Rick does not believe in impeachment, for a very practical reason – to wit: there is no plan* – but he does believe in pain, and how the GOP can apply it to the executive branch in 2015 and beyond. Basically, it’s So you like bureaucracy, huh?  Here! Have some!

Congress should be devouring the bandwidth of the targeted agencies. Flooding the zone with requests, constant depositions of senior leaders, a constant legal barrage of inquiry for every email, every piece of paper, everything, all the time. Who cares if we use it? Torture them every minute of the day and force them to live in fear of contempt charges. Make their execs lawyer up, and dig dig dig at every inconsistency.

Second, the power of the purse is entirely underutilized, and Congress as a rule has no creativity. Don’t cooperate? Zero out every executive bonus in the agency for a decade. Don’t cooperate? No more conferences, training seminars, trips. Don’t cooperate? No more drivers for senior execs. Don’t cooperate? Every construction project for every building your agency wants is zeroed. Don’t cooperate? We’re relocating 98% of your manpower to Omaha. Don’t cooperate? Zero out the public affairs budget. Don’t cooperate? Every program with ‘green’ ‘affirmative’ ‘equal opportunity’ ‘LGBT’ ‘diversity’ or ‘awareness’ is zeroed out.

Sure, it sounds petty, but the agency people we’re talking about are the most parochial, small-minded bureaucratic weasels, and their perks and powers are all they care about. All it takes is a more bloody-minded approach.

Some people are going to now immediately say that this won’t happen. Which merely means that some people need to re-read this classic of conservative thinking.  Particularly the part about how to get what one wants…  and how not to get it, too.  For my part – and to quote the philosopher –  I love this plan and I am excited to be a part of it.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*No. Really. There is no plan. I’ve apparently had access to the halls of power of the VRWC for precisely ten years now, and I fully agree with Rick that when it comes to a coherent strategy for impeachment there’s no there, there.  And there’s not going to be any there, there.  And if you’re pinning your hopes on that there magically appearing then you will be disappointed and that’s just the way that it is, sorry.