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.

Ukraine Wants the US to Provide Cluster Bombs to Use With Drones

Ukraine has been seeking cluster bombs from the US to use in its war against Russian forces and is now asking for a type of the controversial munition that they want to adapt so they can be dropped from drones, Reuters reported on Monday.

According to House Reps. Adam Smith (D-WA) and Jason Crow (D-CO), Ukraine is seeking the MK-20, an air-delivered cluster bomb. They said Ukrainian officials were asking members of Congress to persuade the White House to sign off on the delivery during the recent Munich Security Conference.

Cluster munitions scatter small bombs over large areas, making them more indiscriminate than other munitions. According to Reuters, the MK-20 releases 240 dart-like submunitions or bomblets after being launched.

The bomblets in cluster munitions often don’t explode on impact, making them a huge danger to civilians who comes across them, similar to land mines. The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions that bans the weapons has over 100 signatories, but the US, Russia, and Ukraine are not parties to the treaty.

Since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions. Kyiv was also accused of using the bombs in populated areas of Donestk back in 2014.

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Countless Americans Plunge Into Despair As Hunger Spreads Like Wildfire All Across America

We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time.  A couple of factors are combining to push millions of Americans into a state of food insecurity.  First of all, food prices have been rising aggressively throughout the past year, and so our money does not go nearly as far as it once did.  Meanwhile, food stamp benefits are being slashed.  The federal government had greatly enhanced food stamp benefits for many Americans during the pandemic, but now that emergency program is coming to an end.  So what this means is that many Americans are going to have very little money to spend on food at a time when economic conditions are starting to get really rough.

The Washington Post recently sent a reporter named Tim Craig to Kentucky, and he discovered that poor people are waiting in “a mile-long line” just to get some free food…

As he claimed the first spot in a mile-long line for free food in the Appalachian foothills, Danny Blair vividly recalled receiving the letter announcing that his pandemic-era benefit to help buy groceries was about to be slashed.

Kentucky lawmakers had voted to end the state’s health emergency last spring, by default cutting food stamp benefits created to help vulnerable Americans like Blair weather the worst of covid-19. Instead of $200 a month, he would get just $30.

Blair actually gets up at 4 AM in the morning so that he can be first in line for these handouts.

On the Friday that the reporter from the Washington Post interviewed him, he ended up staying in that line for nine hours.

I couldn’t imagine waiting in line for that long, but Blair feels like this is what he and his wife must do in order to survive…

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DHS has a program gathering domestic intelligence — and virtually no one knows about it

For years, the Department of Homeland Security has run a virtually unknown program gathering domestic intelligence, one of many revelations in a wide-ranging tranche of internal documents reviewed by POLITICO.

Those documents also reveal that a significant number of employees in DHS’s intelligence office have raised concerns that the work they are doing could be illegal.

Under the domestic-intelligence program, officials are allowed to seek interviews with just about anyone in the United States. That includes people held in immigrant detention centers, local jails, and federal prison. DHS’s intelligence professionals have to say they’re conducting intelligence interviews, and they have to tell the people they seek to interview that their participation is voluntary. But the fact that they’re allowed to go directly to incarcerated people — circumventing their lawyers — raises important civil liberties concerns, according to legal experts.

That specific element of the program, which has been in place for years, was paused last year because of internal concerns. DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which runs the program, uses it to gather information about threats to the U.S., including transnational drug trafficking and organized crime. But the fact that this low-profile office is collecting intelligence by questioning people in the U.S. is virtually unknown.

The inner workings of the program — called the “Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program” — are described in the large tranche of internal documents POLITICO reviewed from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. Those documents and additional interviews revealed widespread internal concerns about legally questionable tactics and political pressure. The documents also show that people working there fear punishment if they speak out about mismanagement and abuses.

One unnamed employee — quoted in an April 2021 document — said leadership of I&A’s Office of Regional Intelligence “is ‘shady’ and ‘runs like a corrupt government.’” Another document said some employees worried so much about the legality of their activities that they wanted their employer to cover legal liability insurance.

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The Myth That America Prospered After WWII Despite Extremely High Taxes on the Rich

Left-wing politicians who demand higher taxes on the rich argue that the United States has, in the past, prospered when tax rates were very high, proving that high taxes do not harm the economy. And it is true: In the 1950s and early 1960s, the top federal personal income tax rate in the US was a horrendous 91 percent, after which it was lowered to 70 percent. Under Ronald Reagan, it was then successively reduced to 28 percent by 1988 (before being raised several times and then lowered again under Trump).

However, as Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, and John Early show in their book The Myth of American Inequality: “The top income tax in 1962 was 91 percent. After deductions and credits, only 447 tax filers out of 71 million paid any taxes at the top rate. The top 1 percent of income earners on average paid 16.1 percent of their income in federal and payroll taxes while the top 10 percent paid 14.4 percent and the bottom 50 percent paid 7.0 percent.”

Even when the top tax rate was lowered to 70 percent, not much changed. Only 3,626 out of 75 million taxpayers actually paid taxes up to 70 percent. Interestingly, the actual percentage paid by the top 1 percent of earners in the US was only 16.1 percent in 1962, when the top marginal rate was 91 percent. However, in 1988, when the top rate was only 28 percent, the percentage paid by the top 1 percent of earners had risen to 21.5 percent! As the top tax rate fell by two-thirds, the percentage of their income that the top 1 percent of tax filers paid in federal income and payroll taxes rose by a third.

This seems paradoxical, but it is logical, because it is not only the tax rate that is decisive, but the amount of income that is actually taxable. In the pre-Reagan era, there were numerous exemptions, loopholes, and tax-saving schemes that top earners could use to reduce their taxable income. Reagan abolished many of these opportunities, thereby increasing the proportion of income that was subject to taxation.

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New York City Spending $5 Million PER DAY on Housing and Feeding Illegal Immigrants

New York City is reportedly spending five million dollars a day on the feeding and housing of illegal immigrants now living on the city.

In what world is this kind of figure acceptable or even sustainable? How long can this possibly go on?

Think about the size of that number and imagine what could be done with that money to help American citizens.

If New York City has that kind of money to spend on illegal immigrants, why are there homeless people in the city? How is anyone in the city going hungry?

The New York Post reports:

NYC official says city is spending an estimated $5M a day on housing, feeding migrants

New York City is spending nearly $5 million a day to house and feed thousands of migrants — but the Big Apple is still barely getting a dime in aid from President Biden and Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The mind-blowing cost of the crisis was revealed Friday afternoon after city Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol told a City Council panel that Gotham’s Department of Homeless Services and Health & Hospitals each spend an average of $363 daily to provide food and shelter for just a single migrant.

Given that there are more than 30,000 migrants currently being housed in city taxpayer-funded facilities, that would amount to a daily staggering bill of $10.89 million.

City Hall then waited until Friday night to officially correct Iscol’s comments.

After Mayor Eric Adams’ administration refused for several hours to go on the record, a spokeswoman, Kate Smart, finally wrote in an e-mail to The Post that “$364 per household is the per diem for asylum seekers.”

Based on what City Hall would only say on background earlier, “there are 12,700 households currently in our care,” that puts the daily migrant cost for the city still at a colossal $4,622,800.

This is insanity.

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Elon Musk Says He Might Put A Propaganda Warning Label On CNN’s Tweets

Twitter owner Elon Musk suggested Monday that he may be compelled to place propaganda warnings on tweets posted by CNN after it emerged that the network actively discouraged staff not to look into or share any COVID lab origin information.

Fox News reports that an inside source at CNN has charged that the former president Jeff Zucker gave the order to everyone at CNN to back off any talk about COVID having originated in a Chinese lab, labelling it a “Trump talking point.”

After a bombshell leak revealed that the Department of Energy has concluded, in addition to the State Department and the FBI, that the virus did likely leak from the Wuhan lab, the CNN insider said “People are slowly waking up from the fog,” adding “It is kind of crazy that we didn’t chase it harder.”

Not only did CNN back off the lab leak theory, it began actively trying to debunk it with minions like Oliver Darcy writing stories headlined “Here’s how to debunk coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories from friends and family.”

With all of this in mind, Musk responded Monday to a Twitter user who asked him, “When are you going to label CNN as State Affiliated Media?”

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It Now Looks Likely That Government Created Covid-19—and Then Tried to Hide the Truth

More than three years after the Covid-19 outbreak, the world is still reeling from the virus and the global response to it.

Some 6.8 million people have already died from the virus, according to official statistics, including an estimated 1.1 million Americans. Each day the toll climbs higher; globally, more than 10,000 people die each week.

A bevy of government assessments now indicate that the likely source of the virus was not a wet market, but the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which for years has dabbled in the creation of chimeric coronaviruses.

Last Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US Department of Energy had concluded the Wuhan lab was likely the origin of the pandemic. Days later the FBI chimed in, declaring that “the Bureau has assessed that the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a lab incident in Wuhan, China.”

If true, it’s not hyperbole to say this would be the greatest scandal of the century.

As the Washington Post reported nearly two years ago, State Department cables had previously warned of safety issues at the WIV, where researchers were studying bat coronaviruses. The cables were sent after science diplomats made a January 2018 visit to the Wuhan lab on behalf of the US embassy in Beijing. What the officials found at the lab, which in 2015 had become China’s first facility to achieve the maximum level of international bioresearch safety, shocked them.

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NBC Journalist Added to Ukraine’s ‘Kill List’ After Reporting the Truth About Crimea

NBC News journalist Keir Simmons has been added to Ukraine’s CIA-backed “kill list” after he reported the truth about Crimea, the contested region that seceded from Ukraine to join Russia in 2014, voting in favor of a secession referendum by more than 95%. That action kicked off the first phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Now, in 2023, the Ukrainians say that they will not stop fighting until they’ve invaded Crimea and control it once more, albeit, against the population’s will.

Keir Simmons of NBC News issued a recent report from the ground in Crimea, interviewing residents first-hand and asking for their opinions on the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, and the political tensions at the center of it. According to Simmons, everyone he interviewed was pro-Russia. As a result, Simmons has been added to Ukraine’s CIA-backed “kill list,” joining American citizen Jackson Hinkle and Pink Floyd lead man plus anti-war activist Roger Waters as those who’ve been declared top enemies of Ukraine for not buying into their war and promoting the continued supply of NATO financial and military aid.

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The QAnon Queen Is Printing Her Own Currency Now

Flanked by two of her closest followers, the QAnon Queen of Canada gave a gracious thank you to her followers who—with their hard-earned, real-world cash—funded her most recent venture: so-called “loyalty” money. 

“Thank you to those who sent money to help print your loyalty money,” the self-proclaimed queen Romana Didulo said in a Telegram live stream in late January, when she introduced the bills and proudly presented them to her followers. “Everyone, continue to send money so that we can continue to print.”

The bills, which say 100,000 on them referring to an unknown currency, are white and feature her emblem in the middle flanked by two flags. Larger than normal cash, they have the look of a novelty check or board game money. Despite their cheap look, Didulo promised her fans they have interdimensional security devices on them. 

In chat rooms dedicated to Didulo, her fans celebrated the false hope given to them. One person said that he’s going to attempt to pay his utility bills with the money, and another said she’s excited because they’ve been living in their car and this could get a roof over their heads. 

“I am so hopeful that the loyalty money will allow me to purchase a prefab home or one of those tiny homes,” she wrote. “How wonderful that would be for me and many others like me around Canada.”

“I can’t wait to hear when or how I can use this loyalty money for this purpose.” 

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‘Oops! … I did it again!’ Establishment media forced into major recent retractions

Establishment media outlets, including NPR and The Washington Post, have been forced to issue major retractions in recent days, correcting misreporting on matters ranging from FBI whistleblowers to how President Joe Biden’s son Beau Biden died. 

NPR was forced to issue a correction Saturday to clarify that Beau Biden died from brain cancer in 2015, not from injuries he received while stationed with the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, as stated in the original report.

The public outlet is not the only source to misrepresent Beau Biden’s death. The president himself has previously claimed that his late son died in Iraq, not from cancer.

NPR also walked back a claim in an article last month headlined “Speaker McCarthy leads first border trip in his new role. Critics call it a photo op.” The piece inaccurately reported that no Democrats attended a hearing at a Texas border town, bolstering critics’ claims that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans were using the border visit to generate media coverage.

“In fact, some Democrats attended,” NPR later clarified.

The New York Times, the Washington Post and Rolling Stone all issued corrections to articles over the weekend about a Democrat House Judiciary Committee report criticizing Republican whistleblowers and GOP-led House investigations.

The Times admitted Saturday it had incorrectly stated that FBI whistleblower Stephen Friend worked for the Center for Renewing America, largely funded by former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows’ Conservative Partnership Institute, in an article headlined “G.O.P. Witnesses, Paid by Trump Ally, Embraced Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theories.” The Times issued a correction stating: “The center is affiliated with the institute and sustained mostly by donations; it is not largely funded by the institute.”

Rolling Stone corrected an inaccurate claim regarding former FBI analyst George Hill, whose attorney Jason Foster says retired from the agency on “good terms.”

Rolling Stone reported originally that Hill’s FBI security clearance had been “revoked” when in fact it was in good standing. The magazine said it mistook Hill for another whistleblower, Steve Friend, whose clearance had been suspended for a review but not revoked either.

“This story has been corrected to reflect that Steven Friend’s security clearance was suspended and George Hill retired of his own volition,” Rolling Stone stated.

“Obviously, they couldn’t keep the details of George Hill’s and [Stephen Friend’s] cases straight,” Foster tweeted. “So, they just blended them together with some fiction out of thin air about how Hill had to retire because his clearance was revoked and he couldn’t find work anymore.”

Rolling Stone has been called out before for media ethics issues. 

In November 2014, the magazine published an article titled “A Rape on Campus” claiming that a University of Virginia student was the victim of a fraternity gang rape. The story was retracted in April 2015, and the outlet lost a defamation lawsuit brough by a university official and settled other cases with the fraternity and some of its members. 

The Columbia Journalism Review said at the time that “Rolling Stone needs a transparency lesson” and the outlet “damaged the credibility of an important movement” bringing attention to sexual assault. 

The Washington Post, which still uses the slogan “Democracy Dies in the Darkness,” has issued an alarming number of corrections this year alone to stories dealing with conservatives.

Most recently, the outlet issued a correction to a Friday article headlined “Democrats challenge credibility of GOP witnesses who embrace false Jan. 6 claims,” stating: “An earlier version of this article erroneously said former FBI official Stephen Friend had not reported to a supervisor one of his concerns related to the use of a SWAT team in arrests related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riots. He said he did tell the supervisor, but he did not mention it in a written declaration.”

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