Except for the fig leaf of a warrant, it's all there.
The smarmy, arrogant ignorance.
The dismissal of all warnings that what this idiot is about to do will cause a
disaster. From Wired:
DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse
Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.
And, of course, after the disaster, this idiot blaming the people who tried to stop him from blowing everything up.
This weekend is my 20th blogging anniversary, so I'm putting the tip jar right up-top should any of you feel inclined.
Burn The Lifeboats
Hurricane Katrina wasn’t enough.
Terri Schiavo wasn’t enough.
Torture revelations were definitely not enough. Hell, scum like
Hannity and Limbaugh celebrated it, and torture architect John Yoo is now
the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California,
Berkeley.
Even Iraq falling apart in a welter of lies, corruption and incompetence probably wasn’t enough.
It took all of that plus the collapse of the world economy
under MBA president George W. Bush to finally break the brains of the
Republican base. Because, finally there was no place left for them to hide.
Finally, there it was, right in front of them, every day: the irrefutable
proof that everything they believed was bullshit, and everyone they had
trusted had lied to them because they’re such gullible chumps.
And right then, in that awful revelation, they could have had a moment of
clarity.
They could have repented. They could have atoned. At the very
least they could have done the grown-up thing and apologized to those of us
who tried to warn them, and whom they had spat upon and called traitors.
They could have tried to figure out where they had been led
astray.
But they didn’t do any of that, because a Republican would rather die a
thousand painful deaths than ever admit they had been wrong, and that we America-hating, terrorist loving Libtards had been right.
Instead,
as I wrote 16 years ago, all the way back in 2009, like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin,
they have stopped running away from the catastrophe they created only long
enough to burn their uniforms.
Instead of changing their ways and waking the fuck up, they got themselves
some stupid hats and little flags, stepped through the Fabulous, Tea-Baggulous Bush-Off Machine, and voila! Just like *that* they were no longer Republicans.
No siree! Now they were the Tea Party! Independents!
Independent Constitutional Conservative Originalists. Or
whatever. And instead of learning from the catastrophe they had
created, they threw themselves into the arms of any crackpot who would tell
them that none of this had been their fault. And that
everyone should just forget the entire Bush administration anyway, because
this new scary black guy named Obama was a million times worse than any
president ever.
So they embraced still-living sleazy con men like Glenn Beck:
And the very-dead sleazy con man Andrew Breitbart, speaking here at CPAC in 2012:
And, of course, they fell madly in love with the snarling, racist
King of the Birthers:
So deeply in love with him that they nominated him for president and put him on the debate
stage next to Hillary Clinton:
If you watched those debates you know that Hillary Clinton absolutely wiped the floor with him, but you also know that it absolutely didn’t
matter, because during the Clinton years and the Dubya years and the Obama years, the Republican base had learned the most important lesson of
all. They learned that if they all locked arms and screamed loud enough through
their Hate Radio and Fox News megaphones, they could make a craven legacy media drunk on Both Siderism go
along with them in pretending the Bush administration sorta kinda never
happened, and that Republican base voters weren’t really responsible for
anything they said and did, and that the Republican lies about Obama being
churned out a mile a minute by Fox News and Hate Radio were all legitimate news stories, and
that lockstep Republican congressional obstruction and sabotage were
actually Obama’s fault.
And that is the power of lying en masse.
And an ignorant, racist mob that demands to be lied draws con men, grifters and demagogues like shit draws flies.
And the King of Shit Mountain is now
the president of the United States.
Again.
So now we have a genuine scandal that ticks every box of every
issue Republicans were swearing five minutes ago that they cared about. National security.
Handling classified material. Transparency. Competence.
Freedom of speech. And the reaction from MAGA-land has been uniform and
entirely predictable.
From MAGA Twitter, this is a small representative sample from the literally
thousands of nearly identical reactions:
Karoline Leavitt, the actual White House Press Secretary: The Atlantic has conceded: these were NOT “war plans.” This
entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for
his sensationalist spin.
This was followed by some mope named CECE who got hundreds of enthusiastic
responses: Why isn’t anyone calling out Jeffrey Goldberg
from The Atlantic for not announcing himself when he landed on a private
Signal call he wasn’t meant to join? Journalistic ethics demand transparency,
but he stayed quiet, copied the texts, and published them, to the world all to
make the Trump administration look bad. Where’s the outrage over a
reporter exploiting it for a hit piece? The focus stays on the mistake,
not his ethical lapse. Why?
Katagaruma: He should be hauled in for questioning and his
devices seized for analysis.
Gary D: Was it just a set up to create a MEDIA fire
storm? Asking for a friend.
SweetPeaBelle: He is unethical and out for the BIG story.
Janet1489534061: It was Planned
realredsd: He should be facing punishment.
EJGSH: They were counting on him being a piece of
garbage.
jnottah He's a Radical douchebag and The Atlantic is a
PROPAGANDA RAG .
HJ4719125173895: Maybe he is a spy guilty of treason !
SSgt Mark USMC: I really think he should be charged with
sedition or espionage. He knew he was going to be on that. He did unexpectedly
land on it. It was arranged. We need to find who arranged it. Charge them for
treason and charge him for sedition.
They're all speaking the same language. They're all goose-stepping in the
same direction. Deny. Deny. Deny. Except at this point
the base doesn’t know which lie to tell, and Conservative media hasn’t reached
a consensus on which lie to tell them to tell, so they're putting out a buffet
table of a dozen different, contradictory lies and letting the base play
Choose Your Own Lying Adventure until they figure out which one(s) works
best.
From Axios:
The MAGA media ecosystem "has splintered into a series of
competing theories to try to explain away the scandal."
But at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter which lie or lies they
settle on, as long as it accomplishes two objectives: First, their
Dear Leader and his people must be blameless, and second, somehow, some Liberal
somewhere is pulling the strings.
However I can tell you this. I did not have “Quoting Friedrich
Hegel” on my bingo card as part of this mad scramble for the perfect lie, but
guess what? It has happened.
But for that story I have to back up just a bit and check in to see
how poor ‘ol Jeff Bezos is doing with that little newsletter of his. And right off the bat we find that three headlines at three different media
outlets are all telling the same story.
From Fox News :
Trump claims Bezos fretted to him about 'out of
control' people at Washington Post
President Donald Trump said in a new interview he was optimistic about his
working relationship with Jeff Bezos as well as the future of the Washington
Post, claiming Bezos had even disparaged the newspaper's staffers to him.
"They actually did a couple of bad articles on him (Bezos)," Trump said in an
interview with OutKick's Clay Travis. "He said, 'This is crazy, I lose my
fortune running this thing and they (Post newsroom employees), you know,
they're out of control.' These people are crazy. They're crazy people. They're
out of control."
From The Hill :
Trump: Bezos a ‘good guy,’ trying to be
‘more fair’ with Washington Post coverage.
“I think it’s great,” Trump told conservative commentator Clay Travis of
Outkick during an interview aboard Air Force One over the weekend. “At length,
I talked to him about it. He’s a good guy. I didn’t really know him in the
first term. I mean, it’s such a difference between now and the first time.”
And from the New York Post :
Trump claims Jeff Bezos complained
to him about ‘out of control’ Washington Post staffers: ‘They’re crazy people’
“They actually did a couple of bad articles on him (Bezos),” Trump said in an
interview with OutKick’s Clay Travis.
All three headline stories, but none of those media outlets did the original
reporting. They’re all citing the same source: Trump talking to
Clay Travis of Outkick during an interview aboard Air Force One
So let’s go there.
This is the OutKick blurb at OutKick:
Clay Travis is the founder of the fastest growing national multimedia
platform, OutKick, that produces and distributes engaging content across
sports and pop culture to millions of fans across the country. OutKick was
created by Travis in 2011 and sold to the Fox Corporation in 2021. One of the
most electrifying and outspoken personalities in the industry, Travis hosts
OutKick The Show where he provides his unfiltered opinion on the most
compelling headlines throughout sports, culture, and politics. He also makes
regular appearances on FOX News Media as a contributor providing analysis on a
variety of subjects ranging from sports news to the cultural landscape.
And here’s more about them.
He and Buck Sexton host The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, a
three-hour weekday conservative talk show which debuted on June 21, 2021 as
the replacement of The Rush Limbaugh Show on many radio stations.
Ah! Ideological continuity! So important in keeping the reprogrammable meatbags from getting all confused and cranky.
And sure enough, for decades, from 11AM - 2 PM every day, you could find Rush
Limbaugh or one of his lackeys on local radio station WMAY right here in
Springfield, Illinois. But Limbaugh is dead now. Dead and buried
in what I believe may have become the largest impromptu public urinal in St.
Louis, Missouri.
So now, where once you would find Limbaugh, you can listen to the Clay Travis
and Buck Sexton Show right here in Springfield, Illinois on WMAY. And on
any of hundreds of other radio stations across the country, because the Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton Show is part of a national syndication package, so that
hundreds of thousands of Republican base voters are all hearing the same
message at the same time.
As part of that syndication package, Before them on WMAY, from 9 AM
to 11 AM, you’ll find Fox News' very own Brian Kilmeade.
After them, from 2 - 4 PM, comes The Dana Show. That's Dana
Loesch. And after her, for three more hours, The Erick Erickson Show.
But wait! There's more!
Within the OutKick platform you'll find the OutKick Show with Clay
Travis. No surprise. But you'll also find 13 other shows.
There are gambling tips. Sports news. Politics and culture with
Tomi Lahren!
Dan Dakich has a show called "Don't @ Me" and he is billed as "an
American basketball sportscaster. He is a former player, assistant coach,
interim head coach for the Indiana University Hoosiers
American basketball player". But here he was on Twitter yesterday.
"NPR's Katherine Maher admits outlet failed to cover Hunter Biden laptop"
Then there's the Ricky Cobb show. Here's that blurb:
"Ricky Cobb show will offer fans that magical blend of insight and humor into
current sports topics along with his deep passion for sports, culture and
humor from the 70’s and 80’s." Recent topics were, let's see, "Tesla
terrorists attempt to go mainstream,” and "Tim Walz Fans The Tesla and Elon
Hate", "DEI officially done at Disney, are there any masculine
Democrats?"
There's Gaines for Girls With Riley Gaines. From the
blurb: "Riley Gaines has emerged as one of the most powerful voices in
the fight to save women's sports and spaces, but the fight is far from over!"
Three episodes from last year: "She Was FAILED For Using 'Biological
Woman", "Protecting the integrity of women's sports with Tommy Tuberville" and
"Josh Hawley Confronts NCAA About Trans Athletes In Women's Sports"
FOX59 Sports anchor/reporter Charly Arnolt now has her own
show. Recent episodes include "DOGE Superstar", "Have Any Woke Companies
Actually Bounced Back?". "The Woke Push To Keep Men In Women’s Sports".
"Canadian Sports Fans Continue To Boo The US National Anthem!", "Can Men In
Women's Sports Have Enough Impact To Flip Democrats"
The latest episode of Hot Mic w/ Hutton & Withrow is "No Woke
Basketball"
Fox News' Tyrus has his own place there. Recent episode asks "Can
Wrestling SAVE America From DIVISIVE Politics?!"
Then there is the Will Cain Show. That's Fox News' Will Cain.
Are you noticing the pattern here yet?
The lead sentence coming out of Will Cain's mouth on his show yesterday was literally, "Why
are women so woke?"
After that it was on to the "so called" war plans with
lots of scowling and air quotes around everything. Then he brought on
some obscure visiting professor named Gad Saad from Northwood University who
blathered on about two French philosophers who wrote books about how human
reasoning didn't evolve to find the truth, but just to win arguments.
And that somehow proves that Jeffrey Goldberg clearly wrote his Atlantic
article just to hurt Republicans.
Gad Saad:
"He's not a true journalist.
He's not pursuing objective truth. He simply wants his team to win an
argument by making the other team look bad.”
For the record, Northwood University is "a private university focused on
business education". Its most popular undergraduate majors according to
2021 records were things like Business Administration and Management,
Marketing/Marketing Management, Vehicle & Vehicle Parts & Accessories
Marketing Operations and Sport & Fitness Administration/Management, so I
have no idea what a visiting philosophy professor has to do there, except that
whatever he does leaves him with enough spare time show up on The Will Cain
Show when summoned.
Late breaking news from Gad Saad on Twitter -- 11:40 AM · Mar 27, 2025 "My appearance tonight on Jesse Watters is going to be rescheduled to another
date."
Oh. He's that guy!
And then we're off to, as promised and no kidding, Hegelianism. You
know, sweeping, big-word musings on what even is knowledge? How can
anyone really know anything? All of which amounted to nothing but a
job-lot of big smarty pants words from a Real Philosopher to reassure the MAGA
meatheads that they’re really the smart ones and the Signal scandal is really
some kinda Liberal plot against the Dear Leader.
For the record, today’s top essays at OutKick are
Some Environmentalists Could Give A Rip About The Environment by Tomi Lahren
Trump Pokes Fun At Reporter For Still Wearing A Mask by Ian Miller
Yes, Red State Voters Helped Tank 'Snow White' Box Office by Ian Miller
And do you know who advertises on OutKick? Everybody. In fact, I might have missed the crucial 99th Lifetime teevee
episode, about Gypsy Rose, Life After Lockup if I hadn't been tooling around
over there. And this was Season 2, Episode 99: The Unseen
Footage!!!
This is the universe in which MAGA Republicans live all day, every
day now. It’s safe there. Reassuring. And the bargain
they’ve made with their media is their eternal financial and electoral loyalty
in exchange for protecting them from ever feeling stupid or wrong. And for that reason, those people are now permanently lost to reason and unreachable, and it is a waste of time and energy to continue to try.
From Greg Sargent at The New Republic:
In Signalgate, Trumpworld
is demonstrating exactly what's wrong with authoritarian populism: Refusal to
admit error, walling out of constructive criticism and the cult-like defense
of the leader at all costs.
And it is a very profitable business. Which is why, just down
the street, yet another for-profit MAGA propaganda shop is opening for
business, with some depressingly familiar faces.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
Former Fox News primetime star Megyn Kelly says that she is launching
MK Media, a video and audio podcast network that will work with creators and
journalists in the news and entertainment space. The first three shows will be
hosted by journalist and 2Way founder Mark Halperin, Daily Mail culture
columnist Maureen Callahan, and influencer and political commentator Link
Lauren, and others will follow.
Media Matters has the larger picture:
The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports,
comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces
A new Media Matters analysis found 9 out of the 10 top online shows assessed
are right-leaning,
...This analysis was based on 320 online shows with a right-leaning or
left-leaning ideological bent. We found that right-leaning online shows
dominate the ecosystem, with substantially larger audiences on both
politics/news shows and supposedly nonpolitical shows that we determined often
platformed ideological content or guests.
The biggest scandal of Trump 2.0 is no scandal at all on MAGA media
So, as legacy media is slowly dying, and the Conservative media
ecosystem continues to expand exponentially, the Liberal media, such as it is,
is stuck where blogging was in 2007.
Back then, blogging was exciting
and vital; some of us are still at it. In fact, this Monday will be my 20th
anniversary of blogging, which is part of the reason I have the tip jar out at the top this time. But back in 2007, just as we seemed to be
coming together, a number of A-List bloggers decided that the internet was
full. That there wasn’t room for all of us noobs, and if you hadn’t
started blogging in 2003 and weren’t part of their crew, you should just give
up and do something else.
And since blog traffic was the lifeblood of blogging (and later revenue), this
was also right around the time of the infamous Blogroll Amnesty Day!
That day when, a handful of A-List Liberal bloggers finally got tired of us
smelly little lesser blogging monkeys amongst whom they had been
trapped. So they purged their blogrolls of anyone who wasn’t them, and
made sure that they only linked to each other and drove traffic among
themselves.
And now, as we look at the podcast world that we’ve been a part of for more
than 15 years, it sure looks like that’s what’s happening with what’s left of
Liberal media. Increasingly the Centrist/Center-Right Bulwark that has
grown thanks to MSNBC relentless sponsorship, and the Centrist/Center-Left Pod
Save crew who made it big on the strength of their inside contacts with Barack
Obama and Democratic leadership, are only talking to themselves and each
other.
The Signal Scandal (or Whiskey-Leaks as some wags have called it) may be so bad
and have such sprawling implications that the one-third of the country that is
completely oblivious to politics might actually hear about it as it is spread
by word-of-mouth.
Of course, no one is going to go to jail for this, and given the wall-to-wall
corruption and incompetence of the Republican-controlled government, it's
likely there will be no serious investigations, which is a tragedy.
But just imagine if we had a
Liberal media anywhere near the size, scope and level of message discipline as
the Right has.
Imagine if we had the depth and reach to compel the legacy media to make this the story for months on-end. To compel them to go after this actual scandal like a dog worrying a bone, just like the Right intimidated the legacy media into pounding non-scandals like "Her emails..." and Benghazi and Whitewater and on and on and on into the ground
Tulsi Gabbard's memory seems as selective as Alberto Gonzales's infamous "I don't recall" testimony from 2007. Imagine a Director of National Intelligence who can't remember being part of a classified Signal chat from just yesterday. She's also not good at lying, which is a requirement included in her job description as Trump's DNI.
From the Bush-era playbook of political corruption to Trump's current circus of catastrophic mismanagement, we trace the alarming pattern of Republican administrations treating national security like a reality show plot. Listen as we unravel how these supposed patriots leaked classified information with the recklessness of teenagers sharing summer vacation plans.
It's a blistering look at the Trump team's stunning incompetence, media manipulation, and the right-wing propaganda machine working overtime to spin this epic security failure.
Not safe for work. Not safe for Republicans. And it's definitely not safe for incompetent Trump officials.
In this week's episode, we dive deep into the world of narrative storytelling and spectacular political incompetence. What happens when an entire administration accidentally texts its top-secret military plans to a reporter? Welcome to the "Idiot Plot," a storytelling concept in which the entire plot is driven by everyone involved being profoundly stupid.
We'll break down the Trump administration's Signal app security disaster, take a deep dive into Glenn Greenwald's media metamorphosis, and serve up our usual sharp political commentary that will make you laugh, cry, and wonder how we're all still functioning. From leaked military operations to the strange world of tech billionaires buying media influence, this episode is not to be missed.
Warning: Not safe for work, definitely not safe for sensitive ears, and absolutely packed with our unfiltered political analysis.
Well a guy who knows a guy, who knows a gen-u-wine Nigerian prince. And
slick as snot, for a small handling fee, he says this guy can make
this silly misunderstanding
--
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans
U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming
military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs
started falling.
Hegseth’s Venmo Is on Display in Embarrassing Leak
Pete Hegesth’s Venmo is publicly viewable and showing his full list of
friends and contacts, according to a report.
While Hegseth’s transactions are private, his list of friends on the
mobile payment service isn’t—and it’s a who’s who of Washington bigwigs,
defense contractors, and healthcare executives, The American Prospect
reported...
I know we'd all hoped that Andy Sullivan had finally sailed far enough
past the has-been political celebrity event horizon of that we were, at last,
free of him. That whatever faint blip of phrenological ravings he might
continue to pass from pen to paper would be lost forever in immensity of the
Extremely White Noise of stupid opinions which now dominates these interwebs.
My regular "Stupid Shit Andrew Sullivan Says" feature has fallen off in
recent times since America's most prominent privileged White, gay,
Catholic, Tory, Conservative, Libertarian phrenologist has finally gotten
around to blocking me on the Bird Hellsite.
So his day-to-day idiocy doesn't cross my path as much as it used to.
However today some of you Alert Citizens sent this along to me and, yep,
it checks both the Stupid Shit and Racist Shit boxes. so I felt somewhat
obliged.
Sullivan is so far past his sell-by date that the mold that has grown over
his opinions has long since become sentient and run away. And as the
aperture of his public spotlight has shrunk to a pinhole, his "hot takes"
on any wedge issue he can invent or glom onto have grown increasingly,
flailingly stupid.
But I'm man enough to admit I was wrong. Or at least premature.
Because Sullivan has managed to sorta momentarily return is the most
gloriously Sullivan way possible.
This is on January 24, 2025 Sullivan praising Trump's immigration
policies
And this is Sullivan, less than two months later, on March 22, 2025 on
Bill Maher's Celebrity
Midden Pile raving about
how fucking awful Trump's immigration policies are.
Because when the jackboots are kicking in the door down the block, that's just Donald Trump "Undoing Biden's Left-Extremism".
But when they're kicking in my door, well that's not who we're supposed to be as Murricans!
Musk Offers $100 to Wisconsin Voters, Bringing Back a Controversial Tactic
By offering cash to voters who sign a petition opposing “activist judges,” Elon Musk’s super PAC can help identify conservative voters in a race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
I would have wondered if the writer of this article -- Theodore Schleifer -- had fallen victim to the Times' notoriously craven headline writers and editors, were it not for the fact that he used the "C" word in the first fucking paragraph.
Elon Musk is bringing back his most controversial gambit from the 2024 presidential election: paying voters as part of a plan to identify and turn out conservative-leaning ones.
