• Home
  • About
  • Concepts, Coins, and Terms
    • Anthropolitical Psychology
      • Civilizational Narcissism
      • Conflict – Language Uptake – Social Programming and Scripting – A Suggestion
        • Language Uptake – Programming – On Learning to Listen
        • Mouth –> Ear –> Mind –> Heart System
        • Social Grammar
      • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
      • Malignant Narcissism
      • Narcissistic Scripting
      • Normative Remirroring
      • Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation
    • FTAC – “From The Awesome Conversation”
    • God Mob
    • Intellectual Battlespace
    • Islamic Small Wars
    • New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left
    • Political Spychology
    • Shimmer
  • Library
    • About Language
    • Russian Section
  • Comments and Contact

BackChannels

~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

BackChannels

Category Archives: Political Spychology

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

03 Wednesday May 2023

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

#Autocrats, #Dictators, #MaligNarcs, #PolitCrims, #PoliticalMonsters, #PoliticalMonstrosities, Feudal-Medieval Power, Illegitmate Power, integrity in politics, Medieval v. Modern, Modern People Modern Politics, Moscow Apartment Bombings, Operation Storm In Moscow

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 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

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.

–33–

Over Coffee–Opinion, Reading, and Viewing Recommended: Russian Payoffs to European Politicians; Chinese Balloon; Ilhan Omar

05 Sunday Feb 2023

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, Great Britain and United Kingdom, International Development, North America, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

AOC, Chinese Balloon, Collusion--No Delusion, Ilhan Omar, Medieval v. Modern, Modern Americans, Ocasio-Cortez, Politically Modern People, Russian Political Mafia Methods, Trump and Russia

Russia Paid Off European Politicians In Relation to Ukraine and Violence Elsewhere

Since Russia launched its brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, condemnation of Vladimir Putin’s overseas aggression has reached a fever pitch. Yet Russia can still rely on the occasional friendly voice in Europe: Last November, for example, far-right Italian local legislator Stefano Valdegamberi penned an op-ed decrying the EU’s decision to designate Russia a terrorist state as “a serious mistake” that “foments conflict by denying historical truth.”

But what Valdegamberi didn’t mention was that he had long been collaborating with a secretive Russian lobbying group with a direct link to the Kremlin. Since at least 2014, that group had designed plans to channel cash to European politicians to help it legitimize Russia’s occupation of Crimea and promote pro-Moscow policies inside EU countries.

Laine, Martin, Cecilia Anesi, Lorenzo Bagnoli, and Tatiana Tkachenko. “Kremlin-Linked Group Arranged Payments to European Politicians to Support Russia’s Annexation of Crimea.” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, February 3, 2023.

Reading Highly Recommended–>

Greg Olear’s 2018 investigation of how the world works between Donald J. Trump, Russia’s political interests, and related mafia and ill-gotten wealth.

America Has Lost Its Objectivity Over “Spy Balloon”, Says Chinese Pundit–And He’s Right

Influential commentator Hu Xijin blamed American “politicization” and “hype” for preventing the incident from escalating, saying that competition to look tough on China meant that the United States “has already lost its objectivity.”

Shepherd, Christian. “China blames U.S. politics for ‘overreaction’to suspected spy balloon.” The Washington Post, February 5, 2023.

In the normal course attending diplomatic incidents, investigations ensue, and with “spy data” presumed already transmitted, there would seem not much point in destroying the technology involved in the overflight. Of course, there was Gary Powers too, so Biden did what ranting Republicans appeared to expect in the way of “tough” leadership. It was not a good decision nor display of national air and space defense–the object should have been addressed and turned or interdicted on or just past arrival in American air space.

China has already apologized for the incident–“On Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that the balloon was theirs, but called it a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes,” that had gone off course. And the ministry expressed rare “regret” for the incident.” Beijing should now follow up with details regarding the research mission and its technology, in general, while the U.S. Navy attempts retrieval of the drowned payload.


The Silencing by Removal of Ilhan Omar From the Foreign Affairs Committee

The angry header displayed this morning in The Jerusalem Post: “Decision to remove Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs Committee was overdue -editorial: What makes Omar particularly dangerous is that while she spews blatant antisemitism, she pretends not to be an antisemite.”

Omar herself had asked (same article), “‘Why is it OK for me to talk about the influence of the (National Rifle Association), or fossil fuel industries or Big Pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policy?'”

Conservative and liberal Americans have now to ask this question: what else is off the table?

Who hasn’t an ox?

Our American system relies on compassion, education, intelligence, open discourse, earnest problem-solving abilities, and respect, not religious or tribal hate.

Apparently, some Jews–not this one although I have become with experience very much an American of Jewish descent–believe Ilhan Omar’s election and voice should be nullified where it most counts, and suspicion, for that is what is expressed by, “. . . pretends not to be an antisemite”, put in place of of argument, education, and reason. The only lesson imparted: don’t mess with the Jews, even if and when they are wrong.


Posted by PBS to YouTube, February 2, 2023.

–33–

The Teflon Don’s Company

08 Saturday Oct 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Spychology, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

corruption, DJT, Donald Trump, Espionage, foreign influence, malignarcs, Political Criminals, Questionable Character, Trump's Rogues

Published 9/19/2022-https://t.co/Qd3E38yCvZ Another Trump lawyer.

Paul Manafort
Allen Weisselberg
Michael Flynn
Steve Bannon
Rick Gates
George Papadopoulos
Roger Stone
George Nader
At least Michael Cohen turned around 180-degrees, served his time, and has regained his integrity.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) October 8, 2022

I know this blog seldom presents first-hand (primary) reporting and that the reference lists I create (drudgery!) hardly represent “writing”, but having gone to the very minor bother of looking up and thinking up names as well as coming up with related articles, what’s an old blogger to do?

Chris Zillizza’s piece for The Point (July 21, 2021) provided some helpful reminders, but I didn’t simply copy and list for not recognizing the names Tom Barrack or Elliott Broidy. I’ve added reference for each. I was also sorry about having to list Michael Cohen in the gallery of rogues although as Trump’s fixer I’m sure he was no picnic either. Nonetheless, as an instantly transformed witness and apparently recovered Trump goon, mention feels like throwing a perfectly good carrot back into a festering stew of rotten vegetables.

If the “festering stew” of Don’s rogues were to take hold and one were to ask about the gelatinous substance holding all of them in the same pot, there might be just the two ingredients: greed and a most American vainglory that would bring all back to the here familiar “Malignant Narcissism“.

Related Online

I’ve remained loose with BackChannels as regards discipline and style . . . perhaps it’s been an old hippy’s blog…. Nonetheless, the entries are alpha but from time tot time I present one or two (or more) as a quotation with reference. Among the enduring themes to be associated with Donald John Trump in history will be those pertaining to character, criminality, errant political psychology, integrity, loyalty, and trust both in relation to himself and in relation to his country and America’s national character.

Cillizza, Chris. “11 Trump associates have now been charged with crimes. 11!” The Point, CNN Politics, July 21, 2021.

Clark, Dartunorro, Michael Kosnar, Dareh Gregorian, and Tom Winter. “All four Roger Stone prosecutors resign from case after DOJ backpedals on sentencing recommendation.” NBC News, February 11, 2020.

Hoffman, David. “Paul Manafort: Handmaiden to dictators.” Op-ed. The Hill, December 24, 2020.

Millhiser, Ian. “The 4 major criminal probes into Donald Trump, explained.” Vox, September 21, 2022.

O’Brien Rebecca Davis. “Trump Adviser’s Trial May Shed Light on Foreign Influence Campaigns.” The New York Times, September 19, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “Trump Lawyer Christopher M. Kise, Registered Foreign Agent.” BackChannels, September 19, 2022.

Shamsian, Jacob. “Rober Stone and his wife are trying to settle the Justice Department’s lawsuit over $2 million in unpaid taxes.” Business Insider, July 12, 2022.

Schmidt, Michael S., Maggie Haberman, and Katie Benner. “Justice Dept Is Said to Believe Trump Has More Documents.” The New York Times, October 6, 2022.

Smith, David. “‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years’ – ex-KGB spy.” The Guardian, January 29, 2021.

Shaw, Conor. “President Trump’s staggering record of uncharged crimes.” Crew, September 27, 2022.

U. S. Department of Justice. “Elliott Broidy Pleads Guilty for Back-Channel Lobbying Campaign to Drop 1MDB Investigation and Remove a Chinese Foreign National.” October 20, 2020.


Defendants PAUL J. MANAFORT, JR., (MANAFORT) and RICHARD W. GATES Ill
(GA TES) served for years as political consultants and lobbyist’i. Between at least 2006 and 2015,MANAFORT and GATES acted as unregistered agents of the Government of Ukraine, the Party of Regions (a Ukrainian political party whose leader Victor Yanukovych was President from 2010 to 2014), Yanukovych, and the Opposition Bloc (a successor to the Party of Regions that formed in 2014 when Yanukovych fled to Russia). MANAFORT and GATES generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work. 111 order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, MANAFORT and GATES laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts.

U.S. Department of Justice. PDF. “United State of America v. Paul J. Manafort, Jr. and Richard W. Gates III.” Case 1:17-cr-00201-ABJ Document 13, October 30, 2017.

Nader has had several run-ins with the law over the years related to sexual abuse of children. He was convicted in the 1990s of transporting child pornography publications, and imprisoned in 2003 for sexually abusing ten boys in the Czech Republic.[6] He pleaded guilty in early 2020 to flying a 14-year-old boy from Europe to the US for sex, and transporting pornography depicting child sexual abuse and bestiality.

Wikipedia. “George Nader”.

Wikipedia. “George Papadopoulos”.

Wikipedia. “Michael Flynn”.

Wikipedia. “Paul Manafort”.

###

Nordstream Explosions: Putin’s Probable False Flag

28 Wednesday Sep 2022

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Nordstream False Flag Operation, Nordstream Sabotage, Ukraine v Russia

Putin probably ascended to office on the excitement, fear, and hope associated with the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”, quite probably a KGB/FSB false flag operation to produce his presidency. Best paired supporting reference: 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, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003–create violence ascribable to Chechen Rebels; promote the war by unleashing the same now familiar Russian Army barbarism on Chechen villagers; “win” the war (by putting in place an Islamist warlord–Ramzan Kadyrov–to contain it; and become a national “hero” thereby. Call it Putin’s modus operandi and linked firm to his “malignant narcissism“–(related process)–and related penchant for political theater and the perceptual control of others from which he derives power.

Call it madness too.

September 28, 2022.

Chances are Putin will “slow walk” on repairs, forcing Europe to intercede in stopping the leak while investigating it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin neither advances Russia’s conventional interests nor defends them: what he does is indulge in his own “messianic delusions of grandeur”, which ties to his malignant narcissistic psychosis, to project and sustain his own heroic image, cover and fend off personal humiliation, and in the end obtain unlimited “narcissistic supply”, i.e., the adoration of a mob too ignorant to comprehend either his evil or his sickness (essentially Narcissistic Personality Disorder).

Related Online

Bertrand, Natasha and Katie Bo Lillis. “US warned European allies this summer that Nord Stream pipelines could be attacked.” CNN Politics, September 28, 2022.

Pronczuk, Monika, Melissa Eddy, Oleg Matsnev, Johanna Lemola. “The top E.U. diplomat says the Nord Stream Leaks resulted from a ‘deliberate act.'” The New York Times, September 28, 2021.


Addendum

Addressing the Helsinki Security Forum on Friday, 30 September 2022, the NATO Deputy Secretary Mircea Geoană said that the damage to two pipelines in the Baltic Sea this week are of “deep concern” and noted that all “currently available information indicates that this is the result of deliberate, reckless, and irresponsible acts of sabotage”. He said that NATO supports the investigations underway to determine the origin of the damage; and that “allies have been exchanging information including with Finland and Sweden in this sense”.

NATO. “Deputy Secretary General at the Helsinki Security Forum: Finland and Sweden will make our Alliance stronger.” September 30, 2022.

AP, from September 27, 2022 and posted to YouTube October 2, 2022.

###

#DJT The Success! (At Failing): Two Tweets

27 Tuesday Sep 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Spychology

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

East-West Rivalry, medieval v modern, Medieval v. Modern, Putin, Trump, TrumpPutin

Ain’t he neat?/ See him working up a tweet/ Hasn’t had his breakfast yet/ That helps with workin’ up Donald’s debt/ ain’t he neat?

🙂

Humor helps.

And it’s evident (old bachelor, empty apartment), sigh, that I must say so myself (attaboy)!

Sad story, this guy “The Donald”.


Previous tweets-#AmericaWorks #DJT doesn't-e.g., https://t.co/dG0PCOTRHC; https://t.co/TojuSPAHwH; https://t.co/nUNbtLJeQj; https://t.co/ZxoolG2g6A; https://t.co/v7PwUPk3er; https://t.co/sW9dyYa0At; https://t.co/4X7D7s7Zyv; https://t.co/b88PdIkZ0A; https://t.co/PYl7VNglTu. Done

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 27, 2022

#DJT and related to previous epic 🙂 tweet-https://t.co/ifJZMVbxnl; https://t.co/lvK2y9x9zR

America understands #AmericanCharacter but it appears to have some problems discerning sophisticated criminality (fraud & theft), #MaligNarcs, and #PoliticalCriminals like #DonTheCon.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 27, 2022

Possibly, from Donald Trump’s perspective, he only loses or takes other people’s money (without return), and rather like the feudal-medieval king he’d like to be in the still revolutionary and evolving modern United States of America, he expects the ginormous junkyard of disappointments left to others to just go away.

How did we get here?

It appears to me that Moscow had a revenge story for the bankrupting of the Soviet Union: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/19/detecting-post-soviet-russias-black-narrative-of-revenge-for-89-and-91/ .

I has appeared to The Guardian that Moscow had also a “Manchurian Candidate” in Donald John Trump: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book .

It has occurred to BackChannels (sometimes I growl and whine after saying “ChewbaccaChannels”) that KGB, FBI, TS/SCI boxes, folders, and whatnot may have a bridge with Registered Foreign Agent and Trump’s lawyer Christopher M. Kise via his relationship with the Russia friendly Maduro regime in Venezuela, happy host in the Western Hemisphere to Russian nuclear warhead ready TU-160 jets.


Addendum

I tweet this page from time to time to underscore Donald Trump’s character and personality issues in a way that proves helpful to authentic patriotic and traditional Americans as opposed to his generally easily manipulated or emotionally unhinged base of greedy and power hungry monsters or just plain innocent (generally white Christian) zealots. Sadly for America, neither the action, attention, and coverage linked to “#DJT” seems to diminish–I don’t think the base is growing but may be transforming into a vacuous American cult with legitimate gripes turned into off-the-wall explanations and conspiracies that never end.

In any case, and keeping with the above two tweeted packages of Trumpian disasters, here’s another on the way: Harwell, Drew. “He blew the whistle on Trump’s Truth Social. Now he works at Starbucks.” The Washington Post, April 29, 2023.

###

Russian Power (Back) to the Russian People for Russian Democracy, Development, Humanism, Progress, and Rule of Law

24 Saturday Sep 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Europe, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Great Britain and United Kingdom, North America, Northern Europe, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Fascist Russia, medieval v modern, Putin's goons, Putin's Kleptocracy, Russian New Fascism, Torture in Putin's Russia, Why Democracy

This story posted today on YouTube turns out as much about OSINT detective work from within Russia as about the internal brutality of the politically criminal and thoroughly kleptocratic regime of Tsar Vladimir the Small.

Posted by the BBC to YouTube September 24, 2022.

Tweeted earlier this morning —

#PutinLiesToRussia #RusNazis #RussiansFreeRussia #VladolphPutler #RusNazisTortureRussian https://t.co/gJZOPqhWba #PutinEnslavesRussia

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) September 24, 2022

While the United States has its own Russian infection with Trump’s own anti-democratic and demagogic and delusional fascist nationalist base, he has yet to turn American national and state military defense and police security services into his own personal goons, Americans on the way to mid-term elections are not waiting for him or his cult to amass that kind of power. Trump represents a diminishing base of corrupt or diminished or greedy Americans who crave his “power” — his appearance of it, in any case — in relation to their own damaged psyches and penchants for absolute and sadistic personal and political control — under cover of Christian zealotry, no less — of all that surrounds themselves.

Also on BackChannels

Page: “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation”.

By date published–

A Note on the Demise of the Medieval Rus, May 9, 2022.

FTAC: Russia’s One Big Step Backward-Why Ukraine Must Prevail to the Four Compass Points of Its Pre-Crimean Annexation, June 5, 2022.

Detecting Post-Soviet Russia’s Black Narrative of Revenge for ’89 and ’91,June 19, 2022.


Addendum

UATV #UATV_English #UkraineNews
Destroyed homes and tortured residents: Consequences of Russian occupation of Kupiansk, September 24, 2022.


###

Trump Lawyer Christopher M. Kise, Registered Foreign Agent

19 Monday Sep 2022

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, United States of America, Venezuela

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

American Political Absolutism, Democracy in Peril, DJT, Donald John Trump, Donald Trump, Kise, medieval v modern, Trump and Dictatorship

On January 24, 2020, the Foreign Agents Registration Act unit of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice received from Christopher M. Kise, now the lawyer representing Donald John Trump in his defense in relation to the FBI’s investigation of Trump’s holding documents stamped as Top Secret/Secure Compartmented Information (TS/SCI), FARA registration #6787. In the form, Kise had listed as his principle Reinaldo Munoz Pedroza, the Attorney General of Venezuela appointed by the dictator Nicolas Maduro. At that time, Pedrozo had been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for undermining democracy in Venezuela and related election interference.



News of Kise’s registration as a foreign agent broke two days ago, and as interesting as that may be, the development of public and official interest in both the Conflict of Interest implied and the breathtaking scope of potential national security compromises–all those boxes of TS/SCI data!–appears slow. However, this by Ben Meiselas showed up on YouTube this morning:

Posted by MeidasTouch to YouTube, September 19, 2022.

For Trump’s base, the idea of achieving patriotic honor in association with his support appears belied and eroded by not only the former president’s authoritarian, belligerent, and obstreperous character but his connections–and one step removed is not far enough–to the tools, literally, so it would seem in the case of Mr. Kise, of at least one dictatorship. While it would seem fair for President (for Life) Maduro to have representation in the United States, the same would seem more than heinous for Trump to share with him the same lawyer.

Should the Kise-Trump story take down almost-candidate-(again) Trump, it would make a nice bookend for Trump’s first big yellow caution flag: Paul Manafort.


To make sense of the president’s pardon of Paul Manafort, it helps to understand the man Trump selected to run his 2016 campaign. On one hand, it seems inconceivable that an American presidential candidate would choose as his campaign manager someone whose last job was political strategist to a dictator in Ukraine who had recently been overthrown in a popular revolution. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense. Paul Manafort made a fortune helping tyrants and would-be tyrants appear legitimate. He was the ultimate symbol of the corruption of democratic political systems. His evolution from establishment wonderkid to handmaiden to dictators is a story of how corruption perverts democracies.

Hoffman, David. “Paul Manafort: Handmaiden to dictators.” The Hill, December 24, 2020.

With his latest hire in lawyers, Trump has only confirmed what all Americans, much including his base, must now see, i.e., the darkest of fallen real princes by contemporary business and class standards, a man who cannot keep himself separate from America’s enemies, Russian criminals, and assorted (other) dictators.


Note: since publishing this post, Trump has been reported as removing Christopher M. Kise from the leading role in Trump’s defense before related Federal investigation:

Kise is expected to remain on Trump’s legal team but is not leading the work related to the federal government’s investigation into how the former President handled 11,000 documents seized from his Florida home in August following a lengthy effort by the government to retrieve them. The reason for the shift in Kise’s role remains unclear and he may instead focus his efforts on the other investigations Trump is facing, which range from his business practices to the January 6 insurrection.

Collins, Kaitlan. “Newest addition to Trump’s legal team sidelined in Mar-a-Lago search case.” CNN Politics, September 27, 2022.

Addendum, February 17, 2023

Feb 16 (Reuters) – A lawyer for former President Donald Trump retained an attorney to represent himself as prosecutors step up their inquiry into the handling of sensitive documents at Trump’s Florida residence, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

Evan Corcoran, who has represented Trump in interactions with the government over presidential records taken to his Mar-a-Lago resort, has turned to Michael Levy, a prominent white-collar lawyer in Washington, according to people familiar with the matter.

Goudsward, Andrew. “Exclusive: Trump lawyer hires own attorney in classified documents probe.” Reuters, February 16, 2023.

Related Online

Cohen, Marshall, Oliver Carcy, and Zachary Cohen. “How Team Trump used Fox News as a laundromat for unverified Russian information about top Democrats.” CNN Politics, October 12, 2020.

Davis, Wynne. “TS/SCI: What an abbreviation reveals about the files seized from Mar-a-Lago.” NPR, August 16, 2022.

Gans, Jared. “Save America PAC advances $3M to Trump lawyer to cover legal fees.” The Hill, September 16, 2022.

Goudsward, Andrew. “Exclusive: Trump lawyer hires own attorney in classified documents probe.” Reuters, February 16, 2023.

Hoffman, David. “Paul Manafort: Handmaiden to dictators.” The Hill, December 24, 2020.

Myers, Steven Lee and Andrew E. Kramer. “How Paul Manafort Wielded Power in Ukraine Before Advising Donald Trump.” The New York Times, July 31, 2016.

Nicol, Ryan. “Attorney Christ Kise to help Nicolas Maduro administration fight U.S. sanctions.” Florida Politics, January 28, 2020.

Oppenheim, James S. “Trump’s America in Retrospect: Russian Real Estate Entanglements.” BackChannels, October 9, 2021.

Smith, David. “‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy.” The Guardian, January 29, 2021.

Unger, Craig. “Trump’s businesses are full of dirty Russian money. The scandal is that it’s legal.” The Washington Post, March 29, 2019.

Unger, Craig. “Trump’s Russian Laundromat”. The New Republic. July 13, 2017.

U.S. Department of the Treasury. “Treasury Sanctions Maduro Regime Officials for Undermining Democratic Order in Venezuela.” September 4, 2020.

Wikipedia. “Reinaldo Munoz Pedroza”.

–33–

A Note on Marching Forward Into the Past

15 Friday Jul 2022

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

American Medieval Christian Front, Dobbs, Medieval America, medieval v modern, Modern America, Post-Cold War Russia, Putin and Trump, Soviet/post-Soviet Russia

Abortion

#GOPofGreed #AmericanMedievalChristianFront Most draconian? Old slave states: Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas. https://t.co/02habQoS5g #SCOTUS abrogated Federal power and responsibility with Dobbs. It also defeated Lincoln and reversed the cause of the Civil War.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) July 13, 2022

In the United States, it would seem the Federal state has some retrograde constituencies, politicians, and now Supreme Court judges who would rather not have a credible and mighty democratic republic but rather a collection of backward and parochial cesspools operating along callous and ignorant–or ignorant and sadistic–lines of power, and at that the kind of power accustomed to imposing suffering on others in the name of religious righteousness and related malign and narcissistic will, for religion serves often as a cover for hypocrites, their abuses, and the crimes.

In Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, there was no real reason–forget the hair-splitting with the Constitution: the earlier Roe v Wade had been affirmed and reaffirmed across more than 50 years of equally contentious debate–but that involving the political lust for power and magically-thinking Christian zealotry. What I refer to in general as the “American Medieval Christian Front”–there are a lot of organizations that may be included in the nation’s “Far White Right” and “Christian Nationalist Movements”–has proven that America’s extraordinary secular-humanist democracy (start with Thomas Paine‘s writing) may be degraded and perverted in purpose by a medieval mob fully willing to impose its will on less passionate others, i.e., ordinary Americans of many faiths, quite absent of any consistency in reason.

Putin’s Trump naturally played the medieval card and in packing the Supreme Court left an odious present that fairly gutted common faith in the protections of the Constitution. In effect, the former president returned power to the kind of people–and the kind of scoundrels–who didn’t really like it in the first place.


Soviet/Post-Soviet Russia and Attempted “Positive Channeling”

https://t.co/4kCQ8gKqJ7 | https://t.co/h22jLnYloP

Putin projects an heroic image of himself to hide his damaged little person, so he has no real purpose and won't stop at or for anything until stopped.

The west offered positive channeling practically all the way to Ukraine.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) July 12, 2022

The Cold War Is Over

The cold war of poisonous Soviet-American feelings, of domestic political-hysteria, of events enlarged and distorted by East-West confrontation, of almost perpetual diplomatic deadlock is over.

The we-they world that emerged after 1945 is giving way to the more traditional struggles of great powers. That contest is more manageable. It permits serious negotiations. It creates new possibilities–for cooperation in combating terrorism, the spread of chemical weapons and common threats to the environment, and for shaping a less violent world.

The New York Times. “The Cold War Is Over”, April 2, 1989.

The Cold War may not have ended quite as well as the hope and optimism displayed and promoted in the west had promised and, to a large extent, operationalized. In fact, Western-launched investment and cooperation were set in place with earnest good feeling all the way to the ferocious eruption of civil war in Syria in 2011, after which it appears detente served to defend western stability. Ten years later — and do note the significant years 1991, 2001, 2011, 2021/2 — the invasion of Ukraine transformed any sense of enforced balanced in power that the west had believed in into plain containment and push-back through a western-leaning alley.

Of course, all of that above might be the crayon, large and messy, version of history. The details turn up cooperation masking the greater arc linked to criminal KGB and their soon-to-be President–Vladimir Putin.


In the beginning (Byzantine)-https://t.co/3z7Hgmdvcf; Okhrana & Tsar-https://t.co/vq273mq7w6; White Russian emigre-https://t.co/lBhnpdgrsv; and in the end (Ukraine) & KGB revenge for '89/'91-https://t.co/kUzOfebEkx

Putin's Accusation in a Mirror points back at himself & Russia.

— J. S. Oppenheim (@JS_Oppenheim) July 11, 2022

Within the Soviet/Post-Soviet sphere, I have used the following references to suggest the Big Picture “narrative arch of history”–i.e., the 30 years of taking revenge for the Soviet Army’s retreat from Afghanistan and the dissolving of the Soviet Union that followed three years later:

Nekrasov, Andrey. Director. Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File. 2007. The documentary suggests disaffected KGB had pried their way back into power by the mid-1990s.

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Before her assassination, Politkovskaya had reported on the brutalizating of Chechen villages by an unbridled and somewhat deranged Russian Army.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016. Satter details the KGB false-flag operations undertaken to heighten the demonization of the Chechen People while framing Vladimir Putin as the hero who would defend Russia from them.

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Quaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014. Ayman al-Zawahiri would return to Afghanistan from “detention” in Russia over the winter of 1996/7 and make compact with Osama bin-Laden for the staging of the attack on the United States referred to as “9/11”, i.e., September 11, 2001 (in Wikipedia, “September 11 attacks”).

Wikipedia. “Felix Dzerzhinsky”. Putin has made his affection for Stalin and the Soviet Union quite clear, but the head of the Cheka secret police has held a special place in his heart, e.g., “Putin Renames Police Unit After Bloody Cheka Founder Dzerzhinsky”. So why include the note here? Felix Dzerzhinsky was born September 11, 1877. Coincidence? Or just very interesting?

No intellectual somersault should be needed to connect 9/11 with the heightening of awareness and focus on Islamic Terrorism worldwide as well as with the concurrent development of western patriotism, nationalism, and xenophobia that would in turn become the “New Nationalism” in EU/NATO, the foundation for the strengthening of politicians on the Right and movements further to the Right in support of authoritarianism, isolationism, cultural chauvanism, racism, revolution, and terrorism.

Related defense and security related term of art: Reflexive Control.

Reprise: Medieval or Modern?

On Facebook and Twitter, I have now and then posed the rhetorical question, “In which world do you wish to live: Medieval or Modern?

The feudal-medieval realm of absolute and exclusive power often commanded by brutality on one hand and excessive unaccountable reward (but without power) on the other?

Or democracy or constitutional monarchy in which power has been attenuated by balancing the interests of the powerful and wealthy of the state with the views and powers of elected legislatures and courts, including high courts, nominated and confirmed through elected representatives?

If you’re of the 21st Century and cognizant in relation to its other issues, the most clear, reasoned, and responsible answer to “medieval or modern?” would seem that of rejecting the “charms” of the medieval mode.

For the most part, our species leans — and needs must lean — forward into the future.

Alas, some portion develops elaborate fantasies about a yesteryear in which their ancestors were great in battle and at leisure in wealth, perfectly comfortable with the degradation and enslavement of others to keep themselves as if gods deeply admired and always obeyed. These days, those who try to impose that archaic, delusional, and ugly-for-others reality on the space around themselves encounter in the west resistance loaded with derision. Those who may accept it where they have been made to feel they must have only to feel their own souls diminished, enslaved, and rendered meaningless.

In the family . . . it might work, but most people may remove themselves from an oppressive family and have the protections of the state to forestall recapture.

Within and surrounding an entire state: disaster!

Cited Above (Inconsistently) or Also Related Online

Associated Press. “Putin: Soviet collapse a ‘genuine tragedy’.” NBC News, April 16, 2005.

Gutterman, Steve. “The Week in Russia: ‘Ghastly Zealot’ Or Medieval Prince? Neither One Will Stand On Lubyanka Square As Statue Vote Abruptly Stopped.” RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty (RFERL), February 26, 2021.

Oppenheim, James S. “A Few Keys Related to ‘East-West Rivalry’.” BackChannels, July 2, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “FTAC: Endemic Russia Anti-Semitism–A Note.” BackChannels, February 1, 2021.

Oppenheim, James. S. FTAC: Middle East Conflict: Back to Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter and Forward to the Plundering of Palestinian Misery by Palestinian Leadership Elites.” BackChannels, December 29, 2017.

Oppenheim, James S. “Syria–Russia’s Barbarism–The Hospitals.” BackChannels, November 18, 2016.

Oppenheim, James S. “Syria: The Horror: 2011.” BackChannels, December 29, 2017.

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

Nemtsova, Anna. “Stalin’s Monsters Resurrected in Statues and Public Portraits in Putin’s Russia.” The Daily Beast, January 26, 2021.

Smith, David. “‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years–ex-KGB spy.” The Guardian, January 29, 2021.

The Moscow Times. “Putin Renames Police Unit After Bloody Cheka Founder Dzerzhinsky.” September 23, 2014.

Thomas Timothy L. “Russia’s Reflexive Control Theory and the Military.” PDF. Journal of Slavic Military Studies: 17: 237-256, 2004.

Wikipedia. “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization”.

Wikipedia. “Thomas Paine”.

Wikipedia. “Roe v. Wade”.

U.S. Department of State. “United States Relations with Russia: After the Cold War: 1990-1991.” Archive. Office of the Historian.


“First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Putin said. “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.

“The epidemic of collapse has spilled over to Russia itself,” he said, referring to separatist movements such as those in Chechnya.

Associated Press. “Putin: Soviet collapse a ‘genuine tragedy’.” NBC News, April 16, 2005.

Posted to YouTube July 15, 2022.

–33–

← Older posts
  • Compassion
  • Empathy
  • Justice
  • Humility
  • Inclusion
  • Integrity
____________

Caution: The possession of anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist thought may be the measure of the owner's own enslavement to criminal and medieval absolute power.
___________

Recent Posts

  • Reference: Journalist, Alexander Zhilin, Operation Storm In Moscow AKA Moscow Apartment Bombings
  • Among the Twitterati: Answering Russia’s Big Lies
  • FTAC: Moscow Suffocates the Palestinians
  • Sudan: Burhan’s Choice
  • Sudan’s Civil War: Smuggled Sudanese Gold Funding Russia in Ukraine
  • Tweets Enshrined: Compressed Political Poetry

Categories

  • 21st Century Feudal
  • 21st Century Modern
  • A Little Wisdom
  • Also in Media
  • American Domestic Affairs
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Asides
  • BCND – BackChannels News Day
  • Books
  • Conflict – Culture – Language – Psychology
  • COVID-19
  • Epistemology
  • Events and Other PSA's
  • Extreme Brown vs Red-Green
  • Fast News Share
  • foreign aid
  • Free Speech
  • FTAC
  • FTAC – From The Awesome Conversation
  • International Development
  • Islamic Small Wars
    • Gaza Suzerain
  • Journal
    • Library
  • Journalism
  • Links
  • Notes On Reading BackChannels
  • Philology
  • Philosophy
  • Poetry
  • Political Psychology
  • Political Spychology
  • Politics
  • Psychology
    • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
  • Qualities of Living (QOL)
  • Referral
  • Regions
    • Africa
      • Central African Republic
      • Guinea
      • Kenya
      • Libya
      • Mali
      • Morocco
      • Nigeria
      • South Africa
      • Sudan
      • Tunisia
      • Zimbabwe
    • Asia
      • Afghanistan
      • Burma
      • China
      • India
      • Myanmar
      • North Korea
      • Pakistan
      • Turkey
    • Caribbean Basin
      • Cuba
    • Central America
      • El Salvador
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Mexico
    • Eastern Europe
      • Serbia
    • Eurasia
      • Armenia
      • Azerbaijan
      • Russia
      • Ukrain
      • Ukraine
    • Europe
      • France
      • Germany
      • Hungary
      • Poland
    • Great Britain and United Kingdom
    • Iberian Peninsula
    • Middle East
      • Egypt
      • Gaza
      • Iran
      • Iraq
      • Israel
        • Palestinia
      • Jordan
      • Kurdistan
      • Lebanon
      • Palestinian Territories
      • Qatar
      • Saudi Arabia
      • Syria
      • United Arab Emirates
      • Yemen
    • North America
      • Canada
      • United States of America
    • Norther Europe
    • Northern Europe
      • Sweden
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Columbia
      • Ecuador
      • Venezuela
    • South Pacific
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
      • Papua New Guinea
      • West Papua
  • Religion
  • Spain
  • Syndicate Red Brown Green
  • transnational crime
  • Uncategorized
  • Visual Data

Europe

  • Defending History
  • Hungarian Spectrum
  • Yanukovych Leaks

Great Britain

  • Stand for Peace

Israeli and Jewish Affairs

  • Chloe Simone Valdary

Journals

  • Amil Imani
  • New Age Islam

Middle East

  • Human Rights & Democracy for Iran
  • Middle East Research and Information Project

Organizations

  • Anti-Slavery
  • Atlantic Council
  • Fight Hatred
  • Human Rights First Society
  • International Network Against Cyberhate
  • The Center for Victims of Torture

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

Archives

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • BackChannels
    • Join 353 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • BackChannels
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar