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.

Ernst Presses DOT to Reclaim $14 Billion from Overbudget Rail Projects After Audit

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) announced a new push to rescind or redirect $14 billion in federal transportation funding from what she calls “boondoggle” rail projects that are years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, according to a letter sent this week to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.

In the letter, Ernst commended Secretary Duffy for releasing a long-delayed audit of California’s high-speed rail project and for canceling $4 billion in federal funding for the effort. The Department of Transportation’s 315-page report, required by a provision Ernst authored in the bipartisan infrastructure law (Section 11319 of Public Law 117-58), outlined what Ernst called a “trail of project delays, mismanagement, waste, and skyrocketing costs.”

DOT found that the California high-speed rail project failed to meet the terms of its federal grant awards, citing missed deadlines, budget shortfalls, and exaggerated ridership projections. The project, originally pitched to voters in 2008 as a $33 billion rail line connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles by 2020, has since ballooned to $128 billion with no high-speed tracks laid.

Ernst praised DOT’s review as setting “a new gold standard in accountability” and urged Secretary Duffy to apply similar scrutiny to other federally funded projects identified under her boondoggle law. She listed four projects currently receiving a combined $4.5 billion from taxpayers: Honolulu Rail Transit in Hawaii at $1,941,400,000; the Purple Line Transit in Maryland at $1,006,000,000; the Transbay Corridor Core Capacity project in California at $1,335,730,000; and the Queens Railroad Project in New York at $294,781,579.

The letter also highlighted three additional projects that Ernst said were omitted from the official audit despite being over budget and behind schedule. These include the Subway Extension to Silicon Valley, California, receiving over $5 billion; the San Francisco Transit Center at $3.38 billion; and the Minneapolis Light Rail project in Minnesota at roughly $939 million. According to Ernst, the Department of Transportation has committed $9.4 billion to these three projects alone.

“If these can’t be salvaged with better management, they too should be canceled,” Ernst wrote. She suggested that the total $14 billion could be redirected to higher-priority infrastructure needs or used to help pay down the national debt, which she noted has surpassed $37 trillion.

Although the audit of California’s high-speed rail project was over 300 pages long, Ernst noted that the DOT’s summary of the other 14 projects required by her provision was condensed into a one-page chart. She called for greater detail in future “boondoggle reports,” including information on budget overruns, schedule delays, and additional DOD-supported transportation efforts.

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NATO Member Scrambles Jets As Russia Destroys Gas Facility Key To Imports From US, Azerbaijan

Russia carried out an overnight drone strike on a crucial gas pumping and metering facility in Ukraine, triggering a large fire at the site, Ukrainian officials reported Wednesday. Importantly the station is part of an LNG imports scheme from the US and Azerbaijan. According to Ukraine’s energy ministry, a wave of drones targeted a metering station located near the Romania-Ukraine border, identified as part of the Transbalkan pipeline system.

NATO member Romania scrambled fighter jets in response to the large attack right on its border, Fox News reports:

Romania was forced to scramble F-16 jets after Russia carried out a strike just half a mile from the NATO nation’s territory. The country’s Ministry of National Defense (MApN) confirmed in a post on X that Russia carried out a drone attack near its border.

“On the night of August 5-6, the Russian forces launched a massive drone attack on the civilian infrastructure in the Ismail area, Ukraine, in the vicinity of the border with Romania,” Romania’s defense ministry wrote in a post on X.

“The radar systems of the MApN detected air targets in Ukrainian space, close to Tulcea County. At 1:10a.m., the population in the north of the county was warned via RO-Alert,” the ministry added, in reference to Romania’s official emergency warning system.

According to more details via Fox:

The defense ministry stated that two F-16 fighter jets took off “to monitor the national airspace,” but no “unauthorized intrusions” were detected. The ministry said it would carry out checks in the area and keep NATO allies updated in real time.

The drones reportedly struck oil and gas pipelines at the Orlivka plant in Odesa, Ukraine. Bright orange flames and plumes of smoke were visible across the Danube River.

Russia’s defense ministry acknowledged the intentional attack on Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, coming amid a renewed exchange of attacks by both Russia and Ukraine on energy and transport sites generally. So after six months, even the so-called ‘energy ceasefire’ is clearly off.

Ukraine is busy making great efforts to stockpile gas ahead of what’s typically a brutally cold winter season. President Zelensky called it deliberate in terms of timing.

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Netanyahu: Israel Will Seize Full Control of Gaza, Defeat Hamas, Transfer Territory to Arab Governance

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Thursday that Israel “intends to” take full control of the entire Gaza Strip to eliminate Hamas and transfer authority to non-hostile Arab forces, outlining his most comprehensive vision yet for ending the war as his security cabinet met to approve the operation.

Speaking to Fox News host Bill Hemmer ahead of the critical security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu laid out his vision for completely dismantling Hamas rule and transferring Gaza to new leadership.

“We have three missions: One, to eliminate Hamas as a governing and military power in Gaza, otherwise there’s no future for anyone and we will have many more kidnappings and hostages,” Netanyahu declared. “Second, achieve the liberation of all of our hostages. And third, make sure that Gaza doesn’t pose a threat to Israel again.”

The prime minister emphasized that Israel’s goal is liberation, not occupation. “We don’t want to keep it; we want to have a security perimeter,” he said when asked about seizing control of the entire 26-mile Gaza Strip. “We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us, and give Gazans a good life.”

Netanyahu framed the military operation as a rescue mission for both Israelis and Palestinians. “We want to liberate ourselves, liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas,” he stated, describing Hamas as holding “two million Palestinian and Gazan hostages” under their tyrannical rule.

The prime minister forcefully defended Israel’s military tactics against international criticism, particularly charges of genocide. “If we are practicing genocide, we sure would be doing a very bad job of it,” Netanyahu said, citing Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s recent comments. “Because we could have basically eliminated the entire population of Gaza, but we went in the other direction.”

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This ‘First Look’ At Kamala Harris’ Book Is Priceless

As we highlighted last week, Kamala Harris is cashing in on her God awful failed campaign by releasing a book she claims to have written.

It’s called 107 Days, because that’s how long everyone had to endure her word salad cackling before Trump won a massive landslide victory. 

It’s also the same amount of time that she managed to burn through one and a half billion dollars.

It also serves as her excuse as to why she lost.

The title of the book is a suggestion that she didn’t have long enough to put together a winning strategy. But given she never even coherently explained one policy, one can only assume it would take her years.

What do you think will be in her book? Will she finally answer the question ‘how are you different from Joe Biden?’

X user Jarvis has imagined what the content might be like, and it seems pretty accurate.

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Rutherford Institute Warns of Growing Threats to Religious Freedom, Challenges Ruling Denying Equal Treatment to Faith-Based Study Center

The Rutherford Institute is once again warning that if the government is allowed to deny freedom to one segment of the citizenry, it will eventually extend that tyranny to all citizens.

The Institute’s warning comes in response to a trial court’s decision in Christian Scholars Network, Inc. v. Montgomery County and Town of Blacksburg to deny equal treatment to a faith-based campus study center—despite providing tax-exempt status to other religious and charitable organizations offering similar services. At issue is whether the Christian Scholars Network (CSN)—a nonprofit religious organization that holds Bible studies, worship services, prayer meetings, and faith-based community events at its Bradley Study Center—is entitled to the same tax-exempt treatment granted to other religious groups. The case raises critical constitutional questions about religious liberty, government neutrality, and equal protection for nontraditional faith practices under the First Amendment and the Virginia Constitution.

“The First Amendment forbids the government from picking and choosing which religious groups are ‘worthy’ of constitutional protection,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Whether it’s a church, a synagogue, a mosque, or a campus study center, the principle is the same: all faiths must be treated equally under the law. When the government starts elevating one form of religious practice over another, it sets a dangerous precedent that threatens freedom of belief for everyone.”

The Rutherford Institute’s lawsuit on behalf of Christian Scholars Network (CSN) comes amid growing concerns about governmental attempts to define religion narrowly, often to the detriment of minority or nontraditional faith communities. In 2019, CSN, a nonprofit ministry exempt from federal income tax by the IRS under section 501(c)(3), opened the Bradley Study Center near the Virginia Tech campus to cultivate a thoughtful exploration of the Christian faith and how one’s faith connects to their studies, work, and life. CSN uses the Study Center property for worship services, prayer meetings, Bible and theological book studies, and a Fellows Program for Virginia Tech students to meet weekly for religious discussions and fellowship. Despite fulfilling a comparable mission as other religious organizations, CSN was denied a property tax exemption on the grounds that its activities allegedly did not constitute “worship” and that it is not a “religious association” under Virginia law.

In coming to CSN’s defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute argue that the government’s refusal to recognize CSN’s religious character violates the Establishment Clause, fosters religious discrimination, and imposes a narrow, outdated definition of worship that excludes faith communities outside traditional, hierarchical structures. Institute attorneys also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin, which affirms the right of faith-based organizations to operate free from government discrimination based on the structure or style of their worship and ministry. After the trial court refused to grant CSN an exemption, ruling that CSN must be like a traditional church to receive the tax exemption, attorneys with The Rutherford Institute appealed to the Virginia Court of Appeals.

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Scholars & Schemers: How The Left Ruined Higher Education

Despite denials from the left, US higher education has been captured by leftist faculty, students, and administrators. This is not a figment of anyone’s imagination, as for most of this century colleges and universities have changed dramatically.

Anyone who has been to college in the past half-century would attest to what then was called the “liberalism” of most of their professors, and, in the post-World War II era, the probability that one’s professor was a registered Democrat has been high. Yet, this is not what we mean by the “radicalizing” of American higher education, for even those professors that classified themselves as “liberals” and faithfully supported the Democratic Party would not have considered themselves to be radicals.

However, there also were demands for academic integrity 50 years ago, and certainly most of my professors at the University of Tennessee (1971-75) would have given at least a good effort to place their academic role above politics. In fact, I cannot recall being subjected to any politicized curricula—and I was a journalism major during the Watergate crisis, which practically invited politics into the classroom.

This does not mean that professors didn’t have political opinions or that the university itself was free of politics. I’m sure that most of my professors were Democrats but I don’t remember any of them attempting to influence my own political views (which, at best, were a mishmash of a lot of nonsense). There were, however, the effects of the cultural revolution that had begun before I went to college were already taking hold on the language, such as calling freshmen “freshpersons” and chairman a “chairperson.” For most of us, these things were eye-rolling but not really harmful. Furthermore, if some of us insisted on using the term “freshman,” there was no attempt to impose a campus-wide shaming campaign.

Today, the situation is very different. Higher education has been thoroughly politicized to a point where even if things were to turn around today, it would take an entire generation before things could be where they were even 30 years ago. There are no academic areas left in higher education that have not been corrupted by leftist thought.

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Trump signs EO enhancing oversight and eliminating wasteful Govt spending: ‘Every tax dollar should improve American lives’

President Trump has signed a new executive order (EO) requiring political appointees to oversee federal grant approvals, called the “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking.”

The EO, signed on Thursday, targets increased scrutiny on federal grants, especially those previously awarded for research and administrative costs deemed controversial. This falls within a broader effort by the Trump administration to align federal spending with the “America First” agenda.

“Every tax dollar the Government spends should improve American lives or advance American interests,” the EO reads in Section 1. “This often does not happen.”

The order went on to criticize the allocation of federal funds toward initiatives that promote “absurd ideologies,” citing projects ranging from “drag shows in Ecuador” to “transgender-sexual-education-programs.”

The EO also emphasizes the serious risks linked to wasteful spending, blaming the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for previously directing taxpayer funds to the “unsafe lab in Wuhan, China — likely the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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Zelensky Says ‘It’s Time To End The War’ – But Won’t Identify Any Concessions

Given the rapid movement on a Trump-Putin face to face meeting, to be held within the ‘coming days’ – according to both sides, Volodymyr Zelensky is speaking up, and seeking to ensure Ukraine’s position isn’t sidelined.

Apparently Washington during Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow Wednesday pushed the idea of a trilateral meeting involving Trump mediating between Zelensky and Putin, but this has been firmly rejected by Moscow. Instead Russia is taking the reputational and diplomatic ‘win’ of a bilateral Trump-Putin meeting, which would be a huge first of the war and a first of Trump’s second term in office.

Russia’s Putin stipulated Thursday that “conditions” for a potential future meeting with Zelensky had not been met.

“I have nothing against it in general, it is possible, but certain conditions must be created for this. But unfortunately, we are still far from creating such conditions,” Putin told reporters.

These conditions without doubt center on territorial concessions, and things like sovereignty on Crimea. Additionally, Russia’s position is that Zelensky is in power illegally, long past his mandate after canceling elections.

Putin’s remarks on a Zelensky meeting were in response to the Ukrainian leader saying he’s open to such a sit-down.

In a Thursday Telegram post, Zelensky said he had spoken with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to discuss ending the conflict in what he called “a dignified peace” that would “determine the security conditions for Europe for decades.”

“Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same bold approach from the Russian side. It is time to end the war,” he said, using words which Trump has also repeatedly proclaimed.

Putin earlier this summer made clear he’s willing to meet Zelensky, but only during a “final phase” of negotiations.

This would necessitate that the terms for ending the war would already be outlined and on the table, and tentatively agreed to and drawn up in their details.

Putin has in effect indicated that he would only show up to sign on to Zelensky and Ukraine’s surrender. But as it stands, Kiev is still unwilling to make territorical concessions or compromises, and won’t even take to more obvious first step of at least offering to relinquish Crimea.

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Judge temporarily halts construction at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center over environmental concerns

A federal judge has ordered a halt to the construction of the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades due to environmental concerns.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ruled that the facility can continue operations and hold detainees. However, the continued construction of the facility is temporarily barred for the next two weeks.

The ruling followed an eight-hour meeting in which five witnesses were called by the environmental groups who issued a lawsuit over the detention facility. The environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe asked Williams to halt operations and further construction at the facility, arguing that it’s built on environmentally protected wetlands and reverses billions in environmental restoration.

The plaintiffs argued that the detention center was illegally built due to federal and state officials bypassing a review process legally required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

“This is a very common-sense law that requires the government to look before it leaps, to analyze the environmental impacts, to do an environmental impact study, to take public comment, to consider alternatives, and none of that was done at so-called ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’” stated Eve Samples, the executive director of Friends of the Everglades.

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New Study Raises Concerns Over Universal Basic Income Plans

In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I explore how the American republic can survive in the 21st Century given unprecedented economic, technological, and political changes.

The book addresses the increasing calls for a universal basic income (UBI). Various Democratic cities are already implementing UBI systems.

Now, a new study finds (as did some prior studies) that UBI systems have not achieved significant improvements and may actually have some negative consequences for recipients.

A working paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that UBI recipients did indeed spend more money, including a 13 percent increase on child-related expenses. There was also a slight increase in parental supervision of children.

However, there was no improved school performance and a slight increase in reported developmental and stress-related problems with children.

Stanford’s Basic Income Lab is tracking more than 160 UBI projects in the U.S..

So far, the results are at best mixed.

One study in Compton showed that many recipients of the $500 monthly payment quit working part-time jobs.

Likewise, reports indicate that “a $400 monthly payment in Chelsea, Massachusetts, increased food spending and did not measurably reduce work, but it failed to produce results for the research team’s “primary downstream outcomes”—namely self-reported health and child school attendance.”

This follows earlier reports about the OpenResearch Unconditional Income Study (ORUS), an experiment in which lower-income Americans were given $1,000 a month for three years.

The result was a reduction in work and an increase in leisure activities.

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