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.

4chan users claim to have hacked Hunter Biden’s iCloud account

The contents of Hunter Biden’s iCloud account have allegedly been hacked by users of the 4chan community, who posted screenshots purported to be from his phone and computer on the website’s main political forum late Saturday night.

Administrators on the image board moved quickly in the hours after the content was posted to pull down threads that included materials from the alleged leak, leaving many on the site, which is known for featuring some of the most salacious subject matter on the internet, furious.

The content from the leak could not immediately be verified by the Washington Examiner, and a White House representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was also not immediately clear if the contents of the 4chan leak included any materials from the younger Biden’s infamous laptop, of which the Washington Examiner verified the authenticity earlier this year. The infamous laptop, which emerged into the public view in the final weeks of the 2020 election, contains details about the first son’s financial dealings and personal matters.

Hunter Biden’s financial affairs, including millions of dollars worth of dealings and money transfers tied to countries such as Ukraine, China, and Russia, have been under federal scrutiny since 2018. Hunter Biden, who revealed the existence of an inquiry into his tax affairs just after the 2020 election, previously claimed to be “100% certain” he will be cleared of wrongdoing.

The Washington Examiner was able to confirm the legitimacy of the laptop after obtaining a copy of the hard drive and having it examined by a former Secret Service agent who has testified as a cyber forensics expert in over 100 classified, criminal, and civil matters at the state, federal, and international levels.

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California law may backfire terribly as 70,000 independent truckers could be forced out of work, unleashing ‘devastating’ supply chain misery

A California law threatens to unleash more supply chain misery and inflation on residents of the Golden State by forcing independent truckers out of the workforce.

California Assembly Bill 5 was introduced by former state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat, and signed into law in September 2019 by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

AB5 called for “a person providing labor or services for remuneration shall be considered an employee rather than an independent contractor unless the hiring entity demonstrates that the person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, the person performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and the person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business.”

Certain professions were exempt from AB5, including insurance agents, health care professionals, investment advisers, realtors, barbers, and fishermen. However, truckers were not exempt from AB5.

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Confusion swirls as Colorado imposes new retail delivery fee, catching businesses by surprise

Colorado consumers will start noticing a 27-cent fee on receipts for almost everything that gets delivered to them, including restaurant food, after Colorado’s new “retail delivery fee” took effect July 1.

The fee must be collected and paid to the state by retailers “on all deliveries by motor vehicle to a location in Colorado with at least one item of tangible personal property subject to state sales or use tax,” according to the new law.

The new fee is occurring at a time of record-setting inflation, spiking home prices, and a general sense of how unaffordable living in Colorado has become, particularly in metro Denver. It’s also occurring even as elected officials promise to do everything in their power to lift the economic burden on residents.   

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Officials Demand Mom Pay Them $5,000 for the Privilege of Selling Homemade Cookies

In the land of the free, attempting to earn money in certain professions without first paying the state for the privilege of doing so can and will get you kidnapped and extorted. These laws are applied to children behind lemonade stands as well as adults selling flowers. The state callously and with extreme prejudice has been documented arresting people, or even beating up women to enforce these licensing laws. As the following case illustrates, even mom’s trying to have a bake sale to raise money for their children’s college fund will be subject to the government’s tyranny.

Recently, the state of New Jersey passed an ordinance that allows folks to sell their home-baked goods for commercial purposes. For $100, citizens of New Jersey can obtain a permit to sell their cookies with a yearly gross income maximum of $50,000. This permit is good for two years.

While this price may seem steep to sell cookies from your home, Maria Winter, a fourth grade teacher in Somerville, just found out that $100 is just the beginning.

When Winter applied for a home-baked license in the city of Somerville, she was told that she had to shell out $5,000 — to sell cookies for her son’s college fund.

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While Trying to Kill a Dog, A Cop Missed and Shot His Partner Instead

It is no secret that cops shoot dogs — a lot. Frequent readers of TFTP know too well how many beloved family pets are gunned down every year by public servants in the U.S. It happens so much that there is a term for it called “puppycide.” We have an endless archive of stories in which dogs meet their untimely ends at the end of a cop’s gun.

According to an unofficial count done by an independent research group, Ozymandias Media, a dog is shot by law enforcement every 98 minutes. That number could be higher too as many of the cases never make the media reports.

When these cases do make the local media, often times, they are dismissed by apologists who claim the dogs’ owners were committing crimes or should have had better control of their dog. Unfortunately, however, it is not just people suspected of crimes who see their dogs gunned down in front of them. Cops go onto the wrong properties all the time and kill the dogs of innocent families — and they do so with impunity.

Epitomizing the problem with cops shooting dogs is the fact that even their fellow officers are not safe. According to the Knox County Sheriff’s office, two deputies were responding to a call Tuesday night when a dog came from behind the residence.

Deputy Jordan Hurst then pulled his gun and attempted to kill the dog but instead shot his partner, deputy Lydia Driver.

Driver was taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center and is recovering from emergency surgery in the ICU. She is expected to recover and according to the sheriff, she is in good spirits.

Hurst has since been placed on paid administrative leave and no details — including the reason for the deputies walking into the yard — have been released. No arrests have been made and no suspects have been named in the response to the reported call.

Instead, the sheriff told the citizens that cops have to make tough decisions and this case is above their comprehension.

“Officers deal with people and situations the average person will never experience in their lifetime. This incident is unfortunate, but we will get through it together. We are blessed to serve a community that loves and appreciates our men and women. For that, I’m grateful,” Sheriff Tom Spangler said.

As this case, and others like it illustrate, it is no secret that police officers are unafraid to put the lives of innocent people in danger and pull their guns out to shoot at dogs. The Free Thought Project has reported on multiple instances in which cops have attempted to shoot dogs and shot men, women, and children instead.

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Biden Commits Another $400 Million Of Your Taxpayer Dollars To Ukraine

The Biden administration has announced another $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, making the total financial assistance more than $63 billion.

This aid package is the 15th presidential drawdown since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. 

The latest package includes four more Lockheed Martin-created High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, ammunition for them, three tactical vehicles, a thousand rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition, demolition munitions, counter-battery systems, and spare parts.

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See every stock trade House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband has made since 2021

As members of Congress debate whether lawmakers and their spouses should play the stock market, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, a venture capitalist, continues to regularly buy and sell stocks and stock options.

Pelosi has access to confidential intelligence and the power to affect — with words or actions — the fortunes of companies in which her husband invests and trades.

When asked in December 2021 whether members of Congress should even be allowed to trade stocks, Pelosi answered in the affirmative.

“We are a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that,” she said.

This led some of her colleagues, on both the left and the right, to sharply criticize her — and draft legislation to restrict members of Congress and their spouses from trading stocks.

“Year after year, politicians somehow manage to outperform the market, buying and selling millions in stocks of companies they’re supposed to be regulating,” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said. “Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other at the expense of the country. Here’s something we can do: ban all members of Congress from trading stocks and force those who do to pay their proceeds back to the American people. It’s time to stop turning a blind eye to Washington profiteering.”

Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, introduced a similar bill alongside Sen. Mark Kelly with the intent to ban members of Congress and their families from trading stocks.

“Members of Congress should not be playing the stock market while we make federal policy and have extraordinary access to confidential information,” Ossoff said.

Pelosi has since softened her stance, but the fate of a congressional stock-trade ban remains unclear.

A previous analysis from Insider estimated that the Pelosis are worth at least $46,123,051, making Nancy Pelosi one of the 25 richest members of Congress. The vast majority of the couple’s wealth is derived from stocks, options, and investments made by Paul Pelosi.

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Donald Trump Calls for Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers to Get Death Penalty 

Former President Donald Trump called on drug dealers, human traffickers, and those who kill police to get the death penalty during a Save America rally held in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Friday night.

Trump said:

So this is a little controversial. And I will either get a standing ovation – and I don’t care about the ovation, I care about the country – or people are going to walk out of the room for what I’m about to say. But it’s time finally to say it. If you look at countries all throughout the world…The only ones that don’t have a drug problem are those that institute the death penalty for drug dealers. They’re the only ones, they don’t have any problem.

Trump also added that human traffickers and those who kill police should face the death penalty.

“Those who kill police officers as well as those who kill through human trafficking,” he continued.

“So we can be streetwise tough and smart and end our problem or we can be politically correct, weak and frankly, extremely stupid,” Trump said. “Which is probably the way we will continue to be and lose millions and millions more people to a scourge the likes of which our country and most other countries have never seen before.”

“So do something about it. It’s The only way you’re going to win the only way you’re going to win all right,” the former president added.

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Fueling the Warfare State. America’s $1.4 Trillion “National Security” Budget Makes Us Ever Less Safe

This March, when the Biden administration presented a staggering $813 billion proposal for “national defense,” it was hard to imagine a budget that could go significantly higher or be more generous to the denizens of the military-industrial complex. After all, that request represented far more than peak spending in the Korean or Vietnam War years, and well over $100 billion more than at the height of the Cold War. 

It was, in fact, an astonishing figure by any measure — more than two-and-a-half times what China spends; more, in fact, than (and hold your hats for this one!) the national security budgets of the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined. And yet the weapons industry and hawks in Congress are now demanding that even more be spent.

In recent National Defense Authorization Act proposals, which always set a marker for what Congress is willing to fork over to the Pentagon, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees both voted to increase the 2023 budget yet again — by $45 billion in the case of the Senate and $37 billion for the House. The final figure won’t be determined until later this year, but Congress is likely to add tens of billions of dollars more than even the Biden administration wanted to what will most likely be a record for the Pentagon’s already bloated budget.

This lust for yet more weapons spending is especially misguided at a time when a never-ending pandemic, growing heat waves and other depredations of climate change, and racial and economic injustice are devastating the lives of millions of Americans.  Make no mistake about it: the greatest risks to our safety and our future are non-military in nature, with the exception, of course, of the threat of nuclear war, which could increase if the current budget goes through as planned.

But as TomDispatch readers know, the Pentagon is just one element in an ever more costly American national security state.  Adding other military, intelligence, and internal-security expenditures to the Pentagon’s budget brings the total upcoming “national security” budget to a mind-boggling $1.4 trillion. And note that, in June 2021, the last time my colleague Mandy Smithberger and I added up such costs to the taxpayer, that figure was almost $1.3 trillion, so the trend is obvious.

To understand how these vast sums are spent year after year, let’s take a quick tour of America’s national security budget, top to bottom.

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