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Crystal ball update

Published on 37 Comments on Crystal ball update

How's our crystal ball working these days? Let's roll the tape:

August 12: Kevin says the "nuclear secrets" taken from Mar-a-Lago were probably "intel about other countries' nuclear programs."

September 6: The Washington post reports that the FBI had found a document "describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities."

Always trust Kevin Drum for the finest in blog-based prophecy.

37 thoughts on “Crystal ball update”

  4. royko

    Now, can you guess which foreign government?

    Surely not Russia. He's always been very focused on China, although really, how much would he have seen on their capabilities other than "formidable". North Korea or Iran would have been more relevant. Maybe Israel?

    2. jte21

      My bet is that it has something to do with Iran or North Korea -- those were two countries he was obsessed with. Intelligence about the Iranian nuclear program would be of great interest to the Saudis in particular.

    5. Mitch Guthman

      No, Russia is definitely in the mix. I think they’d pay plenty for insight into what the USA knows or thinks they know about Russia’s defenses and plans.

      Plus, it would almost certainly give them considerable insight into how the Americans are getting their info. Insight into spies and technical means would be immensely valuable and it’s quite likely that a lot of the information is sufficiently closely held that it might be very easy to pick off spies or fix technical gaps, etc.

      1. Vog46

        Mitch
        Maybe.
        But I tend to think that the info Trump had was "old". He took it with him 2years ago. NARA knew about the documents within month of Trump leaving and I believe they had a good idea of what Trump may have taken.

        Biden would have quietly informed our allies. We became so enured with Trumps bumbling foreign affairs debacles that a quiet Biden may have informed our allies as to what was missing.
        The reason I say this is there doesn't seem to be an major gnashing of teeth by anyone on the world stage about all of this

  5. iamr4man

    The country that was my first guess was France, mostly because of the Macron stuff. But later, I said this:
    “ Has it occurred to anyone (it really just did for me) that the documents seized might be corroborating evidence of espionage?”

    If the country in question is Israel then the Saudi “investment” in Kushner’s company might be that espionage investigation.
    It would be irresponsible to not speculate.

    1. Ken Rhodes

      I have no idea what's real. But I learned a new slogan I really love:
      It would be irresponsible to not speculate.

      I plan to memorize that and use is a LOT.

  6. KawSunflower

    Just noticed an article on Alternet that is about trump's last EOs before the J6 insurrection, calling for a nuclear reactor on the moon, studies about using nuclear-powered spaceship, perhaps in alignment with Musk's desire to send them to Mars?

    Didn't read it all, or note if a reprint from another site, such as RawStory, overwhelmed with other issues, but wonder about this obsession so close to his departure from the White House.

    1. kennethalmquist

      Trump issued a number of executive orders during his last days in office. I wouldn't read too much into these because none of them were going accomplish much before Trump left office. See here for a list: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/

      The executive order you are referring to is presumably “Executive Order on Promoting Small Modular Reactors for National Defense and Space Exploration” dated January 12. People on the right of the political spectrum tend to be more supportive of nuclear power than people on the left, so it's not surprising that Trump and people around him are supportive of nuclear power, either as a matter of policy or as a way to own the libs.

      1. KawSunflower

        It was noted that there was more than one nuclear-related item, & it is was obvious that "none of them were going to accomplish much before Trump left office;" it simply made me wonder - before reading about other documents being about another country's nuclear facilities- if the papers he took had been related to possible future US actions.

        And regardless of whether or not either or both parties would support the particular projects or if Musk had anything to do with the EOs, they could be among the many blocked after Biden took office & issued some of his own.

      2. Spadesofgrey

        Owning the libs is a Republican delusion. They got way bigger issues than "the libs". A party in ivory tower delusions like that deserve whats coming to them.

    2. Salamander

      NASA has been using nuclear reactors in space like forever. Definitely not your light water uranium-fueled megamodel, of course. More like radioisotopic thermal generators. Of course, with increasingly more energy efficient chips and lighting, solar is often enough.

      1. ScentOfViolets

        I don't know whether you're being flip or not but radioisotopic power sources are not not not nuclear reactors. The former has essentially no moving parts for one thing. I would lavish some powerful lovin' on no-moving-parts reactor tech, but -- alas! -- I don't know how such a thing is even theoretically possible at our current level of development. We've got a ways to go before we get to HPLD.

  7. Joseph Harbin

    August 12:
    The news of the day is that, among other things, the FBI's search turned up boxes of two-digit numbers divisible by 11. What numbers? Nobody knows, of course, but I started getting curious about what the broad possibilities were. Here's a back-of-the-envelope list:
    1. 11
    2. 22
    3. 33
    4. 44
    5. 55
    6. 66
    7. 77
    8. 88
    9. 99

    September 6:
    The Washington post reports that the FBI had found a document with the number 22.

    They don't call me Nostra-Drum-us for nothing.

  8. cld

    I am just agreeing with everyone else, and Kevin's crystal balls, that it was probably Israel and he sold it to the Saudis.

    And, you can stuff a lot into 71 empty folders.

  12. memyselfandi

    I love how conservative sites are complaining so vigorously about how badly the Biden DOJ is leaking. But none of these stories attribute this information to government sources. It seems it could be one of Trumps employees who is an actual patriot letting the world know how awful Trump is. Just imagine one of his janitors who happens to be a veteran coming across the nuclear plans of Israel sitting out in the open.

    1. Salamander

      Indeed. Trump tends to hire undocumented immigrants, so he has more power over them, but it's totally believable that an undocumented immigrant would have a lot more American patriotism than his/her employer. Who had once been a US president.

  14. Anandakos

    But is the ally UK or France, O Great Oz? We know that Emmanuel's "proclivities" are included in the document dump [literal], but is his Force Frappe also profiled?

  18. Vog46

    "Always trust Kevin Drum for the finest in blog-based prophecy"

    And please send money. Prophecy is not cheap and should be shared with the masses, Praise Jesus.

    I betcha Kevin lays hand on Marian and she faints from the Holy Spirit entering her body...................

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