If you think that one of the keys to fighting terrorism is labeling it as “global jihad,” then Donald Trump’s hiring of Katharine Gorka for the Department of Homeland Security transition team ought to make you feel secure. The rest of us have good reason to worry.
If Gorka’s last name sounds familiar, it’s probably because she’s the wife of Fox News regular guest Sebastian Gorka. An editor at Breitbart, Sebastian Gorka can often be seen hate mongering on Fox. In June, Gorka blamed the Orlando mass shooting on President Barack Obama and then-candidate Hillary Clinton. In August, Gorka helped Sean Hannity smear Gold Star father Khizr Khan as some kind of stealth terrorist sympathizer. Gorka has also suggested “political correctness” is to blame for terrorist attacks.
Apparently, Gorka’s wife is cut from the same mold. From The Intercept:
Gorka argues that defeating terrorism depends “upon our being able to call the enemy by its proper name: Global Jihadism.” She has pushed legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group and impose sanctions on its “affiliates, associated groups, or agents.”
[...]
Gorka argues that defeating terrorism depends “upon our being able to call the enemy by its proper name: Global Jihadism.” She has pushed legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group and impose sanctions on its “affiliates, associated groups, or agents.”
The affiliated groups mentioned in the legislation include mainstream civil rights organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America.
And if that gig doesn’t work out, I’m sure she can find a job at Fox News.
Watch Sebastian Gorka blame Obama, Clinton and “political correctness” for the Orlando shooting from the June 12, 2016 Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, via Media Matters.
So there’s an underlying floor of Far-Right travelers with Pence who will be filling most of the Cabinet and doing the grim work the GOP has threatened for 8 years. This includes Price, Sessions, Pompeo, McFarland and others, even including Gorka. And then you have the REALLY wild picks from Trump himself, like Bannon and Sarah Palin. Make no mistake, this is going to be a full rogue’s gallery of angry right wingers, many of whom are seriously compromised. I honestly don’t see how they can get out of the first year of a Trump Administration without a major graft scandal coming out.
But the bigger flourishes and the Trump tweeting stories will obscure the nastier stuff that’s actually happening behind the scenes. Keep in mind that they’re putting people into these positions who are actually opposed to the very purpose of those agencies. Sessions as AG won’t be trying to protect anyone’s civil rights, unless you’re in his ethnic group – expect aggressive Justice Dept attacks on all other groups. And expect a fairly vigorous investigation and prosecution of political enemies like the Clintons. Price in his position isn’t going to be looking out for the health of most Americans. He’s there to make sure the ACA is completely gutted as quickly as possible. The Congress will effectively repeal and defund everything it can by the 20th of January, and Price will make sure that whatever is left is inactive after that. Price is apparently also quite interested in attacking both Medicare and Medicaid – which could turn into a major problem in the coming years.
And that’s not even getting into the fairly dangerous posture Trump and Pence’s people are planning to take as far as Iran, Cuba, China and the rest of the world. We already know that Pence’s people intend to walk away from the Cubans and the Iranians in a huff, and that this group will abandon any efforts to work with anyone else in the world on Climate Change. And we know that they intend to erase every single thing that Barack Obama did in office aside from appointing two Supreme Court justices. It’s what they do next that’s troubling.
