Thursday 6 April 2017

Of Nepotism and Ethics in a Banana Republic

The following is a quote from the New Yorker:

"Having sent Tillerson home from Beijing spouting Communist Party mantras, Xi’s envoys have turned their attention to the representative they really care about: Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. From a Chinese perspective, Kushner’s role in the White House is a clannish arrangement that they know well. Many of Trump’s current courtiers may be gone in a year of two, but the members of his family will remain. For a while, China appeared to be preparing to endear itself to Kushner in a way that only it can: Anbang, a financial conglomerate with close ties to the Party leadership, was nearing a deal that would have unlocked billions of dollars to help Kushner save a troubled investment in a skyscraper on Fifth Avenue. Last week, the Kushner family announced that talks had broken off, for reasons that were not clear. It’s certainly possible that a surge of negative publicity was making one side or the other uncomfortable."

Let me repeat part of that: "Anbang, a financial conglomerate with close ties to the Party leadership, was nearing a deal that would have unlocked billions of dollars to help Kushner save a troubled investment in a skyscraper on Fifth Avenue."

So let me get this straight. Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to his father-in-law Liar Trump is in China negotiating a deal with a Chinese financial conglomerate to protect one of Jared Kushner's investments?

I expect to read articles like this concerning the antics of third world dictatorships (or corporate CEO's), but not about members of the president's inner circle, and especially not if they are related to the president.

From the cabinet of billionaires to the buffoons masquerading as counselor to the president and presidential press secretary it looks like a ridiculous sitcom parodying a tinpot dictatorship.

Unfortunately it is not a TV show despite the best efforts of Trump in conjunction with various outlets of the media who are determined to push their view that news in general and politics specifically are just another form of entertainment to be used by Liar Trump for self-enrichment and by the media to increase ratings in order to sell commercials.

It is real life geopolitics.

I can only hope that Liar Trump might be learning the lesson that despite his desire to phrase everything for the benefit of third graders the real world is a lot more complex. Cue Health Care, Tax Reform, Syria, China and just about everything else he will encounter.

While he's on that learning curve I have to maintain my faith in the integrity of the American form of governmental checks and balances to save us from HL Mencken's "narcissistic moron".

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