Because his grifting horizons have narrowed significantly, and classified information has value. And anyone who thinks he wouldn’t monetize that fact has been under a rock for the past 5+ years.
Were I in Biden’s place, I would be sorely tempted to manufacture a “honeypot” intelligence briefing full of fabricated bullshit. Stuff like, “Ground-penetrating satellite imaging has revealed a major petroleum deposit next to a currently unclaimed island in the Bering Strait. Make sure Russia doesn’t find out while we quietly organize a legal case for ownership.” Then see how fast it takes the Russians to move in.
He’ll never make it through all that without a single mention of his name or his picture.
There’s just no reason for Trump to have that information. A person doesn’t automatically receive intelligence; they get it on an as-needed basis if they have anything useful to contribute.
This fucker didn’t even read intelligence reports when he was president so why would he need them now?
Fox n Friends: So tell us, Mr. President, what have you been up to lately?
Trump: Well actually I’m still running the country from Mar-a-Lago. I’m still president; in fact I still get intelligence briefings, okay? I wouldn’t get these briefings if the military - you know the military guys, the army guys, the generals…they know I won. They know Sleepy Joe is too old, low energy. I’m still running things, okay.
So we’ve gotta get the oil - take the oil. My uncle, who was an engineer at MIT - very smart guy. You know, you gotta tell people that. You gotta tell people that you have an uncle who went to M - I - T. Smart. I was smart. Went to Wharton. Ivy League. I’m smart, okay.
Steve Douchey: Okay, so Mr. President, tell us about the oil, the briefings.
Trump: Yeah, so I - I get the intelligence briefings. Lots of oil in the Bering Straight. That’s near RUSH-uh! I like the sound of that: RUSH-uh! Still very good friends with Putin. You know Putin doesn’t like Sleepy Joe. We had good relations. Putin still calls me. He knows I won the election. He knows I’m the real president.
Douchey: So how do you get intelligence briefings?
Trump: Putin gives them to me. Yeah they hacked into Hunter’s laptop. He had all kinds of illegal data on that laptop. He has all the Pentagon data there, so I said, "Russia, if you’re listening, get me those intel briefings on Hunter’s laptop.’ And so yeah, you know, I’ve got a good relationship with Putin and he gives me the briefings.
He doesn’t have to read it to sell it.
Exactly. He has people for that.
Well, a person.
Well, Eric.
A fascinating and sobering article. Thank you very much for that. It just shows that 6 Jan was but one step in a massive, carefully plotted coup attempt.
Speaking of monetizing his election, Trump moved campaign funds from his donors to his businesses by charging the campaign.
I don’t know if I buy Trump’s estimated net worth. But I do wonder if all the donors would have donated if they knew that they were just subsidizing Trump’s business. Oddly, from what I’ve read, some of them might, but perhaps not everyone.
The thing I’ve learned about most people who’ve been hustled is that they will adamantly refuse to admit to others or themselves that they were played. Maybe it’s embarrassment, maybe it’s conviction in the righteousness of the hustler. But I have no doubt that you could have every single Trump donor this article and the vast majority would refuse to believe it or rationalize the behavior.
There’s some fascinating info in there. But it bothers me that they’re headlining it as some sort of secret conspiracy.
From the article:
A second odd thing happened amid Trump’s attempts to reverse the result: corporate America turned on him. Hundreds of major business leaders, many of whom had backed Trump’s candidacy and supported his policies, called on him to concede.
What the hell is odd about that? Wanting a candidate to win is entirely normal. Insisting that the candidate has won when he hasn’t is entirely abnormal. The oddity here is that Trump and a number of other people kept insisting he’d won when he clearly hadn’t; not that some people who’d supported him up to that point objected to his refusing to admit that he’d lost.
Time is normalizing outrageous behavior in claiming that there’s anything odd about objecting to it.
The system didn’t work magically. Democracy is not self-executing.
It never has worked magically; and it never has and never will be self-executing.
At some times it takes more work than at others, yes.
Laura Quinn, a veteran progressive operative who co-founded Catalist, began studying this problem a few years ago. She piloted a nameless, secret project, which she has never before publicly discussed, that tracked disinformation online and tried to figure out how to combat it. One component was tracking dangerous lies that might otherwise spread unnoticed. Researchers then provided information to campaigners or the media to track down the sources and expose them.
The most important takeaway from Quinn’s research, however, was that engaging with toxic content only made it worse.
Maybe that specific project was nameless and secret, I don’t know. But there’s nothing nameless and secret about that particular takeaway; I’ve been reading articles to that effect, by people who signed them, for years.
The 22 Democrats and 22 Republicans on the National Council on Election Integrity met on Zoom at least once a week. They ran ads in six states, made statements, wrote articles and alerted local officials to potential problems.
That’s a secret conspiracy? Advertised all over the place?
Yeah, I noticed the conspiracy language, I’m not sure if that choice was stupid or brilliant. But it had to be deliberate.
It’s definitely throwing a juicy piece of red meat to the right wing conspiracy theorists, which doesn’t seem smart.
But that crowd is mostly turning on each other now, so maybe throwing a little fuel on the fire is a good idea, as they are mostly using the fire to burn each other up.
And it plays into the “civilization vs savages” narrative that actually seems to working out for the Democrats, at least for now.
I wonder if it was intentional. ‘Let’s see if we can’t phrase this genuinely nonpartisan effort as a secret conspiracy instead of as, say, a genuinely nonpartisan consensus that fair elections are a good idea’.
And if so: was it intentional as in ‘we think this will make us more money and we don’t care how’? Or intentional as in ‘we want to encourage the conspiracy theorists’?
Sure! Only for the purpose of doing the exact opposite.
MAGA hat wearers, Cruz, about half of the GOP…
Wyoming:
…
About 190 people as of Friday were charged in federal court with federal crimes. More than 800 are believed to have made their way into the Capitol. Investigators are scouring social media posts, videos and tips from the public to track down others. There are about 80 others charged in local court in the District of Columbia.
…“Statues, murals, historic benches, and original shutters all suffered varying degrees of damage — primarily from pepper spray accretions and residue from tear gas and fire extinguishers — that will require cleaning and conservation,” the initial assessment from the Architect of the Capitol concluded.
…There are currently about 7,000 National Guard members in the city providing security. That number is expected to slowly go down to 5,000, and they are set to stay until about mid-March. The total cost for the deployment is expected to be close to $500 million.
At the high point just before the inauguration, there were more than 26,000 Guard troops in the city, and they came from the 50 states and U.S. territories.
…
Anybody who claims something bad happened that day is clearly exaggerating or just plain lying. Nothing to see here. Move on.
from article:
Well, Joe - in answer to your frst question, sure, yeah, and for the next one, I’d say, uh, it ideally should?
Yes, I can see how the popular vote would rankle these vote-suppressing authoritarian wannabes.
I feel for Joe. (Like, if I’m blinbdfolded with a bat and trying to feel around for that pinata.)
Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone’s links to Capitol rioters were further revealed Saturday with the release of a new video showing him on a rally stage with top members of the extremist Proud Boys. One of them has been accused by the FBI of allegedly planning the deadly storming of the Capitol.
The video was released a day after ABC posted a tape showing Stone with militia members of the extreme right-wing Oath Keepers the morning of the Capitol riot.
The new video was obtained by Just Security, an online forum hosted by the Reiss Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. It shows a happy Stone pressed together on a rally stage in December with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and the group’s “sergeant at arms” Ethan Nordean — also known as Rufio Panman.
“Never give up, never quit, never surrender, and fight for America!” Stone tells a crowd gathered the night before the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington in the video. Nordean’s hand appears to be on Stone’s shoulder as he rails against the results of the presidential election.
…Stone has been a long-time Trump confidant and a 2016 campaign adviser.
Trump granted clemency to Stone and eventually pardoned him last year after he was convicted of seven felonies, including lying in congressional testimony and witness tampering in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia in the 2016 election.
…
Lucky guy that trump pardoned him, eh? That freed him up to get involved in the insurrection. More winning.
I agree. It’s like saying high school teachers are conspiring to educate teenagers.