The shadow government

The Washington, D.C., news media love intrigue. Reporting policy is boring, even if the rest of the nation might like to know the specifics of how government policy will change our lives under the new administration.

Ah, but intrigue! Just who's doing what to whom, and to involve the rest of Kipling's strong serving men, when, where and why? Today we can also add the requirement of how best to stick it to the new administration. That is the opposition's job, right?

The now infamous leaked telephone transcript between U.S. President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was quickly jumped on by D.C.'s mad-hatter media and blocked out into a variety of shapes and sizes, to see which might generate the most mouse clicks. Amazing, isn't it? Even in the digital age, the analog soap opera lives on, as the actors in the media attend to the primary business of selling soap.

But here's the rub. Who did it – us or them – doesn't cut it in the digital age. The unseen actor is sometimes the most important voice.

The world's intelligence agencies are a dark, shadowy swampland themselves. The political demise of the USSR under President Ronald Reagan presented an opportunity to scale back the Cold War intelligence services apparatus to a more defensive position. Bureaucracies, however, are never satiated, not even when they have consumed the entire budget. Then they become cannibalistic, consuming other bureaucracies' budget and people.

TRENDING: 'So cool': Kathryn Limbaugh shares Rush's final moments

Secret knowledge has been the elixir of power forever. World leaders want to know not only what their counterparts in other nations say to them – they want to know what they say to their own underlings about that conversation. And everything else. Even during the days of Reagan, technology had advanced. The intelligence agencies promised they could do the job. So they got the money.

Given this reality, on what basis do we limit the telephone conversation leak we opened with to the inner circle of either Trump or Turnbull? Do you really think that heads of state are "off the table" when it comes to intelligence agency monitoring? I'd say they are near the top of the list!

Given that, did the Aussie service pick up the call, and if so, on which end – ours or their own? How about us? Did we pick it up on the Aussie end, or on our own end?

Don't forget the Russians! They are everywhere, you know. The Chinese are busy stealing our technology; maybe they stumbled onto the call while stealing the next iPhone design? Oh, and then there's the teenage hacker, sitting at the breakfast table in his underwear, itching to take on the hacking world and make a name for himself while he pokes at his laptop and munches his Kellogg's.

No, the days of two sides to a private telephone call equation are long gone. The teenage hacker isn't part of a shadow government, however. He's not part of the outgoing president's loyalist opposition. Or worse, maybe his loyalty is to the global elites who want to do away with national governments entirely. After all, the billionaires outside of government think they own the world. Why shouldn't they have their people run it?

You don't think we have a shadow government? Then why would over 1,000 State Department careerists sign a petition about their concerns regarding the new administration's policies?

Come to think of it, what the heck are over 1,000 people doing working at the State Department? Does it take that many people to keep our embassies stocked with toilet paper? I say let's just ax the entire department! I mean, what can you expect out of an organization that began life as the Committee of Secret Correspondence?

Send them all packing now. Assign the real work to the Defense Department. While we are at it, let's revert the Defense Department to its original name, which lasted up until 1949, the War Department. With Gen. Mattis there, if anybody calls, you'll know they have serious business to discuss.

Maybe there's another war brewing, in an entirely different dimension?

Media wishing to interview Craige McMillan, please contact [email protected].