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.

Chicago Mayor Lightfoot Has 71-Person Police Unit To Protect Her, Blames Trump For Being In Danger

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat who proposed cutting a huge $80 million from the Chicago Police Department budget in 2020, has a personal police unit consisting of a whopping 71 officers to protect her, and blamed some of her personal need for protection on former President Trump, telling the Chicago Sun-Times, “When the president of the United States uses the world’s largest megaphone and platform to target you personally, terrible things happen. And he not only blew a dog whistle, he pointed really evil and dangerous people right at my doorstep.”

The special unit, named Unit 544, now is comprised of 65 officers, five sergeants and a lieutenant, but that’s not all; “Lightfoot also has a separate personal bodyguard detail, which includes about 20 officers, the records show,” The Sun-Times noted.

On July 7, 2020, the police department issued a memo to officers who had served for at least five years; it stated:

The unit’s mission will be to provide physical security for City Hall, the mayor’s residence and the mayor’s detail command post. … Through the coordination of intelligence and resources, officers will respond to all threats related to the mayor’s physical properties to ensure its protection.

“Around the same time the unit was being formed in the summer of 2020, residents of Humboldt Park and Logan Square were complaining that the Shakespeare district, which covers their neighborhoods, was getting stretched thin because so many patrol officers there were being assigned to keep protesters from gathering outside Lightfoot’s house in Logan Square,” The Sun-Times added.

John Catanzara, president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, commented, “While murders are soaring, while districts are barebones for manpower, all that matters is protecting her castle.”

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Prophetic RAND Corp. Report: “Destabilize and Undermine” Russia. Recommended “Provocative Actions”

A “prophetic” RAND Corporation report titled “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia” published in 2019 declares the stated goal of American policymakers is “to undermine Russia just as the US subversively destabilized the former Soviet Union during the Cold War,” and predicts to the letter the crisis unfolding in Ukraine. RAND Corporation is a quasi-US governmental think tank that receives three-quarters of its funding from the US military.

While designating Russia as an “intractable adversary,” the report notes that “Russia has deep seated anxieties” about Western interference and potential military attack. These anxieties are deemed to be “a vulnerability to exploit.”

The RAND report lists several “provocative measures” to insidiously “destabilize and undermine” Russia. Some of the steps include: repositioning bombers within easy striking range of key Russian strategic targets; deploying additional tactical nuclear weapons to locations in Europe and Asia; increasing US and allied naval force posture and presence in Russia’s operating areas (Black Sea); holding NATO war exercises on Russia’s borders; and withdrawing from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Almost all the provocative actions recommended in the RAND report have practically been implemented by the successive Obama, Trump and Biden administrations since the 2014 Maidan coup, toppling Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and consequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia.

The US Air Force has flown B-52 strategic bombers and RC-135 reconnaissance planes over eastern Ukraine in months before the invasion, as part of its effort to deter Russia. To stiffen Ukraine’s ability to resist, the United States and NATO dispatched teams of military advisers in months before the invasion to survey air defenses, logistics, communications and other essentials.

Besides deploying 15,000 additional troops in Eastern Europe last month, total number of US troops in Europe is now expected to reach 100,000. “We have 130 jets at high alert. Over 200 ships from the high north to the Mediterranean, and thousands of additional troops in the region,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN on March 9.

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UK to launch new digital ID technology next month as part of nationwide digital ID push

The UK government is pushing ahead with its nationwide digital ID plans, despite half of the responses to its public consultation on digital identity opposing the idea.

On April 6, 2022, new digital identity document verification technology (IDVT) that enables data sharing between public bodies and businesses for the purpose of identity verification will be introduced. It will be made available to UK employers, landlords, and letting agents who can use it to digitally carry out pre-employment criminal record checks, right to work checks, and right to rent checks.

The introduction of this digital IDVT is part of the government’s far-reaching digital ID plans which were announced in March. The government has framed these digital ID plans as a way for UK citizens to “easily and quickly prove their identity using digital methods instead of having to rely on traditional physical documents.”

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Nearly 500-Page House Report On Marijuana Legalization Bill Previews Democratic And Republican Arguments

With a vote on a bill to federally legalize marijuana set for House floor consideration this week, lawmakers on Thursday released a report on the legislation that effectively previews the partisan debate to come, with the majority and minority leaders of a key committee making their arguments for and against the reform.

The 483-page report prepared by the House Judiciary Committee provides an extensive overview of the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which is sponsored by the panel’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

Leadership announced late last week that the bill to end federal prohibition would be taken up on the floor for the second time in congressional history. It passed the House in 2020 but saw no action in the Senate. Then, in September, it again cleared the sponsor’s panel for the current session.

Before heading to the floor, there will be a House Rules Committee meeting on Wednesday, where members will decide whether any proposed amendments can be made in order. The hearing was initially scheduled for Monday but was pushed back two days over the weekend for unknown reasons.

“Enforcement of marijuana laws has been a key driver of mass criminalization in the United States,” the new report’s background and need for legislation section states. “The drug war has produced profoundly unequal outcomes across racial groups, manifested through significant racial disparities throughout the criminal justice system.”

It further describes the collateral consequences of cannabis arrests and convictions, including the possible loss of opportunities for employment, voting rights, housing, education, government assistance and more, saying that “these exclusions create an often-permanent second-class status for millions of Americans.”

“Like drug war enforcement itself, these consequences fall disproportionately on people of color,” it says. “For non-citizens, a conviction can trigger deportation, sometimes with almost no possibility of discretionary relief.”

“Today, overcriminalized communities continue to suffer the consequences of failed drug policies, even in states that have legalized marijuana, where arrests have dropped for marijuana crimes. Public support for making marijuana legal has increased over the past two decades. The resulting trend in state-level legalization of marijuana has placed states in apparent conflict with federal law and, as a result, the Justice Department has struggled with how to continue to uphold federal law in this context.”

The report also touches on other unique challenges that state-legal marijuana industries face under the status quo of federal prohibition, including barriers to accessing financial services through traditional banking services which have resulted in public safety issues for cannabis businesses that have become targets of crime because many operate on a largely cash-only basis.

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