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.

Arizona parents sue school district for compiling creepy dossier containing sensitive info on them as retaliation for CRT, COVID protests

Three Arizona parents have filed a lawsuit against their children’s school district over its alleged creation of an online dossier to be used against them in response to their protesting of COVID-19 policies and critical race theory being taught in classrooms.

In the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Maricopa County Superior Court, the parents — Amanda Wray, Kimberly Stafford, and Edmond Richard — claim their First Amendment rights to free speech and government redress were violated when the district “maliciously targeted” them for raising concerns about the district policies.

Specifically, the parents accuse the Scottsdale Unified School District No. 48, school board president Jann-Michael Greenburg; his father, Mark Greenburg; and Mark Greenburg’s wife, Dagmar Greenburg, of collecting and storing roughly 100 gigabytes of personal data about them on a Google Drive file to be used as intimidation and potentially retaliation.

The Washington Times first reported on the lawsuit.

“The goal of defendants’ conspiracy was clear: to silence and punish dissenting voices and frighten away other potential speakers who might dare express an opposing point of view,” the suit alleges.

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DHS Secretary Claims He Was ‘Not Aware’ of Disinformation Board Chair’s Troubling History of Pushing Leftist Falsehoods

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday said he was not aware that the woman picked to lead the department’s Disinformation Governance Board had publicly taken stands later proved utterly wrong.

Mayorkas announced last week that the board would be headed by Nina Jankowicz, who in 2020 suggested that reports about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop were Russian disinformation. The laptop’s contents have since been authenticated.

During a Wednesday hearing, Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana tried to learn what the Department of Homeland Security knew when it put Jankowicz in charge of the new disinformation board.

“I am in awe of Ms. Jankowicz. I have watched her with slack-jawed astonishment,” Kennedy said. “Who picked her?”

Mayorkas replied that “the Department of Homeland Security selected Ms. Jankowicz.”

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DOJ announces new office to enforce laws around climate crisis, toxic pollution

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday that the Justice Department is opening a new office aimed at addressing the department’s environmental justice efforts.

Low-income communities and communities of color face larger risks from pollution and the impacts of the climate crisis, scientists and health experts have reported. More than 40% of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air quality, according to the American Lung Association, and people of color are the most harmed by it.

The DOJ’s Office of Environmental Justice is part of the Biden administration’s strategy to prioritize environmental justice — specifically as it relates to the climate crisis — after the issue was largely ignored during the Trump administration.

Garland said the OEJ “will serve as the central hub for our efforts to advance our comprehensive environmental justice enforcement strategy,” with the office working alongside a number of other intradepartmental agencies, including the Civil Rights Division and United States Attorneys’ offices, to “prioritize meaningful and constructive engagement with the communities most affected by environmental crime and injustice.”

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Left-Wing Group Targets Homes Of 6 Conservative SCOTUS Justices

A left-wing group published its plans for protests outside of the six conservative Supreme Court justices’ homes, calling them “extremist.”

The group, going by “Ruth Sent Us,” published what it claims are the addresses of Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts, seemingly in response to the Monday SCOTUS draft opinion leak that signaled the majority of the court may vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“ANNOUNCING: Walk-by Wednesday, May 11, 2022! At the homes of the six extremist justices, three in Virginia and three in Maryland. If you’d like to join or lead a peaceful protest, let us know,” the website of “Ruth Sent Us” states.

“Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics,” it adds.

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First Human Trials Starts For Brain Computer Interface

Synchron Inc., which develops a so-called brain-computer interface and competes with Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp., enrolled the first patient in its U.S. clinical trial, putting the company’s implant on a path toward possible regulatory approval for wider use in people with paralysis.

The early feasibility study is funded by the National Institutes of Health and will evaluate the safety of the device, known as the Stentrode, the New York-based company said. It will also assess how effective the Stentrode is in helping patients control digital devices hands-free.

The trial represents a landmark for Synchron, the first startup working on brain-machine interfaces to begin a clinical trial seeking approval to sell its product. It also puts Synchron ahead of Neuralink, which is better funded but is still recruiting a trial director. Neuralink raised $205 million last year. Synchron has raised $70 million total.

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Judge rules cops who arrested man over parody Facebook page have qualified immunity

Free speech and what’s known as “qualified immunity,” as well as “overcriminalization” – expansion of the criminal code in the US to address even minor problems in society – is at the heart of a case that started in 2016 with a short-lived parody page Anthony Novak had set up on Facebook.

Novak was subsequently arrested and spent several days in jail – much longer than the lifespan of his page critical of the police in Parma, Ohio – a page that was up only 12 hours.

In addition, the police confiscated his phone and computer. His “crime” was the humor he was using to express his opinions about the local law enforcement: posts like one “advertising” free abortions performed in a police van, and an “event” under the motto, “Pedophile Reform.”

Some Facebook users complained – about ten of them according to court records – but that was enough for the police to go to the trouble of getting three warrants: to arrest Novak, search his apartment, and deal with Facebook. The charge was “using a computer to hinder police duties,” an accusation based on little-known (and in this case, a court eventually found, invoked incorrectly) state law.

Novak eventually had a jury trial that resulted in his acquittal. But he then went on to sue the officers who arrested him for violating his constitutional rights. However, the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit did not support his claims.

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US Intelligence Has Helped Kill Multiple Russian Generals In Ukraine

Last month Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin bluntly admitted of US policy aims in Ukraine: “we want to see Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” He also sought to stress before the American public during an interview that the US is not fighting a “proxy war”.

However, unnamed senior American officials in a bombshell New York Times report have said that intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians have helped take out some of the estimated 12 Russian generals that have died on the front lines since the Feb.24 invasion, an astonishingly high number given the rarity in any war of deaths from among highest officer ranks (and considering the war has been going for a little over two months at this point).

The intelligence sharing, which was previously vaguely acknowledged as happening by President Biden, is part of a broadly expansive US role in the conflict with the way being paved by unprecedented in size military aid packages and weapons shipments.

According to the limited details of intelligence provided to the Ukrainians, The New York Times reports that “The United States has focused on providing the location and other details about the Russian military’s mobile headquarters, which relocate frequently.”  Additionally, “Ukrainian officials have combined that geographic information with their own intelligence — including intercepted communications that alert the Ukrainian military to the presence of senior Russian officers — to conduct artillery strikes and other attacks that have killed Russian officers.”

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Rochester woman fights to get back $8K seized in raid; she was not charged, no drugs found

In October 2020, Rochester police raided the West Main Street apartment of Cristal Starling and her then-boyfriend, who was suspected of dealing drugs.

No drugs were found, but police seized $8,040 in currency that Starling says was hers. Her boyfriend was arrested based on drugs found at another home, but he was later acquitted of the charges.

Starling has been trying to get her money back since the acquittal. She’s still trying.

The nonprofit Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, plans an appeal to a federal court, seeking to reverse a judge’s decision that federal and local police can keep Starling’s money. Starling’s case, Institute attorneys say, is typical of many forfeiture cases in the country: The money is not an overwhelming amount and the administrative process so convoluted that people who lose their money simply give up.

“This is very common where it’s a small amount of money,” said Institute attorney Seth Young.  “You don’t hire a lawyer and the maze of forfeiture procedures trips up a person who represents themselves and the person ends up losing their money.”

Starling tried, without the aid of a lawyer, to chase down her seized money. She also lost use of two cars, which were also taken then later returned. She had to pay for a rental car during those weeks, she said.

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6 Dystopian Things Biden’s ‘Disinformation Board’ Pick Nina Jankowicz Has Done

Mere days after eccentric billionaire Elon Musk’s buyout of Twitter sent the political censors into a tizzy, the Biden administration debuted a “Disinformation Governance Board” to crack down on online speech the White House doesn’t like. The proposed agency, which would fall under the Department of Homeland Security, already merits the comparisons many have drawn to George Orwell’s “ministry of truth,” but Joe Biden’s appointment of Nina Jankowicz to be the board’s executive director makes the hackery even more obvious.

Here are six of the most dystopian things Jankowicz — whom DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ridiculously called “absolutely” politically neutral — has ever said or done.

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