It's great to be able to say "Signal has never, EVER been used for classified information" in a context where classified information discussed on Signal has just been leaked.
Are they adding just everybody under the sun in these chats or only those who think wouldn't be traitors? For example I can understand one snitch being added by mistake. But four snitches?
That's a lot of snitches in my book.
Anyone with access to NSA plus various subcontractors' toolsets can "unmask" these people in like five minutes. Musk may not be "tech genius" some of the media makes him out to be, but he knows enough about how the internet and computers work (or has advisors who do) to figure that out.
I once heard a great anecdote to that effect, and to my embarrassment I can't recall the details to repeat here.
(And yes, I understand that there are limits on what is appropriate to share with civilian hardware on a civilian network, but the truth stands that part of the reason there's not a push to breach encryption in the US like there is in the UK is because Signal is relied upon even by the government when they need a private channel on civilian hardware.)
This is a strong assumption.. A government is a collection of people. While there might not exactly be warring factions in the US government, there are certainly numerous agencies and organizations that operate under varying degrees of independence.
Given this, and assuming it’s true, I wonder to what degree a controversy can be predicated on usage of an approved application on an approved Government device. I’m sure there is plenty to nitpick around the edges (“classified vs. top secret,” “managed device vs. personal device,” “expiring messages,” etc.), but the fundamental transgression cannot be “using Signal.”
More importantly, I just don’t think people care — beyond pearl-clutching, tribal narratives and palace intrigue — about the safety of “classified data.” And the sad part is that it’s obfuscating the real story, which is the federal government’s seemingly indiscriminate bombing of Yemeni residences in an attempt to execute a mildly infamous terrorist. It’s the banal tone with which the government officials discuss it – like it’s a new product launch or a weekly check-in meeting – that we should find disturbing. Nobody cares about the communication medium; if anything, we should wish for _more_ transparency and visibility into discussions like this…
(Also, it’s quite an endorsement of Signal.)
Is it true for the other two?
This doesn't actually contradict your point about tribal narratives, but it's not that long ago that data misuse was an election-defining narrative involving FBI investigations and crowds chanting "lock her up"...
BlackBerry was in the same position, and it was absolutely backdoored from a crypto perspective. The FBI doesn’t cry about iPhones anymore, so they’ve likely (along with other entities) identified alternate methods to access communications.
The use of these sorts of actions are about avoiding accountability, not security. Again, BlackBerry is the exemplar — PIN messaging was tied to a device, not a user. People 20 years ago were doing these signal chats with BlackBerry devices, swapping them around physically to build these groups.
Even then, people in these positions of power weren’t as reckless and incompetent. In addition to the reporter, one of the participants was on a civilian phone in Russia. The FSB or whomever does their signals intelligence got a real-time feed of intelligence, military operations, etc. The American pilots were put at risk, and Israeli spies were burned.
Of courses it’s illegal, but the entire administration is operating as a criminal enterprise / an extension of all previous administrations, but in a way the most impressive disregard for rule of law we’ve seen.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/scif-inside-high-security-rooms-2...
Just because Signal comes preinstalled on devices doesn't automatically mean it's intended for discussion of classified material.
For all we know, whoever US agent who was responsible for handling these potential "backdoors" is already laid off and is available for pickup by foreign governments with the right payment.
First off, I 100% agree that the bombing of civilian buildings in Yemen should be a bigger controversy. I don't really have anything to add to that, I just agree that it's important.
There are a lot of situations where it'd be acceptable for a government employee to us Signal, even to communicate potentially sensitive data. There are a lot of times where someone with only phone access may need to communicate sensitive info, and Signal is a good tool for that. It's a hell of a lot better then text messages or Slack or whatever.
The issue isn't Signal's security, it's the security of the phone it's installed onto. The phones of high-ranking government employees are a huge security weak point, and other countries know it. One has to imagine that Russia (or some other country) is trying very hard to hack into Pete Hegseth's phone. A lot of countries have invested huge amounts of money into developing hacking teams, and it should be assumed that any device with access to the broader internet is a potential target.
That's why government devices that access high-security information have immensely high security requirements. From air-gapped networks, to only buying hardware from vetted vendors, to forbidding outside devices (like phones) from even being in the same room. This is a level of security that Signal can't provide, and is necessary when discussing things like military plans.
Finally, the fact that someone accidentally added a journalist to this group and no one said anything shows a frankly reckless attitude towards security. Someone should have double checked that everyone on the group was supposed to be there, and the fact that no one did is fucking embarrassing.
Eg how to get non technical people to know when they’re using the civilian version.
Alternative crazy universe: Just use the tech that was created for the government and does all the right things.
The behavior will continue until an effective negative stimulus is given.
Then immediately stop reading. The details don't matter at this point.
Jeffrey Goldberg's number was absolutely in Mike Waltz' phone because Mike Waltz was one of his sources.
Mike Waltz accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat either due to a misclick or (more likely, IMO) being dumb enough to use a conflicting contact id label for multiple people and being careless when forming the list.
Not being able to admit to being a Goldberg source for political reasons, he (Waltz) made up some insane story about the number being 'sucked into his phone' and having never talked to Goldberg.
Additionally, I'd assume (based on being the most obvious solution) that Trump et al fully realize Waltz was both responsible for this screwup and would like to fire him for it but view firing him as giving "the libs" a win and have stubbornly kept him on despite not really wanting to (less because of his screwup and more because of who he accidentally added).
Is there any evidence that iPhones have some security exploit that Apple + Three letter agencies can use?
It's not clear that a president can pardon himself, either, but that's not been tested in court so who knows?
Signal chairman is ex-CEO of Wikipedia.
Signal CEO estimated annual costs at $50MM.
This week’s releases: 100+ security issues of varying severity fixed in macOS, 50+ issues fixed in iOS.
Citizen Lab has some reports on exploits.
> Is there any evidence that iPhones have some security exploit that Apple + Three letter agencies can use?
GP never made that claim.
Has the NSA moved on from the NOBUS ("NObody But US") doctrine? Empirically, they have been more than happy to keep any vulnerability (or backdoor) available if they believe only they can exploit it.
It’s incredibly common for senior officials and senior journalists in DC to have each other as contacts. DC runs on relationships and people reflexively hang onto any phone number or email they perceive as valuable.
And it seemed weird (to me at least) that such a privacy-focused messaging app would just “suck in” all my contacts the first time I turned it on. I can believe that other people would not realize this happens. And thus not be vigilant about inscrutable usernames like “JG” that might be duplicated.
The Tor network was deemed the culprit of anonymity and secure connections not long ago. We all know how it went.
Do not mean to downplay the mistake (at a minimum, the SecDef should suffer the same fate a lower ranking member of the DoD would for reasons of military order), but humans will be humans. Dealing with security sucks and involves trade offs and compromises.
It's a tactic. Like everyone else, they have interests and goals and needs, and they can be deterred in the same way. The problem is, nobody really tries. The Democrats keep doing the same ineffective things - a demonstration of being cowed and intimidated.
For example, the Dems have almost no ability to communicate with the public. Whatever Trump and the GOP say are effectively true because there is no counter voice (beyond some third parties). The Dems don't do anything about it; they just keep communicating in the same way.
The Dems have no talking points. A few of them are organizing now around 'economic populism' - in other words, they are completely cowed and will avoid all the major threats to freedom, democracy, the rule of law, safety; the corruption, cruelty, and hate. They are going to their safe space - economic policy!
Officials are required to document decisions in an archival way. If they fail to do that, it is arguable that their failure to follow the law is the problem, not the messaging technology.
I think it is in everyone’s interest to resist the assumption that chat and text messaging is intended to be a permanent record—even for govt officials.
But the article throws Waltz under the bus; I don't think this is how you treat your precious sources. So Goldberg's number must have been there for some other reason - for example, maybe it was sent with an interview request.
I of course have no way of knowing if that's true or not, or if it is what damage may have been done, but it's interesting to consider.
Is this a serious question?
Here’s evidence in writing from NSA from earlier this year that makes it extremely clear that isn’t the case: https://www.scribd.com/document/843124910/NSA-full
There are a few possible explanations:
- “It was intentional.” This doesn’t pass the smell test and it’s not clear who benefits.
- ”It was a setup.” I suppose this is possible, if the Intelligence Community is preloading the application onto the devices in question.
- ”It was an accident.” In some ways this is the most believable and unbelievable. What are the chances that you just happen to add Jeff Goldberg to the chat?! Which leads to the final possibility…
- ”It was an accident, and not the first time.” We just heard about it this time because Goldberg was the one included. This would explain the astounding coincidence, because it changes “the one time they messed up was in front of the editor of The Atlantic” to “this time they messed up was in front of the editor of The Atlantic.”
If they did it once, what are the chances the most vocal recipient was the first example of the mistake?
I’m sure we can count on an extensive audit of the participants in these 20+ other chats……
Fundamentally Trump is a symptom. When he goes, all the voters that voted for him will still be there, and they’ll still have all the reasons they voted for him.
also the story about how a natsec reporter just happens to be so intimately in contact with these officials that they accidentally add him to the group chat in the first place. There is no adversarial relationship between journalists and the state department, there never was, no matter who is in the white house. They just parrot whatever the US or allied nations are saying when it comes to foreign policy (that is the illegal invasion and murder of innocent civilians in foreign sovereign nations).
The fact that they used signal and leaked some messages to a propagandist is a distant third, but everyone only cares about that, makes me sick. This is why the US is hated around the world, and nobody gives a shit about Trump outside the western bubble.
There are a lot of Trump supporters on HN. More data points that highlight how incompetent or corrupt this administration is might eventually sway them.
Midterm and special elections are real points where negative stimuli could occur. If polling gets bad enough, swing state Republican politicians might start sweating sooner.
So maybe for you this is just obvious confirmation of what you already know. But by reporting and following up on this story, maybe some people will learn and understand something they did not before.
I am not conspiratorially minded, but I bet this was because Waltz had Jeffrey Goldberg's number. I bet Waltz leaked things to Goldberg in the past, and this is the Trump administration cutting ties with him in the most "sleep with the fishes" way possible.
It seems like the current way of doing things leaves the opposition rudderless through most of a presidential term, followed by a bitter fight where their own side rip each other apart followed by only a few months to try and establish oneself as leader in waiting.
Could the democrats do their primaries now? It feels like that would 1. Distract from Trump so he doesn't get run of the news 2. Mean that all the "candidate X is a bad democrat" stories could be long forgotten by the next election. 3. Give a pedestal to the actual presidential candidate as the go to person for the media to get reactions from 4. If they turn out to be genuinely terrible there's a lot of time to find out and potentially replace them.
Many of the people you see in films and photos furiously protesting the civil rights act, picketing with signs against MLK Jr, lynching people during that time, putting glass in the seats of children because the schools were forced to end segregation, etc are still alive. Trump was grown and had started college when the Civil Rights act passed.
Its time to start just forgiving them because they never seem to forget.
1. The head of the CIA
2. The secretary of defence
3. The vice president
4. The director of national intelligence
5. The White House chief of staff
6. Chief of Staff for the Secretary of the Treasury
7. Acting Chief of Staff for the Director of National Intelligence, and nominee for National Counterterrorism Center Director.
8. The Secretary of State
Plus a bunch of others including random trump political allies like Steven miller and witkoff, a journalist and an as yet unidentified person known only as “Jacob”.
But they collectively got together, and decided repeatedly to do this over 30 different occasions in just this story alone.
But don’t let anyone try to convince you this was some single persons problem, this was the absolute textbook definition of a conspiracy at the highest levels of government to knowingly and repeatedly violate the law with regards to both handling classified information and around government record keeping laws.
And this line they are trying to spin about signal was somehow approved for use is here in black and white proven to be wrong with the NSA making it clear there was a known vulnerability in the platform and it wasn’t even approved for unclassified but official use communications as recently as February 2025: https://www.scribd.com/document/843124910/NSA-full
Because sadly, thats what the people respond to. When given the choice between food on the table / roof over their head / cash in the bank account and abstract values like "republican government", "rule of law" and "protecting human rights" etc. they will choose the former. Especially as long as its OTHER people's rights, and OTHER parties getting surpressed, they don't care quite so much. We've seen this play out in Russia. Granted they did not have the long history of Republican government that the US has had.
The irony with Trump is they may get neither. At least some of them. Authoritarians have way of mollifying that minimum % that actually matters. Mostly people with guns and willingness to use them. In the US we're talking as low as 25% (so 75% of us are effectively screwed). And when you have billionaires controlling the information space, it would be very difficult to organize opposition.
I'm now looking out to 2028. Trump and his cronies may be plotting to crash the system and "declare an emergency" so elections get suspended. Or the alternative, he just runs again and dares anyone to stop him. The blue/purple states should at the very least, bar him from appearing on the ballot there's a question of whether there will have enough backbone and could not be sufficiently threatened/bullied into backing down, or if he tries to pull a 2020 again with an "alternate electors", at the very least cause confusion so the election can be thrown to the House where GOP almost assuredly would have control over the state delegations. Lastly, the various Federal agencies, possibly even the military would be sufficiently "Trumpified" such that they will threaten, maybe even resort to force.
2) their are laws about storing government communications which are built in to the official channels. Trumpists are suspiciously intentionally breaking these laws.
I just remember hearing an anecdote from a friend with ties to Signal that some part of the government wanted to recommend it and another part slapped their hand because they didn't want to encourage people to use technology that law enforcement can't breach.
Even though I just use it for casual conversations with friends, that gave me some extra confidence in using it.
Not only does Signal suggest contacts, but it also suggests people you're in mutual groups with. Even if Waltz didn't have the Atlantic's JG as a contact, it's possible that they were both added to some group, and that Waltz accidentally picked JG-the-journalist when creating his Houthi raid one.
What did Hegseth mean by "We're clean on OPSEC"? Who was assuming responsiblity for the security of their communications?
If the response is "yeah, we're good with those things, what else have you got?" I don't know what to say. You want bread? Maybe some circuses?
The Democrats did have plenty of policies. Realistic ones. Not the most exciting. If the public wants to be excited, and aren't picky about it, then indeed they should have that. But I'm not going to be able to provide it.
... but when the primaries are is encoded into state law, so it would be a challenge to change it for every state if one wanted to shift when "the primaries" as a whole concept are.
IMO this is a problem with the Democratic party not connecting with voters. Voters voting for Trump don't feel represented by Democrats, and that is something Democrats should be solving for.
> The Democrats did have plenty of policies. Realistic ones. Not the most exciting. If the public wants to be excited, and aren't picky about it, then indeed they should have that. But I'm not going to be able to provide it.
I think it's obvious that such an approach doesn't work; does that matter to you? You seem defiant to me (though interpreting tone from text is very uncertain); who are you defying? There's nobody to defy - you either get the results or not.
It's also obvious, IMHO, that the issue isn't policies but politics and ideals - freedom or oppression, humanitarianism or cruelty, power or democratic equality, democracy or authoritarianism, etc. How many bridges to build next year doesn't measure up, and if that's what a politician talks about, they are clearly hiding from a difficult reality.
However, I was referring to the lack of a mechanism. Whatever the Dems say, almost nobody hears it. Name a major statement by a Democrat in the last week? In the last month?
I mean, yeah the Democrat party sucks.
Here's this "macho tough guy" that wears a diaper, lifts, and makeup...who's famous for bankrupting a casino (twice), and was known for decades as a cartoon character, a clown, a moron. They hear the "on day 1" promises that won't ever get resolved. They see what happened the last time this guy took the wheel.
And they want more of it? Unswayable indeed.
I thought America was immune from fascism because it generally took the form of an idiotic leader that had charisma. I thought my fellow countrymen and countrywomen were smarter than that. Of all the people to succumb to, it's this fucking guy? Seriously?
That's a very interesting point. On the other hand, the GOP did have a leader through the Biden administration - Trump.
Even when they don't, such as under Obama, they do have effective means (Fox, social media, etc.) and content (effective, disciplined talking points) of communication. The Dems have neither.
But a crazy percentage of voters thought the economy was literally in a recession. Not even that it was doing poorly, but that there was a recession. Some people just live in an alternate reality.
That's the opposite of the truth. Republican regions have long voted against their economic interests in favor of their values. Look at all the white working class people in the South that have long voted Republican over values, even as the GOP took away or blocked their benefits, education, health care, minimum wage, labor rights, etc.
Primaries are actually a relatively recent innovation. Before that, the candidates just appeared from the party machines. All of the ugliness went on out of public view.
For the last several elections people complained that there wasn't much difference between Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. And there isn't. They are a center leftish (by American standards) bunch.
The party has a small wing further to the left, but it just isn't enough to put forth a strong candidate. That is the biggest ugliness we get now: they don't feel represented and often, they don't vote.
It's interesting to me why this perspective is popular when applied a certain administration but not popular when applied to other things such as
* Poverty \ * Drug Addiction \ * Homelessness \ * Obesity \ * Undocumented Border Crossings
They simply need to solve their problem. That they have it is absurd and makes them look pathetic, cowed, and ineffectual victims - not something people vote for. What is more important to a political party than a means of public communication?
If no one you respect has been swayed, you should know: the other side is making the same baffled judgements about you.
The Democratic Party is not blameless. They are seen as being soft on immigration now. Obama deported more people than Trump.
They forgot the lesson that allowed Bill Clinton to win - “It’s the Economy Stupid”.
And no matter how you feel about it. There is a large part of the United States, even among the LGB crowd who don’t want biological men in women’s sports.
DEI the way it is framed is toxic to millions and I as a Black guy rolled my eyes at much of the indoctrination and “ally” nonsense I had to endure during my stint at BigTech.
No matter how you feel about this either, it takes a remarkable amount of lack of self awareness by the DNC not to know how toxic this attitude is to a large swath of American voters.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-mee...
> The rules specify that when we have a gender-nonbinary candidate or officer, the nonbinary individual is counted as neither male nor female, and the remaining six officers must be gender balanced
Some government software and processes are not pleasant to deal with such as the process of obtaining a green card so I don't really fault people for being skeptical of the existing systems without evidence of their robustness.
It’s not even approved for unclassified information that’s used in an official capacity.
The Biden Administration strongly denies his claim.
>Former Biden officials, though, said that Signal was never permitted on their government phones.
“We were not allowed to have any messaging apps on our work phones,” said one former top national security official on the condition of anonymity. “And under no circumstances were unclassified messaging apps allowed to be used for transmission of classified material. This is misdirection at its worst.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-war-plans-signal-biden_...
There are countless interviews with voters quoting the laughable and provably impossible promises/lies Trump spouted during the last campaign as their reason for voting for him.
If what you’re advocating is that the democrats need to embrace denying reality and lying to the public if they want to win, I can’t disagree with you. But I also think historians won’t have a tough time pointing to the end of the American experiment.
I always say that adults are kids who don't have the supervision anymore.
When a kid says "2 + 2 = 5" you can say "well you always fail your math exams, you obviously can't be trusted with that". When an adult says it... it becomes a "belief" and we "respectfully agree to disagree".
Name a major Democrat. There is none. After 3 electoral cycles when party bureaucracy each time crowned the candidate instead of a candidate rising through the primaries the party has no leaders anymore - note the difference between a leader and a top bureaucrat, the Dems have no deficit of the latter.
Given its open source nature that would be exceedingly difficult.
> The Tor network was deemed the culprit of anonymity and secure connections not long ago. We all know how it went.
What are you talking about? Tor is still the uncontested king of low-latency anonymity networks.
At least they're using Signal, I guess. Can you imagine if this leaked and they were using something like Telegram!?
If I wanted to use a personal chat or personal email, I'd need to know their personal details, or copy-paste their work info, it would confuse which accounts they reply to... it would make no sense at all.
I keep my work convos and personal convos separate not just because it's company policy, but it's 100x easier for me.
That said I’m not sure how leaders are supposed to quickly collaborate across time and space anymore. Not every location has a SCIF, but I suppose that’s the high bar we should hold.
But Trump? A middling businessman and second-rate TV star nobody would have ever heard of if he hadn’t been born rich? He has zero credentials for this. What gives?
Sounds good but makes little sense. He contradicts himself constantly. Anyone will find policies of his that they can agree with, because he covers the spectrum. You want strict gun control and universal government health care? He’s your guy. You’re a 2A absolutist and think health care should be totally unregulated? Trump is your man! Likewise with “tells it like it is.” I’m convinced that his popularity is mostly due to the fact that he just spews so much crap. If you manage to only hear the parts you like, you’ll think he’s great.
“The Democrats are worse” could be sensible, but it’s almost always based on a notion of Democrats that’s completely disconnected from reality.
Where are we?
Just telling people the 'truth' isn't effective communication at all (in fact, it can be dangerous) - that should be obvious to anyone with some experience in life. To tell the 'truth' and then throw up your hands because it didn't work is just being at victim.
A major political party knows all that - it's shameful and corrupt that they don't care to be effective.
You fell for the aggression tactic - it's just a cheap negotiating / political tactic. Act hyperagressive and some will believe you are unstoppable, implacable, etc.
Security is far more than that and Signal does the 'far more'. Every independent security expert (I can think of) recommends Signal for security, including CISA, and now the CIA, NSC, etc.
One security pundit, I think Schneier, said that focusing on encryption is like putting a titanium door on your house and saying it's secure. Yes, nobody can damage that door, but there are windows, hinges, a lock to pick, the chimney, remote listening devices, tracking Internet usage, searching your garbage, ...
Many Dem leaders don't seem to care now, complaining that people are pressuring them to be effective.
Don’t expect others to do stuff for you.
Although I suspect you want the story not discussed, in the name of free speech I assume?
I don't expect the voters to love boring truths. But if they actively want to be lied to, and revel in getting away with lies, then democracy is not the tool for me.
Democrats are making many statements. If they are not "major", it is perhaps because nobody cares about statements. They care about the exercise of power, and Democrats have none. Any statement they make is easily dismissed as bluster.
Government rules are often laws. Company rules are often internal policies.
Potato, puh-treason…
My brother in christ......Donald Trump wears makeup. How many actual "tough guys" do you know that wear makeup?
Back in the days of my parents, a fat guy with lifts and orange makeup would have been called a (anti-gay slur) and would have been the butt of every joke.
He's bankrupted 2 casinos, failed to sell football steaks airlines and liquor to Americans, he shits himself and wears a diaper, and is so intellectually deficient that me, an autistic guy, could run circles around him in debate.
Yet somehow, he's seen as a "business genius". HA!
It’s worth speaking to those folks.
I’ll wait.
While they certainly love the guy, this is demonstrably untrue.
Otherwise, we wouldn't have had a President Biden interregnum.
Some degree of incompetence is certainly a bridge too far, at least for some of his supporters.
Moreover, cults of personality are shockingly common. Many people simply do not reason themselves into their political positions. Probe their beliefs beyond surface level and there's no consistency beyond "ingroup good, outgroup bad."
He was convicted of 34 felony counts and got no sentence.
Like I can do nothing but list stuff for the next hour. It makes no difference.
If you still need to read about it... jeeze.
Rabid DEI? Mythical.
Highest tax rates in the world? No we don’t. And did you notice that this guy just enacted a massive tax hike? Voting Trump for lower taxes is idiotic.
Drugs, poverty, war? Trump has no effective plan to fight any of these.
Importation of new voters? Why do Republicans assume immigrants are automatic Democratic votes? Hispanic culture is pretty socially conservative. Those millions of people coming in over the southern border should be an easy demographic for the Republican Party to recruit.
Rapists and racists? When you support a rapist and racist to run the country, expect that to be criticized. And aren’t Republicans supposed to be all about “free speech”? But oh no, somebody called me names, it’s awful.
When people sincerely believe that if the country gives gay people rights that it will cause the nation to burn in hell, there isn’t any convincing people.
8 years ago, I was a left-libertarian living in SF and trying to convince Trump people to vote for Hillary because Trump was dishonest.
Then I was swayed because people provided information to me that changed my views. Now I view what Trump is doing now as FAR too moderate.
Biden being the President and the DOJ charging Trump does not imply "Biden went after Trump."
There's actually no evidence Biden played any role in DOJ's decision to prosecute either for the stolen classified documents or for the election fraud. The brazen criminality was sufficient for an independent DOJ to take up the matter.
inb4 "DOJ didn't make that decision independently" which is another way of saying "I'm willing to believe things without evidence."
What's he supposed to do, go to jail for hacking to protect his previous source who is actively throwing him under the legal bus?
Meanwhile people who matter and people who vote can use their brains to deduce the truth that it was a politically motivated attack that made use of the judicial system.
For one reason or another, it seems that humans are able to use deductions to arrive at conclusions without having it be spoonfed to them. The people who need to be spoonfed can sit in their highchairs and be irrelevant I guess.
It was like an even more hamfisted change management process than the neocons upsetting their apple carts, before they understood how things were balanced on them.
Not to say anything shouldn't be changed, but jesus... folks need to have a little humility and curiosity -- try to understand what the folks before them were attempting to do and how.
There has to also be a competing vision.
The Democrats have been stuck in a "That's a lie!" + {crickets} rut for too long.
What is the competing vision? (And no, general platitudes about freedom, democracy, and apple pie aren't enough)
I know this is mighty convenient framing to justify the conclusion you've already reached, but back here in reality there's actually no shortage of people with access to all sorts of records who are extremely motivated to find and publish such evidence. They haven't yet and they almost certainly never will.
P.S. To deduce that Biden ordered these investigations, you'd have to disprove alternative explanations including "the defendant himself and his own legal team publicly provided ample evidence of his criminality to justify investigation."
You're making shit up, not deducing, lol.
The far right and Trump's biggest support is people acting helpless and spreading their dogma of helplessness. It's surreal to see how effective their propaganda is - this is right out of psyops playbooks. It's truly unmaerican to throw up your hands - nobody is going to do it for you, and anything is possible. That's part of freedom.
He would show some numbers and make completely wrong conclusions. There was no way I could get him to try to listen to me. Whereas back at school, he was never arguing with me about maths given that he had bad grades and I didn't.
So somehow I really feel like there is this "authority" thing missing. Now that he is an adult, he feels like his opinion about everything is valid.
The first sentence is true, the second absolutely false. Public, political communication is all about that second issue - look how effective the GOP is. They can make absolute nonsense into a norm; they can shut down any speech they don't want.
So it's actually like I said: You're willing to believe things without evidence.
You can take pride in that if you want, but don't call it deduction.
Just reading stuff on social media and tsk-tsking got us nowhere. We have to do more.
When you were at school, you were both part of the same social hierarchy. On the topic of math proficiency (general smartness, really), it was easy for him to perform a mental check and see that you were above him in that aspect (even if he was above you in other aspects), and so he should listen to you.
But then you probably went your own way, essentially getting out of his way with him continuing to advance in that traditional subculture. So now he feels he's earned being considered closer to the top of the hierarchy, even though it's no longer a pan-society hierarchy!
And then he also cannot understand where to slot you into his mental model. So you just get written off as an outside attacking force to be opposed.
This also explains why they continue calling themselves "conservatives" despite gleefully working to destroy our institutions and standing in the world - what they want "conserved" is their perceived prominence of the subcultures they bought into.
I think it's necessary (to a point, in a certain way) but certainly not sufficient. If you surrender social media to mis/disinformation - as the Democratic Party seems to have done - you're going to lose for sure.
But a persuasive, positive (e.g., not cynical), honest argument sets an example that those things are important and powerful - and they are - and that there is a valid point of view out there.
I once heard flat-earthers in a train. One was saying "It's like school, e.g. physics: they purposely make it such that we don't understand it to confuse us. Because we're not worse than anybody else, so we should understand, right? If nobody understands, that's because they bullshit us!". I really wanted to say "counter-example: I could understand physics at school :-)".
For that matter, the power of the POTUS to declassify things is part of the overall asssumed powers, not explicitly set forth in law anywhere (so far as I am aware), but increasingly supported by SCOTUS decisions.
In precise, dried-ink legal terms, if I am someone entitled to read classified information, and mark my grocery list top and bottom with the appropriate signage, that stupid list actually becomes classified. Sharing it with a friend then literally becomes a federal crime. Declassification is a specified process, involving review and approval by authorities (not me), or expiration of the classified period (a default for low levels of classification - it can of course be renewed).
At its best, "Science" doesn't claim the force between two objects is proportional to the product of their masses. It merely observes that this has been the case in all known, well-documented instances, and attempts to find exceptions have failed, so that this "law" is valid and reliable, and expected to remain so forever.
We use the term "fact" very casually, and eagerly. "The Dow is up 20% year-over-year, unemployment is under 4%, and the dollar is strong. The economy is strong. That's a fact!" Not only is that not a fact, it's not even a fact that unemployment is under 4%. That's (presumably...) just the U3 number as published by the Department of Labor.
My point is: the best "facts" still require a certain amount faith in the data sources around us. That's fine. I don't wish to visit every country on Earth to ensure that it exists, and observe the weighing of the Kilogram in Paris. (I mean, unless I can take time to sightsee a bit.)
There has been a genuine breakdown in that faith in authority in US culture. Maybe Ukraine attacked Russia first. Maybe poor people are inherently lazier than rich people. Maybe the Earth is flat.
I believe this breakdown has been intentionally orchestrated and groomed and fed by nefarious people like Rupert Murdoch, but that's just an opinion. Based on things I like to call "facts".