Kushner the Keystone Kop

"President" Trump and his retainers do almost NOTHING according to purposeful, outcome-based planning. Everything in this administration "just happens," and like Topsy, "just grows," irrespective of anything else. I find it difficult, therefore, to believe that Jared Kushner or anyone else in that clutch of latter-day Keystone Kops had any conscious intention of doing, well, much of anything really consequential with the Russians. It was all just ad-libbed game-playing by political dilettantes. AKA, bullshit.

And as we know, bullshit action, like bullshit talk, is simply made up on the spur of the moment for no purpose other than to "win" the moment and move on to another moment requiring its own bullshit improvisation, probably inconsistent with anything previously cooked up. Moment to moment to moment muddling--until, whoops! the muddlers are crushed between two streetcars they somehow didn't notice careening toward them. In all this, clearly, there is no overarching plan or principle or internal logic. It's movement with neither purpose nor destination. 

So I suspect that Kushner (perhaps to please the Prez) merely committed Keystone-Kops stupidity--or at worst, frat-boy mischief. I doubt that he had/has either the intellectual heft or the intestinal fortitude to effect any genuine collusion with Russia's big spooks. But he did kinda drive off a PR cliff, didn't he? Evidently, behind that high Harvard forehead, snoozes the brain of a bonafide klutz. 

Which leads us to ask: will the favored son-in-law fall into the sea or will he, by dint of more muddling, succeed in pulling himself back up to terra (not so) firma? Stay tuned for the next episode, folks. It's entitled "Jared Jiggles the Jalopy."

NATO Tea Party With Trump

I suspect that Trump and the majority of Americans think thusly about foreign relations: "It is America's manifest destiny and sacred duty to control (er, "protect") the rest of the world (foreigners certainly can't be trusted to do it themselves--they might not even be able to identify the proper "enemy") but, by jingo, we expect the rest of the world to PAY for this benevolent management we're providing. Like Mexico and that wall we're gonna build down there for their own good. Enough unfair exploitation of American taxpayers! No more free military occupation! Pay up, you moochers!"

Throughout history, this has generally been the prevailing empire's argument--and justification--for demanding financial "compensation" from its subject peoples. The British did this in 18th century North America in an effort to exact some payment for the "protection" they had provided the cheapskate  colonies in the French and Indian (Seven Years') War. The demand was probably legitimate: the redcoats HAD after all kept out the poxy French--and the war had been costly.

Nonetheless, the methods employed (taxes levied from London with no colonial input) were ill-conceived, ill-executed, and shit! they just pissed everybody off so bad! Consequently, in that instance at least, the subject people not only refused to pay--but they tossed the arrogant Imperials out on their rosy, red arses. Achtung! therefore, Mr. Trump, lest the NATO leaders grow so angered by YOUR methods that they decide to call your bluff and, following the example set back in 18th century Boston, dump you (and America) unceremoniously into the sea--like a fat bag of Oolong.

In other words, if you want dominance and world hegemony, you’re going to have to pay more than your subjects/allies. If, on the other hand, you sincerely want an equitable distribution of cost—together with a correspondingly equitable distribution of power—you must abandon your cherished notion of Rule America! 

Which might earn you very bad ratings among your uber-patriotic fans.