Category Archives: Political Psychology

Medieval Russia v. Modern Russia

14 Friday Jul 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Russia, Ukraine

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Putin may believe himself the personification of Russia, i.e., that Putin is Russia, but Putin is not Russia, and the cognizant and educated among Russians know it and know furthermore the Kremlin feeds Russia’s public–“The Masses” given Putin’s weird Imperialist-Stalinist revanche–garbage.

Given the dangers, including nuclear blackmail as evidenced by the mining of the Zaporizhzha Nuclear Power Plant, the possession of so-called “tactical nukes”, and the inveigling of Belarus in nuclear threat ambition, Putin may be expected to fail from within.

This morning, I posted two notes to European and global security expert Nicolas Tenzer’s Twitter feed–>

“…& muscled back”, i.e., muscled their way back into power, making Putin’s 1999 election a triumph in the realm of totalitarian state perceptual control–related reference on BackChannels: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/19/detecting-post-soviet-russias-black-narrative-of-revenge-for-89-and-91/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2023/05/03/reference-journalist-alexander-zhilin-operation-storm-in-moscow-aka-moscow-apartment-bombings/ (Putin appears to have had now a lifetime of serious issues with apartment buildings).

***

What is a feudal tyrant doing as the head of a still powerful and promising Russia?

Part of the answer involves a cosmic “Why not?”

As a gang, disaffected KGB–out of power, out of work in suddenly post-Communist Moscow–may have had a thick-as-thieves coordination and ruthlessness fit to their former secret policing mission and experience. Then too, they would have garnered the cooperation and interest of the post-Cold War peaceful of a productive Europe and North America.

“Why not?” for that as well.

Add condemnation, disapproval, and strong “red line” talk–TALK!–for aggression or barbaric actions undertaken on behalf of absolute power from Chechnya to Afghanistan to Ukraine and the United States (remember the Internet Research Agency!)–all squawk on the part of The West while all remained barbaric and criminal on the part of Moscow and its favored circles of disreputable mediocrities.

Left to grow Russia in his own mafia, mercenary, parochial, post-Soviet, rapacious, and ruthless manner, Putin put Russia’s army and his own demented narcissistic will on the big step into Europe, first Crimea in 2014 in response to the big “Nyet!” and boot given his lackey Viktor Yanukovych, and then the greater portion of the Breadbasket of Europe herself in February 2022.

Have Russians the will or wish themselves to be made criminal, desperate, dumb, and enslaved?

Have the less evident “forces of order” the intent and will to embrace and support those ends?

Perhaps Putin has finally gotten a certain attention secretly craved.

Related Online

Brugen, Isabel Van. “Only 30% of FSB Would Back Putin if Another Mutiny Happens–Exiled Oligarch.” Newsweek, July 6, 2023.

Miller, Greg and Catherine Belton. “Russia’s spies misread Ukraine and misled Kremlin as war loomed.” The Washington Post, August 19, 2022.

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A Dark Mirror in Language

28 Wednesday Jun 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

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The extreme narcissism known to dictators belies an unfortunate process.

More may be involved than being merely vain or having some egotism in need of some judicious but also liberating trimming: most of us–all of us–wish most of all to be what we call “ourselves” at our best, and each according to his own best assessment of abilities–and if we become too full of ourselves (offstage), we may encounter reminders, including from our own self-observing selves, that we are not all that.

Let us sit and sip more quietly.

On the other hand, the clinically (NPD) and politically (malignantly) narcissistic have a tougher self-assignment, and that is to 1) hide the damage done to them when they were helpless or incapable of their own effective defense and 2) cover it with an undamaged and much more competent and greater courageous-heroic image that would be and which becomes their own New Person–The Greatest.

The greater achievement for The Greatest: validation confirmed by love, but a capital-V “Validation!” confirmed by the Applause and Roar of the Crowd–High-Powered VALIDATION!, Limitless and MIGHTY!

We have all the right to transform from children into pretty good adults, but The Greatest want a greatness beyond the boundaries of the good.

Terms one encounters for the malign: delusional, grandiose, messianic.

Behaviors: unconscionable, unscrupulous, ruthless.

In casual description: beyond limits; without boundaries.

Eventually: criminal.

“Those who conceived this war want only one thing — to remain in power forever, live in pompous tasteless palaces, sail on yachts comparable in tonnage and cost to the entire Russian Navy, enjoying unlimited power and complete impunity,” Mr. Bondarev said in his email. “To achieve that they are willing to sacrifice as many lives as it takes.”

Trojanovski, Anton. “‘They basically got everything wrong’: A Russian diplomat speaks out on the war.” The New York Times, May 23, 2022.

In the dark mirror of language, the most primary lie in service to the speaker’s image may be the inverted accusation–on this blog, the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation”. The narcissist is always beautiful, good, and right, and the targets unfailingly bent and ugly even though by every objective measurement and view, the narcissist is the evil.

The Greatest must be the greatest as well–not merely pretty good or, son of a gun, lucky!

Image matters and the means to produce it may be obfuscated and covered over, and in the dark mirror, the lies–the lying–really takes off. Putin, poker faced, insists that Russia attacks only military targets.

https://youtu.be/a245RkGUXfk; https://youtu.be/c1xFSCDy8Jo; https://youtu.be/q2nfuIP2tU0; https://youtu.be/8_XCe86resg.

The Greatest lie to aggrandize and enrich themselves, their cronies, families, and networks; to confuse the judgments of others; to perceptually control their fans, marks, and targets–and they lie most of all to hide their crimes.

June 28, 2023.

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Reference: Journalist, Alexander Zhilin, Operation Storm In Moscow AKA Moscow Apartment Bombings

03 Wednesday May 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology

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Fake News?

If only it existed in the Mainstream Press (Fox News excepted at present).

Fake Presidents?

At least two exist and both have represented rival superpowers.

One has been putting on a clown show in the United States.

One remains in power in Russia.

Meanwhile others in Moscow are still wondering whether there is a domestic political aspect to the crisis and whether rogue elements of the security forces are in some way involved in an attempt to provoke a state of emergency in Russia or the cancellation of elections.

There is absolutely no proof of this, but a little noticed article in the Moscow newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda by a respectable journalist Alexander Zhilin is now attracting attention.

Zhilin wrote on 25 August that President Yeltsin’s health was failing and that a plan with the codename “Storm in Moscow” was being hatched in the Kremlin . . . .

Zhilin’s article is interesting because it was written before the bomb explosions.

Waal, Tom de. “World: Europe: Russia’s bombs: Who is to blame?” BBC News, September 30, 1998.

During this fateful summer when Moscow was awash with rumors, I was friendly with a Russian political operative who was well connected to the higher levels of Russian power. When I met him, he told me about the growing fear in the Kremlin about the possibility of losing power and the indications that Moscow would be the scene of a huge provocation. He said that the issue was the security of Yeltsin and his family in the case of a handover of power. He said that if there was no agreement on terms, “they will blow up half of Moscow.”

I sensed the uneasiness but did not know how to assess the prediction of my friend. I had no illusions about Yeltsin and his cronies but it was hard to imagine that a man who came to power as a result of a peaceful anti-communist revolution with massive public support would be willing to murder his own people to hold onto power. Developing events, however, were to change my mind.

At 9:40 p.m. on September 4, a truck bomb exploded in Buinaksk, Dagestan’s second-largest city. It destroyed a five story apartment building, which housed soldiers from the 136th Motor Rifle Brigade.

Satter, David. “How Putin Became President.” American Interest, Hudson, May 19, 2016.

In a curious twist to the story, the liberal bi-weekly Novaya Gazeta published an investigation on Monday into a bomb discovered in the city of Ryazan last year. The FSB eventually said it had planted the bomb but that it was a fake and the incident was part of a training exercise. Local eyewitnesses said the timer and explosives were real.

Cockburn, Patrick. “Russian intelligence produces apartment bombing evidence.” Independent, March 17, 2000.

I’ve ordered John B. Dunlop’s book The Moscow Bombings of September 1999: Examinations of Russian Terrorist Attacks at the Onset of Vladimir Putin’s Rule (Stuttgart: Ibidem Press, 2014) and expect to find some “lovely” devils in the details but no change in the thesis relayed by the above quotations: power in Moscow, Yeltsin’s or Putin’s–or as controlled by Russia’s secret political police, the FSB–has proven itself criminal, ruthless, and unconscionable by bombing apartment buildings in the dead of night while Russian families slept in peace, and they did it in the interests not of real power, but of a display of power, i.e., of their own narcissistic image as controlled in a theater of their own making.

The false-flag operation, “Storm in Moscow”, supported the election of Vladimir Putin (for the length of his life, apparently) and the launching of a barbaric war featuring most of all the brutalizing of Chechen villages, sending the men into the ranks of rebels and putting in control the warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.

The betrayal of ordinary Russian people: unfathomable.

And perhaps ordinary Russians should know the truth.

Cited or Related Online

About Operation “Storm in Moscow” AKA “Moscow Apartment Bombings”

Cockburn, Patrick. “Russian intelligence produces apartment bombing evidence.” Independent, March 17, 2000.

Knight, Amy. “Finally, We Know About the Moscow Bombings.”The New York Review, November 22, 2012.

Satter, David. “How America Helped Make Vladimir Putin Dictator for Life. Tablet Magazine, Hudson, August 30, 2017.

Satter, David. “How Putin Became President.” American Interest, Hudson, May 19, 2016.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Waal, Tom de. “World: Europe: Russia’s bombs: Who is to blame?” BBC News, September 30, 1998.

About the Barbaric and Malign Narcissistic Character of Russian State Ambition

Olear, Greg. “Vladimir the Terrible.” Prevail. June 12, 2020.

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Nekrasov, Andrey. Director. Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File AKA The Murder of Litvinenko.

On BackChannels

Oppenheim, James S. “A Note on Tweeting Up Russia’s Barbaric Feudal-Medieval Revanche.” BackChannels, April 12, 2023.

Oppenheim, James S. “Detecting Post-Soviet Russia’s Black Narrative of Revenge for ’89 and ’91.” BackChannels, July 19, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “Malignant Narcissism.” BackChannels web page.

Oppenheim, James S. “Malignant Narcissistic Process Distilled.” BackChannels, July 10, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation.” BackChannels web page.

Russian power appears to lie first and foremost to Russians while maintaining for itself the burden of truths about which it cannot and dare not speak–at least not until found out. Given the work of many journalists possess of abundant curiosity and integrity, Russia’s powerful have been today well observed, investigated, and reported on extensively, and for the top rank, the same would seem today fully found out.

A few brave individuals did try to investigate the Ryazan incident. When the State Duma, which was controlled by the regime, voted three times against opening an inquiry into the incident, an independent social commission was created that included several deputies, among them, Sergei Yushchenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist with the independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Yushchenkov was shot dead outside his apartment building on April 17, 2003. Shchekochikhin was poisoned in July 2003. Litvinenko and Politkovskaya also investigated the bombings only to be killed. In the wake of these murders, a curtain of fear descended in Russia over the issue of how Putin came to power.

Satter, David. “How America Helped Make Vladimir Putin Dictator for Life. Tablet Magazine, Hudson, August 30, 2017

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Tweets Enshrined: Compressed Political Poetry

15 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Political Psychology, Russia, United States of America

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I’ve been collecting memes from Twitter, and because they’re built for mass distribution, I have found the developing catalog handy as accompaniment or main point to my own undeniably crafted tweets. My silly goal: getting to “0” characters with a sharp point.

None in history have had opportunities so convenient for “speaking truth to power”:

I’ve harped overtime about Malignant Narcissism, its related process, and the Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation.

Perhaps it’s time to let go.

As regards the tweeting, the furious pace of communications buries all “works” and even short periods of time in history may dissolve their relevance. In the end, one has only assembled a snapshot of a political moment encapsulated in the briefest of exchanges.

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A Note on Tweeting Up Russia’s Barbaric Feudal-Medieval Revanche

12 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Epistemology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Political Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

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My tweets just ain’t whistlin’ up Dixie, but they could–the evil would be about the same, Mint Juleps, slaves, and all. Putin’s enemies, rather like Trump’s, come to think of it, are all the better souls opposed to the kind of excessive narcissism–messianic, grandiose, delusional–that obliterates boundaries and limits and excuses all crimes.

Related Online

Re. Russian Beheading Video

Note: the authenticating of media has become a major issue in OSINT. From Hollywood to Pallywood and all of the geopolitical and technology space between, it has become possible to tell the truth with integrity or produce a video with nearly seamless invention. At this time, Ukraine has not authenticated claims related to an alleged Russian beheading of a Ukrainian soldier.

Cotovio, Vasco. “Zelensky slams ‘beasts’ who purportedly beheaded Ukrainian soldiers after video emerges.” CNN, April 12, 2023.

Reuters. “Kyiv compares Russia to Islamic State after beheading video.” April 12, 2023.

Robinson, Olga, Shayan Sardarizadeh, Adam Robinson. “Ukraine conflict: President Zelensky condemns beheading video.” BBC, April 12, 2023.

Re. Vladimir Putin’s Personal and Political Character

Is Perception Reality?

In an older world, who could “fact check” the claims of an emperor or king? What word of battle could be found unreliable by a “commoner”, i.e., the most ordinary of citizens or, alas, subjects of the realm? I hope this day different from feudal-medieval times with political perceptions bound more directly to feudal power.

Here are three references I relay often and believe most telling about the true character of Moscow’s enfant terrible.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Nekrasov, Andrey. Director. Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File AKA The Murder of Litvinenko

“Tsar Nobody” as Volodymer Zelensky may have called him (and I sometimes do) has proven before Russians a capable producer of his own political image, which is to him his most prized asset, but before the world beyond Russia, he has become “Putler”, a repeatedly and deeply destructive menace to world order and security universally, a man whose fear of his own unmasking has led to crimes on a scale as unfathomable as they have been unimaginable and unbearable.

From this blog: Oppenheim, James S. “War | East-West | Abomination | Syria | Bombing Hospitals”. BackChannels, February 24, 2018.

More on Bombing Hospitals in Relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Baker, Elise and Gissou Nia. “Attacks on hospitals from Syria to Ukraine: Improving prevention and accountability mechanisms.” Atlantic Council Issue Brief, June 14, 2022.

CNN. “Report: Nearly one in every 10 hospitals in Ukraine have been damaged by attacks since Russia’s invasion.” February 23, 2023.

Haroun, Azmi. “The taboo around holding Russia accountable for bombing hospitals is fading and the WHO needs to do more, international legal expert says.” Business Insider, June 26, 2022.

The BMJ. “Ukraine: Over 700 recorded attacks on health facilities and workers in year since Russian invasion.” References report published February 23, 2023.

Beware the Malignant Narcissists

About eleven years ago: Oppenheim, J.S. “Beware the malignant narcissist.” Daily Times, Pakistan, April 6, 2012.

I’d had no idea back then that there might be two of them.

For the philosophy and psychology page on this blog: Malignant Narcissism.

For how the two gentlemen pictured grew themselves into monsters: “Malignant Narcissistic Process Distilled“.

How “it” looks, whatever the event and our role in it, matters as we each make our way through life, and we would all much rather be liked and loved than reviled and met with heart-sinking contempt. Nonetheless, and in the way of the world’s more ironic and wicked experiences, some who most need the roar of the crowd will do things to obtain that “Narcissistic Supply” that if ever–and whenever–found out will irrevocably and irrecoverably sink their own ships. At the end of their days, some who projected themselves as heroic and righteous prove only cowardly and criminal.

So it goes.

A Modern Psychology for Modern and Social People

If we progress as a species integrated with ubiquitous advanced technologies, some that we use directly, some always humming somewhere in the background, we may have to survive through peace founded in our own reasonable containment and freedom. In essence, we may become creatures more universally responsible for and thoughtful about the future and the needs of future generations. Becoming and being Modern may come to mean having considerations always present and beyond ourselves.

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GOP Incitement with all of its feudal-medieval invective and inversion

20 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Political Psychology

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Incitement with all of its feudal-medieval invective and inversion.

Authoritarian psychology and its related #CorruptionGreedKompromatIgnorance could not be better displayed than by American politicians Donald John Trump and Lauren Boebert, two souls lost in the realm of messianic delusions of grandeur, with the former having achieved some gold bespattered grandeur in wealth and the latter so on the warpath for Jesus she would overthrow the Constitution of the United States of America (PDF) as the apex of her achievement of power. Both #MaligNarcs (and possibly as well) share the signal of just how much more monstrous each would become if enabled, i.e., the Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation.

Related Online

Blumberg, Peter. “Insurrection? Sedition? Incitement? A Legal Guide to the Capitol Riot.” The Washington Post, June 10, 2022.

Richer, Alanna Durkin and Lindsay Whitehurst. “EXPLAINER: The seditious-conspiracy charges in Jan. 6 trial.” The Free Speech Center, Middle Tennessee State University, January 20, 2023.

Schafer, Stephen. “Criminology: The Concept of the Political Criminal.” The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, 62:3, 380-387. Northwestern University School of Law, 1971.

Wikipedia. “Political Crime”; “Sedition”; “Treason”.

As America’s Grand Old Party Now of Greed appears to be following Moscow’s playbook, I may remind all of what Moscow has come to mean to the Democratic Open Societies–the Free Worlds–of our Earth–>

It looks like I left out #HybridWarfare, #HypersonicMissiles, , and #TacticalNukes. Well . . . next chance.
Posted to YouTube March 20, 2023.

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FTAC: A Note on Archaic Dimensions in Leadership

18 Saturday Mar 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

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Posted by Vote Common Good to YouTube, March 1, 2023.

We humans support about 4,300 religions and 7,000 living language cultures around the world, and representatives of most are here in the United States beneath the magnificent umbrella of a working secular democratic republic as designed by the Founding Fathers.

Americans true to that spirit have the freedom to worship as each sees fit.

Some like Lauren Boebert flat out lie or live in their own delusions with insufficient confrontation or insight.

Two terms I have found helpful with relation to observing fascistic religious extremism: “Civilizational Narcissism”, Mobarak Haider’s term related to his view of the Taliban in Taliban: Tip of a Holy Iceberg, and “Malignant Narcissism“, which may be regarded as the political interpretation of “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” much characterized by “messianic delusions of grandeur” and represented by autocratic personalities worldwide.

Around the web (Twitter, lol, sometimes here on FB), I’ve been using and to signal these archaic dimensions in leadership.

Christian Fanaticism, Christian Violence

The above mash-up, most appropriate for this day in the America (or ), has come off Alejandro Amenábar’s film Agora, as fine an exploration of the tension between faith and reason and between the lust for power and the imposing of a delusional, narcissistic, and sadist will on others possessed of more quiet, certain, and thoughtful virtues.

Related Online

AFP. “‘God Put You in Power’: Russian Orthodox Leader Tells Putin on 70th Birthday.” The Moscow Times, October 7, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “KGB FSB ROC M-O-N-E-Y”. BackChannels, January 18, 2023.

*

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who faces a primary election Tuesday, says she is “tired” of the U.S. separation of church and state, a long-standing concept stemming from a “stinking letter” penned by one of the Founding Fathers.

Speaking at a religious service Sunday in Colorado, she told worshipers: “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.”

Suliman, Adela and Timothy Bella. “GOP Rep. Boebert: ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’.” The Washington Post, June 28, 2022.

*

Paine, Thomas. Common Sense. 1776. Source as noted at URL.

Ryman, Hana M. and J. Mark Alcorn. “Establishment Clause (Separation of Church and State).” The First Amendment Encyclopedia. 2009.

United States of America. The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription. Original as inscribed by Jacob Shallus. National Archives.

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National Security and Drowned Tweets: The Way Twitter Works

09 Thursday Mar 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Political Psychology, Russia, United States of America

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should have been #CorruptionGreedKompromat.

may have a choice right this moment between a “hollowed-out democracy”–a democracy in superficial appearance only–or an authentic democracy, for the above-mentioned hash tag might get at the truth. Our just hasn’t been herself lately, and as one must know that Corruption is the Cancer of States, there might be an answer having to do with it.

Where are America’s sworn counterintelligence professionals on the possibility that we might have been compromised by our own tendencies with money and pleasure?

I’ve posed the question.

Has anyone answers?

*

I’ve noticed with my most cogent tweets embedded with BackChannels URLs that . . . no one picks up. For the qualities, which are very good, very few eyes seem to see https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/19/detecting-post-soviet-russias-black-narrative-of-revenge-for-89-and-91/ on the Post-Soviet or Cold War Era, 1992-2022 or, on the Orange AntiChrist (#OrangeAntiChrist) https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/10/10/trump-corruption-narcotics-russia-a-glance/ .

#WTF indeed.

Probably, if not “shadow banning”, the numbers in other twitterati simply swamp individual expression or voice. Individually, we no longer matter, and collectively, we don’t seem to count.

Related Online

Trump’s America in Retrospect: Russian Real Estate Entanglements
Published here October 9, 2021.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/1163931/jeffrey-epstein-boasted-putin-millionaire-secrets/ – Jeffrey Epstein visits Putin.

There’s hardly point in chatyping since my most of my posts, including the above mentioned, convey reference that leads to more reference.

#ModernAmerican and, for each of us, all our old friends who really believed in democracy in support of rational, responsible, and responsive governance, some way of coming together, of organizing, of being together, would be helpful.

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