The events of the past week in Virginia mark a dark new stage in President Trump’s effort to turn federal law enforcement into a personal tool of oppression and vengeance. He is undermining a core promise of the American justice system: the fair and equal enforcement of the law.
On Thursday evening his handpicked federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, obtained an indictment of the former F.B.I. director James Comey on highly dubious charges. The indictment came just four days after Mr. Trump installed her on an interim basis and just days before the statute of limitations on the charges would have expired.
The charges were filed in the eastern district of Virginia only after Erik Siebert was forced out as US attorney for reportedly finding no grounds to indict Comey. The justice department replaced him with a Trump loyalist with little prosecutorial experience, Lindsey Halligan, and shortly after, a grand jury indicted Comey on one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.
Before she was sworn in Monday as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, a 36-year-old former White House aide and Florida insurance lawyer, had no prosecutorial experience. Less than four days into her new role, she brought charges against former FBI director James B. Comey, despite the objections of career prosecutors that there was insufficient evidence to do so.
Scraping’s the worst . . . but every look-see into the paranoid delusional work of the world’s now foremost malignant narcissist tells of the methodical degrading of American law, national security, and power. Donald Trump has become his own worst enemy, inspiring contempt, not respect, for his unchecked authoritarian stance and the cowardice and sycophancy required for him to achieve and sustain it. His persecution of James Comey — criminals hate investigators and judges — will play before a cognizant and reasoning public, and he will find his place in memory beside Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, and Stalin–only he will be judged more backward, cowardly, deranged, and smaller than any of the others on which he appears to have modeled himself.
If you are an American, I don’t care who you voted for, but I might care about what you voted for if you didn’t mean to vote America’s secular democratic republic out of business.
“All general officers in command in grade O-7 through O-10 and their general officer senior enlisted advisers are directed to attend within operational constraints,” the order states, according to one person who saw a copy. O-7 through O-10 refers to the military’s classification for all generals and admirals.
None of the people who spoke with The Post could recall a defense secretary ever ordering so many of the military’s generals and admirals to assemble like this. Several said it raised security concerns.
I love speculation in fiction; I hate it in reportage.
However, there are possibilities: will Donald Trump exact an oath of loyalty to himself from America’s admirals and generals?
Is Trump preparing for a civil war?
Or a war with Russia?
Whatever announcement, cause, or program Donald Trump has in mind, it’s certain to be adverse to America’s national security in the dimensions of force readiness — the senior leadership will be in Quantico (so The Washington Post reports) — and possibly force cohesion and trust if or as as the assembly of commanders suffers dismissals on the spot.
Whether it’s me or the X algorithms, what should have afforded a lively interactive chatyping has come to shouting into a canyon or spitting into the ocean. Nada. This morning’s sermon from my worn old keyboard: Trump = Criminal.
Shared elsewhere twice this morning . . . and the "package" belongs here too. —#DJT's an underworld boss, a now old man who sees the world looking up from the cold dark world he inhabits beneath the surface of…
Not so long ago–this from the elephant’s memory–one published once and moved on; in this era of “social” networking and related influencing, one finds one’s favored chatyping points plus opportunity to repeat them tirelessly — well, perhaps not quite. #RussiaRussiaRussia? #MalignantNarcissism? #PoliSciPoliPsy? No more, dear God, Nature, and the Universe.
I believe my voice clear, pointed, and persistent but on X (and Bluesky) without efficacy and just lost (or buried) in the high pile and limitless slurry of earnest and outraged statements by all similarly motivated.
Forget the “memory hole”–I’m wondering how to escape the morass.
Act by the American Far Left? Defamation of the Far Left? False flag? Manipulation of the American far right? An act associated with some Russian destabilization and influence operation?
And just in time to hijack our American and European remembrance of September 11, 2001.
Here’s former CIA “black man spy” Malcolm Nance on the matter:
At this end of summer 2025, the days slide by in a relentless slurry of desktop impressions involving the defense of western civilization, liberalism, and modern Christian compassion, reason, and tolerance. Here I will let the critics of Trumpian authoritarianism (his malign narcissistic pursuit of power) and nominally “Christian” power-seeking zealots have their say.
I’ve noticed on X that my pointed responses to the insults launched at my nation by dumb Donald’s melange of thoughtless bigots, Christian zealots, corrupt and Greedy Old Pigs (GOP) and creepy trolls without real names appear to place a dozen posts beneath their targets thus minimizing their views. That’s a form of modern X-based attack “from above”, i.e., from Elon’s coding zombies.
Why play along with the bigot and lout from South Africa?
He’ll lose X sooner or later for proving a traitor (along with so many of Trump’s cowardly or unprincipled ass kissers) to his adopted — and targeted — American homeland.
AI on Religious Coercion, Corruption, and Tyranny
The Founding Fathers strongly opposed any form of religious coercion, including undemocratic actions by Christians, because they believed it would lead to tyranny and corruption. Influential founders like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had witnessed firsthand the persecution of religious minorities in the colonies and viewed the separation of church and state as the best way to protect both individual liberty and the integrity of religion. [1, 2, 3]
Religious freedom as a safeguard against tyranny
The founders viewed religious freedom as an inalienable right of conscience that government should never infringe upon. They believed that forcing religious views or practices on others was a misuse of power.
James Madison argued that forcing individuals to support a religion they did not believe in was a form of tyranny. He considered religious coercion a “dangerous abuse of power” because if the government could establish Christianity, it could favor one Christian sect over another.
Madison, who witnessed Baptist preachers being jailed for their beliefs in Virginia, believed that the state should not have any jurisdiction over religious matters. He wrote that “Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance”.
Thomas Jefferson shared this view, arguing that “the legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.” He concluded, “But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg”.
Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) established that no one could be compelled to support any religious worship or be penalized for their religious opinions. This law protected the rights of “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination”. [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
Separation of church and state to protect religion
Many founders believed that an established state church would corrupt religion. They felt that state support made clergy and laity indolent, while competition in a free marketplace of ideas produced more virtuous religious practice.
James Madison observed that where religious establishments existed, they bred “pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution”.
He later reflected that separating church and state led to an increase in “the number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood,” as well as “the devotion of the people”.
In his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, Thomas Jefferson described the First Amendment as building “a wall of separation between Church & State”. He was concerned that allowing religion to interfere in governance would create a polarizing environment and lead to oppression. [1, 2, 9, 10, 11]
The founders’ mistrust of religious politics
The founders’ concern with undemocratic, manipulative religious actors was not merely theoretical. Their political opponents often wielded Christianity as a weapon, which hardened their resolve to prevent religious factionalism from entering politics.
During the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson was accused of being an “arch-infidel” for his views on religious freedom. He was convinced that this rhetoric came from “pseudo-priests” and “charlatanerie” who sought to manipulate the public.
Jefferson explicitly rejected the idea that a secular government was a “slander” on religion, but rather a necessary condition for it to flourish free of manipulation by ambitious clergy.
In 1790, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, assuring them that the U.S. government “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance”. This sentiment reflected the founding generation’s rejection of religious persecution that had defined much of Europe’s history. [2, 6, 12, 13, 14]
Vladimir Putin’s Russia is burning–and it is losing its war with Ukraine.
Donald Trump is being slowly cornered by his own display over a lifetime as a “short-fingered vulgarian” with a history involving Soviet and post-Soviet Russian power plus a conniving ruthless history as a developer and landlord and another history involving Italian and Russian mafia. Will his MAGA base come up to speed on reality? The Artificial Intelligence Large Language Models, the Internet search engines in general, and the plain overwhelming lot of honest, high-integrity analysis and reportage bodes will for criminals, compulsive liars, and the entire Trump-Putin class of malignant narcissists . . . provided the public — however one may define that, whether as western, global, Mongolian in spirit, straight out of Valdai, or out of Chatham House or, gasp, even the Neo-Nazis of the ass-kissing kowtowing Heritage Foundation: truth matters–and those possessed of curiosity, courage, and integrity themselves are going to find it.
Vladimir Putin who appears to have gotten his big step up into the international spotlight via the Moscow Apartment Bombings appears well done in the most unfavorable of ways. It has been truly something to watch him glad-handing and parading with the most repressive and totalitarian of “leaders” in the world while his country declines in power, its oil business deeply damaged, its most visible Black Sea fleet sunk where it once inhibited the aggression of others with its very presence. Putin has not been very good for Russians or even the circles that patronized and promoted his existence for gains of their own. The ugly power of the Phantom of the Soviet may be finally . . . fading even while smiling for the cameras.
For Americans and the too easily seduced MAGA movement as well as the progeny of the criminal-lunatic Puritan front that colonized its portion of the nation, intent on wealth and the subjecting of women to charges of witchery and the unspeakable “penalty” of burning at the stake, have had their moment through Donald Trump who appears most of all intent on controlling EVERYTHING as a dictator and a despot with his roots firmly planted in the American experience with greed and unconscionable ruthlessness. As the Nazi he so well has admired, he has made himself opposed to all that would be good and noble, much preferring a marble plaza to the lawn that graced the White House rose garden–and then beside it a dance hall for the wealthiest of the America’s — and the world’s elites — and damn Americans (including MAGA Americans) not so well graced.
In its framing, the Cold War appeared to pit Russian Communists against American Capitalists, and the defeat of Russia’s ageing leadership through the bankrupting of the state, an inflection point helped along by the Russian Army’s ejection from Afghanistan, seemed to signal the end of a titanic struggle. There was just one problem in the aftermath: the criminal KGB that had run the Soviet enterprise into the ground wasted little time in putting itself back in business and by the winter of 1996-7 appears to have been handling Ayman al-Zawahiri for his compact with Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centers that was to follow (reference on his blog: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/19/detecting-post-soviet-russias-black-narrative-of-revenge-for-89-and-91/).
Donald Trump had come to the attention of the KGB (if not beforehand) with his marriage to Ivana whose father, Miloš Zelnícek, reported to the Czechoslovakian secret internal police force, the ŠtB, a behind the Iron Curtain operation aligned with the KGB. He must have proven even back than that he could be handled and channeled to undermine the national purpose and related security of the United State of America.
I’ve placed this bloc numerous times on X over the years–why not here once more?
While President Trump mulls the matter between the despotic Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian defense, dignity, and freedom, he has not proven much of a defender, if any at all, of the Western civilizational experience that birthed the secular democratic republic known to all as the United States of America. He has yet to prove to Americans that he knows his country and understands his job. As he fails the nation by degrading its administrative complement, especially in the regions of Justice and Security, and puts in place the mindless and venal enablers and sycophants that enables his narcissistic dream, he too may be expected to look old, archaic, far out of place in power over a people that would be free to choose their course with assurance and confidence. He’s made himself gold, this American President, but he has brought ruin to much of what he has bought, managed, or operated.
From the above, one may suggest that Vladimir Putin must be experiencing a bad day every day or, alternatively, enjoying a deluded day in a theater all his own–one may then wonder how his inner circle feels about that.
As noted here years ago, Putin’s fear of public humiliation and shame drives frame and maintain his own image as unassailable, courageous, and heroic — see “Why Putin Won’t Stop Until Stopped” (January 20, 2023). His problem: reality won’t accept his claims of successes — none to date have proven immune to Ukrainian drone push-back and other defensive measures — nor any denials of culpability. He embarked on the conquest of Ukraine under false premises in 2014, and while he annexed Crimea without a shot fired — and nothing more than diplomatic posturing from Washington for resistance — he’s just not getting further with anything he does. Russia’s admirals and generals may note well the fate of his once-proud Black Sea Fleet:
As Putin’s fortunes and prospects continue to decline in the face of western resolve (even without the fulsome resolve of American will while the nation weathers an administration whose loyalties to the American secular democratic republic appear doubtful), he’ll strive to sustain his illusion of the absolute control of Russia through the deadly and grinding machinery of the “mafia state” that he has built around himself, a state that may fear him more than it admires or loves him.
AI Recaps, August 24, 2025
Russian Nuclear Accusations Against Ukraine
Russia’s nuclear accusations against Ukraine are primarily disinformation campaigns, such as the late 2022 claim that Ukraine was preparing to use a “dirty bomb” on Ukrainian territory. More recently, on August 24, 2025, Russia accused Ukraine of launching a drone attack on the Kursk nuclear power plant, causing a fire and minor damage to a transformer, though radiation levels remained normal and no casualties were reported. These accusations are often seen as propaganda aimed at discrediting Ukraine and justifying Russia’s actions in the ongoing conflict. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
Accusations of a “Dirty Bomb” (October 2022) [1, 2, 9, 10]
Russia’s claim: In late October 2022, Russia accused Ukraine of planning to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” on Ukrainian soil and warned international partners about it, according to The New York Times.
Ukraine’s response: Ukraine, in turn, accused Russia of secretly building dirty bombs at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
International view: U.S. intelligence officials considered the claims to be a Russian tactic, possibly as a “bluff” or a way to employ its “escalate to de-escalate” nuclear doctrine.
Drone Attack on a Nuclear Plant (August 2025)
Russia’s claim: Russia accused Ukraine of launching drone attacks, including one that struck the Kursk nuclear power plant. [3, 5]
Damage and effects: The attack caused a fire and damaged a transformer, forcing a reduction in the power plant’s capacity. However, the fire was quickly extinguished, with no casualties and normal radiation levels reported. [4, 5]
Ukraine’s response: Ukraine did not immediately comment, but a Ukrainian center called the accusations “typical methods” of Russian propaganda. [6]
International reaction: The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, was aware of the reports but had not independently confirmed them, emphasizing that all nuclear facilities must be protected. [4, 5]
Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks have significantly degraded Russia’s oil refining capacity, knocking out approximately 13% of the country’s processing capability since early August 2025, leading to elevated fuel prices and production disruptions. The attacks have targeted major refineries and infrastructure like the Druzhba pipeline, with repairs complicated by Western sanctions that restrict access to specialized equipment and prolong outages. This campaign is a strategic effort to undermine Russia’s economy and its ability to fund the war, as evidenced by the soaring wholesale gasoline prices and potential reliance on government subsidies for Russian energy firms. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Reduced Refining Capacity: Around 13% of Russia’s total refining capacity has been knocked out, with estimates suggesting about 44.3 million tons of annual processing capability disrupted.
Prolonged Outages: Major facilities like the Volgograd, Samara, and Ryazan refineries have been rendered inoperable, with repairs expected to take months due to a lack of specialized parts, exacerbated by sanctions.
Supply Chain Disruption: The Druzhba pipeline was also struck, causing a temporary shutdown and raising concerns in Central Europe.
Economic Strain: Russian energy firms face reduced revenues, strained profit margins, and increased dependence on government bailouts.
Strategic Context:
Targeted Campaign: The strikes are a coordinated effort by Ukraine’s intelligence services (GUR and SSU) to dismantle Russia’s energy infrastructure, which they view as a crucial economic engine for its war efforts. [4, 5, 6]
Shift from Previous Ceasefire: This intensified focus on oil facilities marks a departure from a previous understanding that limited mutual attacks on civilian energy infrastructure. [5]
Economic Warfare: By targeting the oil sector, Ukraine aims to cripple Russia’s wartime finances and force a slowdown in oil production. [4]
Consequences:
Soaring Fuel Prices: Wholesale gasoline prices have surged sharply, with AI-92 and AI-95 gasoline prices reaching record highs in August 2025. [3, 7]
Market Instability: The ongoing disruptions and the financial strain on energy companies are reflected in underperforming stock valuations for firms like Rosneft and Gazprom. [2]
Russia’s Vulnerability: The attacks highlight the fragility of Russia’s centralized energy infrastructure and expose its struggles to protect against deep-penetration drone swarms. [2, 8]
The figure of $172 billion is Russia’s projected military expenditure for 2025, not a total cost to date, and represents about 8% of its GDP. While this isn’t a specific “war cost,” the Russian war in Ukraine has other significant economic consequences, including substantial direct military spending, which may have exceeded $132 billion through 2024 and reached over $450 billion by some estimates, along with broader economic costs like GDP losses and long-term effects on the economy. [1, 2, 3]
Breakdown of Costs and Projections:
2025 Military Expenditure: Russia’s planned military spending for 2025 is around $170-$172 billion, accounting for approximately 8% of its GDP. [1]
Direct Military Spending: Some estimates place Russia’s direct military spending on the war at $132 billion or more by the end of 2024. [2]
Total Direct War Cost: One source indicates the total direct costs of the war for Russia have exceeded $450 billion, though this is a broader figure encompassing all direct expenses. [3]
GDP Losses: Beyond direct military costs, Russia has also incurred significant losses to its GDP as a result of the war, with estimates for 2022 alone falling between $81 billion and $104 billion. [2]
Economic Impact: The war has led to Russia’s focus on a “war economy” that prioritizes military spending, which drives short-term growth but undermines long-term economic health.
Labour Shortages: The increased militarization of the workforce contributes to severe labor shortages.
Inflation: Wage growth in Russia has outpaced productivity, fueling inflation.
Sustainability: This approach creates a narrow and brittle economic foundation, making Russia’s long-term economic trajectory unsustainable.
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