They streamlined white-collar corruption

I read the transcript of another episode of Gaslit Nation by Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa. This episode is titled Investigations Now!. It’s the first episode of the Biden era. This episode was posted on January 27 with the transcript posted a few days later. Kendzior has been saying for a long time the nasty guy administration is (thankfully, now was) “a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government” and a “mafia White House.” Though the nasty guy is no longer in the White House the hostile actors that put him there and supported him still endure. For example, Vladimir Putin is cracking down on the protesters who oppose him. Chalupa reviewed the situation in Russia. Yeah, it’s thrilling to see the protests. When introducing her film Mr. Jones about the famine in Ukraine made worse by Stalin, she worked with the hotbed of Russian resistance in Kyiv, Ukraine, ready for when Russia is read. It now looks like Russia is ready. Putin likes to scare the country by saying if you overthrow me it’s back to the car bomb ‘90s, the oligarch turf wars after the fall of the Soviet Union. But that doesn’t resonate with the youth born in the late ‘90s and after who only know Putin. And they don’t like him. These protests may be centered on Navalny, but are larger than him. However, like the nasty guy, Putin will burn it down to stay in power. Dictatorship terror will increase. Democracies must unite in showing consequences, not in conducting business as usual. Kendzior said that America has a second chance to fix things. But the odds are long when massive state forces are backed by billionaires. Protesting in spite of those odds is a powerful thing. There has been an axis of autocrats – Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Hungary, Israel, at times even North Korea – that the nasty guy was a part of. This was policy in the US even before the nasty guy. But with the Kremlin asset out of the White House we can see the issue more clearly and Biden can act differently. Several US administrations have refused to look at transnational crime. Such crime supports the Kremlin. Kendzior’s book Hiding in Plain Sight traces this syndicate and the hold it has on American players over the last 40 years. One consequence of kicking the nasty guy off social media is we don’t know what he and his goons are planning. Kendzior knows they aren’t retiring to their yachts. They will likely continue to encourage civil war and an attack on the Capitol. And after only three weeks there are calls to move on and make nice. Alas, it looks like there will be no accountability for the attack on the Capitol that nearly resulted in representatives being murdered. Kendzior spoke of signs that accountability is not on the horizon. One sign is the Justice Department and FBI debate not charging some of the rioters. Kendzior reviewed what happened, including bragging on social media, and is infuriated there is debate. Several rioters were found because they did interviews with the New York Times and gave real names and hometowns. (She wonders why the NYT would produce such puff pieces.) We have a culture that coddles these criminals. That wouldn’t happen if they were black or Muslim. The double standard is incredible. That double standard is even worse when the bad actors are members of Congress. Other members no longer feel safe. One of these bad actors is Lauren Boebert. I’ve written about another, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yet, nothing happens. If there are no consequences three weeks after a violent attack on the Capitol, there will be more violence to come. These bad actors are backed by billionaires and powerful lawyers. The movement is well financed and violent. Kendzior said:

As AOC tweeted after she heard about her potential assassin being arrested, she said, "On one hand, you have to laugh, and on the other, know that the reason they were this brazen is because they thought they were going to succeed." That is the takeaway here. They thought they were going to win. They thought Trump was going to protect them. They thought that they were going to be able to control our country with utter impunity. This goes for the individuals in the crowd who rushed the Capitol, but it particularly goes for the group of felons who worked for Trump's campaign, who helped bring him to power, and who Trump pardoned just weeks before with this in mind. … All of this happened in plain sight; the planning, the execution, and now the lack of accountability is also happening in plain sight. You can't let that be the excuse. A plan doesn't need to be secret to be revolting, and dangerous, and atrocious.

Without accountability they still might succeed. Chalupa said we must expose those who propped up the seditionists. Expose the people and corporations who donated. Name and shame or they’ll do it again. They are at war with us. Alas Democratic leadership may not recognize that. Kendzior lives in St. Louis. She said Missouri is the way it is because there is so much dark money. The laws that permit and shield dark money were enacted before the Citizens United case in which the Supreme Court permitted dark money. Missouri was a testing ground for dark money and Sen. Josh Hawley was a big recipient. We need to shine a light on this. However, the GOP has been making such investigation difficult to do. And if you take on that project investigate Democrat funding too. Don’t let the long years of senior senators fool you into thinking they’re trustworthy. Biden’s inauguration did not magically make all the problems go away. The problems began a long time ago with these actors (many who could have been convicted of a crime decades ago and were not) plotting and waiting to strike through blackmail or corruption. They streamlined white-collar corruption and transnational crime into Wall Street and government institutions. We live in an age of elite criminal impunity, whitewashed by the media. Even QAnon people agree that must change. If all of this isn’t investigated and prosecuted Kendzior thinks America will collapse within a decade. A nation can’t survive if this level of attack continues. Investigation needs to happen for the victims, for restoring public trust, for prosecuting the perpetrators, for setting a precedent so this doesn’t happen again. Though the nasty guy committed a crime a day there are four that are at the top of Kendzior’s list in need of investigation and prosecution. They are: (1) The inaction to contain the virus, including lying about it. There are a huge number of related crimes. (2) The attack on the Capitol and the planning that went into it. Who helped? (3) The nasty guy’s complicity with Russia, both in the 2016 election and during his administration. Along with that were death threats against those who alerted the public of those crimes, such as Alexander Vindman, against judges and juries, and against whistleblowers. (4) Torture at the border, including separating children from their parents. Who is protecting Stephen Miller, author of these crimes? But that is just the top four. Chalupa lists more. At the top of her list is human trafficking. Don’t expect the courts, especially the freshly packed Supreme Court to do what it should do. We must do it, like Kendzior has done with her book.