Unless you’ve only recently crash-landed here, you’re aware of the most massive national security failure in at least the last 70 years, if not the entirety of US history. It involves nearly every senior member of the current regime, a veritable who’s who of people not competent enough to run the fry vat at McDonald’s, much less perform in any reasonably useful way in a cabinet position.
A collection of people assembled for key public service skills like “looks straight of central casting”, agreeing shamelessly with every nonsensical suggestion from the current White House occupant and having no spine or capacity for critical thinking, all jumped on an app to chat about imminent military action. They created a group on Signal, an insecure text app already identified as compromised by Russian hackers, to discuss plans that should have been classified at the very least. That list of Sloppy Joe’s and Jane’s reportedly includes:
National security adviser Mike Waltz
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
Vice President JD Vance
CIA Director John Ratcliffe
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
Special envoy Steve Witkoff (Joining from Russia! 😯)
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles
Secretary of State Marco Rubio
Deputy national security adviser Alex Wong
Joe Kent, point of contact for Tulsi Gabbard
Adviser to the President Stephen Miller
Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg
There are a few others but need I go on? Look at that list, especially the last name on it. Mike Waltz, our National Security Adviser created the chat and included the editor in chief of a magazine for good measure. I’ll stress this again: a man tasked with advising the nation on its security, created a chat group on an insecure app to discuss a military strike about to occur, information that I have to imagine is classified if not highly classified. He included almost every key person but Herr 47, and then added a newspaper editor to really make that incompetence pop.
Jeffery Goldberg, to his credit, did not stay on this discussion to conclusion. He took screenshots of it that did not include sensitive information, left and reported to the nation what he was inadvertently included in. I cannot think of any other time in history that an unelected citizen, working for a news publication and without security clearances, was carelessly added to a discussion about an imminent attack. In later interviews, unlike his hosts in their hack-a-chat, he was careful about what he shared and made sure to guard the nation’s secrets, despite not being sworn to an oath like everyone else on that list.
During the Obama administration, ATF had a major screw up with a weapons investigation called Operation Fast and Furious. They tried to track guns working their way through illegal networks to capture and arrest those involved. The short of it is that the trackers died after a few days, the agents lost track of about 1,300 of the 2,000 guns sold in the sting and many of those would show up at future crime scenes. It was a debacle. House Republicans responded with investigations and hearings and the Department of Justice investigated. Republicans pursued this case for years afterwards and brought it up every chance they could, before every microphone and camera.
Also, during the Obama years, an ambassador compound in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by militants from the group Ansar al-Sharia. Two diplomats and two CIA contractors died, and ten more people were injured. President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice were under constant attack by Republicans. Of the three, Clinton seemed to get the worst of it. Despite constant accusations that she purposely left the compound insecure, and many House Committees called to discover wrongdoing, no Committees, whether led by Democrats or Republicans found the administration did anything wrong. However, the damage to Clinton was done as the final Committee focused on her while running for President. No Republican could form a sentence about her without blaming her for Benghazi.
Clinton found herself embroiled in another scandal as she ran for President: the private email server. She had a server installed in her private residence that received State Department email. When Republicans discovered this, they flipped out. She was accused of handling confidential email on that server but rejected that claim, saying that nothing received on the server was classified at the time.
Republicans balked and howled that she endangered the nation, and by their estimation she was handling classified information, including having some of it sent on to her mobile device while in foreign countries. I have to admit that even I, a loyally registered Democrat, thought this was an unnecessarily foolish and careless thing to do. All of that notwithstanding, the State Department found her server use never increased the risk of compromising information. No matter. A late reopening of the case by FBI Director James Comey that turned up nothing, mere weeks before the election, and a constant barrage of coverage about it helped seal her fate and deliver the presidency to a self-proclaimed pussy grabber.
The National Archives discovered boxes of classified information in the former 45th president’s Florida home at Mar-a-Lago, including stacks of them in a public bathroom. He told them he turned over all materials before leaving office but took these stacks of materials, including military details and other classified intelligence, to be carelessly stored in closets, on entertainment stages and in the aforementioned bathroom, where any club member could see and rifle through them. He claimed they were his to take, although that material belongs to the nation, and his party defended him. No Committees in the majority Republican House were convened to investigate. The least driven AG in my memory, Merrick Garland, glacially dragged his feet, eventually tossing the case in Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s lap, only to have it dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated and appointed during Agent Orange’s first term.
There are other instances of Republicans out for blood for any Democrat’s infraction, real or imagined. Bill Clinton’s power dynamic infused receipt of fellatio from his intern, doggedly pursued in lurid detail by Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr is one. Biden’s folders in a safe by his car is another. Hunter Biden hired by a Ukrainian energy company. Hunter Biden’s laptop. Hunter Biden’s gun purchase while they allege he was using drugs. All of these were met with lusty calls from Republicans for justice so all named would suffer the full weight of the law, especially Hunter Biden who was never a government official.
Fast and Furious was a mess and probably drove more gun crime from its failure, but it didn’t open the nation to threats from foreign actors. Benghazi, and ultimately Hillary Clinton’s emails were the same. Agent Orange’s pilfering of boxes of extremely sensitive information, stored in a place known to be packed with Russian oligarchs was a clear security threat, and Republicans blew it off and waved any critics away as hysterical. They did, however, form an endless string of committees called against Democrats whenever they could, only one of which had potential national security implications. It all made for a lot of screamy, performative television but came up empty.
Which brings us to today and almost the entire current regime’s staff on an insecure chat discussing attack plans on Signal. These aren’t wannabe soldiers in ragtag militias trying to plan their latest LARPs without being heard by ‘the gubmint.’ These are the people tasked with domestic and international policy, national intelligence, the nation’s defense and its finances chatting about attack plans, weapons packages and timing on an insecure app. All these acted offended when anyone said they were unqualified, then showed that they are wholly unqualified and apparently incredibly stupid.
It’s not over either. Behold.
Who could have seen this coming? Did anyone have top government officials using an insecure, hacker-happy app for classified information getting their passwords swiped on their Bingo card?
This same Renault Le Car packed with clowns rounding up law-abiding immigrants for deportation, tries to erase the achievements of women, Black, Brown, Asian and LGBTQ people from the nation’s memory; leaves a ketamine-riddled billionaire to eviscerate or throw into spasms the agencies working class people need; starts trade wars that will impoverish everyone not already worth at least millions of dollars and ruins key long-term relationships with international allies at full gallop. While they bitch and moan about DEI, CRT and BLM, they’re endangering the FBI, CIA, NSA and the entire USA.
Even Rubio, the nomination a group of Democrats pushed through hoping to ground the White House, has shown himself to be a gutless and naive stooge. The character clogging the chair behind the Resolute Desk, routinely claiming to use the best people, hasn’t assembled an A-team. This group wouldn’t make the practice squad of a small burg or municipality, much less any other presidential administration. Not only did they fail, they endangered soldiers’ lives. I know this. Democrats and Independents know this. Even though they don’t want to admit it, Republicans know this too. Every single one of these people is a national liability and should be impeached or tender their resignation.
More Democrats need to join the opposition party chorus and start singing solos before every national news camera. Don’t stop or let the Republicans change the narrative either. They have to yell about this like the GOP did Benghazi because this is a much bigger fuckup, despite the operation miraculously finishing successfully. If anything, more Republicans should show a spine and call for their removal and immediate replacement too. This week no soldiers died, but what happens when Pilsner Pete and the gang do something like this again, maybe on Telegram or WhatsApp? Republicans usually get a lot of armed forces votes but that could change, and based on the Note below it’s not out of the question. Here’s to hoping.