Donald Trump’s latest show of “frontier justice” — illegally deploying the National Guard in U.S. cities while dismantling U.S. foreign aid and media agencies — mixes authoritarian overreach with a gleeful purge of institutions seen as corrupt and meddling.
Deploying the National Guard to play cop in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, is a move that’s got courts screaming foul for trampling the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which bars the military from domestic law enforcement without a darn good reason—like an actual rebellion, not just protests that ruffle feathers and piss off the president-elect.
Federal Judge Charles Breyer, in a 52-page smackdown, ruled Trump’s LA troop surge illegal, accusing him of trying to build a “national police force with the President as its chief enforcer.” Yet, Trump’s eyeing Chicago next, vowing to “solve the crime problem fast,” as if he’s got a six-shooter and a sheriff’s badge.
As for the Posse Comitatus Act, using of Federal Troops and the National Guard for police work, “Did you ever hear of Judge Roy Bean and how he was the Lawman, Jury and Executioner, as is Trump, or at least ‘he wants to be?”
All those poor journalists, do-gooders, and humanitarians who will be out of the tall cotton. How will they ever pay off their student loans now, and what about their careers?
What will they do now?
Excuse my heavy sarcasm mocking the job losses of journalists and others there: “all those poor journalists/contactors, most on “at will contacts”, who will be out of the tall cotton” (a Southern idiom for being in trouble or losing a cushy position). I hope you catch my drift, that worrying about their student loans and careers is clearly ironic and unsympathetic. I have worked in this sector, and know what it really is—and it stinks to high heaven.
It is not hard to connect the dots, those linking media organizations, think tanks, and intelligence agencies, you name it, all partners in crime. Both in Georgia and the region, I am almost certain that NGO’s with frozen accounts were buying the pyrotechnics fired at police, among other investments, in support of the coup plot.
The government raided a few offices at that time, and the fireworks seemed to stop quickly. Obviously, it was not ordinary people buying them at the market in personal quantities. The Georgian government probably has confiscated records showing the flows of money now. I’m not necessarily a fan of the current Georgian government, but don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other, certainly there is no excuse for trying to overthrow them, and destroy Georgian democracy in the process.
They have kept the country out of the current debacle in Ukraine, at least, something supported by the majority of the Georgian electorate. But I see nothing good in these opposition groups funded from beyond Georgia, they are, when all is said and done, the 5th column of US and EU imperialism.
I guess I grew up, came of age, and was educated in the wrong generation. Nowadays, few are even able to draw historical analogies anymore, least of all to Judge Roy Bean, a 19th-century Texas justice of the peace infamous for acting as “the law west of the Pecos”—serving simultaneously as judge, jury, and sometimes de facto executioner in a rough frontier setting, often bending or ignoring due process.
Trump has deployed in Washington DC, and is proposing using in other cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, the National Guard for urban crime-fighting or other police-like roles, such presidential actions apparently have been ruled illegal by courts for violating the Posse Comitatus Act.
Pet Peeves About Trump!
As I asked a reader, “What gets under your skin about Trump, as it might make a good article, as you are closer, I am far?” I need to come up with a good article for an international article. I personally like what he is doing to USAID*, NED*, VOA* and all these do-gooder fake organizations that are rotten to the core, and likely beyond redemption.
My answer came from the reader, as he too is in Georgia, and sees things from the same front-row seat, it gives me pleasure to see VOA*, NED* and USAID* workers running for the exit, as they are not about to wave grant money around as it was a magic wand and cure all!
The foreign-aid pipeline has as many bottlenecks as the BTC oil pipeline has hot taps, and Georgian Prime Minister Kobakhidze and his Georgian Dream team have exposed how the Embassy, USAID*, and NED* have acted in coordination against the Georgian people and its democratically elected government.
“It is precisely the foreign-funded NGOs that are at the avant-garde of any attempt at a revolution: these are the U.S.-funded NGOs, USAID*, NED*, which are already being openly criticized by the new U.S. administration, and also the EU affiliated foundations, for example, the EED-funded NGOs.”
There was recently good article on ending NED in Zero Hedge, and it just scratches the surface. Apparently these organizations have their own agenda, and petty cash box to keep the game in motion in spite of an abrupt shift in US policy.
Like most so-called “non-governmental organizations,” the NED* is, in fact, an all-governmental organization. It depends absolutely on a subsidy from the state department, i.e., from the federal government, i.e., from the taxpayer, i.e., from you.
However, the latest real cuts that have hit so many eating from the “gravy train” have been to VOA*, Voice of America, which is firing 500 journalists but not so many Spanish-speaking ones, perhaps a policy statement if anyone is willing to listen. These cuts, we’re told, are just the opening of the salvo in a media war free-for-all.
And it affects the natives as well, the axing of American imperialism’s soft power money through the shutting down of USAID has “left many of Georgia’s civil society actors reeling,” notes a March 10 article on the website Civil.ge, a pro-opposition and [NED* funded] news outlet. “Most programs that supported civil society engagement with governance are now shuttered,” it adds, resulting in the loss of about 2,000 jobs.
Putting the Last First
Such agencies, including the “TheUS Agency for Global Media” are anything but what they claim to be, unless you are living in an Alice in Wonderland World and you are fond of rabbit holes. The agency that oversees VOA and other government-funded international broadcasters is eliminating so many cushy jobs that it’s the media equivalent of a stock market crash.
Furthermore, this is just a shot across the bows showingwhat is to come in the media war and going back to what is really development, “Good Change”, and not only from the perspective of The Quiet American, Graham Green and various developmental writers.
The USAGM claims on its website that it is an independent federal agency overseeing public service media networks that provide unbiased news in countries where the press is restricted. I can say without reservation that it is “too bad” that its mandate does not cover North America and most of Western Europe. That same commentary applies to them all—with few exceptions.
I am yet to find one, but still have hope!
I’m cheering Trump’s demolition of USAID*, NED*, and VOA*—do-gooder facades rotten to the core, far beyond saving. Trump is playing the frontier judge, and while his military missteps flirt with authoritarianism, his purge of these bloated agencies feels like a reckoning long overdue.
Trump’s channeling of Judge Roy Bean, dreaming of unchecked power while courts slap his wrist for Posse Comitatus violations, is a joy to watch. His VOA* purge, slicing 500 jobs, is a gleeful middle finger to a media machine many see as a sham. Irony abounds: as journalists and low-level CIA operators, NOKs, wail over lost gigs and eliminated expense accounts.
All the while, Trump’s frontier justice rolls on, flawed, mostly illegal but fearless, leaving us to wonder who’s next in his Wild West showdown. It’s hard not to laugh at the crocodile tears; after all, these same “civil society” soldiers have long blurred the line between humanitarianism and not so covert meddling operations.
So yes, Trump’s Wild West routine in the streets may be legally shaky, even authoritarian horseplay. But his demolition of the NGO-industrial complex? That’s almost a public good. Call it unintended virtue: by hacking away at the U.S. foreign-aid gravy train, Trump might finally be forcing the professional do-gooders and information warriors to find honest work.
In the end, his brand of Roy Bean justice may be reckless, but for those tired of the endless churn of foreign meddling dressed up as benevolence, it’s a spectacle worth toasting.
*-banned in Russia
Jeffrey K. Silverman is a freelance journalist and international development specialist, BSc, MSc, based for 30 years in Georgia and the former Soviet Union
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