The tale of “Kristi Needs Her Blankie” is even sadder and sillier than first reported. You may recall from, oh, last week sometime that DHS chief Kristi Noem tried to fire a Coast Guard pilot mid-flight for leaving her blanket behind. Petty and pathetic, sure, but almost innocent compared to the real story.
It seems ICE Barbie wasn’t the only one throwing the shit fit. She was joined by her violence-prone paramour, Corey Lewandowski, after their usual aircraft was grounded for maintenance and her personal items, including her heated blanket, weren’t transferred to her backup plane. According to NBC News’ triple-sourced story, after Lewandowski started berating the flight staff,
The Coast Guard pilot came out of the cockpit to see what was happening, and Lewandowski insisted the plane return to where the broken-down jet was located to collect the secretary’s items. When the pilot refused, Lewandowski announced the pilot was relieved of duty. The pilot explained that if he was fired he would need to land the plane immediately while another pilot was found to continue the mission to Washington.
Lewandowski backed down at that point, but you have to wonder why that blanket was so important to them. Maybe this Billie Jo Spears song, a No. 1 country hit in 1975, can help explain it – though it should be noted that Billie Jo wanted her blanket on the ground, while Noem wanted hers in the air.
Spears, who died in 2011 at age 73, had more than a dozen top 20 country hits from the mid-’70s through the end of the decade.
