H/T to Sundance at the Conservative Treehouse on FISA Renewal Issue

So apparently FISA needs to be renewed by the end of the year.  Here is Sundance’s take on this renewal effort:

“I will openly campaign against any politician or candidate who does not fully endorse the elimination of FISA 702 Authorization in sum and total.  I don’t care who the candidate is, or what his/her political affiliation might be.

I am sick and tired of having to construct communication systems, to engage in ordinary conversation and/or communication, knowing the biggest challenge is to construct the system to defend ordinary people against unconstitutional searches and seizures.  Ironically, this includes the very commenting system you are using to share any opinion of this outline.  This domestic surveillance system just needs to be stopped.”

He’s right.  It should be instructive to see which “conservatives” in Congress go along with the people intent on renewing FISA.  FISA has been used to spy on and persecute anyone the Left doesn’t like.  Those supporting this aren’t patriots.  They’re Stalinists.  Judge them by their actions.

BEWARE, Here Comes the Intel Community Laying Groundwork for FISA 702 Renewal

 

Hell Week Begins Well

Cthulhu

Work, work.  Work, work, work.  As stated earlier this week will be very busy.  But not as bad as previously imagined.  Today was surprisingly reasonable.  Good.

CPAC established that Donald Trump is still the primary candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.  It’s not clear to me how Ron DeSantis and the GOP establishment will deal with that.  And honestly, I don’t much care.  As the Z-Man likes to say the Democrats have “fortified democracy” in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Michigan.  It probably won’t allow for Republicans to win in those states anymore.  Or at least not until cannibalism breaks out pretty convincingly in those places.

The other stuff in the news is relatively tame.  Bakhmut is about to fall in Ukraine but the billions keep flowing to Zelenskyyyyyyyyy and company.  East Palestine Ohio has disappeared from the headlines but Mayor Pete will now be dressed as the construction worker instead of the policeman whenever YMCA is played during pride month.  Mumbles Biden is no longer even trying to fashion coherent sentences or even use actual words.  His utterances look like the gibberish that science fiction writers used to make their alien creatures spew.  Long strings of zees and exes intermingled with random vowel sounds.  You know; izzichthizzzzexxxx zeep seep eeeee!  It’s funny.  I think every single Democrat president has been worse than his predecessor since all the way to Jimmy Carter.

But with Biden we’ve somehow taken a horrible giant step change to something much worse.  We now have a president that is so repellant in all his aspects that you begin to wonder if it will be possible to surpass or even equal him in awfulness.  I was thinking of Kamala Harris or Pete Buttigieg and after review I think Biden has either of them beat.  Sure, Kamala is stupider than Joe but for all of the horrible things she had to do to get to where she is, she can’t compare to the depravity and dishonesty that Joe just radiates.  And the same goes for Mayor Pete.  Sure, Pete’s a pathetic excuse for a man.  But Joe is just plain loathsome.  Just look at what he’s done to his son and daughter.  He belongs in the asylum where they keep people like Hannibal Lecter.  Even Lecter would ask to be moved to a better cell if Joe were his neighbor.

I don’t know.  Maybe there is someone even more horrible waiting in the wings.  Is Caligula about to be reincarnated?  Could Rasputin have survived the various assassination attempts and somehow survived to end up in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue just to outdo Biden?  Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.

But all of this is just misdirected anger.  It is America that is broken.  Regardless of whether we blame the evil party or the stupid party or both, we must confess that our political system doesn’t work anymore.  It’s been gamed.  We are owned by the public servants who run the intelligence agencies and the Congress.  And they are on the payroll of the corporations that cash in on the various government contracts, programs and monopolies.  The weapons manufacturers, the drug companies and the tech companies work hand in hand with the regulators, the federal agencies and the Congress to keep the gravy train going and us under their heels.

Sure, this is probably how it’s been for the last century but things have accelerated.  Running the United States isn’t enough anymore.  They want the whole planet.  And to make that work we aren’t needed.  In fact, we won’t be tolerated.  We’re in the way and they know what to do about that.  We’re going to be downsized out of existence.  And not slowly.  Active measures are being taken and they don’t even have to pretend it’s not so.  Accuse them of trying to get rid of the middle class and they just shrug their shoulders and say, “So?”

And maybe they can get away with all of this.  Most of the people in the limelight don’t seem particularly smart or strong.  But maybe the people really calling the shots are.  Maybe they’ll win because they are smarter than us.  And if they succeed in dominating China and Russia then maybe their system will overshadow the planet.  What a thought; rainbow flags as far as the eye can see and transgender armies goose stepping in front of the Kremlin.

But just accepting all this seems weak.  I think it’s worth resisting.  Wouldn’t it be great to find out that they really aren’t that smart!  Maybe it’s just the stupid party helping them win.  And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find some smart people on our side.  Okay, that’s enough for a Monday in hell week.  We return you to the horror show already in progress.

What’s the Message?

So, what do I think of Joe Biden’s classified document problems?

As the regime scribes breathlessly report the latest daily discovery of classified document caches in Hunter Biden’s far-flung empire of crack and hooker safe houses let us see if we can decode the message being sent.  Aside from the obvious signal to Dopey Joe that 2020 was his last rodeo are they telling all of us something too?

Maybe not intentionally.  But surely, they’re aware that most people no longer think the politicians call the shots in Washington.  We’ve been given a master class in how the administrative state can prevent any politician from enacting any policy they don’t agree with.  And they’ve also demonstrated that they can imprison anyone from a Q-anon shaman to a general to a former president if they decide to.

Then the Deep State should be aware that most people see this exercise of intimidating a president for what it is.  That means that those in charge aren’t afraid to nakedly signal their control over the government of the United States.  They aren’t in any way afraid of the people knowing that they’ve effectively usurped the sovereignty of this country.

To me that’s the message.  When they took Nixon down probably most people believed it was what they said it was.  A coverup by the president of the action of some rogue administration flunkies.  Brave reporters and patriotic FBI agents putting country before their own personal safety and careers, blah, blah, blah.  But we’re not that stupid anymore.  We’ve seen this kabuki theater a bunch of times.  It’s predictable.  And they must know that we know.  To my mind the message is, “Get used to it.”

That means that Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz are risking a lot challenging and tweaking the noses of the Deep State and their allies in the Congress.  They already came after Gaetz.  They tried to hang him out to dry on a phony sex crime.  I don’t doubt they’ll try something else again.  Jordan’s subcommittee on weaponizing the Justice Department is waving the red cape at the bull.  I don’t doubt they’ll play some dirty tricks on him.

I read somewhere that one of the rules that Gaetz and company restored was one that allowed the House of Representatives to withhold the funding of any agency based on a majority vote.  If this is true that could be a substantial club that might impress the Deep State.  After all money is a big part of the lure that puts these people in these agencies.  The salaries and benefits are extremely attractive.  Imagine if the Congress got serious about punishing these creeps.  It would take guts but it might be a way to convince them that this isn’t their country.  It’s supposed to be ours.

Yeah, but who am I kidding?  They’d have Jordan and Gaetz in a holding cell so fast it’d make their heads spin.  They’d go after their wives and kids.  They’d have the FBI dig through every document they’d signed since their first library card and they’d link it all to Putin.  And they’d laugh about it in public.  They’re not afraid and they don’t care if we know it.

So, what do I think of Joe Biden’s classified document problems.  I don’t think anything of it at all.

We Need a New Sideshow

Having successfully overhauled a few things on the site, I can now concentrate my energies, such as they are, to providing something worth your time reading.  I looked at the news today and there are numerous news and opinion pieces about “Classified Documents.”

There are articles about more documents showing up in various Biden ratholes.  There are accounts by talking heads on both sides about why there is or isn’t a smoking gun in all of this.  There are articles comparing the two special counsel investigations of Joe Biden and Donald Trump.  They even manage to drag Hillary Clinton’s server back into the discussion.  It’s fascinating!

Well, no it isn’t.  The intel agencies and the Justice Department can find a judge to decide any of these “cases” any way they want to.  How they are spinning these two fantasies is completely out of our control and honestly of no interest to me.  We’ll deal with the fallout.  That might have interesting consequences.  But nervously waiting to see what they’ll charge Trump with is a waste of time.  They’ll use the primary elections as a basis of when or if to indict him.  So, what are we supposed to do about it?  Nothing.

And so, the news just doesn’t seem to be full of interesting things right now.  Of course, it is fun to watch Dopey Joe get slapped around by CNN and MSNBC for a change.  It’s hard for me to tell if they’ve gotten their marching orders on this or whether they’re also confused as to what they should do.  Who knows, maybe Biden isn’t following orders and is being threatened behind the scenes if he doesn’t agree not to run again.  With these people anything is possible.  But interest palls quite quickly.

I guess the only value in this charade is to instruct the general public that our federal masters have long ago stopped pretending that they care what we think.  In one case holding onto classified documents is just a misunderstanding; no harm, no foul.  In the next case it’s a capital crime and then in the third, back to a misunderstanding again.  The lesson is that reality is whatever they say it is.  But for most of us we’ve already seen this show before.

I guess we need a new diversion to keep me from getting bored with the whole thing.  Maybe we can watch to see how the disaster in the Ukraine plays out.  That’s a real-life train wreck in slow-motion and probably a major embarrassment for the globalist project.  They attempted to force Putin into a fait accompli and he turned the tables on them.  He actually believes in his people and their right not to be globalized out of existence.  Unfortunately, it will cost the Ukrainian (and Russian) soldiers dearly.  Hundreds of thousands will die and the Ukraine will be shattered into at least two parts.  But getting into bed with Barack Obama and Joe Biden was a pretty stupid decision on their part and the Ukrainians will learn a very painful lesson about how the world works.  It will also cost us several hundreds of billions of dollars or more.  And if the State Department and the Pentagon are really crazy it might just get us all nuked too.

Another sideshow will be the Republicans in the House.  We’ll get to see how they stack up against the previous generations of Congress Critters.  And this is good news for them.  They’ll have to fail pretty abysmally to be judged in the same league with John Boehner’s or Paul Ryan’s gangs of stooges.  I’ll confess that I have some traces of hope that they might show themselves to be better than expected.  So, there is something to keep us amused there too.

But I find that there’s plenty to keep me busy in the real world.  Family, friends and the doings of my surroundings keep me busy and allow me to positively impact my little world.  Saints be praised, I’m even helping the local Republicans to get things done.  Who knows, with a lot of hard work we might even make our corner of New England just a little less cobalt blue!

But now that I’m done with my site work I’ll have some amusing stuff coming up soon.  Maybe even a few laughs.

Us and Them

Half the news today is about the January 6th Committee recommending criminal charges against Donald Trump to the Justice Department.  Now, there is nothing surprising about that recommendation.  Nor is there any doubt that if the Justice Department decides to prosecute him that they can find a crooked DC court to convict him.  They’ve proven they’ve got access to any number of kangaroo courts and they can pack a jury with partisan hacks.  But what they can’t do any more is convince the majority of Americans that there is anything legitimate or honest in their activities.

Thirty percent of the country consider the federal government to be a pirate operation. Probably more than 50% feel that voting laws have been tampered with to the point that fair elections are no longer possible.  And a safe majority of Americans are aware that the press and many institutions are obviously controlled by the Democrats.

So, whatever the Justice Department does, no one will mistake it for justice.  It’s just the application of power against their enemies.  And that’s where we’ll be.  From now on we’re sort of where the Soviet Union was in the 1980s.  Everyone knows how things get done and no one believes the “official” explanation for anything.  It’s just the way the system works.

And that’s the way it will be.  The Left controls this country lock, stock and barrel.  They’ll do whatever they want to do.  But at the same time, they’re ruling over something between 30 and 50% of the population that considers itself under forced occupation by a banana republic junta.  Based on the activities that we’ve seen from the Obama and Biden gangs we can expect that gross incompetence and corruption will be the hallmarks of this regime.  And the faltering economy portends great suffering for the former working and middle classes.

So, it’s an open question where this goes.  Can the Democrats screw things up badly enough that despite election fraud they could still be voted out of office by their own voters?  I sort of doubt it.  I think the outcome of these elections is no longer in the hands of voters at all.  If that is the case then it will take the disruption of normal life to finally wrench control of the country away from the Left.

It will take something on the order of what Germany went through in the 1920s and 1930s to convince Americans to finally reject their current masters.  That’s a harrowing idea.  We’ll need to be ruined and destitute to finally cast off the crooks currently running this country.

It took about seventy years for the Soviet Union to fall.  But the United States has a much more robust economy and a long history of governmental stability.  Nevertheless, Americans are not used to true poverty.  Even during the Great Depression most people worked and could feed themselves. But the way the current gang are deindustrializing the country any level of economic destruction seems possible.  I won’t pretend to know how things will turn out for us.  It’s an open question.

But I will say that they’ve achieved permanent alienation of a very large minority of the country and that will seriously change the complexion of life in this country.  Joe Biden can wave the flag all he wants.  No one is following him to the Ukraine or anywhere else.  Let him organize the Tranny Brigade to head over that hill for him and best of luck with that.

Half the country (and probably a lot more) are now completely pragmatic about how they interact with their government.  No one is volunteering for anything anymore.  Self-interest of themselves and their families is the name of the game.  There’s us and there’s them.

Garland Appoints Special Counsel to Take Down Trump

Everyone has been waiting for this moment.  The Biden administration has activated the plan to stop Donald Trump from running in 2024.  They’ve selected a hatchet man to put together a rigged investigation.  Then comes the Washington DC located kangaroo court and jury to convict him.  That should teach anyone who still has any doubts about whether justice still exists in these United States.  Should be interesting to see what comes of the investigation into Hunter Biden.  Probably nothing.  After all, it’s the DOJ that prosecutes people not the Congress.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/18/politics/justice-department-trump-special-counsel/index.html

 

Guest Contributor – NostraDumbass – 18NOV2022 – What If the Deep State Wins

Question:

Chemist:

I’m curious: How are you prepared for the swamp to win?

If the swamp wins our savings are worthless, the boarder is no more, voting is the same here as in North Korea, energy costs will skyrocket, medical care will be rationed, lawlessness rules the land.

Other than building a bunker, how do you prepare for that?

 

NostraDumbass:

You prepare for the results.  In this case the DC swamp is similar in nearly all aspects to fascism.

The swamp has disdain for the recognition of human rights.  Because the swamp’s fear of enemies, the need for its own security is primary, so the regime will persuade that human rights can be ignored in certain situations because of this need.  Most of the sheep will look the other way, or even approve of torture, executions, assassinations and long incarcerations of political dissidents.  Change your party registration to Democrat as a safety measure as there is no longer a “real” vote anyway.

The swamp will then begin identifying the enemies of the America that they rule.  They will attempt to rally a patriotic frenzy over a need to eliminate the common foe: MAGA in this case.  Limit discussions with those around you to those you trust, show yourself as a blank screen to all others. Do not proselytize.  The result of Martyrdom is still death.  Guerrilla games are played in the shadows and are more effective.

The swamp already controls mass media, either by government regulation or the sympathetic media spokesman.  Censorship will begin in earnest, even more so than today.  Find other safe outlets for voice, start with secure VPN on the internet, use search engines that do not track.  Find the dark web, much useful information to be found there.  Don’t go to the hedonistic or hack sites, as more than likely these sites will either attempt to defraud or gain leverage over you.

The Swamp is obsessed with its own security.  How many times was it said that MAGA is a threat to “our democracy”? The game plan is obvious: The Swamp is “democracy” and MAGA is the “threat.”  If the DC Swamp wins, MAGA is going down.  The so-called “Patriot Act” allows the government in charge of DC to monitor every aspect of the American citizen, from geolocation on your phone, your “smart” car, even the little light that indicates one of your tires is low comes from a device inside the rim of the tire that emits a signal.  Drive and maintain a pre-smart car, leave your phone at home when travelling locally.  Leave as little in the open as possible.

Corporate power is protected by the swamp. The industrial and business aristocracy of the fascist swamp often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.  Think WEF and G20.  Do not bend to foreign control of your government.

The swamp is rife with rampant cronyism and corruption.  The swamp regime is governed by groups of friends and associations who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.  I see this as where the swamp finally overplays its hand. A destitute population (armed at that) either goes full revolution or anarchy, either way the writing will be on the wall.

This is where the tide changes, this is what will lead to the new America.

“Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose”.

So yes, I am prepared if in fact the DC swamp is victorious. I am also prepared if we are able to overcome the swamp in the next election only in a far different direction than what I stated above.

All You Zombies

Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, John Fetterman, The Clintons.  The list goes on and on.  Where do these people come from?  They’re all the weirdest individuals imaginable outside of the Arkham Lunatic Asylum.  And yet they’re accepted and elected to high office by tens of millions of American voters.  This alone is an indictment of our society.  Only corruption so ingrained and pervasive as to be virtually the dominant force in our politics could explain Joe Biden and Kamala Harris being the President and Vice President of the United States.

Listen to Nancy Pelosi just once and you’re sure that she’s an inebriated dolt.  Try to follow an answer that Harris gives to a direct question.  It’s like some kind of scene from a Seinfeld episode where George Costanza is pretending to be an architect or a marine biologist.  She’s a complete moron.  Buttigieg is only nominally less stupid.  Now we have an actual stroke victim pretending he’s capable of representing his state in the Senate.  I guess compared to these characters the bald guy wearing the wig, dress and admiral’s hat is the normal one.

And finally, the pinnacle of our dysfunctional government menagerie, Joe Biden.  His advancing dementia is actually his least offensive characteristic.  He’s a congenital liar.  He lies continuously and so outrageously that there’s no way for him to hide it.  He lies to make himself look better.  He lies to hide the incompetence of himself and his administration.  He lies to further his personal gain.  He lies to fool the American people about the terrible policies he wants to adopt.  And sometimes I think he lies just to stay in practice.

Based on the things we’ve learned about him from his own family he’s a frightening deviant who showered with his teenaged daughter.  He’s very credibly accused of having sexually assaulted a woman on his Senatorial staff in broad daylight.  He sidles up to women and girls and sniffs their hair and fondles their shoulders even while being televised.  And he’s the father and business partner of Hunter Biden, a crack-smoking bagman who has managed to make his father look slightly less insane by comparison.  And this is the President of the United States of America.

So how the hell do we get rid of these people?

There is no answer to this question.  Because there is no simple solution.  The federal government is a Frankenstein’s Monster that has been created by well meaning people to solve problems like World War II and the Great Depression but instead is now uncontrollable and a menace to those it’s supposed to serve.  The FBI, the other intelligence agencies and several other key agencies have been given carte blanche by such laws as the Patriot Act and the FISA court to control Americans at any level they choose to.  Combine that with the data collection resources they’ve amassed and we have something even Stalin would have thought beyond the pale.  So how exactly do you rein in this monster?  It would take the concerted effort of the President and Congress along with the armed forces to dismantle our Deep State.

And don’t get me wrong.  It’s worth doing.  It’s the only way we could wrestle back our country.  But who’s got that kind of power?  We’d need a cadre of supermen to make it happen.  Instead, we’ve got Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy.  So as much as I’d like to imagine us draining the swamp, I realize that it would involve first uniting the country in a way that hasn’t happened since World War II.  We’d need a supermajority in the Senate and House and we’d need a President who was personally unafraid to take on people who probably aren’t afraid to use assassination as a problem-solving technique.

But I’m game to see it done.  I just think it’s important not to kid ourselves.  Winning an off-year election or even winning the Congress and Presidency is far from sufficient to make this happen.  Mitch McConnell is bought and sold.  Half of the Congress is too.  We’re so far from seeing anything happen that it’s hard to even imagine how it would.  But let’s see it play out.  If nothing else it’s fodder for a book.  It’s like watching Rome in the time of Julius Caesar or possibly Caligula.  The bad guys control so much of the playing field that it’s hard to even find the good guys.  But let’s watch it unwind.  At least we can watch the freak show go by.  That’s good for a few laughs.

The Sussman Verdict

So I read the articles (1, 2, 3) about Sussman being acquitted.  It’s a long sordid tale.  The judge is a colleague of Sussman’s from the Clinton White House.  His wife is a lawyer that defended the FBI agent that was part of the Russia-gate scam that spawned the Durham investigation.  And the judge also made a point of seating several jury members that were big donors to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The acquittal proves the point that no one will receive actual justice in a DC court.  What will occur will be machine justice.  Nothing is clearer than that the Deep State owns DC lock, stock and barrel.  The only way to “fix” the federal government is to draft legislation to allow the president to fire anyone in the executive branch for any reason that he may care to come up with.  Short of that, the Deep State owns this country.

I guess I already knew this inside but it’s gut wrenching when circumstances prove it to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt.  I guess the only question that’s still open is whether Durham is completely a puppet or whether he will try to avoid this set-up for his ongoing cases.  Surely there must be a way to have the trials moved to a fair venue where something beside insiders will be the judge and jury.  Couldn’t he pick Oklahoma or Idaho?

Well, now I’m just daydreaming.  This reinforces all the worst things I have heard about our justice system.  This is right up there with that other bozo of a judge who spent years torturing General Flynn for a trumped-up charge.  And it goes along with the January 6th judges who have allowed defendants to languish for over a year in prison over a trespassing charge.

Equal justice under the law is supposedly the proudest claim that America makes before the world.  But that is shown to be an obvious fallacy.  There is one law for the common people and an altogether different law for friends of the regime.  If we ever get a truly powerful majority in the Senate, we should use it to impeach judges.  There are a goodly number of them who have proven themselves corrupt and impeachment is the minimum penalty they should have to pay.  A good stiff prison sentence would be even more fitting.

So, when and if we regain the Presidency and the Congress the program that should be initiated is to reform the executive branch.  The ability to fire employees is basic but in addition, the practice of allowing administrative departments to dictate law must be curtailed.  The EPA cannot decide whether you can heat your home with gas or oil without Congress writing the law.  They should be able to recommend it and they should be charged with enforcing it but they can’t be judge, jury and executioner anymore.  It’s un-American and it’s proof that we’ve become slaves to the bureaucracy.

If Trump or DeSantis gets in next, he better make taming the Deep State his first order of business.  If he doesn’t, then he might as well stay home and just let the Democrats continue putting nails in our coffin.  It won’t make a bit of difference otherwise.

Being Managed by the Managerial State

One of the hallmarks of the current system we live under is that it is assumed that people cannot manage their own lives anymore without the guidance (control) of experts in government and industry.  The computerized systems we must negotiate to satisfy the requirements of daily life are arcane to the point of impenetrability.  And they’re constantly patched and endlessly updated.  At every turn we need to employ the “help” of experts and agents of the government and quasi-official agencies or just corporate customer service.  Some of these in the corporate ranks are, to be fair, quite good.  You might buy a phone or a service contract from a vendor and they might do excellent work providing customer service for their products or services.

But for every good example there are a dozen where customer service is provided by someone in Mumbai with English language skills that would test the patience of Job.  And sometimes the results of consulting these representatives are worse than useless.  Rather than alleviate some initial problem they sink you deeper in a morass of problems.  And going through these sometimes hours-long ordeals saps your energy and raises your stress levels through the roof.

And this is just trying to get the service on a device working.  Imagine what it’s like when the IRS gets its claws into you.  Then we’re talking about terror.  And taking it all the way to infinity, imagine dealing with the FBI when they take a battering ram to your front door at 3 a.m. prior to dragging you off to the gulag.  I guess you could describe the whole system as assault by expert.  We are no longer allowed to live our lives in a simple reasonable way.  We have each become just a cog in the machine.  And every cog must be cut into the precise size and shape needed to conform to the requirements of the machine.

It might be bearable if it wasn’t apparent that the stress, embarrassment and pain inflicted in the machining of the cogs is obviously a feature of the process and not a bug.  Just as in the Soviet system, control is maintained through fear and confusion.  Orwell described this system in his novel “1984” and Solzhenitsyn confirmed its reality and provided details in his memoir “Gulag Archipelago.”

So, what’s my point?  Well, just this.  Winning elections is not going to gain back the country we had.  Whoever is president is going to have to demolish the Deep State.  And that means eliminating thousands and thousands of bureaucrats whose jobs are meant to bludgeon us into submission, literally cause death by a thousand paper cuts.

I’ve read that eliminating those bureaucrats can’t be done.  That all those bureaucrats’ jobs are protected by federal law.  To that I say, “So what?”  Surely the President can transfer all of these torturers into completely harmless parts of their departments.  If need be, he can create sections where the offending individuals can be employed stuffing envelopes with letters that won’t be mailed.  He can keep them doing that until they’re forced into retirement by extreme old age.

But by whatever means he comes up with to do it, that’s what must be done.  All those FBI agents who currently spend their days enticing disgruntled Americans into joining phony militias with phony insurrections can be reassigned to a division where all their time is spent ticketing double parked limousines outside the State Department.  All of the IRS agents can be repurposed as latrine inspectors for the National Parks Service.  All of the bureaucrats currently hassling utilities companies about the carbon dioxide emissions of their combustion plants can be safely transferred to Denali National Park in Alaska where they can monitor the temperature of the grizzly bears with a rectal thermometer.  Or they can try to at least once.

All kidding aside.  Whoever wants to save this country will have to dismantle wide swaths of the managerial state just to start regaining control of the federal government.  There’s no other way.  Think about that Mr. Trump and anyone else who thinks he wants the job.  And then think about how you can get it done.