Zorro
Zorro's JournalCalifornia GOP makes no endorsement in race for governor
Neither Steve Hilton nor Sheriff Chad Bianco reached the 60% threshold to win the state party’s formal backing.Just days after President Donald Trump announced his preferred candidate in the race for California governor, the state’s GOP delegates were unable to come up with an endorsement Sunday.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco received 49% of the vote from the roughly 1,100 delegates at the California Republican Party’s convention in San Diego. Conservative commentator Steve Hilton — who has Trump’s backing — came in at 44%. The state party’s rules require a candidate to win at least 60% of the delegate vote to secure its endorsement Seven percent of the delegates did not choose either candidate, instead selecting option three: “no endorsement.”
Both candidates said they were feeling strong despite the lack of a formal nod.
“I think everyone understands that the endorsement that really matters is the one that came last Sunday with President Trump,” Hilton said after the vote at the Sheraton San Diego Resort on Harbor Island. “I’m totally confident that we are going to win the primary.”
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/04/12/no-endorsement-from-california-gop-in-race-for-governor/?share=io2ngoor4spo2s0em21o
How Trump Just Proved He Is History's Most Powerful Idiot
He sent three stooges to botch talking peace, then went to UFC. He’s blockading a blockade. No one in history comes close to this idiocyIt is well known that Donald Trump covets titles, awards and honors. After all, you do not acquire the FIFA Peace Prize, the first and only trophy for being the “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal,” the Republican Party’s inaugural “America First Award” and someone else’s Nobel Peace Prize in the same year by mere good fortune.
But some would argue these are fake awards. That may be so. But few would deny that there is a real distinction that Trump has in just the past few days Trump has demonstrated he richly deserves.
He is undoubtedly the most powerful idiot in the history of the world.
Both his idiocy and his power are unparalleled. On the latter point, his position as president and commander-in-chief of the most dominant, potent nation confirms that no idiot since the beginning of time has ever been in a position to do so much damage to so many people as a consequence of his idiocy.
On the prior point, just look at the record. The misbegotten, ill-considered, going-from-bad-freaking-worse every damn day War with Iran illustrates Trump’s manifold mental deficiencies with shocking clarity—and, unfortunately for all of us, the damage he is doing seems certain to touch more lives in more egregious ways going forward than it already has.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-trump-just-proved-he-is-historys-most-powerful-idiot/
America fought to defeat fascism. This 'triumphal arch' reeks of it.
Detailed renderings of President Donald Trump’s proposed victory arch near Arlington National Cemetery reveal a confused and offensive symbolism.Donald Trump’s giant victory arch appears to have an official name. Since October, when the president showed preliminary designs for a gigantic arch proposed for a traffic circle near Arlington National Cemetery, the monument has been referred to variously as a triumphal arch, the Independence Arch and the Arc de Trump. The last of these isn’t entirely a joke. When asked whom the arch would honor, Trump said: “Me.”
But renderings of the arch, submitted to the Commission of Fine Arts in advance of its discussion of the project Thursday, refer to it as the Triumphal Arch. And it will be as big as feared — 250 feet high — larger than arches of antiquity, taller even than ghastly monuments to authoritarian triumphalism, including the victory arch in Pyongyang, North Korea.
It is an insult to the men and women who risk their lives to protect democracy, who have fought in wars against fascism, who have actually achieved victory rather than merely declared and celebrated it. Its symbolism is borrowed and confused, and it will block a sacred vista that connects the Lincoln Memorial to the final resting place of the Civil War dead, and veterans from every major war and conflict this country has fought.
The main body of the arch will rise 166 feet from an elevated base. Atop that will be a 60-foot-tall gilded statue that looks like an AI-mash-up of the Statue of Liberty holding a torch and the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, resembling in its glittering ostentation the statue atop a victory column in Mexico City erected by the brutal dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1910. The design of the arch is a little simpler than some of the more garish proposals Trump floated earlier. Gigantic Corinthian columns have been removed, and there are no longer gilded statues in the niches on the two main supporting legs.
https://wapo.st/4mkWrmZ
The Trump Administration Is in a Psychotic State
It has been clear for a long time that President Trump is a person with a disorganized mind and a disordered personality. What the past few months and especially the past few weeks have brought into focus is how his pathologies have cascaded downward and outward through his administration. They have become institutionalized. The reason the administration so often does not act coherently is that it cannot. The world faces something new and baffling and frightening in Mr. Trump’s second term: a psychotic state.
This does not mean that every individual in the government is emotionally or psychologically unstable. Nor is it a clinical diagnosis of the president. The issue is that the administration as a whole lacks a consistent attachment to reality and the ability to organize its thinking coherently. Mr. Trump’s grandiosity, impulsivity, inconsistency and outright breaks with reality have become state policy.
In that respect, Mr. Trump’s second term is different from his first. In 2020 he could confabulate about the election result or babble about treating Covid with injections of disinfectant. But he could not translate his fantasies into reality — at least not usually. In the second term, by contrast, institutional psychosis has been on display since Day 1.
It is the Iran war that has most vividly demonstrated the scope of the problem. In this conflict, the most potent antagonist has been the administration’s own incoherence.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/opinion/trump-iran-psychotic-state-institutions.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aFA.EK-1.krbmVfdPsXHx&smid=url-share
Institutional psychosis. Seems apt terminology.
Sheriff's lieutenant with million-pound fireworks stash led to deadly blast, prosecutors say
• A former Yolo County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant is among five people charged with murder following a deadly fireworks explosion that killed seven warehouse workers in Esparto last July.• Two pyrotechnic companies stored millions of pounds of explosives on the lieutenant’s property over the course of a decade, while he used his position to shield the illicit operation from scrutiny, prosecutors allege.
A former Yolo County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant is one of five people charged with murder following a fireworks warehouse explosion that killed seven workers in the rural Northern California community of Esparto last summer, authorities said.
Samuel Machado is accused of illegally having 1 million pounds of fireworks on his property at the time of the blast and using his law enforcement position to shield the illicit operation from scrutiny for years, according to the Yolo County district attorney’s office.
Machado was placed on administrative leave following the violent July 1 explosion, which was felt by residents up to 20 miles away, destroyed a family farm and sparked a 78-acre grass fire.
Devastating Pyrotechnics LLC and Blackstar Fireworks, Inc., are accused of manufacturing and storing explosives — including some too powerful to even be legally considered fireworks — on Machado’s property. On Friday, Yolo County Dist. Atty. Jeff Reisig announced a 30-count felony indictment had been filed against seven people connected to the blast, following the largest investigation he’s seen in two decades at the office. A separate five-count felony indictment was filed against an eighth defendant, Machado’s wife.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-04-10/ex-sheriffs-lieutenant-among-5-charged-in-california-fireworks-blast
What Anthropic's new nightmare means, in plain English
Words I did not enjoy reading this week, from a leading artificial intelligence company: “During our testing, we found that Mythos Preview is capable of identifying and then exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser when directed by a user to do so.”
In plain English, Anthropic says its newest AI model has found security holes in the major systems that power … well, almost everything. Amateurs with modest coding expertise could conceivably exploit these holes to hack and crack a frightening chunk of the nation’s digital infrastructure. Pulling off such a feat might be expensive in terms of computing power, but a lot of governments and non-state actors have both money and skilled hackers to spare.
Maybe you suspect more AI hype, designed to goose the firm’s valuation. If so, note how many major companies are taking it seriously. Instead of releasing Claude Mythos Preview to the public, Anthropic is working with a consortium of key players such as Apple, Google and Microsoft to patch these holes as soon as possible. That’s a strong signal that the problem is real. So it’s sobering to imagine what might have happened if a less responsible company or government had gotten to this model first — because eventually others will get there. Anthropic may be leading the pack, but the pack is close behind.
Some will see this as more reason to ban AI before it steals our passwords and our jobs. Unfortunately, that won’t work, as this week’s events demonstrate, because the technology is out there, and if the United States doesn’t develop it, someone else will.
What if the Mythos breakthrough had occurred at a Chinese firm? Any such company of sufficient importance is effectively controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, which thinks AI is very important — so critical that the government recently barred two AI founders from leaving the country after Meta bought their start-up. If a Chinese AI developer had suddenly uncovered a wealth of security vulnerabilities, would that firm have been allowed to warn the world while helping propagate patches? Or would the exploits have been handed over to China’s extensive cyberoffensive operations?
https://wapo.st/4t5JVKB
Trump officials unveil designs for president's controversial 250-foot arch
Source: Washington Post
The Trump administration on Friday unveiled new renderings for President Donald Trump's planned 250-foot triumphal arch, his most significant effort to remake Washington's skyline, as officials begin the process of seeking formal approval for the controversial project.
The renderings prepared by Harrison Design feature a golden inscription reading "One Nation Under God" on the arch, which is topped with a winged Lady Liberty statue and flanked at its base by statues of four golden lions. The project is slated for Memorial Circle, a traffic roundabout near Arlington National Cemetery, which city planners have eyed for more than a century as the site of a potential monument.
The project is intended to commemorate the United States' 250th anniversary. Built to Trump's specifications, it would transform a small plot of land between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery into a dominant new monument. Architects and historic preservationists have warned that the planned arch, which would be more than twice the size of the roughly 100-foot Lincoln Memorial and tower over the nearby cemetery, would distort the intent of the existing memorials and obstruct pedestrians' views.
The renderings were filed Friday by the Interior Department with the Commission of Fine Arts, a panel of advisers on the city's architectural matters that Trump has stocked with allies. The commission is set to review the White House's proposal at a meeting Thursday.
Read more: https://wapo.st/4eeTIsY
Not The Onion...
Frantic Trump, 79, Posts Ominous All-Caps Message in Morning Meltdown
Donald Trump has shared a cryptic Truth Social post as the world continues to be affected by his Iran war.
In a typically unhinged all-caps social media post, the 79-year-old wrote: “WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL RESET!!! President DJT.”
Trump offered no explanation for his Friday morning update.
It follows his late-night tirade that saw him aim fire at MAGA influencers criticizing the war, and share a graphic video of a woman being beaten to death with a hammer.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/frantic-donald-trump-79-posts-ominous-all-caps-message-in-morning-meltdown/
Dipsh*t Ed Martin Says DC Bar Can't Punish Him, Because He Is The President
About a month ago, Wonkette told you the story of the latest Trump idiot/moron/mouthbreather/paste-eater dipshit lawyers to get in trouble with the bar for their conduct in defense of criminal tyrant Donald Trump. There was former acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, who keeps handing judges hearts cut out of construction paper that say “Best US Attorney EVARRR” and wonders why they and her local bar association don’t accept that as valid. Probably Trump Derangement Syndrome.
And then there is the real Captain von Dipshit himself, Ed Martin, the former “pardons czar,” former acting US attorney for DC (actually dumber than Pirro, amazingly), former weaponization czar (LOL), and current possessor of the most embarrassing case of Stupid Republican Man Face that orbits around Donald Trump’s asshole.
Martin is in trouble with the DC Bar for a little stunt he pulled last year where he wrote one of his trademark little bitchy boy letters to Georgetown University — this is when he was acting US attorney — accusing them of doing aggravated DEIs, failing to explain how they were doing aggravated DEIs, declaring he was going to go ahead and sanction them, and that he would be denying outright any applicant to any of DOJ’s “prestigious” — HAHAHAHAHAHAHA not anymore, MAGA fuckholes! — programs for law students.
To which Georgetown replied ACTUALLY you cannot tell Georgetown what to teach, and ACTUALLY it is a violation of students’ constitutional rights to discriminate against them on the basis of “Georgetown.” The lawyer leading the investigation on behalf of the DC Bar explained that Martin violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution, and that he “knew or should have known that.” Which was a funny way of implying/saying explicitly that he’s stupid.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/dipsht-ed-martin-says-dc-bar-cant
Idaho Banned Pride Flags. Boise 'Complied.'
The Idaho Legislature is steadfastly devoted to terrible ideas, like banning abortion (and losing maternity care), eliminating “pornography” that isn’t in libraries anyway (and forcing some libraries to close), and making the lives of trans people miserable. Last year, just to be jerks, the Lege passed a bill aimed at forcing the city of Boise to stop flying the Pride flag outside City Hall, where it has flown for a decade, just a few blocks down the street from the state Capitol.
The 2025 law forbade any flags on public property other than the flags for US America, Idaho, cities and tribes, military services, and a few other official flags of “a governmental entity.” The bill’s Republican sponsor insisted that this wasn’t culture war, heavens no, it was about promoting unity, and America, and “stuff that we can all agree on.”
The Boise City Council promptly turned right around and passed a resolution adopting the Pride flag as one of three official City of Boise flags, and ran the rainbow colors up the flagpole again. Hooray!
Unwilling to accept such rampant disrespect to their edict, Republicans in the Lege this year passed a whole new flag law, this one adding a new rule saying that only official city or county flags “designated prior to 2023” will be allowed. The new law also added a $2000 per day / per flag fine, to show Boise what serious business this flag war is. The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Ted Hill (R), explained the fine was absolutely necessary to force compliance from “insubordinate government officials. […] It sets a tone of anarchy.” He too said that we must have “unity” under the stars and stripes, or else.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/idaho-banned-pride-flags-boise-complied
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