I'm hiding in Honduras, I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns, and money
The shit has hit the fan - - Warren Zevon (Lawyers, Guns and Money)

Well, for one former President of Honduras, it apparently did the trick as former President and big time, uh, well, narco-terrorist Juan Orlando Hernández is now a free man. And his boat wasn't even blown up.

But the controversy over the other ones continues as Secretary of Defense, OK, War if you prefer the more histrionic verbiage, Pete Hegseth keeps dodging unemployment despite multiple screw ups. How does that happen, you ask? It's simple. Tell the most outlandish lie imaginable, just like his boss.

You know, prices are actually down, inflation is actually tamed, jobs are solid, literally trillions are being invested from overseas, other countries pay the tariffs and I've solved 28 wars or so with a wave of my cell phone. Make it big, make it defy gravity. Oh, and Epstein? Who's he?

Hegseth's chat about impending air strikes over an unsecured line with a journalist even inadvertently onboard? Here's what the Inspector General's investigation showed...

• Policy Violation: A Pentagon watchdog report found officials broke policy by using unauthorized, commercially available apps (like Signal) for non-public DoD info on personal devices.
• Security Risk: Sharing details of operations (like specific strike plans) on Signal could have compromised national security, even with end-to-end encryption, as the data left controlled channels.
• Classification Dispute: Officials claimed info was declassified or informal, but inspectors found some shared data matched SECRET//NOFORN material, meaning even allies couldn't see it.
• Record-Keeping Failure: The chats weren't properly preserved under the Federal Records Act, hindering transparency and accountability.

And the conclusion announced by spokesmodel Karoline Leavitt, she of the "machine gun lips," from the Presidential podium, "Complete Exoneration."

The more blatant the lie, the bigger the exaggeration, the better. Trump's claim that drugs from South America killed 300 million Americans? There are only 340 million of us to begin with. I pardoned who? Never heard of them. I've mentioned it before, but I'm put in mind of a scene from a 60's comedy called "A Guide for the Married Man," where Walter Matthau seeks advice on infidelity from Robert Morse, and the first lesson is just deny everything...

And, anyway, we've already moved onto the next crisis du jour. Oh, it could be our new playful take on the Monroe Doctrine wherein we run everything around these here parts, pardner, and those poncey European types can waste their time spanking each other or something. We have Russians to please.

And make no mistake, our new global defense strategy is all about that. In so many words it amounts to screw Ukraine, screw NATO, screw Taiwan. We're working on Venezuela.

Or maybe it's the President going all Pirates of the Caribbean with an oil tanker...

Oh, and our own Capo di tutti i capi says there will finally be an alternative to ObamaCare and he has "truckloads" of evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, or if it's late at night on Truth Social, "stollen."

Truckloads. Man, would that have been so useful 5 years ago. Oh, and even speculating about his health is tantamount to treason, so all your Dr. Benedict Arnolds in the press had better watch your backs.

But we never linger for long on any one invented crisis, and that's a product of being ruled by some sort of geriatric version of ADHD. It's hard to keep up. And that's one reason we normalize things like his blatant racism regarding, for example, Somalia and other "shithole" countries. And yes, he finally admitted he said it, as we all knew anyway.

Or, just the fact that he lies about, let me check...OK, everything. And, we get 3 more years of this.

But this weekend also brought the same deadly news that too many weekends bring and that is gun death. Eleven days from Christmas, as proud parents await their hard working kids sweating out finals at one of the most prestigious schools in America and then heading home for the holiday, 10 kids won't be there. Eight will be in the ER and the parents of 2 will stare at the presents under the tree and discuss funeral plans.

And now we play our usual game of wondering about the politics of the shooter. Which party can be blamed for this? Let's check the killer's voting record and social media. Surely he hated liberal colleges. Or, he must be a left winger who hated Charlie Kirk, or something.

As comedian Jake Johannsen observed, after these shootings we look for some sort of rational motive. Why did he do it? Well, how about, he was effing nuts? He observed that quite often his analysis proves to be right.

But at least, though we are the world's leading producer of guns, we also lead the world in the manufacture of thoughts and prayers.

But, to be fair, it's not just here. In Australia a gathering of believers assembled on a beach at Sydney for Hanukkah celebrations and two people opened fire on them. So far 16 are dead and many wounded. Unlike the Brown University shooting, this one is more clear cut. It is anti-semitic terrorism. So, let's pile on all the Muslims, right? Well, except amidst the horror, this happened...

That guy, who sneaked up and tackled one of the two shooters is Ahmed al Ahmed, a 43-year-old Muslim father of two who runs a fruit shop in Sydney. At a time when it's easy to think that religious hatred is universal, Ahmed proves that it isn't necessarily. Oh, and his friends say he knows nothing about guns, well, except how to take it and point it at a murderer.

And of course, never one to miss a political opportunity, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says this happened because Australia joined in calling for a Palestinian state. I'm sure the two gunmen were thoroughly versed in the intricacies of international politics and weighed the effect this act might have on the delicate negotiations.

Or, it could be the Jake Johannsen theory as well.

But this week, let me leave you with my favorite headline of the day. When I was a Regional News Director in the Rocky Mountain states, I hired this young reporter. And I'm proud of this headline she wrote...

Cheyenne Man Caught Speeding With Over a Pound of Meth