President Donald Trump's reaction to the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham has exposed a lot about how his mind operates, including his cynical use of conspiracy theories that forward his plans over all others, per a new analysis from MS NOW.In the wake of the South Carolina Republican's abrupt passing, many eyebrows were raised by a statement from FBI Director Kash Patel that the bureau would be assisting local officials in investigating the case. This led many to speculate about why such high-level law enforcement would even be necessary for a case where, as far as anyone could tell, an elderly man died from a heart issue. In turn, this also led to conspiracy theories about there being more to Graham's death, including the possibility that he was poisoned by Russia during his recent Ukraine trip.Trump, meanwhile, seemed uninterested in all of that when pressed about the FBI's involvement during an Oval Office meeting, calling it a "waste of their time.""I don't know why because I think he had a problem," Trump said. "I don't see a lot of evil there. I know there's all sorts of conspiracy theories going around. I think the FBI is wasting their time."Writing about the remark for MS NOW on Wednesday, longtime producer and contributor Steve Benen suggested that the president's comment would soon lead the FBI to abandon its involvement in the Graham case, and also called out the irony of Trump wanting the bureau to stay focused on his preferred conspiracy theories."If recent history is any guide, the president’s comments are likely to cause the Trump loyalist [Patel] to reverse course and abandon the bureau’s involvement," Benen wrote. "What Trump did not say, however, is that he wants the FBI to continue to waste its time on his own conspiracy theories, which are unrelated to Graham’s death."Benen included a link to another MS NOW piece from earlier this month, digging into the ways in which Trump's long-debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen from him have permeated his second term."A willingness to entertain or outright embrace 2020-style election fraud conspiracy theories has become a litmus test for entry into the Trump administration’s upper ranks — and once there, is just as often the surest way to survive," the report detailed. "When an official’s standing starts to slip — a bad news cycle, a sidelining, a looming firing, a confirmation fight — one of the few levers left is to be seen vindicating the president’s conviction that American elections are being stolen whenever he or his party lose."
Harold Hutchison, DCNF The House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday to safeguard the privacy of law-abiding citizens who purchase firearms, with nearly all Democrats voting against the […]
One of President Donald Trump's top MAGA allies and confidants has continued to push conspiracy theories about Sen. Mitch McConnell, according to The Daily Beast, now lashing at his office as "liars" and highlighting a specific detail in his "proof of life" photo.Laura Loomer is a prominent far-right activist and close ally of Trump, often noted for her ability to influence his decision-making and, in turn, being used as a mouthpiece for him to the MAGA movement. She has been outspoken as a skeptic of the official narrative surrounding former Senate Majority Leader McConnell's recent health scare, claiming that high-up sources within the White House told her that he is "brain dead" and will not be returning to Congress.Following months of vague statements, McConnell's office this weekend attempted to defuse theories about his condition by releasing a photo of him seemingly in good spirits, alongside a statement claiming that he had merely had a fall at home and then developed pneumonia, but had been released from the hospital. For a variety of reasons, this effort left many people, including his Senate colleagues, with more questions than answers.Loomer, unsurprisingly, has also been intensely skeptical of this photo. As The Daily Beast highlighted in a Tuesday report, she focused on one particular detail in the photo, which she claimed was suspect and possible proof that the image was either fabricated or manipulated.“Why does the text on the newspaper McConnell’s staff claim he’s holding look AI generated?” Loomer wrote in a post to X. “The text is blurry and the tag on his shirt is blurred. Also, if he’s in the hospital, why is there no IV connected to him to monitor his health? This is such bulls——. His staff are liars.”When pressed about the lack of evidence for her claims about McConnell, Loomer noted that the White House has not attempted to push back on any of her statements while speaking with The Washington Post."She did not provide substantiating evidence but said no one at the White House had asked her to correct her public comments about McConnell’s condition or the photo," the Post's report explained.The Post further claimed to have received a copy of the original photo from McConnell's and found that its metadata matched up with the official narrative surrounding it. However, some are still not convinced that it provides meaningful proof of McConnell's improved condition, with forensic psychologist John Paul Garrison arguing in a video that the senator appeared frail and propped up, even if the photo was unaltered.
The United States has by far the most data centers of any country in the world, but that growth will slow for least some time in New York state.New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) weighed in on one of the most controversial topics of the modern tech era this week, saying data centers create a high degree of uncertainty for her constituents.'New York will lead the way.'Hochul signed an executive order on Tuesday, making her position on the current status of data centers clear."As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it's my responsibility to take action and lead," the governor said, per Politico.Hochul and New York will block the construction of any new large data centers for up to one year, which, as reported by Reuters, is classified as any data center using 50 megawatts or more of power.The purpose is to allow New York state to create the framework surrounding environmental and energy regulation in relation to the data centers."New York will lead the way in creating the strongest standards in the nation for data center development, ensuring that when companies succeed because of New York, New Yorkers succeed too," Hochul added.RELATED: US company will use Chinese humanoid robots at Michigan data center Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images At the same time, the state will develop a "community investment framework" that has the stated intention of helping local communities access "economic benefits" that mitigate "potential negative effects" of new data centers.The framework would create an investment fund that data center developers would put money into to help pay for energy costs and public services. In addition, the data center developers would have to allow labor unions to weigh in on construction, local hiring, and workforce development.Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Hochul's Republican counterpart in the gubernatorial election, opposes the statewide moratorium. The Associated Press reported that Blakeman said local governments should be allowed to make deals with companies on their own accord if the projects promise sufficient economic benefits.RELATED: Cattle rancher battles Amazon data center accused of poisoning water supply, causing miscarriages Mario Tama/Getty Images New York has seen significant resistance to data centers in areas like Rockland County, where residents packed the town hall to the rafters in opposition to DataBank's Orangeburg Campus, which is about 25 miles north of Manhattan.The United States leads the world in data centers, with over 4,400, according to Statista. The second-highest nation is the United Kingdom with over 550, then Germany with more than 520.However, Cleanview reports there are only about 1,200 operating data centers in the United States, with another 1,700 planned, bringing the total of current and future sites to just under 3,000.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Washington Secrets. Today, we ask the question: What’s in a question when you won’t believe the answer anyway? Plus, we reveal (sort of) what President Donald Trump will say in his Thursday speech and explain why there is good news for the brains who thought Graham Platner was such a […]
President Donald Trump is preparing to release classified intelligence documents he claims will reveal “irregularities” in American elections address during the election he lost in 2020. But Trump’s former intelligence analyst Miles Taylor says it’s all going to be bunk. And Taylor should know — he helped scoop it.“I know what’s in that well of information [Trump’s] drawing from, because I helped dig it. During Donald Trump’s first term, I worked on election protection at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), helping to stand up the administration’s response to historic Russian interference in 2016. We built an entire, government-wide response system — intelligence analysts, cyber defenders, and law enforcement agents — who were full-time focused on stopping any such attack from happening again,” Taylor said on his Defiance website. “And I can tell you now, before Trump says a single word, he’s full of s——.”“Pardon my language. But I’m virtually certain that whatever he presents on Thursday, it will be twice-warmed leftovers of information, cherry-picked and recast to tell a story our intelligence agencies never told because it was never true,” added Taylor. “What actually happened in 2020 when it came to foreign interference, said Taylor was that America’s adversaries did try to meddle in U.S. elections during Trump’s first term and his his re-election. This included Russia, Iran, and China. Taylor says “we knew it, we tracked it, and the U.S. government declassified much of that information years ago.” But Trump’s agencies were unanimous on the crucial point that none of that tampering changed votes in either 2018 or 2020. Trump’s own cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs called the 2020 election the “most secure in American history,” putting him in the way of Trump’s Big Lie that someone stole victory from Trump. For that, Taylor said Trump fired him by tweet.“Trump never wanted election security,” said Taylor. “He wanted selective election security.”In 2018, ahead of the midterms, Taylor and his co-workers briefed Trump on the fact that multiple countries were planned to interfere, but Trump was only uninterested in exposing any country that wanted to interfere in ways that would help Democrats, specifically China.“And wouldn’t you know it — that September, Trump stood before the UN General Assembly and delivered sweeping warnings about Chinese interference. Yet he said next to nothing about Russia, the country that had actually run a sophisticated operation to help him in 2016 and was gearing up to do it again,” said Taylor. “We were gobsmacked. So were Members of Congress briefed on the same intelligence. … Inside the national security community, the conclusion was as obvious as it was appalling. Trump welcomed foreign interference when it helped him and opposed it when the threat actors seemed eager to hurt his chances.”So when Trump resurrects old news about Chinese meddling Thursday and “inflates them into proof” that 2020 was stolen from him, Taylor said remember that he’s only recycling intelligence he cherry-picked for political convenience eight years ago.“If this evidence were real, Trump himself had the power to declassify all of it before leaving office in January 2021,” said Taylor. “He didn’t … because it doesn’t say what he’ll claim it says … and proof doesn’t exist.”Meanwhile, Taylor said Trump has installed loyalists over the DNI, DOJ, and FBI, and his crew is mounting a “whole-of-government campaign to sow doubt about the vote that it fears it will lose.”
