Benn Herrera

Kristi Noem Survived Many Crises. Then She Crossed a Trump Red Line. President Trump, who values loyalty, has at times tried to distance himself from his administration’s own actions when they become politically toxic.

A journalist won the arm wrestling match for the one.

Noem wasn't fired for the things that will get her an economy ticket to The Hague. It was for mildly discomfiting her boss.

The midterms cometh. Tick tock, motherfuckers.

Dammit, good pun. Now I'm jealous.

A digression from the shit show commentary.

I wrote something about how maybe the singularity won't feed us to the corporations or kill us all.

bennherrera.dev/writing/alig...

@chriswarcraft.bsky.social - if you've got 10 min and an interest in a posited positive outcome, give it a 👀

I wonder how many cronies and donors got a hot commodity investing tip last Friday.

Is that stopping ICE from doing horrible shit front and center every damn day?

It is not.

The Dems carving off DHS funding from the rest of the budget was a losing move and it's playing out now.

The public was ready to blame the MAGAts for the shutdown. They had the advantage and pissed it away.

We saw it at our local art house theater. It was a hell of a ride.

This was the obvious outcome a month ago.

NYT: Senate Democrats Block D.H.S. Funding Again Over Enforcement Guardrails For the third time, a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security failed as Democrats refused to support the money without new restrictions on federal immigration agents.

And because of blocked funding ICE had to cease operations, right?

Not so much.

Sentate Dems separating DHS from the rest of the budget when they had the leverage to shut it all down was collaboration and they fucking knew it.

Schumer isn't ineffective. He's executing his shitty intent perfectly.

Fucking prophetic, that.

I'm so stealing this term, please and thank you.

NYT: Strategies The Best Playbook for Investing During a War Is Usually Doing Nothing

Is it just me or is this fucking ghoulish?

Why not do an entire series on conflict investment with a spreadsheet of trading moves in columns divided by displaced and dead?
Necessary for protecting retirement accounts, blah blah. Fine, let specialty publications cover it.

Mother fucking assholes.

OpenAI changes deal with US military after backlash Chief Executive Sam Altman said the group would prohibit the use of its systems to spy on Americans.

Too little, too late, shitbird. You showed exactly what your values were and people responded.

FAFO.

The tide of users fleeing OpenAI actually caused overload related outages of Anthropic services.

They are never coming back.

1040 tax form

We did our tax returns as soon as we had all the paperwork. You may want to do the same, especially if expecting a refund.
It would be right on brand for the regime to issue an Apr 10 directive to trigger automatic audits on blue state returns owed a refund and to delay payment until complete.

Read the article. Nothing about it being the illegal project of a lawless regime.
All of their coverage of the 47 administration's actions are muted to the point of meaninglessness.

The radio coverage is the same
KQED in SF is just as bad.
You can't call it quitting if they never even fought.

6 U.S. soldiers have been killed as the war with Iran further engulfs the region The war over Iran engulfed more of the Middle East and beyond on Monday as strikes intensified, Iran-backed groups stepped up attacks and a sixth U.S. service member was killed in action.

Of all the media org failures the most heartbreaking & enraging is NPR.
Their both-sidsing and pretending normality didn't save their federal grants. They sacrificed their duty for nothing.

They're supposed to be free from corporate influence, yet report like whipped dogs afraid of the burglar.

Does Munchkin count?

3 US troops killed and 5 are seriously wounded during Iran attacks, military says WASHINGTON (AP) — Three American service members have been killed and five others seriously wounded during the U.S. attacks on Iran, the military announced Sunday, marking the first American casualtie...

The first military casualties of our new quagmire have occurred.

When the asymmetric warfare responses arrive on US soil I hope the shitsticks who voted for this are fucking happy.

The fall of this regime is coming, and they are running up their tab on the way down.

It's impressive how Schumer can be both a wet noodle and a crusty sock at the same time.

we have two Cardigan Corgis, so as a connoisseur of Corgi booty expressiveness, that's epic ❤️

What is happening in Iran? What we know about US-Israel attack and Tehran response Iran responds by launching missiles and drones towards Israel and four Gulf Arab countries that host US military bases.

We told them and we told them and we fucking told them.
Now we're entangled in a new Middle East war. An illegal one, even.

The chuds who voted for this ("I didn't vote for this!" - yes you did, motherfucker) have collected the whole set of everything they didn't want.

Hope they're feeling stupid.

We've seen what she's ok with.
I don't trust her any farther than I could comfortably spit a rat.

NYT: Congress Faces War Powers Votes in Wake of Iran Strikes

They shouldn't be voting on a war powers resolution. That's begging for authority already granted by the Constitution. They should be voting on articles of impeachment.

Anything less is acquiesce and collaboration.

A foreign policy of decapitation strikes has a history of haunting its proponents.

Also, fuck the pedo fascist regime. Their flailing panic won't keep us from turning the screws until they are out of office and in pumpkin suits.

Decapitation strikes on foreign governments. Always a sign of a healthy democacy.

This won't keep us from pursuing the Trumpstein case and defending voting rights until they're all in fucking prison.

The regime is flailing in panic and will continue to until we rip them out by the roots.

Altman makes my skin crawl. He does that sincere, thoughtful "I'm really the guy you want to trust with this stuff" schtick so well. But his actions have demonstrated repeatedly that he gives precisely zero shits about humanity. In a way he's scarier than Musk because he doesn't foam at the mouth.

Not a word of this is hyperbole.

The regime is drowning and will stop at nothing to hold on.

This year*will* be painful, but if we keep up the fight, they will fall.

North Korea could 'get along' with US, says Kim Jong Un Kim said they could get along if the US accepts that Pyongyang's nuclear weapons are here to stay.

Well that's just what we've all gone to bed hoping for every night. A nuked up North Korea whose Dear Leader might invite ours for a sleepover.

Our best hope is that the two narcissistic mole rats just can't stand the smell of each other.

NYT: For Trump, Military Strike in Iran Could Serve Symbolic Purpose Some officials in the Trump administration hope an attack would force Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment program. Others have doubts.

I can't tell if it's sane washing or fantasy world denial any more.

NYT: "Trump’s Push for Election Power Raises Fears He Will ‘Subvert’ Midterms" corrected to "Trump Will Subvert Midterms"

Fixed that for them.

Hopefully the real journalists will win the next arm wrestling match.

Pretty sure their response would be "you started it"
Doesn't make it right, but a policy of murdering foreign citizens in international waters has a way of coming back to bite
The blame for this is at least half on our fascist regime.