"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, confronted by reporters in Hawaii, dismissed the matter and then pivoted to attack the reporter inadvertently included in the chat, calling him a “so-called journalist.”"
That's what Trump did, even before he knew what had happened, calling The Atlantic--which grew by more than a million subscribers this year and hired MORE writers as people were getting laid off elsewhere--a failing magazine, of which he is not a fan. Is he a bigger fan today, now that it's clear that the editor in chief knows more about his own wartime ops than he does? Maybe Jeff Goldberg should be the commander in chief.
So much wrong with use of signal in this way, process of decision making etc. But also literally blaming the guy put in the room randomly by error. It's takes extraordinary hutspa to blame him. This is a great take on that. See response
We would like to know if this cabal has been using Signal for all communications since Jan. 20, explicitly because Signal allows automatic deletion of chats. No records (as required by law) and thus no problems with investigations.
What struck me about the revealed exchange was how the participants seemed to be performing their loyalty to Trump for each other. Stalin and Mao had similar groups of toadies.
As usual the Orange Menace’s first reaction was that he hadn’t heard about it. Like during the election, when he didn’t know anything about Project 2025.
As witnessed by the top dog, aka the orange felon, taking numerous top secret and higher documents with him and leaving them for anyone to find in his MAL estate, after being dismissed by the voters, his disdain for anything classified is obvious. If he can't share secrets, no one knows how important he is.
So it's absolutely no wonder his underlings operate in the same cavalier mode.
One more tasty little tidbit from CNN about signalgate:
'The discussions included a moment where Vance expressed opposition to a potential strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen to clear up shipping routes through the Suez Canal because, as Vance notes, Europe, whose trade is more reliant on the Suez Canal than the US, would benefit more than the US.
One US company that did feel the sting of the attacks on shipping routes is Tesla, led by chief US government cost-cutter Elon Musk. Tesla was forced to shut down production at its Berlin Gigafactory for a time in January because the attacks caused supply-chain problems.’
Wow. So, this entire thing is about helping el destructo. Should have known: 'follow the money' takes on new meaning in trump’s endlessly greedy clown ‘government’.
Bonus: According to Adam Kinzinger’s substack, the idjit who set up the chat was in Moscow when he was talking to the others on an unsecured phone. They probably sent vlad an invite, too: ‘Hey, bro! We’re bombing the Houthis — what a hoot! Wanna sit in on our planning? (Insert multiple boobs emojis here.)'
This is what we have to deal with when we get someone like Pete Hegseth running the DoD. Like the sexual improprieties he’s been accused of and would not own up to then what should we expect? Not only does experience matter but so does character. These people did not give a damn that they were communicating with each other on a non secure platform. This is not much different than Hillary Clinton using a non secure nongovernmental server for emails. The reasons for each party may be varying. Even so the Trump admin will defend their own hypocrisy. It should come as no surprise that something like this would happen.
This is actually very different from what Clinton did. What she did was inadvisable but legal. These nitwits have broken several laws, as well as rules for professional conduct.
Ok, so we don't have control of either house of Congress, but why is no member of Congress screaming about this? National security is at stake. If this were a Democratic administration, our ears would be bleeding from the Republican screams. Where are the elected officials who are supposed to be on our side?
As I said in an earlier post, I don’t understand why charges have not been brought against each, and every one of these traitorous people. Every one of them is a liar, just like our felonious PINO. Just disgusting and positively unconscionable.
Thanks for this. It may be the best write up of the consequences of this sophomoric exchange that I have seen since Goldberg (sorry, "JG") broke the story. What creditable intelligence service would share vital and sensitive intelligence with these drunk collegiate chuckleheads? And this paragraph:
"In this administration, when courts uphold checks and balances, it’s framed as tyranny. When a journalist is mistakenly included in a war-planning thread, it’s a paperwork error."
I can remember when American leadership didn't have as its end game a 100% "what's in it for us" ethos. Trump has crushed our former culture that a rising tide -- and standards of decency -- lift all boats into a series of transactions aimed at exacting tribute to Caesar. It is astonishingly sad.
David French, who was in the national security space, lays out the trickledown effects in a NYT article, but I'm out of gift links. Not least of which is the loss of faith in leadership by the troops. Gee, that's quite the collateral damage.
"There was no admission of fault. No signal that anything had gone wrong."
At least Trump said something:
"President Donald Trump admits the Signal group chat fiasco brought about by his national security adviser—of all people—was a hiccup for his team, but he is not rushing to can Michael Waltz just yet."
More evidence of the mindless cult of personality, that so many of these people ape the pathologies, fantasies, and prejudices of their dear leader. It is as if a Trump mind virus has spread like measles to whomever he comes in contact with. It is all there: the transactional mindset, the petty grievances, the instinctual bullying, and the shirking of responsibility for one's actions. Are they now zombies who will draw their portion of Kool Aide and march dutifully into the jungle?
This era of American history will need a new Hannah Arendt to fully analyze the implications.
I think these clowns added Jeffrey Goldberg purposely. They wanted to show how tough they are on Arab Muslims. If Goldberg wasn't part of the call, the world may not know how tough these clowns are.
"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, confronted by reporters in Hawaii, dismissed the matter and then pivoted to attack the reporter inadvertently included in the chat, calling him a “so-called journalist.”"
That's what Trump did, even before he knew what had happened, calling The Atlantic--which grew by more than a million subscribers this year and hired MORE writers as people were getting laid off elsewhere--a failing magazine, of which he is not a fan. Is he a bigger fan today, now that it's clear that the editor in chief knows more about his own wartime ops than he does? Maybe Jeff Goldberg should be the commander in chief.
It's worth noting that at least two of the writers it hired came from Jeff Bezos's Washington Post.
So much wrong with use of signal in this way, process of decision making etc. But also literally blaming the guy put in the room randomly by error. It's takes extraordinary hutspa to blame him. This is a great take on that. See response
https://open.substack.com/pub/lynnungar/p/on-beyond-dunning-kruger?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1zd7r0.
We would like to know if this cabal has been using Signal for all communications since Jan. 20, explicitly because Signal allows automatic deletion of chats. No records (as required by law) and thus no problems with investigations.
What struck me about the revealed exchange was how the participants seemed to be performing their loyalty to Trump for each other. Stalin and Mao had similar groups of toadies.
As usual the Orange Menace’s first reaction was that he hadn’t heard about it. Like during the election, when he didn’t know anything about Project 2025.
As witnessed by the top dog, aka the orange felon, taking numerous top secret and higher documents with him and leaving them for anyone to find in his MAL estate, after being dismissed by the voters, his disdain for anything classified is obvious. If he can't share secrets, no one knows how important he is.
So it's absolutely no wonder his underlings operate in the same cavalier mode.
Evidently, all that classified stuff has showed up back in the mal bathroom. You can’t make this up.
One more tasty little tidbit from CNN about signalgate:
'The discussions included a moment where Vance expressed opposition to a potential strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen to clear up shipping routes through the Suez Canal because, as Vance notes, Europe, whose trade is more reliant on the Suez Canal than the US, would benefit more than the US.
One US company that did feel the sting of the attacks on shipping routes is Tesla, led by chief US government cost-cutter Elon Musk. Tesla was forced to shut down production at its Berlin Gigafactory for a time in January because the attacks caused supply-chain problems.’
Wow. So, this entire thing is about helping el destructo. Should have known: 'follow the money' takes on new meaning in trump’s endlessly greedy clown ‘government’.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/politics/hegseth-waltz-vance-signal-chat-mistake-what-matters/index.html
Bonus: According to Adam Kinzinger’s substack, the idjit who set up the chat was in Moscow when he was talking to the others on an unsecured phone. They probably sent vlad an invite, too: ‘Hey, bro! We’re bombing the Houthis — what a hoot! Wanna sit in on our planning? (Insert multiple boobs emojis here.)'
This is what we have to deal with when we get someone like Pete Hegseth running the DoD. Like the sexual improprieties he’s been accused of and would not own up to then what should we expect? Not only does experience matter but so does character. These people did not give a damn that they were communicating with each other on a non secure platform. This is not much different than Hillary Clinton using a non secure nongovernmental server for emails. The reasons for each party may be varying. Even so the Trump admin will defend their own hypocrisy. It should come as no surprise that something like this would happen.
This is actually very different from what Clinton did. What she did was inadvisable but legal. These nitwits have broken several laws, as well as rules for professional conduct.
Agreed
Ok, so we don't have control of either house of Congress, but why is no member of Congress screaming about this? National security is at stake. If this were a Democratic administration, our ears would be bleeding from the Republican screams. Where are the elected officials who are supposed to be on our side?
Perhaps we should consider reducing their pay a little. Them and all the ex presidents and ex military officers who are not doing anything.
As I said in an earlier post, I don’t understand why charges have not been brought against each, and every one of these traitorous people. Every one of them is a liar, just like our felonious PINO. Just disgusting and positively unconscionable.
Thanks for this. It may be the best write up of the consequences of this sophomoric exchange that I have seen since Goldberg (sorry, "JG") broke the story. What creditable intelligence service would share vital and sensitive intelligence with these drunk collegiate chuckleheads? And this paragraph:
"In this administration, when courts uphold checks and balances, it’s framed as tyranny. When a journalist is mistakenly included in a war-planning thread, it’s a paperwork error."
I can remember when American leadership didn't have as its end game a 100% "what's in it for us" ethos. Trump has crushed our former culture that a rising tide -- and standards of decency -- lift all boats into a series of transactions aimed at exacting tribute to Caesar. It is astonishingly sad.
Is this is such an egregious security breach, then what are the potential consequences? What can be done?
David French, who was in the national security space, lays out the trickledown effects in a NYT article, but I'm out of gift links. Not least of which is the loss of faith in leadership by the troops. Gee, that's quite the collateral damage.
"There was no admission of fault. No signal that anything had gone wrong."
At least Trump said something:
"President Donald Trump admits the Signal group chat fiasco brought about by his national security adviser—of all people—was a hiccup for his team, but he is not rushing to can Michael Waltz just yet."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/trump-gives-dreaded-vote-of-confidence-to-adviser-behind-group-chat-fiasco/ar-AA1BCUbj
Lesson learned (hopefully).
More evidence of the mindless cult of personality, that so many of these people ape the pathologies, fantasies, and prejudices of their dear leader. It is as if a Trump mind virus has spread like measles to whomever he comes in contact with. It is all there: the transactional mindset, the petty grievances, the instinctual bullying, and the shirking of responsibility for one's actions. Are they now zombies who will draw their portion of Kool Aide and march dutifully into the jungle?
This era of American history will need a new Hannah Arendt to fully analyze the implications.
I think these clowns added Jeffrey Goldberg purposely. They wanted to show how tough they are on Arab Muslims. If Goldberg wasn't part of the call, the world may not know how tough these clowns are.
Nah. They are only interested in impressing each other, as in ‘mine’s bigger than yours.’ That’s how they see the world.
school children play acting as adults
Gut wrenching and sickening example of the clown show in Washington.