Sounds like so many corporations. The people who do the real work and are smart and innovative often get screwed and the sociopathic, boot licking jerks get the credit and climb the greasy pole get the credit and rewards and try hard to become the head ASSHOLE.
Yes. This. I watched one lousy DEI management hire take down an entire department at Dell. All the good people left, corporate brown nosers took their place, scapegoating, bully tactics, and politiking came next. More people left (including me). Our numbers plummeted. They finally fired her about a year after I left but the division was toast.
It's all there in black and white in a book titled The Abilene Paradox.
Essentially...(if you don't want to read the book)... it's a collective fallacy, in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of most or all individuals in the group, while each individual believes it to be aligned with the preferences of most of the others..
In other words "None of us is as dumb as all of us together."
Bound to happen if the group doesn't include an intelligent, assertive leader. Too bad those traits are being selectively bred out of our social development from grammar school on. Not everybody's opinion is of the same value, believe it or not.
You describe a fundamental aspect of human nature. It occurs within hierarchal structures regardless of how small, even within families. One of the primary failure points in Mao's Great Leap Forward was the tendency of those forced into collectives to self-sort into those that worked and the rest that figured out how to avoid expending any physical effort. The result was a catastrophe.
That’s any commune, at any point in history. Interestingly, when the Cultural Revolution was in full swing, and the government basically stopped paying attention to what was going on in the countryside, many of the communes reverted back to basic market economics.
Yes, I agree, it was reported to have been the case with the early settlers from England as well - again some were all too willing to let others do the ''heavy lifting'', eventually necessitating a move back to simple market economics for the sake of survival.
It's real hard to fire civil service folks. But if you split them up and send them in ar bottom of totem pole. Not managers. Managers can start honestly assessing and culling bad ones by the need 3 write ups begore yuu can fire progressive disci5
Dept of HHS has 11 Operating Agencies underneath HHS and 8-9 Regional offices.
Best to move the serious bureaucrats out of Washington DC and put each of the Agencies into a different part of their country where the needs are greatest from that agency
75% of the people will quit vs being relocated to Des Moines IA.
Interesting she was guarded about saying anything good about him, because I got the impression she suspects him of also being a swamp creature, looking for millions.
That's what I inferred, too. He has worked mainly in government (if you count public defender as government) so it is possible. But no fancy white shoe Republican law firms or cushy sinecure in corporate law post Trump. So, I'm cautiously optimistic.
I don't think that. He's not swamp. But what she fears he may let her down and be in for power. Says she's cynical. That's not based on him per se. But anyone in that position. Hoping he can stay true. I think we all hope that.
What would you want our nation to do if a Mexican cartel came over the border and massacred 1000 people at your daughters high school graduation party...then took your daughter back with them into Mexico?
Great interview Matt! Thanks Coleen. I went through the FBI citizen's academy in Sacramento in 2008 -- it was a great experience, I learned so much. Field agents do the work and don't get enough credit of it. Most just want to do a good job and investigate crimes and put bad guys in prison. Some are power-hungry jerks. I hope Kash Patel really does clean it up, because we need a federal law enforcement agency we can trust and respect.
Yikes, I messed up re Hoover Building address when I said "Philadelphia Ave" instead of Pennsylvania Ave. I was obviously trying to talk faster than my neuron pathways could manage because I know how busy Matt Taibbi is!
There are a few details about that initial Moussaoui investigation that should be better clarified, for instance that the two Eagan flight instructors who separately notified the FBI--colleagues of Prevost and not his flight school management--and not even knowing each other were calling were actually whistleblowers themselves (as their management did not approve of their calling the FBI about a paying customer). And also that the full credit for the Minnesota agents' stellar pre 9-11 investigation belongs solely to them. They understood the dangerous emergency situation right from the start on August 16. I was just the legal counsel in the Minneapolis Office but as the legal person, I thought it fell to me, when I later went before the staff of the "Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry" to debunk the flimsy legal excuses that FBI Headquarters' had been leaking for months to the press, their wrongful excuses for having blocked the Minneapolis field agents.
Anyway, the 9-11 case is a great example of why more power to investigate should remain in the field (agents working under judicial oversight) and not with the more careerist, politically affected bureaucrats.
Thank you so much for what you did, Coleen, and are still doing for us. I thought back then you should be the director of the FBI, and nothing has changed my opinion.
Hopefully Kash will ask you to help in his effort to rebuild the FBI.
Why is it that this story was not fully told to the American people at the time? We heard bits and pieces but not the truth about the incompetence and stupidity of Headquarters.
Coleen you are a true Patriot and people like you and Matt inspire me. I remember reading about how Aretha Franklin was being watched by the FBI back in the day because she was friends with MLK and thought, talk about No R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Now would be a good time for you to work with Kash (if confirmed) and help pick a new name to replace J. Edgar Hoover's on headquarters.
Classic case of institutional rot. It's endemic and inevitable. Every institution, public and private, has this same story. The people that actually do their job well and with integrity get nowhere. It's the ass kissers and backstabbers and responsibility dodgers and performance metrics manipulators and unethical POSs that get the promotions. It's what brings down civilizations.
Pournelle's Iron law of bureaucracy. Let me paraphrase: those that serve the institution get the promotions, those that serve the mission of the institution get boned.
Reading this article reminded me of the meme starting with Obama thinking "I need someone for VP who is not as smart as me" and picking Biden. Biden as president thinks "I need someone for VP who is not as smart as me" picking Harris. Finally Harris as Candidate for president thinking "I need someone for VP who is not as smart as me...... Could it be the same thinking goes on in the ranks of the FBI?
If you're pathologically worried about being shown up, it makes perfect sense. Seek fame and glory while pulling up the gangplank behind you. Don't forget to be sleep-deprived when you're doing it.
I recently met a 20-year+ veteran of the FBI who was in a whistleblower-type situation (he reported criminal activity of his supervisor), but was denied whistleblower status and ultimately had no choice but to retire. He is an extraordinarily intelligent and articulate man who before his FBI service had been a Navy F-14 pilot; he is now a county sheriff. I don't know what sort of interview he'd give you--maybe on-the-record, maybe only background--but if you're interested, send me a direct email and I'll put you in touch with him.
Corruption is endemic, insidious and CONTAGIOUS. ALL institutions eventually get corrupted. The only (temporary) cure is to demolition them and start fresh. EVERY SINGLE clown in high level management positions at the FBI for the last few decades has proven to be a CRIMINAL SOCIOPATH. EVERY SINGLE ONE. No one can get to their level without being one. And those who climb the greasy pole DO NOT WANT ANY COMPETENT people working for them. They perceive competence as a threat to their poisons, power and privilege.
It is hard to get technically competent people to go into and succeed in management. The roles largely require two fairly distinct "skill sets". And it is hard to find people who are truly competent in either. People who are competent in both are very rare. I've only known (less than) a handful in my (very) long career. One of the ones I knew won a Nobel Prize. Others I know from history and anecdotes. One such was Vannevar Bush (Sp?) Another (with flaws) was J. Robert Oppenheimer. Charles Stark Draper was another.
I totally agree. This is especially true in law enforcement organizations on the big city and larger levels. Officers and agents are usually people of action, often athletic and energetic and motivated to solve problems. The senior management is part of a public bureaucracy headed by politically motivated people whose personalities enable them to adapt to this kind of organization and move up the hierarchy.
Bureaucracies beat people down. They punish and seek to extinguish initiative, innovation, efficiency, thought, etc. All of those and any independent thought and action are instinctually (and mostly correctly) considered threats to the "well-being"/survival/privilege of the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is, in effect, a living organism. Survival is its number one (and two and three and seven) priority. The denizens of the creature have a symbiotic relationship with it. If it "dies", they die. A natural, inevitable result is that the survivors act more and more like zombies the longer they are captive.
Great description! I hope that Elon and Vivek can get some traction in their efforts to pare back the federal bureaucracies, but I think they are being very optimistic.
Give any organization that kind of power, and it will attract sociopaths and psychopaths the way catnip attracts cats, the way a huge pile of unguarded honk attracts addicts.
Stupidity and incompetence are large factors to consider when analyzing the behavior of bureaucracies. However, there are so many unusual factors and coincidences that occurred on 9/11 that some degree of coordination must be considered. For example, how could the hijackers have known that the FAA was running a military exercise on 9/11 that would confuse the air traffic monitors, significantly delaying any jet scrambling, and allowing the hijacked planes time to reach their targets. Also, this is just one whistleblower we know of. How many other pieces of information were noticed by agents, but stonewalled at the upper levels of decision-making. Just like Oct 7. Several Israelis have said that they and others briefed Netanyahu and other top decision-makers on suspicious activity and even plans to breech the wall but were brushed aside. Then amazingly after the breech, no IDF response for 8 hours. Both events likely were known in advance by top level people, who allowed them to happen by brushing aside any lowly agents and halting investigations that would have scuttled the operations. Not to mention high level political opposition to any investigation of these events.
Another factor, not about competence, in making top rank by doing what you are told. The towers were allowed to come down. Too much needed to happen that could not unless America understood it was attacked.
Any good profiler ought to be able to develop a profile of these "stupid and incompetent" manager-types at FBI HQ that will make them light up the machine with blaring bells and whistles. Will Patel be brave enough to require the managers at HQ to sit for such an examination? Those are the ones who must get the boot. Then every candidate for promotion thereafter must pass the same exam. I mean "stupid and incompetent" SHOULD be pretty easy to spot, but you've got to be able to tag him with proof.
Netanyahu ignored the warnings because he wanted Hamas to attack. He funded them for years with an eye to provoking an event that would justify the elimination of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. He has been quite clear on his objectives. Some agree that Israel is entitled to control Palestine from the river to the sea; others do not. Why the FBI ignored its field offices seems less calculating than inept, which is why headquarters was almost as freaked out as the president when the planes hit.
Even if your premis is true it does not change the fact that hamas attacked and was beyond criminal. They never accepted Israel right to survive. They spent every penny on killing Israel. So they deserve to be 100 % gone.
Set up a system with no accountability, great salaries and benefits and a "chain of command" and you get "climbers". All big organizations have this problem and feeds on itself and loses its intended purpose. The FBI is no different and the people on the ground who actually do the work are just cogs in a giant machine. It is why people like Musk are so important, they have nothing to lose except act as they see fit and toadies like Biden are such failures.
Musk acting like he sees fit is the problem. He’s a con man gaming a corrupt system for his own self-interest. Just another private sector grifter fool who thinks running the gubmit like a bidness is gonna make America great.
The same way he faked you, and fools like you, into thinking he was some sort of genius who made technological miracles by his own hand instead of by theft and government subsidy.
Tom — Um, you do understand that SpaceX is doing things with rockets that no other firm or government can do, right? Though they’re all desperately trying to catch up!
If Musk is stealing his technology, where is he stealing it? By time machine from the future?
Um, you do understand that nothing happens in technological advancement/application without government assistance, right?
Musk stole Tesla just like Gates did Microsoft. I’m not saying either are stupid, at least when it comes to visualization of profit coming out of tech innovation.
But I have zero respect for any rich asshole who thinks their acquisition of wealth translates into public policy expertise for America writ large. That respect only comes when they push as aggressively to say, end poverty, as they do build a rocket.
Tom — Reminds me of this obtuse, left-wing Democrat — it may have been Bernie — who insisted “self-made” men like Musk weren’t self-made, because they used the public road system, didn’t they. Of course the answer is, all 330 million Americans use the roads, only one to build rocket boosters that automatically land on floating robotic landing pads, or get snatched in the air by gigantic robot arms.
He gets a lot of government contracts because his rockets are both cheaper (because of reusability) and more reliable; thus the epic of those Boeing astronauts stuck on the ISS for months as they wait for a ride home on one of Musk’s rockets.
Personally, I worry that this blue-ribbon commission thing (misnamed DOGE) will distract him from doing his real job, moving the US and the human race into space. Fortunately “DOGE” is only a temporary gig.
Ah, another ‘where will we get the money’ austerity fool weighs in.
The never-ending spending of cash by government isn’t the problem. The never-ending source of monied interest cash buying politicians is. And Musk is exhibit A.
"Ah, another ‘where will we get the money’ austerity fool weighs in."
I take it that you pay the minimum on your maxed-out credit card every month. What alternative uses could you find for all that interest you are paying? And what happens when your creditors refuse to front you any more money?
Oh - and why do you expect your kids to pay off YOUR debt??
Oh, and my kids won’t need to pay off debt, though the bloodsucking corporate financial parasites will surely try to make them think so, as they did me when my parents passed.
"Corporate greed" is why you have a computer to post your comments here, not to mention the chair you sat on to post them, your home, and everything in it, including the clothes on your back.
As a retired FBI agent, I find her characterization of the people at FBIHQ a bit harsh, but true. Successful field agents avoid the Hoover building like the plague. Since 9/11 the number of intelligence analysts at the FBI has exploded. And whereas before 9/11 analysts were considered to be support personnel, nowadays they are at least as important as the agents, and often better paid.
entrapment is so prevalent it’s hard to believe that shooters/bombers, etc are EVER acting alone. my hope for Patel at FBI is simply to disrupt the US-Stasi apparatus that’s behind those entrapment schemes. everything else would be gravy.
Kash is a smart guy. If he succeeds in getting the Bureau out of DC that would be success. Coleen is clearly a bit cynical about much getting done as it seems plenty have come in before but sucked in by the swamp. I’m not sure what to feel but I’m hopeful now after this election. It showed to me people still care about this country and want shit to get back to that. Time will tell but I think we got a shot at it.
My Dad was a Boston Police Officer who wanted to go after Whitey Bulger, but got flagged off by the Boston office of the FBI because whitey was a confidential human asset (or whatever they call them) Head guy in Boston, Connolly… at least they finally got him, but not before at least 8 more people died at Bulger’s hands. Where did Connolly want to go? Washington. FBI HQ to get on the gravy train…
If Kash was smart he’d ask Rowley to help him out.
She's a liberal Democrat...part of the Uniparty.
She would be of no help to what Kash is doing, other than get in his way.
So is half of MAGA. Real conservative GOP is Cheney, McConnell.
Van Hagar fan in da haus! I do like Cabo Wabo and Sucker in a 3 piece.
Really interesting insight into the headquarters of the FBI. Learned some new things. None of it good. I'm even more supportive of Patel now.
Sounds like so many corporations. The people who do the real work and are smart and innovative often get screwed and the sociopathic, boot licking jerks get the credit and climb the greasy pole get the credit and rewards and try hard to become the head ASSHOLE.
Yes. This. I watched one lousy DEI management hire take down an entire department at Dell. All the good people left, corporate brown nosers took their place, scapegoating, bully tactics, and politiking came next. More people left (including me). Our numbers plummeted. They finally fired her about a year after I left but the division was toast.
We got one of them ruining things where I work.
Over/under is 9 more months...then the physics of natural law will step in.
True. Voice of experience here.
It's all there in black and white in a book titled The Abilene Paradox.
Essentially...(if you don't want to read the book)... it's a collective fallacy, in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of most or all individuals in the group, while each individual believes it to be aligned with the preferences of most of the others..
In other words "None of us is as dumb as all of us together."
Bound to happen if the group doesn't include an intelligent, assertive leader. Too bad those traits are being selectively bred out of our social development from grammar school on. Not everybody's opinion is of the same value, believe it or not.
Interesting.
You describe a fundamental aspect of human nature. It occurs within hierarchal structures regardless of how small, even within families. One of the primary failure points in Mao's Great Leap Forward was the tendency of those forced into collectives to self-sort into those that worked and the rest that figured out how to avoid expending any physical effort. The result was a catastrophe.
That’s any commune, at any point in history. Interestingly, when the Cultural Revolution was in full swing, and the government basically stopped paying attention to what was going on in the countryside, many of the communes reverted back to basic market economics.
Yes, I agree, it was reported to have been the case with the early settlers from England as well - again some were all too willing to let others do the ''heavy lifting'', eventually necessitating a move back to simple market economics for the sake of survival.
Except please don’t send these headquarters people into our communities. Just fire them all and let local cities hire real cops to deal with crime.
It's real hard to fire civil service folks. But if you split them up and send them in ar bottom of totem pole. Not managers. Managers can start honestly assessing and culling bad ones by the need 3 write ups begore yuu can fire progressive disci5
Dept of HHS has 11 Operating Agencies underneath HHS and 8-9 Regional offices.
Best to move the serious bureaucrats out of Washington DC and put each of the Agencies into a different part of their country where the needs are greatest from that agency
75% of the people will quit vs being relocated to Des Moines IA.
Winner Winner chicken dinner.
Many of your "75%" will simply make lateral moves to other Dep'ts. or agencies.
Civil servants can make interagency moves at the drop of a hat, saving pay grade in the process.
Interesting she was guarded about saying anything good about him, because I got the impression she suspects him of also being a swamp creature, looking for millions.
That's what I inferred, too. He has worked mainly in government (if you count public defender as government) so it is possible. But no fancy white shoe Republican law firms or cushy sinecure in corporate law post Trump. So, I'm cautiously optimistic.
I think Patel is a good fit. Enough of a firebrand to get stuff done.
Watch his interview on the Epoch on YouTube…he is a rock star!
I don't think that. He's not swamp. But what she fears he may let her down and be in for power. Says she's cynical. That's not based on him per se. But anyone in that position. Hoping he can stay true. I think we all hope that.
In a company, if you don't put the customer first...you're toast.
In a government, if you don't put the people first...you're toast.
Just might take longer to get there...but you're still toast.
These institutions have all failed to pledge fealty to their North Star which is enshrined in our US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Once they leave the moral high ground that was gifted to them upon arriving in order to placate some small mob or group....they cannot climb back up.
Getting back to the Vision and Mission means taking an oath to you, me and 330,000,000 others.
Only way that happens is if We the People hold them to account.
If that were all true ... how do you explain Brandon's ascendency?
Yes, unmentioned was his promotion of Israel
Whatever he has done to support Israel, IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO!!
It’s also advantageous from her career standpoint
His
I support Isreal. Doesn't make me swamp. They were having a party and were massacred. You may jistify that. But I dobt.
What would you want our nation to do if a Mexican cartel came over the border and massacred 1000 people at your daughters high school graduation party...then took your daughter back with them into Mexico?
Turn the other cheek?
Settle down Barbara geesh 😳
If these Agents are politicized then fire them. Don’t let the infection spread.
Great interview Matt! Thanks Coleen. I went through the FBI citizen's academy in Sacramento in 2008 -- it was a great experience, I learned so much. Field agents do the work and don't get enough credit of it. Most just want to do a good job and investigate crimes and put bad guys in prison. Some are power-hungry jerks. I hope Kash Patel really does clean it up, because we need a federal law enforcement agency we can trust and respect.
100%
I see so many hair-on-fire screeches for the FBI to be destroyed. Which is wholly stupid.
We absolutely need the FBI, but a non-political, fully functional version.
Yikes, I messed up re Hoover Building address when I said "Philadelphia Ave" instead of Pennsylvania Ave. I was obviously trying to talk faster than my neuron pathways could manage because I know how busy Matt Taibbi is!
There are a few details about that initial Moussaoui investigation that should be better clarified, for instance that the two Eagan flight instructors who separately notified the FBI--colleagues of Prevost and not his flight school management--and not even knowing each other were calling were actually whistleblowers themselves (as their management did not approve of their calling the FBI about a paying customer). And also that the full credit for the Minnesota agents' stellar pre 9-11 investigation belongs solely to them. They understood the dangerous emergency situation right from the start on August 16. I was just the legal counsel in the Minneapolis Office but as the legal person, I thought it fell to me, when I later went before the staff of the "Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry" to debunk the flimsy legal excuses that FBI Headquarters' had been leaking for months to the press, their wrongful excuses for having blocked the Minneapolis field agents.
Anyway, the 9-11 case is a great example of why more power to investigate should remain in the field (agents working under judicial oversight) and not with the more careerist, politically affected bureaucrats.
You seem to be a patriot. Thank you for your service.
I hope you are not as burned out on life as you are by your work.
Best wishes.
Thank you so much for what you did, Coleen, and are still doing for us. I thought back then you should be the director of the FBI, and nothing has changed my opinion.
Hopefully Kash will ask you to help in his effort to rebuild the FBI.
Why is it that this story was not fully told to the American people at the time? We heard bits and pieces but not the truth about the incompetence and stupidity of Headquarters.
Judicial oversight?
Politicized (or coerced) Judges have been a big part of the problem.
I say that it is impossible to have secret agencies and transparency.
If transparency is the answer then secrecy is the problem. I suspect that this is a strict law of nature.
Secrecy is empowerment of the holder, and the power always corrupts.
The same rule applies to all secret agencies.
Coleen you are a true Patriot and people like you and Matt inspire me. I remember reading about how Aretha Franklin was being watched by the FBI back in the day because she was friends with MLK and thought, talk about No R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Now would be a good time for you to work with Kash (if confirmed) and help pick a new name to replace J. Edgar Hoover's on headquarters.
Way to go, Coleen! Great interview.
Classic case of institutional rot. It's endemic and inevitable. Every institution, public and private, has this same story. The people that actually do their job well and with integrity get nowhere. It's the ass kissers and backstabbers and responsibility dodgers and performance metrics manipulators and unethical POSs that get the promotions. It's what brings down civilizations.
Pournelle's Iron law of bureaucracy. Let me paraphrase: those that serve the institution get the promotions, those that serve the mission of the institution get boned.
Goddamn right.
Truth
Exactly
A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y!!!!!!
Reading this article reminded me of the meme starting with Obama thinking "I need someone for VP who is not as smart as me" and picking Biden. Biden as president thinks "I need someone for VP who is not as smart as me" picking Harris. Finally Harris as Candidate for president thinking "I need someone for VP who is not as smart as me...... Could it be the same thinking goes on in the ranks of the FBI?
Yes. But thinking the challenge Harris's people had. How do you find anyone dumber than Harris?
Walz?
Yup. But while Elmer Fudd Walz IS a MORON (!!!!) it is not clear that he is DUMBER than 🐪-a.
Seriously try to picture him as President. Think about that for a minute.
Almost as frightening as 🐪-a as Prez.
You make a good point Mike. It's a jump ball of incompetence.
They managed
If you're pathologically worried about being shown up, it makes perfect sense. Seek fame and glory while pulling up the gangplank behind you. Don't forget to be sleep-deprived when you're doing it.
The beauty of this system is that it winds itself down pretty quickly. Tim Walz will never have to find someone not as smart as himself to be his VP.
LOL! Beautiful.
Matt:
I recently met a 20-year+ veteran of the FBI who was in a whistleblower-type situation (he reported criminal activity of his supervisor), but was denied whistleblower status and ultimately had no choice but to retire. He is an extraordinarily intelligent and articulate man who before his FBI service had been a Navy F-14 pilot; he is now a county sheriff. I don't know what sort of interview he'd give you--maybe on-the-record, maybe only background--but if you're interested, send me a direct email and I'll put you in touch with him.
Corruption is endemic, insidious and CONTAGIOUS. ALL institutions eventually get corrupted. The only (temporary) cure is to demolition them and start fresh. EVERY SINGLE clown in high level management positions at the FBI for the last few decades has proven to be a CRIMINAL SOCIOPATH. EVERY SINGLE ONE. No one can get to their level without being one. And those who climb the greasy pole DO NOT WANT ANY COMPETENT people working for them. They perceive competence as a threat to their poisons, power and privilege.
Wow. And I thought I was hard-core on this issue!
True, that
It is hard to get technically competent people to go into and succeed in management. The roles largely require two fairly distinct "skill sets". And it is hard to find people who are truly competent in either. People who are competent in both are very rare. I've only known (less than) a handful in my (very) long career. One of the ones I knew won a Nobel Prize. Others I know from history and anecdotes. One such was Vannevar Bush (Sp?) Another (with flaws) was J. Robert Oppenheimer. Charles Stark Draper was another.
I totally agree. This is especially true in law enforcement organizations on the big city and larger levels. Officers and agents are usually people of action, often athletic and energetic and motivated to solve problems. The senior management is part of a public bureaucracy headed by politically motivated people whose personalities enable them to adapt to this kind of organization and move up the hierarchy.
Bureaucracies beat people down. They punish and seek to extinguish initiative, innovation, efficiency, thought, etc. All of those and any independent thought and action are instinctually (and mostly correctly) considered threats to the "well-being"/survival/privilege of the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is, in effect, a living organism. Survival is its number one (and two and three and seven) priority. The denizens of the creature have a symbiotic relationship with it. If it "dies", they die. A natural, inevitable result is that the survivors act more and more like zombies the longer they are captive.
Great description! I hope that Elon and Vivek can get some traction in their efforts to pare back the federal bureaucracies, but I think they are being very optimistic.
A great description of reptiles.
Lavrenti Beria had both-but
was a total psychopath in general. Like you said about Oppenheimer “with flaws”……
Give any organization that kind of power, and it will attract sociopaths and psychopaths the way catnip attracts cats, the way a huge pile of unguarded honk attracts addicts.
But what if we form a new agency, staff it only with Top Men ™️ and then give them the one ring of power to do good. Surely then it will work!
/what happens every time
Coleen Rowley: I’ve just gotten so cynical. I don’t put hope in anything or anybody anymore.
I'm with her. . .
Me too. I’ve been a bitter cynic since coming back from Vietnam.
Stupidity and incompetence are large factors to consider when analyzing the behavior of bureaucracies. However, there are so many unusual factors and coincidences that occurred on 9/11 that some degree of coordination must be considered. For example, how could the hijackers have known that the FAA was running a military exercise on 9/11 that would confuse the air traffic monitors, significantly delaying any jet scrambling, and allowing the hijacked planes time to reach their targets. Also, this is just one whistleblower we know of. How many other pieces of information were noticed by agents, but stonewalled at the upper levels of decision-making. Just like Oct 7. Several Israelis have said that they and others briefed Netanyahu and other top decision-makers on suspicious activity and even plans to breech the wall but were brushed aside. Then amazingly after the breech, no IDF response for 8 hours. Both events likely were known in advance by top level people, who allowed them to happen by brushing aside any lowly agents and halting investigations that would have scuttled the operations. Not to mention high level political opposition to any investigation of these events.
I don't have time for any of that silliness.
The government is making hurricanes.
I'm beginning to wonder why I have time to read anything Matt Taibbi writes, when 9/11 is proof that he's capable of denying the obvious.
You and Big Foot
Another factor, not about competence, in making top rank by doing what you are told. The towers were allowed to come down. Too much needed to happen that could not unless America understood it was attacked.
Hermann Goering did it—oh, wait, wrong building…
Wrong continent, and Century.
That's the building the entire operation was run from, so ya, it had to come down.
Any good profiler ought to be able to develop a profile of these "stupid and incompetent" manager-types at FBI HQ that will make them light up the machine with blaring bells and whistles. Will Patel be brave enough to require the managers at HQ to sit for such an examination? Those are the ones who must get the boot. Then every candidate for promotion thereafter must pass the same exam. I mean "stupid and incompetent" SHOULD be pretty easy to spot, but you've got to be able to tag him with proof.
Netanyahu ignored the warnings because he wanted Hamas to attack. He funded them for years with an eye to provoking an event that would justify the elimination of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. He has been quite clear on his objectives. Some agree that Israel is entitled to control Palestine from the river to the sea; others do not. Why the FBI ignored its field offices seems less calculating than inept, which is why headquarters was almost as freaked out as the president when the planes hit.
Even if your premis is true it does not change the fact that hamas attacked and was beyond criminal. They never accepted Israel right to survive. They spent every penny on killing Israel. So they deserve to be 100 % gone.
BULLSHIT.
Set up a system with no accountability, great salaries and benefits and a "chain of command" and you get "climbers". All big organizations have this problem and feeds on itself and loses its intended purpose. The FBI is no different and the people on the ground who actually do the work are just cogs in a giant machine. It is why people like Musk are so important, they have nothing to lose except act as they see fit and toadies like Biden are such failures.
Musk acting like he sees fit is the problem. He’s a con man gaming a corrupt system for his own self-interest. Just another private sector grifter fool who thinks running the gubmit like a bidness is gonna make America great.
Bullshit
No! You're the idiot spewing bullshit! You could not be fuller of misinformation if you WERE a pile of 💩.
Says the guy who posts the idiot Reagan spewing bullshit and absurdly claiming relevance to today.
Comedy Gold!
Tom — I’ll be damned if I can figure out how Musk faked all those rocket launches!
The same way he faked you, and fools like you, into thinking he was some sort of genius who made technological miracles by his own hand instead of by theft and government subsidy.
Tom — Um, you do understand that SpaceX is doing things with rockets that no other firm or government can do, right? Though they’re all desperately trying to catch up!
If Musk is stealing his technology, where is he stealing it? By time machine from the future?
Um, you do understand that nothing happens in technological advancement/application without government assistance, right?
Musk stole Tesla just like Gates did Microsoft. I’m not saying either are stupid, at least when it comes to visualization of profit coming out of tech innovation.
But I have zero respect for any rich asshole who thinks their acquisition of wealth translates into public policy expertise for America writ large. That respect only comes when they push as aggressively to say, end poverty, as they do build a rocket.
Tom — Reminds me of this obtuse, left-wing Democrat — it may have been Bernie — who insisted “self-made” men like Musk weren’t self-made, because they used the public road system, didn’t they. Of course the answer is, all 330 million Americans use the roads, only one to build rocket boosters that automatically land on floating robotic landing pads, or get snatched in the air by gigantic robot arms.
He gets a lot of government contracts because his rockets are both cheaper (because of reusability) and more reliable; thus the epic of those Boeing astronauts stuck on the ISS for months as they wait for a ride home on one of Musk’s rockets.
Personally, I worry that this blue-ribbon commission thing (misnamed DOGE) will distract him from doing his real job, moving the US and the human race into space. Fortunately “DOGE” is only a temporary gig.
"Just another private sector grifter fool who thinks running the gubmit like a bidness is gonna make America great."
Running the gubmint like a never-ending source of cash certainly isn't working.
Ah, another ‘where will we get the money’ austerity fool weighs in.
The never-ending spending of cash by government isn’t the problem. The never-ending source of monied interest cash buying politicians is. And Musk is exhibit A.
"Ah, another ‘where will we get the money’ austerity fool weighs in."
I take it that you pay the minimum on your maxed-out credit card every month. What alternative uses could you find for all that interest you are paying? And what happens when your creditors refuse to front you any more money?
Oh - and why do you expect your kids to pay off YOUR debt??
I don’t have a credit card, nor a cell phone.
Oh, and my kids won’t need to pay off debt, though the bloodsucking corporate financial parasites will surely try to make them think so, as they did me when my parents passed.
Stop being a simp for private sector greed - https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis
"Corporate greed" is why you have a computer to post your comments here, not to mention the chair you sat on to post them, your home, and everything in it, including the clothes on your back.
You don't have a cell phone or credit card but openly post on social media?
Hmmm...
Completely wrong. What 33t in debt is not enough?
Didn’t you get the Cheney memo? Debt don’t matter.
Wrong, dude
Right, fool.
Oh, please.
Oh, thank you.
Prevalent in most all corporate cultures
Corporate cultures.
There’s your problem, Mr. Oxymoron.
Risk aversion is greatest amongst the weakest.
Give Kash the ball.
Great article (as always).
As a retired FBI agent, I find her characterization of the people at FBIHQ a bit harsh, but true. Successful field agents avoid the Hoover building like the plague. Since 9/11 the number of intelligence analysts at the FBI has exploded. And whereas before 9/11 analysts were considered to be support personnel, nowadays they are at least as important as the agents, and often better paid.
Gary, thanks for your service in the field.
0132s on par with 1811s?
I mean 0132s are important but 1811s are the backbone of every federal investigative service.
What dat? Secret James Bond spy code?
lol. Job series codes.
1811 = Criminal Investigator/Special Agent
0132 = Intel Analyst
entrapment is so prevalent it’s hard to believe that shooters/bombers, etc are EVER acting alone. my hope for Patel at FBI is simply to disrupt the US-Stasi apparatus that’s behind those entrapment schemes. everything else would be gravy.
revolution of low expectations.
Silly and foolish me. It a revelation to me how these disruptions scenarios were put forth
They follow a six-week cycle. Keeps them relevant and the higher ups get bonuses when a crisis is ‘averted’.
Kash is a smart guy. If he succeeds in getting the Bureau out of DC that would be success. Coleen is clearly a bit cynical about much getting done as it seems plenty have come in before but sucked in by the swamp. I’m not sure what to feel but I’m hopeful now after this election. It showed to me people still care about this country and want shit to get back to that. Time will tell but I think we got a shot at it.
My Dad was a Boston Police Officer who wanted to go after Whitey Bulger, but got flagged off by the Boston office of the FBI because whitey was a confidential human asset (or whatever they call them) Head guy in Boston, Connolly… at least they finally got him, but not before at least 8 more people died at Bulger’s hands. Where did Connolly want to go? Washington. FBI HQ to get on the gravy train…