24 Comments
User's avatar
Peggy Hendrickson's avatar

Your coverage is just awesome. And your presentation fits my mood exactly. Thank you so much! Your kitties seem to be enjoying themselves. How lucky for them.

Expand full comment
Judith Matlock's avatar

Thanks for ruining another of my days, but in a good way, Tom. That gurgle, gurgle, swig, swig sound I heard last night had to be coming from the Hegseth house, and predictably, the wingers are minimizing or outright denying. And I hope they keep it up because this security leak was so egregious that even the control freaks on the right may silently hang their heads and change the channel and/or radio station, just possibly suspecting that they have been lied to with less finesse than when their crumb-faced kids deny having been in the cookie jar. (It's wishful thinking, but the idiocy is steadily becoming even too idiotic for idiots.)

Expand full comment
arne link's avatar

Nah, probably not. Sadly.

Expand full comment
Ellen's avatar

Tom, do you read Greg Olear? Sharing today's piece: https://gregolear.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-leonard-leo-concerning

Thanks for your pokes. It's a lot to cover. You do it in a way that helps keep me sane.

Expand full comment
TCinLA's avatar

Greg's very good. We even compliment each other at times. (Like my dad said about his time in aviation back in the 30s: "If you survived for three years, you knew everybody.")

Expand full comment
Cherie's avatar

Thank you for another terrific article, appreciate your posts!

Personally believe that this admin of incompetent dipshits will continue to muck it up so badly, they will just implode. Was just in the shower when the emergency alert test went off, began to have a panic attack, thinking Oh God, what have they done now? Then walked out of the shower and saw that it was just a test. But with these ding dongs “in charge” who really knows?

Expand full comment
TCinLA's avatar

Indeed.

Expand full comment
Kathy's avatar

Regarding the Florida-06 race to fill Signal-challenged Mike Waltz’seat,Dem Josh Weil has raised significantly more than Randy Fine (my Fl Senator), but there are still 5 days left and Fine is a multi-millionaire.Not certain if he can self-fund with a loan this late in the campaign?

Neither candidate lives in the district and both are running commercials.

Below is a link that details just some of the nastiness of Senator Fine.Probably the most hated politician,on many fronts,in Fl politics.

He was also the architect of much of our Anti-LGQBT legislation….”If it means erasing a community because you have to target children, then, damn right, we ought to do it!”

In addition Fine,and his followers,severely abused a former school board member targeting her home,child,+ It.doesn’t.get.much.worse.

Donated,phonebanked and sending my heathen thoughts and prayers for a Josh Weil win!

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/bombs-away-bigot-randy-fine-likely-join-us-congress

Expand full comment
JOE P's avatar

Beelzebub Leo will not save us unless you are a rich, christofascist prick like he is.

Keep looking over your shoulder…

Expand full comment
Barryt's avatar

The poll of trump voters really makes it clear how well entrenched the propaganda channels really are (and how much their own bias makes them want to believe it). They're in for a rude awakening when their elderly relative asks for money because their SS check didn't hit the bank account, or they have to ask for money for themselves.

It took the Germans the destruction of their entire country to wake up to the fact of who their fuhrer was. Let's hope we in the US don't have to get to that point, even though we're on a pretty big downslope. There is hope, however, in that their "banality of evil" continues to fail at the banality part. (i.e. they can't get the basics of how to do actually execute on a plan be able to do fascism right)

Expand full comment
Victoria Brown's avatar

Solidarity and

Indivisibility! Thanks

Tom.

Expand full comment
Stephanie H's avatar

Strategy? Really? These guys couldn't find their asses with both hands and a three way mirror! No, the only strategy they were engaged in was trying to keep their criminal lack of care for anything but 47's ego, their contempt for our allies, and that their stock portfolios might take a hit if Saudi oil refineries were damaged out of public records.

Expand full comment
Bryan Sean McKown's avatar

Further to the SECDRUNK Department:

Let's start with Elmo's post to 182 Million followers: "There are known vulnerabilities with SIGNAL that are not being addressed."

Relevant corporate fact: NPR CEO Katherine Maher is Chairman of the Board of "Signal Foundation". "Consider Maher's opposition to a free & open internet" and other government policies. Hat Tip: @ realchrisrufo.

How about a truly secure digital communications on the Signal App?

Wikipedia: "Signal Messenger LLC" is responsible for the development of the Signal App and the "Signal Protocol".

Question: What about the vulnerabilities of using cell phones on the Signal Protocol?

Another Question: I s the use of Signal designed to digitally dissolve a violation of thefedral Public Records Act?

Bottom Line: The Committee will get the Transcript.

Expand full comment
Fay Reid's avatar

Agreed on all points, Tom

Expand full comment
David Levine's avatar

could anyone have predicted they would fuck up so badly so QUICKLY?

I anticipate a lot of people saying "yes, of course," and I knew it would happen, but the speed with which it has occurred is dizzying. at least I'm a little dizzy.

Expand full comment
TCinLA's avatar

I'm dizzy every day reading the news. It took Hitler 57 days to destroy the Weimar Republic and on Day 57 of Maladministration II they did a rendition of mostly-innocent non-residents to a Central American concentration camp and have thumbed their nose at the courts since.

Expand full comment
Susan Linehan's avatar

That "brief" from DOJ on the Venezuelan case boggles the mind. It is probably worth reading as an example of self-contradictory prose, though probably the fine points would require some law training. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278436/gov.uscourts.dcd.278436.56.0.pdf

The DOJ now stands for "Department of Justification" of anything Der Trumpenfuhrer wants. My favorite line is the ending sentence: "when a judge has satisfied himself that the dangers asserted by the government are substantial and real, he need not—indeed, should not—probe further." The only way the judge could satisfy himself of this is to look at the list of national security possibilities drawn, perhaps, from Wikipedia, by Rubio and say "Yep, must be in here somewhere because a Big Honcho told me so."

Expand full comment
Rita Parker's avatar

I know we are making inroads because Maggats are doubling down. They keep squeezing harder, and it's resulting in a bigger backlash from people like us. We are calling their bluff. As Kinzinger said, "Come get me Fatso". What is not changing is the clueless, tone deaf Democratic leadership. A poll I saw today shows Democrats underwater with voters. The only Democrats in a positive light were Bernie Sanders, AOC and Chris Murphy. We are in the middle of a revolution. Personally, I am damn tired of people from Robert Reich to Joyce Vance and more telling me to "call your senators; call your representatives". Today I received an email from the National Committee to Perserve Social Security and Medicare to do the same thing or we could lose Social Security. ALL of these people have asked for money one way or another - subscribe to their substack, donate. AND I HAVE! It is time for them to get off their asses and fight for us. Every damn day I call Senators and Representatives. I have sent emails to the WH. Today I left a message on the WH Comment line. These people - Reich, Vance, Rick Wilson and many more - have contacts we don't have. They know people we don't know. But every damn one of them, including Democratic leadership, especially fucking Chuck Schumer, does NOTHING. When Pete Buttigieg starts throwing F bombs around, you know we've reached Defcon 10. If my rage was a fire bomb, FOX and its gaggle of Nazi level collaborators would be in ashes. Let's round up 8 million white people and see if Killmeade still thinks due process is a waste of time.

Expand full comment
Rick Smith's avatar

"Freedoms which we espouse."

Like Due Process of Law?

"No, not that one. Try another one? A GOP President has absolute power! Yes, that is one of the Freedoms!"

Expand full comment
Kent Anderson's avatar

Point one: Signal isn't encrypted and is worse then Telegram, which is encrypted. Both are filled with scammers and Asian women trying to sell you crypto. Also, but less so on WhatsApp and Messenger.

Point two: (and this is the more important one) Waltz was reportedly in Moscow at the time the chat started. If true, that might mean that the Ruskies intercepted it. How Waltz included Goldberg is anyone's guess, but somewhere in the hereafter, RoseMary Wood is relieved.

Expand full comment
TCinLA's avatar

They're both populated with Chatbots trying t o convince American men over 50 that they're really sexy young women whose life's desire is to spend the rest of their lives with the Auld Phart whose bank account they plan to drain.

Expand full comment
Kent Anderson's avatar

When you press them on how they got your number, they say, 'I must have punched in the wrong number, sorry to have bothered you.' OK

Expand full comment