I realize that for those back in America, you’re not reading my blog because you want my take on world events and or politics. It’s to see what I’m up to with my new life in China. For those who care, next week, I will be updating my blog with some very big news in this regard. However, as I’ve pointed out in my “Prologue,” I will, from time to time, go off on tangents. Also, there are local teachers and students who are interested in what I have to say about American politics. I share my blog with and have made it clear to my students (if nothing else, it’s good practice, reading English)  and fellow teachers just what I think of president Childking so this blog is no longer exclusively geared towards Americans. (Like others, I refuse to call him by his name. That gives him undo respect.) So, if you don’t care to read my views (or, rants, if you like), consider this a “trigger-warning” and skip the below. Especially if you find it outrageous that, unlike most Americans, I actually favor better relations with Russia. In the end, I fear the worst for relations between America and Russia (and by extension, the entire world) with a President Pence sitting in the Oval Office, in the not too distant future. 

The last two weeks, Rachel Maddow has been reporting stories, which suggest two major threads we should be pulling at. One, the Thief-in-Chief has been profiting enormously from his dealings with various Russian and Russian-related oligarchs over the years (Here and here.) Second, The Thief’s minions collaborated with Russia to undermine our election, and here. Rachel, along with a few other intrepid journalists have been assiduously “connecting the dots” of the labyrinth of obfuscation, lies, and the smoke and mirrors of the criminal conspiracy that is the Drumpf administration. We can now see the intersection of these two threads. For me, these Maddow reports have pulled back the curtain and I now see, after months of watching puzzling behavior emanating from the “clown car,” exactly what is going on. These Rachel Maddow segments are not only showing the corruption going on but help explain why The Thief of Mar-a-Lago, appears to be, in contravention to standard Republican orthodoxy, seemingly pro-Russian and which really is a true outlier for what passes as “foreign policy.” She, along with others have also pointed out that the outlandish charges that seemed to come out of nowhere, in the last week, of Obama wiretapping Dump Tower is merely His Nothingness’s standard operating procedure to distract (“the bright, shiny object” methodology) the public and the media from what they should be looking at. 

The Russians would help him get elected by collaborating with him to undermine the Clinton campaign (Putin has a tremendous personal animus towards Hilary) and in a “two-fer” for the Russians, be able to get him to do their bidding because they can, at anytime “out” all of those illegal doings, if he should “go off the Russian Reservation.” It actually helps in part to explain the “bromance” between our Moron-in-chief and Putin. Of course there’s also the fact that authoritarians respect and admire the actions of other authoritarians. The corrupt money trail from Ukraine, Russia and now, we see, Azerbaijan, leads right to the White House.

During “Watergate,” W. Mark Felt, known to history as “Deepthroat” never actually said: “Follow the money.” Nevertheless, that’s sage advice for sleuths who have been trying to connect the dots to explain the seemingly disparate and at times bizarre or incongruous behaviors coming out of this “Alice in Wonderland” administration. We can now say with some confidence that most likely, “the Monster from the Republican id”, living in the White House, is, understandably fearful of the Russians spilling the beans, not only about his grubby money doings, but complicity in undermining America’s electoral process. This also explains why he’s never given any good reasons for wanting to change America’s policy towards the Russians. He’s only interested in them keeping their mouths shut, not even bothering to give any strategic or compelling reasons to Americans, for wanting such a change. Soon, America will finally understand The Dim Bulb’s “bromance” with Putin and Russia. It has nothing to do with joining forces to combat terrorism, nor does it have anything to do with a grand, geopolitical realignment of international relations. It’s not even about NATO’s obsolescence. Not surprisingly, and because it’s drumpf, it’s all about a tawdry affair involving boatloads of money, political corruption and as always, The Cover-up.
 
I would also like to make clear that what Rachel and others are doing helps maintain the American/Russian status quo of confrontation, which I am opposed to. As much as I like her thoughtful inquiries and conclusions, she is, along with most in the media, a Russia-basher. She paints Russia as a sinister state determined to undermine US leadership in the world and ensure that Russia’s behavior goes unaccounted. My retort is, “So what?” It’s simply doing what great powers have always done and certainly, it’s what America does on a daily basis: strive to get the world to see things from our point of view and always and at every turn, act to promote our own interests. I’m also a relativist about this. Whatever you want to say about Russia, it is far less a threat to the world than during the days of the Soviet Union. Read my post, “Slim Pickens For President” if you want to know why I don’t think Russia is the threat its being portrayed in the western media as. We could just as easily be strategically aligned with Russia rather than oppose them at every turn. But that runs counter to the various factions within America that make up the “Deep State” that needs, for a variety of disparate reasons, to keep Russia as America’s adversary, if not outright enemy because these institutions, whether it’s corporations, government bureaucracies, the Media, defense contractors, think tanks or universities, all profit from America being in a state of “permanent war.” Just like cheeto puff-hybrid human in the White House, it’s all about the money. It’s important to distinguish my understanding of the “deep state” and the one presented by right-wingers. In their version it’s a vast unseen conspiracy to overthrow the government. My take is one similar to thoughtful observers such as Andrew Bacevich or Dan Carlin who have pointed out that there are many organizations and entities who separately benefit from the status quo and would be threatened if there was a true paradigm shift in U.S policy in any number of arenas. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s simply people making sure their own nests stay feathered. 

Now, it is clear, that his campaign really was in cahoots with the Russians to undermine the 2016 election and hand over the White House, to the Rethuglicans. Everyday, more and more elements of the now, infamous dossier composed by the retired MI-6 agent, Christopher Steele (is that a nom de guerre or is that really his name?) are being shown to be true. In that dossier are also all of those salacious elements of Trumptastrophe’s peccadilloes that evidently the Russians have on video and “boy-howdy” (as Rachel would say), make for some good blackmail, if true.

Between that and all of the various financial dealings between Russian government agents and Paul Manfort, Jared Kushner, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Trump Jr., Rex Tillerson, Felix Sater, Alex Shnaider, et al, is it that difficult to suspect that perhaps the Russians are in a position to blackmail president Smallhands?

As I see it, that’s the reason El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago is trying to eviscerate long-standing American policy towards Russia. To me, it explains why he hasn’t given any cogent arguments for why America should have better relations with them. He’s just trying to keep them happy with his efforts to shift US policy and because he has no real understanding of geopolitics or history (or anything else, for that matter) he is unable to annunciate (nor does he even care) any coherent reasons for pushing for this change. He does, however, understand what will happen if he isn’t a good delivery boy for Putin.

But as Rachel keeps pointing out, the whole thing is unraveling with each passing day. The majority-thugs controlling the House and Senate are certainly making a yeoman’s effort to keep insisting that “there’s nothing more to see here, move along,” but I suspect that won’t be able to hold up because their own political self-interests are going to kick in at some point. If The Conald isn’t driven from power by his own cabinet, via the 25^th Amendment and an independent investigation should begin, then we can enjoy the specter of his impeachment for what will certainly be conspiracy as well as obstruction of justice charges in the attempt to, by that point, hide an elephant, using a thong.

The irony for me is that the status quo ante of a disastrous and backward looking, Cold-War policy towards Russia will be restored by his Vice-President, who will happily reignite Cold-War II, to the delight and relief of most everyone. Well, you now know of at least one person who won’t celebrate. One way or another, something awful is going to hit the fan. As I’ve said before, I just count my lucky stars that don’t have to live in America.