–At least four people including a 12-year-old girl were killed in Kyiv after Russia launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Ukraine overnight, according to officials.
Strikes were reported at a state medical building, a kindergarten and a shopping centre in the capital and video showed an apartment building on fire.–
The indictment is the latest sign that the president is making good on his promise “to turn our justice system into a weapon for punishing and silencing his critics”, said Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee.
“This kind of interference is a dangerous abuse of power. Our system depends on prosecutors making decisions based on evidence and the law, not on the personal grudges of a politician determined to settle scores,” Warner said.
–President Donald Trump said Saturday that he will send troops to Portland, Oregon, and to immigration detention facilities around the country, authorizing “Full Force, if necessary” and escalating a campaign to use the U.S. military against Americans that has little modern precedent.
Trump said in a social media post that he was directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide troops to what he dubbed “War ravaged Portland” as well as “any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”–
When Katie Crook heard the news on Thursday that President Trump was imposing 50 percent tariffs on imported kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, she immediately thought about Italian-made kitchens and American oak.
“There is a difference between U.S. oak and European oak,” said Ms. Crook, whose firm, Heritage Cabinetry and Design in Santa Barbara, Calif., designs cabinetry that is built to order by companies in the United States, Canada and occasionally Europe. “European oak has a tighter grain and is a little bit more durable,” she said, adding that cabinetry made in Italy has an “ultramodern” look that isn’t easily replicated.
Transposing from inline tweets on X to this blog leaves much to be desired, but of the two platforms, this WordPress product has greater persistence and utility as regards turning wrap-ups into modules for reference. Much of my time on X has been spent aggregating, combining, and rearranging short blocks of argumentative points and related proof in supporting material, so it makes sense to have here this more permanent “final say” on several matters. After months to years of participation on X‘s anti-social “social media”, I’ve tired of feeling compelled to make the same points, cite the same reference, and mix-and-match the four X-allotted images for hours on end. Probably, this will mark the beginning of the end of my X-addiction.
Americans may be paying a price for complacency in and around our establishment or mainstream political communities, and we may be leveraged by our own black markets (see “Trump, Money Laundering, Russia”). Cash is cash, of course. We may decry a $1 billion narcotics market on Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, but that money circulates into the city and region.
For whatever reasons, so I believe, Putin has been able to use Trump as a wrecking ball unleashed on #America, #EU, and #NATO.
Perhaps a little bit to be less blunt or hurtful in the criticism or solicited response to another’s cooking, demeanor, fashion, or life.
Perhaps now and then for hooky, nooky, and bong–that’s not so good but fair in a mood or pinch.
Perhaps a convenient compliment for a kiss.
Perhaps to spare another pain or worry in souring conditions, so one is thought just fine when things are dicey.
To hide something (not so big a deal); to get something (and make life a little more sweet).
It takes another kind of nut to snowball a whopper, to put one over on a community, to seduce, fuck over, and ruin an associate, family, institution, or state–but that’s what malignant narcissists wind up doing in the process of covering the memory of their own humiliation or mortification with a great projection of an undamaged and unassailable heroic self, courageous in adversity, heroic before all, and totally full of bullshit.
The type I have in mind: delusional, grandiose, messianic and in appearance absent of normal boundaries and limits, i.e., the parameters of conscience. In the cause of their own baseless glory, one may wade into their swamps of baseless accusations, defamations, deflections, denials, fabrications, frames, omissions, and revisions (some of them alibis). And downstream to be found in their targets: baseless belief, confusion, and eventual disappointment as the “reality” painted turns out having had nothing to do with reality at all.
Infamous Lies
Chechen Rebels Destroyed Apartment Buildings in Moscow
More likely, Russia’s secret political police, FSB, loaded basements with explosives in the dead of night, set off the detonations, and “credited” an allegedly unruly Chechnya resistance for the act in order to convince Russians to elect Vladimir Putin as their best problem solver and hope for security and stability. Code name: “Storm in Moscow”; on this blog: “Reference: Journalist Alexander Zhilin, Operation Storm in Moscow AKA Moscow Apartment Bombings” (May 3, 2023). And the payoff for the False Flag Operation? Not only election to power–and today absolute and imperious power–for Putin, but in his head and for his twisted spirit “Unlimited Narcissistic Supply”, i.e., the adoration and validation of the Russian People without end.
Democrats Stole the 2020 American Election
The United States of America has for its defense against all enemies foreign and domestic the services of 27 integrated Federal security agencies. For election, the nation enjoys a full suite of relevant threat detection and law enforcement capabilities from Homeland Security on down to security assistance for local districts. Against all of that, Donald Trump has launched the lie, rumor, belief, and “alternative truth”–which is no truth at all!–that his opposition (how dare they…) stole the 2020 national election. “Election Denialism” appears to have become for some–including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson–their faith-based religious obligation, but no factual basis for it has surfaced, and without that, Trump’s efforts to overturn the previous election amount to no more than the most delusional and grandiose attempted theft imaginable.
A Note On Stealing A Modern Or Transitional State to Operate as Criminal Enterprise
Putin and the Russian Mafia State appear to have set a certain tone in the region of archaic-reactionary and brutally repressive kleptocracy, and my guess is Trump is trying to catch up. Well, this is for America’s Christians to know as regards how criminal power exploits faith and related institutions: “KGB FSB ROC M-O-N-E-Y” (January 18, 2021).
From gutter to mansion, America supports an extraordinary duality in relation to sinners and saints, and, quite frequently, the would-be saints turn out the most curious of sinners. The famous are known: Jerry and Becki Falwell and the Pool Boy, Giancarlo Granda (People, Jan. 25, 2022)–and noted Becki in relation to the couple’s role at Liberty University, “We had to put on an act” ; Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye (maiden name LeValley) who together in marriage stumbled over the husband’s one seemingly acknowledged affair–one allegedly forced with Jessica Hahn, who was paid off for her silence–and allegations involving several homosexual flirtations or liaisons (The Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1988). The less famous but in their own wild way as infamous, whether charmingly so (old rascal) or heinous (for having committed a crime), we may be collectively just not all that angelic. Penance, piety, prayer, and promise afterward may suffice for easing conscience and erasing guilt, and sometimes penance precedes change, present and future, for the better. In any case, I wonder if all Americans, and regardless of religious subscription, may not expect some level of pious hypocrisy in themselves, if honest, or in their ranks (if that’s more comfortable) while striving to do better, but to cover repetitive criminal intent or behavior with the appearance of piety, that is something else.
One may not refer to either Donald John Trump or Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin as ethically or morally good men. As the governors of nation-states, neither has offered much evidence of care, concern, or interest for the whole body and spirit of their respective nations–Russians suffer sustained abuse and neglect if beyond Putin’s near direct circles of influence and power; for ordinary Americans, Trump has bragged to his wealthy friends from his own gilded halls at Mar-a-Lago, “You All Just Got a Lot Richer” (Vanity Fair, Dec. 24, 2017) after signing into law substantial tax breaks for them. Having ceded substantial tax revenues to private sector interests–and the public be damned (which it literally might be if such power prevails)–why should the buccaneer not commandeer the entire ship of state for his own crony capitalist private enterprise–just as Vladimir has done? He has already developed a base ripe for ripping off.
Marching Forward Into the Past
Around the world, constituencies will find leaders who prefer to treat the idea of the state as a private and family enterprise to be milked for their own profit and the securing of their family and their associates. They’re motivated by greed and lust and–given their underlying fear of humiliation and consequent delusional self-concept and obsession with their own aggrandizement–the allure of their own potential to control others without question. Centuries ago, that characterization would have fit well with a medieval world more than familiar with the concept of “Absolutism” or “Absolute Power” and its violent and not infrequently tyrannical enforcement. Today, the same personalities and personal psychology–associate what I have in mind with Erdogan, Orban, Putin, and Trump–appear archaic but difficult to address and ameliorate from the perspective of any democratic idealism, especially from the vantage of the still revolutionary Constitution of the United States of America (related in the way of inspiration for revolution and the idea of a new nation–Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”, January 10, 1776). The named would be quite comfortable beneath the titles of Sultan Erdogan, Tsar Putin, King Orban, and, perhaps, King Trump.
Marching Forward Into The Future: A New American Community
Now that we’re all here, we’re going to have to deal with ourselves as a whole community and not so much as myopic and parochial islands fit for some Americans and not for others.
All American citizens are Americans.
Our guests are of two kinds: aspiring Americans or foreigners who have come here for business or travel.
As Americans, our challenges are not only American but by way of our own far expanded global awareness–apprehension or “consciousness”, actually–we have made ourselves global and universal in character. So have others, and with transnational business (and crime) all of the next functional steps have already been taken. Basically, our connections have changed and become enjoyable, essential, and permanent–or if adverse or made cautious by our own dependence, then a part of the challenge of an evolving new world.
Also as Americans, we have lived by a deeply devoted and earnestly defended Constitution designed to establish and sustain forever a secular democratic republic. Our western civilizational heritage–Judeo-Christian well acknowledged; Greco-Roman for the history, legends, and myths still echoing our own existence–has arrived here compassionate, down to earth, and reasoning. The wealth of the world has been brought here a long time, and as there is only one world, one Earth, we’re already blended with it and perhaps ready to adjust and assimilate, discard what’s not going to work, and appreciate that which proves good universally. We’ve been doing that a long time too, but for international relations, more may be involved than wearing cashmere and sipping tea.
We may see more than we once did; we may do more than we once could; and we should look ahead and do more than live in the past–or allow the greatest future ever to be stolen from all by evildoing feudal-medieval nutcases, whether religious extremists or criminal politicians who cannot contain their own worst compulsions.
So this much I may suggest about the next New World that is the one in which we are already living: it just hasn’t room for malignantly narcissistic “leaders” and their self-absorbed devotion to their own aggrandizement, enrichment, and power through fraudulent display and theft outright. The Next New World will need knowledgeable, powerful, and visionary high-integrity souls for its leadership in the development, establishment, and distribution of extraordinary systems for agriculture, business, education, health, justice, and general prosperity and security worldwide.
Note the dates on these two references, 2012 on transnational crime associated with Mexico, 2018 on corruption. The juxtaposition is fortuitous — accidental, simply observed while gathering information — as one lie — the first to the law — leads to another – the law to the state (in greater proportion over time). The image is chilling.
The simple telling: NAFTA has over time produced the ugly picture in Mexico of lowest wage workers so mixed on the land with criminals that Mexico has all but lost control of five of its states to “transnational crime”.
It’s not always “us”, however — The North, the world, the affluent — that accounts for misery in developing states. The more complex telling may be signaled from just one paragraph conveyed within the pages of The Atlantic:
The reasons for the situation in Chiapas are various. Chief among them is what political scientist Sarelly Martínez, a native of Chiapas, described as an “auction pyramid” in which political parties selectively distribute aid to resolve local conflicts and social leaders protest violently to secure more funding. In rural parts of the state, the blocking of highways and hijacking of municipal buildings are commonplace. Politically motivated assassinations, often barely reported amid Mexico’s drug-related violence, are increasingly frequent. The murder in 2016 of the mayor of San Juan Chamula, an indigenous municipality popular with tourists, was one of the few cases to draw national headlines. Political changes have failed to break the cycle. In 2006, the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party won Chiapas for the first time; debt increased, as did poverty and social strife. The story has been repeated under current governor Manuel Velasco of the Green Party, who, in 2015, oversaw local elections condemned by opponents as among the most corrupt in Mexican history.
Mexican economic desperation x greed and leverage involving even affluent politicians and sports starts x lawlessness — or the states inability to police itself — drives southern migration into America, some smaller part criminal, most of it just the desperation of men and women, some with children, looking for honest work.
American Left v Right Politics and Immigration Policy
To stem the flow of migrants north, The North needs must consider conditions — corruption, crime, insecurity, poverty — in Mexico and figure out how best to ameliorate the worst, which may be the abyss of “transnational crime” that produces its own economy, grows the gangsters, and leverages the politicians. Beyond that, dive in to any of the dimensions noted or suggested because people leave spaces made untenable by the “insecurity” associated with warfare waged by criminals anchored both in narcotics or related politics.
As economically powerful neighbors to the north offering that deadly combination of jobs and rule-of-law, the United States and Canada now face greater challenge in addressing and, one may hope, producing policy toward the repair of dire conditions south of the border.
*Imagination proved wrong! In the article noted, the subjective reporting tells that at least one — perhaps millions — may be more interested in Mexico’s team winning its games than in the integrity and nobility of its sports heroes. Then too, philosophically, who is to say the criminal is not noble for bringing money to family and community? There’s a tough question for the cocktail circuits.
With standards set by the definition of speech-related crimes (conspiracy, incitement, sedition, and a very few additional regions associated with prohibitions, rightly), I have been absolute about “Freedom of Speech” prerogatives for Americans. I not only see nothing wrong with such a statue but everything right if connected to greater contemplation requiring greater knowledge and humanity.
I own here a copy of Mien Kampf.
It doesn’t make me a Nazi.
In the area of public display managed by public offices or services, see this morning’s wall on Back-Channels.
In general, I endorse Milan Kundera’s observation, “The struggle against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
States and their leaders do have their icons and standards, and it’s those that may be favored or disfavored across time and adjusted by public consensus openly as part of the process of governance. It would seem that gross historical revisionism has accompanied extremist ideologies and absolute power across time. Certainly, it has been “Communists”, “Fascists”, and “Socialists” along hard lines that have sought to erase the past. Perhaps an exception may be made for the eventual erasure of the names of Palestinian mass murderers who have been made into heroes beneath the despicable and upside-down guidance of Soviet Era thought about the relationship between State Power and “The Masses”. Extreme revolt against that would seem in order today — when and as the Palestinians learn how they have been abused by Moscow — but Confederate flags, statues of despots, books — place them where they belong, but keep them somewhere and don’t forget them or what they said they stood for, or what they really did with their lives.
Today . . . it’s last week’s Big Topic: from the post-Civil War statues of Confederate military nobility to one of Lenin in Washington State, American extremists have engaged in minor battle over what’s in the public presence while the public has been urged to review policy and, perhaps, considering “moving the furniture” of the public lawn or into the back rooms we call museums.
Here’s Laura Southern on the matter:
And here a statement from the National Trust on Historic Preservation (June 10, 2017): https://savingplaces.org/press-center/media-resources/national-trust-statement-on-confederate-memorials#.WZoELdQrJlZ
The Constitution emphasizes equality for all beneath the law and forbids the establishment of a relationship between the state and any church, mosque, synagogue, or other symbol of faith. ALL are free here to practice their faith — in private and at private expense — in a civil and lawful manner.
The United States is a Christian-majority state, but it is not a Christian state by law or even exclusively so within the spirit of its laws. It’s true inheritance may be characterized as “Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian”. To the extent that Islam has borrowed from Judaism and recognized Christianity and in the better aspects of the Qur’an, say those emphasizing freedom of religion (“There is no compulsion”) and integrity (Muhammad’s emphasis speaking the truth), we’re good as a secular humanist society.
If one were to take the coldest view of the political science attending “Allahu Akbar Terrorism”, it would be to note that each attack has naturally promoted traditional patriotic nationalist and religious responses. “Damned Arabs, damned Muzzies” shouts a part of the public and off it goes to Brexit in one state and resurgent white bread Christianity in another.
The truth about that comfortable extremism — often our own! — may be anchored elsewhere.
Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Al-Monitor, “The Meshaal-Lavrov meeting shows Russia’s interest in the Palestinian cause and comes as a continuation of the periodic meetings held by Hamas with regional and international parties. However, there were no discussions in the meeting regarding the possibility of Russia playing the role of a mediator to reactivate the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, although Lavrov and Meshaal have stressed its importance in general.”
This blog also may be searched for “Russia, anti-Semitism” for further enrichment — but as much may return this note to the wisdom of secular governance and its producing for all of its constituents equality under the law and zero, zilch, nada, never ever compulsion to either choose an “official religion” nor feel intimidated in the classroom or anywhere else as regards having by way of choice or legacy a different minority path.
Defiance! The word is not a bad one when it comes to religion. Because it is on the heels of many, an act of defiance that religion has become healthier, stronger, more tolerant, and certainly more enjoyable. Martin Luther hammered his edict into a wooden door, and the empire of the Catholic Church was shaken. Colonists fled Europe. Their defiance against the belief that the state had any right to meddle in the private worship of the citizen proved a powerful motivation to escape. Resistance against government constraint of private acts of worship caused them to load onto their wooden ships and set sail. The Mayflower Compact sprang to life at Plymouth Rock, and the giant-hearted turned their faces into the harsh wind. Some shivered and died from the cold, while other starved to death in Jamestown. But the strength in their bones carried fires of conviction into the marrow of their future generations.
Defiance. America remains a powerful societal example today because of acts of religious defiance.
God may have given man imagination for fun — and we may have given ourselves empiricism to outwit imagination and defend ourselves from our own God-given errors.
Accused of setting the Gatlinburg fires, or at least two of them: Keith Eugene Mann, 49, of Franklin, North Carolina.
Sorry, Russia; sorry, Mr. Putin — on this one, BackChannels may have been wrong . . . but this is how it may go with “hybrid warfare” and the keeping of kleptocratic fellow travelers like that Ayatollah Khamenei. With the appearance of a mysterious and large fire in an iconic American setting, one might well be found a little bit . . . touchy.
However, the Charlotte Observer piece wraps up with this note:
Officials have said some of the wildfires in the western part of the state are believed to be the work of arsonists. Gov. Pat McCrory has posted rewards up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of arsonists.
This note will have to be about national security and possibility in light of the “Phantoms of the Cold War” (e.g., Putin’s revival of the KGB, Russia’s behavior in Syria, and the invasion and, for the time being, annexation of Crimea) and the fact that “active measures”, “hybrid warfare”, the long Soviet relationship with terrorism and Moscow’s present inability to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organizations are real things.
Investigators (and armchair adventurers): leave no stone unturned.
Background — It Makes for Good Fiction, But It May Have Applied
Amid warnings from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel will consider arson an act of terrorism, Israeli police have arrested at least 13 people suspected of starting a series of wildfires that have burned around the country for four days . . . .
There is video evidence that the Haifa fire was an act of arson, a spokesman for the Haifa Fire Department told Israel’s Channel 2 Friday.
A blaze Thursday in Zichron Ya’acov, about 20 miles south of Haifa, also was caused by arsonists, Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan said Thursday.
Officials initially reported additional fire activity near the Park Headquarters area, as well as a spot fire between Elkmont and Newfound Gap Road off of the Sugarland Mountain Trail approximately 1 mile south of the Husky Gap Trail intersection.
Manipulation — “gaslighting” – has long been associated with “malignant narcissism“.
In the original sense of the word, the narcissist would rearrange his intended victim’s surroundings without the victim’s knowledge, an effort made to drive the same into madness.
For the purposes of political psychology, BackChannels applies the term to the creation of an entire “theater of the real”, i.e., and as with the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” (cited for background at the top of this post), the intent is to produce an event and spectacle designed to promote a political outcome favorable to the actor.
A near example would be that of the fireman-arsonist who sets the fire, so that he may later show up and share in the heroic glory of putting it out.
The disconnections between Moscow, the encouragement of the terrorism produced by others (or Moscow would have refused to meet with PFLP – Nov. 2014) and would have long ago designated Hamas a terrorist organizations — it has so far refused to take that step), may make the discovery of empirical linkage all but impossible — but revisit the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” and then have a look at the almost under-the-radar firebombings of Haifa and, potentially, the fires burning in the mountains in the vicinity of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, one of America’s true heartland locations, Dollywood and all.
Stockholm, Sweden
The Scandinavian country has been plagued with arsonist thugs setting vehicles alight, with hundreds of cars burning out since 2015.
In 2016 alone, more than 70 cars have been destroyed as police struggle to combat the increasing violence and criminal activity in the famously liberal country.
The latest video shows three cars in Hallunda in southern Stockholm engulfed by flames as firefighters battle to put out the blaze.
Is the hand of Moscow behind “Islamic Terrorism” in the United States?
Is there a “meta”connection between fires set in Haifa, Gatlinburg, and Stockholm?
BackChannels invites readers to explore its references and sources and weigh for themselves the depth of the presence of the “Phantoms of the Cold War”, if any, in the recent spate of arson with the public as target.
BackChannels 