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.

California’s Health Secretary Concedes There Is No Empirical Basis for the State’s Ban on Outdoor Dining

This week a Los Angeles County judge ruled that a local ban on outdoor dining at restaurants, ostensibly aimed at reducing transmission of the COVID-19 virus, was “not grounded in science, evidence, or logic.” Around the same time, California Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly admitted that the same thing is true of a state ban on outdoor dining that currently applies to all of Southern California, including Los Angeles County. Ghaly said that ban, which is one of many restrictions that are triggered when a region’s available ICU capacity drops below 15 percent, is “not a comment on the relative safety of outdoor dining” but is instead aimed at discouraging Californians from leaving home.

“The decision to include, among other sectors, outdoor dining and limiting that, turning to restaurants to deliver and provide takeout options instead, really has to do with the goal of trying to keep people at home,” Ghaly said during a briefing on Tuesday. He noted that “we have worked hard with that industry to create safer ways for outdoor dining to happen.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders says Democrats delayed COVID-19 relief

Sen. Bernie Sanders admitted that fellow Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were responsible for delaying urgently needed coronavirus relief by walking away from the White House’s offer of a $1.8 trillion coronavirus package.

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper Monday, the socialist two-time presidential candidate noted Pelosi’s hypocrisy in endorsing a smaller bipartisan $908 million deal last week after rejecting the twice-as-large proposal from President Trump in October.

“Democrats walked away from that deal because they wanted $2.2 trillion,” Tapper said.

“That’s right!” Sanders (I-Vt.) responded, confirming it was Democrats, not Republicans, who were to blame for months of inaction.

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John Kerry’s Think Tank Calls for War With Russia Over Climate Change

Recently-appointed Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry has announced his intention of dealing with the pressing issue of global warming as a national security concern. “America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is,” the 76-year-old former Secretary of State wrote. “I am proud to partner with the President-elect, our allies, and the young leaders of the climate movement to take on this crisis.”

The announcement drew praise from many professional climate activists and groups, perhaps assuming that Kerry was taking his lead from Bernie Sanders, who has for years been saying the same thing. Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement, Varshini Prakash said his statement was an “encouraging move,” while 350.org’s Bill McKibben, predicted Kerry would be an excellent climate czar. Yet, as media critic Adam Johnson argued, Kerry’s proclamation should deeply concern progressive activists and will likely lead to expanding the already bloated military budget.

Kerry is a founding member of the Washington think tank, the American Security Project (ASP), whose board is a who’s who of retired generals, admirals and senators. The ASP also hailed the appointment of their man, explaining, in a little-read report, exactly what treating the climate as a national security threat entails. And it is nothing like what Sanders advocates.

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HOLLYWOOD DEPLOYED LOBBYISTS TO WIN EXEMPTIONS TO STRICT CALIFORNIA LOCKDOWN

LAST MONTH, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was caught violating his own warnings against multiple households dining together indoors. The Democratic governor was spotted at the French Laundry, an exclusive restaurant north of San Francisco, where he was celebrating the birthday of longtime friend Jason Kinney.

The dinner controversy was more than just an opulent display of political double standards — it also highlighted the backroom efforts to maintain special treatment during the pandemic. Kinney, a veteran political operative, is a lobbyist for a number of interests seeking to shape the rules governing life under the pandemic, including what kind of economic activities are deemed essential in order to stay in business.

The inside track may have paid off. One of Kinney’s clients, Netflix, has been allowed to continue to operate during the latest round of forced closures that began last week as intensive care hospital capacity has dwindled across the state.

The entertainment industry has been given extensive leeway to operate during the pandemic, even as California now faces a stay-at-home order. The state has deemed the television and movie production industry as “critical infrastructure” and has allowed Hollywood studios to continue filming projects, including in Los Angeles, which is facing the most strict lockdown order.

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Pfizer and Moderna could score $32 billion in Covid-19 vaccine sales — in 2021 alone

The imminent authorization of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in the United States is a momentous occasion for science, the economy and humanity. The milestone is also a major moneymaker for the companies that developed the vaccines.Wall Street analysts are projecting Pfizer and Moderna will generate $32 billion in Covid-19 vaccine revenue — next year alone.

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GOP candidate who pushed QAnon conspiracy theory gets arrested for child pornography

Ben Gibson, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in November, was arrested in Louisiana this Wednesday and booked on four counts of child pornography, WGNO reports.

Gibson, who was an active Airman at Barksdale Air Force Base, was a challenger in a four-way race for the U.S. House Dist. 4 Congressional seat and lost to Rep. Mike Johnson, who won re-election. Jared Kutz, 30, of Bossier City was also arrested as a result of the investigation and charged with two counts of pornography.

As Media Matters pointed out in January, Gibson has endorsed the “QAnon” conspiracy theory, using its hashtag multiple times on his Facebook campaign page and other social media accounts. The QAnon cult believes that there’s an underground network of Satanic pedophiles who are being covertly pursued by President Trump

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Here Is What Each Of The Navy’s Ship-Launched Missiles Actually Costs

Many of America’s warships set sail absolutely packed with missiles. A single Ticonderoga class guided-missile cruiser has 122 Mark 41 vertical launch system (VLS) cells, each of which can handle one of a wide array of individual missiles, or four Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSMs). Even America’s carriers are bristling with missile-based point defenses. While the capabilities the Navy’s array of ship-launched missiles provides are fairly well known, at least conceptually, the staggering cost of each of these weapons is not. Now, just as we did with air-launched weapons and decoy flares, we aim to change that. 

The War Zone has collected the latest unit costs of these weapons to give readers a sense of just how much it is spending to arm its fleet. It should be stressed that these are the prices for just the individual weapons and the figures do not factor in any future spending on support services, modifications, upgrades, or past spending on the weapons’ development. 

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What’s Worse Than Pumpkin Spice? Cops Pulling People Over To Give Them Gift Cards

The coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot about the Christmas season. Travel plans have been cancelled. Family gatherings have been reduced in size and scope. There won’t be nearly as many dinners at fancy restaurants.

But one terrible tradition persists. Police pulling people over as though they had committed some sort of traffic infraction, then giving them a gift instead.

This week WACH, a Fox affiliate in South Carolina, reports that deputies in Richland County are turning on the lights and sirens, pulling people over, and then giving them gift cards to Outback Steakhouse rather than citations or warnings. It is presented, as usual, as an uplifting story for the holiday season. A WACH reporter joined the cops and got happy interviews from people who thought they were getting tickets. The sheriff’s department then gets to give itself the gift of a pat on the back for handing out free bloomin’ onions to people instead of disrupting their lives and saddling them with fines.

This anxiety-inducing crap should not be rewarded with fawning press coverage. The police are abusing citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights. Cops cannot simply pull people over with no suspicion of infractions, even to give them gifts.

Reason has criticized this behavior repeatedly. As Jacob Sullum noted back in 2016, these “supposedly heartwarming interactions are still abuses of power. If police would not have stopped drivers for these minor violations unless they had gifts to hand out, they are deliberately inconveniencing people and causing them needless anxiety for the sake of a publicity stunt.”

WACH reports that the deputies pulled people over for speeding before giving them the gift cards, which if true might suggest that the sheriff’s department is trying to avoid Fourth Amendment concerns by selecting people they would already have been stopping. But WACH’s footage also shows deputies giving a gift card to a man on horseback walking along the side of a road, so I’m not so sure about that.

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