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.

NYT Depicts Collins as Trump’s Victim—Rather Than Accomplice

After long-serving Maine Sen. Susan Collins’ 6-point defeat to progressive challenger Troy Jackson, the New York Times (11/4/26) ran a panegyric to Collins that framed her defeat exactly the way she framed it herself: an unfortunate casualty of Trump’s unpopularity, rather than a repudiation of Collins’ own record. “‘It Is Never Enough’: Susan Collins Couldn’t Outrun Trump,” the headline declared, with the subhead arguing that “the anti-Trump fever in her state doomed her this time.”

Carl Hulse, chief Washington correspondent for the Times, introduced the piece with an anecdote from Collins about a woman who said she “absolutely loved” Collins, but wouldn’t vote for her because “it was the only way she could send a message to Trump.”

You’d think a journalist might be skeptical of getting voter sentiment directly from a candidate, but Hulse didn’t probe more deeply. Instead, he called the anecdote “the story of the election for Ms. Collins.” He followed with a quote from Collins that similarly acknowledged no failures of her own:

I was caught up in the Trump tsunami that swept away many incumbent Republican senators who have served their states well for many years and really care about our country.

It wasn’t just Collins’ words that painted that picture; Hulse wrote in his own voice that “Ms. Collins was brought down by a combination of factors, most of which were attributable to President Trump and the war with Iran.” Hulse listed some of those: fuel prices, tariffs and

an immigration crackdown that resulted in a fatal shooting by federal agents in one Maine community. And always the perception that she wasn’t doing enough to stand up to the president, even when she was one of the few Republicans to occasionally break with him.

“Everybody ignores the fact that I voted to convict him in the second impeachment trial,” Ms. Collins said. “What bigger break could there be? It is never enough. I want results and they want angry rhetoric.”

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Lawmakers Race to Renew Warrantless Spying Before January

A group of US lawmakers is trying to convince Congress to use the lame-duck session to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The idea is to add it to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – and in this way bypass the incoming Congress, which is expected to be more privacy-friendly.

There is no time to waste: the House is scheduled to sit until December 17 and the Senate until December 18.

“My preference would be, let’s just take the win that’s on the table, get it done in the lame-duck,” House Intelligence top Democrat Jim Himes is telling the press, while adding, “If that fails, we’ll do something in the first quarter.”

Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) seems to be on the same page, noting that there is not enough time to deal with FISA separately, but it could be done if it is amended onto the NDAA.

“We don’t have two weeks to work just on FISA,” he said, and added, “If it’s amended onto the NDAA then you can move forward and get it done in that time.”

Himes and others want to rush the process in the hope of avoiding a new Congress that might try to add a warrant requirement to the new bill – and that, in their view, would be a step too far.

What 702 does is let US spy agencies collect communications of foreigners abroad without a warrant – and in the process, sweep up that of Americans as well. Those can then be searched by agents, again without a warrant, in what is known as backdoor search.

As Reclaim The Net reported in March, citing a ruling of the FISA Court, the FBI alone ran those searches more than 278,000 times in a single year.

“A supervisor’s sign-off is not a warrant,” we wrote at the time.

In the same ruling, the secret court said that the FBI had violated the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches. The ruling was issued on March 17, and although the legal deadline to declassify it was September 13, it still remains secret.

Two senators, Ron Wyden and Adam Schiff, have said that the ruling covers how analysts can read Americans’ messages without a warrant. The NSA, FBI, and CIA are all allowed to search the data collected under 702, and look for US persons’ communications.

In a letter to the leaders of Congress, 27 civil society groups, led by Demand Progress, reminded lawmakers that 702 has been “abused to spy on protesters on the left and the right; 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign; members of Congress and their staff.”

The letter, sent on November 12, asks that 702 is not attached to the NDAA or any other must-pass bill, and that the House and Senate have a proper debate on the matter.

Other lawmakers who want to see 702 reauthorized as soon as possible are Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and who believes that if that doesn’t happen in the lame-duck session, “it becomes much more difficult in a new Congress.”

Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is also on board, saying, “We need to get it reauthorized… As soon as possible.”

Senator James Lankford (R-OK) agrees, and believes the reauthorization should have happened “months ago.”

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and former Biden administration official Adam Klein co-authored an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on November 12, titled, “A Vital National Security Tool Shouldn’t Go Dark.”

Himes is one of those who want to rush the process in the lame-duck session because, as he put it, “it’s a political reality that the 702 that gets reauthorized with a Democratic House and Senate is going to be a very different 702 that gets reauthorized in the lame duck.”

The “urgency” is not really there, since the statute lapsed at midnight on June 12, 2026, but the spying continues thanks to the FISA Court’s annual certifications. At a July 15 Senate hearing, Sen. Mike Lee asked if the current authorization expires “until midnight on March 16 of 2027” – and the answer he received from Todd Blanche, then the attorney general nominee, was, “That is correct.”

As Reclaim The Net reported in June, the “going dark” narrative is a myth – and that is because the FISA Court’s authorization of 702 is good for a year, regardless of whether Congress acts or not.

Congress has used the NDAA to give 702 a short-term extension once before – in 2023.

The groups who signed the November 12 letter are not buying the argument that there is some urgency to pass the bill now, and that not doing it would leave the US in the dark.

The groups also point out that the claimed urgency presents “a false choice” and is “another scare tactic” – while in fact, “only 12 percent of Americans want FISA extended as-is.”

Demand Progress executive director Hajar Hammado is unimpressed with Himes’ efforts, saying, “Jim Himes has betrayed his own party and the American people.”

Due Process Institute vice president Jason Pye said voters are “sick of backroom deals.”

The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law’s Hannah James is of the same opinion: “Slipping an extension into must-pass year-end legislation, instead of openly debating and voting on bipartisan reforms, would betray the democratic process and Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.”

One of the groups who signed the letter, Color Of Change, was one of the main promoters of the 2020 “Stop Hate For Profit” Facebook ad boycott – which, as Reclaim The Net reported at the time, resulted in the tech giant bowing to the pressure and censoring more “hate speech.”

It may seem strange that a group who pushed for more online censorship is now worried about the government’s warrantless surveillance – but their stand on this issue is correct, and it doesn’t erase their previous actions.

While Himes is wrong in saying that there is a win on the table in the lame-duck, he is right that the new Congress could add a warrant requirement – but that is the best argument for waiting, rather than rushing the process.

There is certainly no excuse to attach such a controversial provision to a defense bill – the question of whether the government should be able to read Americans’ messages without a judge’s approval has nothing to do with the NDAA, and everything to do with the Constitution.

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This Case Is Insane…

In Britain’s two-tier policing system, law-abiding citizens who try to report real dangers now risk prosecution for private mutterings inside their own vehicles, while actual criminals face little consequence.

A Glasgow father handed over dashcam footage after nearly being forced off the road, only for Police Scotland to charge him instead.

The case, detailed by Free Speech Union general secretary Toby Young in The Spectator, centers on a man referred to as Craig. He was driving his four-year-old son home to Glasgow after a day at an amusement park in Falkirk. Exiting the motorway, another vehicle cut him up, forcing him to swerve to avoid a collision. Suspecting the other driver was drunk, Craig called the police from his car. Both vehicles stopped; officers arrived, declined to breathalyze anyone, and took Craig’s dashcam footage to check for offenses.

A week later the officers returned the footage and informed him an offense had been committed – by him, not the other driver.

His “crime” was muttering the words “smelly black bastard” under his breath seconds after the near-miss.

As the article notes, the windows were closed, so no one outside the vehicle could have heard him. The other driver was not looking in his direction and could not have seen the words. The only person who might have heard was the four-year-old in the back.

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Ex-CIA Director John Brennan’s Son Arrested On Child Porn Charges

Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan’s son was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Friday on charges related to child pornography, a law enforcement source confirmed to the Daily Caller.

Brennan’s 40-year-old son Kyle was arrested by the bureau and charged with knowingly transporting child pornography using a means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce, the Caller learned. Kyle was charged in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.

According to the Daily Mail, which was the first to report the story, the FBI seized and searched Brennan’s cellular phone Thursday evening. The Mail states that federal agents found nearly 90 images of child sex abuse material on Kyle Brennan’s phone, including a photo of a “fully nude pubescent minor girl on a locker bench.”

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Bill Gates: A Huge Catastrophe May Be Needed…

Bill Gates is once again floating the idea that real damage may be required before the world accepts the kind of AI controls he wants.

In a new CBS interview, the Microsoft co-founder said a major cyberattack could finally convince people that the warnings were correct and that stronger rules are overdue.

The comments come as Gates continues a months-long push for heavier government involvement in artificial intelligence. He has repeatedly argued that industry self-regulation is inadequate and that politicians and law enforcement must step in.

Critics see a familiar pattern: dire predictions that could justify expanded oversight and centralized authority over a technology many Americans view as a tool for innovation rather than a reason for tighter global rules.

In the interview with Tony Dokoupil, Gates stated, “It may be that we have to suffer a few of the negatives before we respond as fully as we should.”

He added that such incidents would not be civilization-ending but would still be serious. The discussion included the possibility of a cyberattack on major retirement platforms such as Fidelity or Vanguard, which hold a substantial portion of Americans’ nest eggs.

Gates noted that such an event would create significant uncertainty.

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Did Nancy Pelosi Sell Nvidia Stock Weeks Before Price Drop? What Records Show

Recent financial disclosures have reignited the conversation about stock trading by lawmakers, particularly surrounding former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s public disclosures regarding Nvidia stock transactions.

Why It Matters

Nvidia, known as one of the best tech stocks, recently experienced a significant drop, losing over 15 percent of its value in a single day. This decline, resulting in more than $500 billion reduction in market capitalization was one of the largest single-day losses in stock market history and triggered by concerns about competition from the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek.

Pelosi’s disclosures regarding a sale of Nvidia stock—a major player among AI stocks—just weeks before its price drop has sparked questions about timing and transparency.

The financial decisions made by lawmakers and their families could influence public trust and reveal possible conflicts of interest. To address these concerns, prominent members of Congress, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Josh Hawley, have advocated for banning individual stock trading by lawmakers and their families.

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Mafia-like: Historian researching Ilhan Omar’s father warned to avoid Minneapolis over potential violence

A Somali-born historian who researched the role of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s father in the bloody regime of dictator Siad Barre found his trip to Minnesota canceled this week, allegedly due to the potential for clan violence.

Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, a Somali-born fellow at King’s College in London, was scheduled to receive a Somali Hero Award in Minneapolis on Nov. 14 for his scholarship. But the event organizers warded him off at the last minute, Ingiriis told the Daily Caller News Foundation, saying that any Somali who has been critical of the congresswoman cannot safely travel to Minneapolis.

The organizers revoked his airline ticket and pulled the award, alleges Ingiriis, who earned his African history PhD at the University of Oxford. Deleted Facebook posts indexed by Google indicate his participation was canceled.

Ali Gaashaan, the president of the Somali Hero Awards, denied Ingiriis’s version of events in texts to the DCNF. Gaashaan said that he “has never heard threats of violence against any critic” of Omar.

Presented with a report by Alpha News detailing online threats by a man tied to Omar, Gaashaan alleged that Alpha News and the DCNF have “an extreme right-wing agenda.” Asked why Ingiriis’s participation in the event was canceled, Gaashaan did not reply.

In the course of researching the Barre regime, Ingiriis uncovered information that undermines the heart of Omar’s meteoric rise in politics — her origin story as a Somali refugee escaping persecution.

“Of the many titles I hold … one represents a part of my identity that I hold particularly close to my heart: refugee,” she wrote in 2024.

That may be a macabre inversion of the truth.

According to Ingiriis’s research, Omar’s father’s name is Nur Said Elmi, despite her claims to the contrary. In 1989, Barre’s military dictatorship in Somalia began to crumble after years of violent rebellion by rival clans. Many senior military officers deserted. But Colonel Nur Said Elmi remained loyal.

Omar described him as an “educator” in her memoir.

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WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Zohran Mamdani Preparing to Disband NYPD Unit That Responds to Riots and Terrorism

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is preparing to disband the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group. This is the unit that responds to major events like riots and terrorism attacks.

What is the point of doing this? What is the reason?

It defies logic to dismantle such a group, but we have given up trying to use logic on anything that Mamdani does.

Notice below how the liberal media describes the NYPD group as controversial, not the decision to disband it.

From Politico:

Mamdani planning announcement to disband controversial NYPD unit

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to unveil a plan for disbanding the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group as early as this week, according to three people with knowledge of the long-awaited announcement.

In dissolving the counterterrorism and protest-response unit, the democratic socialist mayor would fulfill a key 2025 campaign pledge with the aim of mollifying an increasingly restive base.

Mamdani’s plan is expected to involve nixing the SRG and potentially replacing it with a new civilian unit that would take the lead on responding to protests, said one of the people who spoke to POLITICO and, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss the announcement. Under the plan — which had not been finalized as of Thursday morning — the new civilian unit would be supported by NYPD officers, who would assemble nearby and could step in to conduct arrests if needed, said the person, noting that the civilian entity’s main goal would be deescalation.

The person said City Hall has been considering placing the civilian protest unit under the umbrella of Mamdani’s signature Office of Community Safety, which he launched earlier this year.

A City Hall spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about the plan but noted more generally that Mamdani has planned to make good on his campaign pledge since becoming mayor.

So this is all about appeasing his base?

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The Status Quo Is a Comic-Book Parody

The sharpest critique of the status quo–and therefore the one most likely to spark spittle-flecked freakouts–is that stripped of self-important spin, it’s a comic-book parody of a functional state of affairs. The key to a solid parody is the most absurd exaggerations are taken with the utmost seriousness, as if the participants are completely unaware of the laughable nature of the caricatures they’re playing.

So let’s conduct a thought experiment: boil off all the grandiose self-importance (“we’re serious people discussing serious things,” blah-blah-blah) and hyper-stylized spin (“AI will make everything free, or end the world as we know it!”), and then try to parody what’s left.

You can’t. Everything in the status quo is already a self-parody and therefore impervious to being parodied. Whatever we come up with as a parody is only a pale shadow of what’s passed off as “serious people doing serious things.”

Consider The Imperial Project ™ War Room for playing their live-action game War of Choice ™. This is the pinnacle of “serious people discussing serious things”–what’s our next War of Choice ™?

It’s not ideal, but it’s the only war we got.

War generates inflation which creates an illusory “growth” that impoverishes the bottom 90% as life becomes unaffordable, a tragicomic parody of prosperity: as long as this parody of prosperity enriches Wall Street, the status quo cheers.

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As national debt hits $40.2 trillion, interest on the debt cost $1.4 trillion in 2026, audit finds

nterest costs on the national debt totaled $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2026, according to an audit of Treasury’s books released this week by the Government Accountability Office. About $1.1 trillion of that was paid out to bondholders, with the rest credited to federal trust funds the government owes itself.

The audit found total federal debt reached $40.2 trillion as of Sept. 30, up about $2.5 trillion in a single year and about double the $19.6 trillion the government owed a decade earlier. GAO found Treasury’s schedules fairly presented and its internal controls effective.

Payments to bondholders have climbed sharply. The audit put interest expense on debt held by the public at about $392 billion in fiscal 2021, up to about $1.1 trillion last year. GAO attributed the increase to both the growing debt and higher interest rates.

Net interest trailed only Social Security benefits among federal spending lines last year, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s Monthly Budget Review for fiscal 2026. CBO put net interest on the public debt at $1.14 trillion, a slightly different measure than the interest paid to bondholders, and more than the government spent on Medicare or Medicaid. It was about $225 billion more than the War Department spent on military activities. CBO reported net interest rose 11% in a year.

GAO attributed the growth in debt held by the public to spending that continues to outpace revenue. CBO reported the federal deficit at about $2 trillion in fiscal 2026, up from about $1.8 trillion the year before, and projects average annual deficits above $2.4 trillion over the next decade.

Matthew Dickerson, senior fellow for budget policy at the National Taxpayers Union, said he expects the debt limit to be reached in February 2027. Treasury would then have just under $1.5 trillion in cash on hand and need to take extraordinary measures to keep paying the government’s obligations, he said. He anticipates resources to be exhausted by the end of November 2027.

“Congress doesn’t need to wait until next year,” Dickerson told The Center Square. “They should increase the debt limit in the lame duck, along with real spending reforms to address the underlying fiscal problem.”

Lawmakers face a related deadline before then. The continuing resolution signed in September, Public Law 119-103, funds the government through Dec. 11.

David Ditch, a federal budget expert at the Cato Institute, told The Center Square that the ceiling vote has long been Congress’s only real moment for restraint.

“For several decades, votes on the debt limit have been the only time when Congress is willing to vote for meaningful deficit reduction,” he said. “At minimum, they should use the next debt limit vote as an opportunity to cut expected deficits in half by reducing the growth of spending. This would ease inflationary and interest rate pressures that are punishing family budgets across America.”

Treasury did not respond to questions by publication. The department was closed Wednesday for the Veterans Day federal holiday.

Lawmakers have suspended the debt limit rather than raising it by a set amount eight times since the beginning of 2013, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The group said the current $41.1 trillion ceiling was set in July 2025, when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act raised the limit by $5 trillion.

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