Blackmail: How the Republicans Were Owned By a Gossip Mongerer

Time for some rank speculation based on +++ reporting and the #AMI agreement that says they provided substantial assistance to SDNY.  Because #Trump, #Cohen and the #NationalEnquirer are just the tip of a likely blackmail for political power story.  The breadth of which may end up shocking the entire political system if it ever comes out in full.  It may even explain seemingly inexplicable events.  But the biggest victims are likely a large number of the #Republican establishment and various Conservative actors.

Start with the DOJ filing, where they spell out that Cohen and AMI both acted in concert with the Trump Campaign to collect and suppress information that would be detrimental to Trump's election.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-sentenced-3-years-prison

The filing goes on to say that AMI provided "substantial assistance" to the SDNY.  This could be basic language meant to support SDNY not charging AMI and the National Enquirer with any crimes.  This could be a potential problem with First Amendment v actual crimes though these crimes might be better classified as extortion.

According to this report in August 2018, David Pecker had a safe full of information.  Ostensibly about Trump that Pecker removed when the story about Trump's affair with McDougal came out in the WSJ.  According to that report, Pecker had been gaining information about various "celebrities" that they used for leverage.

Among those were Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
https://t.co/Aq9n2Knt8s

One of the "victims" included John Edwards.  The National Enquirer was the first to print a report about his alleged affair that led to his campaign finance charges and ended his political career.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-national-enquirer-got-the-john-edwards-scandal-scoop-2010-3

As for Cohen and AMI, there relationship was likely deeper than simple transactions over Trump's affairs.  Per the LA Times report, Cohen worked with the National Enquirer to set up a Trump campaign website in 2010 and the Enquirer directed traffic there.  It also notes that Trump had formed a "partnership" with Pecker.  Trump was uniquely positioned to gather gossip about celebrities, politicians and many other powerful people.

Cohen wasn't just a fixer for Trump and his affairs.  Cohen is reported to have been the fixer for Elliot Broidy, helping to pay off his mistress.  Cohen was given the powerful RNC co-finance chair, but was forced to resign shortly after Broidy's affair came out.

https://t.co/zvFcJQYw5S

Yuri Vanetik, who helped get rid of Trump's Beverly Hills love nest and is best known for being Rohrbacher's favorite Putin conduit and donor, was made NYGOP finance co-chair.

https://www.revealnews.org/article/a-small-time-scam-artist-gave-trump-a-beverly-hills-mansion-for-0-why/amp/

In May, it was also reported that Cohen was involved in arranging the endorsement of Jerry Falwell Jr for Trump securing Evangelical Christian Support.  It was noted at the same time buzzfeed reported the lawsuit involving Falwell and his relationship with a Pool Boy.

https://t.co/QZ0wVhlB4v

Also in May, after Cohen's office was raided, Trump tried to claim attorney client privilege over some communications.  Cohen stated that he had only had 3 clients in the previous year those included Trump, Elliot Broidy and Sean Hannity.  Sean claimed that he was talking to Cohen about a realestate deal (see Trump realestate deal in Beverly Hills and Jerry Falwell investment in realestate to finance the Pool Boy's Hostel).

https://t.co/wpPBjzrsVk

Of course, blackmail doesn't work unless the person doing it has the ability to use it effectively.  What is more effective than a tabloid that will print anything?

This all puts other events in a new light.  According to records, Republican ex Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie directed over $500mil of NJ Employee Pension Benefits to be invested through Chatham Asset Mngmt: a high risk hedge fund vehicle that currently owns controlling shares of the National Enquirer parent company AMI.  The report also notes that the Republican governor of Ohio also directed $225mil in employee pensions to be invested with Chatham and another $100mil came from some California employee fund.

https://t.co/8LcRGGMjuv

Considering the number of Republicans that had to roll over to accept Trump and his crazy, it seems likely that they were trying to buy the Enquirer's vault of info.  With public funds.  It's one of just many stories that are weirdly not nearly as shocking as the hundred others that came before it.

We're being held hostage to all of the political establishment's picadillos, crappy decision making and criminal behavior.

Austin Bombings: Quick Analysis

My take on Austin Bombings: the fourth bomb is a smokescreen.  The changing of trigger, delivery and victims is meant to suggest a) more than one bomber b) a wider purpose and victimology to confuse investigators.

Bomb makers tend to perfect a particular type of bomb.  Largely because it takes time to develop one that works effectively and doesn't blow up the maker.  Too many styles mean the potential for a fatal error.  As it is, many bomb makers end up missing fingers no matter how good they are. 

According to the latest reports, the 4th bomb itself had similar materials and set up with the exception of the trip wire.  The trip wire trying to indicate more than one bomb maker tries to suggest multiples of people involved.  Where it may be more likely 1 (bomb maker) or possibly 2 (logistics/delivery/driver). 

With the very close relationship of the first 3 bomb victims and the completely unrelated, unknown fourth victims, the bomber(s) made a mistake.  Instead of obfuscating the purpose, relationship or motive for the earlier victims, it serves to focus attention on the first victims.  Most importantly, the first victim.

In this type of event, with closely related victims in a serial bombing, it reflects certain aspects of serial killers.  Meaning that the first victim is the most meaningful and closest to the killer. 

The motive is unclear.  People have speculated as to whether it is racial or related to the first victim's activism.  That the killer went out of the way to target family members as well seems more personal.  They also attended the same church. 

What is completely amazing is that the last bomb was triggered by a trip wire across the road.  Which would take time and effort.  In the open. 

Importantly, the police say they are reviewing video from local home owners' security cameras.  That is something the bomber may have miscalculated.  His other targets lived in busy, Urban areas, lower income, unlikely to have video.   He may have gotten lax in his surveillance or simply been too focused on finding an unrelated location. 

Another factor is that it appears to take the bomb maker a week to make a bomb.  10 to make 2.  Delivered the packages before work hours on the weekday (early morning) and late Sunday.  This is his free time.  Which means he has a job.  He may also live with someone who is unsuspecting and who he wants to avoid drawing attention by simply leaving earlier for work or going to run an errand (Sunday). 

Obviously must have access to property where loud explosions would go unremarked or even unheard.  Somewhere outside of the city limits.  The bombing locations frame the I 35 corridor.  This creates easy and multiple ingresses and egresses from the bomb sites.  There are other surrounding major roadways and state highways that he can circle back to the major artery, avoiding road blocks.

The first bombs appear to be mercury switches that trigger on movement.  They appear to be hand delivered and left on people's porches or steps.  Police initially asked for assistance from the Postal Inspector and various delivery companies.  No reports of anyone seeing who left the packages. No indication of type of vehicle. 

The police may be withholding this information or it may be that it was very early in the morning and no one noticed.  In the early hours, the delivery could be someone driving up to the house, delivering and getting back in the car to drive away. 

The one that must bogle is the setting up of a trip wire on the 4th bomb that no one noticed happening.

Twilight of the Gods: Russia's Viking Mercenaries in Syria

#TwilightOfTheGods #ProxyWar #RussianVikings #Syria #WagnerGroup

Earlier this week, US Advisors with their Kurdish allies repelled an attack on their base in Western Syria near Deir Ezzor.  According to US official sources, the group was a "battalion size" movement that included up to 200+ Russian "mercenaries" with an organization called Wagner Group.  The US associated forces called in air and artillery support decimating the forces and turning the attack back.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/02/13/middleeast/russians-killed-us-airstrikes-syria-intl/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

Wagner Group is technically registered in Hong Kong, but their offices are closed.  According to European records, Wagner Group is contracted with Evro Polis (Euro People) that was supposedly a food contractor in Syria, but now holds a contract to capture and defend Syrian oil and natural gas infrastructure.  Evro Polis would get 25% of all profit as its payment (see Iraq and Halliburton, never say the Russians can't learn).  Evro Polis and it's contractor offices are empty in Syria

https://www.apnews.com/7f9e63cb14a54dfa9148b6430d89e873/Thousands-of-Russian-private-contractors-fighting-in-Syria

Deir Ezzor is the capitol and center of the oil and natural gas rich region the US and it's allies now hold.  Wagner Group is the Russian version of Blackwater.  With a few caveats.  Their employees may or may not be retired military. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group

There are reports indicating that these may be active duty "on leave" or other wise detailed out.  That these are headed by Russian special forces Spetsnaz.  A similar tactic as those the Russians used in Ukraine separatists to hold Crimea and support the war in Eastern Ukraine. 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-russian-blackwater-putins-secret-soldiers-in-ukraine-and-syria

Russia says they have no idea who these guys are or how many are there or how many have died or even why they would be crazy enough to confront a US protected base.  The US said it was in constant contact with Russian official forces up to and through the time the Vikings met their demise. 

***Wagner Group should sound familiar.  It is named after...Richard Wagner, famous composer, polemicist and nationalist godfather of Viking Nationalists everywhere whose widow was a favorite pet of Hitler.  Most famous for his Viking/Germanic operas Der Ring des Nibelungen cycles like Flight of the Valkyrie, Reingold, Seigfried and Gotterdammerung.   Like Glitnir from #TwilightOfTheGods.

Including a little article here where Putin gets irritated with the avant garde presentation of Wagner Opera Tannhauser and kicks the director out of office for committing blasphemy against the Russian Orthodox Church.
 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/29/russian-director-fired-over-wagner-opera-that-offended-powerful-orthodox-church

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-02-13/u-s-strikes-said-to-kill-scores-of-russian-fighters-in-syria?__twitter_impression=true

Twilight of the Gods: Russia Gone A-Viking

No, I don't think ancient Norse prophecy about Ragnarok and the twilight of the gods explains our current predicament.  Seeing it referenced in the middle of a financial crisis and potential espionage investigation reminded me that people have patterns and habits.

Patterns and habits are created by experiences, good and bad.  These tend to influence us consciously and subconsciously.  Even when we are trying to obscure our purposes, or in the case of criminal acts, even our identity, we tend to leave clues that can help identify the perpetrator and motives or link events together.

For instance, the appearance of Glitnir as the name of the bank that the FL Group created in Iceland to obscure their empty, worthless asset trading in order to create fake equity to borrow against and raid the Western Banking system of real capital.  FL Group was technically an Icelandic organization.  It just happened to be taken over by Putin's Family and Friends Fund.  After which it had created Glitnir and went raiding.

That's what it was.  Somebody comprehended the flaw in the western banking system created by unregulated loans for over priced property, creating inflated bank assets and value that was then being used for greater loans for real assets.  They decided they could do that with anything.  Your grandma's porcelain cat vase was suddenly worth a half million dollar loan with an asset value of a million.  No one was looking too closely at the details even if it was an obscure bank in Iceland few had heard of.  It had assets and loans.  It had value.

What gets overlooked in this review is the selection of the name Glitnir for the bank that was doing the raiding.  It could be as simple as, having chosen Iceland as their jumping off point for the raid and Iceland being traditional home of Viking descendents and their interlocutor being an Icelandic descendent of vikings,  decided to flip through a book of Nordic mythology and, seeing the description of Glitnir as a shining hall with a roof of gold and pillars of silver, thought it was an excellent name for a bank making them money while they became de facto vikings raiding the Civilized world.

Except that, if you were flipping through a book of Nordic mythology, this is not the first, nor most famous myth about gold and vikings.  But, I don't suppose anyone hoping to lure investors in is going to name their bank after a dragon or dwarves or vikings whose greed over gold led to death or curses upon their descendents.  Superstition can also be a powerful motivator.

Importantly, to discover the name of this Hall, you would actually have to be reading or flipping through a book about Ragnarok.  Because the god Forseti and his shining hall are largely known through his appearance in the Edda Epic Poem about Raganarok, written by Snorri Sturlson in 900 AD on the island of Iceland.  Then you would know that Glitnir was not a bank, it was the Hall of Justice.  That it was the home of Forseti, the presiding one, also sometimes referred to as "The President".

Again, it could be that they were simple barbarians who wanted a Viking name that denoted wealth.  That would discount that this was the front for Putin's Family and Friend's Fund or, basically, Putin investing under other people's names.

We know a lot about Putin.  For instance, appearance is important.  He likes a good show.  He is a fan of history and mythology.  We only have to look at his own appearances.  Shirtless.  Surrounded by good looking women.  On a horse.  Hunting and fishing.  All an image of virility and youth.

At the Kremlin, he has dressed the palace guard in uniforms from the period of Catherine the Great and the Tsars while working to rehabilitate Russia's Soviet past under the guise of The People's Great Patriotic War (WW2). 

Here he is diligently working to rebrand his opponents as Nazis through various means as a juxtaposition for the alleged abuses of Soviets.

He has supported efforts to discover the ancient Sarmatian and Scythian burials.  People who may have inspired tales about Amazons.  You simply cannot know Russian history if you don't know that, at the time that Snorri Sturlson was writing the Edda Epic about Ragnarok in Iceland in 900 AD, the Vikings had made their way to Kiev to raid, trade and marry into the local nobles creating the ruling Rurik dynasty.  The Greatest of which was Vladimir the Great, 972 AD, consolidated the Kievan Rus from Moscow thru Ukraine and the Baltics, creating much of modern Russia.  Also known for shirking paganism and bringing Christianity to Russia.

Vlad knows his history.  He sees himself as part of that history and a direct descendent of historic people with an historic responsibility to Russia.  This includes making himself the next #VladimirTheGreat.  A descendant of raiding Vikings.

It is difficult to imagine that Vlad had no idea what Glitnir means or what it was.  Or, that it was not chosen specifically to represent Justice for what he perceives as the wrongs of the west and, specifically, the US against Russia and Vlad himself.

Which brings us full circle to #Glitnir, the #FLGroup, the #CrashOf2008 and #TrumpRussia.  Vladimir Putin does not forget, nor does he forgive.  Here the original story takes us to 2009 and a writer trying to discover what made Iceland the epicenter of the 2008 collapse.  Here he casually mentions FL Group and Glitnir bank.

The second part of that story.  What happens when you steal $150 million dollars from a guy who throws his adversaries off of roofs for degrading or disrespecting his image by just talking, much less taking his money.