Signal Chat Controversy Is an Endorsement of Encryption Software
Signal Chat Controversy Is an Endorsement of Encryption Software
https://reason.com/2025/03/28/signal-chat-controversy-is-an-endorsement-of-encryption-software/
Month: April 2025
The ‘Meritocracy’ Lie
“On Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump vowed to “forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.”
Less than two weeks later, Vice President J.D. Vance’s office hired Buckley Carlson—the 24-year-old son of former Fox News host and popular conservative pundit Tucker Carlson—as deputy press secretary.
At least young Buckley can be certain that he didn’t get the job because of the color of his skin.
The dismantling of the federal government’s various so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies has been one of the signature efforts of the first two months of the second Trump administration. Those rules often required that factors like race, gender, and ethnicity be considered alongside (or even ahead of) other more important things when the government was hiring, promoting, or awarding taxpayer-funded contracts.”
…
“And yet, what Trump has done over these first two months seems to be a long, long way from restoring meritocracy to the federal government or society at large—often in ways that matter much more than a silly patronage job handed out to Tucker Carlson’s kid.
Start with some of the personnel decisions the administration has made. Reducing the size of the federal workforce is a laudable goal, but the mass firings carried out by Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seem to have targeted probationary employees (those on the job less than a year, generally) first and foremost—despite DOGE’s public claims to the contrary. That’s an arbitrary approach that says absolutely nothing about merit and protects more senior employees simply because they’ve been around longer. Rather than promoting meritocracy, it is the sort of “last in, first out” thinking you’d expect from a teachers’ union.
That approach sits awkwardly alongside this week’s big news story: that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth disclosed sensitive operational details about a military operation in a group chat that included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. Goldberg was reportedly invited to the chat by Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, who has now also been put in charge of the investigation into how all of that happened. (Cue the meme!)
The implications have not gone unnoticed. If no one is fired over the group chat snafu, writes journalist Zaid Jilani, then “the message is that accountability is only for people at the bottom. People at the top can get away with anything.”
“There is no administration in the world—beyond this one—where a blunder of these proportions happens and nobody gets fired or resigns. Not in London. Not in Moscow. Not in Tokyo. Not in Pyongyang. Nowhere,” is how Politico summed it up on Thursday.
Without accountability, all that talk about meritocracy is pretty meaningless.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/28/the-meritocracy-lie/
Trump Voters Realizing They F—ed Up Big Time
Big Trump supporter regrets her Trump vote after she is fired under false pretenses from her government job. She says she got the highest possible rating on her previous review, yet was fired for poor performance.
Trump team thinks workers like her would be more productive in the private sector, and wants to get rid of any impediments to their often illegal and unconstitutional agenda and methods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr6_qL17ryY
Move over, Austin: Denver rents are falling at one of the fastest rates in the country
“The relief comes after a construction boom added tens of thousands of new units to the metro area last year alone, largely in its urban core. Builders rushed to Denver to meet demand from a population boom before and during the pandemic and are now completing them as growth has slowed.
“Everybody that wanted to move here because of remote work has moved here,” said Brian Sanchez, chief executive officer of Denver Apartment Finders, a locator service. “The demand is not keeping up with the supply.”
Between 2010 and 2020, the Denver region grew by more than 16% to nearly 3 million people. Since 2020, its growth has slowed to about 1% annually.
Rents for apartments of up to two bedrooms in the Denver metro area dropped 5.9% last year, according to Realtor.com. That’s a faster decrease than several other onetime hotspots for pandemic-era migration and construction, like Austin and Nashville. There, rents fell 5% and 4.4%, respectively in 2024.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/move-over-austin-denver-rents-are-falling-at-one-of-the-fastest-rates-in-the-country-131643629.html
What we can learn about China’s J-36 (from America’s FB-22)
The F-22 could have been far more capable, but the U.S., thinking threats to its air superiority were over, canceled the upgrades to save money. Now, U.S. air superiority is threatened by China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIooaaPlOA
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR2_HpN_0tw
Trump administration concedes Maryland father from El Salvador was mistakenly deported and sent to mega prison
“The Trump administration conceded in a court filing Monday that it mistakenly deported a Maryland father to El Salvador “because of an administrative error” and argued it could not return him because he’s now in Salvadoran custody.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-concedes-maryland-father-044632677.html
Trump Is Sabotaging His ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Agenda
“”I have never felt more uncertainty about our business in my entire 40-plus-year career,” said one survey respondent. Another respondent called “uncertainty” the “key word to describe 2025,” adding, “There cannot be ‘U.S. energy dominance’ and $50 per barrel oil,” a stated goal of the Trump administration. (The current cost of oil is about $70 per barrel.) At that price, “We will see U.S. oil production start to decline immediately and likely significantly (1 million barrels per day plus within a couple quarters). This is not ‘energy dominance.'”
“The administration’s chaos is a disaster for the commodity markets. ‘Drill, baby, drill’ is nothing short of a myth and populist rallying cry,” one comment succinctly said.
It’s not just Trump’s rhetoric that has the energy industry on edge; it’s his trade policies, too. One respondent noted that tariffs “immediately increased the cost of our casing and tubing by 25 percent.” Another said, “Washington’s tariff policy is injecting uncertainty into the supply chain.””
https://reason.com/2025/03/28/trump-is-sabotaging-his-drill-baby-drill-agenda/
For the First Time in 80 Years, the U.S. Denies Mexico’s Request for Water
“For the first time in more than 80 years, the U.S. has denied Mexico’s request for water from the Colorado River, escalating tensions over a water-sharing agreement between the two nations.
The State Department says it denied the request because Mexico hasn’t complied with the 1944 treaty that established the water-sharing system. That agreement requires Mexico to send 1.75 million acre-feet of water from the Rio Grande to the U.S. every five years. In turn, the U.S. must send 1.5 million acre-feet of water to Mexico from the Colorado River each year.
By the end of 2024, Mexico had delivered only a quarter of what it owed for the current five-year period, which ends in October. Mexico has been struggling with severe droughts for several years. In the first quarter of 2024, the country’s agricultural production fell by 6.1 percent, according to a report from the Bank of Mexico. Activity in the north-central regions, which includes the border states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo León, fell by 3.3 percent. The country has sought emergency water deliveries to alleviate the strain on its water systems.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/31/for-the-first-time-in-80-years-the-u-s-denies-mexicos-request-for-water/
Defending Student Deportations, Marco Rubio Equates Writing an Anti-Israel Op-Ed With Starting a Riot
“President Donald Trump says he is determined to deport “terrorist sympathizers,” including legal permanent residents as well as foreigners with student visas. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the targets have a history of “tearing things up” on “our university campuses” by starting riots, taking over buildings, and harassing people.
While those descriptions seem accurate as applied to at least some of the foreign students whom Rubio wants to expel, they are less apt in other cases. Contrary to the way Trump and Rubio portray this initiative, neither rhetorical support for terrorism nor disruptive conduct is necessary to invoke the sweeping legal authority on which they are relying, which applies to any noncitizen whose “presence or activities” Rubio thinks could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
…
That gloss rings true as applied to an activist like Taal, who went beyond praising Hamas (which on its own would be constitutionally protected speech) by engaging in conduct that interfered with other people’s use of Cornell facilities, to the point that he was banned from campus. But Rubio’s description is more than a little misleading as applied to a student like Ozturk, who seems to have done nothing more than express views that offend Rubio.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/31/defending-student-deportations-marco-rubio-equates-writing-an-anti-israel-op-ed-piece-with-starting-a-riot/