Was there a high-level conspiracy in the Trump administration, done with one or more foreign countries, to end democracy in America? Was their next plan to realign us with Russia & autocratic nations?
If you think Thom is paranoid, I urge you to read Malcom Nance's "The Plot to Hack America", "They Want to Kill Americans" (I haven't yet read Nance's other works) and to check out many of Nance"s interviews on YOU TUBE for validation of Thom's concerns. Nance is an intelligence expert who is able to document and connect the dots.
It made me wonder while I was reading if this plan was made before Trump decided to run - or if he was snagged and paid for his performance by Russia, China, and god knows who else. Or it was improvised and built onto once he was singled out as most likely to keep those “others” aka our adversaries well-informed and locked into The Plan. It seems like so many ReThuglicsns bought into (PAID INTO) effectuation to end democracy in the US. I’ll keep wondering till we know - if we ever do. Thanks Thom - again
Thom wrote an article just last week, or not long ago, if memory serves explaining how Trump became an asset to Russia back in 1987, was carefully managed for decades, but wasn't "activated" for espionage purposes until 2016. The investment really paid off. Read Thom's blurb, it will enlighten you.
Nance is completely wrong, I hope, but what he says adds up and makes sense and so far his predictions have been right, but I still hope Nance is completely wrong. Nance agrees with me. His writings are subdued compared to the largest flags he sees. He nails it pretty well because he sort of takes the "average" of what he sees.
Nance's analysis is sound, but his conclusions are probably wrong - HOPEFULLY wrong. I'm a big Nance fan, but Malcom provides the analysis for "if everyone who can act stays asleep".
We are seeing public unrest. When enough citizens march, a few brave, junior politicians will stop trying to do nothing wrong - which requires doing nothing.
Given the marches, I believe fairly soon we will see governments move the goalposts and swap out the ball, and make Malcolm's analysis list a bit to one side. I hope so. If so, Malcolm deserves applause for his help.
I have, since Trump’s election in 2017, believed in some structured conspiracy to allow he, and his handler’s,
to participate in a coup to overthrow democratic government in our country.
His actions and his inept words never illustrated any concept of democracy.
He first shared secrets with Russians, allowed no access to transparency with media.
What did he ever do that could be seen as a result of any deep thought?
It seemed clear he was taking direction from someone that truly was his ‘Boss’.
It is at best, disturbing, more often dumbfounding , that he took up looking for Russian approval, as well as any other nefarious players in authoritarianism.
He spoke highly of Duterte, who liked to murder drug addicts. He spoke highly of the leaders that were obvious dictators and encouraged oligarchy as a standard composition in government. As to democratically inclined leaders and Heads of State, they received mumbled discourtesy.
He lacks any intuition for right, has not an inkling of compassion or reasonability unless he sees a use to benefit him in some sleazy way.
The Pentagon illustrated their position in the January 6 th attempted coup. Several Generals , (think the Flynn brothers )had done everything necessary to block use of the National Guard and were backed up by lots of other liars .
The Republicans in Congress largely lost their minds.
They suddenly were willing to support a president that appeared to be seriously mentally ill,
believed in pursuing power for the sake of it and made money it’s god.
It seems that those few who expressed disdain for his brash statements and decrees got muffled out by more crazy .
Trump learned at Putin’s knee that to screw things up and keep people off balance by repetitive lies about just about everything. Also, accuse the other side of using shady tactics that you were using.
All crazy making behaviors deployed by a man beset w the need for approval from Powerful but sinister leaders.
Also, interestingly enough Mr Trump did well with his perceived “love affairs”with atrocious murderers ie. , with the head of North Korea, Russia , Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
All of a sudden it’s become ok for Republicans to choose keynote speakers at their political events from ruthless Dictators. Once this might have been considered ‘poor form’ , now , anything goes.
The most heinous lie is the lie they’re selling about the “ stolen election”.
Again the use of tactics that need only an immoral basis with constant repetition to be bought by the people groomed to think of themselves as victims( like their dear leaders cries about ‘witch-hunts’ ad nauseam
There are so many players in government competing to be Dictator of the year
Think D’ Santis , Abbot in Texas All of the leaders who have had a part in criminalizing sexual identity. Burning books that in any way cast the truth on history , truth in general. We’ve now decided our children cannot possibly hold up under the banner of truth in teaching about the racial strife marking this country for hundreds of years Just cover your ears kids.
These people like Trump cannot, will not allow . The truth to “ set them free”.
Now we don’t allow them to feel compassion or support voting rights or in any manner, live as emotional human beings .
Those believing in Democracy and Truth must fight back , in the Voting booths of our nation in conversation in print or whatever enables the truth .
The Supreme Court is another aspect of the White Christian Nationalist lie.
They’ve been installed to be puppets for this authoritarian mind set.
Just remind yourself of the decrees they’ve sent out from their biased little tabernacle. Cutting down fifty years of precedent for women to make the best choices regarding their reproductive lives.
They are a ball and chain on democracy rather than the pillars they should be. Citizens United : Proclaimed corporations are people , as to continue this crazy.
Against enforcing Voting Rights.
The Conspiracy is everywhere as it was designed to be . Where did those emails and texts get to, anyway? You know Secret Service and who else that needs to keep accurate correspondence?
If we want our country back we cannot ask nicely.
The “ Truth will set you free, but first it’ll make you miserable”.
We’re in the miserable stage. We need the truth now.
I suggest everyone re-read the US Declaration of Independence, at least the list of grievances for which we were willing to fight.
The Declaration of independence was basically just a diatribe that listed all the ways that King George was a tyrant, as justification to leave.
The list is long and wordy, but includes:
1. Not passing laws needed by the people
2. Ignoring local government
3. Installing puppet governments and puppet judges and puppet enforcers reporting directly to the King, to pass and enforce laws the citizens disagree with.
4. George also made the military report directly to him, superior to all local authorities, and immune to prosecution.
Now read this list again, and think about the NaziRepublican Party. Basically, everything the Declaration of Independence calls out as unacceptable is what the NaziRepublican Party has done, is doing, and wants to do.
Thom's analysis may be speculation, still it makes a whole lot more sense than the noise we're getting from the usual suspect about magically de-classifying documents. Where do we go from here? If we fail to stop them, things like The Hartman Report will be prohibited, at the least. We, the people can succeed without losing our selves in the battle. I overestimated the abilities of the national security system. They seemed to have lost their edge from how I remember my time as a COMSEC Custodian. The POTUS is not controlled by the usual security standards. They have entitlements. However their entitlements are not without limitations. Trump should not have been left to do as he pleased with NDI. After his election, I thought Trump would directly go after the Department of Treasury to set himself up as the world's first trillionaire. Obviously, he had bigger, and crazier plans on the table.
An avalanche of evidence and clear indications, hard to take it all in again, old and new. Thanks.
The one thing that has bothered me every time Don T is in the spotlight, speaking of intelligence, is his clear lack of even a remote whiff of anything that deserves to be called intelligence.
So somebody else is running things, from behind the curtain, no pun intended, in that mental conjecture.
If I were writing this execrable novel, Melania would be a player, watching somebody’s money, making demands, and giving commands, while hiding in plain sight as an ignorable trophy bimbo. Her origins, access to moneyed interests, and frequent international travel, would set the stage for a web of intrigue.
Never hear anybody asking what her phone calls to the old country are about …
But then, it would be hard to believe that she would allow crucial documents to hang out in cardboard boxes, unlocked.
The simplest piece of this puzzle is the FACT that Trump is a psychopath. The intelligence officers on that list were mere objects to him, objects he could trade for what he wanted. We and this country are objects to him. Isn't it interesting that his daughter found someone just like him, and that's who Trump put in charge of every damn thing?!
Thom asks: "Was their next plan to realign us with autocratic nations like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Hungary?" I'd say mission accomplished at least during the Trump administration. The plan to debilitate our power and buy Trump was in place before 2016. We may be paying the price, but we are no longer playing THAT game!
Trump, like Pigpen in the Charlie Brown cartoon, has something swirling around him wherever he goes, it's a mixture of chaos, greed, and stupidity. Perhaps the easier question to ask is who hasn't exploited that to get what they want or destroy America.
hey, leave the innocent and gentle Pigpen out of this! ;) ( from Santa Rosa, where almost all of the Schulz figures stand large and colorful and cheerful all around Sparky’s adopted home town )
Swirling stink of corruption noted, however — b.rad
Hey, I’m down the road in Petaluma. Are you doing anything locally about our national political crisis? To see if we are of similar minds, please check out my post at the bottom here with a link to my Daily Kos piece speculating just how Trump intended to use his fake elector docs on Jan. 6th.
My mission for almost 10 years has been to get our leaders to report our net household wealth, now $141 Trillion. This is public, easy to find, but somehow it is an open secret.
We could waste weeks collecting video of Rs lying ‘we are broke’ on the floor of Congress. That’s what regular citizens know.
I’ve talked with the staff of our excellent secular congressman Huffman, but he hasn’t brought it up. I’ve sent letters, get nothing.
We moved back to California last year from Oregon, 1/10 the people, where we got to talk directly with our excellent senators every year.
A few weeks ago I used miles to fly to PDX and got to talk directly with Senator Merkley, and his staff, and gave them a copy of a letter I sent to him in 2014, when our net household wealth was a measly $81 Trillion … but haven’t heard him use that in public. Did the same thing last summer ( Zoom , $131 Trillion ) saw him lament about BBB infrastructure and strategic funding on Rachel, he didn’t use it. ( cussing )
I met the excellent professor Robert Reich on the sidewalk, by chance, and said my mission, $140 Trillion!, through masks, he raced on to his errands, but it hasn’t come up in his otherwise fine ‘Wealth & Poverty’ lectures.
I have sent postal letters to MSNBC, Rachel, Chris, Lawrence. The latter two were returned, ‘cannot forward’ even though addressed correctly. I have sent letters to many others.
I sent Rachel a telegram. An f-ing telegram. ‘$141 T! STOP etc’ Signed for by Kessler. No comment.
I have sent letters to NYT and the Washington Post; I know a great investigative editor at the latter. Nada.
I sent a letter to our Santa Rosa Press Democrat, ‘$141 Trillion!’. It wasn’t published.
For the past three years I have been unemployed. I am a US Patent Agent. I need to get a job that pays. Facing the lies about easy jobs has been taxing too.
So spending many, many hours trying to get what has to be the most glaring and foundational financial fact in our national life to simply be referenced in public debate and assessments has been exhausting.
I’ve advocated for a National Wealth Clock, to expose the lies of the national debt clocks, no traction.
I plan to keep trying, but I’m exasperated and calmly apoplectic.
Where I was raised, when you send somebody $141 Trillion, they are supposed to send you a thank you note.
More coincidences. I lived in Tualatin for 5 years before coming back here. Robert Reich has a home in Inverness and I drive a bus out there and I’ve seen him a few times, the most recent about a week ago in his car. I want to tell him about my hashtags and phraseology ideas. I met him once after he spoke in Santa Rosa, but conversation was brief as others were waiting too. Say...we’re looking for drivers and starting pay is $25. I like it because it’s a job that you don’t take home with you...
ps your thought provoking and complex Daily Kos piece is even more jarring to me, thinking about yanking Pence and substituting Grassley … that deserves some attention, haven’t heard that angle … and what could make Pence so certain that he should not do the sensible thing and go with the SS … oops … for my part, I often wonder if we would not have been better off of the conspiracy *did* go farther and harm more people, and attempt idiotic anti-constitutional distortions, and truly alarm just enough Rs — they said it with their mouths, but that didn’t last — to go far enough that it would have been too much even for most Rs plus the general public, and ended up doing the right thing and truly crashing the Rs.
And now I remember — the Senate was still in play, and no good gambler should have put money on it to go 50-50.
The one thing I can’t figure … who exactly is pulling the strings? The Rs say the right thing, in the lurch, and then next day almost comically yank their heads and do the zombie stare and say the traitorous thing. . . it’s not Don T. He’s too stupid and bumbling. It’s whatever is yanking him around, too, in my fogged misty bad movie imagination … b.rad
CIA admits to losing dozens of informants around the world. 10/2021
Leading counterintelligence officials issued a memo to all of the CIA’s global stations saying that a concerning number of U.S. informants were being captured and executed.
The CIA’s counterintelligence mission center investigated dozens of incidents in the last few years that involved killings, arrests or compromises of foreign informants. In an unusual move, the message sent via a top secret cable included the specific number of agents killed by other intelligence agencies, according to The New York Times.
Officials said that level of detail is a sign of the significance of the cable. Announcing the specific number of killings is rare as that figure is typically held under wraps from the public and even from some CIA employees, the Times noted.
So, do you think when Trump allowed the head of Russian Intelligence unsupervised access to the Oval Office for 45 minutes, maybe the guy stole secrets? No! Say it ain't so!
I'm a computer guy. With 45 minutes and sufficient preparation, and lots of much more savvy folks than me, I could create dozens of tunnels into our systems.
Trump should be prosecuted for espionage. Today my lovely wife and I were talking and I repeated what Fugelsang said, paraphrasing "It doesn't matter if Trump is arrested or not because he will be sued out of existence".
She turned and said "He can be sued while in prison, he won't be able to hide his cut of the robbery as well, and the Traitor Tots will immediately fall on each other with knives".
Rather than theory, today's topic should be classified (a trendy word of late) as a plausible hypothesis based on well-exposed facts widely available, albeit woefully incomplete.
Nowadays, due mainly to frothing-at-the-mouth MAGA fascists (Nothing "semi" about 'em, Joe!), the term conspiracy theory has come to mean wild conjecture based on the intestinal detritus, certainly not the fortitude, of enthralled Trump acolytes. "His people" have beclowned themselves in bright red hats and undying devotion (daddy issues?). His rallies resemble the Nuremberg Rallies, complete with huge, gaudy flags, mindless crowd mentality, and authoritarian buzzwords galore, just like real by-god Nazis saluting and hailing a cartoonish demigod in heavy makeup sporting a freakish hairdo -- a laughable, derisive little man with little ideas and a big mouth, constantly lying, blaming and ridiculing others for his own deep-set faults and self-made troubles. ("Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" - Welch to McCarthy)
Consider further the startling fact that Trump has been playing fast and loose with our nation's most sensitive -- most deadly! -- secrets imaginable for the past four years and 19 months! Who knows how many agents from how many adversaries spied on the copious piles of classified, secret, and top-secret documents lying around higgledy-piggledy and randomly stuffed in moving boxes, following Trump wherever he goes like the dirt cloud swirling around Pigpen!
No doubt, Putin figured out a way into the inner sanctum of his most prized useful idiot long ago. Billionaires, even fake ones, need lots of staff, consulting services, and all sorts of contractors and vendors employing armies of nameless, faceless workers crawling around like ants, especially a high-roller real estate tycoon forever dancing on the edge of the law, bankruptcy, and ruin, always in need of lots of quick cash to stave off hungry, angry wolves snapping at his heels. Any cracks in security?
With a bewildering cast of Star Wars Tatooine cantina characters populating Trump World, the chance of major breaches in America's primary security and defense apparatuses is extremely high. The cost in time and money to chase it all down and reboot entire systems, methods, technologies, and human intelligence networks is incalculable. And the potential longterm damage is mind boggling.
In game theory, as in life, anticipating worst case scenarios is an educated guess of an opponent's hidden agenda and ability to realize their nefarious goals, however incremental in the making. Americans must now seriously face the great possibility that the 45th POTUS has been selling out our country, unwittingly or not, for whatever reason, to our worst enemy and his best buddy on the world stage, Vladimir Putin. In such a sloppy security atmosphere over such a long period of time, it was probably easy pickings even for the most novice of spies.
One of history's many unknowables will likely be what exactly led Putin to think after four years of Trump at the helm he could invade Ukraine with relative impunity? What did he glean from a compliant White House that leaked like a clogged shitter? After all, that was a huge calculation to get wrong. What did he conclude, rightly or wrongly, by rummaging around in Trump's daily waste product about America's declining standing in the world to take such a brazen action?
Once again, with catastrophic results, stable genius Trump and his rinky-dink carnival of assorted brown-nosers and weirdos are caught red-handed flushing the Constitution, the rule of law, and American principles down the toilet for personal gain.
You'd hope that the Mar-a-"Lardo" (Thank you, Michael Cohen) FBI search crew included a large contingent of intrepid plumbers. It was probably like that scene in Game of Thrones when Lady Tyrell approaching King's Landing in her carriage said, "You can smell the shit from five miles away.
An image that stands out from clips of Trump's rallies is when he hugs the American flag, almost like he's wishing he could do that with Melania. That's what I call bold hypocrisy.
That, and just creepy as hell on so many levels. The President of the United States. A sexual predator humping the flag. On the world stage. What could possibly go wrong?
Another great piece, thanks for pulling all of this together in one place. What are your thoughts on Space Force, and how that may have fit into some of the early plans? When it was first announced I saw it as an opportunity for Trump to put together a military organization totally under his control. A branch that had no history, no existing command and control structure, and no leadership in place that had spent decades serving the US, independant of the who was in the White House. A branch where Trump could hand pick leadership based on loyalty to Trump rather than loyalty to the USA. Was this ever a real threat, or did it just look like it in the fog of conspiracy?
Here’s another crucial dot to connect that feeds right into all that Thom has speculated. Could this Daily Kos article spell out the actual mechanisms of the coup plan set for January 6th? After all, the coup needed some sort of legitimate-looking trigger, and Trump and his co-conspirators had put a lot of effort into creating his fake set of electors. That wasn’t just for show, was it? https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/3/2114351/-Speculation-on-How-Trump-Intended-to-Execute-His-Coup-on-Jan-6th
In days of yore (pre-Trump,) the FBI would have been on this case - Big Time! Is there any reason to suppose that they are unaware of, or ignoring this situation, or are they just too snowed by everything else, or too kowed to act?
I respectfully suggest you read about the FBI and JFK, the FBI and Nixon, and the FBI and pretty much every politician prior to Truman. The FBI is very right wing. I'm OK with that as long as they don't, for example, tell the entire planet they are investigating Hillary Clinton 20 days before the election, then on every other question say "we don't discuss ongoing cases"
I had to laugh at the guy this morning on Thom's show that he seemed to have lost this article when he returned to it. Plus, he said that when he went here to read it again, that he couldn't find it.
I laughed ... then I realized that it is now past noon here and I still haven't received this in my morning email (yet?)/ When I came here to read it, the page stalled for a minute or two - and then I had to refresh the page in order to get here. Very strange - and first time that's happened. Anyway, a friend in upstate NY that I introduced to Thom's work sent me an email this morning saying, "I know you read this,…holy shit!" to this article - of which I hadn't (and still haven't) received.
Aug 29, 2022·edited Aug 29, 2022Liked by Thom Hartmann
It’s 5:30 here and I’ve still not received this article. Yes, I’ve read it here - and it’s a concise and rather scary look - but I’m wondering (like the caller this morning) why it didn’t show up in my email. Trying not to be conspiratorial here, but just wondering out loud. 🤪
(Link to E.O. 13957 does not work, though it is easily obtainable as a quick search goes to the Federal Register.)
Reading this reminded me of the fine 1962 book, made into a film two years later, in which a cabal of generals and admirals, along with some really despicable senators, plan a coup. A slightly different scenario but not that far away.
But what gets me is how Trump and company thought they could make this stick. It's their innate arrogance and lover of power, I suppose.
It's true that shutting down the Internet and phone system, and taking over the cable television and radio network systems with shills spouting lies would have paralyzed much of the country. But there are still independent commercial radio stations, plus a lot of amateur ones, as well as some newspapers who would have sounded the alarm. And given their communication systems state governments would have figured out what was happening, plus news does filter in from abroad. Finally once they realized what was really going on, a lot of flag officers and ships' captains would have refused to go along with such a power grab. And at the least more liberal colleges and cities would have become outright centers of resistance. . After all, even Putin has had to face some pushback.
The country could have gone anywhere from a chaotic civil war to a fizzle like the last Soviet believers tried against Gorbachev. It would have been awful in any case, but it's hard to see most Americans simply waking up one day and saying, "Okay, we're a dictatorship now." At least I hope not.
If you think Thom is paranoid, I urge you to read Malcom Nance's "The Plot to Hack America", "They Want to Kill Americans" (I haven't yet read Nance's other works) and to check out many of Nance"s interviews on YOU TUBE for validation of Thom's concerns. Nance is an intelligence expert who is able to document and connect the dots.
This is serious stuff!!!
It made me wonder while I was reading if this plan was made before Trump decided to run - or if he was snagged and paid for his performance by Russia, China, and god knows who else. Or it was improvised and built onto once he was singled out as most likely to keep those “others” aka our adversaries well-informed and locked into The Plan. It seems like so many ReThuglicsns bought into (PAID INTO) effectuation to end democracy in the US. I’ll keep wondering till we know - if we ever do. Thanks Thom - again
Thom wrote an article just last week, or not long ago, if memory serves explaining how Trump became an asset to Russia back in 1987, was carefully managed for decades, but wasn't "activated" for espionage purposes until 2016. The investment really paid off. Read Thom's blurb, it will enlighten you.
You’re damn right about that!
Nance is completely wrong, I hope, but what he says adds up and makes sense and so far his predictions have been right, but I still hope Nance is completely wrong. Nance agrees with me. His writings are subdued compared to the largest flags he sees. He nails it pretty well because he sort of takes the "average" of what he sees.
Nance's analysis is sound, but his conclusions are probably wrong - HOPEFULLY wrong. I'm a big Nance fan, but Malcom provides the analysis for "if everyone who can act stays asleep".
We are seeing public unrest. When enough citizens march, a few brave, junior politicians will stop trying to do nothing wrong - which requires doing nothing.
Given the marches, I believe fairly soon we will see governments move the goalposts and swap out the ball, and make Malcolm's analysis list a bit to one side. I hope so. If so, Malcolm deserves applause for his help.
I have, since Trump’s election in 2017, believed in some structured conspiracy to allow he, and his handler’s,
to participate in a coup to overthrow democratic government in our country.
His actions and his inept words never illustrated any concept of democracy.
He first shared secrets with Russians, allowed no access to transparency with media.
What did he ever do that could be seen as a result of any deep thought?
It seemed clear he was taking direction from someone that truly was his ‘Boss’.
It is at best, disturbing, more often dumbfounding , that he took up looking for Russian approval, as well as any other nefarious players in authoritarianism.
He spoke highly of Duterte, who liked to murder drug addicts. He spoke highly of the leaders that were obvious dictators and encouraged oligarchy as a standard composition in government. As to democratically inclined leaders and Heads of State, they received mumbled discourtesy.
He lacks any intuition for right, has not an inkling of compassion or reasonability unless he sees a use to benefit him in some sleazy way.
The Pentagon illustrated their position in the January 6 th attempted coup. Several Generals , (think the Flynn brothers )had done everything necessary to block use of the National Guard and were backed up by lots of other liars .
The Republicans in Congress largely lost their minds.
They suddenly were willing to support a president that appeared to be seriously mentally ill,
believed in pursuing power for the sake of it and made money it’s god.
It seems that those few who expressed disdain for his brash statements and decrees got muffled out by more crazy .
Trump learned at Putin’s knee that to screw things up and keep people off balance by repetitive lies about just about everything. Also, accuse the other side of using shady tactics that you were using.
All crazy making behaviors deployed by a man beset w the need for approval from Powerful but sinister leaders.
Also, interestingly enough Mr Trump did well with his perceived “love affairs”with atrocious murderers ie. , with the head of North Korea, Russia , Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
All of a sudden it’s become ok for Republicans to choose keynote speakers at their political events from ruthless Dictators. Once this might have been considered ‘poor form’ , now , anything goes.
The most heinous lie is the lie they’re selling about the “ stolen election”.
Again the use of tactics that need only an immoral basis with constant repetition to be bought by the people groomed to think of themselves as victims( like their dear leaders cries about ‘witch-hunts’ ad nauseam
There are so many players in government competing to be Dictator of the year
Think D’ Santis , Abbot in Texas All of the leaders who have had a part in criminalizing sexual identity. Burning books that in any way cast the truth on history , truth in general. We’ve now decided our children cannot possibly hold up under the banner of truth in teaching about the racial strife marking this country for hundreds of years Just cover your ears kids.
These people like Trump cannot, will not allow . The truth to “ set them free”.
Now we don’t allow them to feel compassion or support voting rights or in any manner, live as emotional human beings .
Those believing in Democracy and Truth must fight back , in the Voting booths of our nation in conversation in print or whatever enables the truth .
The Supreme Court is another aspect of the White Christian Nationalist lie.
They’ve been installed to be puppets for this authoritarian mind set.
Just remind yourself of the decrees they’ve sent out from their biased little tabernacle. Cutting down fifty years of precedent for women to make the best choices regarding their reproductive lives.
They are a ball and chain on democracy rather than the pillars they should be. Citizens United : Proclaimed corporations are people , as to continue this crazy.
Against enforcing Voting Rights.
The Conspiracy is everywhere as it was designed to be . Where did those emails and texts get to, anyway? You know Secret Service and who else that needs to keep accurate correspondence?
If we want our country back we cannot ask nicely.
The “ Truth will set you free, but first it’ll make you miserable”.
We’re in the miserable stage. We need the truth now.
I suggest everyone re-read the US Declaration of Independence, at least the list of grievances for which we were willing to fight.
The Declaration of independence was basically just a diatribe that listed all the ways that King George was a tyrant, as justification to leave.
The list is long and wordy, but includes:
1. Not passing laws needed by the people
2. Ignoring local government
3. Installing puppet governments and puppet judges and puppet enforcers reporting directly to the King, to pass and enforce laws the citizens disagree with.
4. George also made the military report directly to him, superior to all local authorities, and immune to prosecution.
Now read this list again, and think about the NaziRepublican Party. Basically, everything the Declaration of Independence calls out as unacceptable is what the NaziRepublican Party has done, is doing, and wants to do.
Thom's analysis may be speculation, still it makes a whole lot more sense than the noise we're getting from the usual suspect about magically de-classifying documents. Where do we go from here? If we fail to stop them, things like The Hartman Report will be prohibited, at the least. We, the people can succeed without losing our selves in the battle. I overestimated the abilities of the national security system. They seemed to have lost their edge from how I remember my time as a COMSEC Custodian. The POTUS is not controlled by the usual security standards. They have entitlements. However their entitlements are not without limitations. Trump should not have been left to do as he pleased with NDI. After his election, I thought Trump would directly go after the Department of Treasury to set himself up as the world's first trillionaire. Obviously, he had bigger, and crazier plans on the table.
An avalanche of evidence and clear indications, hard to take it all in again, old and new. Thanks.
The one thing that has bothered me every time Don T is in the spotlight, speaking of intelligence, is his clear lack of even a remote whiff of anything that deserves to be called intelligence.
So somebody else is running things, from behind the curtain, no pun intended, in that mental conjecture.
If I were writing this execrable novel, Melania would be a player, watching somebody’s money, making demands, and giving commands, while hiding in plain sight as an ignorable trophy bimbo. Her origins, access to moneyed interests, and frequent international travel, would set the stage for a web of intrigue.
Never hear anybody asking what her phone calls to the old country are about …
But then, it would be hard to believe that she would allow crucial documents to hang out in cardboard boxes, unlocked.
So who is it / who are they?
best luck to US — b.rad
Haha, Donald and Melania as Boris and Natasha -- life imitating art.
Go, Thom! Impressive.
The simplest piece of this puzzle is the FACT that Trump is a psychopath. The intelligence officers on that list were mere objects to him, objects he could trade for what he wanted. We and this country are objects to him. Isn't it interesting that his daughter found someone just like him, and that's who Trump put in charge of every damn thing?!
Thom asks: "Was their next plan to realign us with autocratic nations like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Hungary?" I'd say mission accomplished at least during the Trump administration. The plan to debilitate our power and buy Trump was in place before 2016. We may be paying the price, but we are no longer playing THAT game!
Trump, like Pigpen in the Charlie Brown cartoon, has something swirling around him wherever he goes, it's a mixture of chaos, greed, and stupidity. Perhaps the easier question to ask is who hasn't exploited that to get what they want or destroy America.
As always, it is the cover-up that will get them.
hey, leave the innocent and gentle Pigpen out of this! ;) ( from Santa Rosa, where almost all of the Schulz figures stand large and colorful and cheerful all around Sparky’s adopted home town )
Swirling stink of corruption noted, however — b.rad
Hey, I’m down the road in Petaluma. Are you doing anything locally about our national political crisis? To see if we are of similar minds, please check out my post at the bottom here with a link to my Daily Kos piece speculating just how Trump intended to use his fake elector docs on Jan. 6th.
All politics is local . . .
My mission for almost 10 years has been to get our leaders to report our net household wealth, now $141 Trillion. This is public, easy to find, but somehow it is an open secret.
We could waste weeks collecting video of Rs lying ‘we are broke’ on the floor of Congress. That’s what regular citizens know.
I’ve talked with the staff of our excellent secular congressman Huffman, but he hasn’t brought it up. I’ve sent letters, get nothing.
We moved back to California last year from Oregon, 1/10 the people, where we got to talk directly with our excellent senators every year.
A few weeks ago I used miles to fly to PDX and got to talk directly with Senator Merkley, and his staff, and gave them a copy of a letter I sent to him in 2014, when our net household wealth was a measly $81 Trillion … but haven’t heard him use that in public. Did the same thing last summer ( Zoom , $131 Trillion ) saw him lament about BBB infrastructure and strategic funding on Rachel, he didn’t use it. ( cussing )
I met the excellent professor Robert Reich on the sidewalk, by chance, and said my mission, $140 Trillion!, through masks, he raced on to his errands, but it hasn’t come up in his otherwise fine ‘Wealth & Poverty’ lectures.
I have sent postal letters to MSNBC, Rachel, Chris, Lawrence. The latter two were returned, ‘cannot forward’ even though addressed correctly. I have sent letters to many others.
I sent Rachel a telegram. An f-ing telegram. ‘$141 T! STOP etc’ Signed for by Kessler. No comment.
I have sent letters to NYT and the Washington Post; I know a great investigative editor at the latter. Nada.
I sent a letter to our Santa Rosa Press Democrat, ‘$141 Trillion!’. It wasn’t published.
For the past three years I have been unemployed. I am a US Patent Agent. I need to get a job that pays. Facing the lies about easy jobs has been taxing too.
So spending many, many hours trying to get what has to be the most glaring and foundational financial fact in our national life to simply be referenced in public debate and assessments has been exhausting.
I’ve advocated for a National Wealth Clock, to expose the lies of the national debt clocks, no traction.
I plan to keep trying, but I’m exasperated and calmly apoplectic.
Where I was raised, when you send somebody $141 Trillion, they are supposed to send you a thank you note.
Everybody is busy, I know.
So what do you recommend, locally? — b.rad
More coincidences. I lived in Tualatin for 5 years before coming back here. Robert Reich has a home in Inverness and I drive a bus out there and I’ve seen him a few times, the most recent about a week ago in his car. I want to tell him about my hashtags and phraseology ideas. I met him once after he spoke in Santa Rosa, but conversation was brief as others were waiting too. Say...we’re looking for drivers and starting pay is $25. I like it because it’s a job that you don’t take home with you...
ps your thought provoking and complex Daily Kos piece is even more jarring to me, thinking about yanking Pence and substituting Grassley … that deserves some attention, haven’t heard that angle … and what could make Pence so certain that he should not do the sensible thing and go with the SS … oops … for my part, I often wonder if we would not have been better off of the conspiracy *did* go farther and harm more people, and attempt idiotic anti-constitutional distortions, and truly alarm just enough Rs — they said it with their mouths, but that didn’t last — to go far enough that it would have been too much even for most Rs plus the general public, and ended up doing the right thing and truly crashing the Rs.
And now I remember — the Senate was still in play, and no good gambler should have put money on it to go 50-50.
The one thing I can’t figure … who exactly is pulling the strings? The Rs say the right thing, in the lurch, and then next day almost comically yank their heads and do the zombie stare and say the traitorous thing. . . it’s not Don T. He’s too stupid and bumbling. It’s whatever is yanking him around, too, in my fogged misty bad movie imagination … b.rad
Fair enough. Trump and company wouldn't know innocent and gentle if it jumped-up and bit them in the ass.
CIA admits to losing dozens of informants around the world. 10/2021
Leading counterintelligence officials issued a memo to all of the CIA’s global stations saying that a concerning number of U.S. informants were being captured and executed.
The CIA’s counterintelligence mission center investigated dozens of incidents in the last few years that involved killings, arrests or compromises of foreign informants. In an unusual move, the message sent via a top secret cable included the specific number of agents killed by other intelligence agencies, according to The New York Times.
Officials said that level of detail is a sign of the significance of the cable. Announcing the specific number of killings is rare as that figure is typically held under wraps from the public and even from some CIA employees, the Times noted.
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575384-cia-admits-to-losing-dozens-of-informants-around-the-world-nyt/
So, do you think when Trump allowed the head of Russian Intelligence unsupervised access to the Oval Office for 45 minutes, maybe the guy stole secrets? No! Say it ain't so!
I'm a computer guy. With 45 minutes and sufficient preparation, and lots of much more savvy folks than me, I could create dozens of tunnels into our systems.
Trump should be prosecuted for espionage. Today my lovely wife and I were talking and I repeated what Fugelsang said, paraphrasing "It doesn't matter if Trump is arrested or not because he will be sued out of existence".
She turned and said "He can be sued while in prison, he won't be able to hide his cut of the robbery as well, and the Traitor Tots will immediately fall on each other with knives".
You know, she's right.
Rather than theory, today's topic should be classified (a trendy word of late) as a plausible hypothesis based on well-exposed facts widely available, albeit woefully incomplete.
Nowadays, due mainly to frothing-at-the-mouth MAGA fascists (Nothing "semi" about 'em, Joe!), the term conspiracy theory has come to mean wild conjecture based on the intestinal detritus, certainly not the fortitude, of enthralled Trump acolytes. "His people" have beclowned themselves in bright red hats and undying devotion (daddy issues?). His rallies resemble the Nuremberg Rallies, complete with huge, gaudy flags, mindless crowd mentality, and authoritarian buzzwords galore, just like real by-god Nazis saluting and hailing a cartoonish demigod in heavy makeup sporting a freakish hairdo -- a laughable, derisive little man with little ideas and a big mouth, constantly lying, blaming and ridiculing others for his own deep-set faults and self-made troubles. ("Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" - Welch to McCarthy)
Consider further the startling fact that Trump has been playing fast and loose with our nation's most sensitive -- most deadly! -- secrets imaginable for the past four years and 19 months! Who knows how many agents from how many adversaries spied on the copious piles of classified, secret, and top-secret documents lying around higgledy-piggledy and randomly stuffed in moving boxes, following Trump wherever he goes like the dirt cloud swirling around Pigpen!
No doubt, Putin figured out a way into the inner sanctum of his most prized useful idiot long ago. Billionaires, even fake ones, need lots of staff, consulting services, and all sorts of contractors and vendors employing armies of nameless, faceless workers crawling around like ants, especially a high-roller real estate tycoon forever dancing on the edge of the law, bankruptcy, and ruin, always in need of lots of quick cash to stave off hungry, angry wolves snapping at his heels. Any cracks in security?
With a bewildering cast of Star Wars Tatooine cantina characters populating Trump World, the chance of major breaches in America's primary security and defense apparatuses is extremely high. The cost in time and money to chase it all down and reboot entire systems, methods, technologies, and human intelligence networks is incalculable. And the potential longterm damage is mind boggling.
In game theory, as in life, anticipating worst case scenarios is an educated guess of an opponent's hidden agenda and ability to realize their nefarious goals, however incremental in the making. Americans must now seriously face the great possibility that the 45th POTUS has been selling out our country, unwittingly or not, for whatever reason, to our worst enemy and his best buddy on the world stage, Vladimir Putin. In such a sloppy security atmosphere over such a long period of time, it was probably easy pickings even for the most novice of spies.
One of history's many unknowables will likely be what exactly led Putin to think after four years of Trump at the helm he could invade Ukraine with relative impunity? What did he glean from a compliant White House that leaked like a clogged shitter? After all, that was a huge calculation to get wrong. What did he conclude, rightly or wrongly, by rummaging around in Trump's daily waste product about America's declining standing in the world to take such a brazen action?
Once again, with catastrophic results, stable genius Trump and his rinky-dink carnival of assorted brown-nosers and weirdos are caught red-handed flushing the Constitution, the rule of law, and American principles down the toilet for personal gain.
You'd hope that the Mar-a-"Lardo" (Thank you, Michael Cohen) FBI search crew included a large contingent of intrepid plumbers. It was probably like that scene in Game of Thrones when Lady Tyrell approaching King's Landing in her carriage said, "You can smell the shit from five miles away.
An image that stands out from clips of Trump's rallies is when he hugs the American flag, almost like he's wishing he could do that with Melania. That's what I call bold hypocrisy.
That, and just creepy as hell on so many levels. The President of the United States. A sexual predator humping the flag. On the world stage. What could possibly go wrong?
Guess we found out.
Another great piece, thanks for pulling all of this together in one place. What are your thoughts on Space Force, and how that may have fit into some of the early plans? When it was first announced I saw it as an opportunity for Trump to put together a military organization totally under his control. A branch that had no history, no existing command and control structure, and no leadership in place that had spent decades serving the US, independant of the who was in the White House. A branch where Trump could hand pick leadership based on loyalty to Trump rather than loyalty to the USA. Was this ever a real threat, or did it just look like it in the fog of conspiracy?
Here’s another crucial dot to connect that feeds right into all that Thom has speculated. Could this Daily Kos article spell out the actual mechanisms of the coup plan set for January 6th? After all, the coup needed some sort of legitimate-looking trigger, and Trump and his co-conspirators had put a lot of effort into creating his fake set of electors. That wasn’t just for show, was it? https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/3/2114351/-Speculation-on-How-Trump-Intended-to-Execute-His-Coup-on-Jan-6th
In days of yore (pre-Trump,) the FBI would have been on this case - Big Time! Is there any reason to suppose that they are unaware of, or ignoring this situation, or are they just too snowed by everything else, or too kowed to act?
I respectfully suggest you read about the FBI and JFK, the FBI and Nixon, and the FBI and pretty much every politician prior to Truman. The FBI is very right wing. I'm OK with that as long as they don't, for example, tell the entire planet they are investigating Hillary Clinton 20 days before the election, then on every other question say "we don't discuss ongoing cases"
Both faux pas were definitely against bureau policy, and I would not attribute them to be part of the general attitude of the FBI personnel.
ps — we all know it’s prima fascist obvious — that’s a technical term, but anybody can use it
I had to laugh at the guy this morning on Thom's show that he seemed to have lost this article when he returned to it. Plus, he said that when he went here to read it again, that he couldn't find it.
I laughed ... then I realized that it is now past noon here and I still haven't received this in my morning email (yet?)/ When I came here to read it, the page stalled for a minute or two - and then I had to refresh the page in order to get here. Very strange - and first time that's happened. Anyway, a friend in upstate NY that I introduced to Thom's work sent me an email this morning saying, "I know you read this,…holy shit!" to this article - of which I hadn't (and still haven't) received.
It’s 5:30 here and I’ve still not received this article. Yes, I’ve read it here - and it’s a concise and rather scary look - but I’m wondering (like the caller this morning) why it didn’t show up in my email. Trying not to be conspiratorial here, but just wondering out loud. 🤪
It turns out Substack had a crash this morning, causing this problem. I'm sorry!
Thanks! That’s a relief! 😄😄👍
(Link to E.O. 13957 does not work, though it is easily obtainable as a quick search goes to the Federal Register.)
Reading this reminded me of the fine 1962 book, made into a film two years later, in which a cabal of generals and admirals, along with some really despicable senators, plan a coup. A slightly different scenario but not that far away.
But what gets me is how Trump and company thought they could make this stick. It's their innate arrogance and lover of power, I suppose.
It's true that shutting down the Internet and phone system, and taking over the cable television and radio network systems with shills spouting lies would have paralyzed much of the country. But there are still independent commercial radio stations, plus a lot of amateur ones, as well as some newspapers who would have sounded the alarm. And given their communication systems state governments would have figured out what was happening, plus news does filter in from abroad. Finally once they realized what was really going on, a lot of flag officers and ships' captains would have refused to go along with such a power grab. And at the least more liberal colleges and cities would have become outright centers of resistance. . After all, even Putin has had to face some pushback.
The country could have gone anywhere from a chaotic civil war to a fizzle like the last Soviet believers tried against Gorbachev. It would have been awful in any case, but it's hard to see most Americans simply waking up one day and saying, "Okay, we're a dictatorship now." At least I hope not.
Oh, never gave the book title, "Seven Days in May". Burt Lancaster was great as the evil Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
It was January 6, 2021, not 2020.
OK, I just have to comment on something ONLY Thom seems to get right.
I'm hearing "you can't have your cake and eat it too!"
That's nonsense, the ONLY cake you can eat is one you have.
In the dark ages, when religion ruled, the word "Flutterby" was changed to "Butterfly", for who knows what reason.
This is the same. The cliché can ONLY be said "You can't eat your cake and have it too!"
It only makes sense that way.
Everyone needs to change this because of the impact on children and foreigners trying to unscramble English.