404 Media: The Signal Clone the Trump Admin Uses Was Hacked
A hacker has breached and stolen customer data from TeleMessage, an obscure Israeli company that sells modified versions of Signal and other messaging apps to the U.S. government to archive messages, 404 Media has learned. The data stolen by the hacker contains the contents of some direct messages and group chats sent using its Signal clone, as well as modified versions of WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat. …
The hack shows that an app gathering messages of the highest ranking officials in the government—Waltz’s chats on the app include recipients that appear to be Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, and JD Vance—contained serious vulnerabilities that allowed a hacker to trivially access the archived chats of some people who used the same tool. The hacker has not obtained the messages of cabinet members, Waltz, and people he spoke to, but the hack shows that the archived chat logs are not end-to-end encrypted between the modified version of the messaging app and the ultimate archive destination controlled by the TeleMessage customer.
(404 Media more…)
Micah Flee: The Signal Clone the Trump Admin Uses Was Hacked
Lucian K. Truscott IV: The leaning tower of arrogance
Mary Geddry: End-to-End Insecurity: How Trump’s White House Got Pwned by Its Own Paranoia
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Marlon Weems: A Detail in Last Week’s Economic Reports You Might Have Missed
… The economic reports we’ve seen over the past week, like the one showing the first negative GDP years and unemployment, are backward-looking. They reflect a period in the past, not the current economic landscape. …While there was an expectation of tariffs, no one—not even the experts—knew a) Trump would drop a tariff bomb on every country on the planet, or b) the tariffs would be the highest levels seen in a century. Think about what that means: Even though Trump’s tariffs weren’t announced until April 2nd, GDP for the quarter ending March 30th still dropped into negative territory for the first time in years. That is cause for concern.
Likewise, Friday’s relatively rosy employment data doesn’t give us the complete picture. For example, federal employees who took the government’s “deferred resignation” offer are still getting paid, and therefore, are still counted as employed. That means the full extent of DOGE layoffs is yet to be revealed.
We’ll begin seeing the true effects of tariffs on employment in the coming weeks, but we won’t have a grasp of GNP for the current quarter (which ends in June) until July.
(Marlon Weems more…)Hollywood Reporter: White House Says “No Final Decisions” Have Been Made on Movie Tariffs, Still “Exploring All Options”
Dispatch: Republicans for Inflation
Not only are tariffs making inflation worse, the president is arguing that’s a good thing.
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NY Times: Trump Says ‘I Don’t Know’ When Asked About Due Process and Upholding Constitution
President Trump repeatedly said he didn’t know when asked in a TV interview whether every person on American soil was entitled to due process, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
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Mr. Trump responded “I don’t know” one more time and referred to his “brilliant lawyers” when Ms. Welker asked whether, as president, he needed to “uphold the Constitution of the United States.”
(NY Times more…)Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – May 4, 2025
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In his oath of office, Trump vowed to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”When Welker pointed out that the Constitution guarantees due process, Trump suggested he could ignore it because honoring due process was too slow. “I don’t know,” he said. “It seems—it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” he said.
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Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig explained to MSNBC’s Ali Velshi that far-right scholars have argued that the president does not have to follow the Supreme Court if he doesn’t agree with its decisons: he can interpret the Constitution for himself. Luttig called this “constitutional denialism.” He added that “[t]he American people deserve to know if the President does not intend to uphold the Constitution of the United States or if he intends to uphold it only when he agrees with the Supreme Court.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
Steven Beschloss: Look to the Judges
While Trump despicably denies his duty to uphold the Constitution, let’s take strength from judges who oppose his regime’s illegal actions
“I urge you to keep going, keep doing what is right for our country,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told a gathering of judges.
The words were not a surprise, but they still were stunning. The occupant of the White House, a man who gave a solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, was directly asked yesterday on NBC’s Meet the Press if he was obliged to uphold the Constitution.
His answer: “I don’t know.”
Translation: No, I don’t have to uphold the Constitution, not when it doesn’t serve my interests.
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Bulwark: Trump’s Bumbling, Bullying Anti-DEI Crusade
The administration’s culture warriors get triggered by mentions of race or gender.
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S CRUSADE against “woke” and “DEI” (diversity, equity, and inclusion) may have reached an absurd nadir last week with the big oops that followed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement that he had “proudly ENDED” his department’s Women, Peace, and Security program, a “woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative” loved only by feminists and libs. A comical face-saving scramble ensued because it was revealed almost immediately that WPS was a bipartisan congressional initiative cosponsored in 2017 by then-Senator Marco Rubio and then-House member Kristi Noem (both current cabinet members), signed into law by Donald Trump, and often held up as proof of the first Trump administration’s female-friendly bona fides. Hegseth’s unconvincing attempts to explain that he really just meant to end “the Biden administration’s woke WPS initiatives” (whatever they were) and bring back the good, Trump-approved WPS were roundly mocked.This isn’t the first time the Department of Defense under Hegseth’s leadership had to do an embarrassing walkback on woke. …
(Bulwark more…)Bulwark: What RFK Jr. Doesn’t Understand About Disability
The HHS secretary’s ignorance of the political history of disability shows he is the last person who should have a role in shaping its future.
IF YOU’RE YOUNGER THAN ABOUT 60, you probably don’t know anyone who’s had measles, because almost everyone you know got their shots as a kid. The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine has been widespread for decades. It’s a triumph of medicine: The United States, which once saw hundreds of thousands of measles infections a year, recently fell below two hundred a year. It was under control—effectively “eliminated.”So far this year, though, measles has re-emerged in thirty states, surpassing the count for all of last year. …
(Bulwark more…)Dispatch: What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong About Autism
The HHS secretary’s statements about the prevalence of autism and its causes contradict current scientific consensus.
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BBC: Israel security cabinet approves plan to ‘capture’ Gaza, official says
Times of Israel: EU calls for ‘utmost restraint’ after Israel approves plans to widen Gaza offensive
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The plan, approved by the security cabinet late Sunday, will significantly broaden the offensive against the Hamas terror group and provides for the “conquering of Gaza” and retaining the territory.
(Times of Israel more…)AP: A missile from Yemen halts flights in Israel hours before vote on intensifying Gaza war
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Daily Beast: ‘60 Minutes’ Thumbs Its Nose at Trump With Scathing Segment
NOT SCARED OF YOU
The show brought on lawyers and firms targeted by President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive orders.
(Daily Beast more…)CBS: Trump presidential orders target law firms. Here’s how some lawyers say that threatens the rule of law.
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NY Times: A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
A new wave of “reasoning” systems from companies like OpenAI is producing incorrect information more often. Even the companies don’t know why.
Last month, an A.I. bot that handles tech support for Cursor, an up-and-coming tool for computer programmers, alerted several customers about a change in company policy. It said they were no longer allowed to use Cursor on more than just one computer.
In angry posts to internet message boards, the customers complained. Some canceled their Cursor accounts. And some got even angrier when they realized what had happened: The A.I. bot had announced a policy change that did not exist.
(NY Times more…)Quanta: When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field: An Oral History
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Judd Legum: Trump promised no new business deals with foreign governments. He lied.
On January 10, 2025, President Trump released an “ethics agreement” detailing how he would handle his personal business interests while in the White House. It is remarkably weak and does not require Trump to divest any of his holdings. Unlike a similar agreement for his first term, it does not prohibit the Trump Organization from striking new deals abroad while Trump is president. Instead, it simply prohibits the Trump Organization from striking deals directly with foreign governments.
Trump’s second-term ethics agreement is such a permissive document that it is challenging to find a way to violate it. But three months into his presidency, Trump has found a way.
(Judd Legum more…)Adam Kinzinger: The Trump Crime Family Business: Selling America from the Inside
While Trump sits in the Oval Office, his sons are cutting foreign deals—from Saudi towers to Qatari golf resorts.
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Daily Mail: Trump turns on Fox News hosts as he demands one retires immediately and blasts another as a ‘total loser’
Daily Beast: Trump Throws a Tantrum After Getting Roasted by Karl Rove
LATE-NIGHT RANT
The president was stung after the Republican strategist ripped into him on tariffs, communications, and the AI image of Trump as the pope.
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“I don’t need to have Karl Rove of Fox News to tell me what to do,” Trump shot back in a late-night post on Truth Social. “The guy’s a total Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything!”
(Daily Beast more…)Raw Story: ‘It really is a turn off’: GOP insider says Trump’s latest comment is ‘testing’ his base
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Intercept: NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred From Sitting Final Exams
After being banned from campus buildings following peaceful sit-ins, students said the disciplinary processes broke from school policies.
(Intercept more…)
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Intercept: The Trump Administration Is Hiding American Casualties of War
The U.S. government is keeping American casualty numbers for the undeclared war on Yemen secret. This is not normal.
The Trump administration is fighting an undeclared war in Yemen, and it has not been shy about publicizing the details of its attacks.But the administration is unwilling to level with the American people about the costs of war. U.S. Central Command, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the White House are keeping the number of U.S. casualties from this ongoing conflict secret. This amounts to a cover-up. Members of Congress are calling for accountability.
(Intercept more…)
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Dean Blundell: Anti-Trump Wave Is Sweeping The Globe: Canada, Australia, and the Global Rejection of Authoritarianism is on
Australia Pulled a “Canada” as the Global Repudiation of Trump Grows
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TNR: Donald Trump’s Biggest, Dumbest Lie Is … Really Big and Really Dumb
The president is peddling hot nonsense on what tariffs can do for America—and the person he’s conned the most seems to be himself.
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Closer to the Edge: Jessica Brösche
Jessica Brösche didn’t come to America to get waterboarded by fluorescent lights. She came to visit a friend in Los Angeles. Instead, she was thrown in solitary confinement like a war criminal, because the United States can’t tell the difference between a tourist and a threat—but it sure knows how to cage both.
This is not a story about border security. This is a story about how ICE humiliates people for sport and gets away with it, every single day.
(Closer to the Edge more…)
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Billy Oppenheimer: The Burden of Passively-Chosen Thoughts, Agents of Construction, Instinctual Behaviors, Internalized Voices, Forgetting To Panic, and A Note on “Camp”
Snopes: Yes, FDR warned of ‘selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests’
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