Notes on Manafort, Israel, the Alt Right, Sam Seder and Jack the Ripper

What a time we live in! Whenever I take a day off from writing, a hundred weird stories drop on us.

Remember when we didn't have to spend so much time thinking about politics? Remember history, science, culture, fun, art, novels, family, pets, knocking back some rum and coke? Remember stuff like that? Nowadays, I feel guilty if I take an hour off to watch Fake or Fortune.

Trump. Trump. Trump. The name has become the drumbeat of our lives. The tympani of doom. How dare you waste minutes researching lasagna recipes? Don't you know that the apocalypse threatens? Trump...Trump....Trump....

Briefly:

Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital was a purely symbolic gesture which will lead to very real deaths. Trump claims that he favors a two-state solution, but no Palestinian will trust him now.

His purpose, I believe, is to foment war and unrest, which will in turn enable Bibi and his fellow fascists to enact their long-planned Final Solution to the Palestinian problem.

Ironically, the anti-Semites support Trump in this. The Israel-firsters and the Dugin-loving, Jew-hating nationalists have found common cause. The ultimate goal of the neo-Nazis is a relocation (forced, if necessary) of all the world's Jews to one small strip of land in the Middle East. Once there, Jews will tell themselves: "Finally! We're safe! Jews in a Jewish land!" A sigh of relief, a moment of hubris.

Then: Nukes away.

That's the end game. The whole thing is agonizingly obvious, and any Jew who can't see it coming is an idiot. The Jews who tell themselves that they have nothing to fear from the Alt Right -- that Jewish nationalists can find common ground with non-Jewish nationalists -- are committing suicide.

Paul Manafort once struck me as corrupt but intelligent. Now, I tend to think of him as merely corrupt. His bail arrangement involved millions of dollars worth of real estate, yet he stupidly defied the court's gag order by co-writing an editorial apologia. Moreover, his co-writer was a Russian linked to Russia's intelligence community.

The big question: How did the authorities find out? We've heard some interesting suggestions, but I favor the theory that the NSA is monitoring Oleg Voloshyn (the Russin in question), and that Mueller has arranged to be notified if any such intercepts touch upon his case.

Voloshyn says that he wrote the piece on his own initiative. Yeah. Right.

Deutsche Bank is the latest target of Mueller's probe. About goddamned time. Allow me to quote an earlier post:

Trump's defenders keep saying that he has nothing to do with Russian money. Trump's lawyers have been making that same claim.

However, it is well-known that one of the few banks willing to lend big money to Trump after his bankruptcies was Deutsche Bank, which was fined for a $10 billion money laundering scheme benefiting Russians. The scheme involved something called "mirror trading," described in this fine New Yorker piece.

It worked like this: between 2011 and 2015, related corporate entities in Moscow and London bought and sold identical quantities of the same stock, through Deutsche Bank’s Moscow equities desk. By this alchemy, rubles in Russia were transformed into dollars in London. The process bypassed tax officials, currency regulators, and anti-money-laundering controls.

The head of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann, was forced out by the scandal. Guess where he ended up? That's right: The Bank of Cypus -- the favorite bank of Vladimir Putin and his Russian oligarch pals. He was chosen for that position by Wilbur Ross, the Trump chum who just became our Commerce secretary, and by a billionaire crony of Vladimir Putin's named Viktor Vekselburg. It seems that Putin turned against Vekselburg late last year; they've since kissed and made up.

As it happens, Vekselburg has a partner named Len Blavatnik, worth $20 billion. Although Blavatnik made his money in Russian oil, he has strong American ties -- in fact, he owns Warner Music. He also made a seven figure donation to a Super PAC controlled by Mitch McConnell -- which explains why you should not expect Mitch to show any enthusiasm for any kind of probe (either independent or congressional) which might inconvenience Trump's Russian buddies.

Finally, a word about Sam Seder, victim of a truly evil piece of trolling by Mike Cernovich, of Pizzagate ill-fame. As Wilde said: "Quotation can be slander if you gerrymander." I feel certain that Cernovich knows full well that he has slandered Seder, just as Cernovich must have known all along that Pizzagate was a lie. These far-right ghouls have no conscience whatsoever.

Sam Seder did not say that he would approve of Roman Polanski raping his daughter. In fact, Seder is quite a bit more anti-Polanski than I am. (Way I figure it, if Samantha Geimer has forgiven him, we should follow her lead.)

If MSNBC believes that Sam Seder actually thinks that talent justifies rape, then MSNBC is run by the kind of dolts who would consider A Modest Proposal to be a cookbook.

I can guess how the Cernoviches of the world would go after me, if I were considered worthy of their attention. Here's my Blogger profile:

I'm a Democrat. That means my goal is to enslave humanity beneath the spike-heel boot of Bolshevism. We, the elite, the few, shall one day rule the planet. Until then, we gather in secret, sacrificing goats, devouring newborns, studying the ancient Goetic rites, and luring unsuspecting youths into the evil and mysterious worship of the Mighty Satan. Soon, soon, all humanity shall tremble at the supernatural power of our Dark Lord, and the puling, putrid, pious partisans of the pretender from Palestine (who died because he was weak and stupid) shall be consigned to the ovens and used to feed our dogs.

Lots of material there for a Cernovichian smear-meister to work with.

We now live in a world which forbids sarcasm unless one adds the words "I'm being sarcastic," which I refuse to do. Adding that tag insults any reader with an IQ over 90 -- a category which apparently does not include the folks who run MSNBC.

It's hard for a guy like me to find his way through this new world, since I often operate in sarcasm mode.

For example, if I ever were to encounter one of those dour ultra-feminists who believe that all heterosexual sex is rape (yes, such people do exist), my first response would be to channel the Divine Marquis: "But of course I favor rape! That is why Nature, in her sublime perfection, made Man the stronger. A week without rape is like Christmas without a buche de Noel." Ideally, I would deliver this response in a YouTube video while wearing a powdered wig and speaking in zee outRAYzhus French accent.

Similarly, if I debated an NOI member who considers all white men to be the Devil, I'd wax nostalgically about my beautifully embroidered Klan robes which they won't even let me wear in public any more. If trapped by a Zombie Catholic who can't stop talking about the need to reverse Roe, I'd offer my favorite recipe for Aborted Fetus Chocolate Torte. If buttonholed by an Ayn Randroid reciting John Galt's big speech, I'd have no choice but to shout: "The individual is nothing! The collective is all! LONG LIVE THE STATE!" And if forced to converse with a cliche-spouting socialist or BernieBro...

Well, no need to continue: By now, you understand the principle. Many people derive a nearly-orgasmic joy from fear, indignation, outrage and feelings of moral superiority. Being a people-pleaser, I am happy to satisfy their emotional requirements. If, in order to enjoy your day, you need a fiend to hate, contact me at the email address above: My rates are very reasonable.

A final thought. You know how Bernard Shaw first made his reputation? In 1888, at the height of the Whitechapel murders, he wrote an article praising Jack the Ripper:

Private enterprise has succeeded where Socialism failed. Whilst we conventional Social Democrats were wasting our time on education, agitation, and organisation, some independent genius has taken the matter in hand, and by simply murdering and disembowelling four women, converted the proprietary press to an inept sort of communism. The moral is a pretty one, and the Insurrectionists, the Dynamitards, the Invincibles, and the extreme left of the Anarchist party will not be slow to draw it. "Humanity, political science, economics, and religion," they will say, "are all rot; the one argument that touches your lady and gentleman is the knife."

What would a late-Victorian-era Cernovichian smear-monger have done with that kind of ammunition? You know the answer full well. Would the brain-dead  louts at MSNBC allow a modern GBS on their airwaves? You know the answer full well.