On Our "Virtual Route 66" (Special Edition): Out & About In Germany and A Perspective from Gary Kasparov on America
 |
Former FBI Director James Comey is now the first among a slate of high-profile Trump critics to face criminal charges. Indictments against John Brennan and John Bolton may well be on the way.
Many observers, myself included, have already addressed the transparently political nature of this campaign of lawfare. We know that the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia previously failed to identify probable cause for indicting Comey. We know the plight of the White House’s targets, and the chilling effect this government overreach could have on other would-be critics.
So today I’d like to look at the other side of things: from the perspective of Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and other senior Trump administration officials. In executing the president’s personal vendettas with no regard for their obligations as public servants, these individuals have reached the top of a tree they can’t climb down from.
In the mafia, there’s the idea of becoming a “made man,” when a low-level associate is fully inducted into the organization. One of the requirements to achieve this status is carrying out a contract killing.
The act serves two purposes: It demonstrates a person’s commitment and willingness to do any job. More importantly, it binds the initiate to the mob. You can never return to polite society. You are a murderer. The Mark of Cain is a smudge that can never be scrubbed off.
Bondi and Patel are now getting ready to become “made men” (or, in Bondi’s case, a made woman). For them, losing power will soon become riskier than continuing to bend the law to Trump’s demands. Surrendering their position will mean exposure to consequences.
Every bogus set of charges Bondi’s Justice Department draws up against political rivals could become the basis for a subpoena somewhere down the line. Each baseless raid Patel orders may be recorded in a future indictment for abuses of power. Unlike the shaky case (I’m being generous here) against Comey, these charges will have real merit because Trump’s “made men” have violated their constitutional oaths.
Now, we can begin to establish a motive for the administration to try to cling to power at any cost. Unlike Gavin Newsom, who suggested that there may not be elections at all in 2028, I believe that America will have elections for the foreseeable future. They will even be free (at first). But they are unlikely to be fair if we stay the present course. Remember, very few countries don’t have elections (Russia has “elections”!). But not all of those elections count.
More from The Next Move:
 |
|
Remaining in office is the only thing separating Trump’s lieutenants from accountability before a future Democratic Congress or administration. So they will try to tip the scales. To manipulate the media environment. To intimidate. This is what Trump’s exhortation to Texas and Missouri to engage in aggressive gerrymandering is about. This is why National Guard deployments are being threatened against blue cities. We’ll see what next week’s hastily-organized meeting of the nation’s top military commanders is about.
Elected officials who still believe in the rule of law need to pursue every legal avenue available to them to defend Comey and any of Trump’s other political targets. They need to explicitly promise that if the voters return responsible leaders to power, they will make Bondi and Patel’s fears of accountability a reality.
The Democrats do not even need to wait until the midterms. They should find allies wherever they can. Those Republicans who have not been fully initiated into the crime ring must be given an off ramp. Anyone whose worst offense was indifference or quiet acquiescence should still be welcome in the pro-freedom coalition because it will only take a few defectors to tip the balance in the House. That is especially true after this week’s special election in Arizona and with growing dissension over the Epstein Files.
The administration and the Republican Party are not waiting for Democrats to act. So the opposition gains nothing of strategic value from preemptively compromising. Anything short of an all-in offensive is insufficient. The gang will trade democracy for immunity. If pro-democracy Americans do not match mafia politics with resolve, they will lose more than the next election.
I Saw How Russia Killed Media Freedom | ||||||
| ||||||
 | ||||||
Censorship is central to the story of Russia’s descent into KGB dictatorship. | ||||||
|
State-Sponsored Cancel Culture After the Kirk Assassination | ||||||
| ||||||
 | ||||||
The opposition needs a values-driven response to Donald Trump’s partisan exploitation of Charlie Kirk’s murder. | ||||||
On September 23, United States President Donald Trump delivered an unhinged diatribe at the United Nations in New York. For almost an hour, he variously attacked the UN itself, the “con job” of climate science and the “double-tailed monster” of Europe’s immigration and energy policies. Another of his targets was people he’s already been killing: those riding boats in the Caribbean. “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” Trump said, providing some false and imaginary numbers: “I believe we lost 300,000 people last year to drugs—300,000—fentanyl and other drugs. Each boat that we sink carries drugs that would kill more than 25,000 Americans.” “Let’s put it this way: People don’t like taking big loads of drugs in boats any more,” Trump bragged. “There aren’t too many boats that are travelling on the seas by Venezuela. They tend not to want to travel very quickly any more. And we’ve virtually stopped drugs coming into our country by sea. We call them the water drugs.” The claims are ludicrous but the lethal attacks are real. On September 19, a US missile struck another boat in the Caribbean, killing its occupants. It was the fourth attack of the month. The first strike, on September 2, killed 11. “Hell, I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world!” Vice President JD Vance quipped at a press conference. The people killed so far—murdered, experts say—may indeed have been fishing, or transporting rice or other goods. Ethan Nadelmann, the founder and former director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said the strikes are a shocking executive overreach in the drug war. “It’s so over the line that even John Yoo has objected,” he told Filter, referring to the MAGA-adjecent UC Berkeley law professor, who authored the Bush-era “Torture Memos.” Yoo published a September 23 op-ed saying the administration dangerously conflated crime-fighting and war. “Americans have died in car wrecks at an annual rate of about 40,000 in recent years; the nation does not wage war on auto companies,”he wrote. “American law instead relies upon the criminal justice or civil tort systems to respond to broad, persistent social harms.” “It’s outrageous,” Nadelmann said. The US has ramped up its military presence in the Caribbean, including vessels carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles and a nuclear-powered submarine. On September 15, the administration also escalated tensions in the region by designating Colombia as noncooperative in the drug war for the first time in 30 years—though it held off, for now, on associated sanctions that would result in major aid cuts. “I’d love to know what SOUTHCOM thinks about all this,” said Nadelmann, who authored the book Cops Across Borders: The Internationalization of U.S. Criminal Law Enforcement (1993). He noted that the US Southern Command works in close collaboration with Latin American counterparts and needs to maintain good relationships. President Gustavo Petro of Colombia has been clear about what he thinks of the US strikes. “Drug traffickers live in Miami, New York, Paris, Madrid and Dubai, he told Colombian radio station La FM. “Many have blue eyes and blond hair, and they don’t live on the boats where the missiles fall. Drug traffickers live next to Trump’s house in Miami.” Petro has previously said that drug policy should be approached as a public health, rather than a military issue—an approach the Trump administration is sabotaging with massive health funding cuts. “We have to end the disastrous policy that blames farmers [for cocaine production] and doesn’t ask why in some societies people consume drugs until they kill themselves,” Petro told a 2023 conference. He has criticized the drug war and crop eradication, and called for the legalization of cocaine. Petro is livid about the country’s redesignation. He reiterated that the drug trade is driven by demand, not supply, and wondered why his people have to suffer to prevent “North American society from smearing their noses in cocaine.” He added that he viewed redesignation as a means to influence Colombia’s 2026 election. “The Colombian people will reply if they want a puppet president … or a free and sovereign nation.”... |
Comments
Post a Comment