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.

Totalitarian Paranoia Run Amok: Pandemics, Lockdowns & Martial Law

“Totalitarian paranoia runs deep in American society, and it now inhabits the highest levels of government.”—Professor Henry Giroux

Once upon a time, there was a government so paranoid about its hold on power that it treated everyone and everything as a threat and a reason to expand its powers. Unfortunately, the citizens of this nation believed everything they were told by their government, and they suffered for it.

When terrorists attacked the country, and the government passed massive laws aimed at paving the way for a surveillance state, the people believed it was done merely to keep them safe. The few who disagreed were labeled traitors.

When the government waged costly preemptive wars on foreign countries, insisting it was necessary to protect the nation, the citizens believed it. And when the government brought the weapons and tactics of war home to use against the populace, claiming it was just a way to recycle old equipment, the people believed that too. The few who disagreed were labeled unpatriotic.

When the government spied on its own citizens, claiming they were looking for terrorists hiding among them, the people believed it. And when the government began tracking the citizenry’s movements, monitoring their spending, snooping on their social media, and surveying them about their habits—supposedly in an effort to make their lives more efficient—the people believed that, too. The few who disagreed were labeled paranoid.

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IRS To Require Facial Recognition To View Tax Returns

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has partnered with a Virginia-based private identification firm which requires a facial recognition selfie among other things, in order to create or access online accounts with the agency.

According to KrebsonSecurity, the IRS announced that by the summer of 2022, the only way to log into irs.gov will be through ID.me. Founded by former Army Rangers in 2010, the McLean-based company has evolved to providing online ID verification services which several states are using to help reduce unemployment and pandemic-assistance fraud. The company claims to have 64 million users.

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Congress’s 1/6 Committee Claims Absolute Power as it Investigates Citizens With No Judicial Limits

In its ongoing attempt to investigate and gather information about private U.S. citizens, the Congressional 1/6 Committee is claiming virtually absolute powers that not even the FBI or other law enforcement agencies enjoy. Indeed, lawyers for the committee have been explicitly arguing that nothing proscribes or limits their authority to obtain data regarding whichever citizens they target and, even more radically, that the checks imposed on the FBI (such as the requirement to obtain judicial authorization for secret subpoenas) do not apply to the committee.

As we have previously reported and as civil liberties groups have warned, there are serious constitutional doubts about the existence of the committee itself. Under the Constitution and McCarthy-era Supreme Court cases interpreting it, the power to investigate crimes lies with the executive branch, supervised by the judiciary, and not with Congress. Congress does have the power to conduct investigations, but that power is limited to two narrow categories: 1) when doing so is designed to assist in its law-making duties (e.g., directing executives of oil companies to testify when considering new environmental laws) and 2) in order to exert oversight over the executive branch.

What Congress is barred from doing, as two McCarthy-era Supreme Court cases ruled, is exactly what the 1/6 committee is now doing: conducting a separate, parallel criminal investigation in order to uncover political crimes committed by private citizens. Such powers are dangerous precisely because Congress’s investigative powers are not subject to the same safeguards as the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. And just as was true of the 1950s House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that prompted those Supreme Court rulings, the 1/6 committee is not confining its invasive investigative activities to executive branch officials or even citizens who engaged in violence or other illegality on January 6, but instead is investigating anyone and everyone who exercised their Constitutional rights to express views about and organize protests over their belief that the 2020 presidential election contained fraud. Indeed, the committee’s initial targets appear to be taken from the list of those who applied for protest permits in Washington: a perfectly legal, indeed constitutionally protected, act.

This abuse of power is not merely abstract. The Congressional 1/6 Committee has been secretly obtaining private information about American citizens en masse: telephone records, email logs, internet and browsing history, and banking transactions. And it has done so without any limitations or safeguards: no judicial oversight, no need for warrants, no legal limitations of any kind.

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Animal Sacrifice Sees Drunk Priest Allegedly Behead Man Instead of Goat

A drunk priest in India allegedly killed a man during an animal sacrifice for Sankranthi celebrations on Sunday (January 16.)

Local news outlets reported that the incident happened by mistake. The victim, a 35-year-old man named Suresh, was holding the goat meant for sacrifice in Valasapalli village, in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh.

The accused, named Chalapathi, was supposed to carry out the animal sacrifice and cut off the goat’s head.

However, the priest ended up using the knife to cut the throat of Suresh instead. Several local reports said the victim was beheaded.

The United News of India (UNI) news agency reported that Suresh left behind his wife and two children.

According to UNI, the sacrifice happened as part of the animal festival Kanuma, also known as Pasuvula Panduga, which happens on the third day of the Sankranthi in Andhra Pradesh.

It was organized at the local Yellamma temple, dedicated to the patron goddess of Andhra Pradesh.

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Two Men Arrested in UK Over Texas Synagogue Hostage Situation

Two men have been arrested in the UK in relation to the recent hostage attack on a Synagogue in Texas.

UK police have announced the arrest of two men in relation to the hostage attack on the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas.

Malik Faisal Akram — the UK national responsible for the attack — was shot dead after an 11-hour standoff after taking a number of hostages.

It has subsequently been revealed that Akram was previously known to UK Intelligence,  but was not deemed a threat to the public after an assessment in 2020.

As part of the UK’s ongoing investigation into the incident, The Telegraph has reported that a number of arrests have been made in Britain.

“Officers from Counter-Terror Policing (CTP) North West continue to support US authorities with their investigation into the events in Texas,” the publication reports the Greater Manchester Police as saying.

“As a result of this ongoing investigation, two men have been arrested this morning in Birmingham and Manchester,” the statement continues. “They remain in custody for questioning.”

The UK paper also notes that two teenagers who were also arrested after the attack have since been released without charge.

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CIA finds most Havana syndrome cases not caused by foreign power

The CIA has determined that most cases of Havana syndrome were not caused by a sustained global campaign by a foreign power against US diplomats and spies, according to a new report.

The majority of 1,000 cases of the mysterious ailment reviewed by US officials show it is unlikely to have been caused by Russia or another foreign adversary, CIA officials told the New York Times about a study’s preliminary findings.

The officials said the symptoms can be explained by environmental causes, undiagnosed medical conditions or stress.

But the CIA is still continuing to investigate some two dozen unexplained cases that may provide clues as to whether a foreign power is responsible for the condition, which has affected US officials and relatives overseas, including in Vienna, Paris, Geneva and Havana, the paper reported, citing agency sources.

In addition to those two dozen cases, a significant number of others are still unexplained, the Times cited a CIA official as saying.  

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