Dubious

In the first of a two part series, we discuss Putin's assignment in Dresden to the KGB office that managed Soviet support of international leftist terrorists such as Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez, the PLO, and the RAF.

Putin's time in the Stasi represents his formative years as a KGB administrator working with the East German intelligence police. Putin was tasked with two activities during this time that carry through to the rest of his political career.

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In addition to providing money and weapons to people like the RAF (Red Army Faction), PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), and Carlos The Jackal, Putin was also on the board of directors for the first collaborative corporation formed between East Germany and Russia called SPAG. This company was later investigated by German authorities for connections to money laundering, particularly for organized crime syndicates like the Colombian cocaine cartels and the Russian mafia.

We then discuss Putin's time on the staff of St. Petersberg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, the primary author of the Russian constitution that was established after the fall of the Soviet party, and how Putin continued his penchant for getting himself into positions tasked with distributing formerly state-owned property to private hands, and how Putin used this authority to buy favor within the ranks of Russia's oligarchy.

We finally discuss Putin's time doing basically the same tasks for the Yeltsin administration on the staff of Pavel Borodin who was the Moscow figure also tasked with redistributing former state property to business interests, and finally Putin's appointment to the head of the FSB, after which Putin killed his law school mentor and long-time friend Sobchak during his first run for the Russian Presidency.

The books of two authors were invaluable for the research for this episode. First, Dr Karen Dawisha at Miami Ohio University and her research into the Stasi records that survived from Putin's time in East Germany, and secondly the articles and books of Catherine Belton. 1, 2, 3, 4

1. Karen Dawisha, Vladimir Putin, Operation LUCH, and Matthias Warning: The Secret KGB-Stasi Relationship (appendix), Miami Ohio University, 2014. ⇤

2. Catherine Belton, Did Vladimir Putin Support Anti-Western Terrorists as a Young KGB Officer?, Politico, June 2020. ⇤

3. Catherine Belton, Putin's Name Surfaces in German Probe, The Moscow Times, May 2003. ⇤

4. Catherine Belton, PUTIN’S PEOPLE: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2020. ⇤

A young journalist boarded the mini submarine UC3 Nautilus in Køge Bay, Denmark, in Aug 2017: she was there to interview the man who built the submarine, Peter Madsen. That was the last time she was seen alive.

In this episode we discuss the horrific killing of Kim Wall and the investigation into the only submarine murder in history. This is a preview of a premium episode, if you like our content and would like to support us, please become a patron to get our public episodes ad-free. 1

Kim Wall was reported missing after mini submarine Nautilus failed to return to the Refshaleøen harbor after her scheduled interview with Peter Madsen. The submarine was found sunken the following morning and Madsen was taken into custody by police after being rescued from the water.

Between 21 August and 29 November, parts of Wall's dismembered body were found in different locations around the area with the help of cadaver dogs – the pups proved to be essential in solving this case. Charged with her murder, Madsen was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on 25 April 2018 by Copenhagen City Court. 2, 3

1. Kim Wall, Coleen Jose, and Jan Hendrik Hinzel. The Poison and the Tomb. Mashable. February 2018. ⇤

2. Ruby Lott-Lavigna. The Story of Kim Wall’s Murder, But Not As You Know It. Vice. January 2021. ⇤

3. Martin Shore. Where is Peter Madsen now? Into the Deep Netflix film explained. What to Watch. October 2022. ⇤

Q Anon conspiracy theorist, former “hemp artist” and nudist David DePape tried to murder Paul Pelosi with a hammer, in a middle of the night violent attack.

In this episode we try to understand how the assailant, David DePape, was radicalized by the Q Anon cult and when his break from reality started to manifest. We go over all the details of the vicious attack as we explain how conspiracy theories emerge. If you like our content please become a patron to get two bonus premium episodes per month, as well as our public episodes ad-free.

“Where is Nancy?” These are the words DePape was screaming as he broke in to the Pelosis’ San Francisco home breaking a glass door in the back of the house, carrying his tool box, at least two hammers and zip ties. The investigators already determined that the target of the attack was The Speaker of The House. 1

The attacker’s plan was to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and probably torture her, “break her kneecaps” and find out more information about other democrats, he had a list of names with him too.

82 year old Paul Pelosi was seriously injured after being struck on the head with a hammer and was rushed to the hospital. 2

The situation was made worse by GOP politicians who started spreading conspiracy theories online. Elon Musk, days after buying Twitter, also got involved, implying in a reply tweet to Hillary Clinton that there’s more to this story and alluding that Paul Pelosi and the attacker were involved sexually. He later deleted that tweet. 3

The one bit of good news is that Jack Dorsey is launching a new social platform, BlueSky Social. 4

1. Brian Klass. This week, 3 men were convicted of trying to.... Twitter. October 2022. ⇤

2. Victoria Bekiempis. A secret bathroom 911 call: how Paul Pelosi saved his own life. The Guardian. October 2022. ⇤

3. Kurtis Lee. Elon Musk, in a Tweet, Shares Link From Site Known to Publish False News. New York Times. October 2022. ⇤

4. BlueSky App. Blue Sky. November 2022. ⇤

The concept of eternal life has fascinated humans for millennia, and now billionaires are investing in anti-aging research in the hopes of cheating death.

This episode is about a modern medical take of the old school classics, Dracula and Frankenstein, but in this case the “bloodsuckers” are fancy Silicon Valley start-ups promising rejuvenation to seniors via young blood transfusions. If you like our content, please become a patron to two premium bonus episodes per month, as well as our public episodes ad-free.

Peter Thiel who created Pay Pal, Larry Ellison the co-founder or Oracle, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, David Murdock who’s 99 and said he wants to live at least 125 years – all these people donated or invested massive amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, in anti-aging research. 1

We discuss cryonic preservation – freezing one’s dead body in liquid nitrogen to be brought back to life when science evolves enough, downloading one’s consciousness into a digital form and other potential ways of cheating death. 2

We focus in particular on the pseudo scientifical practice of blood / plasma transfusions from young people to seniors – a very dangerous process inspired by parabiosis. Parabiosis means “living beside”, it’s a laboratory technique that involves two organisms which are joined surgically to develop a single, share physiological system.. For example, stitching living mammals together.

There were several companies like Ambrosia who offered plasma transfusions collected from teenagers to old people. Ambrosia’s CEO, Jesse Karmazin, even though a medical doctor who graduated from Sandford, was barred from practicing in Massachusetts and when one of his patients died, he claimed the man faked his own death. 3

These “therapies” are dangerous. In fact the FDA said “patients are being preyed upon by unscrupulous actors touting treatments of plasma from young donors as cures and remedies” and warned that “such treatments have no proven clinical benefits for the uses for which these clinics are advertising them and are potentially harmful.” 4

1. Katie Warren. Millionaires are dropping tens of thousands on 'young blood' transfusions and cryonic preservation. Business Insider. August 2019. ⇤

2. Lindsay Dodgson. A 14-year-old in Britain just won the right to have her body frozen for thousands of dollars — here's the science behind it. Business Insider. November 2016. ⇤

3. Jesselyn Cook. Notorious ‘Young Blood’ Doctor Claims Dead Patient Faked His Own Death. Huffington Post. October 2019. ⇤

4. Erin Brodwin. A controversial startup that charges $8,000 to fill patients’ veins with young blood is opening a clinic in NYC — but researchers whose work inspired it warn it’s dangerous. Business Insider. September 2018. ⇤

Svetlana Iosifovna Stalina, the most famous defector of the cold war, was born in luxury, in the Kremlin and led an extraordinary, tumultuous life. She died destitute at a care home in Wisconsin.

In this episode we tell the incredible story of Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, born Stalina and later known as Lana Peters. If you like our content, please become a patron to receive our two exclusive premium episodes each month, as well as our public episodes ad-free.

Born on February 28, 1926, in Moscow, Svetlana was Stalin’s favorite child and The Princess in The Kremlin. Her mother Nadezhda was a secretary for Lenin and played an important role in Stalin’s rise to power. She committed suicide when Svetlana was just 6 years old. Her brother Vasily was 11 and her half brother Yakov was 25. Artyom, her adopted brother and the only one of her siblings who reached old age, was already a young man.

Svetlana had a lonely childhood, very few friends and was interested in literature and poetry. She was the only one that could influence Joseph Stalin. During the Great Purge, she managed to save the lives of many people just by pleading with her father to commute their sentences. She was 10 years old at the time.

As a 16 yo teenager, she fell in love with filmmaker Aleksei Kapler, who was 20 years older. Stalin sends him to the Gulag because he was Jewish. Joseph Stalin himself married Nadezhda when she was just 16 years old and he was 39.

Svetlana rebelled and married another Jewish man, but their union was short lived. Her first son Josef was born. Her second marriage disintegrates just as fast, but now Svetlana had a daughter too, Yekaterina.

During WW2, Her brother Yakov was captured by the Nazis and Stalin refused to exchange him for Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus. Yakov commits suicide by throwing himself on an electrified fence.

Vasili dies of alcoholism induced cirrhosis at just 41.

After Stalin’s death, Svetlana, now a single mother of two, fell in love with Indian translator Kunwar Brajesh Singh. When he dies, she traveled to Delhi to pour his ashes in the Ganges. In Delhi, Svetlana walked into the US Embassy and defected, bringing her first manuscript– 20 Letters to A Friend – to America. She publishes it and earns almost $1M.

Most of her money was spent by William Wesley Peters, the world famous architect and vice president of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation after their marriage and years living together at the Taliesin Fellowship. Her marriage to Peters ended, but they had a daughter together, Olga. She now goes by the name of  Chrese Evans and lives in Portland Oregon. 1

In 1978, Svetlana, now Lana Peters became a US citizen. 2

Her older daughter, Yekaterina, is a volcanologist in Kamchatka Penninsula in Siberia. Her firstborn son Iosef, a cardiologist, died in Russia in 2008. She was never able to see them again after she fled from Russia.

On November 22, 2011, Svetlana died of colon cancer, at the Richland center, a care home in Wisconsin. 3

Episode #Dubimeter: 20

1. Nicholas Thompson. My Friend, Stalin's Daughter. The New Yorker. March 2014. ⇤

2. Steven V. Roberts. Stalin's Dauhter Confirms Marriaje to Architect. The New York Times. April 1970. ⇤

3. Get.factual youtube channel. Stalin's Daughter - Escaping the Shadow. Youtube. July 2022. ⇤

Georgia US Senate Candidate and former American football player Herschel Walker was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder by an ex pastor who believes that demonic possession can be confused with mental illness.

In his 2008 book “Breaking Free”, Walker wrote about his DID and struggles with mental illness, noting that his life began to unravel after he retired from the NFL in 1998. Walker went to see his old friend Jerry Mungadze to seek treatment. Jerry Mungadze is not a medical doctor and has dubious views which include a belief in demonic possession and ritual abuse, but nevertheless diagnosed Walker with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Walker said he had 12 alter egos. If you like our content, please become a patron and get our two monthly premium episodes and the weekly public episodes ad-free. 1

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Mungadze employs shady treatment methods that originate in the satanic panic decade which include colored crayons – despite the fact that he admitted to be colorblind.

In this episode we discuss Herschel Walker’s mental health battle while taking a look at more realistic causes for his violence and erratic behavior, like Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy CTE. In the past 10 years neurosurgeons have found proven links between repeated head injuries suffered by football players and paranoia, depression, memory loss, and violent reactions.

A month before the November midterms, Walker, who is running on a conservative family values anti abortion platform, is caught in a web of lies and revelations from his past: he made the mother of one of his out of wedlock children have an abortion and paid for it and has a history of violent outburst against women – retraining orders, stalking accusations, even threatening one of them to “blow off her head” with a loaded gun. His own son Christian Walker accused his father of being a liar and indicated that he abused his mother. 2, 3

1. Shannon McCaffrey. Herschel Walker’s mental health battle raises questions about treatment. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. May 2022. ⇤

2. Roger Sollenberger. Herschel Walker, Critic of Absentee Dads, Has Yet ANOTHER Secret Son—and a Daughter. The Daily Beast. Jun 2022. ⇤

3. Brian Slodysko. Police records complicate Herschel Walker's recovery story. ABC News. February 2022. ⇤

After a stint in the military, Stewart Rhodes accidentally shot himself in the eye, made his wife strip in nightclubs to pay for his education and, according to her, was violent even to his children, trying to choke his 12 year old daughter.

Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, the founder of the Oath Keepers and four others individuals linked to the far-right, anti-government group are now on trial for seditious conspiracy and other charges stemming from the deadly assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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Rhodes is in the first group of Oath Keepers on trial, and the second group trial will happen in November. Two of the 11 people indicted in the case – Brian Ulrich and Joshua James - have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and are cooperating with the government. 1

In this episode we discuss Rhodes’ military career, his personal life and his trajectory from Yale to jail.

He then married Tasha Adams, she was 18 at the time, he was 25. According to his now estranged wife, he made work full time as a stripper to pay for his education and even pushed for her to take things further with the men in the club she was dancing in.

After graduating from Yale with a law degree, he gets a clerkship for a judge on the Arizona Supreme Court but his extreme views get him out the door quite fast. 3

This is when he starts formulating the idea of starting an extremist organization. He formally launched the Oath Keepers in Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 2009.

1. Ryan Lucas. In a big Jan. 6 case, Oath Keepers go on trial for seditious conspiracy. NPR. September 2022. ⇤

2. Drew Lawrence. What the Military Records of the Oath Keepers' Leader Actually Say About His Service. Military.com. May 2022. ⇤

3. Jacques Billeaud and Lindsay Whitehurst. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.... Associated Press. September 2022. ⇤

A story about an American family with a white savior complex, the first snuff film broadcast on national TV, a nameless murder victim executed in a Zambian National Park and a famous novel made into a movie.

Before she was a famous fiction author, Delia and her then-husband Mark were anti-poaching activists in both Zambia and Botswana, and are still wanted for questioning in Africa due to a murder which was recorded and broadcast to American audiences in an ABC News documentary in the 1990s. If you like our content, please become a patron to get our additional premium episodes each month, as well as our public episodes ad-free.

Mark and Delia Owens sold all of their belongings while in grad school at the University of Georgia and moved to Botswana in the 1980s to study wild animals in pursuit of their biology PhDs. But they found a massive poaching operation in which wildebeest herds were slaughtered en masse to keep them away from cattle which were being raised for export to Europe.

After failing to get the Botswana government to act against poaching Mark and Delia moved to Zambia, and took it upon themselves to provide anti-poaching operations to the local government. They recruited and trained scouts to patrol the North Luangwa National Park in Zambia to curtail poaching of elephants and black rhinos for their tusks and horns.

Their methods were a concern, which was confirmed with ABC News sent a film crew to interview and patrol alongside Mark and Delia's scouts. On film that was later broadcast to American audiences via ABC News, a scout and an unnamed individual killed a man returning to his campsite in the North Luangwa National Park. According to Jeffrey Goldberg's articles in both the New Yorker and the Atlantic about this incident, Mark's son Christopher may have fired the fatal shots that killed the man. The only evidence they had of his being a poacher, per the video, was a bag full of shotgun shells at his campsite. 1

Mark, Delia, and Christopher fled back to the US and moved to Northern Idaho after this incident, and are still wanted for questioning by the Zambian police. Ironically (or perhaps not?), Delia's hit novel revolves around a character who murders a man and is later acquitted of the crime, but the story's conclusion reveal's the character's guilt. 2

In short, Mark and Delia basically re-enacted the plot of Heart of Darkness in their own real lives, and then returned home to literary fame and fortune based on the experience. 3

Episode #Dubimeter: 10

1. Jeffrey Goldberg. The Hunted. The New Yorker. March 2010. ⇤

2. Jeffrey Goldberg. Where the Crawdads Sing Author Wanted for Questioning in Murder. The Atlantic. July 2022. ⇤

3. Alexandra Alter. Questions About An Unsolved Murder Linger Over ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’. The New York Times. July 2022. ⇤

The biggest bribery investigation in US military history revolves around a Malaysian defense contractor who just made an escape as brazen as the case itself: Leonard Francis aka Fat Leo snipped off his ankle monitor and disappeared from house arrest.

We're talking about the case of Leonard Glenn Francis, a defense contractor who owned a company named Glenn Defense Marine Asia, or GDMA for short. He bribed his way literally to the top of the US Navy chain of command, and the fallout included an admiral who was short-listed for chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, but now is the first serving admiral to be convicted and serve jail time in US history. If you like our content please become a patron to get our premium episodes available exclusively to our premium subscribers, as well as our public episodes ad-free. 1

Leonard aka Fat Leo was born to a Scottish father and a Malaysian mother whose family owned a similar shipping supply business to the one he grew to prominence of late. His father's abuse of his mother, both physical and emotional, led to Leo having the same duality of obsession with and dislike of women. Like his father, this would ultimately be Leo's undoing, as the angry wives of US Navy officers like Michael Misiewicz were the ones who provided the initial reports to the NCIS which began the Fat Leonard investigation into the US Navy Pacific fleet chain of command. 2

Leo grew from scrappy husbanding agent to preferred military contractor between the time of the USS Cole bombing and 9/11, by providing whatever "services" the US Navy officers he dealt with wanted. Women, booze, parties, hotel suites, 5 star meals... Leo could get it if you wanted it, as long as you had some influence in the US Navy that could turn Leo a profit down the line. Leo even procured a former British ship, which he renamed "The Braveheart", to serve as a floating brothel-slash-casino which followed the 7th fleet around the south Pacific with diplomatic clearance.

Even when NCIS caught wind of Leo's exploits, he was difficult to prosecute both because of the reach of his influence within the chain of command, and because Leo also had the NCIS director at Quantico, Virginia on his payroll. As it turned out, special agent in charge John Beliveau had befriended Leo when he was a security aide to an admiral in Japan years before. In fact Leo was so problematic to prosecute that he wasn't... earlier this month he removed his ankle monitor and disappeared from his San Diego home. As it turns out the security company contracted to look after him wasn't doing their job very well either, they hadn't been to his home in days and didn't notice the tampering with the ankle monitor for 6 hours. 3

Leo was due to be sentenced tomorrow, but he's now on the run.

Episode #Dubimeter: 9.0

1. Craig Whitlock. The man who seduced the 7th Fleet. The Washington Post. May 2016. ⇤

2. Greg Moran. Jury convicts four former Navy officers in ‘Fat Leonard’ bribery trial. Los Angeles Times. June 2022. ⇤

3. Fat Leonard’s bold escape from California home was judge’s worst fear come true. The Mercury-News. September 2022. ⇤

“You take this grenade and you pull the pin, you've got a live piece of ammo in your hands; 34 states - if every Republican legislator votes for this, we have a constitutional convention..." --Rick Santorum at an ALEC meeting, December 2021

Republicans are pushing for an unprecedented constitutional convention to re-write our constitution, the US legal bedrock since 1778. And so far, 19 states have joined this rapidly growing GOP movement to call for a new convention. If you like our content, please become a patron and get exclusive access to our premium episodes, as well as our public episodes ad-free.

This effort to end democracy was meant to be a behind the curtains endeavor, with plans being discussed at the American Legislative Exchange Council and other similar meetings among influential republicans. Thanks to the Center For Media and Democracy, we now know what the GOP is working towards, with many supporting organizations like COSA and mega donors like the Koch and Mercer families. 1

According to a New York Times article, “Jodey Arrington, a conservative Texas Republican, believes it is well past time for something the nation has not experienced for more than two centuries: a debate over rewriting the Constitution.” 2

Arrington then shifted from “debate” to I quote “I think the states are due a convention”.

In July, Arrington introduced legislation to direct the archivist of the United States to tally applications for a convention from state legislatures and compel Congress to schedule a gathering when enough states have petitioned for one.

Russ Feingold, the former Democratic senator from Wisconsin and president of the American Constitution Society told the New York Times that a constitutional convention is an exceptionally dangerous threat from the right and suggests it is closer to reality than most people realize:

“We are very concerned that the Congress, if it becomes Republican, will call a convention. This could gut our Constitution. There needs to be real concern and attention about what they might do. We are putting out the alert. If you think this is democracy’s moment of truth, this is one of those things.”

What the republicans hope to achieve is taking advantage of Article V of our current constitution, more specifically a certain aspect of it that was never used before. Article V says in part that Congress,

Throughout our country’s history, 27 amendments have been added to the Constitution BUT ONLY by another complicated route, with the amendments originating in Congress subject to ratification by the states. What the republicans want now is pretty much unchecked control, in line with how totalitarian regimes operate.

1. Alex Kotch. The Right Is Trying to Rewrite the Constitution to Cement Minority Rule Forever. Center for Media and Democracy. December 2021. ⇤

2. Carl Hulse. A Second Constitutional Convention? Some Republicans Want to Force One. New York Times. September 2022. ⇤