It's still not too late to impeach that entire shack of clowns.
The problem is that the people in control of the power to impeach are also picked for being yes men/women. It's yes-men all the way down by design.
He got the Supreme Court and the judiciary leaning his way in his first term. Congress is controlled by either his Republican primary candidates, or Republicans who are too afraid to cross him.
Now he’s purging from the federal branch anyone who is not completely ideologically loyal to him. That is the true purpose of Doge.
People demanded this and they got it eventually.
Also I suppose it’s crucial to point out that it’s not just controlling the marketplace for news, it also needed one party to be absolutely focused only on winning elections, and eschewing bipartisanship.
So on one side yes, people demanded it. But on the other side, they were manipulated to think one issue is more important than the other, to think that "the whole system is broken" etc.
Even 10 organized people with no weapons are _way_ more dangerous than one armed person. That's why all autocratic regimes firstly jail/kill organizers (right now it's Turkey). Just having eyes in 10 different places is more important.
As Jefferson really liked (proposed by Franklin): "Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God."
* assassinate the president of Japan
* assassinate health care CEO
* nearly assassinate the soon to be president
I cannot understand at all the complete lack of self respect he must have, solely for the acquisition of power.
- J.D. Vance
- J.D. Vance
- J.D. Vance
- J.D. Vance (on Trump)
- J.D. Vance
- J.D. Vance
- J.D. Vance
- J.D. VanceThe rest retired or got primaried.
Donald Trump "is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."
I don't know what those are. I'm sure they're whatever you think they are.
Even though it really kills the joke when you have to explain it, I'm guessing there are generational and national barriers to getting that reference.
I was comparing Donald Trump to Raymond Shaw[0]. You can assume I'm doing so facetiously or you can assume I'm serious. I'm not sure myself.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manchurian_Candidate_(1962...
Firstly, he has an insatiable desire for attention, admiration, and generally benefitting himself. That’s what causes his drive.
Secondly, he has no scruples or adheres to any morals or ethics whatsoever, he is completely ruthless. This allows him to do and say whatever serves him the most in any given situation.
Lastly, he has a specific type of charisma that has purchase with a certain segment of the people.
That’s is the full extent of it. He has no other skills or useful attributes. Anything else, especially if it’s at all technical or practical, comes from the people he’s surrounded himself with.
To interact with your point, he’s not even particularly adept at enlisting sycophants. Remember his first administration, when numerous aides and associates had both public and private disagreements with him (as one example out of many, I’ll refer to Rex Tillerson calling him a ”fucking moron”). The reason things are different this time is that another set of people are running the show, and they’ve realized that including old establishment Republicans, that have to at least pretend to be serious members of society, would have been a barrier to their agenda.
Turning the judiciary red across the country is especially not something you can attribute to Trump. It’s been a systematic effort by the Republicans (and adjacent organizations such as the Heritage Foundation) over the span of decades. He just happened to be in the position to make the appointments.
Sure, to some extent. Trump is an extreme outlier though, at least on the first two. And my main point was mainly that he doesn’t have anything else.
> Obama, Reagan, Clinton were the same, no?
Again, to some degree. Obama and Clinton especially were also shrewd politicians and had skills and strengths in addition to the attributes mentioned above.
Now, an elected official friend who is a former teacher is fond of saying the following: when people get elected, they come with three tiers of knowledge. There's what they know personally - their career field, maybe their hobby, maybe they are ex-military, etc. Then there's secondary: something they observed in a parent or spouse. Finally, there's everything else. In any given session - legislative, congressional, etc, there are going to be thousands of complicated topics thrown at these people, where the issues are way outside their wheelhouse. The best politicians are the ones who not only are really good at synthesizing information, but they surround themselves with quality policy staff - that is, they build a good team to overcome their own lack of background.
But in saying what I did, in no way did I imply politicians are "attention seekers in Congress who make outrageous statements to keep their names in the headlines", because that's not a description of what a sociopath is, as sociopaths can be quiet, calculating people.
It's not necessarily bad to be a sociopath, we need them in politics to be sure.
Are you suggesting that prior Presidents surrounded themselves with people directly opposed to their policy platforms?
I don't think so.
Every President selects a cabinet with people who agree with them.
Every President surrounds themselves with people who are aligned with their policy platforms. For some reason, Trump is the one President where suddenly it's an issue.
Because Trump is the first president whose hirelings
1. Used Signal to violate laws requiring retention of communication 2. Got caught by incompetently inviting a journalist to their high security chat?
But of course none of this matters to a TDS sufferer.
I strongly recommend it. Not because of this context, but because it's a fabulous movie with an amazing cast.
Trump beings people on, they are yes men.
Trump fires people, he doesn’t like people who disagree with him?
Which is it?
Take Former AG Jeff Sessions. He was a yes man but also when he did absolute bare minimum legally by recusing himself Trump fired him for insufficient loyalty
https://dowhatmatters.medium.com/dei-to-dui-cronyism-undermi...
Those aren't leaders, quite the opposite, nothing but typical Trump-like non-leaders disgracing leadership positions.
>those 18 people are just random folks
OTOH if you picked 18 random patriotic Americans, odds are none would be that far below average at defending what normal Americans have always held dear.
How likely is it that all 18 of those people were accessing from mobile operating systems with no known working exploit chain? I would say pretty unlikely.
each Android vendor has a completely random fork of AOSP with who knows what kernel patches, out-of-tree drivers, unremovable apps and customizations. you're trusting an enchilada of your mobile carrier, Google, Samsung/OnePlus/whoever, plus all their vendors.
Android can be highly secure. the NSA's Fishbowl project used vanilla AOSP + SELinux + IPSec on closely scrutinized hardware to make a phone that can be used for Secret text messages. the cheap prepaid phone you buy at T-Mobile is not that.
> each Android vendor has a completely random fork of AOSP with who knows what kernel patches, out-of-tree drivers, unremovable apps and customizations. you're trusting an enchilada of your mobile carrier, Google, Samsung/OnePlus/whoever, plus all their vendors.
That cuts both ways though. Any exploit for iPhone works on a lot of high value targets. An exploit for one android phone may well not apply to another. If we're talking about state actors, well, probably both are compromised, but the iPhone would be the priority IMO.
There aren't many comparable breaches to this one. The closest in modern times may be Hillary Clinton's email server being used for government business. In that case, the FBI investigated and declined to bring charges, under the expectation that a jury would be unlikely to render a guilty verdict.
Okay, fine. But the FBI investigated and laid out the facts.
My fear is that the current administration sees this as a PR problem. No, this was an operational failure. We should feel lucky that merely an American journalist was added by mistake.
We should expect the FBI to investigate this, too. But I worry the facts are too inconvenient for even that level of accountability.
Why would any FBI agent take a risk on investigating anyone potentially in current or future administrations? They'll get fired later when the political winds change.
"Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing ... through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust ... and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
We can only guess about the "prompt reporting of the issue", but from what I've seen and heard I'm willing to put money on the fact that, no, this was not reported.
The capable adults from the 45th administration are gone because they were too responsible. You can see what happens when you draw from a pool of nothing but drooling sub-80s.
https://apnews.com/article/tulsi-gabbard-assad-syria-trip-dn...
> “Her response was, ‘How do you know it was Assad and Russia and not ISIS?’” Mustafa recalled of the exchange. “Ludicrous question: ISIS doesn’t have airplanes.” Henning, the spokeswoman for the Trump transition, denied the exchange occurred.
> Two years later, she echoed similar doubts about the Trump administration’s assessment that the Assad regime used sarin gas to attack civilians. A United Nations panel and numerous other foreign governments came to the same conclusion.
https://apnews.com/article/gabbard-trump-putin-intelligence-...
> “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns,” she posted on Twitter at the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022.
> Gabbard’s remarks about Russia haven’t gone unnoticed in Moscow, where state-run media have praised her and even jokingly referred to her as a Russian agent. An article published Friday in RIA Novosti, a major Russian state-controlled news agency, called Gabbard “superwoman” and noted her past appearances on Russian TV, claiming that Ukrainian intelligence views her as “probably an agent of the Russian special services.”
What? That's simply not true even by a long shot. In no way shape or form is she condoning anything by being willing to engage with someone non-violently.
Go read my other response. I've quoted Tulsi talking about her trip to Syria. She's trying to find a way to end suffering. I'm not sure you really understand how much damage our own government has done to people and how we appear to others. Gabbard has more courage than you'll ever know.
> Maybe my morals just make me ill-suited to meet murderers (in a non-official capacity nonetheless).
So you're a pacifist. War is war. I'm not defending Assad I'm reminding you that people and countries do horrible things in war on both sides. The US, the atomic bomb, missiles from the sky in the middle east, collateral damage, killing families of terrorists. I think you'd have a hard time if you tried to apply your moral framework to "the good guys".
Painful as it may be, there are valid moral frameworks where ending suffering may be more important, immediate, and urgent than refusing to acknowledge another state's leader because they're horrible.
IDK... I don't have strong enough hatred in my soul to condemn someone for "meeting with a dictator" if they think there might be a path to end suffering. Honestly to me that sounds like someone with courage to do what's necessary to make a difference.
>
Gabbard said her trip included stops in Aleppo and Damascus, Syria’s capital. She also visited Beirut during the trip, which began in mid-January. Gabbard said she also met with refugees, Syrian opposition leaders, widows and family members of Syrians fighting alongside groups like al-Qaeda, and Syrians aligned with the Assad regime.
Gabbard said that the U.S. has “waged wars of regime change” in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Yet each has resulted “in unimaginable suffering, devastating loss of life, and the strengthening of groups like al-Qaeda” and the Islamic State group, she said.
“My visit to Syria has made it abundantly clear,” Gabbard said. “Our counterproductive regime change war does not serve America’s interest, and it certainly isn’t in the interest of the Syrian people.”
>
THIS IS LITERALLY WHAT THE LEFT HAS BEEN SAYING FOR DECADES. We need to get our hands our of other wars and stop causing suffering in peoples/cultures/nations we don't understand.
But oh no because she's willing to work with Trump and not against him she's a filthy fucking traitor. Your kind of rhetoric is what makes me sick.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/26/us/trump-news
> “1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package),” Hegseth wrote in the chat. “1345: Trigger Based F-18 Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME—also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s).”
If I were a potential "target terrorist" and this chat had leaked before the strikes, I'd make damned sure I wasn't at my "known location" that day.
"Speaker Mike Johnson floats eliminating federal courts as GOP ramps up attacks on judges" - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-mike-johns...
These are all smart people, so it boggles the mind to wonder how they can install a totalitarian regime without knowing the next two steps in the playbook.
I have learned about it this week.
https://gingrich360.com/2025/03/18/an-intolerable-judicial-d...
Obviously the dude had a lot of good ideas, but just grabbing anything he said and acting like it's gospel is flawed for dare I say a pretty glaring reason...
His flaws certainly belie such an assertion.
I'm saying that what Jefferson did was to remove problematic judges.
Congress had, has, and will have the power to reshape the federal judiciary as they choose. They can erase all courts below the supreme, and they can add or remove justices to the highest court as they choose (excepting present members, which are lifetime). Thus the saying "pack the court."
To challenge an executive that has friends in congress is a dangerous proposition for a federal judge.
It could end badly.
This implies that the courts cannot be an effective check and balance on the other branches. Aren't they meant to be?
It's always been controversial whether a court can disparage a law of broad application or impugn the president directly. The "effectiveness" of those functions was always a little speculative.
Lower courts typically deal with questions of fact and how they intersect with questions of law; higher courts (appeals courts and Supreme Court) typically deal with questions of law (ambiguity/interpretation) exclusively. Courts as an institution don't serve a "truth-finding function" so much as a "law-ambiguity removing function".
> disparage > impugn
Everyone seems focused on whether a court has the right to, like, insult the president personally. But that's not really the important part of what they're doing. They _of course_ have the right to question whether the law allows what the president is doing -- and questioning this is not disparagement or impugning.
Jefferson wrote that making judges the ultimate deciders of law would “place
us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”
I also hesitate why anyone would want a 360 degree view of Newt Gingrich. In real life or otherwise. /s
Clinton fared poorly under Democratic control of the house in his first two years, which was lost in the midterms.
Clinton prospered with Gengrich, and the .com era occurred under their aegis.
Some bad decisions were made by them, no doubt.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/newt-gi...
It is advocated by both sides, to this day.
The obvious case in modern point is Schumer.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/23/chuck-schume...
This is why bothsidism is ridiculous. Both sides are the same! Both are accusing the other one of something wrong! Oh, it does not matter than one is lying and other is saying the truth.
"Donald Trump widens war on legal industry with order targeting Jenner & Block" - https://www.ft.com/content/4f1aca93-62b5-419f-9182-a3a10bbe7...
"Legal community shaken by a powerful law firm's decision to give in to Trump's demands" - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/legal-...
"Trump’s crackdown on top law firms spreads to Congress" - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/24/retribution-big-law...
"The person predicted the impact could extend beyond Congress: “If you’re Google or Meta or Apple – you’re thinking, ‘Do I really want to use these firms?’ That could make it harder to work with the White House...."
> through gross negligence
Does the FBI make this determination? Wouldn’t that be the Attorney General’s call?
Now did they investigate it? Probably not.
What's interesting to me is that personal phones were not seized for forensic examination though.
Were the phones hacked by foreign agents? What other uses was signal used for?
Now whether or not said charges are prosecutable is the job of the DoJ.
The demarcation line between the two is when the charges are filed in federal court.
Hillary Clinton was famously not charged by the FBI director Comey back in 2016. Not because she committed any crime, but because they wouldn't likely get a conviction at trial.
No, they don't.
> The FBI has to be the one to investigate charges.
They investigate before there are charges.
> Now whether or not said charges are prosecutable is the job of the DoJ.
The FBI is part of the DoJ, but there aren't charges until a prosecutor—not an FBI agent—either gets a grand jury to return an indictment or files a criminal information (the latrer only an option for minor offenses or if the defendant waives indictment, usually as part of a plea bargain.) Prosecution isn't a separate thing from charges, it is what charges are.
> Hillary Clinton was famously not charged by the FBI director Comey back in 2016.
No, famously Comey announced that the FBI recommended that no charges be filed. Like I said, you have it backwards: FBI makes recommendations, federal prosecutors decide to charge, or not.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/fbi-recommends-no-charges-f...
“FBI Director James B. Comey said today that the Bureau has recommended to the Department of Justice that no charges are appropriate following an extensive investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail system during her time as Secretary of State.”
Have you ever seen law and order? They explain it succinctly in the intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMalvNeJFLk
"The Biden administration installed the Signal messaging app on CIA computers and approved it for official government use."
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/03/25/has-the-staffer...
Here's the important relevant quote:
"It is permissible to use to communicate and coordinate
for work purposes. Provided that any decisions that are
made are also recorded through formal channels. So
those were procedures that were implemented. My staff
implemented those processes," Ratcliffe said.
"My communications, to be clear, in a Signal message
group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not
include classified information," he added.
"My communications weren't classified" — my is doing some work there.
But honestly most of the people in the group will be loyal to the US regardless of leader's political affiliation.
But what they do ask is that classified information remain secret -- particularly if you're in harms way.
'My communications weren't classified at the time I made them.'
If you're in that intelligence community, you know exactly what is classified and what is not. I could imagine some information being so secretive it's not written down -- but instead passed verbally in person.
If a CIA agent has intelligence on an Israeli operation, it's classified, regardless of whether it was written down or not.
Then there is another group of consumers of this story, with the same access to all of the same evidence, and all of the same first person confirmations, who confidently declare the argument that this might be illegal null and void because Joe Biden allowed the CIA to use signal, and are persuaded away from accepting all of that evidence by articles with that contain such gems as "what the media wont tell you about the Atlantic hit piece", "Democrats talking points on this story quickly unraveled", and "help us continue to expose the lefts desperate attempts to manufacture scandals".
How can propaganda be so effective that people lose the skill of object permanence?
So, was he added to the conversation inadvertently, or was it deliberate?
On the question of whether the use of the application was negligent, well, that is now moot.
We need to stop thinking these guys are playing 3D chess when they try to shove the pieces up their nose
They also got a loyalty test with their own people. Everyone is saying "not my problem" and accepting no responsibility. They've passed that test.
Then the final loyalty test is of their voters. When this first broke, the script was "Oof. This is bad. Heads will roll because of this." When it became apparent that, no, heads will not roll, the script amongst them changed. "This doesn't matter. Why would it matter? Everyone uses insecure things and makes mistakes. Why did the journalist embarrass our country?" It's very obvious that the breaking point with their base is very far away, assuming there is one.
And the final result is seeing whether there will be consequences. A small time guy can get pinched for this and the president and everyone else will remain completely void of responsibility no matter what. But it's pretty obvious that even a small time guy won't be facing consequences.
So they've gained something very valuable from this: the realization that there really are no consequences. They're going to keep pushing things like this and they'll get bigger and bigger each time. And each time it sets a new standard for a tolerable level of bad. And any time someone supportive of them starts to think "maybe this isn't good", they'll be quick to rush in and say "it's a nothingburger, just like the last thing they were whining about." And they'll fall back in line.
These people are just brutes lumbering through a government the fully control now, smashing and doing whatever they want. There's no 4D chess.
It's a win on government efficiency I guess (no more year long investigations). But also, this is clearly not the first time they used Signal, and it won't be the last.
Couldn't every whistleblower and double agent from now on just make sure to do their leaking over signal, and therefore receive the magical immunity your logic claims signal usage provides?
Move against those that approved its use.
That would be an interesting turn of events.
And you've simply incorporated this as additional straw for your strawman.
Does this mornings additional confirmation in the form of messages including times, planes, and weapons further solidify your feelings that this is all Bidens fault?
If the Clinton email server thing was worth a rap on the knuckles, this one requires the immediate firing and possibly prosecution of every single person on that group text, each of whom should have known better.
One possible explanation is that it happens all the time.
Signal prevents what should be official government communications from being recorded. If it's recorded it can be investigated.
This is absolutely false, or as the kids call it, "misinformation".
A 3 second Google search confirms:
100 emails contained information that should have been deemed classified at the time they were sent, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails were retroactively designated confidential by the State Department.
The whole issue with her emails is she purposely never labeled anything so as to have plausible deniability.
"But here emails" was just republicans doing what they always do and pretending to be angry over mild stuff while giving own people pass over big stuff.
I think a decent case can be made that one rounds up to the other, but I guess that case seems more like an argument to be made than a fact to be corrected.
I'm not going to defend classifying embarrassing information because it's well -- embarrassing. But the established trend is to classify information "just to be safe" and let someone else make the declassifying decisions, particularly someone that's not you.
There was a weird issue with Wikileaks in that publicly released information was still considered classified, and any documents must be still treated as such.
Was that silly, yes. This led to a weird issue where journalists and members of the public had more access to certain classified documents than people holding clearances.
That thing where one side is given unbelievable benefit of the doubt that literally ignores what was happening or is happening is not healthy.
Wait, there's more!! https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/cummings-jared-kushner...
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-rus...
This time. We also have no idea how many times this has happened without the unique circumstances where the person incorrectly included would draw attention to the leak as part of their job as a journalist.
Generally speaking, if something like this can happen once, it has probably happened more than once.
We probably are very lucky that the time it very publicly happened was fairly early on in the tenure of this dumpster fire of a Presidential cabinet.
Of course instead of them seeing it this way they are certain to keep going after the journalist in an attempt to make him the bad guy of the story to project blame away, because that is what incompetent people do.
"Clinton has said that she never used her personal email to send information that was marked classified at the time, although some of her emails had been retroactively classified.
Comey says that's not true. Of 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in 2014, FBI investigators found 110 emails containing information that was classified at the time the email was sent. Eight of those were top secret, the highest level of classification."
"Another 2,000 emails have been retroactively classified since they were sent, Comey said."
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/05/484785586...
Clinton argued at the time that such emails aren't and shouldn't be classified, since she didn't discuss any information sourced from the CIA, but only the publicly available news article. That seems to me to be at least a reasonable stance.
It's absolutely a reasonable stance. However, the rules aren't reasonable. For instance, as someone who held a clearance at the time, discussing/disseminating the Snowden leaks that were published in national news was considered a violation.
Might not even be the first time already, just the first time they messed up and we found out...
How much of the administration, for how long, and for what, is using hackable systems and without mandated audit trails for protected communications? Whether external hackers are already successfully snooping, or internal cover-ups are happening of ongoing corruption, both are deeply problematic, and can be happening in parallel to stupid leaks like this. Likewise, we can't even investigate and cleanup properly because these people are illegally deleting the forensic data for their illegal and insecure actions.
It's not even a surprise. Ex: It's already pretty well documented to embarrassing extents like the president flushing official documents down toilets and clogging them. Ex: The admins use of signal was a thing in the first term as well. The only new thing afaict is the public and checks-and-balances people have the evidence in front of them of illegal use when accepting the lies and criminality.
There will be no accountability, consequences, or operational changes because the American people (a plurality of them anyway) voted for this. I like how people are even bothering to bring up the risk of prosecution, as if Trump wouldn't just pardon the people involved anyway.
Look, I am as disgusted as you are, but I continue to be impressed/disgusted by the neverending levels of shamelessness shown by Trump and his cronies:
1. Trump is now somehow blaming the reporter for this, calling him a "sleazebag".
2. Probably doesn't need repeating, but all the chants about "lock her up" against Hillary Clinton were due to her supposed mishandling of classified information. Yeah, waiting to hear all the outrage from the right over this 10x more egregious example.
3. I still continue to be awed by Hegseth railing against DEI because it's "anti-merit", as I can't think of an ass clown less qualified to be Sec of Defense.
Nothing will change unless the American people, at large, decide to punish those at the ballot box who exhibit these behaviors, and so far they have not been willing to do that.
I'm somewhat politically conservative, and I still cannot make any sense of the plurality that voted Trump into office again. I really wonder if I'm in some kind of echo chamber that prevents me from understanding their perspective.
I mean, I understand the ‘burn the world down’ perspective. I just don’t think it’s particularly productive.
More seriously, having worked in an undisclosed defence company, we were told that we would be prosecuted if we did this. There were many many security controls in place that prevented this from happening on top of the threat.
You have weird taste in men.
Levied on the Undesirables only.
The people in the chat group included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, varous other Trump administration officials and aides and notably Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
As American Oversight lawyers pointed out in their lawsuit Tuesday, Rubio is also the acting archivist of the United States and, as such, “is aware of the violations” that allegedly occurred.
The lawsuit, brought by the watchdog group American Oversight, requests that a federal judge formally declare that Hegseth and other officials on the chat violated their duty to uphold laws around the preservation of official communications.
Those laws are outlined in the Federal Records Act and, according to lawyers for American Oversight, if agency heads refuse to recover or protect their communications, the national archivist should ask the attorney general to step in.
Time will tell how this buttery Signals chat plays out .. it's certainly given other many other countries more fuel to ridicule the USofA, it's hard to believe these clowns are our partners in global "intelligence".
The administration is also claiming that there was no confidential information in the conversation, which I think is certainly debatable, but the rest of the story seems overblown to me.
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-mo...
Which says:
Organizations may already have these best practices in place, such as secure communication platforms1 and multifactor authentication (MFA) policies. In cases where organizations do not, apply the following best practices to your mobile devices.
Adopt a free messaging application for secure communications that guarantees end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or similar apps.
Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by CISA.
Moreover, the advice doesn't apply to organizations that have their own best practices in place, which the organizations in question certainly do. So the question isn't what CISA recommends it's what the CIA, DoD, Department of State, etc. recommend.
Saying that CISA approved Signal (and, in right-wing sources, saying "Biden administration CISA") is an attempt to minimize and distract.
They shouldn't have been texting classified information. Full stop.
[0] https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-mo...
I am. Throw the book at them.
Like what is wrong with you that this is your reaction to something so serious?
Now, I’m not replying to you about the morality of what happened or to tell my opinion of what is right and what is wrong.
But do you honestly believe the president is held to the same standard as you?
Would it shock you that they aren’t?
From TFA.
The discussion itself wasn't transacting classified documents as such. But as Goldberg makes clear, information of both general sensitivity and immediate tactical significance was disclosed.
Now Europe “accidentally saw” what the American powers were saying and it’s going to influence them.
I’m not at all sold that this was some ball that was dropped.
Why would that level of anti-democratic corruption have any interest in justice, when the very core of that party is based on maintaining racist injustice around the world?
The only thing we can hope for is that our system collapses and our economy weakens, while foreign economies grow.
This is the United States of America.
There's nothing wrong with writing a new constitution. France is at its 5th iteration, and some candidates propose a 6th republic, nothing dictates that you're supposed to get it right on the first try.
France has been toppled by internal revolutions and external enemies multiple times in the time that the U.S. has existed. It's not an example to aspire to.
And give France a bit more credit; they were instrumental in the US’s own internal revolution against the British.
But yeah, I agree with you. Nothing is going to happen. Just like no one at the top has been held to any kind of a standard at all since maybe Nixon. Who knows, if he had just stuck it out maybe he would have gotten off too.
"Trump’s crypto empire set to expand with new stablecoin and investment fund offerings" - https://apnews.com/article/trump-crypto-world-liberty-truth-...
"...Witkoff and his father, Trump’s special diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff, helped launch World Liberty Financial with Trump and his sons last year. Under the terms outlined on the company’s website, a Trump-owned company has the “right to receive 75% of the net protocol revenues” from World Liberty Financial after expenses..."
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077789-dying-every-day
As another commenter said, there is a thread over in r/army where soldiers are sharing stories of military careers that have ended for far less.
Or, if the chat participants really want to double down that no classified info was shared in the chat, then the Atlantic reporter should just release the full details of the chat, unredacted, and let the world make up their own mind in the info is or should have been classified.
Edit: Lol, I was too slow, looks like the Atlantic did exactly that. The CNN headline on their homepage is currently "Details Hegseth shared in Signal chat were classified, sources say. After intel officials and the White House said the group didn't disclose classified info, The Atlantic decided to release the texts." https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-presidency-news...
What channel should they use? Email? Is email more secure than Signal?
It's not against the law, actually. The President and his cabinet operate on their own rules per the Constitution, as there is additional power and executive privilege vested in the office. The only requirement is that they satisfy the Presidential Records Act, and archive the messages.
> What channel should they use?
Are you f'ing kidding me? You think the federal government doesn't have actual secure channels for discussing sensitive information besides Signal and email? Why don't you just read the f'ing texts, where Mike Waltz specifically references the proper secure channels to use.
> It's not against the law, actually. The President and his cabinet operate on their own rules per the Constitution
Ahh, yes, the new Republican defense of "the law is whatever the President says it is". Actually, no, the executive branch must still follow the law.
And, FWIW, Hegseth and Rubio certainly disagree with you. Just watch their tirades from a few years ago against a previous cabinet member for using unsecured communication channels.
And what would that be? If you knew you could just answer instead of being incredulous on account of your ignorance.
Even where other channels exist for actually disseminating plans to the military, informal discussion occurs across many channels within the President's cabinet and always has. Whether that's by phone, in person, in writing, by telegraph, in email or in encrypted text messages, there is no formal restriction on informal communication. There's no arbitrary prescription set out by the Constitution and how ridiculous would it be to do so.
The law only states that the President must archive communications to satisfy the law. That is all.
Encrypted text messages are fine for cabinet discussions actually.
Here is Biden's CISA recommending just that:
https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/mobile-commun...
The exact legal advice passed on to me around answering questions in a deposition played out live; wild.
But it's not clear that will progress to anything further.
How were the staffers archiving the disappearing messages?
What evidence do you have that the Biden administration conducted official government business on Signal?[1]
If they were above board and legal with this they wouldn’t have forced their republican congressional oversight committee to drag them into hearings.
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-cia-director-blames-biden-2...
Here is CISA page updated last under Biden's admin:
https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/mobile-commun...
In the PDF on that page you'll see Signal recommended for communication.
> Former Biden officials, though, said that Signal was never permitted on their government phones.
> “We were not allowed to have any messaging apps on our work phones,” said one former top national security official on the condition of anonymity. “And under no circumstances were unclassified messaging apps allowed to be used for transmission of classified material. This is misdirection at its worst.”
The CISA advice wasn't telling public employees to use Signal for classified communications or communications subject to FOIA.
You're going to be completely unable to show me evidence that this was ever okay, because it wasn't.
"General Recommendations Apply these best practices to your devices and online accounts. 1. Use only end-to-end encrypted communications. Adopt a free messaging application for secure communications that guarantees end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or similar apps. CISA recommends an end-to-end encrypted messaging app that is compatible with both iPhone and Android operating systems, allowing for text message interoperability across platforms. Such apps may also offer clients for MacOS, Windows, and Linux, and sometimes the web. These apps typically support one-on-one text chats, group chats with up to 1,000 participants, and encrypted voice and video calls. Additionally, they may include features like disappearing messages and images, which can enhance privacy. When selecting an end-to-end"
Nothing in that chat was classified and to the extent that any of it would be, the President and his cabinet members ultimately have final say over what is and is not classified. They are the leadership.
The chat was a discussion mostly concerning opinions on the actions and high level logistics. Actual plans were distributed through CENTCOM.
It's completely ok because it's the President's cabinet. They run the government.
There is no authority higher than the president to determine the status of information.
Yes, you are showing nothing in that quote authorizes or recommends using Signal for official communications subject to sunshine laws. Certainly not authorizing it for classified data.
> Nothing in that chat was classified and to the extent that any of it would be, the President and his cabinet members ultimately have final say over what is and is not classified. They are the leadership.
Hand-waving is not evidence, so my assertion you'd be unable to provide evidence stands. People far above my pay grade say obviously this was classified and while the president can de-classify, and he can pardon them for mishandling classified information, what they did was illegal and there's no un-ringing that particular bell.
"Organizations may already have these best practices in place, such as secure communication platforms1 and multifactor authentication (MFA) policies. In cases where organizations do not, apply the following best practices to your mobile devices."
"Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by CISA."
That they gave themselves the authority to endanger national security doesn't change the fact they endangered national security, and in fact makes what they did worse as it's intentional.
That doesn't mean they're being archived according to the law.
1. The conversation didn't include the President. Here's the full participant list for that thread: https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:on5oeyw...
2. There was tons of classified material shared including specific flight times and weapons systems. Here's a helpful side-by-side on what operational details are by default classified as Secret: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandlaws.bsky.social/post/3ll...
This is like ripping the warning sticker off an oxygen tank and pretending that makes it safe to use while smoking.
Sure, but short of something similar to the UH CEO, do you think anything will actually happen to them?
If they’re doing this then the president presumably knows and does too. Even if they get prosecuted and convicted (after years of legal nonsense) they’d just get pardoned.
These morons are going to get American citizens killed due to gross incompetence. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that half my country said "yep, let's go with these guys" when they saw a bunch of bungling Nazis yelling at clouds like something out of Hogan's Heroes. I'd laugh at the absurdity of it all if I didn't think we were in genuine danger.
I'm still trying to square how 98% of American voters went for candidates promising to continue arming the world's most live-streamed genocide, even with all those protests; even with all the footage we've seen.
How it didn't end after the Al-Nasr babies story, or after Biden was caught laundering lies about beheaded babies, or the NYT laundering lies about mass rape, I just don't know. And still the Greens couldn't get 5%?
There's something deeply dark and disturbed across the entirety of American society, and it seems like most of us can't even see it... Well, the consequences will arrive regardless.
in case you’re not being flippant and genuinely believe what you’re saying, it’s because we had only two viable candidates, one of whom should never have been legitimized. the line of thinking you present throws the baby out with the bathwater and represents a false choice. it comes across as saying that you’d rather do nothing than do something to—if not move things in the right direction—at least make it easier to permit the right direction in the future. no, instead you or others like you choose to exercise your cynical blend of moral superiority, demonstrating that you care more about your own sense of self worth than actually, you know, holding your nose and doing something. holders of that philosophy can’t seem to stand the smell of ‘imperfect’, regardless of how much damage they’ll allow to happen in the name of some false standard.
> we had only two viable candidates
That's a major part of the problem, and not one to be ignored or accepted.
> the line of thinking you present throws the baby out with the bathwater and represents a false choice.
Nope. It's simple facts. Both 'viable' candidates promised to continue arming a nation which is currently conducting genocide, as confirmed by basically every major human rights group and even some Israeli genocide scholars. That's thoroughly illegal by long-held, hard-won domestic and international law.
You can argue as to why that is, or accuse people who say so of "cycnicism" and "moral superiority", but it's a fact and needs to be said.
There is NO good reason for Harris to have ignored the wishes of the vast majority (77%) of her voter base in order to keep arming mass slaughter. Turning around on that one choice would have won her the election in a landslide, and anyone who looked at the polls knew it.
> you care more about your own sense of self worth
Again, it's simple facts. America is so thoroughly depraved that 98% of voters chose to go for someone arming an active genocide.
Not about me, not about my self worth (bro, I'm an anonymous account with basically no reputation to win or lose here). It's about America, and how a large part of it got conned into thinking that voting for a genocidaire was the right and practical thing to do somehow.
If genocide was properly considered as beyond the pale; far, far over any basic red line for human decency, then Americans would have gone for a third party candidate, or forced a change in nominations from the two 'viable' parties. It's up for debate why they didn't do that, but the simple fact is that 98% of US voters voted for continuing a live-streamed series of atrocities.
> holders of that philosophy can’t seem to stand the smell of ‘imperfect’,
The gulf between 'perfect' and 'complicit in genocide' is so, so vast. I refuse to believe that you can't understand that.
We don't like this any more than you do, yet you point the finger and offer no solutions, plan, or course of action. Your obstinacy and that of people like you served only to hand the election to those you so vehemently stand against, but rather than admit your own part in this mess we are now in, you chose to attack the people who made a rational choice to vote for Kamala given the circumstance.
I'm sorry, but you're part of the problem, here. Accept that and heal.
Were they better options? Probably. I personally was a fan of Stein. Were they available to us on any realistic level in our broken "democratic" system? No. Had I voted for her, my vote would have counted for nothing.
They had zero backing when thrown up against the two candidates that the very real and present two-party system pushed in front of us, and that was that.
Every time someone wants to whine about Harris supporting genocide, I feel like I'm talking to a bunch of bots who have never seen a US ballot, have no idea how our party system works and are incapable of comprehending the vast network of chicanery that results in two major parties drowning every other option we might actually want to vote for.
The illusion of a choice is not actually a choice, is it? So, at the time, the best plan was "NOT TRUMP AGAIN" leaving Harris as our strongest option _even though most of us did not agree with 100% of her policies_. We had a knife to our throat, and a knife at our back. We tried to get everyone on board with the knife at our back since, sure it would hurt, but at least it wouldn't kill us and we could work to move closer to a better solution.
Instead, we're now getting slit ear-to-ear because of impetuous fools who can't see past their own blind outrage.
When you feel like that for a couple decades and you start to look for the best possible outcomes that everyone will actually agree to, things start to look really, really bleak. Again, it's a War of Attrition and historically speaking, the people with the most resources win those.
Rally. Protest. Please. I have no idea what else to do. I'd lead the damned charge in the revolution if I thought anyone would follow, but my experience has been the opposite. The liberals of the world all seem to hate each other just as much as the conservatives do, so I'll be dipped if they ever really come together on anything, these days.
I don't like my conduct in the earlier comments, but after being that guy who tried to tell everyone the two-party system has no power without us for so damned long, I am not going to sit idly and listen to someone accuse me of supporting genocide when I made the most rational choice I could have with what was presented while they did nothing, as though Gaza's horrifying reality is the only thing the American people have to worry about right now. We live in a zero-sum game, and I hate it, but that's it.
Anyway, sorry to anyone I offended.
Voter: I will vote for you, because the only alternative that our party have allowed [0] a chance to win is even worse somehow.
Other voter: Hey, you know that candidate promised to continue to arm genocide, right?
Voter: Supporting her was the most rational choice. You whine. It feels like you're a bot. You don't understand the complex zero-sum game we are in. You, who I know nothing about, did nothing; while I voted. Also you're cynical and think you're morally superior.
Other voter: O-kay.
Like I said: 98% of America voted for a candidate who promised to arm genocide. We should be sanctioned by the world, and the only reason we aren't is because we threaten to either fuck their economy, ie [1], or literally invade them [2].
0 - https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/servants-of-the-mafia-s...
1 - https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/12/16/occupied-terr...
2 - https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-be...
Stein actually aligns far better with the real opinions of the majority of the American people; on affordable housing, on healthcare, on the military industrial complex, on the environment, on taxing the rich, on fracking, on education, and indeed on arming genocide.
However, the entire political and media class united to smear her as a "Russian stooge". Despite a complete lack of evidence, American voters ate that slop up and asked for seconds. It still disturbs me, how easy they made that look.
A Senate investigation ran from 2016 to 2019, investigating Stein. They found absolutely nothing, and completely cleared her in 2019... But try and find a corporate media article which acknowledges this. Many Americans still believe it; like WMDs in Iraq, or the Earth being 6,000 years old.
Try and find a Democrat who stood up for her this entire time. Nope - accusing Harvard-educated Jewish doctor ladies of being Russian assets without a shred of proof didn't seem to bother anyone.
Democrats went to extreme and even illegal lengths to take Greens off the ballot everywhere they could, and then accused the Greens of never winning elections (not true btw [0, 1]).
The media refused to cover any of those Green wins, then smeared the Greens as only appearing for Presidential elections as a "grift". A grift! In a race where that same media presented *Donald 'TrumpCoin' Trump as a serious candidate!
Let's see who was grifting:
Harris raised more than a billion dollars, and received 48.3% of the vote.
Stein raised $2.7m, 370 times less, and received 1% of the vote; in other words, her campaign dollars were more than 7 times more effective than Harris' despite rabid media bias.
But you can't explain any of this to a Harris voter. The real problem, I believe, is that once you've been conned into actively supporting genocide and ethnic cleansing, you can't really acknowledge that and still think of yourself as a good person. So people just lash out instead with personal attacks. The ones above are about the mildest I've seen, to be fair; usually bringing up Harris' complicity in genocide gets you called an asshole. Go figure.
0 - https://www.gpelections.org/election-history/victories/
1 - https://www.gpelections.org/greens-in-office/2024-july-01/
I assume you're referring to the livestreamed October 7th attacks?
Potential penalty of death as well.
Also lets not forget those messages had a 4w expiary date.
You are confuse yourself, THEY ARE THE LAW
these are the most powerful guys in the nation, who decide to catch who and whom??? these guys who decide that not the other way around
In my first week on the job, I was told, explicitly, that if I shared Classified or Controlled Unclassified information over unapproved channels, I would be reprimanded—likely fired, or less likely, prosecuted.
It was also made clear that safeguarding the nation's secrets from the carelessness of others was my responsibility, too.
It is mind-boggling that 18 people were on this thread, and none of them ever suggested that this discussion would be better served in a SCIF. To say nothing of SecDef starting the thread on Signal in the first place.
How many other such threads are active at the highest levels of government right now?
Does Chinese intelligence know?
I'm not suggesting punishment, or even prosecution, for the people involved. But the idea that this breach can occur with no accountability, consequences, or operational changes is unacceptable.