Want to join the MAGA Mafia or Amercian Gestapo? Make your bones by turning in your DEI neighbor or colleague. By Hal M.Brown

 

Frank Figluizzi,who served as assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, posted a photo of someone painting a wall at the FBI Academy on BlueSky (here) which lists operativenss, fairness, compassion, integrity, initative, respect, and stability as some of the core values of the agency. It also lists diversity.

The photo was published in The Washington Post article 

Several senior FBI leaders told to leave agency or be fired, people familiar with matter say: 

The ultimatum was unusual for the FBI and suggested that President Donald Trump is purging leadership at an agency he has harshly criticized.

If you don't have a subsription to the Post you can read a summary of the article on RawStory.

This coincides with news that senior FBI agents are being fired across the country.

What I wondered about was just who decided this wall was offensive because it had one word, diversity, on it which would offend Kash Patel when he saw it. I think the bottom word is Constitution which would also be unacceptable to the likes of Patel and Trump.

It occurred to me that somebody with authority thought that they could curry favor with Kash Pateland Trump if they took credit for getting rid of it. I thought this was like a foot soldier in the Mafia making their bones by carrying out a hit for the capos. I bet they have a smile on their face today and are waiting for their reward.

I thought this was akin to ordinary Germans, an adult or a child, reporting a Jewish family they knew of to the Gestapo. Germans proved how loyal they were by being accessories to murder. I have no doubt that they were rewarded when they informed on Jews. In Holland citizens were paid a bounty for informing on Jews.

No Americans will be sent to a concentration camp and die in a gas chamber, starved, or worked to death because of the quest to root out DEI from the government. They won't exactly be like those who were called "willing executioners" in Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, the 1996 book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen. Not exactly, but how many of them would have been like Hitler's willing executioners?

People are being incentivized to report those they think are DEI hires. In this effort to purge the federal government of all DEI hires, people will loss their jobs, their lives will be disrupted, they and their families will suffer.

As a result of proving their loyalty and zeal, lower members of the MAGA mafia move up to positions of having more power. 

I made screen grabs of parts of the Mission Page on the FBI website because it has the word diversity on it, and also includes on the very top upholding the Constitution and, under priories, protection of civil rights.

Diversity is on the bottom of the list of core values. How long it will take before it is sucked into the black hole of Trump's lsy for revenge remains to be seen. I'll keep up on this and let readers know.

Something else that may disappear from an FBI website is on the FBI Selection page. Below is a list of the disqualifiers. Note what is listed at number three.

Click to enlarge

Having knowingly or willfully engaged in acts designed to overthrow the U.S. goverment would disqualify anyone who was part of J6. There's nothing there about them having been pardoned. I wonder if this will be dropped as a disqualifier and J6 insurrentionists will end up as FBI agents.

This could mean that Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes might become an FBI agent as long as his disability, having lost an eye, wouldn't make him a DEI hire.

He could end up as a member of the FBI SWAT team.

The FBI under Kash Patel will become a modern day Gestapo as it tracks down members of "the deep state." 

Instead of the small caliber Walther PPK (above) the Gestapo carried, they carry  full-size Glock 17 and compact Glock 19 pistols in 9mm. Regular agents can be backed up by FBI SWAT teams with assault rifles when they make arrests. Wait for the photo ops.

I bet Kash Patel can't wait to have an FBI badge and a Glock on his belt as he struts into the FBI building (which I doubt will be turned into a museum) with his protection detail.

Addendum:

Here are some of the replies to Frank Figluzzi's BlueSky post (click to enlarge them):

Updates: Read this by Andrew Weissmann.

Not all of the DEI scrubbing makes the headlines. Consider:

'Absolutely furious': Pioneering female astronomer’s legacy rewritten amid diversity purge

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches

What's wrong with this picture? Anti-DEI Trump demands best and brightest and gives us RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel, by Hal M. Brown

 

Nuff said.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

It is time for Rachel Maddow cut the chuckling and get deadly serious. by Hal M. Brown

 

I have admired Rachel Maddow ever since she began her show on MSNBC. I always agree with everything she says. I don't always agree with how she says it or how she produces her show. I address the latter today.

Last night Rachel Maddow found something to smile and chuckle over about something Trump did. I found this to be inappropriate.

I wanted to find a picture for this Substack of Rachel Maddow to illustrate the habit she has of laughing inappropriately when discussing something serious. I looked up "Rachel Maddow laughing" and found more than I expected to in this: 

Rachel Maddow laughs at white supremacists whining about money woes before Charlottesville trial

Out MSNBC host Rachel Maddow laughed at complaints from white supremacists about their upcoming trial for inciting violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Maddow also mocked the white, straight, cisgender men at their choice to represent themselves after their lawyers quit the case, saying “couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.”

The article didn't offer an opinion about her laughing about something so serious.

Last night Rachel Maddow began her show with a long explanation about Trump using a family crest which the previous owners of Mar-a-Lago left behind on a wall for his own self-agrandizement. It was off-putting to me because she sounded rather chipper and she smiled and chuckled occasionally as she went on. 

She told about his new challenge coin. Wikipedia explains what they are, but in brief, they have been used by many other presidents and by the military to show appreciation to individuals.  

Bottom: Trump's coin with the crest and Donald J. Trump on it.

At least she didn't waste time, like I am about to do, telling about his 2017 challenge coin. This is from The NY Times:

What’s big and shiny and gold and features Donald J. Trump’s name splashed across the front? No, it’s not a new development on the West Side of Manhattan. It’s the redesigned presidential challenge coin.

A custom dating back 20 years, presidential challenge coins have traditionally been handed out to service members in commemoration of special achievements and milestones. President Trump’s coin, which many saw on Friday for the first time, is unmistakably different from its predecessors.

Gone is the national motto, E pluribus unum, meaning “out of many, one.” In its place appears the president’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” which the administration has also used on official White House documents.

This would have been approprate if the segment was merely about Trump's narcissim. Besides, his stealing the family crest is old news. The only thing new is his putting it on a coin. Here's a BBC article about it from 2017:

The title of this segment was "Trump makes laughingstock of America with repeated embarrassments in early days of term." His being the laughingstock of the world doesn't mean we should be laughing at him. You can watch the segment here. 

She talked about his saying that Hezbolah used condoms in making bombs and quizically asking just how this would work. She talked about his saying that the US sent military troops into Calfornia to turn on the water, and other things not at all related to his appropriation of the crest of another family. She talked about how Trump thought Spain was a member of the BRIC nation group. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. All this is fodder for discussion, but it had nothing to do with the family crest story. 

Rachel frequently begins her show with a backstory, but it always connects to what she then goes on to address. This one didn't. It just gave her something light to talk about.

Rachel never made the connection between Trump's wanting to have a family crest and an aspect of his dark and dangerous personality. She could have made the connection by doing this.

Better yet...

 ... she could have explained that demonstrates that Trump is an exemplar of someone manifesting all of the traits of The Dark Triad. The triad is narcissism, psychopathology, and Machiavellianism. These traits have been described as occuring together in a malevolent way. I won't waste space going further into this here since you can look it up on Wikipedia.

Click to enlarge image

I have never seen Rachel Maddow address the psychopathology of Trump. On the other hand, Lawrence O'Donnell regularly has mental health professionals on his show addressing this subject. 

Recently he had psychoanalyst Lance Dodes on. This was just after Trump announced his desire, or threat, to take over Greenland. You can watch the segment here.

O'Donnell previously had both Dodes and psychologist John Gartner, the founder of Duty to Warn, on the show.

Rachel Maddow came back to doing a five night a week show to cover the first 100 days of Trump's presidency with great fanfare on MSNBC. 

I see from the MSNBC website that she went on to discuss Trump going too far in his zeal to dismantle the federal government and interviewing Tim Walz. I don't know whether those segements were worth watching because when she went to commercial after 25 minutes we went back to watching "The Night Agent" on Netflix.

This is the second Substack I've written expressing dismay that Rachel sometimes takes things too lightly. Read it all here.

I wrote, among other things, the following:

I don't want to pick on Rachel Maddow in particular, but she seems to be the worst offender. Others, like Lawrence O'Donnell, Michelle Wallace, and Ali Velshi, report on Trump and what he is doing with gravity. But Rachel seems to have a kind of nervous reaction sometimes, not all of the time, when she laughs or chuckles when reporting on Trump and his cadre.

There is nothing remotely amusing about Trump and about what he is doing. He is hell-bent on turning the country into a ruthless dictatorship as soon as possible.  Nobody on MSNBC should crack a smile when they talk about him even if they are reporting on some of his faux pas. 

I am open to considering that Rachel's approach is acceptable just because, however she comes across, she gets under Trump's thin skin. I measure this possiblity against how it effects her audience. I think of the impact Walter Chronkite had when he came out against the VietNam War.  

It is time for Rachel to say she isn't going to crack so much as a hint of a smile until the menace of MAGA is gone.

I think the peril of Trump will begin to sink in. It may take more reporting on children cowering in fear and crying when ICE agents manhandle their parents who are in chains when they are loaded onto airplanes.

Rereading this, written just five days ago, I realize that the actions Trump has taken since then demonstrate that he is hellbent on riding roughshod over democracy. In his fervor to get revenge on his enemies as he demands alligence from the GOP lest they, too, become his enemies, he makes no secret of the fact that he wants to become a ruthless dictator. Forget the "day one" crap and the lie about not knowing about Project 2025. This is his plan.

I expect more from Rachel Maddow. I think her lead-in last night was basically shtick. Chuckle, chuckle, so Trump is a self-aggrandizing asshole. Yeah, we know that, but he's an asshole that has nominated somone to be FBI director who, as a wrote about yesterday, wants to put you in prison.

I've given up on the "Morning Joe" crew. They or their producers insist on spending time talking about sports and having entertainment segments on. The other morning they had a relevant discussion about Trump and then had John Larrouqutte on talking about the revival of "Night Court." That's when we tuned in to CNN. 

What is happening to the couunty is, as the sayings go, as serious as a heart attack or a cancer diagnosis. Now it is time for Rachel Maddow to get deadly serious. 

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

Trump's gift to the press is Candy Karoline. At least she's better looking than Joseph Goebbels, by Hal M. Brown

 

Joseph Goebbels served his master well as his minister of propaganda. Without television Hitler didn't need a pretty face.

I watched Rachel last night when she explained unequivocally that Trump was intent on becoming a dictator and implied that anyone who denied this was a fool. If you watched this you may have had trouble falling asleep and woke from a nightmare in the wee hours of the morning. It may have crossed your mind that it is in these hours that Trump was wide awake and sending out a post on what probably should be called "Terror Social" announcing his latest assault on democracy.

How many of us look at the news on TV or online and ask ourselves "what did Trump do today?"

Just now having turned off MSNBC because they had John Larroquette on talking about the new "Night Court." I consider this their fiddling while Rome is burning. On CNN I watched a clip of Trump's Press Secretary, Karoline Leavit, lambasting the mainstream press for lying while effusively praising Trump for always telling the truth. This led me to write about her today.

Here's an article about her which people in India are reading.

This sentence jumped out at me:

The lifelong Trump loyalist is a avid gun-lover and shared a video on Instagram showing her unloading a machine gun at a firing range with the caption “Joe Biden come and take it”. 

Obviously she likes having a husband old enough to be her father. She seems to have a crush on someone old enough to be her grandfather.  Have I gone to far in suggesting this? How important is pleasing Trump to her? Consider this from the Hindustan Times:

Karoline Leavitt is a new mother who gave birth to a son in July last year amid Trump's election campaign. Leavitt refused to take a maternity leave and rejoined work four days after giving birth following an assassination attempt on Trump.

In the press conference she also announced that she was inviting podcasters, social media influencers, and new media voices to apply for press credentials. You can watch the video here.

At least she didn't call them journalists. Does anybody expect to see someone from The Bulwark or Salon added to the White House press corps?

Maybe I should apply.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

 

If Rachel Maddow isn't on the top of Kash Patel's media hit list, after last night's take-down she is now, by Hal M. Brown

 

Rachel Maddow is known for wearing the same black outfit on all of her shows. Kash Patel wants to put her in prison orange. Patel aspires to be Trump's Hermann Göring with his own Gestapo.

Background: Nazi Gestapo.

Bottom:  Hermann Göring and Hitler

To fully appreciate why I titled this the way I did, watch the 11 minute segment of last night's Rachel Maddow show (here).

Here are some screen grabs:

Talking about J6 insurrectionists

Blaming J6 on the FBI

Veiled threat about prosecution the media

Like most of us, I knew about his book which listed some 60 people he labeled enemies of the state and that he included the anti-Trump media in general.

I knew about his saying that on his first day he'd close the FBI building and turn it into a museum of the deep state. 

He also insisted on a far right podcast that he can prove that the FBI was responsible for the J6 attack on the Capitol.

I knew about his children's book series with the stupid names for Hillary and Biden.

I didn't know about the extent of his grandiose narcissistic grifting and his hawking self-aggrandizeing merch. Rachel covered that, but it isn't in the video clip.

I wonder if Patel is the only nominee who has his own website featuring Donald Trump and a plea for donations to his own foundation on the main page.

Check out the crap he is selling on his website (here).

He says this one is perfect "for the wall of your man cave."

This is a version of the Donald Trump Punisher logo that he's adopted to promote himself. I don't kmow who first came up with it, and frankly, I don't give a damn.

Today HuffPost published 

Donald Trump’s Most Controversial Cabinet Picks Face Skeptical GOP Senators

The confirmation battles over Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be a test of how much Trump has changed the Republican Party.

There's no mention of Kash Patel in the article.

We all know why RFJ Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard are dangerous. One imperils the health of the nation and the other puts our national security at risk. I propose that if you add Kash Patel to the list of the three worst yet to be confirmed he is more dangerous than the two of them combined. He is in a position to drive the real top-cops out of the FBI and replace them with a corps like Hitler's Gestapo. 

While real criminals lookig for the federal laws they can break with impunity will celebrate, we should realize that Patel cares nothing about tradtional federal law enforcement. The Gestapo never went after bank robbers and kidnappers.

I think that the Rachel Maddow segment on Kash Patel should be required viewing for every GOP senator. Let them explain how they could vote to confirm this paranoid lunatic who aspires to be Trump's  Hermann Göring.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.