Tags
decency, democracy, dignity, freedom, New Years Day 2023, Ukraine, western civilization, Zelensky
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“We Are All One Family” — #Ukraine #NATO #Europe #Democracy #Freedom #Western Civilization — Stand!
01 Sunday Jan 2023
Category Archives: North America
Zelensky’s Speech Before Congress, December 21, 2022: Near Quotes
21 Wednesday Dec 2022
Tags
Russia v. Ukraine, Russia-Ukraine War, Slava Ukraine, Ukraine for Democracy, Ukraine for Freedom, Volodymyr Zelenski, Zelensky's Address to Congress
BackChannels hasn’t yet seen a transcript, but from scribbles come the following “near quotes”–>
“We have defeated Russia in the battle of minds for the world.”
“Americans gained this victory, and that is why you have succeeded in uniting the global community to protect freedom and international law.”
“Europeans gained this victory, and that’s why Europe is now stronger and more independent than ever.”
“The Russian tyranny has lost control over us.”
“The Russians will only have a chance to be free when they defeat the Kremlin in their minds.”
“This battle cannot be frozen or ignored. the world is too interconnected . . . . Our two nations are allies in this battle.”
“Russia has been taking Bakhmut since May, but Bakhmut stands.”
“The Russian tactics are primitive.”
“Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender.”
Zelensky compared the battle for Bakhmut with the American Revolution’s experience at Saratoga, New York, making Ukraine’s war one of similar liberation from absolute power.
“Your well being is the product of your security. We Ukrainians will also go through our war of independence with dignity…. We wish for the same victory. Only victory.”
I’m going to feel guilty about this–C-Span coverage features transcripts: C-Span. “Ukrainian President Zelensky Address to Congress: Ukrainian President addresses a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.” December 21, 2022.–but no longer young, perhaps not that guilty.
I’ve earned my laziness.
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#DJT on BackChannels: A Dozen Posts, January 6, 2021 – November 5, 2022
22 Tuesday Nov 2022
Tags
#DJT, #MaligNarcs, #PolitCrims, #TrumpRussia, American Reactionary Conservatism, authoritarianism, Donald John Trump, Fascist Nationalist America, Rule of the Rich and Ruthless, Trump and Russia, Trumpolini
This list is neither comprehensive nor fully representative of related content on this blog, but each post also conveys three computer-generated suggestions for related reading, not that anyone suffers for lack of reportage obsessed with Donald John Trump. Still, as I’ve repeatedly relayed some of these via Facebook and Twitter (welcome back, Don, you should see yourself in the mirror that is the World Wide Web), I thought to put a dozen blogs from January 6 to this November on one page as a potential and helpful (I hope) contribution to what lies ahead.
Failing President Donald John Trump’s Medieval Mob Invades Capitol, January 6, 2021
Short Comment on Trump’s Mob and the Abuse of Language, February 11, 2021
Marie Yovanovitch – The Kind of Person President Trump Fires From His Administration, November 17, 2021
FTAC on Trump, the Show Business President, and the Assault on the Capitol Building, January 9, 2021
Trump and the Question of Insurrection, January 9, 2021
FNS: Trump’s Riven Republican Party; Donbass–Bear Squats with Radar, February 2021
FTAC Verbatim: After Trump, A ‘Radical Middle’, Modern and Moderate, Against the Ends, March 3, 2021
A Comment on ‘Trump Facebook Ban Upheld’, March 6, 2021
Trump’s America in Retrospect: Russian Real Estate Entanglements, October 9, 2021
Trump Lawyer Christopher M. Kise, Registered Foreign Agent, September 19, 2022
Trump, Corruption, Narcotics, Russia-A Glance, October 10, 2022
Trump Hires the Best People (and Two Other Comments Over Coffee), November 5, 2022
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Trump, Corruption, Narcotics, Russia-A Glance
10 Monday Oct 2022
Either Donald Trump’s associates and followers aren’t readers, or at least not discerning ones, or they’re as greedy and lusting for power as he has been, or, rather like him, they’re equally damaged narcissists with Narcissistic Personality Disorder’s (NPD’s) standard “messianic delusions of grandeur”. Also, I suppose one might suggest that some have been compromised (and blackmailed) or leveraged for want of some aspiration or dream that the Don might make come true through his legion of intimidating and obfuscating lawyers.
Approach the followers (carefully) in any manner that suits, but “missing data” upstairs–alternatively brazen disinformation, innuendo, and rumor–would seem a part of that now benighted bought or weakening, small, and violent constellation of Americans too easily led astray.
America’s moderate Democrats and Republicans have turned against Donald Trump as a candidate for the 2024 elections and beyond as they have perceived his character issues as deep and lifelong, which they are, but what remains with avaricious associates, lesser politicians perhaps hooked on his indulgence with “endorsements” (kiss of death from the inside out for those with integrity) and funding, would seem a profound denial as regards not only the common wisdom but also wisdom questioned and repeatedly corroborated. What follows in addition to telling quotations is a short list of reference associated with the former American president’s autocratic, vicious, and unscrupulous character.
More than 18 months into his presidency, Donald Trump’s modus operandi – and the danger it represents – is clear. His working method is that of the mafia boss and gangland chieftain, daily wielding his power to settle scores, teach lessons and crush dissent. Anyone who’s seen The Sopranos will know the routine: the casual intimidation, the obsession with loyalty, the brutal ostracism meted out to those who dare defy the man at the top.
Freedland, Jonathan. “This mafia style of government makes Trump a role model for all autocrats.” The Guardian, August 18, 2018.
“My name is Carmine. I don’t know why you’re fucking with Mr. Trump but if you keep fucking with Mr. Trump, we know where you live and we’re going to your house for your wife and kids,” the caller said, according to the account that the attorney, Kristopher Hansen, gave to the Holmdel police department in New Jersey. Hansen speculated that the caller was Trump’s bodyguard.
Leopold, Jason. “‘If You Keep Fucking With Mr. Trump, We Know Where You Live. ‘”. BuzzFeed News, August 5, 2017.
Many of those who bought the condos, it turns out, did so not to live there but allegedly to launder illicit money – Russian gangster money, drug cartel money, people-smuggling money.
A joint Reuters-NBC News investigation published on Friday alongside a report by the non-profit Global Witness said the skyscraper with Trump’s name had ties to international organised crime.
The reports detailed how the future president gave the project to his daughter Ivanka as a “baby” effort to gain real estate experience, and said it ended up drawing a cast of characters accused of fraud, corruption and kidnapping.
Carroll, Rory. “Trump’s Panama tower used for money laundering by condo owners, reports say.” The Guardian, November 18, 2017.
The meeting came just days after Kilimnik met in Moscow with Oleg Deripaska, a powerful oligarch and close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Deripaska had been a major client of Manafort but had sued him over a failed business deal in Ukraine and was seeking to recoup almost $25m.
The Trump administration announced late last year it intended to lift sanctions on Deripaska’s companies, despite strong opposition from Democrats and some Republicans in Congress. The treasury department had imposed the sanctions on Deripaska and several of his companies in tandem with seven Russian oligarchs, 12 companies they owned or controlled, and 17 Russian government officials, for “malign activity” which included “attempting to subvert western democracies, and malicious cyber-activities”.
Stone, Peter. “Is Oleg Deripaska the missing link in the Trump-Russia investigation?” The Guardian, January 29, 2019.
Related Online
Barber, C. Ryan. “Paul Manafort just put a very favorable gloss over his work for a pro-Russia leader of Ukraine in a rare radio interview.” Business Insider, March 18, 2022. For a look at Yanukovych’s Ukrainian kleptocracy, see Yanukovych Leaks. (For a look at how little Donald Trump cared about democracy in post-revolutionary Ukraine, see Smith, Jeffrey R. “Timeline: How Trump withheld Ukraine aid.” The Center for Public Integrity, December 13, 2019).
Crowley, Michael. “All of Trump’s Russia Ties, in 7 Charts.” Politico, March/April 2017.
CNN. “Rauch: Trump has mastered the ‘firehose of falsehood’.”
Hirsh, Michael. “How Russian Money Helped Save Trump’s Business.” Foreign Policy, December 21, 2018.
Illing, Sean. “Trump’s ties to the Russian mafia go back 3 decades.” Vox, January 12, 2019.
Olear, Greg. Dirty Rubles. New York: Four Sticks Press, 2018.
Onion, Rebecca. “‘Just Remember: Roy Cohn Taught Him His ABCs'”. Slate, September 27, 2019.
Oppenheim, James S. “Trump and the Question of Insurrection.” BackChannels, January 9, 2021.
Parker, Ned, Stephen Grey, Stefanie Eschenbacher, Roman Anin, Brad Brooks, and Christine Murray. “Ivanka and the fugitive from Panama.” Reuters Investigates, November 17, 2017. Teaser: “Exclusive: How an alleged fraudster in Panama, working with Donald Trump’s daughter, helped make Trump’s first international hotel venture a success. The broker was in business with a money-launderer and two criminals from the former Soviet Union. Then he fled.”
Rauch, Jonathan. The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2021.
Rauch, Jonathan. “The Real Hoax.” Persuasion. December 13, 2021.
Unger, Craig. House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia. New York: Dutton, 2018.
Unger, Craig. American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery. New York: Dutton, 2021.
Unger, Craig. “Trump’s Russian Laundromat.” The New Republic. July 13, 2017.
Addendum, from November 11, 2022 Forward
I’ve added to the above reference section articles published before the publication date of this post, Oct. 10, 2022, but thought here to add #DJT pieces bearing down on about the same themes involving the former American President, foremost treason abetted by questionable character and an altogether malign narcissistic psychology.
Zembla. “The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump.” Video; posted by Ted Martin, May 18, 2017.
#CollusionNoDelusion: Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump (and, Possibly, #Kompromat)
But her father was wrong. In the end, Trump spent plenty of time with Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein. In fact, he fit in quite well with them. Arrivistes all—be it Epstein’s Coney Island, Trump’s Queens, or Robert Maxwell’s Eastern European shtetl—they had all come from the wrong side of the tracks. And at some point in their lives, Robert Maxwell, Trump, and Epstein all had ties to foreign intelligence agencies, arms dealers, and the sex trade.
It was a world of unimaginable decadence.
Unger, Craig. ‘He’s a Lot of Fun to Be With’: Inside Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump’s Epic Bromance.” Vanity Fair, January 21, 2021.
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The Teflon Don’s Company
08 Saturday Oct 2022
Tags
corruption, DJT, Donald Trump, Espionage, foreign influence, malignarcs, Political Criminals, Questionable Character, Trump's Rogues
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.
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.
Shaw, Conor. “President Trump’s staggering record of uncharged crimes.” Crew, September 27, 2022.
Defendants PAUL J. MANAFORT, JR., (MANAFORT) and RICHARD W. GATES Ill
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.
(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.
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”.
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Russian Power (Back) to the Russian People for Russian Democracy, Development, Humanism, Progress, and Rule of Law
24 Saturday Sep 2022
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.
Tweeted earlier this morning —
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.
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.
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Trump Lawyer Christopher M. Kise, Registered Foreign Agent
19 Monday Sep 2022
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:
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
Hoffman, David. “Paul Manafort: Handmaiden to dictators.” The Hill, December 24, 2020.
Unger, Craig. “Trump’s Russian Laundromat”. The New Republic. July 13, 2017.
Wikipedia. “Reinaldo Munoz Pedroza”.
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21 Years to September 11, 2022
11 Sunday Sep 2022
Start at the beginning: Felix Dzerzhinsky’s Birthday, September 11, 1877.
Move on to the “End of the Cold War”: December 25, 1991.
Pause for Ayman al-Zawahiri’s “detention” in Russia, winter 1996/7.
And take a moment for that indelible Monday morning 8:45 a.m. horror–>
What American and the world witnessed 21 years ago was an Islamic terrorist attack on two breathtaking office buildings symbolic of western business and political order. At the time, as one country-western singer-songwriter noted–Alan Jackson – “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)”–an ordinary American couldn’t tell the difference between Iraq and Iran.
Perhaps that absence of American and more generalized global political sophistication has changed.
As flesh swells where stung, BackChannels views the September 11 attack on America’s homeland as the installation of the “New Nationalism” to come to the United States and infect several other EU/NATO states–Hungary, Italy, Poland, Turkey–with reversions to dalliance and inroads by authoritarian power.
While the world’s more modern and western institutions for security focused on the “War on Terror”, another decade would deliver another message in Moscow’s inimical back alley manner in absolute thuggish power as an alley declared war on the humanity of his own constituency: on BackChannels, “Syria: The Horror: 2011”. The Syrian Civil War would in disperse millions of refugees into other states in the Middle East (Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt) and into NATO member Turkey (3.6 million) and into Europe (more than 1 million) according to World Vision.
Add yet one more decade to spring 2021 and the winter of 2021/2, for Russia’s positioning for its invasion of Ukraine, which was then initiated on February 24, 2022 (this leaving out Russia’s annexation of Crimea from February to March 2014 in the wake of the Ukraine’s Euromaidan and concomitant Revolution of Dignity
While the public generally views “9/11” as a singular act of Islamic ne “Islamist” terror against the pillars of the western (and majority-Christian) order, it appears in retrospect as a challenge on the part of the still politically absolute medieval world against the more compassionate, humanist, and ordered modern open democracies and their profoundly liberal ends. In fact, the attack appears to fit with a greater and more pernicious narrative arc as Russia was to support the Taliban with arms and materiel through to their taking Kabul in an American retreat first agreed to by former President Trump, a most (allegedly) criminal, devious, disgraceful, and traitorous American President (well, to judge by the latest breaking news).
This September 11 anniversary differs quite from Moscow’s authoritarian and criminal vision for the world.
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