First we have Putin claiming that President Obama has been trying to undermine Trump's credibility, as if Trump needed anybody to do that more than he already does to himself. Then you have Putin then claiming that Obama was the one producing fake news. I mean seriously, Obama, and the rest of the Democrats, only wish we could have cranked fake out like the Russians did with social media in the fast few years. Then we could have had real competition in our race to the bottom of corrupting an informed electorate.
Then we have the current Communist Party Chairman of China trying to lecture Trump on the benefits of Capitalism! Holy Shit! Are dogs going to sleeping with cats next?
You'd think the mere fact that someone like Trump actually winning a presidential election would have prepared us for anything, but maybe not so much. Or maybe it's just the cascade effect of one oxymoron after another falling on top of us that has made keeping a proper sense of normal impossible anymore; and/or reality itself has simply come unglued... The speed of light will be fluctuating, gravity going full tilt yo-yo, and rates of decay in general deciding to throw the dice at every turn.
Fortunately Putin ought to be easy to ignore as he undoubtedly graduated magnum cum laude from KGB school of lying, but the whole Xi lecture coming from Devos is another matter altogether. And with the way Trump goes off not even half cocked in multiple, diametrically opposed directions, in areas of both foreign policy and economics, how can any of the rest of the world (with perhaps exception to Russia) know what to actually expect from this Moron. What is one to say when, on the one hand you stuff your cabinet with Big Money Stalwarts, and then on the other you give big lip service to starting trade wars with China and Europe.
You have to hope that it is only lip service for the latter, and that he understands that it is lip service, with the money people, and the rest of the Republican Congress keeping a lid on that potential pot of crazy he calls a brain. At least that way we can hope that killing the Affordable Care Act will cause only a "bad" recession, as opposed to an actual depression with a capital "D." A depression that would add at least one more big power to the list of desperate nations; one more towards too many of those desperate enough to risk hostilities in the South China Sea, or the Middle East.
You also have to wonder here about whether Putin is playing a much longer game than we might be seeing so far. In this view getting something back in terms of a weakened Nato, or more of his way in Ukraine, might only be dressing on a nice cake. Nice but the ultimate prize. Perhaps the real prize here is our being put at armed odds with China. Not only does that put a huge new burden on us, it keeps China focused on anywhere other than the Sino-Russian border (as well as the Arctic), where new resource riches may only be a few years, to a decade away. And where Putin knows, even more than Nato, he is really the most vulnerable.
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