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.

Fauci Diary Shows He Lied to the Public About Coronavirus Fatality Rate

Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) chief Anthony Fauci publicly lied about the coronavirus’s fatality rate, initially telling the public it was 2 to 2.5 percent but privately recording in his diary that it was “more like 0.2-0.3%.”

This explosive revelation is found in Fauci’s personal diary documenting his day-to-day duties in the early days of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, released the diary ahead of Fauci’s appearance before the committee.

In a February 2020 entry, Fauci recorded the number of cases as well as his many media appearances. He also surmised that the mortality rate of the virus was “more like 0.2-0.3 % rather than 2.0%.”

The entry reads:

Tom Frieden called me this AM and we discussed various aspects of the outbreak. He and I are on the same page in thinking tht [sic] this is acting like a bad influenza in its transmissibility and that the denominator is much greater than 34,867 (above) making the case fatality rate (CFR) more like 0.2-0.3 % rather than 2.0%.

However, that is not what Fauci was saying publicly around that time.

During a March appearance on Hannity, Fauci said the mortality for the coronavirus is “about two, two and a half percent.”

“The mortality for seasonal flu is 0.1. The mortality for this is about two, two and a half percent. It’s probably lower than that. It’s probably closer to one. But even if it’s one, it’s ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu. You got to make sure that people understand,” Fauci said.

That same month, testifying before Congress, Fauci touted those same figures yet again:

Well, understand that the seasonal flu that we deal with every year has a mortality of 0.1 percent. The stated mortality overall of this, when you look at all the data, including China, is about 3 percent. It first started off as two, and now three. I think if you count all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection, that probably brings the mortality rate down to somewhere around one percent, which means it is ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu.

I think that’s something that people can get their arms around and understand. I mean, people always say, well, the flu. You know, the flu does this. The flu does that. The flu has a mortality of 0.1 percent. This has a mortality of 10 times that. And that’s the reason why I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.

That same month during an appearance on the Daily Show, Fauci told Trevor Noah that “the mortality is about 0.1 percent” for the seasonal flu.

“That’s a lot, and we get used to that morbidity and mortality, but the mortality of this is about 10 times that. It’s at least 1 percent,” Fauci said.

Yet, those figures are not what he recorded in his personal diary in that February entry.

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REVEALED: Here Are the Mainstream Journalists on China’s Payroll

The identities were buried.

Foreign-agent filings reveal that operatives working for a Chinese Communist Party-linked influence organization planned free trips for American journalists based on the potential for “favorable coverage” and sought to “effectively disseminate positive messages” about Beijing.

But the filings did not plainly identify the reporters who received the access.

By cross-referencing the filings with archived newsletters, annual reports and contemporaneous accounts, this investigation has uncovered the names of prominent American journalists who participated in China trips organized or funded by the China-United States Exchange Foundation, or CUSEF.

The roster includes current and former journalists from The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, NPR, the Associated Press, Vox, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and other major American news organizations.

In several cases, the trips were followed by columns and reports defending Chinese government policies, attacking President Trump’s confrontation with Beijing or presenting the decline of American manufacturing as unavoidable.

CUSEF was founded by Tung Chee-hwa, a former vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a central component of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front system.

A bipartisan congressional report explains that the United Front seeks to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority” of the CCP. Its targets include foreign governments, universities, businesses, media organizations and other institutions capable of shaping public opinion.

CUSEF’s own foreign-agent records reveal how that strategy was applied to the American press.

Washington lobbyists and public-relations firms working for the organization described plans to recruit influential journalists, generate “favorable coverage” and “effectively disseminate positive messages to the media, key influencers and opinion leaders, and the general public” regarding China.

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Xbox Outage Stops Players From Launching Physical Disc Games

Around 11 PM, Eastern time, on Sunday, a server in a data center somewhere fell over. It’s becoming routine, really. Xbox’s status page logged it the way you’d log rain.

By Monday morning it had grown teeth. People lost their logins. Apps stayed shut, the store stayed dark, plenty of downloaded games stayed frozen. Fine. That’s the bargain you strike for digital, and everyone struck it with eyes open.

Then came the part nobody struck. The disc games balked too.

The disc. The physical object. The one in the tray, spinning, bought with actual money at an actual shop.

Xbox’s own status page conceded that players “may have problems” with disc games, and the internet duly confirmed it. The license, it said, couldn’t be verified.

The console, you see, phones home before it will let a disc spin. The disc is a pass that works only when a building three states away agrees to open the door for you.

Xbox was making progress on recovery. It said so itself at 5:26 PM, on X, assuring everyone that most players “should be able to launch titles and complete purchases again.”

GamesRadar clocked the support account at 7:54 AM, “just checking in” on the sign-in and game-launch business. By 9:43 AM it had “identified the issue,” resolution “pending.” Pending pulled a long stretch that day.

The company stayed silent on requests for comment. It had a lot goin on.

Days earlier, PlayStation had suffered an outage of its own. And back on the first of July, Sony had already posted the destination: physical disc production for new PlayStation games stops in January 2028. Senior director Sid Shuman put it down to “shifting trends in consumer preference.” After that date, new games arrive as downloads.

Sony describes killing the disc as a chance to “align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today,” which is press-release for: we checked the register, and you’d mostly stopped buying them. Digital already brings in 20% of the company’s gaming revenue. The discs were the rounding error.

The numbers dig the grave regardless. Physical is 3% of Sony’s gaming revenue now, half what it was in 2020, the year the PS5 turned up with a drive still in it. TechRadar counted seven PlayStation games that sold more than 100,000 physical copies in the US this year. Seven.

There is a holdout. Shawn Layden, who used to run the place, reckons the PS6 won’t completely drop discs, on the theory that going all-digital might irritate the customers across 170-odd countries who still enjoy owning a thing.

By Monday evening the disc games came back, though Xbox warned that digital and backward-compatible titles might still stall. The tray whirred, the license got verified, the door swung open. And the disc you paid for went back to being what it had been around 11 PM: a shiny promise that a company somewhere will go on letting you use the thing you bought.

Own nothing, the slogan goes, and be happy. It’s half right.

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Oversight Project Releases Recordings of Biden Interviews with Ghostwriter…”Some of This May Be Classified… So Be Careful”

Last Friday, Joe Biden gave up the fight and declined to seek further review of an appeals court ruling on the release of 70 hours of conversations with his ghostwriter.

The Oversight Project on Monday afternoon began to release recordings of Joe Biden’s interviews with his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer.

Click here to read the full transcript of Biden’s conversations with Mark Zwonitzer.

“The tapes make clear that Biden disclosed massive amounts of classified information to his ghost writer Mark Zwonitzer,” the Oversight Project’s VP of litigation, Jeff Clark said.

“Some of this may be classified…so, be careful. I’m not sure — It’s not marked classified but,” Biden says to Mark Zwonitzer.

At another point in his conversation with Zwonitzer, Biden says, “The next thing I have here is, um, this is classified.”

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Why Washington Won’t Let Go of the Strait of Hormuz

Since the early days of the U.S. war against Iran, the global economy has been reeling from the impact of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway, which serves as the path used to export roughly 20% of the world’s energy supply from countries along the Persian Gulf, has become incredibly risky to traverse due to Iran’s willingness and capability to strike shipping using drones and missiles.

Iran’s ability to deter ships from transiting the Strait has been one of their largest pieces of leverage throughout this conflict and has become the main focus of both Washington and Tehran. With none of President Trump’s various war objectives having been achieved, he has begun shifting his rhetoric in important ways. Unlike earlier in the war, nearly every strike in this most recent round of fighting has been conducted explicitly over the Strait of Hormuz.

What makes this situation particularly tragic is the fact that the Strait of Hormuz was open to the ships of the world before this war, launched on February 28, 2026. Now, almost five months into the conflict, oil prices are once again on the rise as a result of the Strait’s prolonged closure.

Donald Trump recently cited Iranian attacks on shipping in Hormuz as the rationale for potential new strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure:

“From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

In noticeable ways, the war is now almost entirely centered around the Strait of Hormuz.

The waterway is so crucial for both sides because of the deterrence it would establish against future American and Israeli aggression. If Iran is able to create a precedent that they control the route of export for roughly a fifth of the world’s energy supply, then this leads to a whole host of problems for America’s foreign policy class, which would still like to see Iran’s regime toppled.

If, let’s say, Iran comes away from this conflict with official control over the Strait of Hormuz, then this goes a long way in lessening the likelihood of future American attempts at regime change in Tehran. Should Iran establish new agencies to govern Hormuz and create a bureaucratic process requiring the Gulf countries to coordinate their travel with the IRGC, then this would normalize the IRGC presence in the waterway. Eventually, Iran seems poised to charge each ship that travels the Strait a toll or service fee. All of these various processes entrench the IRGC further into the daily activities of the Strait.

This bureaucratic process has already begun. On May 5, 2026, Iran established the Persian Gulf Strait Authority. This new agency was charged with overseeing all transit in the Strait of Hormuz and setting regulations by which all ships must comply, at risk of being attacked by Iranian missiles or drones. If the U.S. gives up on its attempts to free the Strait from Iranian control, then the Gulf countries are likely to prefer complying with PGSA rules rather than take the risk of the IRGC attacking their ships.

This is where the deterrence against American aggression comes into play. Iran has already managed to shut down the vast majority of transit in the Strait by using cheap drones and missiles to deter ships from taking the risky trip. This, in turn, has resulted in a severe global energy shock. Now, imagine if Iran establishes a large-scale system of governance over the Strait, which is accepted internationally and even by the United States, and which is viewed as the legitimate authority for regulating the waterway. They would undoubtedly be able to close the Strait in a more organized, efficient, and systematized manner if they chose to use it as leverage in a future conflict.

This is the core reason why Washington is refusing to let Tehran control it.

Marco Rubio said just days ago:

“If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation-state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway, charge a toll, and if you don’t pay them, blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent which will repeat itself in other parts of the world, including in this region.”

Future American politicians would need to consider — to a much greater extent than this administration did — whether or not the economic pain will be worth the supposed war objectives. In this current conflict in particular, the calculation is easy, since we know the stated rationale for this war is total fiction.

As is often the case for the neocons, they seem to have miscalculated this war from the get-go. The military campaign that intended on ousting the IRGC ended up empowering it in the region. Now, the Iranians are on the verge of establishing a key piece of deterrence to fend off a future American attack. This state of affairs is unacceptable to the D.C. foreign policy establishment, which is still as war hungry as ever.

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Taxpayer Millions Couldn’t Stop Seven Save A Lot Grocery Stores From Going Dark In Crime-Ridden Chicago

Save A Lot shuttered seven locations across Chicago’s crime-ridden South and West sides over the weekend, once again exposing the dysfunction of a metro area run by unhinged progressives. City officials poured millions of dollars into the grocery outlets in hopes of improving food access, only to watch the stores remain unprofitable amid persistent theft.

Local outlet ABC 7 reports “frustration, anger, and concern” among the community as Save A Lot shuttered seven stores on Saturday, with many residents saying this would reduce their access to food.

The outlet noted:

Save A Lot began a partnership with retail company Yellow Banana in 2023 in an effort to keep grocery stores open on the city’s South and West sides and combat food deserts.

A company spokesperson cited financial struggles and cuts to SNAP benefits as reasons for the closures. In a statement, the company said, “We are committed to the wellbeing of the communities we serve. We will continue to engage with City and Community leaders to explore ways to provide access to quality food and services for residents, and we are actively supporting impacted Yellow Banana team members throughout the transition.”

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Yellow Banana had a $26 million redevelopment agreement with the city of Chicago and received more than $13 million in taxpayer financing to renovate and reopen Save A Lot locations. The rest of the funding came from federal grants and loans.

Despite the debate on X over whether the seven locations qualified as “government grocery stores,” they were privately owned and operated but supported with taxpayer funding. Even with public backing, the stores failed to turn a profit. Theft was likely a major factor in the shutdowns, although the operator cited broader financial pressures and reductions in SNAP benefits.

Add Save A Lot to the growing list of retailers reducing their exposure to Chicago, alongside Walgreens, Aldi, and Walmart. Walgreens and Aldi explicitly cited theft, burglaries, and violent incidents in certain closures, while Walmart and Save A Lot pointed more broadly to persistent losses and financial headwinds.

The accelerating retail exodus suggests Chicago’s progressive governing model enforced by City Hall is backfiring. Without basic public safety and a commercially viable operating environment, progressives risk even broader food and pharmacy deserts in low-income areas as businesses want no part of lawless neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, socialist politicians gaining power at the local level are promoting taxpayer-funded supermarkets and “free food for everyone.” Yet history offers little evidence that government-run grocery models can remain efficient, financially sustainable, or responsive to consumers without persistent subsidies. But, of course, these politicans pitch ‘this time is different’ … 

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Berlin Pride Parade Terror Attack Suspect Identified as Previously Detained Islamist ‘Abdul B.’

The suspect in the terror attack, which struck the Berlin Pride Parade on Saturday evening, has been identified as 21-year-old ‘Abdul B.’, who was previously detained in Germany on terror offences, reportedly including the support of the so-called Islamic State.

UPDATE 13:40: German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Sunday morning that at least one person was killed and 29 people were injured, some seriously, in what he said is believed to have been an “Islamist terror attack” at the Berlin Pride Parade on Saturday evening. Dobrindt said the suspect was born in Germany but is of Lebanese descent, with his mother naturalised in the country in 2002. He also confirmed that the alleged terrorist had also attacked revellers with a bladed weapon, thought to be a machete. The manhunt continues.

The original story continues as follows…

Tragedy struck the annual Christopher Street Day event in the German capital, one of the largest LGBTQ pride parades in Europe, with a white van being driven into a crowd in the Tiergarten area of the city at around 10 pm, leaving at least one dead and 29 injured.

Berlin Police identified “Abdul B.” as their main suspect, releasing a picture of the 21-year-old as they conduct a large-scale manhunt. The force said that there may be more suspects yet to be identified. A spokesman earlier revealed that the suspect was known to police as an “Islamist”.

It has been reported that the suspect may still be armed, with some witnesses claiming that he was carrying a machete as he fled the scene.

The Bild newspaper identified the suspect as “Abdul Ballut”, who they reported was born in Germany but came from a Lebanese family. The paper further reported that his apartment was located just a few hundred meters from the site of the terror attack on Saturday evening.

German paper of record Die Welt reported that Abdul was previously identified as a threat by police and had been in juvenile detention as recently as May for having attempted to incite or threaten a terror attack. He was also said to have claimed to have contacts with the ISIS terror network.

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Flashback: Fauci Funded Technique To Hide Evidence Of Genetic Engineering According To RFK Jr.

Four years ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made an accusation that got him shadowbanned, “fact-checked,” and dismissed as a crank: that Anthony Fauci’s NIAID had bankrolled the development of a laboratory technique whose primary utility was erasing the fingerprints of human engineering from a manipulated virus – and that the technique was then handed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

With Fauci’s personal diaries now public, Tulsi Gabbard’s last-day document dump on the record, Ralph Baric stripped of his NIH grants and placed on leave by UNC, and Fauci himself scheduled to appear under subpoena before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., Kennedy’s remarks are worth revisiting.

Here’s what he said:

“He [Fauci] funded Ralph Baric to develop a technique called seamless ligation. And that is a technique for hiding the engineering project.”

“So, normally, when you do that kind of engineering, you can see it, and you can say, ‘That bug was created in a lab.'”

“He [Baric] developed a way of hiding all traces [of what] was developed. And he taught that to the Chinese scientists – to Shi Zhengli.”

“There is no public health [reason for this]; it is the OPPOSITE of what you would do if you are interested in public health… To teach people how to hide that only has a nefarious purpose.”

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Fauci’s diary shows he fed questions to journalists, built friendships with media figures

Dr. Anthony Fauci opened up about his relationships with various media personalities in a series of controversial diary entries that put a spotlight on the former White House COVID advisor’s cozy relationship with the press. 

Fauci’s diary entries were released on Saturday by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., detailing the doctor’s role during the COVID-19 crisis through conversations with President Donald Trump, governors, world leaders, media appearances and his personal observations as the pandemic unfolded in 2020. The stunning diary entries reveal that Fauci made fast friends with members of the liberal media who were tasked with covering the pandemic. 

Fauci’s closest media ally appeared to have been CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who was mentioned 41 times in the eyebrow-raising diary. 

According to the diary, Tapper texted Fauci to mock rival cable news hosts and other doctors. On one occasion, Tapper called to check on Fauci after an appearance on his show irked Trump supporters. 

“Jake wanted to make sure the interview did not cause me any problems,” Fauci wrote on April 13, 2020. 

In July 2020, Fauci gushed that he was forming a friendship with Tapper.   

“Had dinner over Jake Tapper and Jen Tapper’s home in DC. Terrific couple. Friendship building,” Fauci wrote, according to the diary. 

Later that month, Fauci wrote that he “gave Jake some questions to ask” pediatrician Brett Giroir during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” But Tapper would later express frustration, waking Fauci up in the process. 

“Tapper woke me up at 11:23 AM (I went to bed early) furius [sic] at POTUS for tweeting about the fact that Jake severly [sic] questioned Brett Giroir on SOTU CNN show today. Jake was really pissed at the craziness of it all,” Fauci wrote. 

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Mitch McConnell Releases Another Proof of Life Photo As Rumors Continue About His Health

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) released a new “proof of life” photo on social media as he continues recovering from a fall that hospitalized him in June.

The image, dated July 26, shows the 84-year-old Kentucky Republican smiling from a rehabilitation facility alongside his wife, Elaine Chao. It marks the second photograph McConnell has released since doctors admitted him to the hospital after his June 14 fall.

Since McConnell’s disappearance from public view several weeks ago, there has been plenty of online speculation about his health.

“I’m still working hard to get back to my full schedule of work in the Senate and in Kentucky, keeping up with intense physical therapy per my doctors’ orders,” McConnell said in a statement.

McConnell added that his doctors have yet to clear him to return to the Senate due to intensive physical therapy, or attend Kentucky’s annual Fancy Farm picnic this Saturday.

“I’m sorry to miss Fancy Farm this year,” McConnell said. “As always, I appreciate all of your continued well wishes, and I’m looking forward to getting back to the Senate and to Kentucky soon.”

The Office of the Attending Physician said that McConnell continues multiple physical therapy sessions each day after transferring from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility.

“Since his discharge from hospital care, he has maintained a strenuous course of physical therapy and rehabilitation, including multiple sessions a day designed to rebuild strength and reduce the risk of future falls,” the office said. “His bout with childhood polio continues to be a significant factor in his mobility. He is not yet medically cleared to leave the rehab facility and return to the office.”

Earlier this month, McConnell disclosed that he briefly lost consciousness during the June fall but suffered no broken bones, concussion, heart attack, stroke, tumors, or hemorrhages. He also developed a mild case of pneumonia while hospitalized. CNN released a video on July 10, showing McConnell being loaded onto a stretcher into an ambulance that was transporting him to the hospital.

An EMS recording acquired by CNN confirmed that an unknown person was found “unconscious” in McConnell’s home due to “cardiac arrest,” with “CPR in progress.” A neighbor told CNN that officers on the scene described the incident as a “medical emergency”, with another eyewitness confirming that the person on the stretcher was McConnell.

The update follows weeks of online rumors claiming that McConnell was “brain dead” or being kept alive by life support. Although some social media users questioned the authenticity of the rehabilitation photos, digital forensics experts have found no evidence the images were altered or generated with artificial intelligence.

McConnell has experienced several health challenges in recent years, including highly publicized episodes in which he briefly froze while speaking to reporters. His office attributed those incidents to momentary lightheadedness.

In 2025, McConnell announced he would not seek another Senate term. Kentucky voters have already chosen their nominees to succeed him. Republicans selected Rep. Andy Barr, while Democrats nominated former Rep. Charles Booker. His current term ends on Jan. 3, 2027.

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