WaPo: Russian amb. told Moscow that Jared wanted secret communications w Kremlin

[pbrower2a]

Some people are speculating that the Russians could be purposely spreading disinformation just to screw with us.

I see no reason for the Russian security services to hurt people loyal to them. What would they have to gain? I expect Putin to do what he thinks best for enhancing and projecting the power of Russia wherever and whenever possible.

This is simply ineptitude and corruption by Americans. The Russian security services are as adept as the old KGB that they succeeded, and they know how to exploit greed, vanity, gullibility, and the sex drive. Some, like Donald Trump, have so many flaws that they are easy to exploit. Just contrast Barack Obama, who seems to have modest desires for economic gain, who has no obvious hurt feelings or delusions of grandeur to salve, who is a tough person to fool, and who seems loyal in the extreme to his wife.

So maybe it has gone too far. Some times schemes go awry.

[pbrower2a]

This is going to cut into the part of the Right that considers national security important. President Trump cannot promote enough spending on national security to offset the damage that his leaks and collusion have done.

If I wanted a President to do more harm to America's allies, I could hardly think of worse than Trump. Maybe Gus Hall (the late leader of the Communist Party of the United States) would have done worse, but that is really stretching the concept of 'leader'. Even the strawman that Nixon made out of George McGovern could never have done that sort of damage.

OK, even without malign intent, Donald Trump just isn't up to the job. Incompetence can prove as harmful as well-executed malice.

I saw Donald Trump as trouble on issues of national security. Obama might not be a chest-thumping nationalist, but at the least he did nothing dirty to the Armed Forces or the intelligence services; he paid attention to intel; and he kept his mouth shut when something was going on, exposing what was done strictly as a formality when anyone else could have figured out.

What would you rather have?