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.

Leaked Texts From Israeli Consulate Employee Show More Details In Gaetz-Levinson Funding Scheme

Three screenshots of texts between Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, and Jake Novak, media director of the Israeli consulate in New York City were shared with TAC. The messages were authenticated by one of the parties to them.

In the first screenshot, Novak messaged Adams last Saturday to tell him about the investigation into Gaetz. The New York Times story on the Gaetz investigation was not published until Tuesday.

In the second, Novak appears to represent himself as deeply involved in the efforts to free Bob Levinson from Iran, telling Adams “this is screwing up my efforts to free Bob Levinson.”

“Gaetz’s dad was secretly finding [sic] us,” he continues. “So I’m very much wanting this to be untrue. I’ve got a commando team leader friend of mine nervously waiting for the wire transfers to clear.”

In the third screenshot, Novak casts doubt on Gaetz’s claims that he is being extorted. “The real documents do not extort,” he writes, “And we only asked for $25 million as an estimate at first. We came way down.”

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Vaccine Passports Are A Serious Threat To American Civil Liberties

With the advent of the deceptively named “vaccine passport” concept, coronavirus vaccines have quickly turned from savior hailed by an American populace desperate for a return to some semblance of normalcy into a cudgel with which to beat the vaccine heterodox into submission. Add the relentless desire for Big Tech to collect all data it can suck into a rapacious corporate maw to be digested into more profits and more power over our lives, and you have a perfect storm of tyranny.

Currently, the COVID-19 vaccines are not U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved, but authorized only for emergency use. As an investigational product, the statute governing emergency use authorizations provides that the recipient be advised of his or her option to accept or refuse administration of the vaccine, something a DC District court considered in a 2003 case that ruled against forcing soldiers to take the then-experimental anthrax vaccine (suspiciously, the vaccine was deemed “safe” not long after the court enjoined mandatory vaccination, although there are numerous claims that the anthrax vaccination program has led to debilitating side effects).

President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine development program was unprecedented. It normally takes several years for FDA approval of a vaccine and several phases like an exploratory stage, clinical trials, and quality control. While many are comfortable taking the vaccine now, others may wish to wait, or decline altogether.

Some had the disease and survived it with antibodies. Some have physical limitations that do not allow inoculation, and others have religious and moral objections. For example, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was developed using a retinal cell line developed from an electively aborted fetus in 1985.

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Congress’ most effective lawmakers aren’t generally its household names

Despite high approval ratingsor wide popularity, well-known members of Congress are not the most effective lawmakers, according to a report from the Center for Effective Lawmaking.

The center recently released its effectiveness scores for members of the 116th Congress, which ran from Jan. 3, 2019, to Jan. 3, 2021. The bottom line: The lawmakers often in the news — particularly from the House of Representatives — aren’t generally the ones sponsoring bills that make significant headway through Congress or making substantial policy proposals. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is one exception.

Through a partnership between the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, the Center for Effective Lawmaking, created in 2017, aims to understand and communicate the effectiveness of lawmakers and the congressional legislative process.

“We’re the Center for Effective Lawmaking, so we’re particularly interested in the lawmaking component of what members of Congress do, so we set aside oversite and constituency services and so on,” said Volden, who also is a professor of public policy and politics at the University of Virginia. “In that lawmaking space, we’ve generated the legislative effectiveness scores.”

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Media Mistakes in the Biden Era: the Definitive List

1. Friday, Jan. 8, 2021

The New York Times reporters Marc Santora, Megan Specia and Mike Baker report Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed by “pro-Trump supporters” who “overpowered” him and “struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher.”

But other reports the same day referenced Sicknick dying from a stroke.

The Times waited until mid-February to issue a correction, but still claimed– citing no evidence and no autopsy report– that Sicknick had died “from injuries in pro-Trump rampage.”

There was no explanation as to who fabricated the fire extinguisher story.

2. Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021

The Washington Post‘s Amy Gardner, AP, CNBC, Rolling Stone, and others falsely report that President Trump pressed a lead Georgia elections investigator to “find the fraud,” and told the investigator it would make them a national hero.

However, the actual recording of the call later made public revealed that Trump did not say either of those things.

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Facebook, Twitter Campaign Donations Overwhelmingly Go to Democrats on Oversight Panels, Group Finds

A conservative non-profit advocacy group monitoring Big Tech claims almost all Facebook and Twitter employee and committee campaign contributions went to Democrats on House oversight committees.

The Internet Accountability Project (IAP) said in an April 1 statement that, based on campaign finance data compiled by opensecrets.org, Facebook and Twitter (employees and PACs) combined “contributed more than 12 times more money to Democrats (more than $5.5 million) than Republicans (less than $435,000) in 2020.”

The group cited a leading self-proclaimed socialist in the House of Representatives as an example of the extreme bias in favor of Democrats in political giving by employees of the two Internet giants.

“As just one example, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez received a combined $36,346 in 2020 compared to less than $1,950 for all Republicans on the House Oversight Committee combined. Twitter employees did not give a single dollar to Republicans on the Oversight Committee,” IAP said in its statement.

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