Oopsies! Plastered Pete Texted Classified War Plans To A Journalist. Was That Wrong?

From Jeff Tiedrich:

hey, remember when that commie rat-bastard Hillary Clinton ran a private email server? of course you do. it was the crime of the century — front page news on every paper. HILLARY FUCKS UP BIGTIME, the headlines screamed, in thousand-point boldface type. THE EMAIL LADY IS A WITCH. BURN HER! BURN HER!!!

Republicans fell all the fuck over each other in a mad dash to be the first to demand she not just resign, but impale herself on her dagger, immediately.

I mean, what the fuck, Hillary? how could you endanger national security like that?

Republicans, as everyone knows, are careful stewards of America’s security. you’d never catch a Republican doing something as foolhardy as, for instance, absconding with dozens of boxes of classified documents, lying about having them, refusing to return them, hiding them, bragging about their contents to golf cronies, waving them in the faces of randos, scrawling to-do lists on them, even sleeping with them — and then stashing them in the unspeakably ugly shitter of their vermin-infested Florida golf motel.

that simply wouldn’t happen. that shit’s for traitors like the email lady.

you would never catch Republicans doing anything as clownfucklingly insane as texting war plans to each other over a phone app. and you would most certainly never ever, ever, EVER catch one inadvertently including a journalist in such a discussion, because that would be

oopsies.

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.

was that wrong?

because Piss-Drunk Pete has to plead ignorance on this thing. because if anyone had said anything at all to him when he first started at the Department of Defense that that sort of thing was frowned upon…

seriously, check out this Three Stooges level of dipshittery. a couple of weeks ago, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was minding his own business, when out of the clear blue—

I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering. I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.

and then,

Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the “Houthi PC small group.”

Goldberg’s phone started blowing up with actual fucking war plans.

so, who besides Couchfuck McGee and Piss-Drunk Pete were on this text chain? according to Goldberg, he received messages from Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller, Tulsi Gabbard, Susie Wiles, Scott Bessent, and other sundry Sewer Clowns.

now, the government has its own secure means of communicating internally. there’s no need to use third-party messaging apps that are prone to, y’know, facilitating embarrassing fuck-ups. so why do it? over to you, Heather Cox Richardson.

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.

so, were any laws broken? of fucking course laws were broken — this is Donny’s administration we’re talking about here. openly flouting the law is what they do. Heather Cox, please explain it to the nice people.

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.

and then on top of that, there’s that whole we sent classified information to a journalist who didn’t have clearance thing.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was fucking steamed, and immediately called for everyone involved to be prosecuted.

“when I’m president of the United States, neither she nor any of these other people are going to be above the law. whether it’s her, or Eric Holder, for what he did on Fast and Furious, or any of these other folks. people are going to be held accountable if they broke the laws of this country. nobody is above the law, not even Hillary Clinton.”

[taps earpiece] hold on, I’m being informed that this clip isn’t from yesterday. it’s from January 12, 2016, when Marco was campaigning for president and vowing to throw the email lady in jail.

by the way, it should be stated that — despite the howls of outrage from the entire wingnut media ecosystem — no classified information was ever found on Hillary’s server.

so Marco, you were fairly pissed off when Hillary allegedly played fast and loose with her emails, do you have anything at all to say about Donny’s entire administration disseminating war plans to a reporter?

we’ll take your silence as a no, then.

let’s check in with Nosferatu McGoebbels. he’s had a lot to say about the email lady over the years.

“One point that doesn’t get made enough about Hillary’s unsecured server illegally used to conduct state business (obviously created to hide the Clintons’ corrupt pay-for-play): foreign adversaries could easily hack classified ops & intel in real time from other side of the globe.”

but about today’s scandal? no comment from Stephen Miller. he’s busy having lunch.

oh, looky here — it’s Piss-Drunk Pete himself.

“imagine if it was, I don’t know, Donald Trump, what the media would be doing to him right now. eviscerating him. or imagine if it was a member of the military … they still go after these guys for a tiny tiny fraction of what she willfully did.”

fortunately, we no longer have to imagine. let’s see whether or not media is actually eviscerating Donny right now.

“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. but I know nothing about it. you’re saying that they had what?”

weird how Donny never knows anything about anything. in eighty years we’ve gone from the buck stops here to why the fuck is should I know what’s going on?

watch Donny and the Sewer Clowns sweep this whole thing under the rug — and watch how the media will be too distracted by the inevitable next scandal to follow up on the one that’s happening right under their noses today.

(credit where credit is due: props to Bulwark Sarah Longwell, who did the hard work of tracking down all those old tweets and clips.)

Yes Virginia, They Really Are That Stupid!

20-25 million people from nations all over the world died fighting against the Nazis. The US didnt even show up for years after it started. They sat and watched everyone else fight and die.

Rest of conversation –

REPORTER*: So, just to clarify—your position is that France owes its entire existence to the United States?

LEAVITT: Absolutely. If it weren’t for the U.S., the French would be speaking German right now. That’s just a fact.

REPORTER: Interesting. Because if it weren’t for France, we wouldn’t even have the United States. Ever heard of the American Revolution? France bankrolled it. Sent troops. Fought Britain on multiple fronts. And, oh yeah—gave us the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of freedom. Do we only acknowledge history when it’s convenient?

LEAVITT: Well, the United States has been the beacon of global freedom—

REPORTER: Right, and who gave us the actual beacon? The French. And let’s not forget, France won World War I before the U.S. even entered it. So by your logic, does that mean Americans should be thanking the French for not speaking German in 1918?

LEAVITT: That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying—

REPORTER: Also, if we’re going down this road—how about the Louisiana Purchase? You know, that huge chunk of land that doubled the size of America? Bought it from the French. Are we sending them a thank-you note?

LEAVITT: Look, I think we’re getting off track here. The point is—

REPORTER: The point is, we didn’t just swoop in and save the day while France sat around waiting. Nations cooperate, trade, and yes, sometimes even rescue each other.

17. März 2025

The real press lack the balls. They’re not press. They’re stenographers.

Road Trip

We needed to get out of the house, out of the city, out of our heads for a bit, so this morning we headed south to Organ Pipe National Monument—because who knows how long any of our National Parks will be around at this point.

Lots of sahuaro and cholla cactus; not so much organ pipe.

And then we came upon this…

You’ve read about it. You’ve seen it on videos. But nothing prepares you for the horrific, ugly in-person reality of the orange felon’s border fence separating the United States and Mexico:

I don’t understand the gates. Why are there (admittedly welded shut) gates? What is their purpose?

I wonder how MAGA would react if Canada erected a similar fence on their southern border to keep us out…

And my final thought was are these fences being built to keep them out or to ultimately keep us in?

 

You Know She Swallows That Mushroom

It’s the only explanation for this cunt being his spokesperson.

NEWS FLASH: Despite what the tangerine felon has told you bitch, the rest of the country isn’t nearly as stupid as his inbred, racist base and we know gaslighting bullshit lies when we hear them.

In a press conference KrasnovTrump really said “We are doing very well with Russia right now. And they’re bombing the hell out of Ukraine and quite frankly, I am finding it very hard to deal with Ukraine right now.”

There is a Russian asset in the oval office.

Seems like someone should be doing something about it, but what do I know?

He IS a Russian operative. Period.

Kill It With Fire

Kill it with fire.

Can the meth smoking, cousin fucking, redneck bumpkins that couch fucker comes from come get their kid?

Every time he opens his mouth or tweets he makes me want to…. Well I’m sure you feel the same considering he’s cuddling up to billionaires instead of representing you.

[source]

The End Of Law

Robert Reich February 10th. The Trump regime is refusing to be bound by the federal courts. Where will this end?

Friends, He is the most lawless president in American history. He’s allowed Musk’s rats unfettered access to the Treasury’s payments system. Banned birthright citizenship. Refused to spend money appropriated by Congress. Closed independent agencies without Congress’s approval. Substituted political loyalists for civil servants. Unleashed the military on civilians. And on it goes.

Republican lawmakers won’t restrain him. In one of the most shameful apologia for dictatorship I’ve ever heard coming from a public official, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina admits that much of what Trump is doing “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But, Tillis adds, “nobody should bellyache about that.”

We shouldn’t bellyache about Trump’s torching the Constitution?

As Trump’s marauding continues, America’s last defense is the federal courts. But the big story here (which hasn’t received nearly the attention it deserves) is that the Trump-Vance-Musk regime is ignoring the courts.

On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

This is bonkers. In our system of government, it’s up to the courts to determine whether the president is using his power “legitimately,” not the president.

Consider Trump’s freeze on all federal spending. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to appropriate money, not the president.

So far, two federal judges have stopped Trump’s freeze, pending full hearings on the lawsuits. But Trump is ignoring these court decisions and continues to freeze funds Congress has appropriated, notwithstanding.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, says the freeze will continue even though Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has withdrawn the memo implementing it — an Orwellian move that last week prompted U.S. District Judge AliKhan to reprimand the OMB.

“It appears that OMB sought to overcome a judicially imposed obstacle without actually ceasing the challenged conduct. The court can think of few things more disingenuous.”

On Saturday, federal district court Judge Paul A. Engelmayer temporarily denied Musk’s young recruits access to the Treasury’s payment and data systems, finding a risk of “irreparable harm.” The judge ordered anyone who had been granted access to the systems since January 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded” from it.

Well, good luck with that. How will Engelmayer know all copies have been destroyed in an administration that denies judges have the power to control what the president does?

Worse yet, Musk’s gang have access to the computer code. How will the judge prevent them from changing that code?

Another federal judge, John Coughenour, has blocked Trump’s executive order altering birthright citizenship, calling it “clearly unconstitutional.” The judge didn’t pull any punches:

“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.”

Exactly. But how can Judge Coughenour guarantee that the Trump regime will grant citizenship to all children born in the United States to undocumented parents? Trump and Musk have tunneled into the entire federal government, even including the passport office (When transgender people try to renew, new passports list their sex at birth.)

Federal judges considering the legality of Trump’s mass deportations are bound by Supreme Court rulings that noncitizens have a right to due process before being deported — including the right to be informed of the charges against them, the right to an attorney, and the right to present evidence in their defense.

Here, too, Trump’s regime has ignored these rulings.

Meanwhile, in a lawsuit filed Friday, several “sanctuary” cities and counties are challenging both Trump’s executive order withdrawing federal funds from places that refuse to help carry out his immigration agenda and his Justice Department’s threat to prosecute any jurisdiction that refuses to comply.

Plaintiffs are seeking to “check this abuse of power” by asking the courts to declare the Trump regime’s actions unlawful and prevent their enforcement.

The law is clearly on the plaintiff’s side. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the federal government cannot force cities and states to adopt laws or to enforce federal mandates.

But Trump isn’t budging.

Over the next months, these and dozens of other federal cases will be appealed to the Supreme Court — either by the plaintiffs arguing that Trump is ignoring lower-court decisions, or by Trump’s Justice Department appealing those decisions.

Then what?

You have every reason to be cynical about the current majority on the Supreme Court. But the cases I’ve just cited, along with many others, are based on the Supreme Court’s own precedents that say that Trump cannot legally do what he’s doing.

Yes, the Roberts court has shown itself willing to reverse its prior opinions (see: Roe v. Wade), but my betting is that at least on some of these issues the high court will rule against Trump.

All of which raises a final, perilous question: What if the Trump regime ignores the Supreme Court just as it has ignored lower courts?

In his 2024 year-end report on the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts anticipated this possibility, noting that judicial independence “is undermined unless the other branches [of government] are firm in their responsibility to enforce the court’s decrees.”

Roberts mentioned defiance by southern governors of the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Their defiance required that federal troops enforce the Supreme Court’s decision.

Roberts then commented on more recent defiance:

“Within the past few years … elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.

There’s no secret whom Roberts was referring to. His first initials are JD and he ought to know better. Vance graduated Yale Law School Class of 2013, and his wife, Usha, clerked for Roberts from 2017 to 2018.

Yet Vance said on a 2021 podcast, “When the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

Here’s Vance in a February 2024 interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: Vance: “The president has to be able to run the government as he thinks he should. That’s the way the Constitution works. It has been thwarted too much by the way our bureaucracy has worked over the past 15 years.”

Stephanopoulos: “The Constitution also says the president must abide by legitimate Supreme Court rulings, doesn’t it?”

Vance: “The Constitution says that the Supreme Court can make rulings, but if the Supreme Court — and, look, I hope that they would not do this — but if the Supreme Court said the president of the United States can’t fire a general, that would be an illegitimate ruling, and the president has to have Article II prerogative under the Constitution to actually run the military as he sees fit.”

In other words, if the Supreme Court rules against Trump on an important issue, there’s a fair chance the Trump-Vance-Musk regime will thumb their nose at it.

What then? Impeachment isn’t a possibility because Republicans run both chambers of Congress and haven’t exactly distinguished themselves with integrity or independence.

If Trump simply ignores the high court, is that the end of law?

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© 2025 Robert Reich