I will now be referred to as a Naval Academy person because while I wasn’t not accepted I really wanted to go there. You will now and forever thank me for my imagined service. Any thing else is to hate the troops. USA 🇺🇸 (the flag emoji makes it legal).
We have gotten so fake tough guy stupid in this country that we now worship imagined military service. Almost SOF guys ‘storm’ the Capitol. Almost Naval Academy applicants storm congress. Almost adults. From now on I’m an astronaut cuz I wanted to be one but had bad vision.
Let’s change it up so people brag about being a good neighbor. That we accuse people of stolen goodness cuz they’re awful. Help your neighbors today. And then do it again tomorrow. This is the way. Everything else is posturing. Every neighborhood has a Henry. Lots of them. Help.
Stolen valor is disgusting. Stolen decency is way worse. Demand concrete consistent proof of people who say they’re good. Put up on the local level or shut up on the international level.
If you can’t do the former, stop selling the latter.
I’ve completely moved from White Papers that seek to ‘answer’ foreign policy security challenges. One, I’m not smart enough. But, two, I’ve seen enough.
If you can’t change your block for the good, don’t try to change another country. But the entire system says to try. Oh well

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More from @SkinnerPm

16 Jan
In the days immediately after 9/11, my then-brand-new colleagues at US Capitol Police—including the now acting chief and assistant chief—& I lit flares on Pennsylvania & Constitutional Aves in the insane display to ‘deter a giant semi-truck bomb’. Seems so quaint compared to now
A sizable number of our neighbors are so entitled they still think they did nothing wrong literally breaking into the US Capitol. And many more are very violent. We should have been lighting flares to deter them but now no one sees or hears anything but what they want. Bad place
I always had sad giggles when we said out loud our mission: we were lighting flares to keep suicidal semi truck bombers from driving past the Capitol. A great deal of security is theater. Some of it quite helpful. Deters idiots. Highlights the determined. But theater it is
Read 4 tweets
16 Jan
Lots of headlines about the ‘American carnage’ on our streets. I just go to and from work knowing the carnage is in our policies and priorities and that we don’t have to be this way. I can’t say much with pure certainty but I can say being a local cop has made me a better person
I tweet much less about work now because often everything I see is a felony. But that doesn’t mean that I believe less in my neighbors. It’s the opposite. I believe more.
In 1991 I was in the coast guard & I focused on people drowning. In 2001 I was with the Capitol Police & then quickly to CIA where I focused on countries drowning. Now in 2021 I’m a local cop where I focus on neighborhoods drowning. And drowning ain’t usually splashy. It’s muted
Read 6 tweets
13 Jan
We have to take MeanCat back to the vet. He’s not good. Guess it’s something other than the UTI. Good lord.
So MeanCat has a 104.5 fever again. They don’t know what’s going on. He’s a sick kitty. Will stay for a few days and get fluids. It appears his evil scheme all along was to bankrupt us!! Well played, MeanCat.
And I took the day off cuz it’s been a long few days and I come home burdened with all things orangey and I walk up and see this: Drunk Uncle Orangey waiting on the front porch. I admit I guffawed. Well played again, MeanCat. Image
Read 4 tweets
13 Jan
During my brief time w Capitol Police, we expected Representatives to walk around security. We were expected to facially recognize all 100 Senators & maybe the top 100 congressional reps. They’d run past yelling who they were. No biggie. It was when they brought groups through...
When they ‘vouched’ for fifty randos from their district, we were supposed to get a supervisor who would, way after the fact, ask the senate sgt at arms to maybe kinda politely ask the members to not do that again. Which they always would. The entitlement of the pin was absolute.
It was the least political job I would ever have, except maybe CIA. All we knew was how the members treated us, the people who drove them to work and sat outside their house and kept people from killing them in their offices. It was such a clear bipartisan divide: jerk or nice.
Read 9 tweets
12 Jan
I like writing.
It’s something I’ve done all my life to make sense of life.

I did not like writing this piece for the @washingtonpost .

But it’s what I felt as I saw officers placed in unforgivable situations.

Crying & writing is not a new experience.

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/0…
I’m a doofus but I know that 99.7% of people I engage with on Twitter care more about my monstrous and heavenly animals than doofus me. I support that 100%. Vet just called. Big Eyes survived the surgery. Big surgery for a little kitty. There’s a bunch of animals waiting for her Image
MeanCat is still feeling under the weather. On meds for his UTI. Pretty sure that was the only thing that kept us from seeing him in footage from the US Capitol last week. He planned all of that. In his spare time. Now he’s summoning the Orangeys to him. They are gathering... Image
Read 6 tweets
11 Jan
The more we see of what happened at the US Capitol, the more we should be demanding answers as to why this happened. We see amazing acts of individual heroism by officers amid an undeniable lack of preparation. This is insane & it’s the opposite of security planning.
These officers should never have been in those situations.
Like when we celebrate people getting a car after walking to work for 30 years or a bake sale for someone with cancer, we are gonna highlight the bravery and ignore the insanity that put officers with belt pepper spray in front of 2,000 people egged on by the president. No. No.
Read 6 tweets

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