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.

Conservative host raises more than $100K for AOC’s grandma

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh has raised more than $100,000 for US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s grandmother — after the pol was slammed on Twitter for not helping her “abuela” enough.

Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) had tweeted a thread Thursday depicting the conditions of her grandmother’s home, which was damaged during Hurricane Maria in 2017 — taking aim at the Trump administration for blocking aid to Puerto Rico. 

Walsh was among those quick to fire back at the progressive lawmaker, alleging she was allowing her grandmother to “suffer” in “squalid conditions” while she herself lived in posh comfort.  

Keep reading

FBI demands info on readers of USA Today story about agents killed in child porn raid

The FBI is demanding that newspaper giant Gannett hand over identifying information on readers of a USA Today story about a suspect in a child porn case who killed two agents in February.

Federal investigators served the company with a subpoena in April seeking the IP addresses and phone numbers of the people who accessed a news article, between 8:03 a.m. and 8:38 a.m. on Feb. 2, about the Florida shooting that left two FBI agents dead and three others wounded.

The information sought by the feds, “relates to a federal criminal investigation being conducted by the FBI,” according to the subpoena.

Gannett, the publisher of the paper, fought back against the order in federal court on May 27, claiming the demand is unconstitutional and in violation of the Department of Justice’s policy for subpoenaing information from the press.

“A government demand for records that would identify specific individuals who read specific expressive materials, like the Subpoena at issue here, invades the First Amendment rights of both publisher and reader, and must be quashed accordingly,” Garnett lawyers wrote in the motion, made public Wednesday.

Keep reading

‘The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind’

A few weeks ago, someone sent me a recording of a talk called “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” It was delivered at the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center by a New York-based psychiatrist as part of Grand Rounds, an ongoing program in which clinicians and others in the field lecture students and faculty. 

When I listened to the talk I considered the fact that it might be some sort of elaborate prank. But looking at the doctor’s social media, it seems completely genuine.

Here are some of the quotes from the lecture:

  • This is the cost of talking to white people at all. The cost of your own life, as they suck you dry. There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil. (Time stamp: 6:45)
  • I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body, and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a fucking favor.  (Time stamp: 7:17)
  • White people are out of their minds and they have been for a long time.  (Time stamp: 17:06)
  • We are now in a psychological predicament, because white people feel that we are bullying them when we bring up race. They feel that we should be thanking them for all that they have done for us. They are confused, and so are we. We keep forgetting that directly talking about race is a waste of our breath. We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero, to accept responsibility. It ain’t gonna happen. They have five holes in their brain. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall. It’s just like sort of not a good idea. (Time stamp 17:13)
  • We need to remember that directly talking about race to white people is useless, because they are at the wrong level of conversation. Addressing racism assumes that white people can see and process what we are talking about. They can’t. That’s why they sound demented. They don’t even know they have a mask on. White people think it’s their actual face. We need to get to know the mask. (Time stamp 17:54)

Keep reading

Wuhan lab was to get $1.5M in federal grant money for bat study, emails show

The Wuhan Institute of Virology was awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars more in federal grant money than chief White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci indicated to lawmakers last week, newly released emails show.

The messages, obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, show that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) allocated $826,277 to the lab over a six-year period ending in 2019 via the New York City-based non-profit EcoHealth Alliance.

But Fauci, the longtime NIAID director, told a House Appropriations subcommittee on May 25 that the funding commitment “was about $600,000 over a period of five years, so it was a modest amount.”

US funding of the lab has come under scrutiny amid the ongoing controversy over whether the coronavirus leaked from the research hub into the 11 million-strong city of Wuhan, triggering the worst global pandemic in a century.

Keep reading

Jeff Bezos’ Fake News in the Newspaper He Really Owns

Media criticism sometimes involves reading between the lines, assessing the layered meanings of journalistic rhetoric, or considering what’s left unsaid in a given conversation. But we shouldn’t be numb to all the times media problems hit you like a sock in the jaw.

That was the case when readers opened the Washington Post online recently to find a full page “native” ad—that’s the kind designed to look like news—from Amazon (Jacobin, 5/27/21). Whose owner Jeff Bezos owns the Post and soon MGM (Washington Post, 5/26/21), among much else.

Blended in with the Post‘s banner and “Democracy Dies in Darkness” tagline, readers got text about how Amazon supports a raise in the federal minimum wage and has been paying its workers $15 an hour since 2018. A big picture showed an African-American employee and her child talking about how Amazon‘s generosity is allowing them to move to a bigger home.

Never mind that, as many could tell you, the company was dragged kicking and screaming to that wage increase (Jacobin, 10/2/18); that they continue to fund groups that strenuously oppose a $15 minimum wage (Jacobin, 5/27/21), like the US Chamber of Commerce; that they have vigorously and vehemently opposed union organizing (New York Times, 3/16/21)—and that no wage can justify the dangerous and degrading conditions Amazon is reported to subject many of its workers to (Intercept, 3/25/21).

Keep reading

Bing Censors Image Search for ‘Tank Man’ Even in US

Bing, the search engine owned by Microsoft, is not displaying image results for a search for “Tank man,” even when searching from the United States. The apparent censorship comes on the anniversary of China’s violent crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

“There are no results for tank man,” the Bing website reads after searching for the term. “Tank man” relates to the infamous image of a single protester standing in front of a line of Chinese tanks during the crackdown.

China censors and blocks distribution of discussion of tank man and Tiananmen Square more generally. This year, anniversary events in Hong Kong have dwindled in size after authorities banned a vigil.

Keep reading

Barack and Michelle Obama Creating Netflix Animated Series to ‘Reframe’ Children’s Understanding of Government

Barack and Michelle Obama are creating a Netflix animated series designed to “reframe” how children think about government and civic engagement, with musical performances by artists including Adam Lambert, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Janelle Monáe.

Netflix announced the ten-episode We the People is set to debut July 4. The Obamas, who have an ongoing production deal with Netflix, are serving as executive producers on the series, along with Doc McStuffins creator Chris Nee and ABC’s Black-ish creator Kenya Barris.

In a press release sent to multiple news outlets, the streamer called the show “an exuberant call to action for everyone to rethink civics as a living, breathing thing and to reframe their understanding of what government and citizenship mean in a modern world.”

Keep reading

California — a state that never practiced slavery — moves forward with slavery reparations plan

On Tuesday, a first-of-its-kind task force charged with studying the issue and developing proposals for redress convened for its inaugural meeting, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The task force is the result of a bill signed last year by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom that required members to draft a formal apology to black Americans and come up with various financial remedies for the lingering effects of discriminatory practices in the country.

“As our country reckons with our painful legacy of racial injustice, California again is poised to lead the way towards a more equitable and inclusive future for all,” Newsom said at the meeting.

California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta added, “Although the horrors of slavery may have begun in the past, its harms are felt every single day by Black Americans in the present.”

Keep reading