Related Online
–33–
“We Want to Be Free”
11 Friday Nov 2022
FTAC: Kherson and Putin’s Retreat
11 Friday Nov 2022
Editor’s Comment
Even though Putin has quieted on “tactical nukes”, he still has them, and he and his regime remain deeply untrustworthy. Caution seems appropriate. The true ends of the story needs must take place in Moscow and St. Petersburg and in the Kremlin, the FSB, and related criminal and defense circles. Russia has absolutely nothing to gain by way of its feudal-medieval and altogether piratical and politically criminal and retrograde “Imperial” fascist totalitarian revanche, its leader, and his regime.
#MaligNarc #TsarVladimirTheSmaller has, both “of course” and tragically (for our species) the power to destroy himself and the world with it, would that he would keep destroying himself, at which he is excelling, and leave the world to both more compassionate and rational actors.
At his command nonetheless: doomsday underwater systems, hypersonic missiles, stealthy submarines, and “tactical” nuclear warheads.
Living within reach of that destructive capability is not an option as it has long been a given, and while the concepts of “balanced power” and “mutually assured destruction” may allay some ambitions and impulses, we seem to be waking up close to “midnight” every day with this one most execrable (#PutinFullTonto) excuse for a human being in power.
On Archaic Beliefs and Systems
Good: Expanding, Harmonious, and Open Systems; Human and Technological Evolution; Greater Peace and Prosperity On the Bedrock of a Spacious Humanism and Predominant Global Security.
Evil?
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httpGrs://twitter.com/BarbaraLuethi/status/1590745260719841286?s=20&t=19WIDeZZ62SJHDHlxisc0g
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I have now spent much of my blogging career–or it feels so–promoting the concepts of “Malignant Narcissism“and the related “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” while co-promoting or popularizing a post-Cold War narrative that touches on Moscow’s near immediate transformation and reversion to the black fist of a secret police state as well as the world’s appetite for the illicit in earthly delights, so to speak, handily delivered by organized crime, i.e., the world’s most lucrative narcotics and slaves.
While the west approaches accepting some moderation in its policies associated with hedonism and related industries, there remains for consideration the darkest political ramifications associated with corruption, “dark money”, and “kompromat”. Most in and of the west remain deeply committed and steadfast in relation to the experience of freedom as reliant on an atmosphere in which we may live as authentic persons with our own agency, efficacy, ideas, and options, even naughty or tawdry 🙂 , within the realm (and boundaries) of the predominantly healthy and good.
The political hell of the Russian mafia state, greed-ridden and deeply hypocritical and mindlessly subject to the power of a heartless and vacuous lunatic, would have all of western freedom, law, and tradition choked by criminal intents, fraudulent political theater, and related force. Unfortunately, and it’s just my opinion, the west has been poisoned itself by KGB methods and related and equally unsightly and malign narcissism in cultural and political circles–as much would help explain the #GOPofGreed’s issues with authoritarian and reactionary bents.
It tires me to work up one more repeated reference section, but I will offer a short selection here, and with reference to my own citation, there’s plenty of additional reference on most BackChannels posts.
Related Online
Nekrasov, Andrey (Director). Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File. Documentary film, 2007.
Oppenheim, James S. “Trump, Corruption, Narcotics, Russia-A Glance.” BackChannels, October 10, 2022.
–33–
Putin to Ukraine and NATO: Dare Destroy Me
07 Monday Nov 2022
Although Putin has been doing a fine job of destroying himself as well as the wealth, power, and relative security of his closest assigns and associations, he has still advanced weapons systems in submarines, hypersonic missiles, and “tactical” nuclear warheads, and he knows he may destabilize and destroy with impunity whatever he wishes for fear of his lunacy.
No mass death or destruction have yet come to Moscow or St. Petersburg.
The imposing of western sanctions has been but a matter of adjustment in relationships elsewhere.
The “Fragile Empire” has been proving surrounding polities, not only the “demo” made of Ukraine, more fragile in their development and heightened sensitivity to threats–or now imposed–disruptions.
And Putin’s “Mafia State” appears not to have interrupted anyone’s drug deal or other dark business for being so without conscience.
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How would you like to be hit by an enemy you’re not allowed to hit back?
What if it was your friend’s enemy enjoying that impunity, and you knew that you and yours would be next to be beaten, bribed, intimidated, robbed?
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What if you knew that your forces were blocking 90 percent of airborne attacks but the ten percent getting through was destroying basic civilian power infrastructure?
What does “winning” mean when your losing enemy forces are nonetheless freezing and displacing your people?
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Of course, Putin and his Russia are losing too, but he is only losing the better–the more good–of his human resources, and his state is only losing money and international stature. That’s not enough for stopping him. As the Malignant Narcissist (#MaligNarc) that he has been, he and his circle needs must be deprived of power and stopped cold, for in his own delusional mind, he cannot lose, and his enablers, sycophants, and fellow thugs are all in too deep for leaving him. War criminals themselves for what they have abetted, they, and exactly like the Nazis before them, may find no refuge elsewhere–or sadly find it through some realpolitik involving occult cash reserves that may land an obscure outpost or two for living (very well, thank you) on the lowdown.
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Trump Hires the Best People (and Two Other Comments Over Coffee)
05 Saturday Nov 2022
Typing up briefs cost most time than they’re worth, and yet how can one old Mr. Lonely not want to share the briefest “Hey, Martha!” over the morning’s first cup of coffee? 🙂
To better “Read Along with Jim” (if I am indeed scanning news at my desktop): https://twitter.com/JS_Oppenheim & https://www.facebook.com/BackChannels .
This post: ephemera–no categories, #’s, or keys.
On the front page of The Washington Post—
Boris Epshteyn is also dealing with the legal ramifications of his conduct outside of work. He is on probation, according to court records, after pleading guilty late last year to disorderly conduct and fighting during a late-night bar incident in Scottsdale, Ariz. — the second such arrest in Arizona in seven years.
Epshteyn declined to answer questions on the record about those arrests, or any other topic, for this article.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/05/boris-epshteyn-trump-legal-troubles/ – “Boris Epshteyn’s loyalty to Trump pays off as investigations deepen”: Pugilistic adviser has clashed with other lawyers for Donald Trump on whether to be confrontational or conciliatory. By Josh Dawsey, Jacqueline Alemany, and Isaac Stanley-Becker
Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn
Nice fella.
On the top of The New York Times—
“Family Ties. Political Divisions.”
For Carolyn Broe and her family, the 2022 midterms have unfolded the way they have for countless others: with great bitterness and turbulence.
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Edith, I was raised on the Torah, my wife, and the Qur’an. My oldest son is an atheist, my youngest is a Scientologist, my daughter is studying Hinduism–I imagine there is room there for a Holy War in my living room, but we practice live and let live. Why don’t you sit down?
The Man From Earth. Film, 2007; original: The Man Who Fell From Earth, 1976.
On top at Politico—
ELECTIONS
“Trump and DeSantis barrel toward 2024 — but keep their distance in Florida”: Multiple people familiar with the planning around Trump’s rally, which will feature Sen. Marco Rubio and is part of a four-city tour, said DeSantis wasn’t invited and didn’t ask to attend.–By Matt Dixon and Meridith McGraw.
Related on BackChannels: “Trump, Corruption, Narcotics, Russia-A Glance” (October 10, 2022); “Trump’s America in Retrospect: Russian Real Estate Entanglement” (October 9, 2021).
And at the Front of America’s Revolutionary Existence–
I’m going to post this because the headlines of each noted “rag”–Inside the Beltway; The Gray Lady; and, I guess, Revolutionary–have probably already changed.
For any interested in preserving America’s Democracy as brought to birth with bright and fresh cause, I’d recommend reading Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” before all else.
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Russia’s Special Truth
12 Wednesday Oct 2022
Related Online
Nekrasov, Andrey (Director). Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File. Documentary film, 2007.
Wikipedia. “List of Russian generals killed during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine”.
BackChannels’ Related Political Psychology
The blog’s starting to carry quite a package! 🙂
I think the “amateur psychologists” have been written off by the rough and tough get-it-done warfare analysts, but, sigh, Russia really does have a deranged narcissistic feudal-medieval “Vertical of Power” who has by his destructive and ruthless wiles and will made the powerful and wealthy of Russia dependent on his existence and his on them.
Who is Vladimir Putin to judge any of them?
Beneath heaven–and would they would ask themselves the same thing–I don’t know.
Whatever the answer (blackmail? intimidation? grandiose promises?), he has inveigled an entire class of associates, executives, and warriors in an archaic narrative of utterly barbaric cruelty, destruction, and ethnic cleansing. So far, not one of Putin’s oh-so-powerful associates appear capable of preparing any resistance to him or his crimes–or it’s they, at least a few, who have perhaps been pushing him. Either way, all have become themselves complicit in the leader’s ugly and cowardly fantasy about himself–and they are losing as mightily as they are clinging fast to this most backward, myopic, and villainous of daddies.
Are they brain dead?
Have they lost the last vestiges of conscience, humanity, and integrity?
Perhaps the worst thing–the most special truth, frankly–is they know what they have done and are doing and believing themselves bought in, doomed, and enslaved are walking themselves to their own ignominious end.
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FTAC: Russia’s Old Ukrainian Land Grab
12 Wednesday Oct 2022
Tags
Agricultural Economies, East-West Trade, Eastern European Balance of Power, Global Crossroads, Russia-Ukraine History, Vassalage
From correspondence:
. . . two greater-than-civilizational stories run through the history of the region: 1) who were the Vikings, really, as defined both by the character of their leadership and the makeup of their complement? And 2) the condition of Russian soil (not so good) and the desirability of one of the world’s great crossroads and agricultural centers. The drive for Ukraine has been always south from today’s St. Petersburg. Boredom, corruption, criminality, greed have indeed enriched Ukraine’s soil over centuries. The inhabitants of the land in the early Byzantine Era had been Turkish (“Turkic”) tribes who chose to declare themselves Jews and probably so in defiance of expanding Christian and Muslim power.
The source I generally cite for Russian history from before the Rus has been Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Old Regime: The History of Civilization. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974, but I have reached an age where re-reading seems in order while the taking of voluminous notes defies the contemporary zeitgeist, however enamored one may be of 19th and 20th Century methods in scholarship. Informal conversation serves the note as well, and one may indeed “fly” south from St. Petersburg via Google Maps and practically hit Kiev as is being done today but primarily for want of unobtainable pride.
Inspiration for this post: an encyclopedia entry for the “Pereiaslav Treaty of 1654”, which papering relationships into history appears about as confused as today’s Putin.
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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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