April 5: Fixin’ What’s Broke
POST 1164
VOTE TUESDAY, APRIL 1 – NO EXCUSES. THIS MAY BE FOR ALL THE MARBLES.
National Security

National Security Bozo Michael Waltz
By now you know that Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor in Chief of The Atlantic, was included in an unsecured group text on Signal, originated by National Security Advisor (yes, really) Michael Waltz. That chat included top secret information about a pending attack on Houthi belligerents in Yemen.
The operation and text string discussion were led by the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and included 17 other administration incompetents, not one of whom had the sense to question who “JG” – Jeffrey Goldberg – was or insist that they use a secure communication system, rather than Signal, a public use platform. They discussed F-18 attacks, rocket and drone usage, timing, target damage assessments and more. That is to say, it was the battle plan, complete with information for when our pilots would be over their targets.
Let’s have a both sides compare-and-contrast.
First, imagine that this had happened on Barack Obama’s watch.
- What national security outrages and screams of fecklessness would congressional Republicans be howling at Obama and his top people, were they to have conducted secret plans on an open platform and had included a journalist who had no security clearance?
- How many firings of Obama’s top people would Republicans have demanded within the first 20 minutes of the news of such a breach of security being made public?
- Within how many seconds of news of the breach of national security going public would there be Republican calls for the impeachment of Obama?
But it didn’t happen on Obama’s watch. It happened on Trump’s, so:
- There has been no howling of outrage
by congressional Republicans, although there have been many massively stupid things said in defense of the indefensible. How come?
- There have been no demands by congressional Republicans for firing any of the sloppy bozos who included that journalist on their unsecured chat. How come not even one of those 18 administration brainiacs even questioned who “JG” is, much less why the war plans discussion was being held on an unsecured chat line? What if the person presumably accidentally included in this war chat had been Putin suck-up Tucker Carlson? What if Tulsi Gabbard, the immensely unqualified, Russian useful idiot security risk, our Director of National Intelligence, had been on that chat? Oh, wait: she was.
- Why have there been no Republican calls for the firing of the incompetent 18 and the impeachment of Trump?
“The obvious point [about Signalgate] was made early: The people in charge of the country are buffoons and liars.” – David Corn
Bittersweet
A long time ago my in-laws had a 48-star flag that hung on a wooden flagpole mounted in a holder next to the front door of their house. After they passed we kept the flag and my wife put it away carefully to protect it. This morning she came upon it again and brought it into my office to show it to me. It’s all cotton, of course, and the colors are still bright.
I refolded it the way the Boy Scouts taught me all those years ago, tucking in the ends to make a neat package and realized that this flag was from a day when this was America.
I don’t mean a day without Alaska and Hawaii. I mean a time when We The People had a shared reality and shared values and when attacking our democracy and our Constitution were unthinkable evils; a day when we not only made commitments, like Social Security and health benefits for our veterans, but we kept them, too; a day when we didn’t have ignorants talking parents out of protecting their kids from deadly diseases, when our officials understood the meaning of “Top Secret” and took extra care to protect our nation. Maybe you remember that America, too.
That is the America the overwhelming majority of We The People want. We have values in line with the values we had when that 48-star flag was new.
That’s what is inspiring tens of thousands of us – perhaps millions – to demonstrate on April 5. It will propel us to speak up on other days, too. We want our America back.
TAKE ACTION
There will be a huge demonstration in DC on April 5 organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“
The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want that to happen.
Click here or on the map to the right to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!
Pass this along to at least 3 others – and bring a friend to the rally.
And watch this.
Counting On the Courts
Are you thinking that Trump and his lackeys got away with defying the federal court order to return to the U.S. the so-called Venezuelan terrorist gang members they renditioned to El Salvador? Is it your notion that they were ordered to produce evidence supporting the deportations and ordered to justify refusing those men due process and that they got away with refusing the judge’s orders?

Judge James Boasberg
The judge in this case is Judge James Boasberg. His wife and daughter have been threatened by Trump-following thugs, but he’s standing firm and having none of Trump’s deceit, disorder and lawlessness. Read about it in Harry Litman’s piece, Boasberg Will Not Relent.
“But,” you say, “the courts have no army to enforce their orders and Trump has his Andrew Jackson smartass, tough guy attitude. Plus, he has his get-out-of-jail-free pass, courtesy of the poisonous, brain-free 2024 Supreme Court decision in Trump v. USA.”
All true, but Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), constitutional law professor and royal smart person in all things Constitution, has the antidote to the Constitutional poison. Read Jamie Raskin And The Way To Stop The Trump Administration. This piece is a don’t-miss for your heart health.
There’s More
To stop Trump we will need for our military to refuse illegal orders. That will be tough, since Trump has fired all the top brass who aren’t sycophants.
Just imagine if Trump had invoked martial law in 2020 during the peaceful demonstration in Lafayette Square for George Floyd. Trump wanted Gen. Milley to order his army to shoot protesters in the legs. Milley would never do that. Such an order would be illegal, but I don’t have sufficient confidence that the next general will have the same square jawed integrity.
Trump knows he’s going to be severely reprimanded by voters in the 2026 mid-term election. Expect him to do everything imaginable to stop that from happening, including cancelling the election*. Desperate people do desperate things, and Trump is desperate to be king.
All of that is why we need judges with a stiff spine, people like Jamie Raskin, generals with integrity and We The People in action.
In Case You’re Wondering . . .
. . . how badly Trump’s Project 2025 Cruelizers have damaged our country, read this.
And read this from STAT:
Peter Marks, the top FDA official who oversaw vaccines, gene therapies, and the blood supply, resigned Friday after being told by Trump administration officials he would be fired if he did not step down, according to press reports and people familiar with the situation. In his resignation letter, which was obtained by STAT, Marks said that he had attempted to answer the concerns of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., regarding the safety of common childhood vaccinations. “However, it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks wrote. |
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* He’s threatened to do that so that he can stay in office.
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JA
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