Julie, could you please remind your news anchor friends that Obama had Osama bin Laden killed without compromising national security and that Biden had al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri killed without compromising national security.
Also, to our (former 😥) allies: If you hacked into the Signal messages please share the safe ones with the public so we all know just how easy it is to intercept Signal messages. Hegseth (aka Kegsbreath - thank you John Fugelsang) et al need to be impeached for putting the US and our allies in jeopardy.
Only one slight correction: the Signal wasn't hacked; the editor was INVITED to participate! That's even worse!
As for "impeachment," let's all try to live in reality. Who controls both Houses of Congress? The constant harping on "impeachment" may have worked 4 years ago, but now it's becoming as overused as "gaslighting" (see below).
Meaning, Signal is not secure and can be hacked. This is why all those clowns put our national security at risk. I'd love to see Canada or Greenland produce a line or two from the text chain to show that if allies could hack into Signal, imagine what sophisticated countries like Russia and China could do.
Repubs threatened daily to impeach Biden but there were never any grounds to proceed. Investigations reveal facts that need to be disclosed. Impeachment is a process through which malfeasance is on record regardless of outcome. Since there's no record through Signal (which is why they use it), we better be able to record what little info we can get.
Signal is supposedly unhackable; at least there have not been any verifiable incidents, Apparently, Russian hackers tried a few years ago without success. If it were to be hacked, you can safely bet that neither Greenland nor Canada would be the one investing the $millions doing it. What makes this incident so serious is that it didn't take those $millions or super-hackers; only stupidity. As one individual recently put it: "Encryption can't protect you from stupid."
While i agree with everything you wrote, i think that gaslighting has to be more subtle than just saying the opposite of what occurred. It has to have some element to make one think it is true. This was not the case here. Everyone who heard the story knew immediately that Hegseth realized he was cornered and did the only thing he could think of - lie. I think that this showed everyone (including any R buddies like Waltz) how easily and blatantly Hegseth lies and destroyed any fig leaf of belief that he has any ethics at all. His lie was not the least bit convincing. And while they were all guilty of using Signal and probably using their personal phones, it appears it was Hegseth (probably part of his warrior macho psyche) who copied this material from a secure server and posted it on Signal. The others were just passive recipients. One can only hope that Waltz took him aside and explained how badly he screwed up and even though they are working hard to distract from the real issues here, this was an unforced error that brought a ton of angst to the dump team by not only showing their incompetence but forcing them to lie and be hypocrites to defend themselves (even if they are better at that than anything else).
On a lighter note, I agree with your observations on "gaslighting." It's quickly become the most overused word in the language. Since the comments emanating from the administration are really aimed solely at the base, which will believe anything tRump says about anything, how about referring to all subsequent utterances as "baselighting"?
Apparently, tRump has revealed that it was a "staffer" in NSA Waltz's office who included the journalist in the distribution. Rump insists that Waltz will not be fired; honestly, can any top executive be held accountable for every single action of all underlings?
That said, given the mass government firings of the past month, virtually all for absolutely no Cause, not to fire this unnamed staffer--who made a major mistake--sends a typical message: "We don't care!"
The ball is now in the Senate's court. The issue is before the Intelligence Committee (yes, I know, "Senate" and "Intelligence" are oxymorons), and Sen Cornyn (R) has demanded further investigation. More than likely, the committee will just roll over for Rump; maybe a cursory review and a "Mistake; no harm, no foul!"
Look at how Trump and Johnson played this -- "we don't care". And why would they? They're going to appeal every case against them to SCOTUS, and will ignore any SCOTUS ruling that doesn't go their way -- because who is going to stop them? Well, perhaps with this story, we'll get our answer. The Military. Once the Military realizes the Cabinet's sloppiness is going to get troops killed, they will stage a coup and end this charade once and for all. Because nobody else has the hardware and the access to stop the MAGA movement (Congress and SCOTUS gave up their powers). Musk has made it very clear that he meddled with voting machines in swing states, and his bribe a voter scheme is already at play in Wisconsin's court election. We can't count on midterms to save us, those in power will try to subvert the election if at all possible, or ignore the results if they don't win. The only force on Earth to put a stop to this is the Military, but even this pipe dream won't happen until a major loss of life happens either in a theater of combat overseas or with a terrorism incident here that the current leadership of the CIA and FBI won't be able to thwart (or will intentionally ignore). Lest not forget the intelligence Bush received/ignored before 9/11.
Hmmmm …. Wasn’t it Forrest Gump who said, “stupid is as stupid does” (apparently originally from George Bernard Shaw). Wellll this is what you get when you 1) fire the competent and experienced government officials and 2) bring in completely unqualified, inexperienced lickspittles. Hogsbreath has to go…and Tulsi and the rest of the clown Cabernet “cabinet”…
"No war plans were discussed"...but they will investigating how Goldberg got invited to the chat list where "war plans were discussed". There's our "lying eyes" fooling us yet again.
What can be said about an demonstrably incompetent Cabinet Secretary who signals his disdain of patriotism by displaying, in his most visible pocket, a US flag handkerchief to blow his nose into.
Now would be the perfect time for democrats to hammer home how unqualified these cabinet picks are. The debacle yesterday proves that Hegseth has no business in a job like this nor do the others with the exception of Rubio who surely knew better but naturally stayed silent. In a normal administration had this security breach occurred Hegseth would be immediately fired. Not this one though. Making up stories isn’t working well for him either. Even Brett Barr on Fox said something to the effect of for God’s sake the administration admitted this group chat happened. Knock off the stories.
Excellent article. You omitted tRump's response when he was informed of this on camera. After admitting that he knew nothing of it, he said: "Oh, the Atlantic, that's not a good magazine."
I suppose it would only be a problem had it been Pravda? Oh right, Putin gets US top secret intelligence briefings directly from the White House already!
Of course Trump did his usual I know nothing about this routine. He’s so skilled at pretending a reporter’s question was the first he’d heard about the situation and then rambling on about something totally unrelated. Classic Trump. Of course he knew although he probably didn’t know the particulars in real time. The man does nothing but sign executive orders at a desk all day and then hop on a plane to one of his golf courses. He’s hardly a hands on POTUS. The world could be blowing up and he wouldn’t let it interfere with his golf game.
Julie, could you please remind your news anchor friends that Obama had Osama bin Laden killed without compromising national security and that Biden had al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri killed without compromising national security.
Also, to our (former 😥) allies: If you hacked into the Signal messages please share the safe ones with the public so we all know just how easy it is to intercept Signal messages. Hegseth (aka Kegsbreath - thank you John Fugelsang) et al need to be impeached for putting the US and our allies in jeopardy.
Only one slight correction: the Signal wasn't hacked; the editor was INVITED to participate! That's even worse!
As for "impeachment," let's all try to live in reality. Who controls both Houses of Congress? The constant harping on "impeachment" may have worked 4 years ago, but now it's becoming as overused as "gaslighting" (see below).
I wrote: To our former allies, if you hacked...
Meaning, Signal is not secure and can be hacked. This is why all those clowns put our national security at risk. I'd love to see Canada or Greenland produce a line or two from the text chain to show that if allies could hack into Signal, imagine what sophisticated countries like Russia and China could do.
Repubs threatened daily to impeach Biden but there were never any grounds to proceed. Investigations reveal facts that need to be disclosed. Impeachment is a process through which malfeasance is on record regardless of outcome. Since there's no record through Signal (which is why they use it), we better be able to record what little info we can get.
Signal is supposedly unhackable; at least there have not been any verifiable incidents, Apparently, Russian hackers tried a few years ago without success. If it were to be hacked, you can safely bet that neither Greenland nor Canada would be the one investing the $millions doing it. What makes this incident so serious is that it didn't take those $millions or super-hackers; only stupidity. As one individual recently put it: "Encryption can't protect you from stupid."
While i agree with everything you wrote, i think that gaslighting has to be more subtle than just saying the opposite of what occurred. It has to have some element to make one think it is true. This was not the case here. Everyone who heard the story knew immediately that Hegseth realized he was cornered and did the only thing he could think of - lie. I think that this showed everyone (including any R buddies like Waltz) how easily and blatantly Hegseth lies and destroyed any fig leaf of belief that he has any ethics at all. His lie was not the least bit convincing. And while they were all guilty of using Signal and probably using their personal phones, it appears it was Hegseth (probably part of his warrior macho psyche) who copied this material from a secure server and posted it on Signal. The others were just passive recipients. One can only hope that Waltz took him aside and explained how badly he screwed up and even though they are working hard to distract from the real issues here, this was an unforced error that brought a ton of angst to the dump team by not only showing their incompetence but forcing them to lie and be hypocrites to defend themselves (even if they are better at that than anything else).
On a lighter note, I agree with your observations on "gaslighting." It's quickly become the most overused word in the language. Since the comments emanating from the administration are really aimed solely at the base, which will believe anything tRump says about anything, how about referring to all subsequent utterances as "baselighting"?
Ken,
Excellent idea - really makes the point as to who is being bamboozled.
Apparently, tRump has revealed that it was a "staffer" in NSA Waltz's office who included the journalist in the distribution. Rump insists that Waltz will not be fired; honestly, can any top executive be held accountable for every single action of all underlings?
That said, given the mass government firings of the past month, virtually all for absolutely no Cause, not to fire this unnamed staffer--who made a major mistake--sends a typical message: "We don't care!"
The ball is now in the Senate's court. The issue is before the Intelligence Committee (yes, I know, "Senate" and "Intelligence" are oxymorons), and Sen Cornyn (R) has demanded further investigation. More than likely, the committee will just roll over for Rump; maybe a cursory review and a "Mistake; no harm, no foul!"
Look at how Trump and Johnson played this -- "we don't care". And why would they? They're going to appeal every case against them to SCOTUS, and will ignore any SCOTUS ruling that doesn't go their way -- because who is going to stop them? Well, perhaps with this story, we'll get our answer. The Military. Once the Military realizes the Cabinet's sloppiness is going to get troops killed, they will stage a coup and end this charade once and for all. Because nobody else has the hardware and the access to stop the MAGA movement (Congress and SCOTUS gave up their powers). Musk has made it very clear that he meddled with voting machines in swing states, and his bribe a voter scheme is already at play in Wisconsin's court election. We can't count on midterms to save us, those in power will try to subvert the election if at all possible, or ignore the results if they don't win. The only force on Earth to put a stop to this is the Military, but even this pipe dream won't happen until a major loss of life happens either in a theater of combat overseas or with a terrorism incident here that the current leadership of the CIA and FBI won't be able to thwart (or will intentionally ignore). Lest not forget the intelligence Bush received/ignored before 9/11.
Regarding that "military coup," where is Burt Lancaster when you need him? (Hint: Seven Days in May)
Hmmmm …. Wasn’t it Forrest Gump who said, “stupid is as stupid does” (apparently originally from George Bernard Shaw). Wellll this is what you get when you 1) fire the competent and experienced government officials and 2) bring in completely unqualified, inexperienced lickspittles. Hogsbreath has to go…and Tulsi and the rest of the clown Cabernet “cabinet”…
"No war plans were discussed"...but they will investigating how Goldberg got invited to the chat list where "war plans were discussed". There's our "lying eyes" fooling us yet again.
Excellent, thank you.
What can be said about an demonstrably incompetent Cabinet Secretary who signals his disdain of patriotism by displaying, in his most visible pocket, a US flag handkerchief to blow his nose into.
Now would be the perfect time for democrats to hammer home how unqualified these cabinet picks are. The debacle yesterday proves that Hegseth has no business in a job like this nor do the others with the exception of Rubio who surely knew better but naturally stayed silent. In a normal administration had this security breach occurred Hegseth would be immediately fired. Not this one though. Making up stories isn’t working well for him either. Even Brett Barr on Fox said something to the effect of for God’s sake the administration admitted this group chat happened. Knock off the stories.
Excellent article. You omitted tRump's response when he was informed of this on camera. After admitting that he knew nothing of it, he said: "Oh, the Atlantic, that's not a good magazine."
I suppose it would only be a problem had it been Pravda? Oh right, Putin gets US top secret intelligence briefings directly from the White House already!
Of course Trump did his usual I know nothing about this routine. He’s so skilled at pretending a reporter’s question was the first he’d heard about the situation and then rambling on about something totally unrelated. Classic Trump. Of course he knew although he probably didn’t know the particulars in real time. The man does nothing but sign executive orders at a desk all day and then hop on a plane to one of his golf courses. He’s hardly a hands on POTUS. The world could be blowing up and he wouldn’t let it interfere with his golf game.
Good grief! The gross incompetence is staggering!🤦🏻♂️
If I was any of our soon to be former allies, I wouldn’t share any information on intelligence or defense with the US.
And not even good clowns.
Please, to our allies DI NOT SHARE ANYTHING WITH US. WE ARE AN ADVERSARY, no longer a friend. My heart breaks for America