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.

Eric Swalwell “Nannygate” Explodes: DHS and FEC Complaints Allege Illegal Alien Employment and Misuse of Campaign Funds for Childcare

On February 16, 2026, I filed two well-documented federal complaints against Congressman Eric Swalwell, one with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS/ICE), and another with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Together, these filings raise serious questions about whether Swalwell engaged in illegal patterns of conduct that reflect his disregard for federal law and a potential abuse of campaign funds for personal benefit.

At issue are two distinct but closely related allegations: first, that Swalwell continued employing a foreign national nanny illegally for two years after her legal work authorization expired; and second, that he illegally used campaign funds to cover what appear to be ongoing personal childcare expenses totaling more than $300,000.

Taken together, these allegations suggest a sustained pattern in which legal requirements were well understood by Swalwell, and then ignored for personal gain. I published both complaints on SwalwellisDisqualified.com.

The DHS/ICE Complaint: Alleged Employment of an Unauthorized Worker

In 2022, Eric Swalwell and his wife employed a Brazilian national, Amanda Barbosa, as a live-in Au Pair under the J-1 visa program. Barbosa resided in the Swalwell household and provided full-time childcare for their three young children. In 2022, Barbosa was paid approximately $46,929.70 for her services by Swalwell’s campaign under “Childcare for Campaign Events”.

Critically, Barbosa’s J-1 visa, and thus her legal authorization to work, expired at the end of December 2022. The Swalwells were fully aware of this deadline. In fact, earlier in 2022, they attempted to secure permanent work authorization for Barbosa by filing a federal labor certification (ETA-9089), which required a formal job posting in The Washington Post. Their advertisement outlined a demanding, full-time nanny position which included:

  • taking care of 3 kids & help satisfy kids’ physical, emotional, intellectual, & social needs
  • assist w/care of dog, organize kids’ play activities, drive kids to appts & activities
  • household cleaning &laundry, prep kids’ meals, Mon to Fri, 7A to 4P, Wknd work time

The Swalwell’s permanent work authorization application was denied by the Department of Labor.

Keep reading

How Will Corporate Lobbyists Fix Healthcare? Don’t Ask—Because You Can’t

Corporate media political reporting has always been a clubby endeavor, but a recent reporting experience suggests that the insider culture in Washington, DC, is more insular than ever.

It’s often a challenge for independent media to get responses from Washington insider sources—especially on stories critical of powerful actors—but it’s become increasingly difficult even to pose the questions to those sources. Corporate news sources now issue press releases without bothering to include any information about who to contact with follow-up questions, as if the source is handing the truth down from on high.

When I first encountered this phenomenon after returning to journalism three years ago, I assumed it was a function of the laziness and/or incompetence of individual PR hacks. In my previous life, I had written a few dozen press releases, and “who’s the contact person?” was always a key question to answer in planning media outreach. But today, a failure to offer contact information increasingly appears to be a deliberate strategy to stymie journalistic inquiry.

‘No Surprises’ unsurprising fiasco

Last November, my healthcare politics online newsletter, Healing and Stealing (11/7/25), published an investigation of a national coalition of health insurers and other big businesses. The Coalition Against Surprise Medical Billing includes major business lobbying trade associations like the National Retail Federation, National Restaurant Association, National Association of Manufacturers and the health insurance industry trade group AHIP. Through those associations and business/labor health policy alliances, most of the largest employers in the US and many major labor unions are part of the Coalition, in alliance with the health insurance companies that sell them health plans for their employees.

The Coalition lobbied for passage of the No Surprises Act. The law, passed in December 2020 and signed by President Donald Trump, limits the amount that patients have to pay out of pocket when they unknowingly see a doctor or use another service that is not covered in their health insurance plan’s network. The law also set up a new arbitration system to resolve disputes—between employers and insurers on one side, and hospitals, labs, doctors’ offices and ambulance companies on the other—over the rest of the bills.

Keep reading

It’s Not Anarcho-Tyranny, It’s Interventionist Non-Intervention

In 1994, Sam Francis originally coined a term: “anarcho-tyranny.” He described this phenomenon as “the combination of oppressive government power against the innocent and the law-abiding and, simultaneously, a grotesque paralysis of the ability or the will to use that power to carry out basic public duties such as protection or public safety.”

In a previous article (and in an forthcoming paper), utilizing Rothbard’s typology of intervention, it was argued that the state—following coercive taxation and monopolization or competition suppression—can intervene through doing “nothing,” that is, paid non-delivery of promised and monopolized service. The core elements of interventionist non-intervention include 1) the binary intervention of coercive taxation where citizens are forced to pay for a service regardless of whether or not they receive it; 2) the triangular interventions of monopolization or competition suppression where the state claims exclusive domain over the service provision; and, 3) non-delivery wherein the state then fails or refuses to provide the monopolized service for which it has extracted payment. These three are the minimum requirements for interventionist non-intervention. Additionally, intensifying elements may be added, which include prohibition of self-help alternatives, the maintenance of the coercive framework, and legal immunity from consequences of non-delivery.

Interventionist non-interventionism combines these elements to create something qualitatively different from other forms of government failure or intervention. This is not deregulation, in which all regulatory and coercive elements are removed; it is not privatization, since the state maintains its monopoly; it is not austerity, since the revenue extraction continues; and it is not anarchy, since the state actively prevents voluntary order. In this way, non-delivery—the state doing “nothing”—also becomes a coercive intervention. The specific combination of extraction, monopolization, and non-delivery creates systematic harm while preventing solutions.

While there is overlap with the concept of “anarcho-tyranny,” there is an important distinction between anarcho-tyranny and interventionist non-intervention. The concept of anarcho-tyranny implies in the first part of the term—anarchy—a total absence of government involvement, however, that is often not the case. It is not that there is pure anarchy—absence of government—allowed in selective cases and tyranny in other cases, but rather that the “anarchy” (disorder) described by anarcho-tyranny is state-imposed disorder. This chaos and disorder (termed “anarcy”) happens within, and largely because of, the state system, not independent of it.

Keep reading

Pete Hegseth’s War on Journalists (and Iran Too)

Last fall, nearly the entire Pentagon press corps was banned from the Pentagon after refusing to sign Pete Hegseth’s loyalty oath, which would have bound them to only report information “authorized” by the government (FAIR.org, 9/23/25). They were quickly replaced by pundits from Hegseth-approved outlets like One America News, Gateway Pundit and Lindell TV, which is “Pillow Guy” Mike Lindell’s pet project.

But once the Iran War got underway, it dawned on Hegseth that a Defense secretary needs to communicate with the whole country, not just the narrow slice of it reached by his favorite right-wing pundits. So Hegseth reversed course, asking the major networks to bring their cameras back to the Pentagon. They agreed, but on one condition: Some of their reporters had to be allowed to return to the press briefing room, too.

So back they came, albeit now at the back of the room. Few of these reporters—who represent outlets you’ve actually heard of, like ABC, NBC and the New York Times—are called on. Hegseth, a former Fox News weekend host, instead fields questions almost exclusively from handpicked media personalities seated in the front rows. (I’d call them reporters, but if they signed Hegseth’s 2025 oath, as most did, they’re anything but.)

Keep reading

CNN Continues Lying About Child In ‘Bunny Hat’ Who Was ‘Detained’ By ICE

Even as the White House naively attempts to placate Democrats by adopting a softer tone on deportations, the media are lying about immigration law enforcement as fiercely as ever.

CNN on Friday promoted an online streaming special centered on migrant children by referring back to 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, the Ecuadorian child temporarily allowed into the U.S. with his parents by the reckless Biden administration. An immigration judge recently denied Ramos’ family’s asylum claim, meaning they’re cleared for removal. That’s another way of saying the case has been adjudicated and it’s time for Liam to go home. But CNN anchor Sara Sidner instead chose to lie about the circumstances of that whole episode.

“Do you remember this image?” she said with a photo of Ramos on screen. “It became the haunting face of a Minneapolis immigration crackdown that left that community reeling. It shows 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos with his Spiderman backpack and bunny hat being detained by an ICE agent while his mom is feet away inside their home.”

CNN’s poor audience would be led to believe “Little Liam” (as he was referred to by another anchor later in the day) was playing in the crisp white snow when a fed snatched him from his unsuspecting parents, ready for immediate deportation, all while his helpless mother stood by crying. That’s not what happened.

In reality, immigration authorities were attempting to detain Liam’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, who was with his son outside their home. The father fled, leaving Liam alone, and when agents tried to unite him with his mother, who was inside, she refused to open the door, effectively leaving the child abandoned, according to the Department of Homeland Security. When the father, Adrian, was eventually captured, he requested that his son go with him to a detention facility, so he did.

Keep reading

Why your flu shot may work differently than you think

Two decades of federal surveillance data reveal how immune imprinting and an aging immune system undermine flu vaccine effectiveness. Current universal vaccination policy has not caught up to the biology.

Every autumn, public health authorities deliver a message that is simultaneously accurate and misleading: get your flu shot. All Americans aged six months and older are recommended to receive one. The guidance is consistent, reassuring, and considerably more complicated than it sounds.

A synthesis of two decades of CDC surveillance data, which will be published separately in Malone.News makes an argument that has been quietly building in the immunology literature for years: the current one-size-fits-all approach to seasonal influenza vaccination fails to account for two fundamental features of how the immune system actually works. The first is that your first flu exposure as a child permanently shapes how you respond to every flu vaccine you will ever receive. The second is that the immune system ages in ways that make older adults both the most important target for vaccination and the least reliable responders to it.

This is not a case against flu vaccination. It is a case for being honest about what the vaccine does and does not do, and for whom. In other words, it is a case for open and transparent informed consent.

Keep reading

IDF Iron Dome Operator Arrested, Charged With Spying For Iran

There’s quite obviously been Israeli intelligence inroads into Iran, which at times US and Israeli officials themselves have boasted about, with Tehran recently announcing efforts to round up and arrest “traitors” – and there’s even in some cases been executions of the accused.

Inside Israel, there are also fears of locals spying for Israel – but the phenomenon remains much less common (as far as anyone knows). That’s why the latest headlines are likely a shock to the Israeli establishment. On Friday an Israeli reservist tied to the country’s missile defense network has been charged with serious security offenses after allegedly working with Iranian intelligence.

Police have identified Raz Cohen, a 26-year-old from Jerusalem, who served in the Iron Dome unit, as the alleged culprit. It’s been revealed he was arrested March 1, merely one day after the joint US-Israel war on Iran kicked off. “These included passing sensitive security information to the Iranian agent during December 2025, including details about how Iron Dome works, locations of Israeli Air Force bases, and the locations of Iron Dome batteries,” writes Times of Israel.

Keep reading

Partisan Hack Jim Acosta Warns Partisan Hacks Are Taking Over the News Business

Former CNN employee Jim Acosta is deeply worried that ‘partisan hacks’ are taking over the news business. You couldn’t make this up.

Acosta offered his comments at a hearing set up by California Senator Adam Schiff, which just makes this story even more perfect.

Acosta is really upset about the fact that the news media is changing and he is being left behind. He claims that CBS News and other outlets are going pro-Trump. That is not happening. Jim just thinks that the news is going right wing if it’s not attacking Trump 24/7.

Deadline reported:

“The news is broken, we may not be able to put the pieces back together,” former CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta told a packed Burbank City Hall on Friday, warning of the rise of entertainment industry oligarchs and “media domination.”

“We need to talk about busting up big media,” Acosta insisted. “This is not America what we’re seeing now.”

Citing a “danger to our democracy,” Acosta called Donald Trump’s attacks on the media “an assault on our freedom of speech … taking us down the road of Putin and China to state-controlled media.” An old and constant thorn in Trump’s paw, Acosta certainly had something to say about David Ellison’s pending $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros Discovery – the owners of CNN.

Taking a swing at “partisan hacks” running CBS News and the probability of more job losses like we saw today, and “self-censoring,” the journalist was speaking Friday at Sen. Adam Schiff’s “Lights, Camera, Competition”: Promoting American Film Production event in the former home of the Tonight Show.

Keep reading

The Ellisons are building a media empire. Trump keeps cheering them on.

President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly celebrated the wealthy Ellison family’s growing media empire in recent days, even as the Trump administration is reviewing Paramount Skydance’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery and its assets including CNN for $110 billion.

“The Ellison family, two great people, great people. It’s a great family,” Trump said Monday, in remarks ahead of a Kennedy Center board meeting that referenced CBS and its upcoming broadcast of a UFC event.

On Friday, Hegseth called Warner Bros.-owned CNN’s coverage of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran “fake news” after it reported that the administration had underestimated the risk of disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth said. A spokeswoman for CNN declined to comment on his remarks.

CNN, a longtime target of Trump’s complaints about the media, is among the most prominent assets in Paramount’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros., which requires approval from the Justice Department.

Larry Ellison, co-founder and chairman of Oracle and a longtime friend and ally to Trump, has financially backstopped Paramount’s pending deal to buy Warner Bros. and is also a major investor in the White House-blessed deal that spun off TikTok into a U.S. company. That has helped rebrand the tech billionaire and his son David into media tycoons — with some help from Trump.

The administration’s posture toward Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery has drawn scrutiny since a bidding war erupted over the troubled media giant late last year.

After Netflix announced an $83 billion deal in December to buy most of Warner Bros. Discovery and spin off CNN and other cable properties, Trump told reporters he would be “involved” in deciding whether to approve it, citing the streaming giant’s market power as a potential concern.

Keep reading

Ohio, Indiana Stop The ‘Horrors’ Of Ranked-Choice Voting From Corrupting Their Elections

Ohio and Indiana have officially joined a growing number of states prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting (RCV) in their elections.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation (SB 63) on Tuesday that prevents elections from being conducted with ranked-choice voting (or “instant runoff voting”). Should the secretary of state determine that an Ohio city or locality “approved the use” of such a system in its elections via resolution or ordinance, “then the county or municipal corporation is ineligible to receive any local government fund distributions from the state during the period beginning with the month following the adoption of the resolution or ordinance and ending with the month following the last day it is in effect.”

SB 63 was introduced by Republican Sen. Theresa Gavarone and Democrat Sen. William DeMora and received overwhelming support in the state House (65-27) and Senate (24-7).

Under RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

As The Federalist previously reported, Democrats have often pushed ranked-choice voting as a way of winning races in which Republican candidates receive a majority of the vote. The system has also been shown to produce confusion among voters, delayed election results, and thrown-out (“exhausted”) ballots.

“From decreasing voter turnout, to even having the losing candidate declared the winner, we have seen the horrors of ranked choice voting play out in several states throughout the country, but that will not happen in Ohio!” Gavarone wrote in a tweet responding to DeWine’s signing of SB 63.

The law is expected to take effect 90 days after its approval, according to Dayton Daily News.

DeWine’s signature comes nearly a month after GOP Gov. Mike Braun approved legislation barring RCV in Indiana.

Much like its Ohio counterpart, Indiana’s SB 12 stipulates that elections “may not be determined by ranked choice voting” and that candidates “may not be nominated for or elected to an office by means of ranked choice voting.”

The measure passed the Indiana House (58-30) last month after clearing the state Senate (38-9) in January.

There are now 19 states that have adopted laws prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting in their elections, according to Ballotpedia.

Keep reading