Yet another article where we can rub our hands together and chortle with glee! It seems the Secret Service has had it up to its ears with JD. They are unhappy campers, and for this to come out in the news is really something!! Can’t recall the last time this happened. Sounds like JD is a prima donna, so this should be good! My respect to AlterNet:
MS NOW reporters Carol Leonnig and Vaughn Hillyard say Secret Service agents are losing patience with the pampering Vice President JD Vance keeps demanding. “The frustration over [Vance’s] last-minute [requests] has boiled over to the point that agents have made custom coins and stickers to mock the frequency of the vice president’s and his family’s last-minute travel, using Vance’s Secret Service code name, “Bobcat”, according to images reviewed by MSNOW.
Uh oh. Not good. You don’t want to be infantile with the Secret Service. They’ll never talk back and always do what they have been requested to do, so it started with the coins and stickers. Hmmmm, do the coins mean challenge coins for surviving a Vance request? That’s not what a challenge coin is for, but it would mean a lot of quiet humor for the Secret Service.
On Thursday last week, Secret Service agents grumbled as they prepared to deliver another perk to Vice President JD Vance’s family: joining a military helicopter crew to fly his young son to his golf lesson. “The planned trip on Marine Two, the call-sign for the U.S. Marine Corps helicopter that carries the vice president, was canceled at the last minute due to severe thunderstorms and high winds in the Washington, D.C., area that day, according to two people with knowledge of the flight plans. Vance planned to travel with his son on the flight, according to two other administration officials with knowledge of his schedule.
Okay, it would be one hell of a treat to fly in a helicopter, especially an armored one since there is this annoying quirk called fear of falling. Planes are good, so a decent helicopter, not necessarily Marine Two, might be fun, too. But we digress. Or, rather, I do. We’ve all seen those choppers. They have to be more solid than the picture seems to carry around the president and vice president, and their Secret Service retinue. Still, to fly his son to a *golf lesson*? Oh please.
Vance’s last-minute trips, known within the Secret Service as “off-the-record” movements, require agents to cancel their own days off, drop other plans and often race to the location where they are needed. MS NOW reports it also forces agents to come up with security plans in a rush, according to numerous current and former Secret Service personnel.
The repeated pattern of off-the-record movements can “quickly and understandably erode morale” on a protection detail, current and former agents told MS NOW. “The detail is tired of them not giving notice on things and making everything an OTR,” said one person familiar with the detail’s frustration. “He [Vance] thinks he can still move around like a U.S. Senator.”
But Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn issued a statement saying agents know what they signed up for, even if it means last-minute golf trips for a kid across town. “When U.S. Secret Service Special Agents choose to join a protective detail, they understand the commitment required: long hours, frequent travel, and the need for constant flexibility,” the director’s office wrote.
Flexibility is one thing, but creating protection plans on the fly is completely different and has the potential to become dangerous. It just takes one missed thing at the wrong time for someone to do something. Vance is the backup president of America, to be crass for a moment. It would be a challenge to “replace” him. So, he’s not as ridiculous as one might think. Being on his protection detail is almost as critical as being on Trump’s. But the Secret Service is allowed to grumble because Vance is so erratic and annoying. They’ll still protect him because that’s what they do.
See you tomorrow!
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