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.

The Fed Still Doesn’t Understand Where Inflation Comes From

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams now says inflation has likely peaked and that monetary policy is “well positioned” to bring inflation back toward the Fed’s 2% objective. Williams acknowledged inflation remains “unquestionably too high,” but argued that the worst of the tariff effects have passed, housing inflation is moderating, oil prices have peaked, and disruptions tied to the Middle East conflict should ease over time. He forecasts inflation falling to roughly 3.25% by the end of the year and gradually returning to 2% by 2028.

This is precisely where central bankers always get it wrong. They continue assuming the geopolitical landscape will cooperate with their economic forecasts. There is absolutely no evidence supporting that assumption. If anything, the evidence points in exactly the opposite direction. The Middle East is becoming more unstable, not less. Ukraine remains a war of attrition consuming enormous military resources every day. Europe is dramatically expanding defense spending. China is eyeing Taiwan and waiting for the US to stretch itself too thin to protect it. NATO members are rebuilding their militaries at levels not seen in decades. Governments everywhere are preparing for a world of prolonged geopolitical confrontation.

Wars are the most inflationary events imaginable.

Williams argues that oil prices have peaked and that disruptions in the Middle East should gradually subside. That is an assumption, not a forecast supported by events. The ceasefire that briefly lowered energy prices has already broken down. Shipping risks remain elevated. Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and the Red Sea continue presenting risks capable of sending commodity prices sharply higher overnight. It only takes one escalation to completely invalidate months of inflation projections.

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“Not Seen Since World War II”: New Texas Shipyard To Hire 10,000 Workers And Mass-Produce Drone Boats

Building on our coverage of autonomous maritime warfare this week, Saronic Technologies is preparing to build a massive shipyard on the Texas coast capable of producing autonomous surface vessels at scale, a project expected to create more than 10,000 jobs.

Bloomberg reports that the Austin-based technology company, which specializes in maritime drones, is building a $3.2 billion shipyard at the Port of Brownsville on the Texas coast. The facility will manufacture medium- and large-class autonomous vessels.

Earlier this week, the US military used Saronic’s Corsair one-way attack vessels in a swarm strike against a submarine and ship-maintenance facility at Iran’s Bandar Abbas naval base.

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Elderly Italian man sentenced to life in prison for defending his family against thugs…


Something disgraceful and horrific just went down in Italy, and you need to know about it because many decent, law-abiding Italians believe this was a brazen and heartless move by the “communist” wing of their government.

It all started when a decent, law-abiding man who owned a jewelry store, about 31 miles from Turin, was confronted by robbers.

There’s a moment during every violent crime when the victim has no idea whether he and his family are going to live or die. At that moment, the bad guys control all of it, and every decision is made in a split second.

Later, from the safety of a courtroom, judges can slow everything down, examine each movement, and decide exactly when the danger supposedly ended. It’s basically armchair quarterbacking of a dangerous and scary situation.

An Italian man by the name of Mario Roggero is now going to prison for the rest of his life because Italy’s highest court decided he crossed the line.

The 72-year-old jeweler had worked for nearly half a century without a criminal record. Then three men entered his family’s jewelry store, threatened everyone inside, tied up his daughter, and fled with money and jewelry. Roggero followed them into the parking lot and opened fire, killing two and wounding the third.

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Trump Highlights Illicit Democrat-Aligned Michigan Voter Registration Group in Thursday Address – But Several More Similar Leftist Groups Are Operating Throughout the Country

President Trump on Thursday night mentioned illicit Democrat-aligned voter registration group that was caught dumping nearly 10,000 ballot registrations in Muskegon, Michigan prior to the 2020 election.  The FBI later revealed in an email sent out in February 2023 that 13 of 20 ballot registrations were fraudulent, or 65%, in the stack of registrations delivered to the Muskegon clerk prior to the 2020 presidential election.

In case you have not been paying attention, leftist groups around the country have been caught corrupting our elections by dumping tens of thousands of bogus ballot registrations into our voter rolls. This is taking place in state after state.

PENNSYLVANIA

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania city officials announced in October 2024 that they were investigating a massive fraudulent voter registration operation investigation involving thousands of fraudulent voter registrations. At least 2,500 ballot registrations were in question.

Lehigh County, Pennsylvania announced that they were also investigating hundreds of fake ballot registrations that were turned in recently by a questionable voter registration group. Lancaster, Monroe and York Counties in Pennsylvania have reported similar criminal acts and they are investigating. At least two counties reported that Field+Media Corps was behind the thousands of fraudulent registrations. The ballot registration harvesting group is based in Arizona.

MICHIGAN

The Gateway Pundit reported extensively about the leftist group GBI Strategies, a Democrat-linked group that received funding from Joe Biden and the Democrat Senatorial Campaign, that was caught dumping thousands of fraudulent ballots into the 2020 election in Michigan. GBI Strategies had “canvassers” working in several black-majority cities in Michigan, including Flint, Benton Harbor, Ypsilanti, Inkster, Southfield, Muskegon, Lansing, and Saginaw.

The FBI took over the GBI investigation in where it went to die.

An official with GBI, Brianna Hawkins, admitted to police that the group turned in hundreds of fake registrations and was operating in several states and Washington DC.

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Safeguarding Trust In Our Elections

As a Connecticut resident, I value a democracy where every eligible vote counts and every citizen can have full confidence in the results. Fair, secure, and transparent elections are essential to our shared civic life. That is why I am concerned about legislation passed this year in Hartford that expanded no-excuse absentee voting and placed greater emphasis on access than on safeguards.

I appreciate the Republican representatives who voted “no” on these changes. Their position is grounded in facts, recent experiences here in Connecticut, and simple common sense. Weakening existing safeguards does not truly expand voting rights — it risks undermining them by creating new opportunities for fraud and eroding public confidence.

Nationwide, inaccurate voter rolls remain a serious concern. Audits in states such as Virginia, Texas, Georgia, and Michigan have identified non-citizens, deceased individuals, and duplicate registrations still listed as active voters. These are not minor clerical issues; they require consistent maintenance to keep elections clean. Relaxing standards in Connecticut would overlook these important lessons.

Mail-in and absentee ballots carry known vulnerabilities.

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House Passes Bill Preventing Credit Card Companies from Tracking Gun Sales

On July 14, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to block credit card companies from tracking gun and ammunition sales.

The bill, H.R. 1181, passed on a vote of 221 to 201. Two-hundred-and-fifteen Republicans voted for the bill, along with five Democrats and one Independent.

H.R. 1181 is sponsored by Riley Moore (R-WV).

Breitbart News reported Moore’s introduction of the bill on February 12, 2025, noting that he titled it the “Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act.”

He introduced it after major credit card companies succumbed to the gun control lobby during the Biden Administration and made plans to track the sales of guns and ammo.

For example, on September 11, 2022, Breitbart News pointed out Visa caved to pressure from gun control groups and New York Democrats, agreeing to flag gun and ammo purchases via a merchant code. The Associated Press observed that Mastercard and other major credit card companies also agreed to flag gun sales. On March 2, 2023, Breitbart News noted Discover was slated to begin tracking gun and ammunition purchases with the new MCC in April 2023.

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Stop the Presses! Congress Denies Netanyahu Something He Asked For!

“I want to stop American aid,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 30. “It’s like welfare; I don’t want it.”

Usually, Netanyahu gets anything he demands from Uncle Sugar. But on July 15, the US House of Representatives voted, 314-104 against even partially granting his wish.

Every Republican except Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and more than half of Democrats, voted down an amendment that would have removed $3.3 billion in “Foreign Military Financing” aid from the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act.

What’s up with that?

Was Netanyahu perhaps a wee bit disingenuous in his public request, passing word through back channels that he didn’t really mean it?

Is US Congress more “pro-Israeli” than Netanyahu himself, or perhaps just so addicted to spending that they can’t bear to cut anything at all, even if the recipient doesn’t want it?

Some combination of the above?

This may be the first time I’ve ever found myself in agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu on anything.

Well, partial agreement, anyway.

US aid to Israel isn’t “like welfare.”

It IS welfare.

What does the US regime in return for its billions of dollars per year? Two things:

  1. A way of re-routing tax money to crony “defense contractors” with Israel as the cut-out to obscure the  domestic end of the corporate welfare pipeline; and
  2. Dragged into a Middle Eastern garrison ethno-state’s every conflict with other regional powers — powers which substantially differ from Israel mainly in ethnicity, prevailing religion, and actually having some oil to make the entanglement worthwhile.

Don’t give me the “liberal democracy” stuff. The Israeli regime censors the press, bans political parties it doesn’t like, confines millions of Arabs to apartheid-style “homelands” as rightsless, non-voting serfs under Israeli rule, and just passed a law declaring that theological studies in one, and only one, religion are “fundamental” to its existence and thus deserving of exemption from the compulsory military hitch mere “secular” Jews serve. Politically, the main difference between Israel and Iran is that in Iran, Jews are guaranteed at least one seat in parliament.

Some “pro-Israel” — and “pro-US-aid-to-Israel” — people I talk with love to inform me that Israel has a longer average lifespan, a lower infant mortality rate, and a lower homicide rate (excluding the  Palestinians ruled by, and murdered by, Israeli troops) than the US.

That doesn’t strike me as the “gotcha” they seem to think. Could those billions in aid possibly have anything to do with the statistical differences? Every dollar in US aid is a dollar more the Israeli regime gets to spend on healthcare and police salaries instead of on weapons to power its expansionist foreign policy.

This time, Congress should have given Netanyahu what he said he wanted.

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Microsoft Confirms Windows GDID Device Identifier That Cannot Be Disabled, Documented in FBI Case Filing

Microsoft has publicly acknowledged the existence of the Global Device Identifier (GDID), a device-specific ID assigned to Windows installations, in a federal complaint filed by US prosecutors against an alleged member of the Scattered Spider hacking group.

The ID is generated when Windows is set up with a Microsoft Account, persists through Windows updates, and cannot be disabled without affecting Windows activation and Microsoft Store apps.

Microsoft briefly mentioned GDID in the Azure Monitor documentation, describing it only as “an identifier used by Microsoft internally.” The complaint cites a Microsoft representative describing GDID as “a persistent, device-level identifier designed to uniquely identify an installation of a Windows operating system on a device, either a physical device such as a mobile phone or laptop or a virtual machine, across certain Microsoft services and scenarios.”

What the Windows Global Device Identifier Is and How the FBI Used It

The Global Device Identifier (GDID) is a permanent ID assigned when Windows provisions against a Microsoft Account. It is generated by a chain of Windows services.

The wlidsvc service requests a Device PUID from login.live.com, which is then registered into Microsoft’s Device Directory Service by the Connected Devices Platform.

Delivery Optimization reports the GDID back to Microsoft when the PC shares or downloads updates. This identifier is stored in the Windows registry under HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\IdentityCRL\ExtendedProperties and formatted with a lowercase “g” prefix followed by a decimal number.

It is reported to Microsoft servers and remains persistent across Windows updates, but it is not retained after a clean reinstall. Microsoft has acknowledged that one user can have multiple GDIDs linked through their account, OneDrive, and activation history.

The FBI used the GDID to track Peter Stokes, alleged member of Scattered Spider, across VPN connections, proxy servers, and through four countries over roughly eight months.

According to the complaint, the GDID g:6755467234350028 was recorded visiting the ngrok signup page at the same time an account used in the attack was created via a Tzulo VPN proxy. Three hours later, the same GDID accessed a victim retailer’s website through the same proxy.

The device was cross-referenced with IP addresses linked to Stokes’s accounts on Snapchat, Facebook, Apple, and Ubisoft across Estonia, New York, Thailand, and other locations. Stokes’s public Snapchat photos matched hotel bookings, locations, and travel timelines associated with the GDID.

The persistent nature of the GDID across VPN sessions proved a key investigative asset. While VPN IP addresses change frequently, the underlying Windows installation continued reporting the same identifier, aiding investigators in their tracking efforts.

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Politicians Should Stop Hiding Behind the ‘Two-State Solution’ Fantasy

Creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel seemed feasible when President Bill Clinton hosted the signing of the Oslo accords at the White House in September 1993. The goal was reaffirmed in 2011 when 90 percent of the Senate co-sponsored a resolution supporting “a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

But today, the two-state scenario is far-fetched to the point of delusion if not evasion.

For politicians, it has become a box to check. According to data from the American Jewish Congress, every Democrat and most Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee currently say they support “the two-state solution.”

Whatever the rhetoric, ending Israeli control over Palestinians in the territories occupied since 1967 is not on the table.

“Nobody who talks about a so-called ‘two-state solution’ talks about an end to settlements and colonization, and an end to the occupation,” Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi said in an interview this year. “If you don’t have those as the preconditions, it’s not a state – it’s some reshuffling of a status quo of colonization and occupation.”

At best, only such reshuffling is on the horizon. The essence of colonization and occupation is baked into Israel’s Jewish nationalism that has hardened into systemic cruelty toward Palestinians undergoing genocide.

Yet the boilerplate refrain for a two-state solution has great political utility in the United States. For most politicians, it’s very handy for virtue signaling. The same holds true for pro-Israel pressure groups. Even AIPAC, while incapable of faulting the Israeli government for anything, blames Palestinians for refusing “to negotiate on the basis of the Trump peace framework – which envisions a two-state solution.”

Especially for politicians eager to have the deep-pocketed Israel lobby on their side at election time, saying “two-state solution” has become little more than a way of dodging key facts that exist on the ground. The Israeli military now controls 70 percent of Gaza after reducing it to rubble that has buried an unknown number of bodies. The 2.1 million Palestinians still alive in the enclave are confined to just 30 percent of its 141 square miles, under terrible living conditions.

Meanwhile, the proliferation of settlements in the West Bank has pushed Palestinian people into smaller and smaller fragmented areas, divided by hundreds of checkpoints, while they face lawless violence from Israelis akin to the KKK’s terrorizing of blacks in the Jim Crow South. Several hundred settlements and outposts in the West Bank are now home to upward of 730,000 Israelis, with more arriving all the time.

Given such realities, advocates for a two-state solution have no credible answer to a basic question that is rarely asked: Where would the putative Palestinian state actually be located?

When Britain, Canada and Australia announced their formal recognition of a Palestinian state last fall, putting the number of nations doing so over 150, they were recognizing a phantom. “Israelis and Palestinians alike say the possibility of a two-state solution seems more remote than ever,” the New York Times reported at the time. “Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has devastated the enclave. Israeli settlements have become ever more entrenched in the West Bank.”

But in U.S. politics, the routine is to maintain the convenient fantasy of a two-state solution. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris was simply offering up requisite platitudes during a CNN interview in August 2024 when she declared her commitment to “work toward a two-state solution, where Israel is secure and in equal measure the Palestinians have security and self-determination and dignity.”

David Mandel, a Sacramento chapter leader of Jewish Voice for Peace, told me: “In light of demographic and political realities, a ‘two-state solution’ has become a mostly empty mantra, frequently mouthed by politicians who did nothing to bring it about when it might have been a viable path to end violence and build toward something better.” He added: “It has also become a political refuge for many Americans, including a great many Jews, who are generally progressive and want to differentiate themselves from Benjamin Netanyahu and his ilk, but only performatively, without joining efforts to end real violations of Palestinian rights like occupation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide.”

A grim truth is that no one really knows what a genuine “solution” might be for the mega-tragedy that continues to unfold in Palestine. Unhelpful from Americans is the facile prescription of a two-state solution or, for that matter, any other supposed remedy. Claiming to know what’s best for Palestinians is built into a colonial mindset that has propelled intervention in the region for more than a hundred years.

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Democrats Are Panicking and Scrambling to Hide Something Big

Things just keep getting worse for the Democratic Party, and at this rate, they may need a new metaphor because “keeps getting worse” barely covers it anymore. We already told you the polls are tightening heading into the midterms in November, which was bad enough on its own. Now it turns out the party’s situation is so much worse than we already know, and the people running the show apparently don’t want you to know just how bad it really is

In a bizarre move, the Democratic National Committee required its senior leadership to sign non-disclosure agreements before a private meeting on the party’s finances, according to two people familiar with the conversations who spoke to Axios. That alone is a break from past practice. DNC officers are high-ranking members of chair Ken Martin’s team, not entry-level staffers. Officers at that level don’t typically get handed a confidentiality agreement before they can hear how much money they have in their piggy bank and what they plan to do about it.

Make no mistake about it, you don’t slap NDAs on your own leadership team unless you’re worried about what might leak. And boy, it’s gotta be something really juicy.

The private senior officers’ meeting happened on June 25, five days before the Supreme Court issued a ruling that reshaped party fundraising rules. Martin has been fending off a crisis of confidence among Democrat donors, operatives, and even DNC members over how he’s managing the party, especially with the Republican National Committee sitting on a huge fundraising advantage without any debt.

And the numbers justify the panic. Through the end of May, the DNC had nearly $15 million on hand but $18 million in debt. The RNC, meanwhile, had $125 million on hand and zero debt. In other words, the Democrat Party is running on fumes, and they know it.

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