The Direction of Historical Changes

In the following litany the information comes from Wikipedia. All Hail the Wiki!


Our story begins long ago in Europe.

The START of the Iron Age proper is considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC, depending on the region.

Gaul (Latin: Gallia) was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age that was inhabited by Celtic tribes, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands, Central Italy and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine. It covered an area of 190,800 sq mi (494,000 km2). According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica and Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC.


121 BC - 486 AD    Roman Gaul

Rome began to take over Celtic Gaul about 121 BC. This included the time of the rule of the famous Julius Caesar (58 BC - 51 BC). Caesar was victorious at the Battle of Alesia in 58 BC.

Rome's rule ended with the Battle of Soissons in 486 AD. The French culture and language was influenced greatly by the Romans and the Latin language.

The Frank monarchs, beginning with Clovis I, began in 486 and the monarchy continued until 1792 when Louis XVI was overthrown by the Revolution. That was a rather long period of time. Note that this time period nearly parallels that of the Holy Roman Empire.

The word "Gallia" continued to be used in writing until about 760 AD.


962 - 1806    The Holy Roman Empire

It began (to some extent) with Charlemagne in 800 AD or per some accounts with Otto I in 962 AD.

Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great (Latin: Carolus or Karolus Magnus) or Charles I, was King of the Franks. He united much of Europe during the early Middle Ages and laid the foundations for modern France, Germany, and the Low Countries. He took the Frankish throne in 768 and became King of Italy in 774. From 800, he served as the first Holy Roman Emperor, the first recognized emperor in Western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state which Charlemagne founded was called the Carolingian Empire.

In Gaul, Roman power was receding when Charlemagne came to power. It gradually faded until about 924 AD and was gone by the time of Otto I.

Otto I (23 November 912 - 7 May 973), traditionally known as Otto I the Great (German: Otto I. der Große), was German king from 936 and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 962 until his death in 973.

He has not been entirely forgotten, though other individuals garner more attention.

Otto I was selected as the main motif for a high-value commemorative coin, the EUR100 Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire commemorative coin, issued in 2008 by the Austrian Mint. The obverse shows the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. The reverse shows Emperor Otto I with Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in the background, where his coronation took place. Among others, three exhibitions in Magdeburg, opening in 2001, 2006 and 2012, have documented Otto's life and his influence on medieval European history.

This included territories from Italy to Denmark, but not westward to the Atlantic ocean. For the most part the area we know as France was not ruled by the Church.

The HRE lasted a long time and there were many important events in that time. Some of them indicated great discontent with the Church.


1279, 1290    Edward I of England (ruled 1272-1307) created a law to prevent estates from avoiding tax payment by bequeathing entire estates to the Church.


1483 - 1546    Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses in 1517 in Wittenberg, Germany.

Martin Luther's 95 Theses

He called for individuals to pray directly to their God and distance themselves from the Roman Pope. This was in part due to what Luther saw as corruption in the Church, too much taxation, and the selling of relics which he saw as a fraud.


1521        The Church Excommunicated Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms










A short time after that Henry VIII of England had his own conflict with the Church.

1491 - 1547    Henry VIII of England (ruled 1509 - 1547)

He began the English Reformation in 1532 and he changed the "cestui qui" law along with many other things. His contempt for the Church related strongly to his own personal interests.

1536        The law of Edward I of England was avoided to some extent avoided with "cestui que", a law designed specifically to assist some people to avoid paying taxes.


1536        The Statute of Uses

Henry VIII modified the laws of 1279 and 1290 and did away with "cestui que" regarding estate bequeathment. The kind of law Henry VIII created still exists in the United States, though there are a variety of them across the nation. The British law was modified again as recently as 1964.


1538        Henry VIII was Excommunicated (as Martin Luther had been)


Interestingly, the HRE ended 250 years after Martin Luther's activities. Clearly the Church had a grip on some parts of Europe, even greater than that of the Romans before in Gallia.

The HRE control in Europe came to an end with Napoleon at the battle of Austerlisz in 1806.




The French Revolutions, Empires, and Republics

This time period came before the end of the HRE, but saw the end of that period and the beginning of the new modern Republic (based to a large extent on the American Revolution which was inspired in part by French and British ideas). This was a major change in the course of history since Europe had been governed by secular monarchs, emperors, and/or the Church since a time before Jesus of Nazareth. Where Martin Luther and Henry VIII of England had been ahead of their times, Napoleon Bonaparte and Hitler were at the center of this upheaval and change. Napoleon wanted to continue the old tradition and Hitler wanted to return to it.


1776 - 1781    The American Revolution -- Establishing a Modern Democracy

The Americans acted first to separate themselves from the monarchy of the King of England. It was perhaps easier since we were so far away and the King was preoccupied with other interests. The American military forces were a rag-tag group which didn't really win any battles, but they avoided losing and that was enough. The British tried to regain power in the War of 1812, but the Americans were stronger by then and again survived.


1789 - 1799    French Revolution

During the period of transition from monarchy to something new, Napoleon Bonaparte and the House of Bonaparte ruled for nearly seventy years. That ended in 1870 with Napoleon Bonaparte III. The imperial monarchy was succeeded by the 3rd French Republic.


1792 - 1795    1st French Republic


1795 - 1799    The Directory


1804 - 1814    Napoleon I

1815        Napoleon II


1848 - 1851    2nd French Republic

Achieved by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who was an elected official.



A New Beginning


1870 - 1940    3rd French Republic
    This ended the the rule of Napoleon II and the 2nd Republic.
    It was ended by World War II and Hitler.


1894 - 1906        The Dreyfus Affair, which was about anti-Semitism, showed a major nationalist-Catholic versus secularist schism in France. But, in 1905 separation of Church and State became the law. Gallicanism ended.


1905            The state religion of France, Catholicism, was disestablished.

The Dreyfus Affair and the "disestablishment of state religion" were "nails in the coffin" of Church rule in France.














1917, 1922 - 1991    The Soviet Union of Russia and surrounding Countries

This time period also saw the overthrow of the Tsarist monarchy of Russia by Communists led by Vladimir Lenin (1917) and the establishment of the Soviet Union (1922-1991).


1921 - today        Chinese Communism Began

Even in Asia the Communist movement was strong. They began with a single charismatic leader, Mao Zedong, and by 1949 they had consolidated their power.


1919 - 1933        The Weimar Republic of Germany

In Germany, officially Deutsches Reich, after World War I they were going through many of the same problems of transition from Emperors to elected officials.


1933 - 1945        Adolph Hitler, the Nazi Party, Germany, and World War II

Hitler rose to power during the Depression and when Germany was suffering economically. The people were desperate and this gave the Nazis great power. They abused it badly. It can easily be argued that Hitler wanted to return to an Imperial form of leadership, but this was not successful and the nation returned to a democratic-republican form of government which is still successful today.


1946 - 1958    4th French Republic -- Another New Beginning


1958 - today    5th French Republic, by Charles deGaulle

The first major change with this establishment was to end colonialism, something which has been involved in the European (and World) wars. Many of these nations established a Democracy or continued the Democracy the colonial power had in place. Some used dictatorships, but in the 1970s or 80s those began to also be replaced.



1991    The Fall of the Soviet Union

With the collapse of the Communist state in Russia and a beginning of evolution in China to greater individual rights, the East has also accepted a lot of the ideals of the West and the Modern Democracy (a democratic-republican form of government).



And then What Happened?

In Russia they established a new Democracy, but after the presidency of Vladimir Yeltsin, there came to power Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB of the Soviet Union. He was the chief spy.

There is this from his personal web-page about himself as a child in school, "From first and eighth grade, Vladimir Putin studied at School No. 193. As he recalls, he was a troublemaker, not a Pioneer."

"Even before I finished high school, I wanted to work in intelligence. Granted, soon after, I decided I wanted to be a sailor, but then I wanted to do intelligence again. In the very beginning, I wanted to be a pilot." --Vladimir Putin

"Even before he finished school, Vladimir Putin wanted to work in intelligence. He went to a public reception office of the KGB Directorate to find out how to become an intelligence officer. There, he was told that first, he would have to either serve in the army or complete college, preferably with a degree in law.
“And from that moment, I began preparing myself to enter the law department at Leningrad State University,” Mr Putin notes."

"In 1970, Vladimir Putin became a student of law department at Leningrad State University, earning his degree in 1975. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr Putin studied at KGB School No. 1 in Moscow."

A sailor? A pilot? An intelligence officer.

 

Photo from Vladimir Putin’s personal archive

"After graduating from Leningrad State University, Putin was assigned to work in the state security agencies. “My perception of the KGB was based on the idealistic stories I heard about intelligence.” " -- Putin

He married in 1983 and had two daughters.

"In 1985-1990, Vladimir Putin worked in East Germany. He served at the local intelligence office in Dresden. Over the course of his service, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and to the position of senior assistant to the head of the department. In 1989, he was awarded the bronze medal issued in the German Democratic Republic, For Faithful Service to the National People’s Army. “My work was going well. It was a normal thing to be promoted just once while working abroad. I was promoted twice,” Mr Putin says."

"After returning to Leningrad from Dresden in 1990, Vladimir Putin found new job as assistant to the rector of Leningrad State University, in which position he was responsible for international relations. “I was happy to find work at Leningrad State University,” he later recalled. “I took the job hoping at the same time to write my Ph.D. thesis and, perhaps, stay on and work there afterwards. That was how I ended up, in 1990, becoming assistant to the rector in charge of international relations.” "

Why was he no longer doing the normal work of the KGB? Had they reassigned him to the political world?

"Starting in June 1991, Putin began work as Chairman of the Committee for International Relations at the St Petersburg City Hall,..."

"After starting work at the City Hall, Putin sent in his resignation from the KGB."

The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 26, 1991.


In 1996, he and his family moved to Moscow, where his political career began.

"In August 1999, Putin was appointed Prime Minister of the Russian Government. The post was offered to him by then President Boris Yeltsin."

"“Two or three weeks before New Year [2000], Mr Yeltsin called me to his office and said that he had decided to step down. This meant I would have to become Acting President,” Putin recalled."

"Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia on March 26, 2000, and was re-elected to a second term on March 14, 2004. On May 8, 2008, he was appointed Prime Minister by presidential executive order."


"Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia on March 4, 2012."

Putin's view on the collapse of the Soviet Union was (this quote is from the Kremlin), "Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself."

His statement was translated by some as, "the collapse of the Soviet Union was the major geopolitical catastrophe of the century". This has a different meaning, that perhaps it was a very bad thing.

Considering the many difficulties nations have had during the transitions from one kind of political power to another, it could easily be considered a disaster for the people or a catastrophic event for the status quo, but whether these major transitions are bad or necessary is difficult to assess, especially in the moment. In any event, they seem to be inevitable.

Putin's behavior since has been belligerence toward the West (united States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, and other western European nations. In particular he has been critical of NATO and it's expansion of influence into nations which were formerly a part of the Soviet Union. Is this Napoleon or Hitler attempting to invade Russia again? He may have been irked most by the reuniting of Eastern and Western Germany because he was stationed in Eastern Germany at the time the Berlin Wall fell (that signaled the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union).

In Western Europe they have settled into their Democracies and have shown no aggression toward anyone.

The United States has been busy expanding opportunities for commerce on a global scale and opposing both religious militants/terrorists in the middle-east and nuclear terrorists everywhere.

Putin has announced a desire to create a New Russia and a couple of his efforts were to invade Georgia (formerly a part of the Soviet Union) and then Ukraine. He took the Crimean peninsula and a part of eastern Ukraine inhabited by Russian ethnic citizens.

He has been accused of killing or jailing his political opponents. It has also been said that the richest individuals in Russia are mere puppets of his and that his personal wealth is approximately $85 Billion. That doesn't make sense for a political figure.

Putin he has also taken previous Soviet efforts against the West to new heights using the Internet and other means. In America the intelligence community says he had the GRU and FSB interfere in and try to determine the outcome of our presidential election.

Today we have an American president, Donald Trump, who wishes to have closer ties to Russia and perhaps a weaker tie to NATO and the Western European nations. This is a startling shock to the American system.

Given the long history of Europe and of the gradual changes from tribes to Roman rule to the Holy Roman Empire and then to nation-states and finally to Democratic Republics, change seems inevitable and unpleasant, but usually for the better. What does Putin offer that is new and better? Is he only trying to become a modern Napoleon or Caesar? This is a very unsettling moment for the West. We don't know the future and the uncertainty bothers us.

Kushner's Story

If Jared Kushner is willing to take some punishment for his behavior, then he should be given a reduced sentence promise in exchange for his full truthful testimony. Nobody in this administration walks away like Admiral Poindexter or Colonel North or even Ronald Reagan. This time everybody involved must be punished very publicly and severely.

Monday Evening Terrorist Attack in Manchester, U.K.

This was at the end of a music concert and appears to have occurred in the area outside the main arena. There appears to have been about 20 deaths and quite a few injuries due to either the explosion or the rush of people to leave. The British police and emergency services immediately assisted the people. The explosion seems to have been caused by a 'suicide bomber', though at this time (8:27pm EST) that obviously has yet to be entirely confirmed and investigated.

History of the World in Just a Few Minutes of Video

Watch this video and become informed while laughing. It's amazing.

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/15/15641594/world-history-video-bill-wurtz

France and the Origin of "Gaul" and "Gall___"

I am learning French and was reading Wikipedia to learn a bit about the nation. During that I came across a most fascinating section about the original name and history of the geography these people have occupied in Europe.

I've numbered (the Roman numerals seem appropriate for this) interesting bits (quoted from Wikipedia) and added some commentary of my own.


I. Source of "Gall___", as in Gallia or perhaps Galatia

a. "Greek and Latin names Galatia and Gallia -- derived from Celtic ethnic term or clan Gal(a)-to-"

b. [The people] "Galli of Gallia Celtica [a region of south-east France, Switzerland and northern Italy] were reported to have referred to themselves as Celtae [sems to be Celtic] by Caesar."


So, Galli, Gallia, and perhaps Galatia all seem to be Celtic, so saith Caesar, in his diaries.



II. source of "Gal____"

a. "Hellenistic folk etymology connected the name of the Galatians (???????, Galátai) to the supposedly "milk-white" skin (????, gála "milk") of the Gauls."

b. "Modern researchers say it is related to Welsh gallu,[4] Cornish galloes,[5] "capacity, power",[6] thus meaning "powerful people"."


Welsh 'gallu' is not Celtic, is it? Didn't Caesar say GALatia was Celtic?



III. "Gall" and "Gaul" according to the English

a. "The English Gaul is from French Gaule and is unrelated to Latin Gallia, despite superficial similarity."


Encroyable ! How is that possible? What are the odds?


b. "As adjectives, English has the two variants: Gaulish and Gallic."

c. "The two adjectives are used synonymously, as "pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls", although the Celtic language or languages spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish."

That's consistent with "Gall___" coming from Celtic regions or even Wales, but when did it become synonymous with "Gaul___"?



IV. "Gaul___"

a. "The name Gaul is derived from the Old Frankish reflex of Proto-Germanic *walhaz, "foreigner, Romanized person", an exonym applied by Germanic speakers to Celts and Latin-speaking people indiscriminately, making it cognate with the names Wales and Wallachia."

So, 'Gaul' comes from a proto-Germanic Frank word for 'foreigner'?


b. "The Germanic w- is regularly rendered as gu- / g- in French (cf. guerre = war, garder = ward), and the diphthong au is the regular outcome of al before a following consonant (cf. cheval ~ chevaux)."

"au" is pronounced like "o", so "Gaul" should be pronounced 'g' 'O' 'l'  like 'goal'. That's weird. Imagine Charles DeGOoooooooooooooooAL Bad soccer play there I suppose. Heh.


c. "Gaule or Gaulle cannot be derived from Latin Gallia, since g would become j before a (cf. gamba > jambe), and the diphthong au would be unexplained;" the regular outcome of Latin Gallia is Jaille in French, which is found in several western placenames, such as La Jaille-Yvon and Saint-Mars-la-Jaille."

This seems to be a kind of proof that "Gaul__" is not Latin language origin.



V. "Gaul" related to "Gael"?

a. "Also unrelated in spite of superficial similarity is the name Gael."

b. "The Irish word gall did originally mean "a Gaul", i.e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was later widened to "foreigner", to describe the Vikings, and later still the Normans."

c. "The dichotomic words gael and gall are sometimes used together for contrast, for instance in the 12th-century book Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib."

Even the Irish thought the Gauls were foreigners. Apparently it was in or before the 12th century when "gall" and "gaul" became intertwined!



Summary -- Wow


Gal -- from Welsh 'gallu' (powerful Welsh people), not related at all to France or Gauls

Galli -- people of Gallia Celtica region (south-east France, part of Switzerland and N. Italy)

Gall -- Latin words for Celtic clan, the Galli of Gallia Celtica probably

Gaul -- from Frankish *walhaz, a foreigner, not from Latin Gall___ at all!

Gael -- Irish for foreigner referred to a Gaul and later also Vikings and Normans, so came after


Thus, Gallipolis in Gallia County, in Ohio, from Latin and not the French/Frank "Gaul".

And, the Galloping Gourmet is probably not even French!

My new French-language blog (pray for me) is parleparleparle.blogspot.com

Taxes and France

I am studying the French language, learning to communicate with it. Part of my work is to "read" the French newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro (at least some headlines and a few short articles).

While reading today I saw a page about their new president Macron and his positions on various issues. The one which was most interesting to me and may be one of the most difficult for European leaders is taxation. They are facing the same problem of corporate tax optimization (which means the ways they find to avoid paying any taxes).

I have considered tax reform in America, but in Europe they have a much more government-intense economy with universal healthcare, more protected employment, and other things. In America we have a lot more freedom to change our tax system or rates because our government, though large, is less fixed for domestic purposes. Our biggest expenditures which are rigid are Social Security, Medicare, and Defense spending. They have those and more in France.

In connection with learning French I have briefly been considering creation of a new blog where I will write every post in my horrible French. Maybe it will get better. I am also using Google Translate.

So, now I have to consider the European Tax Issue and how that may relate to global trade and America.

Stay tuned! If and when I create a new blog I will also announce it here.

The French Presidential Election: Macron - LePen

I watched Wednesday's debate on C-SPAN and they had English-speaking men to translate. It was interesting and the moderators let it flow. Their time-keeping method is a bit different than in America and I think that contributed to a flowing conversation.

The content of the debate seemed to be LePen attacking and alleging things and Macron talking about policy and asking LePen to stop interrupting him.

I was amazed how much LePen sounds like Donald Trump and how much they both sound like Vladimir Putin.

In Putin's world he wants Russia to be independent and strong and he hates gays, women, foreigners, and challengers to his power. In the world of Trump or LePen they are supposedly Independents (new "kids" on the block), but they are connected to the dominant Right Party. They are also anti-foreigners and anyone who opposes them. Trump is anti-women, but LePen is female, so we don't see that. The key thing with Trump and LePen is that they are connected to Putin at the hip (LePen's party actually received campaign contributions and loans from Putin and Russian banks) and their policy to make The United States or France independent would make those countries weaker -- "ripping France from the EU" as LePen put it or taking the U.S. out of NATO as Trump put it. Trump has since changed his mind about NATO, but I haven't heard any comment from LePen about it. During the debate she suggested that removing the Euro as their standard currency would be important to "free" France. Macron, who is an economist, laughed at that suggestion and pointed to ways it would be catastrophic.

It's clear France and the U.S. and other Western countries need to eliminate foreign contributions to political campaigns.

On the "fake news" front, it appears someone is spreading false stories already. After the masked-rioters of last week it appears obvious to me that it is Putin's people (little green men) at work.

Here is one story about the French government trying to track down the false news story authors/distributors. Apparently they have a law forbidding those fake stories.

Here is another story which apparently was reported just a minute ago. It's about stolen e-mails being leaked. Sound familiar? These are the same techniques used during the U.S. election campaign and they are all attributable to Putin. I haven't ready this story yet, so...

Individuals (not discussed much) Linking Trump to Putin

In previous posts, I have written about the DNC hack and how WikiLeaks published the information. In this post I'm going to switch to discussing some individuals who haven't gotten as much press as General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and others.



Boris Epshteyn


Recently Rachel Maddow has discussed the Trump presidential Inauguration and how money was raised far beyond what was needed. She asks a key question, where is the left-over money. Well, Boris Epshteyn ran the inaugural committee. He resigned from the administration March 31, 2017 before we got to know him and perhaps to ask him where the money went.

He was born in Moscow, Russia and came to America at age 11 (with his Jewish parents). Naturally, he speaks Russian fluently. He went to Georgetown University where he roomed with Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump. Was that accidental or arranged? He graduated from Georgetown cum laude and began working in law, investment banking and later in politics. He was an adviser to the McCain-Palin campaign in 2008!

He says he was "Managing Director of Business and Legal Affairs" at West America Securities Corp. from 2009-2013. But, it was expelled from the financial industry by the Financial Industry Regulation Authority (FINRA) in 2013 when its CEO was charged with fraud.

More recently, it has been suggested he was "Source E" in the (now famous) Dossier on Trump, created by Christopher Steele (former MI-6 operative).



Pyotyr Levashov


He was recently arrested in Spain and got some press coverage for that. He is suspected of being one of the world's top bot-net creators. While he was being questioned by the authorities his wife was interviewed by the press. She said he was being held because of something he did which was related to the U.S. election and Trump's victory. He has been indicted in Connecticut, should the U.S. ever get their hands on him.

There are possibly two separate connections of him to Trump & Co. There are allegations that he was recruited by Boris Epshteyn to do the election work and the other is that he created the Kehlios botnet which infected computers through Facebook and perhaps collected information on Americans. The kicker is that experts who have studied the Trump Organization computer servers which regularly communicated with the Russian Alfa Bank (note: previously and erroneously written "Alpha Bank" by Christopher Steele and others) believe the Trump servers were part of the botnet Levashov created and may have been a "command and control" center for the botnet.

Note: Levashov is not the same as Petyr Chayanov who ran Hostkey & Guccifer 2, hacked the DNC, and then fed the information to WikiLeaks.




Rick Davis


He worked in the Reagan White House from 1985 - 3/1987.

He was Manafort's deputy in orchestrating the 1996 Republican National Convention.

Later they joined Bob Dole's presidential team.

He worked with Paul Manafort from 1998-2008. In the middle of that he was campaign manager on the McCain-Palin presidential campaign. He has a lot of international experience running political campaigns with Manafort. Many of the places Davis-Manafort did work were parts of the former Soviet Union. Their work in Ukraine has gained Manafort most of the attention because of the big connections to Russia -- especially in the natural gas business where Russia sends natural gas through Ukrainian pipelines into Europe.

In 2006 he arranged (or set-up) a private meeting in Sweden between Senators John McCain, Saxby Chambliss, and John E. Sununu (son of former governor and Reagan White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu) with Russian Oleg Deripaska (one of the Oligarchs).



Michael Caputo "The Publicist"


He worked for the U.S. House of Representatives before 1992 and was director of media services for the Bush-Quayle presidential campaign of 1992. Since 1992 he has done public relations work, much of it involving Russia.

He lived in Russia through the 1990s, under contract with Gazprom media -- partly to improve the public image of Putin.

He married a Russian woman.

He resigned the Trump campaign communications department 6/2016.



Dmitry Firtash


One of the richest men in Ukraine and a supporter of relations with Putin's Russia. Former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoschenko charged that he was behind the efforts to have her removed from office (which occurred in 2011) and jailed. Tymoschenko also claims it was Paul Manafort who executed the plan. The charge was dismissed as being more political than criminal.

However, Firtash was indicted and arrested and is in Austria. In February 2017 he was indicted in Chicago, USA and extradition was requested from Austria. Firtash was to be released, but was arrested in Spain for money laundering.

It has been suggested Firtash is also a quiet investor in Cambridge Analytica (a U.K. firm which analyzes big data to help political campaigns, such as Trump 2016). It isn't easy to prove that connection, but he has investments in the U.K. which correlate with a real estate developer named Robert Tchenguiz.


Robert Tchenguiz


(from Wikipedia) Robert Tchenguiz was born in Teheran to an Iraqi-Jewish family, the son of Victor and Violet Khadouri. His family left Iraq in 1948 and settled in Iran, where his father, a jeweller, worked for the Shah and ran the country's mint. He also changed the family surname from Khadouri to Tchenguiz. Do not confuse Robert with his brother Vincent, though they have worked together at times.

I don't know much about him as a real estate person. Perhaps he knows Trump directly.

He owned a company called Wheedon Ltd. Wheedon invested in Zander Group which also had Dmitry Firtash as an investor.

Tchenguiz is more known for his investment in Cambridge Analytica. But, curiously he is also invested in a comany called SCL Group UK and one of their subdivisions is SCL Elections and one of theirs was called SCL USA until its name was changed to (get this) Cambridge Analytica. Confusing? You bet!



Mikhail Fridman


He is one of the Russian oligarchs who arose from near poverty to tremendous wealth. He founded Alfa Bank with several other people, including Pyotr Aven, a close Putin ally.

Alfa Bank computer servers were communicating regularly with Trump Organization servers (there were two) until it was revealed.


Fridman has sold his Alfa Bank investment and formed a new investment firm (LetterOne) in 2013 in Luxembourg with Pyotr Aven. It has a subsidiary called "Pamploma" funds, created in 2001 (presumably purchased by LetterOne). Pamploma advisers to the board of directors includes Thomas "Mack" McLarty III, Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff, and Richard Burt (McLarty and Burt are business partners).



Richard Burt "The Banker"


He is/was the chairman of the National Interest's advisory board. National Interest is the in-house journal of the Center for the National Interest. This is where Donald Trump gave his first (only?) national security speech. It has been suggested he wrote the speech.

A few of the N.I. Directors are notable: Henry Kissinger is an honorary director, but Dov Zakheim (of Neocon, New American Century fame), Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), Leslie Gelb, Grover Norquist, John Huntsman, and Mike Mullen are better known.

He is a former ambassador to Germany and a State Department official during the Reagan administration. He was an unpaid adviser to the presidential campaign of Rand Paul, but was enlisted by Paul Manafort for the Trump campaign.

He also lobbied for Nord Stream II, a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Europe (though avoiding Ukraine or Belarus) for which he was paid $350,000 from 1/2016 - 6/2016. Russia's Gazprom owned 50% of the company which would have built the pipeline.

He also sits on the senior advisory board of Alfa Bank.



Paul Manafort


I've tried to find the connection from him through Dmitry Firtash to Alfa Bank, but it is elusive. Louise Mensch has said the connection exists, but offers no proof.



Conclusions?


There an inordinant number of people connected to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It's really amazing. Is it a smoking gun that crimes were committed? Not by itself. But, when you consider the actions of each and how they all seem to be connected, it's hard to not see this as a typical RICO group or at least a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.