Biden vowed to defeat domestic terrorism. The how is the hard part.

…from Politico

[ Editor’s Note: This topic will get a buzz for a while and then drop out of the news for multiple reasons. One will be, why was not something done before? Actually it was, but it was focused on high profile security concerns that were already budgeted, and then there was the Trump Steal distraction.

Government workers and departments do not rush to volunteer themselves to take on new responsibilities within their current budget framework. If manpower is redirected to ‘domestic terrorism,’ it has to be take away from other projects, which triggers infighting.

Staffing a new division is a slow process and a complex endeavor when quick results are needed. And last, trying to bring in top outside talent to show current management why they have been failing is also not a popular thing for them to jump onto.

It takes outside talent with a lot of skill to not rock the boat too much to get cooperation. All long time legislators will be deeply familiar with these problems. Nothing can be fixed quickly, and just running down the Capitol coup plotters will eat up a lot of resources and years of litigation.

I was surprised to read below that the military does not check social media prior to recruitment, including what was erased prior to their submitting an application. That said, we live in a country where a long time criminal like Donald Trump did not even have to pass a security clearance to run for president, and look what happened.

Silly Jim Dean thinks that everybody running for high office should have to submit to a full background check. And, why not? For presidential candidates, their financial backgrounds should be carefully reviewed for ‘outside’ influence, etc.

For example a deep background check on the Bush family would have turned up all kinds of things. But the Pols, as a group, would have little interest in supporting this, as it would be a big step toward controlling political corruption, a story for another day… Jim W. Dean ]

First published … January 20, 2010

In his inaugural address Wednesday, President Joe Biden declared the “rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism” a looming threat the country “must confront” and “defeat.”

…The increased emphasis reflects President Biden and his team’s alarm at what the Jan. 6 assault on Congress revealed about the country they are now tasked with leading. “Don’t you dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists,” as Biden put it in remarks the next day.

…“This transition did not totally provide the intel we needed on this,” a person close to the transition said. “But the new leadership does need to address the urgency of this threat, and the new team is open to exploring innovative responses.”

“The most important element is to stop inciting, encouraging, polarizing, and dividing,” this person added, in an implicit nod to the outgoing president. “That will stop on Jan 20.”

“Here we stand just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground,” Biden said Wednesday on the steps of the West front of the Capitol, a building still marked by damage from the uprising 14 days earlier.

You can read the whole article on Politico here.