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.

12 Sheriffs, 17 Prosecutors Who Will Not Enforce Virginia AR-15 Ban

The number of sheriffs and commonwealth attorneys who are taking a stand against the Democrats’ AR-15 has grown so that now 12 sheriffs and 17 prosecutors have made clear they will not enforce it.

On May 25, 2026, Breitbart News reported that Spotsylvania commonwealth attorney Ryan Mehaffey had made clear he would not enforce the ban. Days later, Breitbart News pointed to a WAVY 10 article which observed that the number of prosecutors refusing to enforce the ban was continuing to grow.

On May 30, 2026, Breitbart News noted that Clarke County Sheriff Travis Sumption making clear his office would not enforce the state’s “assault weapons” ban nor the “expanded public-carry restrictions.”

Now, Virginia Citizens Defense League president Philip Van Cleave has released a list showing the number of prosecutors refusing to enforce the ban has reached 17 and the number of sheriffs is at 12.

Here are the prosecutors who are taking a stand for Virginians’ gun rights:

  • W. Lyle Carver, Amherst County
  • Leslie M. Fleet, Appomattox County
  • Paul A. McAndrews, Campbell County
  • Daniel J. Farnsworth Jr., Charlotte County
  • Matthew E. Bass, Clarke County
  • W. Eric Branscom, Floyd County
  • John L. Lumpkins Jr., Goochland County
  • Bethany Harrison, Lynchburg
  • Chapman L. Good, Sr., Page County
  • Dayna K. Bobbitt, Patrick County
  • Rob Cerullo, Powhatan County
  • Justin L. Griffith, Pulaski County
  • Kyle Kilgore, Scott County
  • Elizabeth H. Cooper, Shenandoah County
  • Phillip Blevins, Smyth County
  • Ryan Mehaffey, Spotsylvania County
  • John S. Bell, Warren County

Here are the 12 sheriffs: Appomattox County Sheriff, Robert N. Richardson, Clarke County Sheriff, Travis M. Sumption, Floyd County Sheriff, Brian Craig, Hanover County Sheriff, Gregory W. Six, Henry County, Sheriff Wayne Davis, Louisa County Sheriff, Donald Lowe, Patrick County, Sheriff Daniel M. Smith, Powhatan County Sheriff, Brad W. Nunnally Jr., Scott County Sheriff, Jeff B. Edds, Shenandoah County Sheriff, Timothy C. Carter, Spotsylvania County Sheriff, Roger L. Harris, and Warren County Sheriff, Crystal M. Cline.

The ban on AR-15s and similar rifles, along with magazines holding more than 15 rounds, is set to take effect July 1, 2026.

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Is Taiwan’s President Playing With Political Fire?

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te (William Lai) appears to be missing signs from multiple sources that he lacks both international and domestic support for pursuing a more assertive policy regarding the island’s de facto independence.  Taipei heavily depends on two protectors, Japan and the United States, for firm political support against Beijing’s periodic bullying tactics.  In the event of a military crisis, Taiwan would be even more reliant on those two powers for armed defense.

However, Tokyo and Washington seem to be moving in opposite directions with respect to their longstanding, albeit informal, security commitment to Taipei.  With the Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide election victory in February 2026, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi received a popular mandate for a more hardline policy toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC) regarding Taiwan and other issues.  The election outcome reinforced her already strong personal preference.

The trend in the United States appears to be quite different.  Throughout his first term, President Donald Trump was one of Taiwan’s strongest backers, both diplomatically and militarily.  Indeed, by the end of his term, U.S. security ties with Taiwan were the strongest they had been since Washington switched formal diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

But Trump has embraced a noticeably more cautious stance on the Taiwan issue since the start of his second term.  The administration’s discontent with Taipei’s trade and investment policies were especially evident.  Even as president-elect, Trump had accused the Taiwanese government of illegally discriminating against American firms, especially in the arena of advanced computer chips and other cutting-edge electronics.  He also continued to hector Taipei to assume a greater share of the financial burden of Taiwan’s own defense instead of continuing to free ride on U.S. military exertions.  The incoming president appeared to be more than a little annoyed at Washington’s longstanding client.

Indeed, Trump seems to regard stable and cooperative bilateral relations with the PRC as a significantly higher priority than Washington’s relations with Taipei.  That became quite evident during and immediately after the May 2026 summit between Trump and PRC President Xi Jinping.  Xi cautioned his counterpart not to let the United States become too supportive of Taiwan and allow Lai’s government to pursue reckless initiatives.  The adverse consequences of such excessive tolerance, the PRC leader emphasized, could be most unfortunate.  Noticeably, Trump did not push back with defiant rhetoric stressing Washington’s longstanding firm support for Taipei.  Instead, shortly after the summit, he explicitly warned Lai not to push the envelope regarding formal independence.

Hawkish analysts in the United States, led by former national security adviser John Bolton and the editors of the Wall Street Journal, openly accused Trump of insufficient support for Taiwan.  They pressured the administration to accelerate U.S. arms sales to Taipei and increase the quantity and quality of the weapons in future aid packages.

Not only does Lai’s government need to be uneasy about firmness of the Trump administration’s security commitment to Taiwan, but also domestic support for a more conciliatory policy toward Beijing appears to be rising.  The Kuomintang Party (KMT), the principal opposition to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is increasingly vocal in calling for a less risky approach to cross-strait relations.  Not surprisingly, Beijing is enthusiastically encouraging that trend.  PRC officials repeatedly remind the Taiwanese people that tensions were far milder during the administration of Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s last KMT president, who governed the island from 2008 to 2014.  During his administration, cross-strait trade and tourism soared and the two capitals signed numerous agreements.

Beijing’s attempt to revive that cooperative atmosphere was evident when Xi and other prominent PRC figures accorded KMT chairwoman Cheng Li-wun an extremely cordial reception during her April 2026 visit to the mainland.  Cheng reciprocated with a highly conciliatory tone during her interview with the South China Morning Post the following month.  She explicitly contrasted the calm years experienced during Ma’s presidency with the acute tensions characterizing Lai’s administration.  During the former period, Cheng stated, “cross-strait relations were characterized by very friendly exchanges and were entirely free of major issues. At that time, we enjoyed significant space for international participation.” In contrast, “the nearly 10 years that followed have seen cross-strait relations rapidly deteriorate to the point of a perilous and dreadful prospect of war. This has created a sense of extreme danger, with the situation appearing to be on the verge of a breakout.”

Her strong implication was that a new KMT presidency would resume the cooperative policies that Ma had pursued.  Indeed, the KMT has already seized multiple opportunities to thwart Lai’s policy agenda.  As part of a broader opposition coalition that controls the national legislature, the party has scored some significant successes.

Taiwan is deeply divided politically.  Lai and his pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have a strong, vocal cadre of supporters.  But other Taiwanese people have become very uneasy about the surge of military tensions in the Taiwan Strait that has typified the last 6 years of DPP rule.  Restless Taiwanese voters may seek a return to the less confrontational style of the KMT.

The overall situation is murky.  One point is clear, however.  Lai lacks a strong domestic mandate to continue his confrontational posture toward Beijing.  Nor does he seem to have a united front between Japan and the United States in favor of his policies.  Tokyo may back him, given Takaichi’s attitude, but the Trump administration’s waffling raises major questions about Washington’s stance.  Lai would be wise to beat a tactical political retreat and seek to make the Taiwan issue as quiescent as possible during the remainder of his term.

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Chuck Schumer Gets Viciously Booed by His Own Side at the NYC Pride Parade

Senator Chuck Schumer got a rude awakening Sunday at the New York City LGBTQ Pride parade when the far-left crowd turned on him, with a loud chorus of boos.

Footage from the parade shows Schumer walking as boos erupt from the crowd.

Schumer has spent years trying to promote himself as a strong ally to the movement, pushing seemingly endless progressive legislation on gender, same-sex marriage, and other LGBTQ-focused policies.

Despite the frigid response to his presence, Schumer busted out a megaphone and addressed the crowd.

“I was the first senator to ever march in this parade. 1999. I haven’t missed one yet,” he declared.

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When Reality Bites: Gavin Newsom Has No Clue on Concealed Carry

Hardly a week goes by without some lefty public official saying something on a major issue that is so far from the real-world facts Americans deal with every day that it leaves you wondering how anybody could be so removed from realty.

Today’s Exhibit A is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the would-be 2028 Democratic presidential nominee despite the fact that under his long-running administration the Golden State has compiled a soaring poverty rate, confiscatory tax rates, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayers fleeing to Texas, Florida, Arizona and other free states.

Even so, Newsom is rarely bashful about delivering some nescient pronouncement on current issues and personalities and, as Just Facts Daily points out, the Supreme Court’s Wolford v. Lopez decision striking down Hawaii’s anti-conceal-carry law proved irresistible to the former San Fransisco mayor:

“Gun laws keep people safe. This ruling by Trump’s Supreme Court will only endanger people. If Justice Alito really thinks people need guns to go to the grocery store ‘for self-defense,’ this country is truly broken,” Newsom declared in a tweet.

One wonders how many years it’s been since Newsom personally entered and shopped in a neighborhood grocery store. And it appears Newsom wasn’t terribly familiar with the specifics of the Hawaii law struck down by the court as a violation of the right to keep and bear arms for individual self-defense.

Four years ago, the High Court held in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen  that both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution guarantee the individual right to be armed for self-defense purposes.

To get around that decision, Hawaii revised its law to make carrying illegal in a lengthy list of specific public places, including grocery stores. In response, the Court’s opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, observed that:

“This law departs sharply from the standard common-law rule on access to private property held open to the public. Under that rule, everyone, including those lawfully carrying firearms, may enter unless expressly prohibited from doing so.

“By contrast, under the new Hawaii law, no one carrying a firearm may enter without the property owner’s express authorization. The effect of this new rule is to impose severe restrictions on the daily activities of residents who have satisfied the State’s rigorous requirements for the issuance of a carry permit. 

“When these permit holders leave home in the morning, not only must they take care to avoid all the territory where the possession of a gun is prohibited outright, but they may also be barred from entering many places that people routinely visit in the course of their daily routines, such as gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, coffee shops, drug stores, grocery stores, ‘big box’ stores, home improvement stores, barber shops or hair salons, dry cleaners, and laundromats”

Therefore, the Court held the revised Hawaii statute “violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms” because it imposes “severe restrictions on the daily activities of residents who have satisfied the State’s rigorous requirements for the issuance of a carry permit.”

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American Liberals Silent as Hamas Crushes Anti-Hamas Protests

The “Free Palestine” movement has remained silent on the arrest, torture, and murder of anti-Hamas protesters in Palestine. The violence and repression committed by the Hamas terrorist organization against Palestinian civilians throw a wrinkle into its narrative blaming Israel and President Trump for all of the suffering in Gaza. The protests also dispel claims by the American left that Gazans want to be ruled by Hamas or that Hamas is the legitimate governing authority.

For the second time in little more than a year, Palestinians in Gaza took to the streets demanding an end to Hamas rule. According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Hamas’s approval rating fell from 52 percent in December 2023 to 43 percent by May 2025. The demonstrations, organized as the “June 26 Peaceful Revolution,” reflected growing anger over nearly two decades of Hamas control, the devastation of the war, and allegations of corruption and repression.

The protests were organized across 18 locations throughout the Gaza Strip. Demonstrators called on Hamas to disarm and transfer civil administration to a transitional governing authority.

Hamas responded with a sweeping crackdown. Security forces arrested organizers, kidnapped suspected participants, threatened demonstrators, and used mosques to denounce the protests before many rallies could begin. Armed operatives arrested Gazans in the streets, seized mobile phones, restricted movement around displaced persons camps, and rounded up others at hospitals.

Although the crackdown prevented large-scale demonstrations in many areas, hundreds of Palestinians defied the threats and publicly called for Hamas’s removal.

In the days preceding the protests, Hamas launched what activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gaza-born Palestinian now living in exile in the United States, described as an “industrial-scale campaign of terror, intimidation, interrogation, and blackmail” against thousands of Gazans who had planned to participate.

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Anthropic’s AI Export Ban on Claude Mythos Tool Partially Lifted by Trump Administration

Mythos will get around.

Back in March, news arose that the US Donald J. Trump administration had ‘blacklisted’ AI Anthropic for being a National Security risk.

Later in May, the administration moved to forbid Anthropic’s plan to expand the Mythos AI Tool for the same reason.

Today, the US has partially scrapped its export ban on Anthropic’s most advanced artificial intelligence model.

Politico reported:

“The release clears the way for a select group of more than 100 companies and agencies to gain access to the Mythos 5 model, two weeks after the administration imposed restrictions, amid fears that the software could be used to launch cyberattacks. But a second advanced Anthropic model, called Fable 5, remains blocked.

Meanwhile, pressure from the White House led Anthropic’s leading competitor, OpenAI, to limit the release of its most advanced model this week because of similar cyber concerns.”

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Doug Casey on Swap Lines, Secret Bailouts, and the Weaponization of the Dollar

International Man: While the term “swap line” sounds technical and harmless, it seems like it’s just a euphemism for a bailout.

What does it say when Washington starts extending swap lines to countries like Argentina and the UAE?

Doug Casey: First, we should define what a swap line is. It basically amounts to the US giving a foreign country X amount of currency in dollars, and the other country paying for it by giving the US the same amount in their currency. For decades, US dollar swap lines were mostly reserved for major allies and core financial centers around the world.

It’s a problem, however, with countries whose currencies have no value outside of their boundaries. A country that gets a swap line from the US is trading its paper for liquid and fungible dollars. The US may then get stuck with UAE dirhams or Argentine pesos. It’s trading real money for play money, Monopoly money.

In the case of Argentina, that swap line may never be repaid. The US might wind up being stuck with a bunch of worthless Argentine pesos.

When the US gives a foreign country a swap line, it basically creates those dollars out of nothing. They enter the banking system and debase the dollar. Doing so gives the US some leverage over a country that takes the swap.

But it’s a pretty expensive way of getting leverage.

International Man: In Argentina’s case, the US framed the swap line as a stabilizing measure. But was this really about financial stability, or was it about propping up a politically important ally at a critical moment?

Doug Casey: Since Milei is Trump’s new BFF, the swap was intended to help Argentina’s perennially weak economy, thereby helping Milei. That’s great for the moment, but now Argentina has to deal with another $30 billion of debt. I would’ve recommended Milei default on all of Argentina’s debts to the IMF, the World Bank, and the US—that might have worked during Milei’s first few months. “I’m sorry, everyone. We just don’t have the ability to pay right now. Wait until I set things straight.” I’m not sure that Argentina would’ve been punished badly for that. Third World countries default all the time.

Instead, Argentina taking the swap just indebts them by another $30 billion. The way to look at this is that future generations of young Argentines are being turned into serfs in order to repay that swap line, along with the rest of the debt.

Milei should have called a spade a spade and admitted bankruptcy instead of going further into debt to keep the Ponzi scheme going.

Argentina’s financial situation under Milei is very strange. The country theoretically owns two million ounces of gold. A million of those ounces were already sitting in London. But then, as soon as Milei got into office, he physically transferred another 440,000 ounces to London, saying that they were safer there. Which is an obvious lie; there’s no reason to think they’ll ever return.

That’s on top of buying 24 F-16s from Denmark—totally useless planes for Argentina—for another $350 million, plus $150 million per year in maintenance. And failing to abolish the central bank, which was a centerpiece of his election campaign. And worse, using the central bank to maintain the peso at ridiculously high levels, which is serving to bankrupt thousands of small businesses.

These stupidities might make the $30 billion swap seem necessary.

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The great FLU ILLUSION: Bombshell study proves transmission is a myth and PCR tests are junk science

Virology misunderstood

If the flu virus is as contagious as we have been told, transmission should have been rampant. It was not. Only one recipient out of 75 became infected. That is a 1.3% secondary attack rate. The researchers expected at least 16%. They missed their target by more than tenfold.

To shed further doubt on virus transmission and the common measures used to protect against viral shedding, the study divided recipients into two groups. The intervention group wore face shields and sanitized their hands every 15 minutes. The control group did neither. The result? Zero infections in the intervention group and one infection in the control group. Statistically, there was no difference between the groups. This finding renders the entire mask debate moot. If face shields and constant hand sanitizer cannot stop transmission when both groups fail to get infected anyway, what exactly are we protecting ourselves from?

Virus transmission appears to be an imaginary concept, driven by fear and hysteria.

The uncomfortable truth about viral shedding

Now, forty-two of the 52 donors who were deliberately infected actually became infected after inoculation. That is an 81% infection rate through direct inoculation. And they shed virus from their noses in substantial quantities. Their viral loads were high enough to register on PCR tests with cycle threshold values in the mid-20s. Yet, remarkably, they did not pass the virus to the people sitting next to them. The researchers also measured the exhaled breath of donors using a device called the Gesundheit-II. They found that only 11 out of 42 infected donors had detectable virus in their breath aerosols. Even then, the quantities were two to four logs lower than what has been observed in naturally infected people who were selected for having fever and high viral loads.

This raises an obvious question. If the virus is so hard to transmit in a controlled setting where infected people are breathing directly onto susceptible people for days, how does it ever spread in the real world? The researchers tried to explain their failure by pointing to the building ventilation system. The proof-of-concept study was conducted in a hotel room with recirculating air, and it did have a higher transmission rate. The follow-on study used mechanical ventilation that diluted the air. They concluded that aerosols might be important after all. But this explanation is circular. If transmission depends on airtight rooms with no fresh air, then the virus is not a robust airborne pathogen. It is a fragile entity that requires extreme conditions to move from one person to another.

The fallacy of the contagious patient

The study also revealed something that should make every public health official reconsider their assumptions. Many of the directly infected donors did not get sick. Ten out of 42 infected donors were classified as asymptomatic. They had the virus in their bodies; it was confirmed through PCR; they shed it from their noses, but they felt fine. No fever, no cough, no runny nose. Yet they were placed in rooms with susceptible people and still did not transmit. The researchers admitted that their model produced donors who were “minimally contagious.” But if a person with a laboratory-confirmed infection who is breathing on you for 15 hours a day cannot make you sick, what does that say about the millions of asymptomatic cases that were used to justify lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates?

The collective pandemic protection measures were not based on science; they were only used to control people, weaponizing their virtue and their fear.

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NASA Just Flew a Human Kidney, and Transplant Medicine May Never Look the Same

A human kidney flew across NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., on June 5, and the real story begins with what didn’t happen. The organ wasn’t rushed into an operating room, as no surgeon scrubbed in while a family waited outside. From Space.com:

NASA is hoping to use drones to speed up organ delivery for transplant patients.

A flight test earlier this month at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia saw a drone pick up a kidney and fly it for the first time beyond “line of sight”, or the distance from which a drone is visible by an operator. Keeping a line of sight on a drone is a typical requirement for flight safety, but NASA is developing tools that may allow these machines to fly further away from operators in populated environments more regularly.

The kidney on the June 5 flight test was not viable for organ transplantation, which is why the agency and partner United Network for Organ Sharing were able to use it, according to WTKR. If all goes to plan with future tests conducted with NASA Langley, however, UNOS aims to fly organ-bearing drones as far as 15 miles (24 km), in between hospitals for example, to allow for swift and safe delivery to waiting patients. The drone collaboration was created to “explore faster, more reliable ways to transport donor organs using advanced aviation technologies”, according to space agency materials published in April.

Drones may have a better ability than larger aircraft to navigate ground logistics or maneuver in dense or hard-to-reach delivery areas. What’s more, drones might be able to do so faster than aircraft, which is crucial: organs can only last so long during transportation.

The test used additional radios on the drones intended to allow pilots to keep an eye on the drones even while out of sight. “What that means, more or less, is we’re going to have the pilot in command be about a mile away inside of a control room,” Kyle Smalling, an aerospace engineer at NASA Langley, told WAVY.com.

The kidneys used in the test had been donated for research after they were ruled out for transplant. Researchers still treated them like precious cargo because someday a flight like this may carry an organ that can save a life.

NASA Langley Research Center, the United Network for Organ Sharing, and LifeNet Health used a drone to transport human kidneys beyond visual line of sight. The flights lasted about 15 minutes, and researchers biopsied the kidneys and placed them on preservation pumps before and after the flights while tracking temperature, pressure, and altitude. Early results showed no evidence that the flights damaged the organs.

Mark Johnson, interim CEO of UNOS, called innovation in organ transportation essential because more than 100,000 people are waiting for lifesaving transplants. HRSA’s public organ donation data puts the national waiting list at 103,223 men, women, and children. Seventeen people die each day waiting, and another name is added every eight minutes.

Those numbers don’t leave much room for slow systems, missed handoffs, or traffic jams.

Transportation is one of the quiet pressures inside transplant medicine. A donor organ has a limited window of usefulness once recovered. Delays hurt organ function, affect outcomes, or stop a transplant from happening at all.

A kidney can travel by plane, ambulance, courier car, or handoff chain, but the weakest link often sits close to the ground, where congestion, routing, weather, and scheduling cost valuable time.

John Koelling, director of the Aeronautics Research Directorate at NASA Langley Research Center, said the project gives NASA a chance to apply Langley technology to a real-world problem that saves people waiting for transplants. The work uses NASA tools in flight planning, sensing, safety systems, and beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone operations.

Space-age language sounds distant, but the goal here is deeply human: get the organ where it needs to go with less delay and less risk.

The study also shows why serious medical progress frequently arrives in careful steps. Nobody should pretend drones will replace the transplant logistics network next week.

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