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.

CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bought access to location data harvested from tens of millions of phones in the United States to perform analysis of compliance with curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation, according to CDC documents obtained by Motherboard. The documents also show that although the CDC used COVID-19 as a reason to buy access to the data more quickly, it intended to use it for more general CDC purposes.

Location data is information on a device’s location sourced from the phone, which can then show where a person lives, works, and where they went. The sort of data the CDC bought was aggregated—meaning it was designed to follow trends that emerge from the movements of groups of people—but researchers have repeatedly raised concerns with how location data can be deanonymized and used to track specific people.

The documents reveal the expansive plan the CDC had last year to use location data from a highly controversial data broker. SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data to, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June. 

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Mental health and worship apps are found to be some of the most privacy invasive

Apps that deal with some of the most sensitive and personal data, such as that concerning a user’s mental health or religious activities, are said to rank among the worst privacy offenders.

This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the Mozilla Foundation, which singled out mental health and prayer apps as being prone to track and collect data revealing a person’s state of mind, feelings, and thoughts, and then “share” that for-profit via targeted advertising.

Mozilla’s team looked into 32 apps from this category, putting a “privacy not included” label on 29, and publishing the findings in a guide of the same name. 25 of these apps didn’t pass the foundations’ minimum security standards around password quality and handling of security updates.

PTSD Coach, developed by the US The Department of Veterans Affairs, has “strong privacy policies and security practices,” while chatbot Wysa “seems to value users’ privacy.” And the Catholic prayer app Hallow was the only one to “respond in a timely manner” to Mozilla’s emails.

Besides these technical issues, the apps singled out in the report are also said to target “vulnerable users with personalized advertisements” and track and share biometric data.

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DC elementary school gave 4-year-olds ‘anti-racism’ ‘fistbook’ asking them to identify racist family members

A public elementary school in Washington, D.C., gave children as young as 4 a lesson on “anti-racism” that asked them to identify racist members of their family.

According to a Nov. 30 letter from Janney Elementary School Principal Danielle Singh, students in Pre-K through 3rd grade participated in an “Anti-Racism Fight Club” presentation by speaker Doyin Richards.

“As part of this work, each student has a fist book to help continue the dialogue at school and home,” Singh’s letter stated, linking to Richards’ presentation. “We recognize that any time we engage topics such as race and equity, we may experience a variety of emotions. This is a normal part of the learning and growing process. As a school community we want to continue the dialogue with our students and understand this is just the beginning.”

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A Weird, Stupid Dystopia

The last few days in the United States have seen a parade of wealthy freaks fellating each other’s egos and preening for the cameras in outlandish garb while ordinary Americans suffer more and more.

The weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner saw a gaggle of media celebrities congregate to congratulate one another on what a great job they’ve been doing bravely telling the truth and holding the most powerful government on earth to account. The host, Trevor Noah of The Daily Show, gushed with enthusiasm about how much freedom the press have in America to say things the powerful don’t like.

“As we sit in this room tonight, people, I really hope you all remember what the real purpose of this evening is,” Noah said. “Yes, it’s fun. Yes, we dress nice. Yes, the people eat, they drink, we have fun. But the reason we’re here is to honor and celebrate the fourth estates and what you stand for — what you stand for — an additional check and balance that holds power to account and gives voice to those who otherwise wouldn’t have one.”

“And if you ever begin to doubt your responsibilities, if you ever begin to doubt how meaningful it is, look no further than what’s happening in Ukraine,” said Noah. “Look at what’s happening there. Journalists are risking and even losing their lives to show the world what’s really happening. You realize how amazing it is. In America, you have the right to seek the truth and speak the truth even if it makes people in power uncomfortable, even if it makes your viewers or your readers uncomfortable. You understand how amazing that is? I stood here tonight and I made fun of the president of the United States, and I’m going to be fine. I am going to be fine, right? Do you really understand what a blessing it is?”

Of course there are people who’ve said things that US presidents don’t like who are not in fact fine. Julian Assange continues to waste away in Belmarsh Prison as the US government continues its efforts to extradite him to he can become the first publisher ever tried under the Espionage Act. Edward Snowden, an American, remains in exile because one US president after another continues to refuse to pardon his heroic whistleblowing about the sinister surveillance practices of the US intelligence cartel. Daniel Hale, also an American, sits in prison for exposing the depravity of America’s monstrous drone program.

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The Irrational, Misguided Discourse Surrounding Supreme Court Controversies Such as Roe v. Wade

Politico on Monday night published what certainly appears to be a genuine draft decision by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn the Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. Alito’s draft ruling would decide the pending case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which concerns the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy except in the case of medical emergency or severe fetal abnormalities. Given existing Supreme Court precedent that abortion can only be restricted after fetal viability, Mississippi’s ban on abortions after the 15th week — at a point when the fetus is not yet deemed viable — is constitutionally dubious. To uphold Mississippi’s law — as six of the nine Justices reportedly wish to do — the Court must either find that the law is consistent with existing abortion precedent, or acknowledge that it conflicts with existing precedent and then overrule that precedent on the ground that it was wrongly decided.

Alito’s draft is written as a majority opinion, suggesting that at least five of the Court’s justices — a majority — voted after oral argument in Dobbs to overrule Roe on the ground that it was “egregiously wrong from the start” and “deeply damaging.” In an extremely rare event for the Court, an unknown person with unknown motives leaked the draft opinion to Politico, which justifiably published it. A subsequent leak to CNN on Monday night claimed that the five justices in favor of overruling Roe were Bush 43 appointee Alito, Bush 41 appointee Clarence Thomas, and three Trump appointees (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett), while Chief Justice Roberts, appointed by Bush 43, is prepared to uphold the constitutionality of Mississippi’s abortion law without overruling Roe.

Draft rulings and even justices’ votes sometimes change in the period between the initial vote after oral argument and the issuance of the final decision. Depending on whom you choose to believe, this leak is either the work of a liberal justice or clerk designed to engender political pressure on the justices so that at least one abandons their intention to overrule Roe, or it came from a conservative justice or clerk, designed to make it very difficult for one of the justices in the majority to switch sides. Whatever the leaker’s motives, a decision to overrule this 49-year-old precedent, one of the most controversial in the Court’s history, would be one of the most significant judicial decisions issued in decades. The reaction to this leak — like the reaction to the initial ruling in Roe back in 1973 — was intense and strident, and will likely only escalate once the ruling is formally issued.

Every time there is a controversy regarding a Supreme Court ruling, the same set of radical fallacies emerges regarding the role of the Court, the Constitution and how the American republic is designed to function. Each time the Court invalidates a democratically elected law on the ground that it violates a constitutional guarantee — as happened in Roe — those who favor the invalidated law proclaim that something “undemocratic” has transpired, that it is a form of “judicial tyranny” for “five unelected judges” to overturn the will of the majority. Conversely, when the Court refuses to invalidate a democratically elected law, those who regard that law as pernicious, as an attack on fundamental rights, accuse the Court of failing to protect vulnerable individuals.

This by-now-reflexive discourse about the Supreme Court ignores its core function. Like the U.S. Constitution itself, the Court is designed to be an anti-majoritarian check against the excesses of majoritarian sentiment. The Founders wanted to establish a democracy that empowered majorities of citizens to choose their leaders, but also feared that majorities would be inclined to coalesce around unjust laws that would deprive basic rights, and thus sought to impose limits on the power of majorities as well.

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Scientific Study confirms Pfizer’s COVID Vaccine alters Human DNA

A Swedish study has demonstrated and confirmed that the mRNA in the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid injections infiltrates cells and transcribes its message onto human DNA within 6 hours, altering our own DNA. 

A previous study published in October 2021 from Sweden found the spike protein enters into our cells’ nuclei and impairs the mechanism our cells have to repair damaged DNA. We’ve included this study here as The Highwire made an easy-to-understand video explaining it, including graphics, and so it is a good starting point to help understand the significance of the latest study from Sweden.

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After Decapitating Radical Black Movement of the 1960s and 70s, FBI and CIA Then Went After the Next Generation

On November 18, 2021, a judge exonerated two of the three men convicted of assassinating Malcolm X, partly due to newly revealed FBI documents implicating their paid informants at the scene and cover-up regarding the actual assassins.[1]

A mass of evidence supports that U.S. intelligence orchestrated Malcolm X’s assassination and the assassination of numerous other Black leaders, along with murderously targeting their descendants. A sampling of these atrocities reveals the use of similar tactics and personnel in this targeting.

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Amish organic farmer faces hefty fine, jail time for producing CLEAN MEAT

An Amish organic farmer is facing a hefty fine and a prison term for the simple crime of producing clean meat.

Amos Miller runs a holistically managed farm in Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, where he breeds cows, chickens and pigs. The animals in his century-old farm are bred without the use of chemicals and medications mandated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). According to Miller, he raises his animals in the way he believes God intended them to be raised – in accordance with nature.

However, a federal judge ordered the Amish farmer to cease and desist all sales of his organic meat. This same magistrate also ordered Miller to pay $250,000 for “contempt of court” last summer. He added that the farmer needs to pay an initial $50,000 as a “good faith” payment to avoid jail.

To make matters worse, armed U.S. marshals raided his property, farm store and freezers at the behest of the federal judge. They took an inventory of all his meat to ensure he will no longer be able to sell or slaughter any more animals. (Related: Small town business owner spent 7 years building up organic meat company, only to be shut down by village board.)

Miller, who runs a private members-only food distribution network, alleged that the federal government is prosecuting him for practicing his religious freedom in the way he raises and prepares food. “Our members don’t want any of that. They want fresh, raw meat with no additives. Our members want it straight from the farm with no preservatives on it.”

The members of Miller’s private food club agree, saying they do not like their grass-fed meat laced with chemical preservatives mandated by the USDA. Numbering around 400, they have also signed contracts that state their awareness of the meat not being processed in USDA-inspected plants or treated with preservatives.

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Deputy Arrested for Torturing Service Dog, Wrapping Him in Duct Tape Before Shooting Him

In the study of psychology, there is a term for those who hurt animals for personal pleasure. It is called intentional animal torture and cruelty and even has its own initialism, IATC. Psychologists have long studied the reasons behind why a person would intentionally harm an animal and the types of people associated with this behavior are often society’s worst. So, when a deputy admits to torturing and then killing a dog, it is likely not the best idea for that person to remain in a position of authority.

Luckily for the taxpayers of Genesee County, they are no longer on the hook for the salary of Genesee County Sheriff’s Office deputy Jacob S. Wilkinson. He was fired this month after admitting to the horrific torture and killing of a service dog.

Normally, when folks find a dead animal, even a dog, on the side of the road, they assume it was likely hit by a vehicle. But when Saginaw County Road Commission employees found this boxer pit bull mix, named ‘Habs’, on the side of the road, they knew instantly that he was not hit by a car.

Habs had been on the roadside for months but was covered in snow. When the snow melted, Habs was found with his mouth duct taped closed and his body wrapped in duct tape to prevent him from moving.

The very idea of duct taping a dog in this fashion is horrifying enough but Wilkinson didn’t stop there. After throwing the completely restrained dog on the side of the road in the snow, Wilkinson put three bullets in Habs’ head and drove off.

Because Habs had been tortured an investigation was launched into his death and when a necropsy — the animal equivalent of an autopsy — was conducted, they found he’d been chipped. Investigators had no idea their investigation would lead back to one of their own — deputy Wilkinson.

Wilkinson worked as a corrections officer for the Michigan Department of Corrections before becoming a deputy with the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office. Habs was part of a program with veteran inmates who train dogs to become service animals for veterans — called Blue Star Service Dogs.

“These dogs master basic obedience, command training, and pre-task training and basic tasks such as turning off and on lights, picking up objects, and opening doors,” Blue Star’s website states.

Saginaw County Animal Care & Control Director Bonnie Kanicki told mLive that Habs was in the training program when Wilkinson adopted him.

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