Sorry--I have no bright ideas. And that's the point. What I'll offer is a quote from a retired CIA Station Chief, Bradley Johnson. The quotes are from a 20 minute interview--so just a snippet. Please don't belabor me re the site that this appeared at. My point is simply that, in my experience, this guy is absolutely right. Even if Trump were not, as Tucker Carlson says, ‘horrible at hiring people’, he'd still be facing a nearly insuperable task in attempting to root out the embedded resistance at the Intel agencies. Read this and weep for the country:
Do you think the top floors of CIA still have a “protect the Deep State” agenda?
“All of the agencies are that way, the FBI, the CIA, NSA, the State Department, they are all that way. The pipeline to leadership in all of the federal agencies that are in the intelligence community have been controlled by the left for a long time. The only people who make their way up through that pipeline and get into positions of leadership are the “resist” Deep State types of people. So they’re all that way, there’s no exceptions to that. It’s not what talking heads say, ‘Oh, there’s good people there, purely professional there…’ That used to be that way, but that’s no longer that way. That was all consolidated under Obama, and that’s the way it stays, and unfortunately Trump hasn’t had the chance to fix that yet.”
I will repeat what I said recently in the context of the Hasan case, that the rot set in well before Obama. I suspect that Johnson would agree and would add that his point is precisely that the Obama years "consolidated" this transformation. Part of his "fundamental transformation" of America.
On reforming the CIA and the other Intel agencies that have been co-opted by globalists and leftists:
“It’s a tough problem, and I would say that anyone I’ve talked to that are retired ‘agency’ and people like that, that I know, we’ve all concluded that essentially it cannot be fixed with what’s there, and I think that’s the bottom line.”
Speaking about the bloated numbers of personnel at the Intel agencies, and how a RIF [Reduction In Force] might improve the situation, or instead, might be used by the dominant leftists to target the remaining conservatives for firing:
“I would say there’s no patriots left, certainly not at the leadership level. At the working level, yes, but those people essentially, you have to keep your head down and your mouth shut, because if it comes out that you’re a conservative, you’re destroyed, your career is over. It’s not that you necessarily get fired on the spot, but you’re never going to get a good job, and the only way to get promoted and move up is to have a good job that tics off all those things that are required to go to the next level, and that’s how they control the pipeline. There’s a lot of laws controlling the promotion process, but there’s no laws controlling how jobs are handed out, and that’s the way that the liberals have taken it over inside all of these federal agencies. Many years ago at [the] State Department, and in recent decades at the rest of the agencies. So a RIF, especially at the higher levels, there’s no conservatives to target, so it would only be to the good. It would be a net win to do a RIF of any sort at any of these agencies.”
UPDATE: Pat Lang, who runs Sic Semper Tyrannis, offers a readable perspective on the numerous intel failures the US has experience in relatively recent years, while the IC became ever more politicized. It's a good read: Burn CIA and FBI to the ground? Start over?
You may be familiar with a quote attributed to JFK (years after his death): that he “wanted to splinter the C.I.A. in a thousand pieces".
ReplyDeleteThe quote's provenance is in dispute, but Trump may need to heed its drift.
History tells us this--creation of a Deep State--is inevitable in the shift from republic to Empire.
DeleteThe real issue to me is that the people whose job it would be to shut down and replace these agencies are the very same people who happily made them the way they are. It's like asking Dr. Frankenstein to kill his monster.
ReplyDeleteThey won't do it.
Thus, this "reversion" is going to have to come from outside the Beltway. It must come from the bottom up, from the states.
What this would entail, for starters, is a new view of federalism, one in which states went back to believing in the 10th Amendment. States need to take back the power that they willingly in most cases have given away. A movement is required.
Somewhere in all this, the schools have to change. We are punching out Eloi, all of whom think government is God. No one is going to blow up the CIA.
It has to be cut back, inch by inch, like the intolerable weed it has become. Same goes for the FBI, the DEA, the EPA, and to some extent, the DOJ. The judiciary has to be shrunk.
Time frame? Decades.
I won't be here to see it. But if it doesn't happen, the Republic is gone. You can't say we haven't been warned.
So thank Donald Trump for putting it all out there at center stage. The Lord has chosen a strange vessel in him. But he's close to all we have.
"It must come from the bottom up, from the states."
DeleteThink about this. Senators used to be selected by State legislatures--that's how the Constitution was written, the purpose being that senators would represent their States. Now, they're popularly elected and represent themselves as independent DC powerbrokers. What's going on now is pretty much baked in. To change it you'd probably have to amend the Constitution, but that originates in DC, too.
I completely agree. It's long since past time for the 17th Amendment to be repealed. And, yes, odds of that happening are close to zero. Unless Barr can generate enough furor so people see what the popular election of senators has led to: Leviathan, the Administrative State.
DeleteTitan, indeed, our best, if not only, hope is that Barr can generate enough furor, so people see what the popular election of senators has led to.
DeleteA related option may be, if Barr can get the "rogue" elements of the D.S. to face the music, that the Globalist D.S. is leading the U.S. off a cliff, see
https://www.ofTwoMinds.com/blogjuly18/schizo-deep-state7-18.html :
"The divided Deep State is a symptom of this larger systemic political disunity. I have characterized the divide as between the Wall Street-Neocon-Globalist Neoliberal camp-- currently the dominant public face of the Deep State, the one desperately attempting to exploit the "Russia hacked our elections and is trying to destroy us" narrative— and a much less public, less organized "rogue Progressive" camp, largely based in the military services and fringes of the Deep State, that sees the dangers of a runaway expansionist Empire, and the resulting decay of the nation's moral/political center."
And, there may be some hope, that major scoops etc. by Barr will jar thinking, not only in the D.S., but among other (UniParty) Elites across the land, as to just how (their tolerance of) such an orgy of irresponsible/ criminal governance/ politics (by Obama, Hillary, etc.) had brought the nation to the brink of civil war (or total tyranny).
DeleteThe dream scenarios would be, say, where Fortune 500 etc. board mtgs. see sane Cassandras getting up the stones, to rip into the incumbent brass who were along for the RussiaGate ride.
That seems almost too much to hope for. Still, ...
DeleteIt seems to me the best chance the 17th Amendment would have of getting corrected is with a new amendment that gives each state the right to choose between the original way of electing Senators and the current way. States should also be given the freedom to change from one method to the other, even if such changes were limited to, say, once every ten years or whatever.
DeleteIn addition to having a far greater chance of passage, it would also allow for everyone to see over time if and how Senators elected one way tended to behave differently from those elected the other way. IOW, very good from a civics standpoint. (It sure seems like Senators chosen by state legislatures would be keen to start clawing back a lot of the money and control that DC has ripped from those same legislatures over the years.)
The time probably isn't yet upon us for amendments to be able to pass, but it’s good to think these things through and be as ready as possible should that time actually come. (Well, that's what I think anyway ;^> )
Idea: Republicans (that means all of us) use the forthcoming FISA-abuse report as ammunition. Throw it at the feet of Senators Graham, Grassley, McConnell and demand - not that laws be tweaked, because D.C. simply laughs at laws - but demand that CIA/FBI/State/NSA be "reorganized".
ReplyDelete>To change it you'd probably have to amend the Constitution, but that originates in DC, too.<
ReplyDeleteConvention of states doesn't originate in DC. See M.Levin's Liberty Amendments
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=liberty+amendments+mark+levin&crid=2PR1PO1WYBEMF&sprefix=liberty+amen%2Caps%2C149&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_12
Sorry, but I'm not holding my breath.
DeleteMe too. Levin wants to do a "populist revolt" but he doesn't like populism. To be fair to Levin, legislature in 8-10 (red)states have passed a CoS resolution since his book came out. But the effort has largely stalled.
DeleteMy problem with Levin's book is it much too late to be attempting a wholesale reform of the Fed Gov't. The best I think that could be done now is to try to go for the fiscal jugular: changing Art I Sect 8 Clause 2 from 2: "To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;", to"2: To borrow Money, with the approval 3/4 state legislatures, on the credit of the United States;". Making it difficult to borrow money might start slowing the beast down.
This would be simple but very powerful rallying point for millions of citizens in the 38 states that are needed for CoS. The 1000's of state reps and senators might do the right thing if confronted by such support for this 1 subject only CoS.
Now back to the real world. lol
In 2021, with Speaker Devin Frickin Nunes, Trump could demand reorgs of DoJ/CIA/State/DoD/NSA in exchange for his signing the next debt-ceiling increase. Something like that will happen. Because Trump.
DeleteP.S. "reorg" means civil-service laws repeal/rewrite.
A coup against a duly elected United States president has been ongoing for nearly 3 years now, and the criminality that underpins it has been ongoing for even longer. In addition, corruption and criminality on a much larger scale has also been ongoing for much longer and really got kicked into high gear under the Obama Administration. All of this was enabled by complicity and corruption within the nation's highest law enforcement institutions. You can't run a kleptocracy unless your first own the police.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the solution? A new sheriff (presumably Barr) and then start throwing these miscreants in jail (preferably prison) for a long while. Not token convictions of a few scapegoats who then spend a few weeks/months in a Country Club incarceration facility, but serious imprisonment and serious time (see treatment of Manafort as an example). Do that and things will change for reals.
"Not token convictions of a few scapegoats ..."
DeleteBut requires really thorough, searching investigations of the type Barr/Durham are conducting. Those don't happen overnight. The good news is that recent revelations indicate Barr is building on work that began while Mueller was still active. The full extent of that is something we don't really understand yet.
RUMINT has it that the Deep State would like POTUS to do a campaign ride through Dallas in a convertible later this month.
DeleteAttempts to explain and excuse the litany of failures has left Occam's razor dull and broken.
ReplyDelete