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.

Virginia Democrats Are Now Trying to TRIPLE Their Own Pay – After Abigail Spanberger Ran on Affordability

Virginia’s new governor, Abigail Spanberger, ran on a campaign focused on affordability, so did other Virginia Democrats.

It is now becoming increasingly apparent that this was a lie.

These people have been in office for just a matter of weeks and they are already trying to triple their own pay. Things will certainly be more affordable for them if they get away with this.

FOX News reports:

Virginia Democrats talk affordability — and vote to nearly triple their own pay

The Virginia State Senate and its Democratic majority may have voted to nearly triple their pay if a provision inserted into their final budget survives the House reconciliation process and reaches Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s desk.

The development comes as Spanberger has centered her campaign on “affordability,” with Richmond Democrats echoing that they are working to improve their constituents’ personal finances.

Virginia’s legislature itself was founded as a part-time, gentleman’s chamber, where lawmakers would return to their day jobs when Richmond wasn’t holding session.

Proponents of raising the current 1988-established salary of $18,000 for senators and $17,640 for delegates say the structure restricts who can afford to serve as a lawmaker today. Lawmakers also qualify for a $237 per diem, mileage reimbursements, and coverage of office, meeting and other expenses.

Senators’ new salary would be $50,000.

Republicans were quick to criticize the final budget, with the Virginia Senate Minority Caucus saying in a statement that “teachers got a 3% raise, but Democrats give themselves 300%.” The actual increase would be closer to 178%, though one could say the new salary would be 300% of the original.

Law professor Jonathan Turley points out that these Democrats are going to need a salary increase in order to afford all of the new taxes they are proposing.

Keep reading

Russian mogul who called Ghislaine Maxwell his ‘soulmate’ is found dead in luxe Moscow pad

A Russian mogul who once called sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell his “soulmate” was found dead in a luxury Moscow apartment Monday, according to reports — just weeks after his name surfaced in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Umar Dzhabrailov, a Chechen businessman and former senator, was discovered lying in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound to his head at about 3 a.m., Russian outlet Kommersant reported, citing police sources who called it a suspected suicide.

Police discovered a Luger pistol lying by the 67-year-old’s body. But Dzhabrailov — who had tried to take his life in 2020 — didn’t leave a suicide note, the sources said.

The businessman’s apparent suicide comes after he was among the Russian names that appeared in the Justice Department’s latest Epstein document dump.

Emails show him trying to meet the pedophile’s madam in Moscow in 2001.

“Dear Ghislaine, I’m back from London, planing 2 B in Moscow. Really want 2 C U, but I need 2 know exactly when U arive, cause I want 2 take care of U and arrange welcoming things. Wishing U all the best! Umar,” read the email, dated May 24.

Maxwell responded the following day, writing: “Umar, sorry that we did not come last week. Got side tracked and ended up in France. However we Jeffrey Tom and I are coming next week arriving Fri. Will you be around and can we get together? Let me know. Hope you are well. Ghislaine.”

The extent of their relationship, or how they initially met, wasn’t immediately clear.

Keep reading

Medvedev warns WW3 could begin at any moment if Trump ‘continues his insane course’

The Kremlin has warned that World War Three could start at any moment if Donald Trump ‘continues his insane course’.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a close Putin ally, claimed that a new global conflict will make the nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like ‘child’s play’.

The US president has made a ‘gross mistake’ by attacking Iran and he will spark all out conflict if he ‘continues his insane course of criminal regime change’, Medvedev warned.

‘This is a war of the US and its allies for maintaining global dominance.

‘The pigs don’t want to part with the trough.’

Medvedev, who was Russian president from 2008 to 2012, was asked if WW3 had begun.

He replied: ‘Formally, no, but if Trump continues his insane course of criminal regime change, it will undoubtedly begin.

‘And any event could be the trigger. Any event.’

Medvedev, Putin’s deputy on the Russian security council, said of Western leaders: ‘There’s no magic cure for the actions of hardcore idiots and clinical bastards.

‘There’s only one guarantee: the USA is afraid of Russia and knows the price of a nuclear conflict.

‘In the event of its occurrence, Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be child’s play in the sandbox [sandpit]’.

He told state news agency TASS that US and Israeli citizens were now at risk after the military operation against Iran.

‘I think their vulnerability has significantly increased,’ he said.

‘The fact that the Iranians haven’t responded too seriously yet means that they don’t have many options.

‘But they know how to wait, this is an ancient civilisation.

‘Trump made a gross mistake.

‘By his decision, he put all Americans under potential attack, even though the Iranian regime is not well-liked in neighbouring Arab countries.

‘The main thing, however, is that the late Ayatollah was the spiritual father of almost 300 million Shiites. And now he’s a martyr. You can fill in the rest yourself.

‘And now there’s no doubt that Iran will strive with redoubled energy to acquire nuclear weapons.’

Medvedev claimed that Iran — a key Russian ally, who Moscow is so far failing to support militarily – will withstand the US and Israeli onslaught.

‘I’ve already said that Iran, as the heir to the former Persian Empire, is an ancient world and culture,’ he said.

‘They will cope, but the price of revival will be high.

‘It requires a high level of societal consolidation. And the Americans have provided such consolidation.’

Keep reading

Are We in a Free Speech Recession?

For years, debates over hate speech laws have been framed as moral disputes about civility and protection. Increasingly, however, they are becoming legal and political battles over the limits of “free” expression in democratic societies. 

A report by the Future of Free Speech project, titled The Free Speech Recession Hits Home, argues that established democracies are experiencing measurable declines in protections for speech once considered firmly safeguarded. The report contends that restrictions once associated primarily with authoritarian regimes are now expanding across Western countries under the banner of combating hate, misinformation, and extremism. 

Hate speech laws are being broadly interpreted all over the Western world, and their continued expansion is reshaping the boundaries of lawful expression. 

Keep reading

Fury as Marco Rubio admits Israel forced US into war with Iran: ‘The worst possible thing’

The US launched preemptive strikes against Iran after learning Israel was about to attack — and American troops in the region faced an imminent threat of retaliation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday. 

Rubio made the revelation on Capitol Hill, where he briefed a small group of congressional leaders on the joint US-Israel offensive.

‘There absolutely was an imminent threat,’ Rubio stated. ‘And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.’

Rubio said the Department of War determined that a defensive posture following an Israeli attack would only open the US to more casualties. Five American soldiers have died so far in combat. 

‘We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage,’ he said. 

‘Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen, and we didn’t act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life,’ Rubio explained. 

The revelation outraged both Democrats and Republicans.

‘Secretary Rubio’s remarks indicate that Israel put U.S. forces in harm’s way by insisting on attacking Iran,’ Congressman Joaquin Castro reacted on X. ‘And the administration was complicit—joining their war instead of talking them down.’

Conservative pundit Matt Walsh wrote: ‘So he’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.’

Keep reading

Defense giants cash in as Iran conflict escalates

Defense contractors are winning on Wall Street, as the uncertainty of a war with Iran and increased tension in the Middle East continue to fuel substantial gains in the stock market. 

While oil prices surged the highest Monday, jumping more than 6% over fears of a global supply shortage, companies that build military equipment weren’t far behind — Lockheed Martin and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, gained 3.3% and 4.7% respectively.

Shares of Northrop Grumman jumped the highest, ending the day up about 6%. 

As the DOW Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% and the S&P 500 finished flat, all three of the world’s largest defense contractors hit new 52-week highs, according to Barron’s. 

Keep reading

Jared Kushner unveils $112 billion plan to turn Gaza into tourist resort after genocide

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner unveiled a massive real estate plan aimed at transforming the devastated Gaza Strip into a tourist hub and beach resort on the Mediterranean Sea during a presentation at the World Economic Forum on Thursday.

Undeterred by sharp resistance from the majority of the world after President Donald Trump’s initial announcement of the plan last February, Kushner proposed the reconstruction of the strip could be completed within three years if Hamas fully disarms.

Speaking at the signing ceremony for Trump’s “Board of Peace,” Kushner, the son-in-law of the U.S. president, shared a set of slides illustrating his group’s vision for the Gaza Strip after 58 years of illegal Israeli military occupation, oppression and most recently, genocide against the Palestinian people there.

It also reflects a vision of the strip under the hypothetical conditions of a demilitarized Hamas, which has repeatedly refused to disarm arguing that it would leave them defenseless against continued aggressions from the Israeli army. Since the October 10 “ceasefire” agreement, credible reports indicate Israel has violated its terms over 1,000 times, killing more than 460 Palestinians and injuring around 1,200.

Kushner’s power point included computer-generated images of high-rise buildings along the coast with rows of residential structures elsewhere in the strip.

Keep reading

Trump and Hegseth Won’t Rule Out Sending Troops to Iran for a Mission They Won’t Define

President Trump said in an interview with The New York Post on Monday that he won’t rule out sending troops into Iran as the war the US and Israel launched against the Islamic Republic on Saturday morning continues to rage.

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told the paper. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”

Earlier in the day, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth held a press briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, where he also refused to rule out sending troops into Iran and went on a tangent about how the US military doesn’t need to brief the American people on its plans.

When asked if there were currently US “boots on the ground” in Iran, Hegseth said, “No, but we’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do. I think it’s one of those fallacies for a long time that this department or presidents or others should tell the American people this — and our and our enemies, by the way — here’s exactly what we’ll do.”

Hegseth also contradicted Trump’s earlier remarks by saying it was not a “regime change war,” but he added that the “regime sure did change,” though the Iranian government remains intact despite the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which hasn’t slowed the Iranian military’s response.

While insisting the US wouldn’t get into an open-ended conflict or “quagmire” in Iran, Hegseth did not directly answer when asked what the administration’s “exit strategy ” is, as neither he nor Trump has clearly defined the goal. “As far as time frame, I would never hang a time frame from our perspective. The commander-in-chief sets the tempo and terms of this fight,” he said.

Trump previously estimated that the war could last four to five weeks, but said on Monday that the US has the capability to go “far longer” than that.

Caine said during the briefing with Hegseth that the US was deploying more troops and fighter jets into the region. “This work is just beginning and will continue,” he said.

Keep reading

SCOTUS Shuts Down New York’s Bid To Redistrict GOP Seat Ahead Of 2026 Midterms

The U.S. Supreme Court shut down a bid by New York courts to redistrict a Republican-controlled congressional seat ahead of the 2026 midterms on Monday.

In its 6-3 ruling, the high court granted an emergency application to temporarily stay (“pause”) a state judge’s efforts to redraw Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ congressional district. Malliotakis has represented New York’s 11th Congressional District since 2021 and won reelection by 28 points during the 2024 election.

As described by The Hill, “A state judge had ordered the boundaries be redrawn after ruling the district dilutes black and Latino voting strength in violation of the state constitution.” The Supreme Court’s Monday order “granted Malliotakis’s emergency application to block that ruling as the litigation proceeds, effectively restoring her existing district lines for the midterms.”

The high court noted that the New York court’s ruling “is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the New York state courts” and the filing of a petition at SCOTUS asking the justices to take up the case. The Supreme Court’s stay will terminate if it declines to hear the case or if it agrees to take up the case and renders a verdict on the matter.

Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied Malliotakis’ request for relief.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito authored a concurring opinion in which he expressed agreement with the court’s decision and blasted the New York judge’s directive “that blatantly discriminates on the basis of race.” He noted how the “New York Supreme Court (that State’s trial-level court) ordered the New York Independent Redistricting Commission to draw a new congressional district for the express purpose of ensuring that ‘minority voters’ are able to elect the candidate of their choice.”

Keep reading

Megyn Kelly Under Fire After Claiming US Service Members ‘Died for Iran or Israel’ — “This Feels Very Much to Me Like it is Clearly Israel’s War”

Megyn Kelly is facing fierce backlash after suggesting that American service members killed in the escalating conflict with Iran “died for Iran or for Israel,” rather than for the United States.

During a recent episode of her show, Kelly questioned the purpose of U.S. involvement, arguing that the war effort appears to be driven by foreign interests rather than American national security.

Megyn Kelly:
Look, there are massive divisions over what we’ve done here, and people are going to change their minds over the coming days and weeks, one way or the other. But my own feeling is that no one should have to die for a foreign country. I don’t think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel.

I understand how this helps Iran perfectly well. I get it. I mean, I hope long term we’ll see. But they seem rather jubilant. Eighty percent of the country does not support the Ayatollah. He was a terrible, terrible man. No one’s crying that he’s dead — no normal person.

But our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel. It’s to look out for us. This feels very much, to me, like it is clearly Israel’s war. Mark Levin wanted it. It’s his war. Ben Shapiro, Lindsey Graham, Miriam Adelson — that’s obvious. They’re the ones who’ve been pushing us into it.

Keep reading