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.

Democrat tax scofflaw tells billionaires: ‘Pay your taxes’

A Wisconsin Democrat who ostentatiously told billionaires this week to “Pay your taxes” turns out to be a tax scofflaw, according to a report from the Washington Free Beacon.

The report identified the Democratic Senate candidate who lectured the ultrawealthy on social media this week and who has “a history of tax delinquency” as Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.

He reportedly is a frontrunner in the primary for the Democratic Senate nomination, the report said.

But he “failed to pay his property taxes or file tax returns while running for office in 2018,” the report said. And then he “defended himself at the time by claiming that ‘most people’ don’t fully pay their taxes.”

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Prestigious $30K federal scholarships doled out almost exclusively to progressive students

The 2022 recipients of the prestigious federal Truman Scholarships once again lean heavily toward Democrats and progressives, according to an analysis by The College Fix.

Of the 58 scholarship recipients announced last week, only three have any connection to Republican politics. At the same time, five recipients have connections to Democratic politics, while an additional 35 more list a progressive cause as their primary area of advocacy.

The primary interests of the 35 progressive-leaning students granted the award in 2022 included environmental justice, “menstrual equity,” transgender rights, Latinx political engagement, diversity and inclusion, intersectionality, gun control, and the “gendered impacts of uranium mining.”

One student aims to set up a “safe space” for his school’s “multicultural male students and faculty to receive free food, haircuts, and showcase vulnerability as strength through meaningful conversations.”

Of the remaining awardees, 15 have political leanings that could be considered neutral or non-political.

The highly prestigious $30,000 scholarship is granted each year to a new set of college juniors to help them attend graduate school. The award was established by Congress as a nonpartisan federal program, and recipients must pledge to serve three of their first seven years after graduation in public service. It is granted to “persons who demonstrate outstanding potential for and who plan to pursue a career in public service.”

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Every Russian Oligarch Who Has Died Since Putin Invaded Ukraine—Full List

Two Russian oligarchs were found dead this week alongside their family in luxurious homes in Russia and Spain, with the two cases discovered within 24 hours of each other.

Both deaths are believed by police to be cases of murder-suicide, but the evidence supporting these theories is muddled by the fact that the events happened so close together, with the two oligarchs the last of several who have been found to have died by suicide since the beginning of the year.

Here’s a list of all the Russian oligarch who have been found dead in mysterious circumstance since January.

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Forget extinction: U.S. company plans to bring back wooly mammoths

Wooly mammoths might be making a comeback thanks to Colossal Biosciences of the great state of Texas.

The Dallas-based company says it plans to take on the environmental issues that led to critical endangerment and perform the once seemingly impossible task of reviving long-extinct species.

Colossal announced it will pioneer the use of CRISPR technology along with other genome engineering technologies toward a practical working model of de-extinction initially focused on its long-term goals of successful restoration and rewilding of functional woolly mammoths, large proboscideans from the Ice Age, to the tundra, according to a press release.

It said genetic engineering applications expand beyond animals and have the potential to advance human health, enhance food production, reduce environmental impact, and optimize animal health and welfare.

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Censor The Internet Act: EU Agrees to Expand Online Censorship With ‘Digital Services Act’

The European Union is working to massively expand online censorship, strictly regulate speech during times of “crisis” and restrict online anonymity through digital passports.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both lobbied for the EU to back the censorship bill known as the Digital Services Act on Thursday.

From France 24, “EU agrees on new legislation to tame internet ‘Wild West’ “:

The Digital Services Act (DSA) — the second part of a massive project to regulate tech companies — aims to ensure tougher consequences for platforms and websites that host a long list of banned content ranging from hate speech to disinformation and child sexual abuse images.

[…] Tech giants have been repeatedly called out for failing to police their platforms — a New Zealand terrorist attack that was live-streamed on Facebook in 2019 caused global outrage, and the chaotic insurrection in the US last year was promoted online.

The dark side of the internet also includes e-commerce platforms filled with counterfeit or defective products.

[…] The regulation will require platforms to swiftly remove illegal content as soon as they are aware of its existence. Social networks would have to suspend users who frequently breach the law.

The DSA will force e-commerce sites to verify the identity of suppliers before proposing their products.

[…] The European Commission will oversee yearly audits [of Big Tech firms] and be able to impose fines of up to six percent of their annual sales for repeated infringements.

Looking over the outline of the new agreement it’s striking how they seamlessly conflate child sexual abuse material with “illegal hate speech.”

Both are jumbled together as “illegal content.”

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How the CIA Helped Disney Conquer Florida

Starting in the mid-1960s when Disney set out to establish the Disney World Theme Park, they were determined to get land at below market prices and Disney operatives engaged in a far-ranging conspiracy to make sure sellers had no idea who was buying their Central Florida property. By resorting to such tactics Disney acquired more than 40 square miles of land for less than $200 an acre, but how to maintain control once Disney’s empire had been acquired? The solution turned out to be cartoon-simple, thanks to the CIA.

Disney’s key contact was the consummate cloak-and-dagger operator, William “Wild Bill” Donovan. Sometimes called the “Father of the C.I.A,” he was also the founding partner of Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine, a New York law firm whose attorneys included future C.I.A. director William Casey. Donovan’s attorneys provided fake identities for Disney agents; they also set up a secret communications center, and orchestrated a disinformation campaign. In order to maintain “control over the overall development,” Disney and his advisers realized, “the company would have to find a way to limit the voting power of the private residents” even though, they acknowledged, their efforts “violated the Equal Protection Clause” of the U.S. Constitution. Here again the CIA was there to help. Disney’s principal legal strategist for Florida was a senior clandestine operative named Paul Helliwell. Having helped launch the C.I.A. secret war in Indochina, Helliwell relocated to Miami in 1960 in order to coordinate dirty tricks against Castro. At a secret “seminar” Disney convened in May 1965 Helliwell came up with the approach that to this day allows the Disney organization to avoid taxation and environmental regulation as well as maintain immunity from the U.S. Constitution. It was the same strategy the C.I.A. pursued in the foreign countries. Set up a puppet government; then use that regime to do your bidding.

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