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.

BRITISH “WATCHDOG” JOURNALISTS UNMASKED AS LAP DOGS FOR THE SECURITY STATE

Events of the past few days suggest British journalism – the so-called Fourth Estate – is not what it purports to be: a watchdog monitoring the centers of state power. It is quite the opposite.

The pretensions of the establishment media took a severe battering this month as the defamation trial of Guardian columnist Carole Cadwalladr reached its conclusion and the hacked emails of Paul Mason, a long-time stalwart of the BBC, Channel 4 and the Guardian, were published online.

Both of these celebrated journalists have found themselves outed as recruits – in their differing ways – to a covert information war being waged by Western intelligence agencies.

Had they been honest about it, that collusion might not matter so much. After all, few journalists are as neutral or as dispassionate as the profession likes to pretend. But as have many of their colleagues, Cadwalladr and Mason have broken what should be a core principle of journalism: transparency.

The role of serious journalists is to bring matters of import into the public space for debate and scrutiny. Journalists thinking critically aspire to hold those who wield power – primarily state agencies – to account on the principle that, without scrutiny, power quickly corrupts.

The purpose of real journalism – as opposed to the gossip, entertainment and national-security stenography that usually passes for journalism – is to hit up, not down.

And yet, each of these journalists, we now know, was actively colluding, or seeking to collude, with state actors who prefer to operate in the shadows, out of sight. Both journalists were coopted to advance the aims of the intelligence services.

And worse, each of them either sought to become a conduit for, or actively assist in, covert smear campaigns run by Western intelligence services against other journalists.

What they were doing – along with so many other establishment journalists – is the very antithesis of journalism. They were helping to conceal the operation of power to make it harder to scrutinize. And not only that. In the process, they were trying to weaken already marginalized journalists fighting to hold state power to account.

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Robbed by Law Enforcement

I am a fan of bad television.  I admit it.  I even DVR it.  I watch an awful show on the National Geographic Channel every week about Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and how they intercept drugs and birds and food and other contraband from people arriving from abroad into the airports of New York, Atlanta and Miami. 

I was watching an episode this week where an elderly Korean man arrived at JFK airport in New York with a few hundred dollars in his pocket.

For no apparent reason, he was pulled into secondary for a more comprehensive search.  When the CBP officer went through the man’s wallet, he found four cashier’s checks, dated years earlier, that totaled $136,000.  The man said that it was his life savings, he had been carrying it around for years, and that he had forgotten that the checks were on him. 

Tough luck, CBP said.  The money belongs to the government now.  That’s civil asset forfeiture.

The man was never charged with a crime.  But he still loses his life savings.  That’s the way we do things in the United States.

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High-ranking Nigerian politician Ike Ekweremadu, 60, and his academic wife, 55, are charged with plotting to bring a child from Nigeria to the UK for organ harvesting

The Nigerian couple arrested on suspicion of plotting to harvest the organs of a child in the UK are one of the west African nation’s most high profile politicians and his wife, MailOnline can reveal today. 

Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a People’s Democratic Party politician for 19 years who was once Deputy President of the nation’s senate, was held with Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55, in Britain this month.

Mr Ekweremadu has been an elected senator at the Abuja-based parliament since 2003 after moving into politics after years as a lawyer. His wife, five years his junior, is an academic and doctor and also a major public figure in Nigeria. They are believed to have four adult children.

They are both charged with conspiracy to arrange or facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting. The have been remanded in custody and will appear at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court today.

The Metropolitan Police has said the child, who is under the age of 18, at the centre of the alleged plot is in care. Organ harvesting involves removing parts of the body, often for cash and against the victim’s will.

Scotland Yard has not given the gender or the age of the child – or the location of the arrests. But given the suspects are appearing in court in Uxbridge, it is likely they were held at the nearby Heathrow Airport. 

Ekweremadu has been in the UK for at least the past fortnight having met with members of the Nigerian community in Britain in Lincoln around ten days ago. 

He tweeted: ‘It was a pleasure and an honour to receive a letter of appointment by the University of Lincoln, UK, as Visiting Professor of Corporate and International Linkages. I also got a highly treasured gift – a copy of the Magna Carta. It was created in 1215, about 807 years ago’.

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Nebraska wants to test body and facial scans that work from a distance

The state of Nebraska is planning to test whole-body and facial recognition technology from far-off sensors. The project, funded by the Department of Defense, aims to test the accuracy of AI in identifying subjects from images and videos captured by stationary towers and drones positioned far from the subjects.

The project is backed by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) as part of its Biometric Recognition and Identification at Altitude or Range, aka Briar, program. The first phase, dubbed WatchID, of the three-part program will run for 18 months.

Researchers from the University of Nebraska’s Omaha and Lincoln campuses, University of Maryland College Park, Resonant Sciences, and BlueHalo Co. will participate in WatchID. The program will require 200 volunteers who will stand and walk in circles and straight lines in an open space. Once the first phase is successful, it will be expanded to require 600 volunteers.

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Supreme Court Issues Ruling, Gutting Miranda Rights And Threatening The Fifth Amendment

On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Vega V Tekoh, a case involving the administration of Miranda rights, with the court ruling that a suspect’s words or statements can be used in court regardless of their Miranda rights. 

For background, these are the facts of the case in question:

Terence Tekoh worked as a patient transporter in a hospital in Los Angeles. After a patient accused him of sexual assault, hospital staff reported the allegation to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Deputy Carlos Vega went to the hospital to ask Tekoh questions and take Tekoh’s statement. Although the parties described vastly different accounts of the nature of the interaction between Tekoh and Vega, it is undisputed that Vega did not advise Tekoh of his Miranda rights before questioning him or taking his statement.

Tekoh was arrested and charged in California state court, but a jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Following the acquittal on the criminal charge, Tekoh sued Vega, alleging that Vega violated Tekoh’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by taking his statement without first advising him of his Miranda rights.

Justice Samuel Alito issued his ruling, a count of 6-3, deciding that using such statements outside of Miranda rights is not a violation of a defendant’s rights and does not give them the right to sue the court for such use. 

Miranda prescribed a specific and protective set of warnings to ensure that criminally accused suspects were made aware of the Fifth Amendment’s decree that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”  

Miranda is also one of the court’s most culturally famous decisions. Americans know Miranda. More accurately: Americans know their Miranda warnings. Even if they cannot recite the lyrics to the national anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance, they likely can recite Miranda’s warnings: 

  • You have the right to remain silent;
  • Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law;
  • You have the right to a lawyer;
  • If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you.

Generally, if the police obtain a suspect’s statement violating Miranda, the government cannot use that statement against the defendant in court. 

But can the defendant later sue the police for violating the defendant’s constitutional rights? 

The Supreme Court now says, No. 

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Joe Biden’s Weaponized FBI Seizes Phone of Nevada GOP Leader in Ridiculous Move

The weaponization of the FBI continues after what some would describe as Joe Biden’s personal police force seized the phone of a Nevada GOP leader on Wednesday. That report comes via 8 News Now, a local station in the state.

Per their sources, the FBI served a search warrant on Michael McDonald, the Republican chairman in Nevada. They seized his phone in relation to an “investigation” into the so-called “fake electors” scheme propagated after the 2020 election.

FBI agents served a search warrant Wednesday on Nevada’s top GOP official, sources told the 8 News Now I-Team’s George Knapp.

Agents seized the cell phone of state Republican chairman Michael McDonald, reportedly as part of an investigation into the fake elector scheme initiated at the end of the 2020 presidential election.

A second search warrant was issued for state party secretary James DeGraffenreid, who also signed the document, but FBI agents could not locate him Wednesday, sources told Knapp.

Of course, everything is always simpler when it’s not sensationalized. So what did this “fake electors” scheme entail? All it entailed was some Republican electors pledging to vote for Donald Trump. As the report notes, that move was purely ceremonial and held no legal weight. No one ever actually tried to pass off any alternate electors to change the outcome of the election, and in the end, Nevada’s electors went to Biden.

In December 2020, the 8 News Now I-Team reported the Nevada Republican Party’s six electors signed paperwork signaling their support for former President Donald Trump in a symbolic ceremony devoid of any legal merit, which was held in Carson City and coincided with the official state-sanctioned tally on Dec. 14, 2020.

Given that, what exactly is being investigated here except wrong-think? After all, it was Democrats who pioneered and pursued the idea of “faithless electors” after the 2016 election. Don’t believe me? Well, believe the headlines from the time period, and there are literally dozens of them.

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Supreme Court Strikes Down New York’s Unconstitutional Concealed-Carry Gun Law

The Supreme Court voted 6–3 on June 23 to strike down New York state’s draconian concealed-carry gun permitting system on constitutional grounds.

The Supreme Court has been strengthening Second Amendment protections in recent years and observers have said the court’s 6–3 conservative supermajority could help expand gun ownership protections. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects “the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” and in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), it held that this right “is fully applicable to the States.”

The ruling comes amid rising crime rates, activist demands to defund police departments, and a Biden administration push to strengthen gun control policies. A gun control package, introduced in the wake of a series of high-profile mass shootings, is moving forward in Congress.

The Empire State’s gun permit law, like laws in seven other states, generally requires an applicant to demonstrate “proper cause” in order to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in public.

New York makes it a crime to possess a firearm without a license, whether inside or outside the home. An individual who wants to carry a firearm outside his home may obtain an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed “pistol or revolver” if he can prove that “proper cause exists” for doing so, according to state law. An applicant satisfies the “proper cause” requirement only if he can “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community,” according to a 1980 ruling by the Supreme Court of New York in Klenosky v. New York City Police Department.

The specific issue before the court was whether the state’s denial of the petitioning individuals’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violates the U.S. Constitution.

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On Conscious Liberation: Postulating Liberty as a Universal Concept

It is a false assumption that Liberty is merely a political concept. True Liberty is a universal concept. To embrace Liberty, ones inherent freedoms as a human being, is to embrace liberation from that which constrains you. This concept can be applied beyond the physical political sphere, to the mind and soul as well.

Thus the truest form of Liberty is conscious liberation. Breaking free from the dogmatic systems keeping us bound to archaic ways of being that exist as a self-fulfilling prophecy of our own enslavement, and holding us back from our true potential.

These systems constitute what can be referred to as “the Matrix” — the Web of lies, falsehoods, and arbitrary constructs that keep us ensnared in this trap. Breaking The Matrix, thus aiding in ones conscious liberation, means identifying the beliefs and behaviors that perpetuate human suffering and hinder our next evolutionary step through enabling these toxic cycles, and exiting them.

Some of these falsehoods and constructs are easier to identify than others. Such as the false left vs right paradigm, and similar narratives perpetuated for divide-and-conquer agendas. In truth there is no left versus right, white versus black, religious versus atheist, man versus woman, or you versus me, etc.

These ideas dividing people on the basis of political leaning, nationality, race, religion, or gender are all constructs creating a false dichotomy; labels designed to keep us separated from one another, manufacturing an opposition that isn’t really there to serve as a distraction for those in positions of power who benefit from distortion, and division.

The only true “enemy” if such a term is even truly applicable are predators who abuse and exploit the innocent.

Recognizing these aforementioned constructs are easy enough when one finally realizes the role that discord and disorder plays in maintaining a perpetual state of organized chaos; such as permanent war, the constant erosion of civil liberties, etcetera.

But some of these constructs are more subtle, harder to identify, and even more difficult to break because of how they have been deeply ingrained in human civilization and the collective consciousness of the masses. Organized in such a way that many cannot fathom the concept of existing outside of them.

Statism is at the forefront of these archaic ideals.

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‘Pandas Aren’t Real’ Is the Latest Conspiracy Theory Taking Off on TikTok

When you think of pandas, you typically think about one of two things: One, the adorable, monochromatic animal that was the subject of a 2003 DreamWorks Animation film, or two, that song by Desiigner. The latest conspiracy theory currently making the rounds on TikTok concerns the former — specifically, whether or not panda bears are real, or whether, as some have speculated, they are simply humans in bear costumes.

As discussed on this week’s episode of Don’t Let This Flop, Rolling Stone‘s podcast about internet culture, the “pandas aren’t real” conspiracy theory has been circulating on the internet in some form for a long time. On Reddit, for instance, a 2015 post with the headline, “I’m fairly certain pandas are just an extremely elaborate hoax” received a few thousand upvotes, with people speculating whether pandas are just humans in adult costumes, because of how human-like a lot of their movements are. Others have also pointed out odd facts about pandas — such as that they are carnivores that almost exclusively eat bamboo, or that they famously refuse to have sex in captivity — to underscore what they perceive to be the evolutionary impossibility of their existence. 

To complicate things even further, there have been documented cases of zoos faking panda bears. For instance, a zoo in Taiwan was reportedly caught dying a sun bear black and white and marketing it as a panda in the late 1980s. An Italian circus was also caught dying puppies black-and-white in an effort to pass them off as pandas in 2014. Such incidents clearly have given skeptics ammunition to believe that panda bears as a whole aren’t real. 

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