Going... Down?

     Every time I see this picture of Putin, I think of Ian Fleming and Sean Connery. It looks just like the kind of cutting edge invention Dr. No or Goldfinger would use. And after 15 years of being Russia's dictator, it's fairly obvious by now that Vlad Putin, former KGB official, is now a James Bond-class super villain.
     Donald Trump, on the other hand, while he'd love to be a dictator on a par with his buddy Vlad, is exactly like the kind of super villain you'd see in an Austin Powers parody. Or rather, he's like Mini Me to Putin's Dr. Evil.
     Now we're hearing in several news sources, including the Daily Mail, Politico, CNN and the New York Times, that Trump had a screaming hissy fit in the Oval Office last Friday and booted his Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and his Propaganda Minister Steve Bannon off Air Force One's passenger manifest at the last minute. And why did he do this?
     Because they didn't do enough to stop Jeff Sessions (KKK-Alabama) from recusing himself from any DOJ investigation into Trump's connection to Russia. The ship is going down fast and Trump's losing whatever little self control he may have had before improbably sliding into Obama's old chair.
     It doesn't do any good to bring up the fact that the Executive Branch should not in any way interfere with the Department of Justice, especially in matters directly concerning the Attorney General. Karl Rove can tell you all about that. And it profits no one to bring that up because Trump's an incurious idiot who makes George W. Bush, a lesser idiot, look like a PhD in Political Science by conspicuous relief. He has not displayed the slightest bit of pragmatism in how our government works aside from successfully installing a Fifth Column within it with the intention of destroying the departments and the people they're supposed to serve.
     And while I know that dossier on Trump in Russia was compiled by someone who used to be British Intelligence, the story about the golden shower shows put on for Trump remain apocryphal at best and don't get to the heart of the real issues. And the questions should be, what does Putin know, when did he know it and how is he using it?
     The longer this administration shambles on between the Potomac River and Mar-a-Lago, the more it begins to resemble an adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate as interpreted by Benny Hill or Monty Python. It's like a creepy, reverse version of 50 Shades of Grey only in this case it's the billionaire (and everyone under him) who's getting fucked.
     We all know why Sessions got chosen and confirmed as Attorney General. It was the sleaziest and skankiest of nods: The One Issue Nomination. Jeff Sessions, racist baggage containing his Klan costume and all, was essentially a Button Man installed in the Justice Department's Big Corner Office with the intention of killing any investigation into Trump's ties with Russia. Even during his campaign, it already looked as if Trump was being blackmailed by Putin for something and what that is remains to be seen.
     But the shipments of Russian steel provided by one of Putin's oligarch pals have already begun arriving (and very rapidly, as if the cargo ships were closer than that Russian spy sub off the coast of Connecticut) after Trump signed an executive order permitting the building of the Keystone XL pipeline after airily proclaiming it would use nothing but US steel. And now, the same people who were screaming about the pipeline to begin with are now screaming that American steel isn't being used, after all. As if it's OK to build this largely useless pipeline (it would create a few hundred jobs, tops, for Americans) as long as we use the right steel.
     As usual, we're missing the big picture while focusing on tremendous trifles. While the GOP falls in line with the diktats from the WH that everything Russian is A-OK despite it being a quasi-Communist hellhole, we're focusing on unsubstantiated stories that have yet to rise above the level of conspiracy theorizing. Our nation is being run by a foaming at the mouth madman who still refuses to believe that Russia hacked into the DNC and helped to hand him the election but believes Obama got a FISA warrant to spy on Trump Tower.
     Because he heard it on Breitbart.
     Think about that for a minute. As I'd predicted here months ago, Trump is a chimp with a machine gun, an epileptic juggling hand grenades. And while the decisions and executive orders he signs are officially his, they come from alt right conspiracy theory websites like Breitbart and God only knows where else.
     So, even if only for the wrong reasons, Trump did himself a favor by keeping people like Priebus and Bannon away from him during this, his latest in an endless string of vacations (although Bannon made it after all on a separate flight).
     But Donald Trump is as out of touch with reality, especially the inconvenient kind, as Putin is very in touch with it and gaming the giant geopolitical chess board like a true, albeit evil grandmaster.