Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

EU Records Reveal Absurd Justifications for $150 Million Fine Against X

Newly disclosed internal records, obtained by the US House Judiciary Committee, reveal that Brussels privately warned X that it could be blocked from operating in the European Union unless it obeyed a set of Digital Services Act demands.

We obtained a copy of the records for you here.

The decision, stretching across 184 pages, became the foundation for a fine of nearly $150 million. Buried in the text is a clear threat: if X failed to comply, the Commission could “disable access to the infringing service.” That phrase, lifted straight from Article 75(3) of the DSA, turns regulatory oversight into a power switch.

The fines themselves read like parodies of seriousness. €45 million for “misappropriating” the blue checkmark. Somehow, allowing people to pay to show they’re a real person and get a checkmark supposedly distorted “cross-industry visual standards.”

€35 million for an ad repository deemed too limited. €40 million for withholding data from “qualified researchers,” some based outside the EU. We all know what type of “researcher” that is.

Even the supporting evidence borders on comic. One example cited a parody of a Donald Duck account. Regulators claimed the cartoon’s blue checkmark could “mislead users” into believing the fictional duck was real. In Brussels, satire is treated as a compliance issue.

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Protect Survivors, Protect Justice: What Lawmakers Owe Childhood Sexual Abuse Victims

The recent vote for the release of the Epstein files offered something rare in today’s political climate: a bipartisan moment of clarity. For once, lawmakers from both parties stood together to shine a light on abuse that powerful institutions hid for decades and elevated the voices of victims who had been ignored, dismissed, or silenced.

That unity was meaningful, but as encouraging as it was, the reality is that the problem extends far beyond one man or one set of documents.

Across the country, a painful and lingering stain remains for victims of childhood sexual abuse that occurred in institutions we were taught to trust. Survivors include those abused by members of the clergy, students at public and private schools, student athletes betrayed by colleges and universities, and children harmed within the foster care and juvenile justice system.

Though each of their stories differs, the pattern is heartbreakingly similar, where vulnerable children were left unprotected, and institutions became more focused on preserving their own reputation than safeguarding children.

We often do not understand the full scale of abuse or the systems built to hide it until survivors step forward through civil lawsuits, often taking decades, if survivors decide to even come forward in the first place. Civil litigation provides one of the only mechanisms that forces open the curtain and compels institutions to produce records, answer questions, and face accountability. This process gives the public a clearer picture of how this abuse occurred, how to prevent abuse from happening again, and exposes perpetrators still in the community.

However, none of this happens automatically, and right now, that ability is at risk.

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Former US ambassador Peter Mandelson pictured in the Epstein Files standing in his underpants in paedophile financier’s home

An extraordinary photograph emerged of what appears to be Peter Mandelson standing in his underpants in one of the homes of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The photograph, which has been released as part of the Epstein files, apparently shows Lord Mandelson, the UK’s former ambassador to the US, talking to a woman who is wearing a white bath robe.

A source close to Lord Mandelson said that the peer had no recollection of the photograph being taken and had no idea where it was taken or who had taken it.

Wearing a dark t-shirt and white Y-fronts, Lord Mandelson – who was fired as UK ambassador US last September when the depth of his links Epstein became public – appears to casually chat to the young woman.

The former Labour Cabinet minister points to a computer tablet inside what appears to be a room inside Epstein’s New York mansion.

New emails released on Friday as part of three million documents related to the child sex offender show Epstein sent £10,000 to Mandelson’s Brazilian husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva to pay for an osteopathy course.

Da Silva emailed Epstein on September 7, 2009 – two months after the paedophile was released from prison after serving 12 months of an 18-month sentence on child sex offences – and asked for money.

At the time, Mandelson was business secretary and in a relationship with Da Silva. The pair married in 2023.

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The “Special Regions” on Mars Where It Is Totally Forbidden to Explore, for a Haunting Reason

Even as momentum builds toward sending humans to Mars in the next decade, several regions on the Red Planet remain off-limits to robotic exploration. The reason has nothing to do with distance or terrain. Instead, it reflects a long-standing international effort to prevent Earth microbes from contaminating potentially habitable zones.

Known as special regions, these areas could offer the best conditions for Mars life detection. No spacecraft, however, is currently authorized to explore them. The restriction stems from planetary protection guidelines that prioritize scientific integrity over operational ambition.

Recent data from NASA’s Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater has intensified the conversation. In 2025, the rover identified organic molecules in rock formations linked to water-rich environments, prompting renewed scrutiny of current exploration limits.

The Legal and Scientific Shield Around Mars’s Special Regions

Special regions are Martian locations where environmental conditions may support microbial life. These include areas with intermittent warmth or subsurface water. The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) sets the criteria: any zone with temperatures above –28°C and water activity above 0.5 is flagged for protection.

The policy draws legal weight from Article IX of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which obligates nations to avoid biological contamination of other worlds. COSPAR’s planetary protection policy functions as the global implementation standard, informing mission protocols for agencies such as NASA, ESA, and CNSA.

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ICE agents chase down migrant sex predator after judge allows him to stroll out of NYC courthouse

An alleged crack-smoking, sexual-predator migrant wanted by ICE was allowed to flee through a back door of a Manhattan courthouse — infuriating federal agents, The Post has learned.

Gerardo Miguel Mora, 45, was arrested Thursday for shoplifting and possession of stolen property after allegedly snatching $130 in items from an H&M display case in Midtown that day, court records show.

Mora, whose country of origin was not disclosed, was collared on the Upper West Side on Jan. 7 for possession of alleged crack cocaine, according to a criminal complaint. That case is pending in court.

In 2011, Mora was busted for attempted rape and strangulation after he allegedly followed a 21-year-old woman home in Midtown, choked her and tried to remove her clothes, police sources said.

He was stopped by a bystander who heard the woman’s cries and came to her aid, holding Mora down until cops arrived, the sources said. 

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Elon Musk claims his emails with Jeffrey Epstein have been ‘misinterpreted’ and that he did NOT go to his island

Elon Musk claimed that his emails with dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein have been ‘misinterpreted’ as he insisted that he did not go to his island.

The world’s richest man said Saturday on X that he had declined, ‘repeated invitations’ from Epstein to visit him in the Caribbean or fly on his famed ‘Lolita Express’ private plane.

Musk added that he was, ‘well aware that some email correspondence with him could be misinterpreted and used by detractors to smear my name’.

‘I don’t care about that, but what I do care about is that we at least attempt to prosecute those who committed serious crimes with Epstein,’ Musk said.

In particular he called for those who committed, ‘heinous exploitation of underage girls’ to be brought to justice.

Government files appeared to show that the Tesla leader emailed Epstein about what day would be suitable to visit the financier’s island for a soiree.

‘What day/night will be the wildest party on =our (sic) island?’ Musk emailed Epstein on November 25, 2012, per Department of Justice documents released on Friday.

Musk also said the latest release of the Epstein files was ‘nothing but a distraction’.

The Tesla leader added that justice would only arrive when arrests are made in connection to the convicted sex offender’s crimes.

‘What matters is not release [sic] of some subset of the Epstein files, but rather the prosecution of those who committed heinous crimes with Epstein,’ Musk wrote on X.

Musk also called for Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s ‘clients’ to be detained.

‘Until we see at least one client arrest, this partial release of Epstein files means nothing,’ he said.

The date of Musk’s email came after Epstein had been convicted of sex crimes against minors in Florida. 

Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution in 2008.

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Latest Epstein Release Catches Goldman’s Top Lawyer In Massive Lie

Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal reported that there was an internal debate at Goldman Sachs over whether to get rid of General Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler over her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Ruemmler, a former White House attorney for Obama, told Goldman execs when they hired her in April 2020 that the relationship was purely professional – yet it would later become public that she not only met with Epstein dozens of times and exchanged friendly emails for years, she was listed as an executor of Epstein’s will as recently as Jan. 18, 2019 – which had been removed before he died in prison on Aug. 10 of that year.

She also denied having ever helped Epstein with PR, telling the outlet “I did not advocate on his behalf to any third party—not to a court, not to the press, not to the government.”

Turns out that was a total lie. 

On Friday, the DOJ released over 3 million pages of Epstein documents, including one in which Ruemmler was helping draft statements to help Epstein counter claims that he got a “sweetheart deal” when he was allowed to plead guilty to minor charges in a 2007-2008 sex trafficking case involving dozens of underage girls. 

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Michael Jackson’s ‘intimate’ thoughts about children revealed in unearthed recordings

Audio recordings detailing pop icon Michael Jackson‘s ‘intimate’ thoughts on children will be revealed in a new docuseries.

The unearthed tapes were secured for a four-part Channel 4 series called The Trial, which is set to premiere in the UK on February 4. 

It will detail new revelations from the pop icon‘s 2005 child molestation trial. 

In one particularly chilling clip obtained by the New York Post, Jackson detailed his reliance on a relationship with children.

‘If you told me right now…Michael, you could never see another child…I would kill myself,’ he said.

In the trailer for the forthcoming docuseries, Jackson implied that kids naturally gravitated toward him. 

‘Children want to just touch me and hug me,’ he said in one recording. 

‘Kids end up falling in love with my personality,’ he added in another. ‘Sometimes it gets me into trouble.’

An insider told the Post: ‘There is something extremely unusual and eerie about Michael Jackson’s infatuation with children.

‘To hear his voice discuss children in this manner, given he had been accused on molestation, raises many questions about his mental health, mindset and sadly, intentions.

‘This is Michael at his most open, giving us an insight into how he was in love with children… infatuated with wanting to be around them.’

Jackson admitted to allowing children into his home and even into his bed without parental supervision.

His former public relations advisor revealed in the series that he ‘absolutely’ believed the allegations against the popstar, reported the Telegraph. 

‘I believe there was a cover-up for so many years,’ he said. 

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How Human Rights Watch Shattered Yugoslavia

On August 25th 2025, this journalist documented how the 1975 Helsinki Accords transformed “human rights” into a highly destructive weapon in the West’s imperial arsenal. At the forefront of this shift were organisations such as Amnesty International, and Helsinki Watch – the forerunner of Human Rights Watch. Supposedly independent reports published by these organisations became devastatingly effective tools for justifying sanctions, destabilisation campaigns, coups, and outright military intervention against purported overseas “rights” abusers. A palpable example of HRW’s utility in this regard is provided by Yugoslavia’s disintegration.

In December 2017, HRW published a self-laudatory essay boasting how its publication of “real-time field reporting of war crimes” during the Bosnian civil war’s early stages in 1992, and the organisation’s independent lobbying for a legal mechanism “to punish military and political leaders responsible for atrocities” committed in the conflict, contributed to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’s establishment. Documents held by Columbia University “reveal the fundamental role of HRW” in the ICTY’s May 1993 founding.

These files moreover detail HRW’s “cooperation in various criminal investigations” against former Yugoslav officials by the ICTY, “through mutual exchange of information.” The organisation is keen to promote its intimate, historic ties with the Tribunal, and how the ICTY’s work spurred the International Criminal Court’s creation. Yet, absent from these hagiographic accounts is any reference to HRW’s pivotal contribution to manufacturing public and political consent for Yugoslavia’s breakup, which produced the very atrocities the organisation helped document and prosecute.

In November 1990, HRW founding member Jeri Laber authored a tendentiously-titled op-ed for The New York Times, “Why Keep Yugoslavia One Country?”. Inspired by a recent trip to Kosovo, Laber described how her team’s experience on-the-ground in the Serbian province had led HRW to harbour “serious doubts about whether the US government should continue to bolster the national unity of Yugoslavia.” Instead, she proposed actively facilitating the country’s destruction, and laid out a precise roadmap by which Washington could achieve this goal.

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Greenland Gambit: How Trump’s Arctic Ambition Shattered the Atlantic Alliance

A specter is haunting the transatlantic alliance – not from the East, but from within. What began as a seemingly quixotic real estate fantasy has evolved, through weeks of escalating pressure, into the most profound stress test of U.S.-European relations since the Cold War. President Donald Trump’s campaign to acquire Greenland has laid bare a stark reality: the alliance’s most powerful member is willing to wield coercion against its own partners, treating sovereignty as a transactional commodity. While an eleventh-hour tactical retreat has pulled the world back from the brink of immediate conflict, the crisis has illuminated a fatal flaw in the alliance’s foundation.

The Tactical Retreat: A “Framework” That Exposes More Than It Resolves

The immediate crisis abated not with a grand diplomatic triumph, but with a characteristically vague post on Truth Social. On January 21, following a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, President Trump announced he was withdrawing his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on eight European allies and ruled out using military force. In return, he claimed the two had formed the “framework of a future deal” for Greenland and the Arctic. This sudden de-escalation was less a resolution and more a revelation of pressure points. The threatened tariffs had sent Wall Street into its worst single-day decline since October, demonstrating the economic self-harm of his coercive strategy.

The substance of Trump’s “framework” remains conspicuously absent. Reports suggest discussions may involve the U.S. gaining “total access” to parts of Greenland for military purposes. Crucially, Trump’s language has shifted from “ownership” to “access,” a nod to political reality. Yet, the core ambition persists; he continues to frame Greenland as imperative for missile defense and minerals, bluntly stating the U.S. will achieve “all of its strategic goals… at very little cost, forever.” As Ole Wæver, a professor of international relations at the University of Copenhagen, skeptically notes, this is likely a “pretend” deal. He argues, “NATO can’t negotiate minerals or ownership of territory for bases… Most likely, the main process now goes back… to a bureaucratic committee.”

The Unbreakable Red Line: How European and Greenlandic Resolve Forced a Climbdown

Trump’s tactical pivot was forced by an unprecedented and unified wall of resistance. European leaders had declared they “will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed.” The non-negotiable line was drawn by Denmark and Greenland. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen stated unequivocally, “We cannot negotiate on our sovereignty.” This was echoed by Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who called sovereignty a “red line.” Perhaps more devastating was the visceral rejection from Greenlanders themselves; a new poll finds 85% of residents oppose joining the U.S.

Remarkably, this resistance transcended Europe’s political divides, isolating Trump even among ideological allies. In the European Parliament, typically pro-Trump, far-right figures condemned the threats. France’s Jordan Bardella called them “coercion,” while Germany’s Alice Weidel said Trump had “violated a fundamental campaign promise.” This unanimity was backed by concrete action: Denmark dispatched more troops to Greenland as part of “Operation Arctic Endurance,” making clear that its defense would be a collective endeavor.

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