Feds are watching your sarcastic posts online as part of Trump's new war on terrorism

As Rolling Stone reported Wednesday, some Trump administration officials have been privately gossiping among themselves, comparing the now-infamous national security breach in a Signal group chat to something out of the HBO political satire, Veep. These officials are getting it wrong. This ongoing mini-saga of the second Donald Trump era isn’t Armando Iannucci’s American series, Veep; it’s becoming more like Iannucci’s series, The Thick Of It, in which British politicians and their profane spin doctors constantly obsess over words, doublespeak, and linguistic technicalities in order to salvage their last shreds of dignity, against the backdrop of televised scandals and media feeding frenzies. An uncomfortably similar dynamic is currently playing out as the Trump White House struggles to respond to the damning revelation that a group of the president’s top officials — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Vice President J.D. Vance — were discussing highly sensitive bombing plans over an unsecured Signal group chat that they didn’t know included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, who broke the story. (Waltz apparently added Goldberg to the group chat.) The administration’s only recourse has been to turn one of the dumbest national security fiascos in recent memory into an absurd game of semantics. Trump officials and their allies are now arguing that Trump’s national security officials were not discussing “war plans” in the Signal chat, as The Atlantic wrote Tuesday, after the outlet published copies on Wednesday of what it called “the detailed attack plans that Trump’s advisers shared” in the chat. The Signal messages show Hegseth giving a detailed rundown of the administration’s planned bombing attacks in Yemen before they began. He even at one point wrote: “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP.” “The Atlantic has conceded: these were NOT ‘war plans,’” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote Wednesday on X after Goldberg released new details from the group chat. “This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.” The Atlantic, however, made no such concession when it published screenshots of Hegseth discussing the imminent bombing of Houthis in Yemen. The rest of the administration is deploying this same argument. “Nobody’s texting war plans,” an animated Hegseth told reporters on Wednesday. “They even changed the title to ‘attack plans’ because they know it’s not ‘war plans,’” he added. “There was no war plans on there,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized later on Wednesday. “This was a, sort of, description of what we could inform our counterparts around the world when the time came to do so.” The Department of Defense claimed on X that The Atlantic “backpedaled the whole ‘war plans’ thing really really fast,” noting that the headline on the story published Wednesday describes “attack plans.” The Pentagon called the publication a “hoax generating machine” a few hours later. Regardless of the distinction between “war plans” and “attack plans,” Hegseth and others were discussing what was very clearly highly sensitive information about an upcoming military attack in an unsecured chat — and had no idea a journalist was reading along. They have refused to admit any wrongdoing or acknowledge the stark reality of the situation. Instead, they are trying to deflect responsibility by playing word games that anyone who has seen what was discussed in the chat should find insulting. Some of the more self-aware members of Team Trump’s brass are willing to privately concede that debating the difference between plans for “war” and a high-profile military “attack” is not a real debate. “You may think it’s silly, but it’s what we’re going with today,” says a close Trump ally who’s been in touch with White House aides on this aspect of the crisis-communications strategy. One administration official — who requested anonymity to candidly discuss this, in their words, “shitty mess” — simply says: “I don’t care if you want to call it a ‘war plan’ or an ‘attack plan,’ I think we shouldn’t leak either to reporters and so-called journalists who hate the president. I’m not going to include Rachel Maddow on my private group texts.” Some Trump allies are voicing their frustration publicly. “Trying to wordsmith the hell outta this signal debacle is making it worse,” right-wing commentator Tomi Lahren wrote on X. “It was bad. And I’m honestly getting sick of the whatabout isms from my own side. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Admit the F up and move on.” The Trump administration’s desire to play word games fits with the larger MAGA effort to render words meaningless so that Trump and his party can get away with, well, anything. Trump and his allies have frequently used the world “war,” in particular, to achieve their ends. The administration is currently citing the president’s “war authorities” to argue that it can deport Venezuelans migrants to a brutal El Salvadorian prison without due process, for example — even though the U.S. is not literally at “war” with Venezuela or gangs from there. It also fits with the larger effort to convince Americans to doubt what’s right in front of them. “Do you trust the secretary of defense — who was nominated for this role, voted by the United States Senate into this role, who has served in combat, honorably served our nation in uniform,” Leavitt asked during a press briefing on Wednesday, “or do you trust Jeffrey Goldberg, who is a registered Democrat and an anti-Trump sensationalist reporter?” The answer is obvious when considering there is no need to take Goldberg’s word for it. He published a group chat exchange that Trump’s own National Security Council confirmed was legitimate. The real question is whether Americans trust Hegseth, a scandal-ridden former Fox News host who multiple Republican senators believed wasn’t fit to lead the Pentagon, or their own eyes.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a student at Tufts University, drew the attention of a pro-Israel group for co-authoring an op-ed

Studies on climate change and South Africa are also on the latest list of grants to be terminated, according to updated documents obtained by Nature.

The administration has downplayed the importance of the text messages inadvertently sent to The Atlantic’s editor in chief.

Alfredo "Lelo" Juarez, 25, has organized on behalf of farmworkers' rights in Washington state since he was 14 years old.

My high-level takeaway is “what you see is what you get. These guys might look like idiots, and talk like idiots, but don’t let that fool you: they really are idiots.

ChatGPT "power users," or those who use it the most, are becoming dependent upon — or even addicted to — the chatbot. (Not sure if Horseshit; God knows the internet has made parasocial relationships even weirder...)

After Trump had insisted in 2012 that President Barack Obama release his college transcripts and passport records, Maher pushed back on the mogul’s request with a demand of his own: that Trump show proof that he is not “the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.” Maher, interviewed on Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show, cited the similarity in color between Trump’s coif and an orange orangutan’s fur, as split-screen images of Trump next to the animal were displayed. If Trump complied with the request and proved him wrong, Maher promised he would give Trump $5 million for the charity of his choice. The charities Maher suggested? “Hair Club for Men” or the “Institute for Incorrigible Douchebaggery.”

The team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology publishes measurement data crucial for advanced research in areas like astrophysics, nuclear fusion, and semiconductors.

Everyday actions like attending a protest, signing a letter of support, or supporting communities at risk should never be considered ‘unlawful’

Mating season for wild turkeys in southern Quebec runs from late March to early April, meaning the male birds can get aggressive. Experts say more and more turkeys are showing up in urban areas because winters are milder and there's plenty of food.

in Horseshit just for that headline.

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.

Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that President Donald Trump made the right move in “cracking down on fentanyl and making sure the border is “stronger,” and added that Democrats should have done a “much better” job on illegal immigration than they did under former president Joe Biden.

Exclusive photos of the arrival of Venezuelan detainees deported from the U.S.

Or am I just constantly thinking about sex? Many such cases.

A leaked Wells Fargo paper reveals how corporate profiteers could ransack an institution older than America itself.

Seamus Blackley is best known for creating the Xbox game console. Now he wants to build a chocolate factory. One problem: Cacao trees don't naturally grow in Los Angeles.

In a blind rush to appease a phantom Trump demographic, media executives and billionaire owners are granting influential platforms to bigots, hacks, and panderers.