Way back in the day, there used to be a G.I. Joe cartoon on TV. The basic setup was that there was one evil villain with a silver head — Destro — who seemed genuinely evil. He had seemingly workable plans, but he must have had ADHD or something because he was always like, “Do this thing and defeat the Joes,” and then he would peace out. He also had a competent female helper — The Baroness — but I don’t remember her actually doing much except speaking in a mysterious accent and then also leaving. The bulk of the actual work was left to Cobra Commander, who had a silver mask over his face. He was an idiot.
I don’t know what the HR situation at Cobra was like, but you’d think that, after the third or fourth time when he was utterly defeated by the Joes, Destro would have swapped Cobra Commander out for Baroness, or hell, just any rando walking by.
I didn’t know anyone aspired to be Cobra Commander — an ineffectual suck-up who still has his job for mysterious reasons. But my God, last week was just a bunch of people scrambling to fill the role of ineffectual toady.
Agency releases most in-depth look at mass arrests since May 4
Let’s start with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. On May 13, DHS shared a press release bragging about the recent grandma-snatchery they performed here. It contains — still contains this many days after it first went up — the sentence: “Attacks and demonization of ICE have resulted in offers facing a 413% increase in assaults.” [The bold and the typo are both theirs.] This is an actual sentence in an actual press release from an actual department in the actual federal government. Someone had to bold the last part of that sentence, and yet they still missed one blatant error.
I work with editors. They are all good people. But I know I could be literally gnawing on Scene editor-in-chief Patrick’s arm, him struggling to fight me off, and if I put this sentence in front of him, he would stop to fix it.* Any editor, even if they vehemently opposed ICE, would proofread this press release and fix this sentence if ICE ... I don’t know, maybe pulled an editor over in a traffic stop and put this in front of them. They’d be constitutionally incapable of seeing “offers” instead of “officers” and “attacks” not followed by an “on” and leaving it.
There is no excuse for someone’s rough draft going out as a press release without another set of eyes on it. And yet, if you’re a Cobra lackey, why not? No one will care. No one will even notice. The only upside is, hey, looks like DHS isn’t using AI to write its press releases — because you know AI wouldn’t have made those errors.
DHS also gives us this gem: “Of the 196 individuals arrested, 95 had prior criminal convictions and pending criminal charges and 31 were previously removed individuals who reentered the U.S. illegally, a felony offense under federal law.” Are we grading on a curve here? That's a 48 percent success rate — which is an F, right? Are you bragging that you failed?
Ben Franklin’s out here saying, “It is better 100 guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer.” John Adams is preaching:
The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security. And if such a sentiment as this, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever.
Immigration roundups terrorize South Nashville and take residents with no criminal history
And DHS is all, “We can catch one guilty person for every one innocent person whose life we ruin.” OK, patriot. Sure. But let’s see these villains. Show us who is so bad that we should all be OK with losing a few abuelas in order to be sure we have these guys out of the country. First up, a scary Iraqi guy who was ordered out of the country by Sept. 1, 2021. OK, he seems bad. Worth-losing-a-grandma bad, though? You didn’t have any other way of getting him? Second, Franklin Oswaldo Velasquez, who seems pretty terrible — with the whole being-wanted-for-murder thing. And if what DHS is saying is true, Inmar Antonio Penada-Membreno also shouldn’t be here. But after that, it starts to feel like DHS is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Richard St. Baptiste has a conviction for possession of meth that he got probation for and a conviction for pot that he got 30 days for.
DHS, do you know how many U.S. citizens you had to drive by with a record like that in order to save us from Richard St. Baptiste? The fourth-most-dangerous guy on your list is the same kind of criminal Tennessee is littered with. How is this a win? All you’ve done is freed up a little more meth for everyone else.
Hell, we have a guy who provided prescription pills for his lover/cousin, and he’s still a state senator. DHS, you should have stuck with a list that was all rapists and murderers — unless, of course, you upended our whole city and destroyed countless lives to catch one rapist and one murderer and you put all the ones you had on your list.
Watching DHS try to spin this failed raid into a win is hilarious. And here comes the cavalry, presumably on mule-back — U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee's 5th Congressional District. He announced in his press release that “he will formally request that both the House Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee open investigations into Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell and other city officials for their repeated efforts to obstruct lawful ICE operations.”
Conservative bar owner lost prime weekend service at Honky Tonk Central, The Diner and Kid Rock’s because of heavy ICE presence
Not liking something counts as obstruction now? Please.
I eagerly await Mayor O’Connell’s defense of him doing anything to obstruct ICE where he just shows footage of people yelling at him for not doing anything to obstruct ICE. What’s Ogles going to say? That the people who are mad at O’Connell are faking their anger, and this is all some conspiracy to make Ogles look like a fool? No conspiracy needed.
Andy, when we need input on how to allegedly steal money from the grieving families of dead babies, we’ll call you. Otherwise, maybe you should refrain from getting all high and mighty about criminals in our state.
Lastly, I’m putting MS-13 and Tren de Aragua on the Cobra villains list. I get told day after day how dangerous these criminal organizations are, and how much I need to be afraid of them, and how important it is that we deal with them and get rid of them, but ICE never has any problems rounding them up. Are they dangerous, or can you just arrest them at a traffic stop? At the least, gang leaders need to insist that, when members are caught, they make menacing faces. Something to make them seem scary enough to warrant your reputation.
If I’m remembering right, there was some corny lesson at the end of G.I. Joe to soften the blow of 22 minutes of extreme cartoon violence. Sadly, there will be no lessons learned after last week. Just people hurting other people and then acting outraged when we don’t cheer them for it.
