Sen. Blumenthal: Declassify Chilling Foreign Interference Report - MSNBC

[Rhiannon12866]

Russian and other foreign interference with the 2020 elections detailed in a new intelligence report must be declassified Sen. Richard Blumenthal says, as the document he calls ‘chilling’ outlines current foreign threats he believes every American should be warned about. Sen. Blumenthal joins Zerlina Maxwell to discuss.

[SheltieLover]

1. K&R!

🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

[mr_lebowski]

2. Go Get 'Em Richard!!! (nt)

[aeromanKC]

3. Needs to go viral!!

And every Dem member of Congress privy to this information needs to keep this in the news.

[BigmanPigman]

4. He tweeted a warning last Tues that alerted me...

Richard Blumenthal
@SenBlumenthal
"Shocked & appalled—I just left a 90 minute classified briefing on foreign malign threats to our elections. From spying to sabotage, Americans need to see & hear these reports.

Protect our democracy from destruction by declassifying key intel describing the danger of foreign subterfuge to our elections. Congress has been briefed, but sworn to secrecy—unacceptably."

Schiff said something similar on MSNBC today.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. He was also on earlier this week, with Rachel I think, discussing the same alert

We need to hear more from our senators on this and I agree that the people need to know.

[BigmanPigman]

6. Yes, on Wed I think ot was.

Bits and pieces have been mentioned about it this week but Blumenthal is really sounding the alarm and rightly so. Team tRump is distracting all they can to protect their #1 asset (aka Individual#1). This isn't deja vu, it's worse since they are even better at it this time around and Americans are just as clueless.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. We've seen this kind of thing before, when senators come out of a classified hearing quite shaken

I'm grateful that Blumenthal is sounding the alarm, but we need others to join him and work to release this information to the American people. We may not have a majority, but we have enough proactive and outspoken senators to push for this. We already know that Republicans, Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley specifically, are continuing to work with Russia to undermine Joe Biden and this treasonous and illegal activity needs to be made public - and they should face consequences.

[Scarsdale]

9. Warnings about the virus were ignored

by tRump. We need to KNOW what is going on BEFORE the election. We were railroaded once by Russia, now look where we are.

[BadgerMom]

7. I watched Bill Maher tonight.

A former aide to Colin Powell, I believe his name was Maxwell, was on. He is leading a group gaming out various various post-election scenarios. Republicans and Democrats are represented. In several outcomes, the Democrats have been urged to take much stronger stands. I think Sen. Blumenthal’s situation is similar. It is well past time for seemly, collegial behavior. Out with it. Find a means to avoid criminal consequences, but get the information to the electorate. Find a Deep Throat and a responsible reporter and get on with it.

[Rhiannon12866]

10. I think you mean Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, he's always very good

And I saw him, too, I usually post Bill Maher on Friday nights, but inexplicably they didn't include the Wilkerson interview this week - I thought it was the best. But here's the news story, he outlined the frightening scenarios that could happen post-election:

Lawrence Wilkerson Walks Bill Maher Through Worst Case Scenarios if Trump Loses This Fall

<snip>

According to Wilkerson, the group gamed out several different scenarios for how things could go based on specific circumstances of the election. “One that you might suspect is a complete Biden Blowout. That is to say, Electoral College and popular vote, Biden wins. Then what does the Trump team do?” he said. “Another one, as you might surmise also, and very difficult and complex, is where there is really a lot of closeness. A lot of indecision. Maybe a popular vote one way and electoral college vote in other way. Or possibly even no way to determine and it’s thrust into the House of Representatives. So different scenarios, different reactions from each team.”

On disturbing thing Wilkerson relayed to Maher was that “when the Republican team got the scenario ‘decisive Biden win’ and threw its moves out there, the Democratic team was stunned by the arrogance, the sheer power and the sheer indecency, if you will, of the Trump team moves. Everything from, Okay, we got 70 days to destroy the United States government. We’ve got 70 days in which to not provide the incoming team with any transition whatsoever; You want to know what our policy is on Iran, on China, on taxes, you won’t know it because we’ve destroyed all the paperwork and we won’t let anyone brief you. You are coming into an empty White House.”

<snip>

https://www.thewrap.com/lawrence-wilkerson-walks-bill-maher-through-worst-case-scenarios-if-trump-loses-this-fall/

[BigmanPigman]

11. I read this from The Integrity Project about the worst case scenarios

after I saw him on Bill Maher. It is pretty heavy duty/ scary.

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/08/06/getting-from-november-to-january/

[Rhiannon12866]

12. Thanks for that! And I saw him too, Lawrence Wilkerson is always smart and plugged in

Whenever he's on, I always pay attention. Thanks for the article, this is obviously shaping up to be an election like no other in our history - and here we thought that the last one was our worst nightmare. Trump is determined to shred all of our norms, traditions and laws. I still remember the reports of the transition teams, which is the longstanding nonpartisan effort to ensure a smooth transition. The Obama team was there with the usual setup, waiting to welcome the Trump team - but not a single person showed up. These are indeed unprecedented and frightening times and we need to be prepared for the unimaginable.

And though the Wilkerson interview was never uploaded, I found this article that summarized it:

Lawrence Wilkerson Walks Bill Maher Through Worst Case Scenarios if Trump Loses This Fall
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213879224

[BigmanPigman]

13. I just posted the Integrity Project article

under "editorials and other articles" forum. I am sure readers on DU are all on alert already but I wish we could get this out to the masses. Instead of showing the motorcycles in S Dakota the MSM needs to show what we will be confronted with come Nov. People still think they will vote, a winner will be announced and there will be normalcy (relatively). Most people expect some gun nuts if tRump loses but they have no idea what the GOP and team tRumPutin are up to between Nov and Jan.

[Rhiannon12866]

14. Thanks for the post and I know exactly what you mean!

The news tends to feature the obvious breaking news stories - everyone covers them and they're reduced to news bytes. But the serious in depth stories - like this one which could affect our country in devastating ways for years - likely generations - to come, if we can manage to survive this. These are such dire times that it needs to lead the news across the country...

[BigmanPigman]

15. The holidays are going to be interesting this year...

Between Covid and who knows what will be coming down the pike on a daily basis after the election until Jan 20th. Contested this and that, lawyers are going to be explaining what is going on non-stop. We will also have to listen specifically to the people who are on the transition project since they are the ones who know what's going on more than anyone else in the media....

"...they included a Democratic former governor of a swing state (Jennifer Granholm of Michigan), a former Republican National Committee chairman (Michael Steele), a Democratic former presidential Chief of Staff (John Podesta), a Republican former Presidential speechwriter (David Frum), a Republican former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff (Bill Kristol), a former Democratic head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice (Vanita Gupta), as well as many senior political operatives, former government officials, and members of the media."

[BadgerMom]

19. Thank you. That's it.

[brer cat]

16. K&R

[blueinredohio]

17. Couldn't someone leak this information?

Lots of other stuff gets leaked and if anyone finds out who did it what's going to happen? They're elected, they can't be unelected. What's the punishment?

[panfluteman]

18. EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION!

"Voters need to be made aware..." said Senator Blumenthal. EDUCATION should be the immune system of our democracy. Just as with the atomic bomb, the Russian cyberattack genie is out of the bottle now, and can't be put back in. Malign actors from all over the world are going to descend on our elections like vultures now that they saw the Russians do it so successfully in 2016. Besides voter education, eliminating the Electoral College would do a lot to strengthen our electoral system and make it a lot less vulnerable to foreign attack. The Electoral College is our national Achilles' heel that made us so vulnerable to cyberattack by the Russians. At the other end of the education spectrum or polarity, you have Trump, who is the welcoming recipient of this foreign interference, wanting to keep American voters in the dark and playing them for fools. Hell would freeze over before he would declassify any of that information - so all we can do is hope and pray that somebody leaks it.