when jfk started talking this way they killed him; 

This is the first of two commentaries examining what the writer reads as President Trump’s unfolding offensive against the institutions and agencies comprising the deep state — or, if you prefer, the administrative state or the permanent state or the invisible government. The second in this series will follow shortly.

Wow. In a series of rapid-fire developments last week, the new Trump regime has decisively joined the battle with the deep state on the national security side. This is big, or could be. Either Donald Trump will begin to exert political control over the invisible government or the invisible government will sink Donald Trump just as it did during his first term as president. Let us be attentive.

The attack on USAID, the telephone call with Vladimir Putin, the incipient alienation of the Kiev regime, new talk of talks with the Islamic Republic, Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation as director of national intelligence: I don’t know if these events and their timing reflect a concerted plan, back-of-an-envelope inspirations, or the president’s thinking but not necessarily the thinking of those around him. Let us in any case consider these rat-a-tat developments as one if we are to understand what is fundamentally at issue.

And we must add another to the above list. On Feb. 13 Trump came out with his most explosive proposal to date — or one of them, given how quickly the explosions come these days. This was his statement, as recorded by C–SPAN Thursday, that he wants to convene with the presidents of Russia and China, “and I want to say, let’s cut our military budget[s] in half.”.......more.......