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.

Seattle Police Chief Invites Widespread Internet Ridicule After Using This Absurd Two-Word Term to Describe Shooters 

A police chief in one of America’s most notorious left-wing cities has decided the word “shooter” is too mean and a more sensitive term is needed to replace it. As one would expect, this is already backfiring.

On Monday, interim Seattle Police Chief Andre Sayles held a press conference to address the three fatal shootings that occurred over the weekend in the city’s Belltown neighborhood.

The Belltown area of the Emerald City has recently experienced a surge in violence. In addition to the shootings, residents have complained about rampant illegal drug use, burglaries, and property damage.

After a reporter asked Sayles what was being done to combat the increase in violence, the police chief gave an unconvincing answer before seemingly inventing a new term to describe shooters.

“(We’re) working with our community response group and our gun violence reduction unit as well,” Sayles said. “Looking at ways to identify individuals that are…trigger pullers in our community.”

Trigger pullers sound like something a toddler would use. But Sayles is apparently so scared of offending criminals that he feels compelled to use this silly, childish term.

Keep reading

‘Misgendering’ is ‘violent,’ West Chester U. LGBT center says

Free speech groups say recent court cases affirm right to not use someone’s made-up identity

It is “harmful” and “violent” to refer to someone by their true sex, according to a guidance sheet from West Chester University’s “Center for Trans and Queer Advocacy.”

“Misgendering” refers to not using someone’s declared gender, as in the case of a man who claims to be a woman or vice versa. Using the biologically accurate language “can be harmful and violent,” the faculty resource guide states.

Likewise, “deadnaming,” or referring to someone by their real name, “can be quite harmful.”

The guidance sheet, called “Faculty Guide to Supporting Trans & Queer Students,” explains how staff should handle trans and queer students. In the document, it goes over many methods and requests faculty members to become advocates by asking “In what ways have you shown up as an advocate? Inside and out of the classroom?” 

Professors are also encouraged to share their pronouns to “normalize” the practice.

“Consider putting pronouns on business cards and/or on your Zoom name. We have a demo for that!” the document states. The center separately offers other resources, including “Trans Joy” coloring books and guidance on name changes.

The public relations team for the university did not respond to an email sent in the past week. The College Fix reached the transgender center by phone on Aug. 26, but it told this reporter it would need a week to look into him.

 The center has not followed up from that phone call or an email sent Aug. 20, asking how misgendering is violence, if professors should be punished for using the wrong gender (as perceived by the student), and how to balance free speech with gender concerns.

However, several free speech experts said the university is making mistakes by instructing faculty about the harms of not using someone’s declared gender.

 The faculty guide could be seen as a suggestion for behavior but “a policy compelling the use of preferred pronouns and names intrudes on the right to private conscience and, in the case of a public university, violates the First Amendment,” Laura Beltz told The College Fix via email.

Beltz, with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said a university could step in if there is a “persistent and targeted use of a student’s non-preferred pronouns or name” if it “amounts to harassment.”

“But absent more, a faculty member’s mere refusal to use a person’s preferred pronouns or name is protected speech,” Beltz said.

She cited the example of Professor Nicholas Meriwether at Shawnee State University. Meriwether “alleged his rights were violated when administrators insisted he refer to a student using particular pronouns.”

As the free speech expert noted, “the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that he had a strong First Amendment interest in refusing to use a student’s stated pronouns, because they carried an ideological message with which the professor disagreed.”

Shawnee State, in Ohio, paid out $400,000 to end the legal battle, as The Fix previously reported.

The Independence Law Center described the guide as “Orwellian.”

Chief Counsel Randall Wenger said if “a public university tells faculty that certain words can constitute violence, censorship and punishment can be recast as protection.”

“It should concern every American when a government institution entrusted with higher education uses its institutional authority to pressure students and faculty toward ideological conformity rather than the pursuit of truth,” Wenger wrote in an email to The College Fix.

He said the guidance could be “used to discriminate against students with sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Keep reading

Israeli Legal Group Unveils ‘Self-Defense’ App to Protect IDF Veterans from Foreign Arrest Campaigns

Israeli legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin has launched a new app designed to protect Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veterans from efforts to arrest them while traveling abroad, with the organization’s president warning that pro-Palestinian groups are actively tracking Israeli soldiers and pursuing legal action against them in foreign countries.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder and president of Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, told Breitbart News that the threat has become serious enough that Israeli diplomatic officials are regularly warning veterans about potential efforts to detain them.

“It’s a real danger because pro-Palestinian organizations, like Hind Rajab or the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, are tracing IDF soldiers,” Darshan-Leitner said. “Every week there are soldiers who get warnings from the Israeli consulate or the Israeli ambassador to leave a certain country because of an arrest warrant that these organizations are seeking against them.”

Shurat HaDin launched the app, called Shachpatz — Hebrew for “bulletproof vest” — in late August to give veterans a centralized system for preparing to travel, receiving warnings while abroad, and obtaining assistance if they encounter legal trouble.

The app incorporates travel warnings and alerts from Israel’s Foreign Ministry and IDF, legal information, emergency and diplomatic contacts, a pre-travel checklist, and instructions explaining what travelers should do if questioned or detained.

Darshan-Leitner said the organization has also assembled a “war room” of more than 600 lawyers across 17 countries prepared to provide emergency legal assistance.

“If something happens, we put it on the app. If somebody else hears about it, they immediately put it on the app,” she explained. “It has instructions on what to do to try to avoid such an incident, how to take care of yourself before you travel, what to be alert to when you travel, and what to do if you get interrogated or arrested.”

Travelers can also report their own experiences, allowing Israelis to alert one another about hostile incidents or identify destinations where they have been treated particularly well.

“You know, they protected us, so now we have to protect them,” Darshan-Leitner said. The goal, she added, is to create “a community of travelers from Israel” capable of warning one another when problems arise.

Darshan-Leitner identified Belgium, South Africa, Canada, Thailand, and the Netherlands among countries where she believes Israeli veterans face heightened legal risks, pointing particularly to countries whose legal systems recognize forms of universal jurisdiction.

She sharply rejected the premise that foreign courts should be policing the conduct of Israeli soldiers, arguing that Israel maintains its own system for investigating allegations of misconduct by its forces.

“Israel does not need a foreign country to govern its soldiers,” she said. “Israel has a very strong law-enforcement system that prosecutes soldiers if they need to.”

Darshan-Leitner argued that the groups pursuing Israeli veterans are ultimately interested less in securing convictions than in generating the spectacle of an Israeli soldier being detained abroad.

“All they need to claim a victory is a photo of an IDF soldier arrested in a foreign airport,” she said.

Such an arrest, she warned, could have repercussions far beyond the individual involved by making reservists reluctant to travel and potentially causing young Israelis preparing for military service to reconsider joining combat units.

“People who served in reserve 300 days or 600 days and now want to go on vacation to chill out shouldn’t be afraid to go everywhere in the world,” she said.

Shurat HaDin’s involvement in the issue predates the current war. Darshan-Leitner said the organization has spent roughly 15 years fighting legal actions targeting Israeli soldiers and officials, including proceedings involving the International Criminal Court.

The organization has also pursued legal actions of its own against Hamas and Palestinian Authority officials and challenged international legal proceedings against Israeli officials.

Earlier this year, Shurat HaDin filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court against Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and other senior Spanish officials, alleging that Madrid enabled Iran’s “terror machine” through the export of dual-use components to the Islamic Republic.

Darshan-Leitner described Shachpatz as an extension of that broader legal campaign, but one aimed directly at protecting individual Israelis before an attempted detention can become an international incident.

“This time, the act is actually an act of self-defense,” she said, “to defend the IDF soldiers and do anything possible in order to prevent such arrest warrants.”

Because Shachpatz had been available for only about a week when Darshan-Leitner spoke with Breitbart News, the app itself had not yet been used to intervene in an attempted arrest, although Shurat HaDin had previously assisted Israelis facing legal threats abroad through its existing network.

Thousands of people had already downloaded the app, she said.

“We don’t want to see it happen,” Darshan-Leitner said of an arrest attempt requiring the app’s emergency resources, “but I’m sure it will become handy, unfortunately.”

Keep reading

Cops Called to Ohio Democrat Nominee Amy Acton’s Home During Drunken Rage — Terrified Daughter Called Police Saying “Mom Has Been Drinking and Throwing Things”

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate and radical COVID-lockdown architect Amy Acton had an absolute trainwreck of a weekend, demonstrating once again why the mainstream media’s darling is totally unsuited to hold higher office

First, Acton appeared totally unhinged and appeared to be visibly intoxicated during a high-profile campaign appearance on Saturday night.

It was truly something you had to see to believe.

Then on Sunday, Acton and her team immediately rushed to play the victim, spinning a tall tale about being “attacked” by an armed individual during a speech at the Canfield Fair.

The fake news narrative crumbled fast. Candidate Acton was never in personal danger, was never attacked directly, and did not even realize the disruptive individual at the campaign stop was carrying a firearm until local authorities made an arrest.

The man, who was lawfully carrying two registered weapons, was taken into custody by local police after an altercation broke out when he tried to move to the front of the crowd, resulting in minor charges involving an attempt to push past bystanders.

Now this…

In August, Laura Loomer published a never-before-released Bexley Police Department 911 call log from August 17, 2019 from the night Acton was still Ohio’s health director.

The priority-one call was placed at approximately 9:45 p.m. and classified as a domestic disturbance.

According to the dispatcher’s written narrative, Acton’s daughter reported that her mother and stepfather were fighting and that her mother had been “drinking and throwing things and breaking glass.”

The daughter reportedly left the residence and headed to her father’s home before officers arrived.

The accompanying field-interview report states that Amy Acton and her husband, Eric Acton, had become involved in a verbal argument over her extended work hours.

Acton “became upset,” felt he was “antagonizing her,” and, while going down the stairs, “grabbed hold of the mirror on the wall and pulled it down, shattering the glass.”

She went to the garage to get in her car and leave. He talked her out of it. Both said they had been drinking. Acton told police she had taken “an unknown amount of prescription medication.”

Columbus Fire medics checked her and advised a hospital trip. She refused. Officers wrote there was “no evidence of any physical violence” and called it a “verbal dispute only.”

Acton’s campaign told NBC News she had one drink at dinner, insinuating her daughter lied, “bumped into a wall hanging which fell,” and was asleep when police arrived.

Eric Acton later took the blame, saying he drank too much, started the argument, and that Amy “only had one drink.” The campaign now calls the prescription a routine migraine medicine. Acton herself recently dismissed it as “a normal routine fight” and accused critics of dragging family into politics.

Keep reading

Stadium Erupts as Florida Brings Back Chant That Was Banned for Years Due to Imaginary ‘Racist’ History

Sanity returned to the University of Florida Saturday when the Gators took on the Florida Atlantic Owls at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida.

During the neo-Marxist cultural revolution that was the summer of 2020, everything deemed “racist” had to be purged, regardless of context or logic dictating otherwise. ESPN reported that this included the popular “gator bait” chant, in which fans would extend their arms in front of them and clap their hands together like an alligator seizing its prey.

What exactly does that have to do with race? The university’s president that year, Kent Fuchs, announced racial undertones were a concern because artwork from the late 1800s and early 1900s showed alligator hunters using black babies as bait.

However, Fox News’ Outkick Sports reported that Fuchs had admitted UF’s chant had nothing to do with any of those depictions.

“While I know of no evidence of racism associated with our ‘Gator Bait’ cheer at UF sporting events, there is horrific historic racist imagery associated with the phrase,” he said.

Fox sports writer Zach Dean observed, “Translation: ‘This isn’t racist, but we’re bending the knee to the mob because that’s what everyone is doing right now.’”

So, the president was weak-willed and he caved.

Keep reading

Gavin Newsom Says He Would Continue His Podcast if He Became President – Wonders What He Would Wear

Gavin Newsom recently did a puff interview with PBS and was asked if he would continue his podcast if he became president. His body language changed and he became positively giddy at the thought.

He then wondered aloud what he would wear for the broadcast.

How is anyone taking this man seriously as a governor, let alone as a presidential candidate?

If Newsom runs for president, he is going to have to answer a lot of questions about California.

Even the Associated Press knows it:

California made Gavin Newsom famous. Will it drag down his 2028 presidential ambitions?

Gavin Newsom’s secret is no secret here in South Carolina.

They were selling “Gavin 2028” buttons outside his events this past week as he trekked across the state that will hold Democrats’ first presidential primary. His allies, the state party chair, college presidents and pro-Newsom activists all openly hinted at his national aspirations. And people close to him privately referred to a White House campaign as “the next thing.”

Still, California’s Democratic governor has barely begun to address what may be his biggest political liability as he stakes a claim as an early front-runner in the Democratic Party’s 2028 shadow primary. That liability, South Carolina voters acknowledged this past week, is something he cannot change — his home state, California, is a symbol of modern-day liberalism that people across the political spectrum love to hate.

Vera DeVito, a 78-year-old Democrat who packed into one of Newsom’s eight public events across South Carolina, said she didn’t know much about him or his policies — except that he’s from the Golden State. On that basis alone, she suggested that supporting Newsom could be “risky.”

“It’s going to be hard for him to appeal to the whole country,” she said in the town of Summerville. “Everybody thinks California is different — especially in the South. They’re not crazy about California.”

People aren’t crazy about California because California is crazy for putting up with Gavin Newsom.

The state has lost population for the first time in history on his watch.

Keep reading

FDA’s Botched Review of Moderna’s Flu mRNA Vaccine

When the FDA licensed Moderna’s new mRNA flu vaccine last week, legacy media coverage focused almost exclusively on efficacy.

The pivotal trial reported that the vaccine was “26.6% more effective” than a conventional flu vaccine at preventing protocol-defined influenza-like illness.

What received far less scrutiny was a much more serious problem in the trial data published in The New England Journal of Medicine—much of it relegated to an appendix behind a paywall.

An analysis of that appendix alongside the FDA’s own briefing document exposes clear regulatory malfeasance.

A statistically significant safety signal from the pivotal trial was systematically diluted until it disappeared from the official story.

The Safety Signal

Moderna’s pivotal Phase 3 trial (P304) enrolled roughly 40,000 adults aged 50 and older, randomised 1:1 to either the company’s mRNA-1010 vaccine or a traditional trivalent flu vaccine.

This study evaluated an “optimised” version of Moderna’s vaccine after earlier versions produced disappointing efficacy results.

Even with this updated formulation, the headline “26.6% relative efficacy” figure was misleading. In absolute terms, the vaccine reduced the risk of illness by just 0.8%.

Most concerning, however, were the serious adverse event (SAE) data.

The six-month data show that 449 participants in the mRNA group experienced at least one SAE, compared with 389 in the conventional group—an excess of 60 people.

So, while the pivotal trial showed there were 4 fewer influenza hospitalisations in the mRNA group, 60 additional people experienced an SAE.

SAEs are not mild events—they are usually severe enough to require hospitalisation, threaten life, cause significant disability, or result in death.

The imbalance of SAEs in Moderna’s pivotal trial was statistically significant—meaning it was unlikely to be a random fluke.

Keep reading

Ukraine Peace Talks: No Deal Reached, More War Expected

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held more than three hours of talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sept. 5, marking their first visit to the city since January.

In recent months, the war in Ukraine has received less attention as Washington has focused U.S. foreign policy and military resources on the conflict with Iran. The Moscow visit was intended to revive negotiations that had been stalled for nearly eight months.

The Kremlin meeting concluded without an immediate announcement about its outcome. Putin’s adviser Yuri Ushakov described the talks as “constructive and extremely frank.” He said the two sides discussed resolving the war, economic issues, and potential “mutually beneficial Russian-American projects.”

Ushakov told Russian reporters that “note was made of the Russian army’s tangible advances in the combat zone.” The passive, unattributed phrasing is typical of Kremlin readouts of closed-door diplomatic sessions. Moscow was placing its military progress on the record with the Americans, likely to project strength and shape its negotiating position.

Ushakov added that the talks needed to address the “root causes” of the conflict. “Root causes” is longstanding Kremlin language, used since before the 2022 invasion, for Russia’s underlying justifications for the war.

These include Ukraine’s NATO aspirations and broader Western military alignment; Ukraine’s governance and political orientation, which Russia has at times framed around “denazification” and the protection of Russian speakers; and the post-Cold War security architecture in Europe, which Russia argues expanded NATO into its sphere.

In this framing, Russia’s demands go beyond retaining the territory it currently occupies. They also include Ukraine renouncing NATO membership and reducing the size of its armed forces. Moscow separately said it remains confident that it can achieve its military objective of seizing the remainder of eastern Ukraine.

Keep reading

OpenAI Acknowledges Another Incident, Says More Transparency Needed for AI ‘Misalignment’

OpenAI has said there was a third incident involving rogue artificial intelligence agents and that it must be more transparent in the future.

In a statement on Sept. 5, OpenAI dubbed what happened a “wiki incident.” It shared few details beyond stating that it involved “misalignment,” or agents acting unreasonably or even wrong when judged by human standards. The company did not respond to a request for more information.

“Historically, we have treated misalignment largely as a research question, which gets communicated in research publications such as systems cards. This year, we’ve started to see misalignment cause new types of real-world impact,” OpenAI said, referring to agents breaching open-source AI community Hugging Face.

Before that incident, OpenAI saw “early signs of agents using the internet in unintended ways” and “considered the wiki incident to be an instance of misalignment” similar to the ones the company had shared, it said.

“Our misalignment disclosure practices need to expand for this new phase of model capabilities,” OpenAI said.

“We and the larger AI community do not yet have a clear standard for how to report misalignment that shows up during training, evaluation, and deployment, including examples that don’t look like traditional security incidents but could provide insight into AI behavior and future risks. We’re working on a framework and will share it in upcoming weeks, and in parallel we’re working with dozens of government regulatory agencies worldwide on these issues.”

The disclosure came one day after outside researchers said they had identified about 18,000 posts from autonomous AI agents that claimed to be from OpenAI and used a public messaging board called DSEwiki to instruct other agents on how to bypass restrictions.

“This allowed them to use the work of others to cheat on their task,” researchers said in a blog post on the incident.

The incident began in May and lasted until June, shortly before OpenAI agents attacked Hugging Face, according to the researchers.

They said they believed the agents were assigned a task to look up items on the web, or read information on the internet without having the ability to write on it.

The agents found a way to access the German wiki board and write information there, the researchers said.

Just one week earlier, researchers with the nonprofit Model Evaluation & Threat Research said they made a surprising discovery while investigating the Hugging Face breach.

About 1,200 agents that were supposed to be isolated from one another found a way to communicate on a message board, exchanging more than 70,000 messages and files in a single week.

Keep reading

Revised Overseas Voter Form FPCA Eliminates Checkbox “I Never Lived In U.S.” – A Blow to Birth Tourism Voters and Non-Citizens

For years, Americans living overseas could use the federal government’s Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) to register to vote and request an absentee ballot.

The old form contained an odd checkbox option that said, “I am a U.S. citizen living outside the country; I have never lived in the United States.”

The new form removes this line and does more.

On August 13th, the Department of War issued an Emergency Revision Request letter to eliminate this line.

It also restructures ID questions. It now asks detailed questions, if they’ve ever been issued a valid Driver’s License or State ID, then prove it? Ever been issued a Social Security card, prove it. And so on.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved the changes on Aug. 28th, and the new form became official on September 1st, 2026. The checkboxes now list only overseas citizens who intend to return to the United States, or whose intent to return is uncertain.

The “never lived in the U.S.” checkbox didn’t accurately reflect the laws governing overseas voting. In the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), a civilian living overseas generally votes through the last place they “domiciled” in the U.S before leaving the country.

The DoW (DoD) called the old provision an “inaccurate eligibility checkbox for citizens who have never lived in the U.S.” and said it needed to be removed so the form would comply with UOCAVA.

Non-military individuals, like birth tourists, who have never resided in the United States are not a class of voters specifically defined by UOCAVA. Therefore, they “may not be able” to use the FPCA/FWAB form.

There have been numerous controversies in States like MI, NC, and PA where FPCA applications had little verification. In a 2022 Pennsylvania hearing, Deputy Secretary for Elections Jonathan Marks said: “There’s no systemic verification.”

Eliminating the checkbox is meant to reduce confusion and prevent people outside UOCAVA’s scope from believing they are eligible to vote.

The distinction between U.S. citizenship and a U.S. voting residence is important. They are not the same thing. A citizen living in another country may have every right of citizenship but still needs a state or voting jurisdiction through which to cast a ballot.

The old form appeared to recognize “never lived in the United States” as a separate category of overseas voter. The new form no longer does. It requires an applicant to provide the U.S. address in the state or territory where the person claims the right to register and vote.

The change does not mean that every citizen who never lived in the United States is barred from voting. States retain some authority over voter qualifications. Some states have laws allowing certain citizens who were born or raised abroad to use a parent’s former voting residence.

Keep reading