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.

Dem Lawmaker Seriously Suggests Studying the Upsides of Shoplifting 

A discussion during a Minnesota House Labor Committee meeting drew attention after State Representative Dave Pinto raised the idea of studying whether individuals benefit from shoplifting, prompting a sharp response from fellow lawmaker Krista Knudsen.

Knudsen addressed the issue publicly after the committee meeting, expressing disbelief over the suggestion that shoplifting could provide any benefit.

“Hey, Minnesota State Representative Christa Knutson, so today in the Labor Committee, Representative Dave Pinto requested a study for the benefits of shoplifting,” Knudsen said.

Knudsen said she could not identify any positive outcomes from theft for businesses that are targeted.

“There are no benefits to shoplifting for the people that are being shoplifted from I have no idea what else to say,” Knudsen said. “I’m shocked.”

Knudsen repeated her reaction while discussing the issue further.

“Actually, I don’t even know what to say,” she said.

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QUIET PART OUT LOUD: A Panicked Chuck Schumer Says SAVE Act Would Purge Millions From Voter Rolls

Chuck Schumer is promoting the SAVE Act without even realizing it.

While speaking to the press this week, the clearly panicked senator said that the SAVE Act would purge millions of people from the voter rolls. Does he mean illegal aliens and dead people? It’s probably safe to assume he does.

This is exactly why millions of patriotic Americans support the SAVE Act, Chuck.

Meaww News reports:

Chuck Schumer claims SAVE Act would strip ‘more than 20 million people’ of their right to vote

Chuck Schumer criticized the proposed SAVE America Act, claiming that the legislation could purge millions from voter rolls.

The Senate minority leader also took aim at tech billionaire Elon Musk, alleging that an AI-driven system linked to his efforts could remove voters without notice. Schumer described the SAVE Act as a “pernicious” and “nasty” piece of legislation that he said could threaten voting rights across the country.

Speaking to reporters, Schumer claimed the legislation would allow large-scale purges of voter rolls using automated systems.

He alleged that an artificial intelligence system connected to efforts by Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could remove millions of voters without notice.

The Democrat said, “Using an Al system set up by Musk and DOGE. So you could show up at the polling place this November, and they’d say you’re no longer on the rolls. They don’t even notify you of it.”

“Millions of people would be purged from their roles because of this system that Musk and DOGE put in. You wouldn’t be notified you’d show up at the polling place, and they’d say, sorry, Mr Jones, sorry, mystery, Miss Smith. You’re not, you’re not on the rolls anymore. They don’t even notify you,” he continued.

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Defense Department Records Reveal U.S. Funding of Anthrax Laboratory Activities in Ukraine

Judicial Watch announced today it received 345 pages of records from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a component of the U.S. Department of Defense, revealing that the United States funded anthrax laboratory activities in a Ukrainian biolab in 2018. Dozens of pages are completely redacted, and many others are heavily redacted. The records show over $11 million in funding for the Ukraine biolabs program in 2019.

The records were obtained in response to a February 28, 2022, Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for records regarding the funding of Black & Veatch involving work of any manner with biosafety laboratories in the country of Ukraine.

Three phases of work are discussed in the records, several of which are indicated to have occurred “on site” at the Ukrainian labs.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency provided a report titled “PACS [Pathogen Asset Control System] at the [redacted (b)(3), which exempts information from disclosure when a foreign government or international organization requests the withholding, or the national security official concerned has specified in regulations that the information’s release would have an adverse effect on the U.S. government’s ability to obtain similar information in the future] Phase 2 On-the-Job Training Report, December 11-13/December 26, 2018” The Executive Summary includes information regarding “on-site” activities, likely referring to a Ukrainian biolab:

  • PACS [Pathogen Asset Control System] on-the-job training was conducted for users of the [redacted (b)(3)] on December 11-13, under Phase 2 implementation activities, Anthrax Laboratory activities were conducted on December 28, 2018.
  • PACS existing configuration and customization were checked jointly with the on-site PACS Working Group
  • Phase 1 implementation activities including progress and current status were reviewed; issues and problems discussed and resolved;
  • Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for PACS use at [redacted (b)(3)] was updated to include Subculturing Operation process – the updated SOP submitted to the on-site Working Group.

The report provides a list of titles of “OJT [on-the-job training] Participants” with all participants names from Black & Veatch redacted, citing exemptions (b)(6) for personal privacy and (b)(3).

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Jack Smith Quietly Targeted Former Kansas Attorney General For Challenging 2020 Election Results

Jack Smith subpoenaed phone records of former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline while he led the charge challenging the 2020 election as part of the former special counsel’s Arctic Frost investigation.

Phill Kline is currently a Liberty University Law School Professor and was the head of the Amistad Project of the Thomas Moore Society while he challenged the 2020 election.

“Operation Arctic Frost” was a taxpayer-funded Biden DOJ witch hunt launched in April 2022 that seized government-issued cell phones belonging to Trump and Pence while conducting a barrage of interviews across the country.

The 2020 Trump alternate electors prompted the Biden DOJ to open the Arctic Frost investigation into Trump and hundreds of other individuals and organizations.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley recently revealed that former Special Counsel Jack Smith targeted the ‘entire Republican apparatus.’

Grassley said new disclosures revealed Jack Smith targeted conservative organizations such as TPUSA and the Republican Attorneys General Association.

“I’ve obtained through legally protected whistleblower disclosures,” Grassley said during a press conference last year. “197 subpoenas were issued by Jack Smith and his team. These subpoenas were issued to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, including financial institutions.”

Jack Smith subpoenaed Phill Kline’s records from October 2020 to January 31, 2021.

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Left-Wing Activist Group Teaches Liberals How To Get Through Jury Selection and Vote ‘Not Guilty’ on Trump DOJ Prosecutions, Recordings Show

A left-wing activist group is teaching liberals in Washington, D.C., and “across the United States” how to increase their chances of serving as jurors on cases brought by the Trump Department of Justice so they can undermine its chances of securing convictions, training materials reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.

Freedom Trainers, whose fiscal sponsor is the George Soros-funded group Community Change, is working to make “jury nullification”—the practice of voting against a conviction even if the defendant broke the law—a go-to legal weapon for the Left. Its sessions and training materials, reviewed by the Free Beacon, show how the group teaches “committed people” to gum up federal prosecutions.

The group tells attendees to keep their addresses current to ensure they receive summons. Then, during the jury selection process, it advises them to “Never mention jury nullification,” “Don’t signal an agenda,” and “say you’ll listen to the evidence before forming conclusions.” Once selected, the group tells its trainees to vote “not guilty” for any reason.

Freedom Trainers’ efforts—which have not been previously reported—underscore the difficulty the Trump administration faces in securing convictions in the nation’s capital and other blue bastions.

“While we respect jurors’ role in the judicial process, the Department takes jury nullification and interference with official proceedings extremely seriously,” a Department of Justice spokeswoman said in a statement to the Free Beacon. “Any group attempting to improperly influence juries who should serve as impartial arbiters of evidence should be held accountable.”

Neither Freedom Trainers nor Community Change responded to requests for comment.

Freedom Trainers describes itself as a “loose network of trainers teaching collective noncooperation.” It was established in late 2024 as its leaders pondered a second Trump administration. “Before Donald Trump’s election, an informal group of trainers—many with experience working under authoritarian regimes—began asking a sobering question: what would people need if he won?” its website states.

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DISGRACE: “Hero” Police Officer on Hakeem Jeffries’ Jan. 6 Memorial Plaque INDICTED on 9 Felony Counts Including RAPE — Allegedly Drugged and Assaulted Nearly a Dozen Women

A former Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer, hailed as a “hero” on a controversial Capitol plaque honoring law enforcement’s response to the January 6, 2021 protests, has been slapped with a superseding indictment on multiple felony counts, including rape, sodomy, and abduction.

Timothy Valentin is currently sitting behind bars facing a mountain of felony charges.

According to Alexandria police, Valentin was first indicted by a grand jury in December and was indicted again Monday morning in three additional cases.

Valentin now faces the following charges in Alexandria:

  • Four counts of rape by force
  • Four counts of rape by incapacitation
  • Two counts of adulteration
  • Two counts of sodomy
  • Two counts of abduction with intent to defile
  • Two counts of sodomy by force or incapacitation
  • One count and aggravated sexual battery by incapacitation
  • 15 counts of unlawful filming

Valentin joined the Metropolitan Police Department in 2016 and served as a patrol officer during the events of January 6.

He left the department in 2022, but authorities say the crimes he is accused of committing occurred in 2024 and 2025.

According to investigators, Valentin allegedly targeted women he met through dating apps, inviting them out for drinks before drugging and sexually assaulting them once they became incapacitated.

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Saudi oil giant warns of ‘catastrophic consequences’ from Iran war as three commercial ships are ‘attacked’ in Strait of Hormuz and Tehran tries to strangle world’s energy supplies

Saudi Arabia‘s state oil company has warned of ‘catastrophic consequences’ for the world’s oil markets if the Middle East war continues to choke exports, as three commercial ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz. 

The waterway is a chokepoint in the global oil trade, where roughly 20 per cent of the world’s oil would ordinarily pass through daily. 

But as a result of the roiling war, oil shipments have been largely blocked from using the shipping artery. And Iran said on Tuesday it would not allow ‘one litre of oil’ to be shipped from the Middle East if US and Israeli attacks continue.

Amin Nasser, the CEO of Aramco, said: ‘While we have faced disruptions in the past, this one by far is the biggest crisis the region’s oil and gas industry has faced.’

He admitted that while his firm, the world’s single biggest exporter of oil, was meeting most of its customers’ needs for now, this was only possible by tapping into storage facilities outside the Gulf. 

Nasser said that these stores cannot be used for ‘an extended period of time, but for the time being, we are capitalising on it.’ 

The CEO said: ‘There would be catastrophic consequences for the world’s oil markets, and the longer the disruption goes on … the more drastic the consequences for the global economy.’ 

The stark warning comes after three commercial ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz.

An attack on the Thailand-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree from an ‘unknown projectile’, which was reported at 4.35am GMT, happened 11 nautical miles north of Oman and resulted in a fire onboard the ship. 

Iran today confirmed it had attacked the Mayuree Naree, adding: ‘The American aggressors and their partners have no right to pass.’

Authorities are searching for three missing crew members from the Mayuree Naree after 20 were rescued by the Omani navy. 

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Transparency: Suing Schools That Hide Trans Kids’ Identities From Parents

A few weeks before Christmas in 2022, Amber Lavigne was cleaning her 13-year-old’s bedroom when she stumbled upon her daughter’s secret: a chest binder. She learned that Autumn had been wearing the garment, which girls use to flatten their breasts to achieve a masculine appearance, for about two months at school in Maine, where she had adopted a boy’s name, Leo, and was using he/him pronouns.

It was the first of two chest binders Lavigne found that had been provided to her eighth-grade daughter by a social worker at the Great Salt Bay Community School, according to a federal lawsuit Lavigne filed in 2023, which is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her lawsuit alleges that the public school not only aided and abetted Autumn’s gender transition but also hid the information from her parents.

“I think it’s important for parents to know that this is occurring in our public schools because I don’t think many parents believe that it’s as bad as it really is,” Lavigne said on a recent podcast. “When I was a kid, one of the first things I heard about adults is if any adult asks you as a child to keep a secret, there’s something wrong with that adult, and you need to come tell me immediately.”

“And now, I mean, it’s like we’re in upside-down land.”

The Maine lawsuit and others like it raise one of the most contentious issues in the broader conflict over transgender policies: whether a parent’s constitutional right to direct their children’s education and medical care extends to a circumstance that society has never grappled with until the past decade or so – a youth’s rejection of their biological sex, adoption of a new name and matching pronouns, and assertion of a new gender identity. And to what extent children who are transitioning or exploring gender options have the right to confidentiality if they worry about rejection and hostility at home.

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UK Govt Urges Schools To SNITCH On ‘Anti-Muslim Hostility’ In Orwellian Crackdown

The UK government is ramping up its assault on free expression, now urging schools, councils, and workplaces to monitor and report “anti-Muslim hostility” as part of a broader strategy that critics slam as a tool to silence legitimate debate.

Under Labour’s plans, institutions will be encouraged to track incidents of ‘prejudice’ against Muslims, with a new definition adopted to clarify unacceptable behavior. This comes amid a surge in hate crimes, but opponents warn it could muzzle criticism of Islamism or immigration policies.

Schools are at the forefront, with the government pushing for monitoring in education settings where antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate have reportedly normalized.

This escalating surveillance in schools reeks of authoritarian control, prioritizing thought policing over genuine security.

The strategy includes boosting security for mosques and Muslim schools through schemes upgrading CCTV, alarms, and fencing. A new “anti-Muslim hostility tsar” will oversee implementation, advising schools, universities, and public services on tackling hatred.

Communities Secretary Steve Reed defended the move in Parliament: “Today, we are adopting a non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hostility. This gives a clear explanation of unacceptable prejudice, discrimination and hatred targeting Muslims, so we can take action to stop it.”

But Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has blasted the vague wording, warning it could chill free speech and make people afraid to criticize Islam, migration, or Islamist extremism. He argued it might be used to silence debate rather than stop actual attacks.

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AP Shills For Big Pharma Antidepressants With ‘Bewildering’ Hit Piece

Cruising through X last week a weird story caught my eye: it reported that The Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, was trying to hire a “friend” who wants the FDA to add warnings to antidepressants about “unproven pregnancy risks.” The story makes several claims that are bewildering and appear to be fabricated. I sent several questions to AP’s global health editor Jonathan Fahey, but he did not respond to repeated requests to explain the article’s puzzling errors.

AP reporter Matthew Perrone later blocked me on X. I’ve pasted my email to Fahey at the bottom of this article.

The person AP’s Matthew Perrone identifies as a “friend” of FDA’s Hoeg is Dr. Adam Urato, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Metro West Medical Center in Massachusetts.

One passage in the AP story stood out to me:

Within the agency, Hoeg’s close relationship with Urato is viewed as a clear conflict of interest that, under normal FDA standards, would result in her recusing herself from any work on the petition. But Hoeg is actively working to speed up the agency’s review of her friend’s proposal, according to the people familiar with the situation.

I have never seen the term “friend” defined as a “conflict of interest” by any federal agency. Nor have I run across “friend” defined as a “conflict of interest” in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. It’s a conflict of interest that doesn’t seem to exist.

And I happen to know quite a bit about conflicts of interest in science, because I’m an expert on the matter.

While I was a Senate staffer, I wrote a law on conflicts of interest called the Physicians Payments Sunshine Act. The bill I wrote was later passed into law and you can now go look up doctors on the government’s Open Payments website to see who is giving them money. I’m sure AP reporters use this website all the time. During my time in the Senate, I also helped to reform conflicts of interest at the National Institutes of Health. This took thousands of hours, untold numbers of meetings, and years of work to complete.

When I left the Senate and joined the Safra Ethics Center at Harvard, I was celebrated as the “Father of Sunshine” for this work to reform conflicts of interest in medicine.

Confused by the AP’s confusing reporting, I contacted Health and Human Services (HHS) and FDA, sending them almost the exact same questions that I sent to AP’s Jonathan Fahey.

“Being a friend is not a violation of ethics or conflicts of interests’ laws,” wrote HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon, in an email. Several senior FDA officials told me that HHS doesn’t even have a legal definition for what a “friend” is and no government conflict of interest form asks people to identify who their friends are.

“It’s a hit piece from industry against Dr. Hoeg, who is doing an amazing job at the FDA,” said one FDA official.

Hoeg did not respond to requests for comment, but during a phone call, Urato told me the AP story was filled with fake facts. The FDA has not offered him a full-time job as AP reported, and if they did, he couldn’t take it as he has a full-time clinical practice with hundreds of patients. FDA has expressed interest in offering him a limited, part-time position as an “advisor,” but nothing has been formalized.

He’s known Hoeg for only a couple years, and met her once when he went to DC to testify in favor of a labelling change for antidepressants that warns pregnant women about the documented risks for fetuses.

“This whole thing is being made up, and it’s an absurdity,” Urato said. “I’m not close friends with her as we’ve only discussed work. But If I say I’m not friends with her, then it’s like saying I’m her enemy.”

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