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.

RAMPANT CORRUPTION: European Leaders Pressure Zelensky Over Energy Kickback Scandal

People surprised by corruption in Ukraine are like people surprised that Joe Biden was senile – not paying attention.

So bad is the corruption scandal unfolding in Ukraine that Globalist EU leaders find themselves obliged to breach the usual taboo on criticizing Ukraine or Volodymyr Zelensky in public.

Out of the public eye, the Europeans are seeking ‘reassurances’ from Ukraine regarding further financial support to the country.

This comes after the anti-corruption agencies – that Zelensky wanted to dismantle – are unleashing a corruption probe that has revealed a $100 million kickback scheme tied to the critical energy sector.

Several of Zelensky’s close associates are involved in the plot, so the Kiev leader had to issue sanctions against his own business partner and also to dismiss several senior ministers.

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Albany Republicans’ $20B shame: state spending madness is their fault, too

Albany Republicans, the minority in the state Senate and Assembly for the last seven years, face a long hike back to political relevance.

They can start by answering the $20 billion question.

That’s the difference between what New York state expects to spend this fiscal year — $148 billion, excluding federal aid and borrowing — and what it would be spending if the last budget enacted with GOP support, in 2018, had kept growing only at the rate of inflation.

That amount is $128 billion.

Republicans correctly note state spending is higher than ever — and, given Albany’s reliance on a small subset of high earners, rising unsustainably.

But they can’t put the blame on the Democrats alone.

The $20 billion question isn’t about what Republicans would cut if voters again entrusted them to steer the state.

It’s a deeper challenge: It asks them to explain, to themselves especially, how they can credibly claim to be the taxpayers’ champions when they not only supported much of this fiscal bulge, but pushed to make it worse.

Most of the budget growth since 2018 has been in just two programs: Medicaid and school aid.

Republicans supposedly concerned about the state’s fiscal picture have repeatedly agitated for higher spending on both.

New York spends $4,942 per resident (enrolled or not) on Medicaid, per Empire Center’s Bill Hammond. That’s 23% more than the next-highest state, Kentucky, and double what New Jersey spends.

A credible opposition party would be hammering Gov. Kathy Hochul on this, arguing that the program is pushing up taxes, crowding out essential services and often failing the vulnerable people it’s meant to help.

But the tiny group of upstate fiscal hawks making these points are undercut by their own Republican team: Sen. Pat Gallivan, ostensibly his conference’s health care point man, last year joined 1199 SEIU, the state’s largest health care union, to demand  “Medicaid equity,” a budget-busting increase in what the state pays hospitals and other providers.

New York’s GOP can’t even credibly levy its evergreen complaint about “waste, fraud and abuse” in Medicaid.

The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, a once-tiny initiative meant to help a small group of people live outside nursing homes, mushroomed into a $9 billion boondoggle that pays more than 400,000 people to care for 250,000 New Yorkers.

Republicans should have been first to sound the alarm on CDPAP — yet when Hochul proposed modest reforms by eliminating middlemen, they called her suggestion a “full-blown catastrophe” and all but ignored the fiscal hemorrhaging.

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Democrat Congressman Gets Caught Staring at Very Naughty Images During Flight – Then Is Savagely Mocked After Offering a Silly Excuse for Why He Did 

A Democratic congressman was caught red-handed looking at inappropriate pictures while on a flight this week, forcing him to do damage control.

On Friday, footage emerged of Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) looking at scantily clad women on his iPad while on a plane. The images were first leaked by the account Dear White Staffers.

The account alleged that the images were pornographic.

“Why did California Congressman Brad Sherman feel it was appropriate to look at porn on his iPad during a flight today?” the account asks. “His district deserves better representation than this!!”

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Iran begins cloud-seeding operations as severe drought bites

The Iranian authorities have launched cloud-seeding operations to induce rainfall as the country 

faces its worst drought in decades, state media reported.

“Today, a cloud-seeding flight was conducted in the Urmia Lake basin for the first time in the current water year (which begins in September),” the official Irna news agency said late on Nov 15.

Urmia, in the north-west, is Iran’s largest lake, but has largely dried out and turned into a vast salt bed due to drought.

Irna added that further operations would be carried out in the provinces of East and West Azerbaijan.

Cloud seeding involves spraying particles such as silver iodide and salt into clouds from aircraft to trigger rain.

In 2024, Iran announced it had developed its own technology for the practice.

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Trump’s Republican Party insists there’s no affordability crisis and dismisses election losses

Almost two weeks after Republicans lost badly in elections in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, many GOP leaders insist there is no problem with the party’s policies, its message or President Donald Trump’s leadership.

Trump says Democrats and the media are misleading voters who are concerned about high costs and the economy. Republican officials aiming to avoid another defeat in next fall’s midterms are encouraging candidates to embrace the president fully and talk more about his accomplishments.

Those are the major takeaways from a series of private conversations, briefings and official talking points involving major Republican decision-makers across Washington, including inside the White House, after their party’s losses Nov. 4. Their assessment highlights the extent to which the fate of the Republican Party is tied to Trump, a term-limited president who insists the economy under his watch has never been stronger.

That’s even as an increasing number of voters report a different reality in their lives.

But with few exceptions, the Trump lieutenants who lead the GOP’s political strategy have no desire to challenge his wishes or beliefs.

“Republicans are entering next year more unified behind President Trump than ever before,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Kiersten Pels said. “The party is fully aligned behind his America First agenda and the results he’s delivering for the American people. President Trump’s policies are popular, he drives turnout, and standing with him is the strongest path to victory.”

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US National Archives releases Amelia Earhart records promised by Trump  

The US National Archives on Nov 14 released several batches of records related to the 1937 disappearance of famed aviator Amelia Earhart over the Pacific, following US President Donald Trump’s recent order to declassify and release all such material held by the government.

The release of 4,624 pages of documents, including logbooks of US military vessels involved in the air and sea search for Earhart, was announced by National Intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard.

Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were last seen taking off in her twin-engine Lockheed Electra airplane on July 2, 1937, from Papua New Guinea en route to Howland Island, some 4,000km away, during an attempt to fly around the world.

Radio contact with the plane was lost hours later after Earhart, 39, reported running low on fuel.

Enduring mystery

A massive naval search, the most extensive ever at the time, was unsuccessful. Earhart’s fate remains one of the most enduring mysteries of the past 88 years.

The Trump administration’s sudden interest in Earhart, and the President’s Sept 26 order to declassify and release records about her, came as he faced growing criticism for withholding files related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

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US Debt Rose By $620 Billion During The Government Shutdown

“This package demonstrates that we can govern without surrendering to big spending or letting Democrats dictate priorities,” wrote the House Freedom Caucus in some talking points released to the media.

“We successfully stiff-armed a massive omnibus spending bill; locked in disciplined, flat spending levels; preserved President Trump’s policy priorities… and kept our leverage for the next round in January.”

People can say whatever they want, but I’m pretty sure our politicians closed the US government for a record 42 days and changed absolutely nothing. That’s quite an accomplishment. Sublime ineptitude. Congressional approval ratings supposedly declined 11pts to 15% during the period. Remarkable.

If a trader knew that 85% of his decisions were losers, he’d become the richest man on earth by simply doing the exact opposite of his instinct. I’m guessing Pelosi made good money trading the chop, but the broad equity market ended the shutdown period roughly a percent higher than where it started.

Extrapolating the recent pace of deficit spending, the Federal government accumulated another $600bln of debt during the shutdown, adding more leverage to the system, sustaining the economy, supporting asset values.

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US Marines Protecting American Embassy Exchange Gunfire with Suspected Gang Members in Haiti

According to reports, U.S. Marines tasked with protecting the American embassy in Haiti came under gunfire in the capital of Port-au-Prince last week by suspected gang members, firing back at the perpetrators.

On Sunday, in an emailed statement to Fox News Digital, Capt. Steven J. Keenan confirmed the incident and noted, “U.S. Marines are committed to the safety and security of U.S. embassies worldwide and respond to all threats with professionalism and swift, disciplined action.”

Per Fox News:

No service members were injured in the incident, which was first reported over the weekend by The Washington Post.

Neither the State Department nor the U.S. Embassy in Haiti immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

The Caribbean nation has been plagued by gang violence, with armed groups reportedly controlling up to 90% of Port-au-Prince, according to the United Nations. The groups block access roads, attack infrastructure, and terrorize civilians through kidnappings, rapes and killings.

The gangs exert control through extortion and use heavy weaponry in their violent efforts.

While the United States continues to operate an embassy in Haiti, the State Department has issued numerous travel warnings because of the risk of kidnappings, crimes, terrorist activity, and civil unrest.

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Rhode Island’s US Senators Defend Vote To Ban Hemp Despite Concerns It Will Kill A Growing State Industry

Mike Simpson is one of Rhode Island’s biggest cheerleaders for hemp cultivation and the plant’s derivative products—remedies, he believes, that may help where pharmaceutical medicines cannot.

It’s that very reason Simpson helped co-found Rhode Island’s only outdoor hemp farm, where he says many of the business’ products ship all across the country.

But Lovewell Farms may cease operations now that Congress has approved reopening the federal government under legislation that would effectively ban hemp products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC. Now that it has been signed by President Donald Trump, the ban will go into effect in a year.

“This might be the final straw,” Simpson said in an interview Wednesday. “I may have to shut my whole company down.”

Simpson doesn’t sell intoxicating products, but said crops grown at his Hopkinton farm can contain up to 1 milligram of THC in it, as is allowed under existing Rhode Island hemp regulations.

“I have 700 to 800 pounds of flower that I grew this year that under that law would not be legal,” he said.

Simpson said he would grow crops with lower concentrations, but as a USDA-certified organic farm, there aren’t that many seed suppliers he can buy from.

“We’re really at the whim of what those folks are providing,” he said.

The provision in the shutdown-ending appropriations bill was championed by GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in order to close a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp but inadvertently paved the way for the proliferation of hemp-derived THC products like infused drinks—products which states have since scrambled to either regulate or ban.

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Demonic Possession? Cops Say It Was Like ‘Third Person’ Present as They Questioned Woman Who Stabbed Toddler in Chest After Musing Over Human Sacrifices

Was it a case of demonic possession?

That’s what has many people wondering after a young woman was arrested following what police say was a case of attempted human sacrifice in New Jersey.

According to multiple reports, 20-year-old Marlene Rodriguez of Brick Township, New Jersey, brought up human sacrifice with her cousin just hours before she allegedly stabbed her brother multiple times.

She’s now charged with attempted murder, unlawful possession of a weapon, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and endangering the welfare of a child, according to Patch.com.

The New York Post reported that not only did Rodriguez tell police that voices instructed her to do it, but that she started talking as if a third person was telling her not to tell police what happened.

The attack happened on Nov. 1. According to documents filed by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, Brick Township police were called to a home at just before 2:30 p.m. that day to find a 2-year-old boy who had been stabbed in the chest.

He was conscious and alert at the time of the arrival and was taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

He was in stable condition as of Nov. 8, with both a punctured lung and a cut wall to his heart.

“At the scene, police learned Rodriguez had stabbed the boy, and after reading her rights to her, she told police she had stabbed her brother,” Patch reported.

“During interviews at police headquarters, detectives spoke with Rodriguez’s cousin, who told them about the conversation earlier in the day. The cousin said Rodriguez asked her if she had ever sacrificed anyone, and if so, who. The cousin said she replied by asking Rodriguez if she had sacrificed anyone, and Rodriguez did not answer.”

Then, not long afterwards, Rodriguez’s sister heard the 2-year-old crying and saw the injuries, with a knife on the floor next to him.

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