This just popped up on my feed and made me laugh, wrt Joe:
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Had to triple check to make sure this wasnât the same story being rehashed for the umpteenth time. Still not sure about that. Feels like this story, or something troublingly similar, gets published every few months. And in spite of all the undercover agents and investigative journalists trying as hard as they can to sound the alarm about the massive looming threat that is white nationalism, nothing changes. Almost as if racism and white supremacy were the defining features of our republic.
Glad there are still at least a few arms of the law enforcement apparatus in this country willing to investigate and curtail some of the worst of the worst in these groups before they act on their ideologies. But the events of January 6, 2021 and reports like this Rolling Stone article suggest that their efforts have, at best, just scratched the surface of a much larger problem.
Law enforcement is largely hindered by law. Theyâre just out there trying to stop the ones that they see as likely to actually commit heinous acts of mass murder. Just being a terrible white supremacist isnât enough for even âgoodâ cops to do anything about. As long as the nazis have the first two amendments to hide behind, thatâs how itâs gonna be.
Understood that Nazis et al. enjoy the protection of the 1st amendment and other fundamental rights in this country. Still odd that being a member of, collaborating, or sympathizing with well known domestic terror organizations doesnât seem to prevent these people from infiltrating the military, law enforcement, or other powerful government institutions. Having ever smoked weed, for imperfect example, can preclude you from a ton of government jobs and contracts, but being a nazi, not so much. But I donât know. Maybe Iâm the crazy one and this isnât as big a deal as it seems.
Oh no, itâs absolutely the biggest deal. Iâm just pointing out that people like our FBI agent in the story here probably would have liked to do much more than he did, and that itâs because of words on paper that he could not. And those words on paper make us all very much less safe.
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This is true. Itâs just frustrating as all fuck. Like seeing someone actively attempting to burn your house down, but being unable to stop them because itâs not illegal to play with matches. We traffic in absurdities to our own detriment.
One thing I found interesting in that article:
For several years, our unit had been a lackluster crew, not known for having ass kickers,â says Scott. That changed in a hurry with him around. He built the case on the Aryan Nations that lasted 18 months. The windfall payoff in arrests and seizures showed DTOS â the Domestic Terror command in Washington â âthat you could bring major cases against white supremacists, and that we needed more bodiesâ to do so, he adds.
I donât think itâs exactly how they feel about it, but, the way I initially took that was the sense that they diddnât care about the morals or implications of different groups on society as much as theyâre concerned with the idea of allocating resources to where they can most effectively make the highest score: making arrests, seizing money, etc. Doesnât matter if theyâre all fairly inconsequential, as long its low-hanging-fruit with big returns. So it seems to them, if you have an important problem to deal with but canât really make a lot of arrests, then not worth putting resources into it.
The other way I read it maybe with a little different angle is that the brass had just not seen it to be a big problem that was doing much worth worrying about, small crimes with mostly inconsequential fallout barely distinguishable from local criminal shenanigans; so not worth spending time on it with big-time assets, vs staying on the more serious issues. But by putting people into those groups (and to some degree facilitating/emboldening them) they can start to find heavier situations that are actually quite serious and which they can do something about.
It might be some bit of both angles.
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Spoilers - itâs Furber and Watkins, exactly who we already knew it was.
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Meanwhile, in GermanyâŚ
Something big and strange happened. The ongoing investigation is fairly quiet right now.
Basically, two individuals with a lot of suspicious money posed as DHS agents and bribed Secret Service agents with free luxury apartments, guns, surveillance equipment, drones, and other paraphenalia for some yet-to-be-revealed criminal purpose.
The agents were in the Vice Presidentâs detail.
Some terrifying quotes from the article.
Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect the first lady.
Taherzadeh is accused of providing Secret Service officers and agents with rent-free apartments â including a penthouse worth over $40,000 a year â along with iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, flat screen television, a generator, gun case and other policing tools
The whole operationâs cover was blown by, of all things, the US Post Office. The suspects assaulted a postal worker and pissed off other people living in their building, and very rapidly the USPI and FBI became involved.
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Also how low is the hanging fruit for bribes? That âluxury penthouseâ is lower rent than my 2BR in Queens.
I was going to say, that doesnât seem like a lot for, I guess, Washington DC.
Iâm always shocked at how little it takes to bribe people who are so much more powerful than I am.
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I would love to know where I could get a penthouse apartment in DC for $40,000 a year. Even if it was $400,000, that would still be incredibly cheap by DC standards.
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You can pretty much buy a sitting congressperson - or an article with editorial control in VICE, for that matter - for about the price of a mid-range Camry.
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