Nov. 14, 2023 ❧ Trump pledges to build internment camps, Biden flouts his own policy to arm Israel, and the QAnon Shaman runs for Congress
Plus Kentucky dumps big bucks into ibogaine, Mike Johnson's creepy porn tracker, more on the Nord Stream pipeline mystery, Vivek's wacky plan to fire civil servants, and much more!
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BIG STORY
TRUMP THREATENS TO BUILD DETENTION CAMPS, CALLS OPPONENTS “VERMIN”
In a worrying development this weekend, Donald Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric to sound more explicitly fascist than ever before. During a Veterans’ Day speech in Claremont, New Hampshire, Trump proclaimed himself a “very proud election denier,” and promised to “root out” his political opponents, who he branded as “thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” Just in case anyone missed the message, he reposted it to Truth Social some hours later:
As several commentators were quick to point out, this is alarming stuff. The word “vermin,” in particular, has historically been used by dictators like Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize particular types of people, and single them out as targets.
And as if this weren’t enough, Trump’s team has also announced his intention to build a massive network of detention camps! Speaking to the New York Times, Stephen Miller—Trump’s primary advisor on immigration policy—says that “Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown” if he wins a second term, conducting a “blitz” of ICE raids and imprisoning immigrants in “vast holding facilities” to be constructed in Texas. Again, as if to underline the point, Miller says that “Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error.”
It’s not hard to see the direction all this is going. If Trump regains the presidency—and right now, he is the frontrunner—the prison camps might begin with unauthorized immigrants, but they wouldn’t end there. All it would take is one terrorist attack, violent riot, or any other national emergency that Trump and Miller could use as a pretext before their scope expanded dramatically. After all, if you seriously believe that Marxists, Muslims, and Black Lives Matter activists are trying to destroy the United States, why wouldn’t you imprison them when a useful crisis came along? In a new article, Current Affairs’ editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson sounds the warning bells:
Trump is a more frightening force than ever, and I think we should find it pretty alarming that the leading candidate for the U.S. presidency is openly announcing his plan for a network of concentration camps. If you have any familiarity with history, you know how this story can go. First it will be the immigrants. Then there’ll be some incident, and some other group is “detained” “temporarily” on an “emergency basis” for “reasons of national security.” You can watch the whole thing play out in your mind’s eye. [...] If it wasn’t already clear, our democracy is in very serious danger and everyone needs to wake up to the threat. Once new prison camps are built, they do not tend to close down. The time for stopping them is before they get built. It’s important to see major historical threats coming, before it’s too late to change course.
STORIES THAT SHOULD BE BIGGER
JOE BIDEN’S SALE OF WEAPONS TO ISRAEL VIOLATES HIS OWN ADMINISTRATION’S POLICY
As Israel wages war on the Gaza Strip, President Biden has authorized the sale of $320 million worth of weapons to Israel. The administration has also authored an aid package that would add another $2 billion to the $3.8 billion the U.S. already gives Israel in military assistance (prior to the war, Israel already received more than twice as much U.S. aid than the next highest country). In an unprecedented move, Biden has even asked Congress to waive the usual reporting requirements for weapons sales to Israel until 2025, which would prevent them from being scrutinized by the legislature or entered into the public record and allow the administration to sell up to $3.5 billion more worth of weapons without Congressional approval.
Since October 7, Israel’s bombing campaign has killed more than 11,100 people, more of 4 in 10 of whom are children, and has killed more civilians in just over a month than the Russian invasion of Ukraine has killed in more than a year and a half. More than 1 out of every 200 people in the Gaza Strip has been killed as part of Israel’s “War Against Hamas” while two-thirds have been displaced. Meanwhile, as of last week, the number of senior and mid-level Hamas leaders the IDF claimed to have killed sat at a whopping…60. That this war has involved almost wholesale slaughter of civilians should be enough for the Biden administration to pull back funding. They aren’t unaware that it’s happening. Though Biden has futilely tried to cast doubt on the death toll, even his own Secretary of State acknowledges that “Far too many Palestinians have been killed.” At the same time, Israeli Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the intent of the siege was to turn Gaza into a “city of tents” and admitted that when Israel drops bombs, the “emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”
For Biden to not only continue selling weapons to Israel, but to ramp them up, is not only an insult to international law, human rights, and basic humanity, it’s a contradiction of his administration’s own policy! Not even a year ago, President Biden issued a formal order—dubbed the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy—to federal agencies that forbade weapons transfers to countries where it is “more likely than not” that the weapons will be used to engage in “attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians” or used to commit “serious acts of violence against children.” One State Department official, Josh Paul, resigned over the Biden administration’s blatant ignoring of its own human rights policy, saying that through its “provision of lethal arms to Israel,” the administration “certainly not acting within the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy.”
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration was quick to point out its killing of civilians, calling them what they were: ”war crimes.” But now that an American ally is doing the same thing, all of the administration’s high-minded talk about international law and the “rules-based order” is out the window.
PEAK LIBERALISM:
An Israeli soldier holds up a Pride flag in front of a demolished Palestinian (or “P*********n”) village. Can’t discriminate against gay people if everyone, including those gay people, is dead!
PAST AFFAIRS
AROUND THE STATES
❧ Louisiana’s new Governor Jeff Landry wants to hold funding for clean water hostage until women are prosecuted for having abortions. In Essence, Gabrielle A. Perry calls it “a horrifying intersection of reproductive rights and environmental justice,” and she’s not wrong. Before he became Governor in last month’s election, Landry was Louisiana’s Attorney General. In that capacity, he repeatedly urged state officials not to approve any financing for infrastructure projects in New Orleans or the surrounding areas, until the city reversed its policy of declining to enforce a statewide abortion ban. Most notably, he objected to $32.7 million in funding to build a new power plant for the Sewerage and Water Board, an important component in shoring up Orleans Parish’s civil infrastructure. As Governor, Landry will now have the line-item veto power to take these funding decisions into his own hands—and with environmental disasters like the recent saltwater intrusion threatening the city’s drinking supply, it’s unclear how long New Orleans officials will be able to maintain their principled stand for women’s reproductive rights. Landry won’t even take office until January 8, but with vicious policy ideas like these, he’s already giving far-right governors like Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis a run for their money.
❧ Illinois is rolling back its controversial “school choice” voucher program. Under the Invest in Kids Act, individuals and businesses got tax credits for donating to private school scholarships and vouchers, allowing them to essentially “redirect” their taxes to pay for private rather than public schooling. As Forbes points out, the voucher system was a deceptive way of making it appear that the schools in question weren’t receiving taxpayer money, but every dollar they got created a shortfall in the Illinois state budget, causing citizens to “either pay more or accept cuts in services.” In turn, many of the private schools that benefited were blatantly discriminatory, with 1 in 5 having anti-LGBTQ policies, and only 13 percent having any special education students. As a result, a coalition of regional groups—including Illinois chapters of the ACLU, NAACP, National Association of Social Workers, Democratic Socialists of America, and the Chicago Teachers’ Union—came together under the banner of Illinois Families for Public Schools, and began pressuring their elected leaders to overturn the policy. Their work has finally paid off, as the state’s House of Representatives has decided not to extend the Invest in Kids Act, which is set to expire on January 1. It’s a landmark victory against the privatization of America’s school system and for a free, high-quality education as a universal human right.
❧ Kentucky is pioneering research into ibogaine—an unusual psychedelic treatment—for opioid addiction. Earlier this fall, the state’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron (who failed to oust Democratic Governor Andy Beshear) announced that the state would pour $42 million worth of state money into developing the alternative treatment known as ibogaine, a psychoactive substance that comes from the African iboga plant, which is often used for ceremonial purposes similarly to ayahuasca. That money came from an $842 million settlement made by opioid manufacturers with the state of Kentucky, one of the states hardest hit by drug overdose deaths. Some medical experts have questioned the wisdom of pouring so many desperately needed resources into a drug that has not been clinically proven to work beyond a few anecdotes and which has some clear risks, including heart attacks. There is also some possible political shadiness involved in the sudden, seemingly out-of-left-field, embrace of the drug among Republican politicians and donors in the state who’d previously never discussed it, and who typically oppose drug legalization. The Daily Beast has reported on “an intricate nest of political and corporate ties” that could explain how ibogaine suddenly became a pet project of Kentucky Republicans:
Those ties include a sitting U.S. Senator, a top GOP strategist, and a billionaire Republican megadonor who recently put millions of dollars into a group backing Cameron’s faltering gubernatorial campaign. That megadonor, longtime conservative financier Jeff Yass, stands to reap massive profits from the development of ibogaine, which, despite its controversies and health drawbacks, has begun to attract a niche following of devoted patients and investors as a potential miracle cure to break opioid addiction… Yass’ firm sharply increased its investment in ibogaine research around the time of Cameron’s announcement, and executives at two of the firms Yass is invested in have rallied openly for the Kentucky program, including in public hearing testimony this summer… About a week after Cameron’s ibogaine announcement, Yass gave $3 million to a super PAC that has recently pumped out at least $1.2 million worth of ads backing Cameron’s candidacy, according to Federal Election Commission filings. That donation has accounted for roughly 98 percent of the group’s total reported fundraising this year.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF IBOGAINE IN POLITICS
Fans of Hunter S. Thompson may remember ibogaine from the notorious passage in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, ‘72 in which Thompson describes a rumor floating around Milwaukee that Democratic front-runner “Big Ed” Muskie was addicted to ibogaine. “Not much has been written about the Ibogaine Effect as a serious factor in the presidential campaign,” Thompson wrote in Rolling Stone. “Word leaked out that some of Muskie’s top advisers called in a Brazilian doctor who was said to be treating the candidate with ‘some kind of strange drug.’” The rumor, which Thompson was never able to confirm, then spread far and wide and may have contributed to Muskie—whom Thompson despised and once called a “vicious 200-pound water rat” — eventually sliding in the polls, which led to the crowning of Thompson’s favored candidate, the anti-war George McGovern, as the party nominee. Thompson later admitted that what he’d spread was meant to be a joke and that he “couldn’t believe that people took this stuff seriously.”
From page 177 of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, ‘72
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ New revelations suggest a Ukrainian military officer “coordinated” the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline system. According to a joint investigative report by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel, the officer in question was Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s special forces. Citing unnamed “officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe,” the Post says Chervinsky handled logistics for a six-person team that placed explosive charges on both the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, destroying them in late September 2022. The paper’s sources suggest that Chervinsky was not the ultimate architect of the Nord Stream sabotage mission, but was in fact taking orders from his superiors in the Ukrainian military—specifically General Valery Zaluzhny, its commander-in-chief—and that president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was deliberately kept out of the loop. Interestingly, this contradicts earlier reporting by journalist Seymour Hersh, who claimed that American diving teams were responsible for the pipeline explosions. For Responsible Statecraft, Kelley Beaucar Vlahos wonders whether “Chervinsky is being used as a convenient fall guy or patsy” for other political actors. Until more information comes out, the truth is likely to remain elusive.
❧ Syriza, the largest opposition party in Greece, has split. Complaining of “right-leaning populism” and “Trumpian practices” within the party, the left-wing Umbrella faction has left Syriza altogether. Led by Greece’s former Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, Umbrella “[has] the backing of most of Syriza’s youth wing,” according to the Associated Press, and is expected to become a new party. Divisions with Syriza came to a head after the party suffered crushing electoral losses in May and June, handing an absolute majority to the conservative New Democracy party. These prompted leader Alexis Tsipras to resign, and be replaced by Stefanos Kasselakis—a relative newcomer to Greek politics, who’d previously been a Goldman Sachs banker and lived in Miami. For obvious reasons, Greek socialists looked on Kasselakis with suspicion, and the feeling was mutual, as he attempted to “expel prominent dissenters from the party.” Instead, it seems his leadership has caused Syriza to disintegrate altogether. We can only hope the Greek left is able to rebuild from the wreckage, and come back stronger.
❧ Human rights groups are accusing the Kenyan government of illegally evicting indigenous Ogiek people from their ancestral lands in the Mau Forest. According to one Ogiek leader, Daniel Kobei, armed forest rangers have begun ripping down homes and critical infrastructure:
“The first day they started bringing down houses using axes, hammers and pangas [machetes]. They brought down the school, and on the second day they even started burning some houses. Now, they have gone back with heavy machines to bring down houses that were not completely destroyed …. They are really bringing down everything.”
According to community leaders, 400 houses have been demolished, and many families have been displaced. The Ogiek have faced systemic evictions from the Mau forest for decades despite rulings by the African Court on Human and People’s Rights saying that they had the right to remain on the land. Their lawyers say that the government is doing this to take advantage of provisions in the emerging carbon credit market, which allows companies to purchase licenses to pollute by paying forest owners to offset their carbon emissions. The program is a market-based attempt to incentivize the preservation of forests that serve as critical climate sinks with the goal of offsetting emissions—but like any venture that allows for profit, powerful actors will try to take advantage. That appears to be what’s happening here. Lucy Claridge, the Director of the International Lawyer’s project, told the BBC that Kenya has recently negotiated with a Dubai-based firm called Blue Carbon, which has made deals with several other African countries to allow them to control 24.5 million hectares of African land. Founded only a year ago, the company has no actual experience handling carbon offsetting projects. Despite the increasing evidence that carbon trading is not having the promised effect on climate change, which is affecting Africa more acutely than most other places, the African carbon market continues to be championed within the international community and is becoming an increasingly lucrative investment for Western firms.
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (“Or, what is going on with our politicians?”)
❧ Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House, uses a creepy porn-tracking app and sends the data to his son. In a recently resurfaced clip from 2022, Johnson explained that he and his son both use Covenant Eyes, a piece of surveillance software designed by Christian fundamentalists that monitors all the activity on a person’s electronic devices. Apparently, they serve as each other’s “accountability partner” to ensure they never, ever see any adult content online:
My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. He’s 17. So he and I get a report about all the things that are on our phones, all of our devices, once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice. I’m proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate.
Now, there are legitimate concerns about the porn industry, from addiction to the mistreatment of actors and models—but a system of reciprocal spying between a grown man and his teenage son is just plain weird. In the past, people under parole have been forced to download Covenant Eyes by their parole officers, in a truly Orwellian abuse of state power. And as Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling points out in the New Republic, having a shady tech company constantly scanning the phone of the Speaker of the House is probably not ideal, from a national security standpoint!
❧ Jacob Chansley, better known as the “QAnon Shaman,” is running for Congress in Arizona. Of all the Trump supporters who invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6, Chansley might be the most notorious, mainly because of his wacky buffalo headdress and star-spangled face paint. He served roughly 27 months in prison for insurrection-related crimes—most notably and was released this March. Now, he’s filed paperwork to run for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, on the Libertarian ticket (of course). In theory, his campaign should be a ludicrous joke. But then, people like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene have successfully become U.S. Representatives, so having bizarre and nonsensical beliefs isn’t necessarily a barrier to entry. In a best-case scenario, Chansley may divert the votes of hardcore Trump supporters away from Blake Masters, who’s running as a Republican, and hand the 8th District to a non-lunatic candidate. (If there are any of those left.)
❧ Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has introduced a new, absolutely bananas plan to fire half of all government employees. On Sunday, he tweeted:
On Day 1, *instantly* fire 50% of federal bureaucrats. Here’s how: if your SSN ends in an odd number, you’re fired. That downsizes government by half. Absolutely *nothing* will break as a result. It doesn’t violate civil service rules because mass layoffs are exempt. SHUT IT DOWN.
It’s a classic Vivek policy— seemingly intended to provoke confusion and outrage more so than to actually be workable. Can you imagine for a second if the Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Health and Human Services, Postal Service, and Food and Drug Administration, just to name a few, suddenly lost 50 percent of their employees, completely randomly, overnight? It’s hard to imagine that “absolutely *nothing* will break.” I suppose that could be true if you just don’t care about food being inspected, packages being delivered promptly, veterans receiving healthcare, or seniors getting their Social Security checks on time. But even if you don’t think these things matter, it’s hard to imagine many people being won over by Vivek’s “I’m going to add more than 1 million people to the unemployment rolls” plank.
THRIFT SOME OLD CURRENT AFFAIRS ISSUES!
Some surely delightful person named “sunshinesunshine321” is selling 11 old print issues of Current Affairs Magazine on eBay for just $60.00, plus shipping (a bargain!) — bids are currently at $40 for the whole set.
We can’t imagine why they’d want to part with our terrific magazine. But we do hope that these issues will be rehomed with someone who will appreciate and cherish them. The set is listed as being in “Very Good” condition, and includes:
May/June 2017, May/June 2018, Nov/Dec 2018, Mar/Apr 2020, July/Aug 2020, Nov/Dec 2020, Jan/Feb 2021, July/Aug 2022, Mar/Apr 2023
FROG FACT OF THE WEEK
The Vietnamese mossy frog is a master of disguise.
Also known as the Tonkin Bug-Eyed Frog, Theloderma corticale lives throughout northern Vietnam, southern Laos, and parts of southern China. There, it perches motionless on trees and cliff faces, waiting for unsuspecting insects to come near the “moss” and become lunch. You never know—one could be watching you right now.
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Fact-checking by Justin Ward. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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