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.

Energy Department Issues Emergency Order To Secure Power Grid In 17 US States

The Department of Energy (DOE) has issued an order to tackle an energy emergency situation across 17 U.S. states triggered by hot weather conditions.

The July 26 emergency order was issued by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to Southwest Power Pool Inc. (SPP), the regional grid operator for the 17 states.

According to the order, SPP is expecting hot weather conditions through Aug. 3. The operator requested the department to allow specific power generation units to run beyond their operating limits in order to ensure grid reliability. It also sought authority to unlock and deploy backup generation resources at data centers and other industrial and commercial customer sites to counter any risk to the bulk power system.

Wright determined that statutory emergency situations exist in certain regions, serviced by the SPP, owing to sudden increases in demand, “a shortage of electric energy, a shortage of facilities for the generation and transmission of electric energy, and other causes,” the order said. Homes and local businesses in the affected areas could lose power, presenting a risk to public safety and health.

The energy secretary allowed SPP to dispatch power-generating units “as needed to maintain reliability,” according to the order. In addition, SPP is authorized to use backup resources to operate as a last resort before issuing an Energy Emergency Alert 3 – the highest level of energy emergency action.

The emergency order applies from July 26 to Aug. 3.

In a July 26 statement, DOE said the order would stabilize the power grid and mitigate blackout risks, highlighting that outages cost American people around $44 billion annually.

“The Trump Administration is tapping into an abundant supply of unused backup generation to maintain affordable, reliable, and secure power for hardworking American families and businesses,” Wright said in the statement.

The department estimated the total nationwide unused power generation to be at over 35 gigawatts.

The emergency order comes as the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted in a July 28 post on X that “dangerous and extreme” heat would remain across portions of the central United States this week.

In a July 28 forecast, the Weather Prediction Center said the southern United States is expected to see above-normal temperatures for the next few days, with afternoon highs reaching upper 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

High heat combined with high humidity can result in widespread “Major to Extreme HeatRisk levels,” with people lacking adequate cooling or hydration at risk of heat-related illnesses, according to the center. By the end of this week, the “dangerous heat” is forecast to expand into the Southwest and Intermountain West, the center said.

Strengthening Power Grid

Amid high heat conditions, other major power grid operators have also issued operational alerts.

On July 28, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which serves 15 states, released a hot weather alert update as temperatures in the region are expected to hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit. The alert is effective till the end of this month.

On July 15, PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest electric grid operator that serves 13 states, had declared a hot weather alert that remained in effect through July 17. Such an alert is issued to prepare power generation facilities and personnel to meet a jump in electricity demand.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, the DOE announced $1.9 billion in funding opportunities to strengthen the U.S. power grid, with the funds coming from a five-year grid resilience program.

The funding will prioritize projects that expand grid capacity, replace existing power lines with higher-capacity conductors, improve overall system security and reliability, and lower prices for consumers.

According to Katie Jereza, assistant secretary at the DOE’s Office of Electricity, the funding will stabilize and optimize America’s grid operations, strengthening it for rapid growth.

Wright said in the statement that for too long, “important grid modernization and energy addition efforts were not prioritized by past leaders.”

“Thanks to President [Donald] Trump, we are doing the important work of modernizing our grid so electricity costs will be lowered for American families and businesses,” Wright said.

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Sen. Ron Johnson Unloads Devastating Safety Data on Fauci — Says COVID Shot Logged Nearly 7,000 Death Reports Per Year While FDA Ignored Warning Signs and Pushed Remdesivir

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) dropped another bombshell during Wednesday’s explosive Senate hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci, confronting the former COVID czar with adverse event data that he argued should have triggered urgent scrutiny years ago—but instead was ignored while federal health agencies relentlessly promoted COVID vaccines and Remdesivir.

Johnson’s latest exchange came after he previously confronted Fauci with stacks of studies on ivermectin and questioned why federal officials dismissed evidence supporting alternative treatments before Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during the hearing.

The Wisconsin senator displayed comparative adverse-event figures during the hearing, arguing they represented safety signals that federal regulators refused to adequately investigate.

“These are averages. Again, it doesn’t prove causation, but there’s correlation. It’s there. It’s there for a safety signal,” Johnson said.

The chart, titled “Drug Adverse Event Comparison” and labeled “FDA and CDC Data: Worldwide,” compared adverse event reports, total reported deaths, and average deaths per year across multiple products.

According to the chart presented by Johnson:

  • Ivermectin (30 years, 1996–2026): 5,127 adverse events, 518 deaths, averaging 17 deaths per year.
  • Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) (38 years, 1988–2026): 37,270 adverse events, 5,404 deaths, averaging 142 deaths per year.
  • Flu vaccines (36 years, 1990–2026): 243,335 adverse events, 2,770 deaths, averaging 77 deaths per year.
  • Dexamethasone (57 years, 1969–2026): 143,017 adverse events, 25,589 deaths, averaging 448 deaths per year.
  • Tylenol (57 years, 1969–2026): 184,186 adverse events, 42,627 deaths, averaging 747 deaths per year.
  • Remdesivir (69 months): 10,657 adverse events, 2,751 deaths, averaging 546 deaths per year.
  • COVID-19 vaccines (68 months): 1,677,227 adverse events, 39,182 deaths, averaging 6,922 deaths per year.

The chart also highlighted that 9,342 reported deaths occurred on days 0, 1, or 2 following COVID-19 vaccination.

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China Brings Back Masking for Vulnerable People as Summer Coronavirus Spike Sweeps South

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began encouraging vulnerable residents – such as the elderly, pregnant women, and those with chronic diseases – to seek out Wuhan coronavirus vaccine products and use sanitary masks as the rate of coronavirus infections skyrocketed in July.

The Chinese state newspaper Global Times first announced in English the CDC warning of a spike in Wuhan coronavirus cases on July 26, insisting that the virus appears to be spreading much faster in southern China than in the north and that it does not appear to be causing severe infections in most people. Experts suggested that hot temperatures driving people indoors to air conditioning has created similar conditions to winter, when many do not go outside because of the cold and the limited air circulation facilitates infections.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post identified the culprit of the latest outbreak as the “Omicron NB.1.8.1 variant,” which is reportedly spreading at a “moderate” level but mostly a threat to the elderly or those with other health complications.

The Chinese CDC warned last week that it was documenting more cases of coronavirus than influenza this month, suggesting accelerating rates of infection. The vast majority of those diagnosed with the disease were reportedly between the ages of 15 to 59, suggesting that children and the elderly did not represent the majority of cases.

“The [Wuhan coronavirus] test positivity rate stood at 16.3 percent, up 4.3 percentage points from the previous week, while the influenza positivity rate was 12.6 percent, down 0.9 percentage points week on week,” the Global Times detailed.

The Global Times added that the Chinese government was now encouraging the elderly and those with health complications to “preventive measures, such as wearing masks in crowded places or on public transportation.” All were encouraged to update their vaccine product dosages, particularly pregnant women.

The state outlet China Daily reported an update on Wednesday from Beijing’s CDC discouraging residents from concern, stating that the rate of transmission in the capital city was “within normal cyclical fluctuations” and not straining medical facilities. Overcrowding in Chinese hospitals is a recurring problem during waves of respiratory infections, particularly those targeting children, as many parents choose to take their children to be hospitalized for intravenous treatment rather than attempting to treat respiratory symptoms at home. During past waves of respiratory infections citizens have documented chaotic scenes in city hospitals as emergency rooms failed to offer proper services to the large crowds of people flooding their waiting rooms and ran out of seats of IV fluid treatment.

“The [Beijing health] center said visits to fever clinics remain low across the city, hospitals have sufficient medicine supplies, and the latest increase in cases has not placed noticeable pressure on the healthcare system,” according to China Daily.

The current transmission data available from China indicates that the situation in southern China is more precarious. The U.S.-based Epoch Times, which conducted much of the early reporting exposing the calamity in Wuhan, China, as the coronavirus first began spreading in 2020, noted in its reporting on Wednesday that the gap between cases in the north and south had “widened significantly” and that one potentially complicating factor could be widespread floods in the region that have killed and displaced large numbers of people. The newspaper, citing biomedical science professor Xiaoxu Sean Lin, cited that flooding could potentially cause situations such as “population displacement, centralized sheltering, poor ventilation, overcrowded medical facilities, and compromised nutrition and rest,” all of which help spread respiratory illness.

Lin described the current reports out of the Chinese communist regime as “only the tip of the iceberg,” as many Chinese do not report symptoms consistent with a coronavirus infection, particularly when caused by a variant that only prompts mild symptoms to occur. The outbreak causing a rise in cases has been identified as “Omicron NB.1.8.1.” The South China Morning Post listed common symptoms as “fever and a sore throat.”

Citing Peng Jie, deputy director of the infectious diseases department at Southern Medical University’s Nanfang Hospital, the Morning Post noted that some experts are concerned about an “increasingly unpredictable” trend of coronavirus infections in the summer. While the Chinese CDC typically documents an increase in cases of all major respiratory diseases in the winter, state reports have explicitly noted that they have not documented a similar increase this summer of cases of influenza or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which also tend to spread more severely among children and the elderly.

Speaking to the Epoch Times, Taiwanese infectious disease specialist Cheng Yuan-yu posited the air conditioner theory for why coronavirus appears to be spreading at a faster rate.

“High outdoor temperatures drive people flocking to air-conditioned environments, which leads to spending extended periods in enclosed indoor spaces and has increased risk of indoor airborne transmission,” Cheng reportedly said. If this factor is driving infections, Cheng continued, that would mean situations such as “people going to work while sick, the confined environments of commuting, waning immunity, biases in testing and health care-seeking behavior” would result in more cases of people aged 15 to 59 being diagnosed with coronavirus, rather than children or the elderly.

The Wuhan coronavirus was originally identified in the eponymous central Chinese city of Wuhan as a novel pathogen in early 2020, though reports indicated that the first diagnosed case could have surfaced as early as November 2019. As a result of the Chinese Communist Party violently silencing those identifying a new virus, allowing “super-spreader” events to take place to obscure the spread of the disease, then engaging in human rights atrocities to imprison people in the city, the virus went on to infect millions of people around the world, killing over 7 million people.

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China To Arm Iran With Hundreds Of MANPADS Despite Trump Warnings: Report

President Trump has repeatedly said that China’s President Xi Jinping has directly assured him that Beijing will not supply Iran with weaponry or military support.

But this week these ‘assurances’ have been called into question by an Reuters investigation. “Iran is expected to receive within weeks a first shipment out of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers, three sources familiar with the deal told ​Reuters, as it rebuilds its defenses amid war with the United States,” the fresh report says.

“The purchase, valued at $60-70 million, is one of Tehran’s largest-known efforts to strengthen its short-range air ‌defences since the outbreak of its war with the U.S. and Israel, which exposed gaps in Iran’s ability to protect military sites and strategic infrastructure,” it adds.

The fresh report cites three anonymous sources and did not receive comment from the Iranian side. Some of the assertions of the Reuters report are surprisingly specific, such as in the following:

The contract covers the purchase of between 300 and 400 man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), including Chinese-made QW-12 and FN-16 missiles, the sources said.

The deal was signed with Zhongqing Baoshang International Investment, a Hong Kong-based company that the sources said was acting as an intermediary between the Iranian ​side and the Chinese supplier.

The reporting even explores options being considered for delivery of the weapons, at a moment Iran is urgently seeking to replenish its air defense supplies after months of grinding tit-for-tat conflict with the US military.

“Two Western intelligence sources and an Iranian official said Tehran had also explored the use of overland routes to move Chinese military supplies and dual-use components ⁠more discreetly and ​reduce the risk of disruption,” Reuters continues.

MANPADS could prove especially dangerous for US helicopters and other low flying aircraft, and for Iran can serve as layer of short-range protection.

The opening days of Operation Epic Fury saw much of Iran’s anti-air units get taken out, especially across the Western part of the country, giving US-Israeli jets air superiority. However, at times the Iranians have claimed to shoot down some aircraft, and since then the US has seemed to operate from further afar.

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‘UNACCEPTABLE RISKS’: Trump Bans Import of Chinese Humanoid Robots Over National Security Concerns

‘These are not the droids that you’re looking for.’

Chinese companies have been leaping ahead in the race to develop the best, most useful (and most lethal) humanoid robots in the planet, clearly taking the lead in this flourishing industry.

But now, the Chinese droids face a major obstacle in their path, as they lose access to the planet’s largest and most robust market.

Today, it’s been reported that the Donald J. Trump administration has banned imports of humanoid robots made in China.

Officials warn they pose ‘unacceptable risks’ to US national security.

The Telegraph reported:

“US regulators barred imports of advanced Chinese robotics on Tuesday, including bipedal robots and four-legged devices, arguing they could be used to spy on American citizens or controlled remotely.

Officials at the Federal Communications Commission said: ‘Foreign-produced advanced robotics devices present an unacceptable cybersecurity and safety risk. Advanced robotic devices collect data that could be leveraged by malign actors to surveil Americans, enhance the capabilities of foreign intelligence services, or to remotely commandeer the robots’.”

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New Jersey Rejects DOJ’s Request For Records On Noncitizen Voter Registration Error

New Jersey is refusing to hand over information to the U.S. Department of Justice involving a voter registration error that allowed thousands of noncitizens to register to vote in the state.

The DOJ requested the full names, dates of birth, nationalities, residential addresses, and registration dates and locations of 6,600 people involved in the error.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill rejected the DOJ’s request for the data, saying in a letter on Tuesday that state and federal privacy laws prohibit releasing it.

“The request had no legal basis, and I will always protect New Jerseyans’ personally identifiable information,” Sherrill said on X.

Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the DOJ, said the governor’s “refusal to cooperate with federal law enforcement does nothing to protect law-abiding NJ voters.”

“NJ has a legal duty to keep ineligible voters off its rolls, & our request is grounded in that legal authority. DOJ will get this information through all legal means!” she said Tuesday in a post on X.

Sherrill said on July 21 that approximately 6,600 people who indicated they were not U.S. citizens were mistakenly registered to vote because of a software flaw in the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission system.

According to Sherrill, the error affected applicants between June 2023 and June 2024, during the previous administration. While applying for driver’s licenses or state identification cards, the individuals selected “no” when asked on a keypad whether they were U.S. citizens, but they were nevertheless added to the voter rolls due to the software issue.

The governor said a preliminary review found that fewer than 400 of those improperly registered ultimately cast ballots. Those voters included Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters and were spread across New Jersey.

Sherrill said she has directed her chief counsel to investigate how the mistake happened and instructed election officials to remove anyone who was improperly placed on the voter rolls during that timeframe. She said the software problem was corrected in June 2024 but that she only recently became aware of it.

The governor also said the Motor Vehicle Commission administrator she appointed has started replacing the vendor that managed the system.

However, a company that has worked with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle System for more than 40 years suggested the New Jersey government was responsible for the noncitizens being placed on the state’s voter rolls.

IDEMIA, an identification software provider, told The Epoch Times July 22 that the individuals disclaimed U.S. citizenship but also said they indicated “Yes” to wanting to register to vote.

“The voter registration information is transmitted to the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Elections, which is ultimately responsible for verifying eligibility to vote,” the company stated. “Information submitted by IDEMIA must still be validated and adjudicated by the Division of Elections.”

The governor said in the July 21 announcement that she was “appalled” by the failures that allowed the error to occur and vowed that those responsible would be held accountable.

She also accused the Trump administration of trying to “weaponize elections for political gain.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has found that about 278,000 noncitizens were illegally registered to vote in U.S. federal elections after reviewing voter rolls from several states that cooperated and turned over data, according to the White House.

The White House said earlier this month the actual number could be higher because some states did not share their voter files with the federal agency.

The Trump administration has been involved in lawsuits with several states involving access to voter registration rolls.

In April, a U.S. District judge dismissed a lawsuit the Trump administration had filed in Massachusetts to get access to unredacted voter rolls.

The White House said the error in New Jersey “is the direct result of Democrat policies that refuse basic citizenship checks—and exactly why Congress must pass the SAVE America Act immediately,” in a July 21 statement.

The SAVE America Act is a bill that would mandate proof of U.S. citizenship while registering to vote in federal elections, require photo ID verification to vote, and restrict the use of mail-in ballots.

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THAT SHOULD DO IT: Chicago Officials Put Signs in Subway Cars That Say ‘Violence Will Not be Tolerated’ 

Officials from the city of Chicago, including the transit authority, recently made a big to-do about putting up signs in subway cars that say ‘violence will not be tolerated.’

This should work perfectly, right? Criminals will see the signs and change their behavior in order to follow the rules, right?

Of course, this assumes that potentially violent criminals on Chicago’s public transit system can read, which isn’t a safe bet.

FOX 32 in Chicago reports:

New CTA campaign aims to deter violent crime on buses, trains

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Chicago Transit Authority are launching a new public awareness campaign warning that prosecutors will seek pretrial detention for people accused of committing violent crimes on public transit.

The initiative will place more than 7,000 signs on CTA buses and trains that say, “Violence on the CTA will not be tolerated. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office will prosecute and seek pretrial detention for all violent offenses on public transit.”

“In order to have a safe and thriving city, we need to have a safe public transportation system,” Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke said in a statement.

“The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office is committed to doing everything we can to make our public transportation system the safest in the nation. We are putting up these signs to show how seriously we take these cases and to reinforce the consequences offenders will face for bringing violence onto the CTA.”

CTA Acting President Nora Leerhsen said the campaign is intended to reassure both riders and transit employees.

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Nancy Sinatra Calls to ‘Eliminate All Guns’ After ‘Mass Shooting’ That Wasn’t a Mass Shooting

Singer and actress Nancy Sinatra, the daughter of Frank Sinatra, called to “eliminate all guns” after reports of a “mass shooting” in Seattle that turned out not to be a “mass shooting” at all.

Nancy reacted to a post by an X user that said: “With the mass shooting at Seattle Center, it might be good to mention that Bill Clinton’s assault weapons ban reduced mass shooting deaths by nearly half – but after George W Bush & Republicans let it expire, mass shooting deaths more than doubled – because it’s the f*cking guns.”

Nancy’s response: “Eliminate the guns. The founding fathers did not know about automatic weapons.”

Breitbart News reported the Seattle shooting, noting that it was actually a shootout between at least two people that occurred during the Bite of Seattle food festival on Sunday. Three people were killed in the shootout and four others injured and police detained a 15-year-old in connection with the incident.

NBC News noted that a second suspect was killed in the shootout and police are seeking a possible third suspect. Multiple handguns were recovered at the scene. The guns included one that Democrats refer to as a “ghost gun” and another that was outfitted with a “Glock switch.”

A total of 14 rounds were fired during the shootout.

Mike Blooberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety ranks Washington the No. 9 state in the Union for gun control stringency. Some of Washington’s gun controls include an “assault weapons” ban, a ban on “Glock switches,” a ban on bump stocks, a red flag law, a concealed carry permit requirement, a gun storage law, and universal background checks for handgun sales.

None of Washington’s gun controls prevented the shootout.

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Mississauga Centre PC MPP Natalia Kusendova-Bashta billed taxpayers $4,258 for six Toronto hotel stays

Mississauga Centre PC MPP Natalia Kusendova-Bashta billed taxpayers $4,258 for six hotel stays in downtown Toronto despite representing a riding within commuting distance of Queen’s Park.

Expense disclosures from the Ontario Legislature show Kusendova-Bashta claimed $4,258 under the Legislature’s “Special Circumstance Accommodation in Toronto” policy through six separate hotel claims between 2023 and 2025.

Ontario’s expense rules allow MPPs who live within 50 kilometres of Queen’s Park to claim overnight accommodations only in exceptional circumstances, such as severe weather or other emergencies that make returning home impractical. Mississauga Centre is well within commuting distance of the Legislature.

Kusendova-Bashta’s claims are part of the broader Ford government hotel expense scandal that saw Toronto-area Progressive Conservative MPPs collectively bill taxpayers more than $100,000 for Toronto hotel stays under the “special circumstances” allowance.

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Sure, Roasting Fauci Is Fun, but There’s No Do-Over for the Biden Years

As I wrote in Tuesday’s Morning Briefing, conservative Americans are once again finding out that we were right about everything they called us crazy for during the Wuhan Chinese Bat Flu pandemic. Never in recorded history have “conspiracy theorists” been on a roll like the one we’re experiencing right now. I’m beginning to think that the planet might change its shape if we decide to go the Flat-Earther route. We’re that good these days.

Our current “You shoulda listened to us,” moment is courtesy of Satan’s Garden Gnome, alleged Doctor Anthony Fauci. We’ve been finding out how wrong he was for years but, thanks to his personal diary entries that we’re seeing for the first time, we have evidence of Anthony Fauci proving that Anthony Fauci is a liar. 

We also now have evidence that Fauci was far more concerned with his own perverse pandemic-fueled celebrity than with anyone’s health. His diary entries about his growing fame (infamy for those of us on this side of the aisle) read as if he were working himself into a sexual frenzy after every television appearance. Anthony Fauci most definitely had an Anthony Fauci fetish. 

Being proven right is always a good feeling, and watching Fauci being berated by Republican senators while pleading the Fifth (which Matt covered here) was entertaining for a minute or two, but it’s not sufficient payback for what we endured during the interminable slog of the pandemic. The cold, harsh reality is that it never will be. 

Yes, the public exposure of the unhinged nature of Fauci’s ego is newsworthy. And, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, there is some entertainment value in watching him squirm a little. However, unless you get extraordinary satisfaction from pointing at the television and saying, “I told you so,” there’s not a lot of satisfying “there” there. 

I am not an attorney, so I will not be indulging in any legal speculation about what might happen to Fauci. From a layman’s perspective, it seems that a presidential pardon that’s backdated to the Mesozoic Era probably covers a lot. If there is some workaround that can be used to nail this vile human being, I hope it’s found soon. I don’t want to just see Fauci in an orange jumpsuit, I want to bring back town squares and pillories and put him on display for his crimes. 

That sentiment may not be brimming with Christian charity, but I think we all know that I’m rather imperfect in that regard. There’s also the fact that I only attack people with words, and I’m honest about it. I’ve never fear-mongered with lies that got elderly people sent to assisted living death beds. Once a person has a body count, he or she is deserving of some ill will. (I believe that’s Confucius.)

My reaction to these Fauci revelations is the same as last year when the lefties started admitting that Joe Biden had pudding for brains during his presidency. The validation wasn’t much of a balm for the steaming piles of misery those four years heaped upon us. OK, it wasn’t any kind of balm at all, especially given the fact that Joe Biden has never been held accountable for any of his awfulness in the half century-plus that he poisoned American politics. 

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