Since we all know that Russia prefers Trump to any other US president (since Putin said so on global television) it’s not a surprise that Russian military hackers got into the systems of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden was on the board of directors for a few years.  Ignoring the stupidity of Hunter’s taking of that job, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by him or his father, but that didn’t stop the Russians from doing the job that Trump extorted Zelensky to perform, the move that drew an impeachment action against him.

The effort started in November just as the impeachment inquiry started in the House and Trump began frantically trying to discredit it.  Using phishing and spearphishing tactics (just like in 2016) the Russian GRU has been bombarding Burisma email accounts and have successfully stolen email credentials to get inside of the company.

The super frustrating thing about all of this illegal activity is not only Trump’s acceptance of it, but his encouragement for it to continue.  When is enough enough for Republicans?

As we discussed the other day, I believed strongly that the crash of the Ukrainian Airlines 737 was NOT caused by a mechanical failure.  Indeed, video showed something hit the aircraft and today, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau confirmed what we all feared:

Of course, Iran government officials are lying about the true cause of the crash, but finally bent to demands to allow others into the investigation including Ukraine and Boeing.  The truth will come out, and the Iranian government (along with Trump) look like idiots.  Trump kills the top military general for Iran and 7 others.  Iran retaliates to make a statement, warning the US three hours before the attack so they could clear out and have no casualties.  Purely by accident, the Iranians shot down a commercial aircraft filled with 176 innocents.  Tragic.  And stupid.

Using military strength gets people killed.  It’s high time the morons running these two governments finally figured that out.

In its best imitation of Emily Litella, the Defense Department inflicted whiplash on millions of Americans by releasing a letter to the Iraqi government that US and coalition forces were repositioning in preparation of withdrawing from Iraq.  Amidst the uproar that followed, defense secretary Mark Esper held a news conference to claim the letter was “an honest mistake”.  An “honest mistake”?  Oh, please.  This letter could only be one of three things:

1. Gross incompetence under Trump’s fake presidency.
2. A trial balloon to gauge public response to withdrawal.
3. Sabotage by someone high up in the defense department.

In the old days, way back in 2016 and before, official government communications were carefully vetted, going through many layers of approval before being issued.  Even then things weren’t perfectly communicated (like the explanations of the Benghazi attack), but mistakes were kept to a minimum.  Under Trump there is apparently so much chaos that it seems just anyone can turn the US government on its head with an unapproved (or completely botched) official communication.

Geez.

Every year, the Eurasia Group, a political risk management and consulting group, issues its report on the top ten global risks of international crisis.  This year’s report is profoundly disturbing, especially the largest risk it identifies.  Who is it? Is it Iran? Saudi Arabia? Russia?  Nope.  It’s the US and its broken political system.  Before we talk about this, let’s look at all ten:

1. Delegitimizing of our elections in US.
2. The decoupling of US and China technology cooperation.
3. US/China relations.
4. Multi-National Corporations in conflict with emerging nation/states.
5. Upheaval in India as social policies are causing economic downturns
6. Geopolitical influence of Europe as pushes back against the US and China.
7. Politics vs economics in climate change.
8. US policies toward Shia led nations.
9. Discontent in Latin America.
10. Turkey – pretty much everything.

These risks are all disturbing and obvious to geopolitical observers, but the first risk is scary in that it recognizes the shambles our own political system is in.  It talks about how Trump is greatly worsening the situation through his immoral and illegal behavior, but expresses great concern that he has already delegitimized the 2020 election by claiming that if he loses it’s because the election was “rigged”.  If he wins, the majority of Americans will believe it was rigged the other way (with the help of the Republicans and the Russians) and many won’t accept the result.  It is a lose-lose situation, and with Republicans enabling and protecting Trump, the crisis is unavoidable, especially since they’ll acquit him in the Senate trial emboldening him more if that’s even possible.  I mean, after all, he’s now announced that the only way he’s going to communicate with Congress is through Twitter.  Jesus.

None of this will end well, even in the remote chance that by some miracle he’s removed from office.

So, let’s recap the week:

1. Trump, against all advice, unilaterally had the second most powerful person in the Iranian government killed by drone in Baghdad.  Seven others were killed along with him.
2. Trump informed Lindsey Graham before the attack, but apparently no one else.  After the attack he spoke only to Republicans and only now is congressional leadership being briefed.
3. Evidence to justify the killings has been described by congressional sources has been described as “razor thin”.
4. Trump has continued to threaten Iran with acts of massive destruction if they retaliate (via Twitter).
5. The Iraqi Parliament has voted to expel all US troops from the country.  The vote was taken at the request of Iraqi prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.  He’s sure to sign it.
6. Today, Iran announced that it is now withdrawing from the nuclear treaty of 2015 and will begin enriching uranium immediately.
7. Pompeo was on all the news programs this morning freely lying and defending the indefensible.
8. Pence lied on Twitter yesterday that Soleimani was involved in 9/11, trying to give cover to Trump.
9. Trump played golf today.

Our government is run by an incompetent, totally corrupt moron who’s being enabled by lying radicals.  It will take decades to recover from this cancer on our republic.