Joe Kent, former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent has resigned this week over the Trump regime's war in Iran. Kent was appointed to his position by Trump last year. His primary duty was analyzing and detecting terrorist threats. According to Kent (and many other experts), Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States. Kent accused Trump of being goaded by Israel into starting this war.

Kent has generally been a supporter of the Trump regime, so his resignation comes as a surprise and an indication that Trump's hold over his sycophants is not as strong as he might think it is.

The most interesting part of this whole situation is that Trump responded to Kent's resignation by sating he "always thought" Kent was "weak on security." Which makes us all wonder: Why did you appoint him to be the director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the first place if you thought he was weak on security? The answer, of course, is that for the Trump regime, loyalty is more important than qualifications.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ken) confronts Mullin over his endorsement of violence.

This week was Markwayne Mullin's confirmation hearing. Mullin has been appointed as Kristi Noem's replacement as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Most people thought it would be a relatively uneventful hearing, with Republicans mostly supporting Mullin's appointment, and Democrats mostly opposing it.

Things got heated, however, when Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky had his chance to confront Mullin. The two have a long history of animosity, including an incident several years ago where Senator Paul was attacked by a neighbor and severely injured. Mullin publicly declared at the time that he understood why the neighbor would attack Paul.

Mullin refused to apologize for the statement today, as he has in the past. Paul asked why the American people should trust a man with anger issues to run the Department of Homeland Security. Mullin's personal character was at the heart of the hearing, though his lack of qualifications for the position were also called into question. Like all of Trump's other appointees, Mullin's only qualification for the job he's been given is his loyalty to Donny 2-Dolls.

Mullin was cleared by the Homeland Security Committee, and the full Senate will vote on his confirmation at a later date.

I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force.

Anthropic is the AI company that developed the Claude Large Language Model (LLM). More importantly, Anthropic operates as a Public Benefit Corporation, which is a type of for-profit corporate entity whose purpose for existence is to provide a public benefit, and sees that purpose as more important than increasing the wealth of its shareholders.

The Trump regime has demanded that Anthropic allow the federal government unrestricted use of its AI technology to develop fully autonomous weapons and engage in domestic surveillance of civilians in violation of the company's established terms of use. Antrhopic refused to change the terms of the license agreement. This did not please the Trump regime, which retaliated by blacklisting the company and labeling it a "supply chain risk." This would effectively prevent not only the federal government from doing business with Anthropic, but any company that does business with the government who chooses to use Anthropic's AI technology could see their government contracts canceled.

Now Anthropic is suing the federal government for violating the First Amendment, which not only guarantees the right to free speech, but prevents the government from controlling what people or businesses can do or say. The designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk is unjust and unlawful, and is only being done to try to coerce the company to bow to the regime's power.