Category Archives: United States of America

COVID-19, Biological Warfare, China Related with Short Reference List

02 Thursday Apr 2020

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

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The report, written by the Chemical and Biological Intelligence Unit of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD), does not give the name of the Chinese scientist carrying the suspected SARS and MERS samples, or the intended recipient in the U.S. But the FBI concluded that the incident, and two other cases cited in the report, were part of an alarming pattern.

https://news.yahoo.com/suspected-sars-virus-and-flu-found-in-luggage-fbi-report-describes-chinas-biosecurity-risk-144526820.html

Whether in recent years or over many, there appears no end in relation to the breadth and depth of Chinese espionage in the United States. The cost to Americans: well into the billions of dollars.

Of immediate concern: could C19 (COVID-19) have escaped or even been ferried from the kind of lab that works with deadly pathogens?

According to a recent American Military News article (“Report: FBI warned of Chinese researchers transporting disease samples in US before coronavirus”, March 31, 2020 by Ryan Morgan), the FBI in 2018 had a least twice detained Chinese researchers transporting dangerous biological materials, and in 2019 U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents had stopped a Chinese researcher ferrying E.coli out of Detroit.

As Dr. Antilla proceeded with his academic career, United States officials changed their view of China’s recruitment programs, which they say have been used to steal sensitive technology from American laboratories.

In 2019, the Department of Energy barred its personnel from participating in recruitment programs from a handful of countries, including China. A few months later, a Senate committee declared China’s recruitment programs a threat to American interests.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/us/chinas-lavish-funds-lured-us-scientists-what-did-it-get-in-return.html

Casually going somewhere with a load of infectious material or toxins in pockets? Well, it’s not the kind of thing staff would do, but spies?

BackChannels will not cover the waterfront on Chinese espionage in America. Walk in anywhere and the subject expands. From the recruitment of scholars through the Thousand Lights Program through serious computer hacking and human infiltration into every potentially strategic walk in America’s operations, civilian and defense, the threats posed by China’s theft of industrial, scientific, and state secrets looms large. Examples may be found in a few proper nouns easily searched up on the web —

Candace Marie Claiborne (CIA mole)
Charles M. Lieber (Alleged Concealment of Chinese Funding)
Honjin Tan (Energy Storage)
Jerry Chung Shing Lee (CIA mole)
Kevin Patrick Mallory (CIA mole)
Qingshan Li, Military Radio Equipment
Xudong Yao (Industrial Infrastructure)
Xueha Peng (State Secrets)
Xudong Yao (Industrial Infrastructure)
Yanqing Ye (Foreign Agent, Boston University, Physics, Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering)
Zaosong Zheng (Cancer Research)

Related Online

Much of the reference section has been lifted from a previous post — “Note: COVID-19, Biological Warfare, and the Odds and Ambiguities” (March 19, 2020), but a few cogent others have been added to this growing collection of tributes to the theft of industrial, scientific, and state secrets by the People’s Republic of China on the world’s Internet-connected international stage.

Of course, where would any state’s security — or international agenda — be without its spies?

The trade is a fact of life also worldwide.

Nonetheless, this from Reuters provides a glimpse at the lucrative and powerful payoffs so far enjoyed by China given perhaps allowances for its investments (and recruitment) through the Thousand Light programs as well as an apparent absence of sufficient resistance to being intellectually tapped for the nation’s most sensitive scientific secrets.

China’s efforts to steal unclassified American technology, ranging from military secrets to medical research, have long been thought to be extensive and aggressive, but U.S. officials only launched a broad effort to stop alleged Chinese espionage in the United States in 2018.

“The theft of American trade secrets by China costs our nation anywhere from $300 to $600 billion in a year,” Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in advance of Thursday’s conference.

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-china-espionage/top-u-s-officials-to-spotlight-chinese-spy-operations-pursuit-of-american-secrets-idUSL1N28S1B3

Ackerman, Todd. “MD Anderson ousts 3 scientists over concerns about Chinese conflict of interest.” Houston Chronicle, April 20, 2019.

AP. “Trump Disbanded NSC Pandemic Unit That Experts Had Praised.” The New York Times, March 14, 2020.

Arms Control Association. “Biological Weapons Convention Signatories and States-Parties.” September 2018.

Barry, Ellen and Gina Kolata. “China’s Lavish Funds Lured U.S. Scientists. What Did It Get in Return?” The New York Times, February 7, 2020.

Bender, Bryan and Megan Cassella. “Will Trump be able to get emergency medical supplies fast enough?” Politico, March 18, 2020.

BESA. “China and Viruses: The Case of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu.” January 29, 2020.

Bocchi, Alessandra. “China’s Coronavirus Diplomacy: Rome praises Beijing’s ‘solidarity’ in sending ventilators, face masks, doctors and nurses.” WSJ Opinion, March 20, 2020.

Geraghty, Jim. “The Comprehensive Timeline of China’s COVID-19 Lies.” National Review, March 23, 2020.

Hosenball, Mark. “Top U.S. officials to spotlight Chinese spy operations, pursuit of American secrets.” Reuters, February 6, 2020.

Jaschik, Scott. “Chinese Med Student Charged with Stealing Research.” Inside Higher Ed, January 2, 2020.

Kolata, Gina. “Vast Dragnet Targets Theft of Biomedical Secrets for China.” The New York Times, November 4, 2019.

Lanese, Nicoletta. “Only one lab in China can safely handle the new coronavirus.” Live Science, January 22, 2020.

Lee, Bruce Y. “No, COVID-19 Coronavirus Was Not Bioengineered. Here’s The Research That Debunks That Idea.” Forbes, March 17, 2020.

Morgan, Ryan. “Report: FBI warned of Chinese researchers transporting disease samples in US before coronavirus.” American Military News, March 31, 2020.

Nedelman, Michael. “Scientists with ties to China ousted from US cancer center amid fears of foreign influence.” CNN, April 25, 2019.

Oppenheim, James S. “Note: COVID-19, Biological Warfare, and the Odds and Ambiguities.” BackChannels, March 19, 2020.

Pauls, Karen. “Canadian government scientist under investigation trained staff at Level 4 lab in China.” CBC, October 3, 2019.

Qiu, Jane. “How China’s “Bat Woman” Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus.” Scientific American, March 11, 2020.

Shoham, Dany (Lt. Col. res.). “China and Viruses: The Case of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu.” The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, January 29, 2020.

The Conversation. “Why Singapore’s coronavirus response worked – and what we can all learn.” March 18, 2020.

Toosi, Nahal, Daniel Lippman, and Dan Diamond. “Before Trump’s inauguration, a warning: ‘The worst influenza pandemic since 1918’.” Politico, March 16, 2020.

Tsan-Yuk Lam, Tommy and Marcus Ho-Hin Shum, Hua-Chen Zhu, et al. “Identification of 2019-nCoV related coronavirus in Malayan pangolins in southern China.” bioRxiv, February 13, 2020. This technical paper points to the Pangolin as a potential intermediate conveyor of COVID-19 between bats and humans.

Vorndick, Wilson. “Weaponizing Biotech: How China’s Military is Preparing for a ‘New Domain of Warfare’.” Defense One, August 14, 2019.

Weinberger, Sharon, Jana Winter and Martin De Bourmont. “Suspected SARS virus and flu samples found in luggage: FBI report describes China’s ‘biosecurity risk’.” Yahoo News, March 30, 2020.

War is Boring. “Chinese ‘student’ studying in US is indicted for actually being a Chinese Army officer.” January 29, 2020.

Wikipedia. “Biosafety Level”.

Wikipedia. “Pangolin“.

Wikipedia. “Thousand Talents Plan”.

Wikipedia. “Wuhan Institute of Virology”.

World Health Organization. “Fact Sheet: Biosafety and Biosecurity.” PDF. March 20, 2018.

Zaveri, Mihir. “Wary of Chinese Espionage, Houston Cancer Center Chose to Fire 3 Scientists.” The New York Times, April 22, 2019.

Poster Source: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/counterintelligence/yanqing-ye | PDF Readable Location: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/counterintelligence/yanqing-ye/@@download.pdf

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Perspective on COVID-19 in the United States of America

02 Thursday Apr 2020

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

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Copied from the previous post to help make the image of the state of affairs clear.

This first preliminary description of outcomes among patients with COVID-19 in the United States indicates that fatality was highest in persons aged =85, ranging from 10% to 27%, followed by 3% to 11% among persons aged 65–84 years, 1% to 3% among persons aged 55-64 years, <1% among persons aged 20–54 years, and no fatalities among persons aged =19 years.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm

Annual Rate of Death for the United States of America

Number of deaths: 2,813,503
Death rate: 863.8 deaths per 100,000 population
Life expectancy: 78.6 years
Infant Mortality rate: 5.79 deaths per 1,000 live births

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

Heart disease: 647,457
Cancer: 599,108
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
Diabetes: 83,564
Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

BackChannels has more questions than answers in relation to the general stand-down of America’s basic restaurant, events, and services economy and related financial and labor impacts throughout the nation.

In the event of CBRN threats, emerging infectious diseases, or natural disasters, state, local, tribal, or territorial health departments may need medicines and medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile if local supplies are depleted. Through the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) program, CDC collaborates with states and local jurisdictions to ensure they have plans and processes in place to receive and provide life-saving medicines and supplies.

https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/readiness/mcm.html

How much money have Federate and State governments poured into emergency preparedness in the region of Chemical Biological Radiation and Nuclear (CBRN) preparedness?

California had made itself ready for a C19 type event for years — and then it decided the price associated with foresight was too high.

Who else?

One more note–

The simplest way to judge whether we have an exceptionally lethal disease is to look at the death rates. Are more people dying than we would expect to die anyway in a given week or month? Statistically, we would expect about 51,000 to die in Britain this month. At the time of writing, 422 deaths are linked to Covid-19 — so 0.8 per cent of that expected total. On a global basis, we’d expect 14 million to die over the first three months of the year. The world’s 18,944 coronavirus deaths represent 0.14 per cent of that total. These figures might shoot up but they are, right now, lower than other infectious diseases that we live with (such as flu). Not figures that would, in and of themselves, cause drastic global reactions.

Lee, John. “How deadly is the coronavirus? It’s still far from clear.” The Spectator, March 28, 2020.

Related Online

Ebhardt, Tommaso, Chiara Remondini and Marco Bertacche. “99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says.” Bloomberg, March 18, 2020.

Renwick, Danielle. “Is coronavirus hitting young Americans harder than we thought?” The Guardian, April 1, 2020.

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FTAC: A Speculation Involving Bernie Sanders and Felix Adler

27 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by in American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, United States of America

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America’s “Far White Right” Republicans, who haven’t had much to do with reality either these days, have scraped up the mud mixture to attempt to splatter the Democrats thoroughly in the old Soviet zeitgeist and call their opposition “Un-American!”

Times of Israel blogger Fred Maroun asked on his Facebook page, “Is Netanyahu racist, as Sanders claims?”

After taking care of the Netanyahu question — not racist! — Maroun went on to defame Sanders. Here’s what he said:

Sanders, on the other hand, is an antisemite. He’s using the antisemitism of many on the left to gain support, and he has no problem associating with virulent antisemites like Linda Sarsour. He’s never apologized for any of it, on the contrary, he only gets worse. His accusation against Netanyahu is part of his game to attract those people. If he wants to criticize Netanyahu on the settlements, fine, but he knows that wouldn’t distinguish him from other Democrats, so he accuses the leader of the Jewish state of being a racist, code word for Jews being racist. His antisemitic base loves it. He uses exactly the same tactics to attract antisemites that Trump uses to attract right-wing racists.

Those who support Sanders are engaging in the the exact same moral acrobatics as those who support Trump. Shame on them.

Bernie Sanders may or may not be far from the habits known to the most religious of synagogue goers — the form of his personal ablutions are an I-Don’t-Know for me (and I don’t want to know!) — but one may recognize in Sanders the crossing point where Judaism became a Jewish Humanism so oriented toward people — and not so obsessed with God — that the rabbi who chose his conclusions over his upbringing (Felix Adler) would go on to establish a new American religious society represented by the term “Ethical Movement”.

From the Awesome Conversation

My response to the accusation: Sanders — anti-Semite!

Sanders has the frameworks of the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left — a term I used to use as I arrived here a conservative, and, sigh, the Left of my youth seemed to have drifted toward Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges on the barricades. That could have been just the way I arrived and “channeled” into Facebook.

Judaism’s Orthodox–>Conservative–>Reform Spectrum has had a last note pinned to it in the figure of Felix Adler.

— In 1876, Adler at age 26 was invited to give a lecture expanding upon his themes first presented in the sermon at Temple Emanu-El. On May 15, 1876 he reiterated the need for a religion, without the trappings of ritual or creed, that united all of humankind in moral social action.[7] To do away with theology and to unite theists, atheists, agnostics and deists, all in the same religious cause, was a revolutionary idea at the time. A few weeks after the sermon, Adler started a series of weekly Sunday lectures. In February 1877, aided by Joseph Seligman, president of Temple Emanu-El, Adler incorporated the Society for Ethical Culture. —

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Adler_(professor)

One might imagine, easily, that those promoting and living a strongly behavioral view of Judaism and Jewish Law bound into Jewish Obedience to the Commandments and related codes (“613 Commandments”) were not too happy with Professor Adler.

Sanders may have that ethical-humanist strain of ultimately Jewish thought in him, but he must also know as a Jew that he is not part of Russo-Soviet complex on the left that spread the “Protocols” throughout Russia and conveyed the same through White Russian emigre into Germany. America’s “Far White Right” Republicans, who haven’t had much to do with reality either these days, have scraped up the mud mixture to attempt to splatter the Democrats thoroughly in the old Soviet zeitgeist and call their opposition “Un-American!”

Bernie’s a liberal Jew. (I’ve been part of Reform Judaism — and Ethical Society much, much earlier — but am tired now “of all that” and prefer a quiet supper in a good restaurant on the Sabbath). Regarding Sanders’ political and social views, I would bet his position similar to Adler’s and what I without study would refer to as “Jewish Humanism”.

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FTAC: The American President Who Could Care Less About America’s Foundational Ideals

13 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, United States of America

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Who in support of our Democracy can afford to be neutral about a President who appears to be operating on an authoritarian basis using rules of his own? It has been one thing to “let the horse run”, see how he works, and watch what he does. It’s another to turn our back on a hard-won — fought for, died for, paid for — nation devoted to fair play and integrity right beside the principles and spirit that produced our foundational documents.

Admiral McRaven knew his business and his country and what he represented every day as a four-star admiral. That’s not an Obama thing or, particularly a Democratic or Republican thing. It’s an American thing unless the Nation has forgotten why it exists as a unique and now long-lived democracy.

This President shrugs off resignations by the most competitive and experienced professionals in their fields: diplomats, investigators, intelligence executives, military executives, prosecutors. He believes everything we do happens by way of political chicanery and force — or “clevers” — and not much has to do with anything worth believing in, much less dying for.

These pieces by Harbough and McRaven tell of a different America, one more admirable, more noble, more deserving of extraordinary leadership and sacrifice.

BackChannels. “United States of America — Basic Training”. February 2, 2017.

Choi, David. “Former top Navy SEAL who oversaw the Osama bin Laden raid says the US is ‘under attack from the president’.” Business Insider, October 17, 2019.

Harbaugh, Ken. “There Should Be a Veteran Running for President.” Time, March 18, 2015.

Harbaugh, Ken. “The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for a Constitutional Crisis.” The Atlantic, February 11, 2020.

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Go Ahead. Spin It. Make My Day — A Comment on the Michael White Case in the Death of Sean Schellenger

13 Monday Jan 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, United States of America

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Premise

Michael White didn’t deny killing Sean Schellenger. He admitted to police and at his trial that he plunged a knife several times into Schellenger’s back during a July 2018 scuffle in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square. Numerous witnesses and a cellphone video confirmed what happened. Yet in October 2019 a jury acquitted Mr. White, a 22-year-old college student, of voluntary manslaughter. Many, including the victim’s family, blame Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s soft-on-crime district attorney.

Stefano, Jennifer. “Philadelphia’s Top Prosecutor Pursues ‘Social,’ Not Actual, Justice
Larry Krasner said he wouldn’t prosecute certain offenses and the bad guys got the message.” Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2020.

Who is op-ed writer Jennifer Stefano?

Jennifer Stefano is Vice President of the Commonwealth Foundation, a non-profit free-market think tank. Before joining the Commonwealth Foundation, Jennifer served in numerous leadership roles at Americans for Prosperity and Americans for Prosperity Foundation. The Emmy-nominated former TV reporter and anchor has spent the last decade advocating for public policies that maximize human flourishing and individual freedom.

https://http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/about/detail/jennifer-stefano

Commonwealth Foundation?

It’s complicated.

Opinion

In good Orwellian fashion, most of America’s WSJ op-ed readers may be expected to grouse through Jennifer Stefano’s truncated portrayal of Michael White’s actions in the death of Sean Schellinger, nod their heads with the template set in the background — young black man (from the ‘hood, right?) kills (hard working) white one (honorably selling real estate) — and move on steaming right along with the coffee on all that’s wrong with America.

Well, BackChannels, having encountered the op-ed via Facebook this morning, chose to have another look at the depiction of the case that Jennifer Stefano used to damn “social justice” (Left / Far Left!) prosecutor Larry Krasner.

Reportage

Authorities say White fatally stabbed 37-year-old Sean Schellenger after a brief but quickly escalating argument at the scene of a minor traffic dispute in Center City. The defense claimed and cell phone
video seemed to support that Schellenger was first to attack the knife-wielding White.

Gordon, Bruce. “Michael White found not guilty in Rittenhouse Square stabbing death of Sean Schellenger.” Fox 29 Philadelphia, October 17, 2019.

Schellenger’s family accused the DA’s office of victim blaming, a complaint that resurfaced throughout the trial from prosecutors themselves. Assistant District Attorney Sherrell Dandy said White’s defense team emphasized the victim’s behavior more than his death. Schellenger’s cocaine use, heavy drinking and even past fights were introduced as evidence against the one person who could not defend himself in court, Dandy said during closing statements.

But White’s supporters argued that he feared for his life after Schellenger threatened to “beat the black off him.”

“Michael White Given Probation on Tampering Charge.” NBC Philadelphia, January 9-10, 2020.

More than most cases, White’s trial seemed to touch on issues that have long affected the city, such as money, race, and opportunity.

White, a black man who had performed slam poetry and was working as a food courier on the night of the confrontation, testified that Schellenger — the white owner of a real estate company — said, “I’ll beat the black off you” before charging at him and trying to tackle him, causing him to fear for his safety.

Palmer, Chris. “Jury finds Michael White not guilty in stabbing death of Sean Schellenger near Rittenhouse Square.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 17, 2019 (updated).

After news of the Rittenhouse Square murder and White’s role in it broke, supporters of White took to social media to claim that he was acting in self-defense and to claim he is the “true victim.” White is an engineering student at Morgan University in Baltimore who grew up in Philadelphia and is interested in poetry, according to a Gofundme page he started to fundraise tuition money. He had no reported past arrests.

Schellenger has a criminal history including arrests in Chester County and Florida, including a 2008 arrest in Florida for disorderly conduct, battery and trespassing although charges were later dropped. He was found guilty of disorderly conduct in 2009 in Chester County, and previously charged in Chester County in August 2001 with burglary, resisting arrest, criminal trespassing, and theft, although the verdict in that case was unknown, the Inquirer reported.

Newhouse, Sam. “Conflicting stories emerge after Rittenhouse Square murder
Family and friends of Michael J. White say the Rittenhouse Square murder of Sean Schellenger was in self-defense.” Metro, July 16, 2018.

You decide?

No.

The jury decided.

The violation of journalism’s golden standard for reporting, “Clear, Accurate, Complete” produced the opportunity for this Bad Bloggie in the Windows. In her op-ed, Jennifer Stefano framed the case for a national audience by leaving out . . . the case. Again, Michael White was black and he done it, totally admitted it, and this soft Officer Krupke Lefty of a prosecutor Krasner made it easy for him to slip away with his crime.

For all anyone but WSJ might know, the Conservative Nodding Head Chorus may have bought it.

Next item, please, and another croissant.

Ah, but the American Press is free, vigorous, and decidedly not fake!

Gotcha!

Assailant gets out of his car. Black guy’s got a bicycle and a knife (c’mon, it’s Philly), and what he hears from the white guy about to charge him: “I’ll beat the black of you.”

Related Online

“Pennsylvania Self Defense Laws.” FindLaw.

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Soleimani’s Death and America’s Partisan Politics

03 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Iraq, United States of America

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After years of Iranian provocations directly and through proxies, America’s defense machinery returned fire in no uncertain terms. President Trump’s order was no subtle back alley “hit” involving a dimly lit peripheral figure among the state’s proxies or some obscure but critical figure engaged in rocketry and nuclear arms development. Qassim Soleimani was Tehran’s top general and (second) most vigorous master of the levers and tools of the state’s diplomacy and conflict-inducing and war-fighting capacity. His taunt as quoted by The New York Times, “We are near you, where you can’t even imagine. We are ready. We are the man of this arena” was his invitation to his kind of party.

Washington will wake up later this morning to . . . what? “Heightened tensions with Iran”?

Call it what the strike represented: war.

BackChannels, ever strident and stubbornly independent, suggests that Left / Far Left Democrats and Always Right / Far Right Republicans should both can their bitter and frequently counterproductive and surreal partisan sandbox fight and take a moment to consider together the many acts of terror sponsored by Tehran, including attacks on American forces, the harangues and threats against the Democratic Liberalism of the West — and nonstop threats promising the annihilation of Israel, the seizing over many years of British patrol and other sea craft, and most of all the barbarism — the inhumanity — meted to all within and beyond Iran who have been abused, murdered, and subjugated by the regime.

Related Online

Crowley, Michael, Falih Hassan, and Eric Schmitt. “Top Iranian General Qassim Suleimani is Killed on Trump’s Orders, Officials Say.” The New York Times, January 2, 2020.

Dehghanpisheh, Babak. “Soleimani was Iran’s celebrity soldier, spearhead in Middle East.” Reuters, January 3, 2020.

Reuters World News. “Pentagon says Iranian Commander Soleimani was developing plans to attack Americans.” January 2, 2020.

Stecklow, Steve, Babak Dehghanpisheh, and Yeganeh Torbati. “Assets of the Ayatollah: The economic empire behind Iran’s supreme leader — Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures.” Reuters Investigates, November 11, 2013.

Wikipedia. “General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper”.

Posted to YouTube by British Defence News, May 2, 2014.

–33–

Six Hours of Final Impeachment Debate and Vote

18 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, North America, United States of America

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No civic-minded American, nor anyone else in the world, need miss this historic day’s process, so take here BackChannel’s relay with an appropriate tonic: high-speed Internet has made journalism’s “second-row seat to history” — what I once called news-watching at the desktop — a front-row sport.

Related Online

Baker, Peter and Michael D. Shear. “Trump Impeachment Vote Live Updates: House Opens Debates on Articles After Clearing Key Procedural Test.” The New York Times, December 18, 2019:

“If a president undermining our national security and using the federal government for his own selfish personal gain is not impeachable conduct, then, Madam Speaker, I don’t know what is,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Rules Committee.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/facsimile-bipolar-political-sociopathy/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/malignant-narcissism/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/02/02/united-states-of-america-basic-training/

–33–

George Conway’s Tweet

17 Tuesday Dec 2019

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

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Representative Jeff Flake jumped the gunwales of the Republican Ship as it swung toward the rocky coast of Trumpian Autocracy. For his conscience and his faith in the American and western liberal project, it must have looked better to swim off alone than stay aboard to go along and get along with the New Boss so apparently fond of unsavory associates. However, it appears that some left behind have been driven to mutiny outright — and God bless ’em!

“Patriotism and the survival of our nation in the face of the crimes, corruption and corrosive nature of Donald Trump are a higher calling than mere politics,” the founders of the Lincoln Project wrote in a New York Times opinion piece published Tuesday. “As Americans, we must stem the damage he and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character.”

Marshall, Abbey. “George Conway and other conservative critics launch PAC to take down Trump.” Politico, December 17, 2019.

BackChannels strongly suggests the Lincoln Project connect with Malcolm Nance ASAP to reestablish radically moderate Democratic and Republican positions in a way that both competes the Parties while assuring Americans of desired progress, prosperity, and security in either direction and in keeping with the bedrock of American ideals, freedoms, principles, privileges, and values.

Published earlier today (and before this news of a Republican split emerged online): “FTAC: A Personal Note on America’s Democracy and its Defense”.

Related Online

Boyer, Dave. “George conway targets Trump with new Super PAC in big to take down wife’s boss.” Washington Times, December 17, 2019.

Conway, George T. III, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson. “We are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated.” The New York Times, December 17, 2019.

Easley, Jason. “Rudy Giuliani Is Now Working Directly For Russian Intelligence.” Politics USA, December 15, 2019.

Fink, Jenni. “George Conway, Other Republicans Declare “We Are Republicans’, Announce Lincoln Project to ‘Defeat Trumpism’. Newsweek, December 17, 2019.

Flake, Jeff. “My Party Is in Denial About Donald Trump: We created him, and now we’re rationalizing him. When will it stop?” Politico Magazine, July 31, 2017.

Gettys, Travis. “George Conway shames the GOP for replacing conservatism “with an empty faith led by a bogus prophet.” Salon, December 17, 2019.

Oppenheim, James S. “Mafia ‘Don’? Laundering the Authoritarian President’s Image.” BackChannels, September 7, 2018.

The Lincoln Project.

Stephen Colbert, December 16, 2019.

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