Where's the outrage now from all those folks who bitched and moaned about the various States and local municipalities who remove the statues of the Confederate Traitors over the last several years?
🧵 When you Google Charles Calvin Rogers, there’s an entry from DoD titled “Medal of Honor Monday: Army Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers.” If you click on the link, the page has been deleted, the URL replaced to “DEI Medal.” The disrespect is infuriating.
Gen. Rogers is a Medal of Honor recipient for his valor in Vietnam defending a forward fire support base while injured. The Medal was awarded by President Nixon in 1970. He is the highest ranking African American MoH recipient. 1/2
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Where's the outrage now from all those folks who bitched and moaned about the various States and local municipalities who remove the statues of the Confederate Traitors over the last several years?
🧵 When you Google Charles Calvin Rogers, there’s an entry from DoD titled “Medal of Honor Monday: Army Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers.” If you click on the link, the page has been deleted, the URL replaced to “DEI Medal.” The disrespect is infuriating.
Gen. Rogers is a Medal of Honor recipient for his valor in Vietnam defending a forward fire support base while injured. The Medal was awarded by President Nixon in 1970. He is the highest ranking African American MoH recipient. 1/2
You've got to erase the US history so the white males can feel proud again. And they told us that it couldn't happen here.
Where's the outrage now from all those folks who bitched and moaned about the various States and local municipalities who remove the statues of the Confederate Traitors over the last several years?
🧵 When you Google Charles Calvin Rogers, there’s an entry from DoD titled “Medal of Honor Monday: Army Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers.” If you click on the link, the page has been deleted, the URL replaced to “DEI Medal.” The disrespect is infuriating.
Gen. Rogers is a Medal of Honor recipient for his valor in Vietnam defending a forward fire support base while injured. The Medal was awarded by President Nixon in 1970. He is the highest ranking African American MoH recipient. 1/2
You've got to erase the US history so the white males can feel proud again. And they told us that it couldn't happen here.
They will rewrite history books by stating “ The Real America began in 2025 “
Capable of holding over 300 crew members and larger than any Coast Guard vessel, the USS Gravely has been assigned to help tighten border security, operating on both domestic and international waters.
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Both the Air Force and Navy memos highlight several UCMJ violations including Article 88, a rarely charged offense that outlaws "contempt against officials" such as the president, defense secretary, Congress and other officials.
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0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,100
From VoteVets: (Go to the VoteVets site to find ways to demand accountability.)
On March 15th, the Military began strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
At 1400, the public found out about it.
But at 1144, more than two hours earlier, Pete Hegseth accidentally texted the war plans to a reporter for The Atlantic.
This is a colossal f*ck up.
The Secretary of Defense, the Vice President, the National Security
Advisor, the Director of the CIA, and virtually every other top-level
Trump Administration member shared information critical to the safety of
American Troops over unsecured channels with someone uncleared to
receive it.
This is the most basic security test imaginable, and the leadership of our National Security apparatus failed it.
It’s
one thing to accidentally add your mother-in-law to your fantasy
football group chat. It’s another entirely when the top floor of the
Department of Defense accidentally adds a reporter to a group chat that
includes timetables, targets, and weapons packages — critical details
for an imminent strike. YOU DON’T TEXT THIS STUFF!
If a reporter for The Atlantic can get these plans accidentally we need to be sounding the alarm immediately.
Hegseth, Waltz, Ratcliffe, and Vance cannot give us any certainty that
their communications have not been intercepted by China, Russia, and
Iran. They cannot guarantee to us, to the public, and to the members of
the United States Military that our enemies don't already have access to
our most sensitive secrets.
When the bullets start flying, things like this get good people killed.
The
worst part? We warned everyone about this. We shouted from the hilltops
that Pete Hegseth was woefully unprepared and unqualified, and had no
place at the top of the most powerful Military in the history of the
world. This is the result.
VoteVets
is demanding that everyone involved in this FUBAR situation on March
15th is hauled in front of a Congressional hearing to answer for it.
If any corporal or lieutenant did the same, they’d already be in
Leavenworth. Waltz, Hegseth, Vance, and the rest of the JV squad leading
the Military right now should each lose their jobs over this.
But, to start, we’ll settle for some rigorous oversight.
And to think illegal immigration was framed as a “national security threat.” Seems we’ve got bigger threats.
The call is coming from inside the house, the Orange House.
Lock him up, eh?
Insane, isn't it?
I can't help but wonder when our military personnel will say, "Fuck this shit," and do something about it. Aren't they sworn to protect the country and defend the constitution? I'm pretty sure they are.
"It's a sad and beautiful world"
-Roberto Benigni
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,100
Read Heather Cox Richardson's letter today. What's going on is insanity.
HRC 3/24/25:
Today the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic,
Jeffrey Goldberg, dropped the story that senior members of the Trump
administration planned the March 15 U.S. attack on the Houthis in Yemen
over Signal, a widely available encrypted app that is most decidedly not
part of the United States national security system. The decision to
steer around government systems was possibly an attempt to hide
conversations, since the app was set to erase some messages after a week
and others after four weeks. By law, government communications must be
archived.
According
to Goldberg, the use of Signal may also have violated the Espionage
Act, which establishes how officials must handle information about the
national defense. The app is not approved for national security use, and
officials are supposed either to discuss military activity in a
sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, or to use
approved government equipment.
The
use of Signal to plan a military attack on Yemen was itself an
astonishingly dangerous breach, but what comes next is simply
mind-boggling: the reason Goldberg could report on the conversation is
that the person setting it up included Goldberg—a reporter without
security clearance—in it.
Goldberg
reports that on March 11 he received a connection request from someone
named Michael Waltz, although he did not believe the actual Michael
Waltz, who is Trump’s national security advisor, would be writing to
him. He thought it was likely someone trying to entrap him, although he
thought perhaps it could be the real Waltz with some information. Two
days later, he was included in the “Houthi PC small group,” along with a
message that the chat would be for “a principles [sic] group for
coordination on Houthis.”
As
Goldberg reports, a “principals committee generally refers to a group
of the senior-most national-security officials, including the
secretaries of defense, state, and the treasury, as well as the director
of the CIA. It should go without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that I
have never been invited to a White House principals-committee meeting,
and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I
had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app.”
The
other names on the app were those of Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
Vice President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi
Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete
Hegseth, Brian McCormack from the National Security Council, Central
Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, Trump’s Middle East and Ukraine
negotiator Steve Witkoff, White House chief of staff Suzy Wiles, perhaps
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Trump’s nominee
for head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent.
Goldberg
assumed the chat was fake, some sort of disinformation campaign,
although he was concerned when Ratcliffe provided the full name of a CIA
operative in this unsecure channel. But on March 14, as Vance, for
example, took a strong stand against Europe—“I just hate bailing Europe
out again”—and as Hegseth emphasized that their messaging must be that
“Biden failed,” Goldberg started to think the chat might be real. Those
in the chat talked of finding a way to make Europe pay the costs for the
U.S. attack, and of “minimiz[ing] risk to Saudi oil facilities.”
And
then, on March 15, the messages told of the forthcoming attack. “I will
not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts,”
Goldberg writes. “The information contained in them, if they had been
read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been
used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly
in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.
What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of
this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational
details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about
targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
On
the chat, reactions to the military strikes were emojis of a fist, an
American flag, fire, praying hands, a flexed bicep, and “Good Job Pete
and your team!!,” “Kudos to all…. Really great. God Bless,” and “Great
work and effects!”
In
the messages, with a reporter on the line, Hegseth promised his
colleagues he would “do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC,” or operations
security. In a message to the team outlining the forthcoming attack,
Hegseth wrote: “We are currently clean on OPSEC.”
Two
hours after Goldberg wrote to the officials on the chat and alerted
them to his presence on it by asking questions about it, National
Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes responded: “The thread is a
demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between
senior officials.”
When asked about the breach, Trump responded: “I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic.
To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it’s not
much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it. You're saying that they
had what?” There is nothing that the administration could say to make
the situation better, but this made it worse. As national security
specialist Tom Nichols noted: “If the President is telling the truth and
no one’s briefed him about this yet, that’s another story in itself. In
any other administration, [the chief of staff] would have been in the
Oval [Office] within nanoseconds of learning about something like this.”
Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth is evidently going to try to bully his way out
of this disaster. When asked about it, he began to yell at a reporter
that Goldberg is a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called
journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time
again.” Hegseth looked directly at the camera and said: “Nobody was
texting war plans.” But Goldberg has receipts. The chat had “the
specific time of a future attack. Specific targets, including human
targets…weapons systems…precise detail…a long section on sequencing…. He
can say that it wasn’t a war plan, but it was a minute-by-minute
accounting of what was about to happen.”
Zachary
B. Wolf of CNN noted that “Trump intentionally hired amateurs for top
jobs. This is their most dramatic blunder.” Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA)
told Brian Tyler Cohen: “My first reaction... was 'what absolute
clowns.' Total amateur hour, reckless, dangerous…. [T]his is what
happens when you have basically Fox News personalities cosplaying as
government officials.” Foreign policy scholar Timothy Snyder posted:
“These guys inherited one of the most functional state apparatus in the
history of the world and they are inhabiting it like a crack house.”
Many
observers have noted that all of these national security officials knew
that using Signal in this way was against the law, and their comfort
with jumping onto the commercial app to plan a military strike suggests
they are using Signal more generally. “How many Signal chats with
sensitive information about military operations are ongoing within the
Pentagon right now?” Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) posted. “Where else are
war plans being shared with such abject disregard for our national
security? We need answers. Right now.”
National
security journalists and officials are aghast. Former commanding
general of United States Army Europe and the Seventh Army Mark Hertling
called the story “staggering.” Former CIA officer Matt Castelli posted:
“This is more than ‘loose lips sink ships’, this is a criminally
negligent breach of classified information and war planning involving
VP, SecDef, D[irector of the] CIA, National Security Advisor—all putting
troops at risk. America is not safe.” Former transportation secretary
Pete Buttigieg, who spent seven years as an intelligence officer in the
Navy Reserve, posted: “From an operational security perspective, this is
the highest level of f**kup imaginable. These people cannot keep
America safe.”
Rhode
Island senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services
Committee, said: "If true, this story represents one of the most
egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever
seen. The carelessness shown by President Trump's cabinet is stunning
and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration
immediately." Armed Services Committee member Don Bacon (R-NE), a former
Air Force brigadier general, told Axios that
“sending this info over non-secure networks” was “unconscionable.”
“Russia and China are surely monitoring his unclassified phone.”
That
the most senior members of Trump’s administration were sharing national
security secrets on unsecure channels is especially galling since the
people on the call have used alleged breaches of national security to
hammer Democrats. Sarah Longwell and J.V. Last of The Bulwark
compiled a series of video clips of Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller, Tulsi
Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, and especially Pete Hegseth talking about the
seriousness of handling secret information and the need for
accountability for those who mishandle it. When they were accusing
then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton of such a breach, they called
for firings, accountability, and perhaps criminal charges. Indeed, Trump
rose to power in 2016 with the charge that Clinton should be sent to
prison for using a private email server. “Lock her up!” became the chant
at his rallies.
Today, for her part, Clinton posted a link to the story along with an eyes emoji and wrote: “You have got to be kidding me.”
Days after the Signal leak, the Pentagon warned the app was the target of hackers March 25, 202512:49 PM ET
By
Quil Lawrence
,
Tom Bowman A screengrab of a page of a Pentagon-wide memo warning against using the messaging app Signal.
A screengrab of a page from a Pentagon-wide memo warning against using the messaging app Signal. NPR
Several days after top national security officials accidentally included a reporter in a Signal chat about bombing Houthi sites in Yemen, a Pentagon-wide advisory warned against using the messaging app, even for unclassified information.
"A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messenger application," begins the department-wide email, dated March 18, obtained by NPR. Two men stand in front of a U.S. flag. One has his arms folded. National Security The inside story of how a journalist was sent White House war plans
The memo continues, "Russian professional hacking groups are employing the 'linked devices' features to spy on encrypted conversations." It notes that Google has identified Russian hacking groups who are "targeting Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest."
Moreover there was a memo in 2023 obtained by NPR warning of using Signal for using any non-public official information.
A Signal spokesman said the Pentagon memo is not about the messaging app's level of security, but rather that users of the service should be aware of so-called "phishing attacks." That's when hackers try to gain access to sensitive information through impersonation or other deceptive tricks.
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0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,100
Sounds about right to me:
Humor us for a minute.
On the list of forgivable mistakes:
Being late to pick up your child from practice.
Forgetting milk at the grocery store.
Edging the lawn too far.
Missing the deadline for an RSVP.
On the list of unforgivable, colossal f*ck ups:
Discussing
classified war plans on an unsecured group chat, flagged weeks prior as
a security risk by the NSA, using your personal device.
Opening sensitive communications to hacking by our adversaries.
Accidentally adding an unauthorized person to said group chat.
Endangering the lives of American pilots on a strike mission.
It’s
not just that they accidentally added a reporter to the chat. It’s not
just that they discussed sensitive information on unsecured channels.
It’s not just that each of the people on this group chat knew better.
It
is that, knowing all this, having been briefed on it, expecting
subordinates to live up to a standard each of these individuals didn’t —
they went ahead and did it anyway.
And
beyond that, there is no telling what else these idiots discussed on
unsecured channels. It is virtually certain that bad actors were
monitoring their devices. There’s no telling what other sensitive or
classified information they have now.
Don’t believe the talk from the GOP that this was “just a mistake.” It is a catastrophe. It is a failure the likes of which we’ve not seen.
The
Trump Administration has made each of us less safe. They have opened
American men and women in uniform up to exceptional risk. This has to be
treated with the seriousness it deserves, and VoteVets is going to make
sure it is.
These people are loyal to President Trump. That is all the discussion that needs to be had.
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0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,100
Guaranfuckingteed if this was a democrat administration Republicans would def call for impeachment!
Under previous administrations, impeachment would 100% been a sure thing. In past historic eras, something much more brutal would have been the response. Strange and awful times we live in.
U.S. Navy divers managed to successfully attach a line to a hoist point on the submerged vehicle. The goal is to hook up more hoists in order to pull the vehicle carrying the soldiers out of the mud.
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Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield has been fired in what appears to be a growing purge of top-ranking military officials by the Trump administration, multiple officials confirmed to Military.com.
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The Air Force Academy, West Point & Annapolis are being forced to fire 60% of their civilian employees, to include their PhD professors. They may lose their accreditation as a University. Low ranking officers & enlisted will take over instruction.
What is the point of this move? Trying to wipe out higher education?
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The Air Force Academy, West Point & Annapolis are being forced to fire 60% of their civilian employees, to include their PhD professors. They may lose their accreditation as a University. Low ranking officers & enlisted will take over instruction.
What is the point of this move? Trying to wipe out higher education?
Stupider is the future. Herr COOTWH wants to be the “smartest” guy in the room, any room. Stupid is as stupid does, can’t fix stupid but stupid did win, so there’s that stupidity.
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Navy fires commanding officer, command master chief of expeditionary security squadron Navy Cmdr. Brett Robblee and Command Master Chief Felix Phillips were both fired on Friday.
Jeff Schogol
Published Apr 11, 2025 5:33 PM EDT Navy firings 4.11.2025 Navy Cmdr. Brett Robblee (left) and Command Master Chief Felix Phillips (right) were relieved as Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron 4’s commanding officer and senior enlisted leader respectively. Navy photos.
Both the commanding officer and command master chief of Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron 4, based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, were fired on Friday, the Navy announced.
Cmdr. Brett Robblee and Command Master Chief Felix Phillips were relieved “due to a loss of confidence in their ability to perform leadership duties,” a brief Navy news release says.
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Three Hegseth aides ousted in leak investigation decry 'baseless attacks' TARA COPP Sat, April 19, 2025 at 8:05 PM EDT 2 min read Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a meeting with El Salvador's Minister of National Defense Rene Merino Monroy at the Pentagon, Wednesday, April 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Three former senior advisers to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decried on Saturday what they called “baseless attacks” after each was escorted from the Pentagon in an expanding probe on information leaks.
Dan Caldwell, a Hegseth aide; Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg; and Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff were among four officials in Hegseth’s inner circle who were ousted this past week.
While the three initially had been placed on leave pending the investigation, a joint statement shared by Caldwell on X said the three were “incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended. Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.” Advertisement Advertisement Newsletter: The Yodel Trusted news and daily delights, right in your inbox
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“At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with,” the post said.
Former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot also announced he was resigning this week. The Pentagon said, however, that Ullyot was asked to resign.
The upheaval comes less than 100 days into the Trump administration where the Pentagon has found itself frequently in the epicenter of controversial moves — from firings of senior military and civilian staff to broad edicts to purge content that promoted diversity, equity or inclusion. That led to images or other online content of heroes like the Tuskegee Airmen and Jackie Robinson being temporarily removed from the military's websites, causing public uproar.
Last month, Hegseth announced that the Pentagon’s intelligence and law enforcement arms were investigating what it says are leaks of national security information following reports that Elon Musk was set to receive a classified briefing on potential war plans with China. Advertisement Advertisement
In the announcement by Hegseth's chief of staff, Joe Kasper, the office warned that Defense Department personnel could face polygraphs in the probe.
The departures also follow the firings of senior military officers, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown; Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti; National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command director Gen. Tim Haugh; and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee.
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0
curmudgeoness
Brigadoon, foodie capital Posts: 4,039
The New York Times is reporting another Signal chat about military plans included Hegseth's wife, brother, and personal lawyer.
At this point I think we (and Russia, Iran, China, etc.) can assume that most if not all high-level conversations in this administration are happening on Signal.
All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
Comments
🍊 🤡 💩 .
Gen. Rogers is a Medal of Honor recipient for his valor in Vietnam defending a forward fire support base while injured. The Medal was awarded by President Nixon in 1970. He is the highest ranking African American MoH recipient. 1/2
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Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
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On March 15th, the Military began strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
At 1400, the public found out about it.
But at 1144, more than two hours earlier, Pete Hegseth accidentally texted the war plans to a reporter for The Atlantic.
This is a colossal f*ck up. The Secretary of Defense, the Vice President, the National Security Advisor, the Director of the CIA, and virtually every other top-level Trump Administration member shared information critical to the safety of American Troops over unsecured channels with someone uncleared to receive it.
This is the most basic security test imaginable, and the leadership of our National Security apparatus failed it.
It’s one thing to accidentally add your mother-in-law to your fantasy football group chat. It’s another entirely when the top floor of the Department of Defense accidentally adds a reporter to a group chat that includes timetables, targets, and weapons packages — critical details for an imminent strike. YOU DON’T TEXT THIS STUFF!
If a reporter for The Atlantic can get these plans accidentally we need to be sounding the alarm immediately. Hegseth, Waltz, Ratcliffe, and Vance cannot give us any certainty that their communications have not been intercepted by China, Russia, and Iran. They cannot guarantee to us, to the public, and to the members of the United States Military that our enemies don't already have access to our most sensitive secrets.
When the bullets start flying, things like this get good people killed.
The worst part? We warned everyone about this. We shouted from the hilltops that Pete Hegseth was woefully unprepared and unqualified, and had no place at the top of the most powerful Military in the history of the world. This is the result.
VoteVets is demanding that everyone involved in this FUBAR situation on March 15th is hauled in front of a Congressional hearing to answer for it. If any corporal or lieutenant did the same, they’d already be in Leavenworth. Waltz, Hegseth, Vance, and the rest of the JV squad leading the Military right now should each lose their jobs over this.
But, to start, we’ll settle for some rigorous oversight.
The call is coming from inside the house, the Orange House.
Lock him up, eh?
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
HRC 3/24/25:
Today the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, dropped the story that senior members of the Trump administration planned the March 15 U.S. attack on the Houthis in Yemen over Signal, a widely available encrypted app that is most decidedly not part of the United States national security system. The decision to steer around government systems was possibly an attempt to hide conversations, since the app was set to erase some messages after a week and others after four weeks. By law, government communications must be archived.
According to Goldberg, the use of Signal may also have violated the Espionage Act, which establishes how officials must handle information about the national defense. The app is not approved for national security use, and officials are supposed either to discuss military activity in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, or to use approved government equipment.
The use of Signal to plan a military attack on Yemen was itself an astonishingly dangerous breach, but what comes next is simply mind-boggling: the reason Goldberg could report on the conversation is that the person setting it up included Goldberg—a reporter without security clearance—in it.
Goldberg reports that on March 11 he received a connection request from someone named Michael Waltz, although he did not believe the actual Michael Waltz, who is Trump’s national security advisor, would be writing to him. He thought it was likely someone trying to entrap him, although he thought perhaps it could be the real Waltz with some information. Two days later, he was included in the “Houthi PC small group,” along with a message that the chat would be for “a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis.”
As Goldberg reports, a “principals committee generally refers to a group of the senior-most national-security officials, including the secretaries of defense, state, and the treasury, as well as the director of the CIA. It should go without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that I have never been invited to a White House principals-committee meeting, and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app.”
The other names on the app were those of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Brian McCormack from the National Security Council, Central Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, Trump’s Middle East and Ukraine negotiator Steve Witkoff, White House chief of staff Suzy Wiles, perhaps White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Trump’s nominee for head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent.
Goldberg assumed the chat was fake, some sort of disinformation campaign, although he was concerned when Ratcliffe provided the full name of a CIA operative in this unsecure channel. But on March 14, as Vance, for example, took a strong stand against Europe—“I just hate bailing Europe out again”—and as Hegseth emphasized that their messaging must be that “Biden failed,” Goldberg started to think the chat might be real. Those in the chat talked of finding a way to make Europe pay the costs for the U.S. attack, and of “minimiz[ing] risk to Saudi oil facilities.”
And then, on March 15, the messages told of the forthcoming attack. “I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts,” Goldberg writes. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
On the chat, reactions to the military strikes were emojis of a fist, an American flag, fire, praying hands, a flexed bicep, and “Good Job Pete and your team!!,” “Kudos to all…. Really great. God Bless,” and “Great work and effects!”
In the messages, with a reporter on the line, Hegseth promised his colleagues he would “do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC,” or operations security. In a message to the team outlining the forthcoming attack, Hegseth wrote: “We are currently clean on OPSEC.”
Two hours after Goldberg wrote to the officials on the chat and alerted them to his presence on it by asking questions about it, National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes responded: “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.”
When asked about the breach, Trump responded: “I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what?” There is nothing that the administration could say to make the situation better, but this made it worse. As national security specialist Tom Nichols noted: “If the President is telling the truth and no one’s briefed him about this yet, that’s another story in itself. In any other administration, [the chief of staff] would have been in the Oval [Office] within nanoseconds of learning about something like this.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is evidently going to try to bully his way out of this disaster. When asked about it, he began to yell at a reporter that Goldberg is a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.” Hegseth looked directly at the camera and said: “Nobody was texting war plans.” But Goldberg has receipts. The chat had “the specific time of a future attack. Specific targets, including human targets…weapons systems…precise detail…a long section on sequencing…. He can say that it wasn’t a war plan, but it was a minute-by-minute accounting of what was about to happen.”
Zachary B. Wolf of CNN noted that “Trump intentionally hired amateurs for top jobs. This is their most dramatic blunder.” Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told Brian Tyler Cohen: “My first reaction... was 'what absolute clowns.' Total amateur hour, reckless, dangerous…. [T]his is what happens when you have basically Fox News personalities cosplaying as government officials.” Foreign policy scholar Timothy Snyder posted: “These guys inherited one of the most functional state apparatus in the history of the world and they are inhabiting it like a crack house.”
Many observers have noted that all of these national security officials knew that using Signal in this way was against the law, and their comfort with jumping onto the commercial app to plan a military strike suggests they are using Signal more generally. “How many Signal chats with sensitive information about military operations are ongoing within the Pentagon right now?” Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) posted. “Where else are war plans being shared with such abject disregard for our national security? We need answers. Right now.”
National security journalists and officials are aghast. Former commanding general of United States Army Europe and the Seventh Army Mark Hertling called the story “staggering.” Former CIA officer Matt Castelli posted: “This is more than ‘loose lips sink ships’, this is a criminally negligent breach of classified information and war planning involving VP, SecDef, D[irector of the] CIA, National Security Advisor—all putting troops at risk. America is not safe.” Former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, who spent seven years as an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve, posted: “From an operational security perspective, this is the highest level of f**kup imaginable. These people cannot keep America safe.”
Rhode Island senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said: "If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen. The carelessness shown by President Trump's cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately." Armed Services Committee member Don Bacon (R-NE), a former Air Force brigadier general, told Axios that “sending this info over non-secure networks” was “unconscionable.” “Russia and China are surely monitoring his unclassified phone.”
That the most senior members of Trump’s administration were sharing national security secrets on unsecure channels is especially galling since the people on the call have used alleged breaches of national security to hammer Democrats. Sarah Longwell and J.V. Last of The Bulwark compiled a series of video clips of Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller, Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, and especially Pete Hegseth talking about the seriousness of handling secret information and the need for accountability for those who mishandle it. When they were accusing then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton of such a breach, they called for firings, accountability, and perhaps criminal charges. Indeed, Trump rose to power in 2016 with the charge that Clinton should be sent to prison for using a private email server. “Lock her up!” became the chant at his rallies.
Today, for her part, Clinton posted a link to the story along with an eyes emoji and wrote: “You have got to be kidding me.”
Days after the Signal leak, the Pentagon warned the app was the target of hackers
March 25, 202512:49 PM ET
By
Quil Lawrence
,
Tom Bowman
A screengrab of a page of a Pentagon-wide memo warning against using the messaging app Signal.
A screengrab of a page from a Pentagon-wide memo warning against using the messaging app Signal.
NPR
Several days after top national security officials accidentally included a reporter in a Signal chat about bombing Houthi sites in Yemen, a Pentagon-wide advisory warned against using the messaging app, even for unclassified information.
"A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messenger application," begins the department-wide email, dated March 18, obtained by NPR.
Two men stand in front of a U.S. flag. One has his arms folded.
National Security
The inside story of how a journalist was sent White House war plans
The memo continues, "Russian professional hacking groups are employing the 'linked devices' features to spy on encrypted conversations." It notes that Google has identified Russian hacking groups who are "targeting Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest."
Moreover there was a memo in 2023 obtained by NPR warning of using Signal for using any non-public official information.
A Signal spokesman said the Pentagon memo is not about the messaging app's level of security, but rather that users of the service should be aware of so-called "phishing attacks." That's when hackers try to gain access to sensitive information through impersonation or other deceptive tricks.
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Humor us for a minute.
On the list of forgivable mistakes:
On the list of unforgivable, colossal f*ck ups:
It’s not just that they accidentally added a reporter to the chat. It’s not just that they discussed sensitive information on unsecured channels. It’s not just that each of the people on this group chat knew better.
It is that, knowing all this, having been briefed on it, expecting subordinates to live up to a standard each of these individuals didn’t — they went ahead and did it anyway.
And beyond that, there is no telling what else these idiots discussed on unsecured channels. It is virtually certain that bad actors were monitoring their devices. There’s no telling what other sensitive or classified information they have now.
Don’t believe the talk from the GOP that this was “just a mistake.” It is a catastrophe. It is a failure the likes of which we’ve not seen.
The Trump Administration has made each of us less safe. They have opened American men and women in uniform up to exceptional risk. This has to be treated with the seriousness it deserves, and VoteVets is going to make sure it is.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
2024 Napa, Wrigley, Wrigley
Under previous administrations, impeachment would 100% been a sure thing. In past historic eras, something much more brutal would have been the response.
Strange and awful times we live in.
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Experts warn that the timing of the potential drawdown could alarm NATO allies and embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-considering-proposal-cut-thousands-troops-europe-officials-sa-rcna199603
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A top Pentagon official said Tuesday that special operations forces do not have the authority to launch drone attacks at drug cartels in Mexico, even though President Donald Trump has designated them foreign terrorist organizations.
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2025-04-08/us-military-drones-mexico-17413325.html
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What is the point of this move? Trying to wipe out higher education?
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Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
This guy, just reminded Congress that we have the ability to use DIPLOMACY also. ☑️
US Forces Korea Command
General Xavier Brunson
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Navy Cmdr. Brett Robblee and Command Master Chief Felix Phillips were both fired on Friday.
Jeff Schogol
Published Apr 11, 2025 5:33 PM EDT
Navy firings 4.11.2025
Navy Cmdr. Brett Robblee (left) and Command Master Chief Felix Phillips (right) were relieved as Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron 4’s commanding officer and senior enlisted leader respectively. Navy photos.
Both the commanding officer and command master chief of Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron 4, based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, were fired on Friday, the Navy announced.
Cmdr. Brett Robblee and Command Master Chief Felix Phillips were relieved “due to a loss of confidence in their ability to perform leadership duties,” a brief Navy news release says.
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TARA COPP
Sat, April 19, 2025 at 8:05 PM EDT
2 min read
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a meeting with El Salvador's Minister of National Defense Rene Merino Monroy at the Pentagon, Wednesday, April 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Three former senior advisers to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decried on Saturday what they called “baseless attacks” after each was escorted from the Pentagon in an expanding probe on information leaks.
Dan Caldwell, a Hegseth aide; Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg; and Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff were among four officials in Hegseth’s inner circle who were ousted this past week.
While the three initially had been placed on leave pending the investigation, a joint statement shared by Caldwell on X said the three were “incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended. Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”
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“At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with,” the post said.
Former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot also announced he was resigning this week. The Pentagon said, however, that Ullyot was asked to resign.
The upheaval comes less than 100 days into the Trump administration where the Pentagon has found itself frequently in the epicenter of controversial moves — from firings of senior military and civilian staff to broad edicts to purge content that promoted diversity, equity or inclusion. That led to images or other online content of heroes like the Tuskegee Airmen and Jackie Robinson being temporarily removed from the military's websites, causing public uproar.
Last month, Hegseth announced that the Pentagon’s intelligence and law enforcement arms were investigating what it says are leaks of national security information following reports that Elon Musk was set to receive a classified briefing on potential war plans with China.
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In the announcement by Hegseth's chief of staff, Joe Kasper, the office warned that Defense Department personnel could face polygraphs in the probe.
The departures also follow the firings of senior military officers, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown; Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti; National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command director Gen. Tim Haugh; and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14