comments, now suffers from program dysmorphic disorder.”
The call to action by a team of specialists is coming just in time, as the Joint Strike Fighter program is being delayed by several years. According to officials at the Pentagon, the F-35 has locked itself in its maintenance bay with $163 billion appropriated for the VA, refusing to come out unless the government pays for its surgery to make it an F-22.
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