Sharing Military Action Plans with the Media...

Of all the news organizations that could have "accidently" been included on a secret DoD chat, I am pretty certain that The Atlantic would not have been the first choice of the Trump administration.

Here are a few thoughts about this:

- Was it classified? Maybe, or maybe not. Technically, it is up to the Secretary of Defense to determine whether or not that information was classified. But using any reasonable definition, we would never release specific war time information to anyone. So the rationalization for this one doesn't pass the smell test.

- Should the SecDef resign? In this specific instance, I think the answer is no, and here's why: no specific harm was done (to the troops, anyway). The raids were conducted successfully. And most of the noise is about the process to begin with. So yes - Hegseth should get a slap on the wrist, but no, I don't think that this is worthy of a resignation. 

- Exposing methods is a HUGE security concern: If there is one takeaway for me, it is that the DoD is using Signal for operational communications. This is almost unbelievable to me. Basically, with this slip up, we (the US and everyone else in the cybersecurity world) has exposed that the US Department of Defense is using signal to conduct war time operations. Our enemies are likely flipping out that they now have the possibility of intercepting real time DoD communications. I am in shock that - given the technology that exists, and the resources that the United States government has at its disposal - our troops use COTS communication software for deployment and operations (as well as command and control). Can the President authorize nuclear launch using Signal?

This one goes down as an "oopsie", which is only slightly better than a clusterduck. We have not heard the last of this one, and I can only hope that the Trump administration works on processes and methods to resolve this from happing again in the future.

Senator Schumer LOSES it on The View...

Recently, the Senate Minority Leader (and arguably one of the Democrat Party's most influential voices) appeared on the left-leaning talk show The View. Here are his words:

The Republican party are controlled by a small group of wealthy, greedy people. You know what their attitude is: 'I made my money all by myself, how dare your government take my money from me. I don't want to pay taxes.' Or, 'I built my company with my bare hands, how dare your government tell me how I should treat my customers, my land and water that I own or my employees'. They hate government, government's a barrier to people, a barrier to stop them from doing things, they want to destroy it. We are not letting them do it, we are united.

These words. 

These are the words of the Democrat Party leadership.  

These are the words of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on The View, March 18, 2025. 

You really can't make this stuff up. And notice that I included the direct video from The View - I don't want there to be any suspicion that I sliced the video or anything like that.

(This quote appears at the end of the segment, at about 9:45)

Preserving the Filibuster...

Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) was heavily criticized for her support of maintaining the Senate filibuster. She understood that the majority of the day can (and often does) become the minority of tomorrow.

Fast forward to March 2025: Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer decided not to filibuster the GOP continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the US government through September of this year. Instead he voted to pass the bill, preventing a government shut down.

There are plenty of members of the Democrat Party that are FURIOUS with Sen. Schumer, and have threatened him with a primary challenge when he is up for re-election., one of them being Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

Sinema decided to call out the hypocrisy of some of her former colleagues on the left who conveniently changed their political stance regarding the filibuster:

Removing the filibuster is a crazy action of child-like politicians that are angry that they are not getting their way. Democrats should be PRAISING Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin for preserving the filibuster in the US Senate.

Hello...and Welcome to Conversation...

It has been 3 years and a day (ironically, I don't know how exactly that happened) since I last wrote here. In that time, President Trump has been re-elected, and many people (on the left and the right side of the political spectrum) have been adversely impacted by the new administration's actions. 

I had been writing posts on Facebook for a while, but the animas towards political conversations has been a bit much. So I thought I would come back to the trusty old blog instead. 

Let me conclude this post by saying: if you don't like political ramblings from a moderate conservative, this is not the place for you. No one is forcing you to read this blog, and I deliberately moved here to keep it out of the faces of those left leaning types that I really do care about. In all likelihood, some of those are going to read these posts as well, and may even choose to comment on them - something which I openly welcome. 

So welcome (back) to the conversation. Always interested in your thoughts, and look to have some rational, pragmatic conversations about current events with you all!