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Trump Dictatorship and All Things Politics

This is the world we live in now. Where petty tyrants can strip your access to government services if a politician in your state isn't obsequious enough to dear leader for their liking. This is the kind of ****ery that's enabled when there's no repercussions for abusing power, it's not just Trump that we have to worry about, but all of his moronic stooges too.
 
This part of the security breach story made me chuckle: The group appears to have included virtually everyone at the highest reaches of defense and national security in the Trump administration, except the president himself.

They didn't include trump on the group text lol

Waltz, Vice President Vance, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe all appear to have been among the participants. So too, apparently, were key figures in Trump’s orbit including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and key adviser Stephen Millern and of course the editor in chief of the Atlantic, Goldberg. Not trump though.

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The use of Signal to discuss a military strike “may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of ‘national defense’ information.”

A separate but related question is whether Waltz’s apparent actions in setting some of the messages to self-delete violated laws about the preservation of official records.

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Substantively, the texts published by Goldberg are remarkable because of how they show Vance’s unease with some elements of Trump’s approach, and the group’s general distaste for what they see as Europe’s lackadaisical reliance on the U.S.

On the day before the strikes, the account labeled “JD Vance” noted he was “out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.” As Goldberg notes, the vice president was in Michigan on the day in question.

Vance noted that vastly more European trade than American trade goes through the Suez Canal. He was implicitly suggesting that the stakes in safeguarding the canal — and the Red Sea, which leads to it and where the Houthis have mounted numerous attacks — were far higher for European nations than for the U.S.

The Vance account went on: “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now” — apparently a reference to Trump’s often-repeated insistence that Europe needs to take responsibility for protecting its own interests, with military force if necessary.

Vance added, “I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself.”

In a separate message soon after, Vance said to Hegseth, “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

To that, the account that appears to be Hegseth replied, “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike [Waltz] is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.”



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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate last November, wrote on social media that Hegseth was “texting out war plans like invites to a frat party.”. Lol

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called the episode “blatantly illegal and dangerous beyond belief.” She added, “Our national security is in the hands of complete amateurs.”

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) accused the administration of “incompetence so severe that it could have gotten Americans killed.”

Trump himself pleaded ignorance.

Asked about it by reporters Monday afternoon, he responded, “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. … You’re telling me about it for the first time.”. Well ya trump, they didn't include you in the chat lol

It’s difficult to imagine any high-ranking national security official in a more conventional administration still having a job if they did what Waltz did.

But the Trump White House is like no other, and the president swiftly released a statement of support.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that Trump “continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.”

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Substantively, the texts published by Goldberg are remarkable because of how they show Vance’s unease with some elements of Trump’s approach, and the group’s general distaste for what they see as Europe’s lackadaisical reliance on the U.S.

On the day before the strikes, the account labeled “JD Vance” noted he was “out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.” As Goldberg notes, the vice president was in Michigan on the day in question.

Vance noted that vastly more European trade than American trade goes through the Suez Canal. He was implicitly suggesting that the stakes in safeguarding the canal — and the Red Sea, which leads to it and where the Houthis have mounted numerous attacks — were far higher for European nations than for the U.S.

The Vance account went on: “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now” — apparently a reference to Trump’s often-repeated insistence that Europe needs to take responsibility for protecting its own interests, with military force if necessary.

Vance added, “I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself.”

In a separate message soon after, Vance said to Hegseth, “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

To that, the account that appears to be Hegseth replied, “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike [Waltz] is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.”



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Just to piggy back on this, and to your point about Trump not being in this chat - The participants here didn’t even seem sure that Trump himself had given the go ahead on the strike. “As I heard it” really? That’s about the level of due diligence I guess we should expect from this crowd.

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It appears that at least 10 government officials were members of an illegal communication channel and a subset actively participated. No one involved reported the security breach. The story isn’t about the reporter being included accidentally, it’s about people from the President’s Chief of Staff to the National Security Advisor participating in an illegal communication of top secret information on personal devices. The software used isn’t installed on their official government devices and isn’t cleared for use for government purposes.

As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a cabinet official or secretary of defense who illegally broadcasts top secret war plans across an unsecured chat platform with an unknown third party in attendance.

Remember during the first trump administration when trump gave sources and methods of intelligence Israel had collected to the Russians? As a result of this the Israeli intelligence services severely reduced sharing Intel with the US. This amateur hour is not new. It is a foundational element of the trump administration.

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I don't know about you but I'm starting to get a little bit worried about the keystone cops running American diplomacy. Trump's negotiator Steve Witkoff yesterday couldn't even name the Ukrainian territories he was planning to hand over to Putin and said he may have been ''duped'' in his negotiations with Hamas.

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