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.

California’s green policies destroy blue-collar jobs

Gavin Newsom complains of “faux outrage” over his comments to a largely black audience in Atlanta about his SAT scores, in which he implied a shared lack of ability.

No state makes more of its “enlightened” stance on racial justice than California. But few states do worse.

Governor Newsom and his Sacramento claque have embraced reparations for the descendants of slaves. They are also working overtime to preserve affirmative action policies, despite the electorate’s widespread rejection.

But Newsom’s racial rhetoric is, as the leftist site Jacobin suggests, nothing more than “pure rhetorical posturing.”

For example, the reparations promise new free tuition and housing subsidies to anyone who can prove they are descendants of slaves — but there’s little to no money behind this feint.

California’s adoption of such “reparations,” recently also embraced in San Francisco, also seems a bit absurd, given that it was never a slave state.

California, like every state, is burdened by a racist past, but much of this was aimed at what were larger populations — first Native Americans, then old Californios (descendants of Mexican/Spanish settlers) and, most of all, Asians, who were banned from landownership and were subject to brutal pogroms, the worst occurring in Los Angeles.

But the greatest irony is that both Latinos and African Americans do worse in California than in  “unenlightened places”  like Texas and Florida.

The key difference in California has been the imposition of draconian environmental regulations, which have devastated industries like construction, manufacturing, and logistics. 

It’s what attorney Jennifer Hernandez calls “the green Jim Crow.”  

Latinos have been hardest hit because many are employed in the “carbon economy,” which relies on energy and has been decimated by regulatory pressures. 

For example, Latinos constitute well over 50% of all California construction workers and the majority working in logistics, according to the American Community Survey.  

But due to regulatory constraints, construction in California has been among the weakest in the nation, making it hard to build what the market wants — namely, affordable apartments and modestly-priced single family homes. 

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Iran says it has ‘one word only’ for America in tense standoff between representatives at emergency UN Security Council meeting

Iran‘s representative told an emergency United Nations meeting that they have ‘one word only’ for the United States following the deadly airstrikes on Iran earlier today. 

Iran’s Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told America to be ‘polite’ at the emergency meeting following Operation Epic Fury, which saw airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. 

‘I have one word only,’ Iravani said, at the meeting in New York City on Saturday. ‘I advise to the representative of the United States to be polite.’

‘It will be better for yourself and the country you represented, thank you.’

US Ambassador Mike Waltz hit back at Iravani and said: ‘Frankly, I’m not going to dignify this with another response.’

‘Especially, as this representative sits here, in this body, representing a regime that has killed tens of thousands of its own people and imprisoned many more simply for wanting freedom from your tyranny,’ he concluded. 

The tense meeting saw Iravani describe the war against Iran as one against international law and international legal order under the United Nations Charter. 

‘This morning, the United States regime – jointly and in coordination with the Israeli regime – initiated an unprovoked and premeditated aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran for the second time in recent months,’ Iran’s ambassador said. 

‘This is not only an act of aggression; it is a war crime and a crime against humanity,’ Iravani continued. 

‘The invocation to “preemptive attack”, claims of imminent threat, or other unsubstantiated political claims, are unfounded legally, morally and politically.’ 

The UN Security Council, charged with ensuring international peace and security is maintained, is comprised of 15 members, including five permanent members; China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

Other current members include Bahrain, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, Liberia, Pakistan, Panama and Somalia.

At around 1.15am on Saturday, the US and Israel began hitting Iranian targets to ‘dismantle the Iranian regime’s security apparatus.’ According to the United Nations News, the strikes do not meet the criteria of lawful self-defense and ‘constitute a violation of Article Two’.

In response, Iran said it will invoke, ‘without hesitation,’ the Charter’s Article 51 for its ‘inherent and lawful’ right to self-defense. 

But, Israel’s Ambassador Dany Danon said the attacks were an ‘act of necessity’ to put an end to an ‘existential threat,’ UN News reported. 

‘This is not the anger of a radical fringe,’ Danon said. ‘It is State-sanctioned hatred.’ 

Waltz equally defended the operation, and said: ‘This is a moment in history that requires moral clarity.’

Waltz claimed that the operation had ‘specific and strategic’ objectives in efforts to reduce missile capabilities that threaten allies, target naval assets used in international waters and disrupt machinery that provides militant weaponry. 

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Israeli strike on Iranian school kills over 100 children – media

Over 100 students have been killed and dozens injured in an Israeli airstrike on a girls’ primary school in the city of Minab, in southern Iran, according to the country’s news agency Tasnim. The attack comes amid ongoing airstrikes on the Islamic Republic by Israel and the US.

Israel launched what it described as a pre-emptive operation against Iranian military and nuclear-related targets on Saturday, saying the strikes were aimed at neutralizing threats posed by Iran. US President Donald Trump later said Washington was joining the operation, citing the failure of nuclear diplomacy as a direct trigger for the renewed bombing.

One of the strikes reportedly targeted an elementary school in the city of Minab, killing at least 148 students and leaving 95 others injured, according to local officials.

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Newsom’s water plan —as empty as the Palisades reservoir

Gavin Newsom launched a new water policy this week that does almost nothing for water. Perhaps he thinks it will help his nascent presidential campaign.

Newsom’s biggest weakness as a presidential candidate is his record. He cannot point to any major achievements after two terms.

That’s the real drought his plan aims to address.

Newsom called his policy the “most ambitious water plan in California history.” If so, the obvious question is why he waited until the last months of his administration to launch it.

And the equally obvious answer is that he is focused on the 2028 presidential campaign, not on solving California’s chronic water problems.

His policy is even called “California Water Plan 2028.” Why 2028, two years after he leaves office? The question answers itself.

Of course, nothing that ambitious can be done in two years in California. Even massive water bonds take forever to spend.

It has taken all eight years of Newsom’s governorship for him to line up the approvals for the Sites Reservoir, the first major water storage project in half a century. 

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‘Every Arab is to be killed’: New evidence confirms Zionist terror campaign fueled 1948 expulsion of Palestinians

New Israeli documents have emerged confirming that Zionist militias used massacres, rapes, and expulsions to ethnically cleanse some 800,000 Palestinians to create the state of Israel in 1948.

Haaretz reported on 27 February that the documents contain first-hand accounts of the 1948 war (known by Palestinians as the Nakba) written by commanders in the Zionist militias, which formed the core of the Israeli military.

The documents were discovered after someone left boxes containing thousands of documents next to a dumpster in a Tel Aviv neighborhood two years ago.

According to the Israeli newspaper, the discovery of the documents “completely dispels the Israeli narrative according to which the country’s Arab inhabitants fled of their own volition at the behest of their own leaders.”

The documents include an account of the war written by Yitzhak Broshi, commander of Golani’s 12th Battalion. Broshi explains that he gave the order to raze the village of Arab a-Zabah, a Bedouin community in the Lower Galilee, and kill every person found there. “Every Arab among the Zabahim is to be killed,” his order stated.

In another case, Broshi ordered his troops to search for Arabs hiding in the Mount Turan area of the Lower Galilee after it had already been conquered. “Kill anyone who is hiding,” Broshi’s order read.

Haaretz notes that although nearly 80 years have passed since the Nakba, which Israelis call the “War of Independence,” much material in Israel’s archives remains classified. As a result, “historical memory in Israel is a deception.”

“It can now be confirmed, on the basis of an impressive range of evidence, that the IDF [Israeli army] expelled Arabs systematically and violently during the War of Independence. The expulsion was effected by massacres, murder, and a variety of moves aimed at terrorizing this civilian population and expediting its flight,” Haaretz concluded.

“How do you expel a village?” asked Maxim Cohen, a commander of the Carmeli Brigade. “You lop off the ear of one of the Arabs before everyone else’s eyes, and they all flee. In practice, no village was evacuated without stabbing someone in the stomach or by means of similar methods. We won thanks only to the fear of the Arabs, and they were fearful only of deeds that were not in accordance with the law.”

Haim Ben-David, who later obtained the rank of major general and became former prime minister David Ben Gurion’s military secretary, explained that orders to kill and expel Palestinian civilians during the 1948 war were given verbally rather than written down.

“In our operative orders, we were careful not to mention killing. The orders relating to conduct were orally conveyed to the battalion commanders,” Ben-David explained.

Yisrael Carmi, a battalion commander in the 7th Brigade, stated that during the conquest of Beersheba in October 1948, he gave the order that any Palestinian who resisted expulsion was to be executed.

“I conquered the city,” Carmi testified. “In mopping up that area, I gave an order to annihilate anyone who appeared in the street, whether they resisted or did not resist. An order was given to destroy everything. After the conquest of the police station – after the surrender – the murder stopped. Until then, everyone was killed – women and children and everyone. Then an order was given to the people to go to Hebron. Anyone who didn’t go was ‘removed.’”

Mordechai Maklef, an operations officer, explained, “The intention was to expel.”

“It is impossible to expel 114,000 people who lived [in the Galilee] without terror. There had to have been an element of initial terror for them to leave.”

In an effort to conceal this history, Israel has released to the public only a million files out of 17 million in the Israel State Archives and the Army and Defense Establishment Archives.

The archives’ staff was told to conceal “material that might harm the [army’s] image [and show it] as an occupying army devoid of moral foundations, [which displays] violent behavior against an Arab population and cruel acts (killing, murder).”

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U.S. Strikes Iran in Unconstitutional Attack, Breaking Major Trump Campaign Promise of No More Foreign Wars

President Trump broke a key campaign vow today by ordering an attack on Iran.

American war planes hit targets across the nation, including the capital Tehran, because negotiations to stop Iran from developing atomic weapons were unsuccessful and, Trump said in short speech, to protect American “national security.”

Iran retaliated, striking the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, and poured missiles into Israel. Iran also hit targets across the Middle East.

Top Republicans rightly called the U.S. air raid unconstitutional.

The Attack

“In the initial wave, the U.S. carried out dozens of strikes with attack planes launched from bases around the Middle East and from one or more aircraft carriers, a U.S. official said, The New York Times reported:

The warplanes are part of the largest U.S. military buildup since the Iraq War in 2003, and the deployment includes two aircraft carriers, a number of naval destroyers and more than 50 fighter planes.

The focus of the American strikes for the moment is military targets in Iran, a U.S. official said. Besides its nuclear facilities, Iran is believed to have more than 2,000 missiles, primarily short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that threaten Israel and American forces across the region. Those missiles are scattered at launch sites across Iran and were among the first targets, U.S. military officials said.

Announcing “major combat operations” in an eight-minute speech, Trump called the Iranian regime “a vicious group of very hard, terrible people” whose “activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.”

Trump said that the regime has chanted “Death to America” for almost 50 years and “waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries.”

He also noted the attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979; the taking of American hostages, who were held for 444 days; and the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983.

“From Lebanon to Yemen and Syria to Iraq, the regime has armed, trained and funded terrorist militias that have soaked the earth with blood and guts,” Trump said:

And it was Iran’s proxy, Hamas, that launched the monstrous Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, slaughtering more than 1,000 innocent people, including 46 Americans, while taking 12 of our citizens hostage. It was brutal, something like the world has never seen before.

Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terror, and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested. It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I’ll say it again, they can never have a nuclear weapon. That is why in Operation Midnight Hammer last June, we obliterated the regime’s nuclear program at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. After that attack, we warned them never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we sought repeatedly to make a deal. We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. Again they wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. They didn’t know what was happening. They just wanted to practice evil. But Iran refused, just as it has for decades and decades.

Trump said the regime has “rejected every opportunity” to end their “nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.” 

“This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces,” Trump said:

I built and rebuilt our military in my first administration and there is no military on earth even close to its power, strength or sophistication. My administration is taking every possible step to minimize the risk to U.S. personnel in the region. Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war. But we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future.

“Take Over Your Government”

Trump also urged Iran’s army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, to lay down their weapons or “face certain death,” and urged Iranians to overthrow their government.

“Your hour of freedom is at hand,” he said. And “when we are finished, take over your government,” he said:

It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.

In his state of the union speech, Trump promised to attack Iran because of its supposed intransigence on nuclear weapons.

The IRG comprises about 200,000 members, the Times reported:

Iran has a fleet of hundreds of fast boats that specialize in swarm attacks in the Persian Gulf. It has a massive arsenal of 3,000 to 6,000 naval mines that can enable it to temporarily close off the Strait of Hormuz.

Aside from striking Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and sending missiles at Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, Iran closed the Straight of Hormuz, a vital seaway for the world’s oil supplies. One estimate said the price for a barrel could rocket to $250.

“We have closed the Strait of Hormuz until further notice,” the Iran Military Monitor wrote on X:

“Let the Orange Pig open it if he can!”

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Trump Threatens to “Take Over the Whole Thing” After Iran Strikes Kill Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

President Trump broke his silence following the Iran strikes on Saturday morning, telling Axios of potential “off-ramps” in the conflict. 

“I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear and missile programs],” Trump told Axios in a phone interview from Mar-a-Lago.

This is the first time Trump commented on the strikes since releasing a statement early on Saturday morning.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, Trump announced earlier that American forces are engaged in what he described as a “massive and ongoing operation” aimed at neutralizing the Iranian regime’s ability to threaten US troops, American allies, and the homeland itself.

Trump pointed to the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, where dozens of Americans were held captive for 444 days, the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 US military personnel, Iranian-backed militias responsible for killing and maiming hundreds of American troops in Iraq, and continued proxy attacks against US forces and commercial vessels in Middle Eastern shipping lanes.

He further said that after Operation Midnight Hammer last June, where US forces bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran, “we warned them never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we repeatedly sought to make a deal.”

“We tried. They wanted to do it—they didn’t,” Trump said. “They wanted to do it—again—they didn’t want to do it.”

In closing his statement, Trump encouraged the Iranian people to seize control of their government.

“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,” Trump said to the people of Iran.

“This will probably be your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight.”

Israel further confirmed it had launched a pre-emptive strike on Iranian territory, joined by a broader US military offensive targeting military and nuclear sites across Tehran and other major cities, including areas near the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei has since been confirmed dead by Israeli officials.

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‘This could spark the largest regional war yet’: Russian analysts on the Iran strikes

As the United States and Israel launch a military operation against Iran on February 28, 2026, global attention turns to the Middle East, where the stakes could not be higher. Analysts and experts from Russia are weighing in, offering a wide range of perspectives on the strategic calculations, potential consequences, and risks of escalation. From regime change ambitions to Iran’s military capabilities, from oil markets to the broader geopolitical fallout, these voices provide a nuanced look at a rapidly unfolding crisis.

Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs:

Trump has delivered a full-blown ultimatum to the Iranian leadership – in effect, a declaration of war until the objective is achieved, with maximalist aims that extend all the way to regime change. Apparently, he has concluded that the risks – including potential losses – are acceptable (something he had hesitated over before), and that success would yield decisive strategic gains: a final reshaping of the Middle East in the interests of Israel and the United States.

A military campaign of this scale, launched without the consent of Congress, runs counter to the US Constitution. In the case of Iraq, Congress granted authorization for the use of force in advance. Nothing of the sort has happened here. If it’s all in, then it’s all in – a bet on a swift and spectacular outcome.

But what if it isn’t?

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Israeli official organizes ‘prison tour’ for Jewish settlers to observe torture of Palestinians

Israeli prison authorities gave a tour of a maximum-security facility to Jewish settlers where they held a “Torah lesson” and observed the abuse of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli media reported on 23 February.

Kobi Yaakobi, head of Israel’s prison system, invited 20 members of the synagogue in Har Homa, an illegal West Bank settlement near Jerusalem, on a “safari” tour of Nitzan maximum-security prison.

Palestinian detainees, including alleged members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces, were handcuffed and forced to lie on the ground to be observed by the visitors. The Jewish settlers ate an “indulgent lunch” in front of the prisoners, who were fasting for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The settlers also “blessed” the prison guards.

Israel runs a “network of torture camps,” where rape, physical and psychological abuse, inhuman conditions, deliberate starvation, and denial of medical care are common, according to Israeli rights groups B’Tselem. 

“The transformation of prisons into a network of torture camps is part of the Israeli regime’s coordinated onslaught on Palestinian society, aimed at dismantling the Palestinian collective,” B’Tselem noted.

The Israel Prison Service (IPS) confirmed to Israeli media that its officers accompanied a “rabbi and his entourage” for a sermon and tour of a security prison. 

Yaakobi was appointed as IPS chief in January 2024 by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The IPS chief has helped Ben Gvir implement a policy to deliberately worsen the conditions of Palestinian prisoners.

Yaakobi is currently under investigation for allegedly helping suppress a probe into Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

As of November, at least 98 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 2023, according to Israeli data.

However, the Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (PHR-I) says the real toll is likely substantially higher as hundreds of detainees from Gaza are missing.

On 8 February, Israel returned the bodies and human remains of 120 Palestinians to Gaza without providing any information about their identities or how they were killed.

The remains arrived at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in plain white bags, where forensic teams examined them in an effort to determine their identities and notify grieving families.

“The International Committee of the Red Cross handed over 120 body bags containing 54 bodies as well as skull samples placed in 66 separate bags,” forensic official Omar Suleiman told Al Jazeera.

After Israel returned 120 Palestinian bodies in October, officials in Gaza accused it of stealing the organs of the victims.

Israel has a long history of stealing the organs of Palestinians.

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Ukrainian Christians Go Underground in Face of Persecution and Church Seizures

Some Ukrainian Christians have been forced to retreat to the “catacombs” to worship because of persecution and church seizures, the Daily Caller reported Friday.

Furthermore, the embattled Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is in danger of being shut down under a 2024 law prohibiting churches from having any ties to Russia.

The UOC — which, according to the Daily Caller, “traces its roots to the 17th-century Russian Orthodox Church (ROC)” — claims to have full autonomy from Moscow except for its canonical relationship. (For instance, sacraments performed by the UOC are considered valid in the ROC and vice versa.)

However, wrote the Daily Caller, “Opponents claim the UOC’s divine liturgy often includes Russian propaganda — such as prayers for Patriarch Kirill, head of the ROC, and vocal supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

OCU vs. UOC

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which has no Russian connections, benefits enormously from the government’s antipathy toward the UOC. This is not surprising since the OCU was, at Kyiv’s instigation, “artificially constructed” in 2018 from two schismatic Orthodox branches to serve “the political interests of the government,” Metropolitan Feodosii, head of the Cherkasy UOC, told the Daily Caller.

UOC churches are being seized and transferred to the OCU, with priests and parishioners often brutalized in the process, Feodosii and other UOC leaders allege.

The Daily Caller recounted one such incident:

Nearly a dozen UOC parishioners described to the Caller an alleged violent takeover of St. Michael’s Cathedral in Cherkasy in October 2024.

Parishioners claimed more than 500 men — many wearing masks, camouflage and armed with crowbars and bolt cutters — arrived just after liturgy ended. The men allegedly used tear gas and trapped nearby residents in their homes before parishioners briefly fended them off.

One parishioner showed the Caller bruises still visible on his legs. Another claimed her husband was beaten so badly he could not even talk, and he suffered “many fractures of his bones.” The woman’s youngest child was so traumatized by the event that he went almost a whole year only addressing himself as “kitten” instead of his given name, she told the Caller.

Feodosii allegedly suffered burns and a concussion during the fracas and ended up in the hospital.

“Parishioners alleged priests from the OCU stood along the fence laughing with the police as they waited to take over the property,” wrote the Daily Caller.

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