I'm no fan of Trump, but he has very good grounds for suspicion of the FBI and some of the highly questionable activities they undertook during his administration. The abuse of FISA warrants in particular merits serious attention. A new Church style Commission focused on the FBI (rather than the CIA) would actually be a healthy corrective, although it's hard to believe that Patel himself has the expertise to handle this correctly.
Bravo. The intent to go after personalities seems to be a Trump thing, so Patel wanting to do the same isn't surprising, but disappointing. I have hopes for Tulsi Gabbard being more in focus on what needs doing.
But the elephant in the room is Zionism. I hear that Zionist and former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to be the next Illinois senator after Dick Durbin retires. We should not have ANY Zionists in US political office because Zionism is not about liberty and justice for all but about ethnic superiority and cleansing by Israel, an extreme danger to US national security. To be clear, I am not talking about Jews, but about people who are Zionists, whether Jews or gentiles like Joe Biden. This hypocritical stand of believing in one thing and its opposite at the same time is unsupportable. I would say it is traitorous for an American. If one is a Zionist, by all means go to Israel and face the bloody music.
There can be no qualifications on liberty and justice for all. I ask this of my own local city council and mayor and they refuse to answer. I have had exactly ONE person, my state representative, admit that she is a Zionist. Otherwise silence is the rule. Why would anyone not say they are all for liberty and justice for all? It's in the Pledge of Allegiance!
The reason is people are completely intimidated by Zionists who will not hesitate to call out anyone who questions Israel as an antisemite. How did timidity come to be the American way? Because Zionist wealth is astronomical and with wealth comes the power to tap the legal profession to destroy people, or to have them fired. Witness the hatchet job that Elise Stefanik did on the university professors. Witness Sheldon Adelson buying the US embassy in Jerusalem via Trump, Trump now putting many Zionists in high positions with he himself all-in for Israel.
I want my country back!
Being a wonderful person in the US while at the same time thinking little to nothing of the slaughter of any number of Palestinians is atrocious and needs to be called out. How did we ever get to be called "land of the free and home of the brave"!?
If didn’t know that Trump and several of his appointees weren’t obsessed with exacting revenge, I’d agree with some of their plans, particularly if they reduced the size of the bloated bureaucracy. If government departments were private sector companies, they’d quickly go broke, but private sector companies don’t have the benefit of unlimited funds. 200,000 people in DHS?? A tad ironic, in light of the “Al Qaeda is our friend” policy of late.
I would applaud a Church-style commission, but targeting old political enemies will solve nothing. Please tell me that I don’t have to be subjected to the details of the Lisa Page-Peter Strzok affair for the bazillionth time.
I remain your faithful reader and the ultimate cynic.
This is often the brick wall, isn't it. "If only it wasn't 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 saying it, I'd agree on fixing some things for the long term. Alas.. "
We all do it to some extent and why nothing ever changes.
Reformulating/structuring a federal law enforcement entity would change more (& for many more ppl) than one man's political 'fire under ass' motivation to break it up. Zero other humans in DC are interested in or willing to do it irl. This cynic is glad to see.. actually anyone trade btch!ng for trying in government.
maybe this didn’t come across in the story but I think Patel is sincere. You don’t become a public defender if you’re after money. I just think it’s a failure of imagination
I'll take any accountability and change over the same thing over and over again. However, I agree. He needs to focus much more broadly on stripping powers that never should have been given. And, that emergency powers thing from 9/11? There needs to be a strong push right now and forever to get Trump not to sign that damn thing again.
Yeah, I'm sympathetic to where he's coming from, just wish he'd focus on the institution. i didn't care about russiagate when it happened and definitely don't now!
Great article! I like its theme about how Patel's concerns about corruption appear to run only so deep (ahem), while deferring to the institutional rot at the core of the surveillance state.
That said, I think this analysis may be too deferential to the surveillance state, in the sense that it frames the public interest harmed by its excesses as rooted in privacy, rather than democracy. The sad fact is that many Americans have abandoned any expectation of democracy, having been trained for decades by their own choices online. But even for those who willingly resign any privacy, surveillance still threatens fundamental rights because it will inevitably intimidate *someone*, whose silence deprives (whatever passes for) democracy in America of a crucial ingredient without which our collective decisions cannot be fully informed. I wrote a bit more about that concept a few weeks ago. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/i/151523320/democracy-mattersbut-it-means-more-than-democrats-think
They need something like a combination of the Church Committee and the Goldwater/Nichols Act to both root out abuses and reorganize the intelligence agencies for more efficiency and better results.
As your editor ably documented during his time at The Washington Post, the growth, mostly in secret, of the security state following 9/11 has never been thoroughly reviewed.
Nothing's a failure just yet. Even his imagination, I'd wager. I think about the energy, hyperfocus, & sheer doggedness it's taken people to really shake institutions in our history. How they made it that far intact - to the DJ booth - has often been personal beef. Whether they write it down or not. He's only 44.. he'll remember his public defender days.
If Trump can get him confirmed, it's a start. We can't exactly fall off of the floor.
I'm no fan of Trump, but he has very good grounds for suspicion of the FBI and some of the highly questionable activities they undertook during his administration. The abuse of FISA warrants in particular merits serious attention. A new Church style Commission focused on the FBI (rather than the CIA) would actually be a healthy corrective, although it's hard to believe that Patel himself has the expertise to handle this correctly.
Confirmation hearings are going to be must see TV.
Bravo. The intent to go after personalities seems to be a Trump thing, so Patel wanting to do the same isn't surprising, but disappointing. I have hopes for Tulsi Gabbard being more in focus on what needs doing.
But the elephant in the room is Zionism. I hear that Zionist and former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to be the next Illinois senator after Dick Durbin retires. We should not have ANY Zionists in US political office because Zionism is not about liberty and justice for all but about ethnic superiority and cleansing by Israel, an extreme danger to US national security. To be clear, I am not talking about Jews, but about people who are Zionists, whether Jews or gentiles like Joe Biden. This hypocritical stand of believing in one thing and its opposite at the same time is unsupportable. I would say it is traitorous for an American. If one is a Zionist, by all means go to Israel and face the bloody music.
There can be no qualifications on liberty and justice for all. I ask this of my own local city council and mayor and they refuse to answer. I have had exactly ONE person, my state representative, admit that she is a Zionist. Otherwise silence is the rule. Why would anyone not say they are all for liberty and justice for all? It's in the Pledge of Allegiance!
The reason is people are completely intimidated by Zionists who will not hesitate to call out anyone who questions Israel as an antisemite. How did timidity come to be the American way? Because Zionist wealth is astronomical and with wealth comes the power to tap the legal profession to destroy people, or to have them fired. Witness the hatchet job that Elise Stefanik did on the university professors. Witness Sheldon Adelson buying the US embassy in Jerusalem via Trump, Trump now putting many Zionists in high positions with he himself all-in for Israel.
I want my country back!
Being a wonderful person in the US while at the same time thinking little to nothing of the slaughter of any number of Palestinians is atrocious and needs to be called out. How did we ever get to be called "land of the free and home of the brave"!?
So.. Patel and the FBI. All right.
If didn’t know that Trump and several of his appointees weren’t obsessed with exacting revenge, I’d agree with some of their plans, particularly if they reduced the size of the bloated bureaucracy. If government departments were private sector companies, they’d quickly go broke, but private sector companies don’t have the benefit of unlimited funds. 200,000 people in DHS?? A tad ironic, in light of the “Al Qaeda is our friend” policy of late.
I would applaud a Church-style commission, but targeting old political enemies will solve nothing. Please tell me that I don’t have to be subjected to the details of the Lisa Page-Peter Strzok affair for the bazillionth time.
I remain your faithful reader and the ultimate cynic.
This is often the brick wall, isn't it. "If only it wasn't 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 saying it, I'd agree on fixing some things for the long term. Alas.. "
We all do it to some extent and why nothing ever changes.
Reformulating/structuring a federal law enforcement entity would change more (& for many more ppl) than one man's political 'fire under ass' motivation to break it up. Zero other humans in DC are interested in or willing to do it irl. This cynic is glad to see.. actually anyone trade btch!ng for trying in government.
Exactly. The partisan impulse is especially baffling when it comes to the fbi which has done terrible things to both the left and right
maybe this didn’t come across in the story but I think Patel is sincere. You don’t become a public defender if you’re after money. I just think it’s a failure of imagination
I'll take any accountability and change over the same thing over and over again. However, I agree. He needs to focus much more broadly on stripping powers that never should have been given. And, that emergency powers thing from 9/11? There needs to be a strong push right now and forever to get Trump not to sign that damn thing again.
Yeah, I'm sympathetic to where he's coming from, just wish he'd focus on the institution. i didn't care about russiagate when it happened and definitely don't now!
Sames!
Great article! I like its theme about how Patel's concerns about corruption appear to run only so deep (ahem), while deferring to the institutional rot at the core of the surveillance state.
That said, I think this analysis may be too deferential to the surveillance state, in the sense that it frames the public interest harmed by its excesses as rooted in privacy, rather than democracy. The sad fact is that many Americans have abandoned any expectation of democracy, having been trained for decades by their own choices online. But even for those who willingly resign any privacy, surveillance still threatens fundamental rights because it will inevitably intimidate *someone*, whose silence deprives (whatever passes for) democracy in America of a crucial ingredient without which our collective decisions cannot be fully informed. I wrote a bit more about that concept a few weeks ago. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/i/151523320/democracy-mattersbut-it-means-more-than-democrats-think
They need something like a combination of the Church Committee and the Goldwater/Nichols Act to both root out abuses and reorganize the intelligence agencies for more efficiency and better results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater%E2%80%93Nichols_Act
As your editor ably documented during his time at The Washington Post, the growth, mostly in secret, of the security state following 9/11 has never been thoroughly reviewed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/top-secret-america/2010/07/19/hidden-world-growing-beyond-control-2/
I'm sure that it's even worse now than when the series was done in 2010.
Something tells me Mitch McConnell is not gonna vote for Kash Patel.
Nothing's a failure just yet. Even his imagination, I'd wager. I think about the energy, hyperfocus, & sheer doggedness it's taken people to really shake institutions in our history. How they made it that far intact - to the DJ booth - has often been personal beef. Whether they write it down or not. He's only 44.. he'll remember his public defender days.
If Trump can get him confirmed, it's a start. We can't exactly fall off of the floor.
Do you think Tulsi Gabbard may be better equipped to do the institutional level reform?
I'll have to take a look