Signal Chat Open House
A day in the lives of DJT's Amateurs
On my mind, 03262025: Remembering the good old days of National Security…commenting on Hillary Clinton’s Private Servergate, in 2016 on FoxNews, Pete Hegseth, now aka PH and Secretary of Defense, said, “Any security professional, military, government or otherwise, would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information. The fact that she wouldn’t be held accountable for this, I think, blows the mind of anyone who’s held our nation’s secrets dear, and who’s had a top-secret clearance like I have and others who know that even one hiccup causes a problem. If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in jail right now.”
Commenting on a recent mishandling of classified information, John Ratcliffe, aka JR and CIA Director, told Fox News, “Mishandling classified information is still a violation of the Espionage Act. That’s a criminal charge that can bring the death penalty.” Tulsi Gabbard, aka TG and Director of National Intelligence, commenting on leaks from the Trump Administration to the press, said on March 14, “Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such.” “Any” was adjusted during a Senate hearing on March 25th focusing on the Signal chat. Responding to a question from Senator Mark Warner, Gabbard offered a nuance on "any," offering that there is a difference between “inadvertent release” and “malicious leaks” of classified information. She quickly stipulated that there was no classified information in the Signal chat. When asked to provide the chat transcript since there was no classified information, she demurred (If only Chelsea Manning had thought of this defense in 2010, “I’m sorry, it was 'inadvertent' so I am innocent.”). In this instance, TG is using the familiar DJT Administration proposition that any action is judged not by its consequence but by its intention: “Yes, I mishandled dozens of boxes of classified information at Mar-a-Lago and ignored legal requests for their return, but it was all inadvertent.” Those attending the Signal chat included PH (Hegseth), JDV (Vance), MW (Waltz), JR (Ratcliffe), TG (Gabbard), SW (Witkoff), MAR (Rubio), SW (Wiles), SM (Miller), JK (Kent) (an unconfirmed nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, SB ( Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury???), six other unidentified DJT Administration officials, and JG, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, invited into the group "unintentionally" by Mike Waltz (MW above), the National Security Adviser. With all these high-powered persons in attendance, identified only by initials, and gathered to enjoy the entertainment of a live military action, why did nobody call the roll of all these initials?
In other news, during this same Signal chat, JDV called our European allies “pathetic.” The man has a way with words. No wonder he is so beloved in Europe.
Meanwhile, on March 25, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under pressure from DOGE, pulled back $11.5 billion in funds allocated to state and county health departments and public health NGOs. These were from COVID funds and intended to help health departments and other groups use the recent pandemic as a platform to develop and test improved methods of infectious disease prevention. In justifying this pullback of funds, HHS Director of Communications Andrew Nixon stated, “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago. HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.” Included in these canceled projects was one multi-state grant to help nursing homes and other eldercare facilities address the problems of the spread of infectious diseases in those types of facilities, a chronic health issue in eldercare. One can only surmise that a part of EM's/DOGE’s strategy to cut the costs of Medicare and Medicaid is to accelerate the mortality rate among the elderly.