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.

Biden’s Education Department Wants to Roll Back Effort to Catalog Teacher Sex Crimes

The Department of Education wants to roll back a Trump-era effort to collect data on teacher-on-student sex crimes.

The department’s Office for Civil Rights will not ask school districts questions regarding teacher-on-student sexual assault allegations as part of its 2021-2022 Civil Rights Data Collection, proposed Thursday. The change is designed to “reduce burden and duplication of data,” an Education Department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon. But critics say eliminating the question is the Biden administration’s attempt to appease teachers’ unions.

“This is the ultimate act of bowing to the teachers’ unions,” Kimberly Richey, who served as acting assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights in the Trump administration, told the Free Beacon. “Through this proposal, the Biden administration is actively helping schools cover up these incidents, which we were intentionally shining a light on.”

The Education Department will still ask districts to report documented cases of rape and sexual assault. But it will not ask school officials to report allegations that resulted in the resignation or retirement of the accused. Former secretary of education Betsy DeVos added those optional questions to the 2020-2021 data collection, which was delayed one year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The department also won’t ask districts to report pending cases or cases in which a school staffer was reassigned to another district school prior to the conclusion of an investigation.

Reporting alleged sex crimes in addition to documented cases provides a fuller picture of sexual violence in schools, as the accused may retire, resign, or seek employment elsewhere before a district can reach a conclusion in the case.

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LAPD Used Fake Social Media Accounts to Spy on Users

Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers used fake online personas to monitor social media users, and at one point considered employing tools that critics say would lead to law enforcement profiling innocent people, according to recently revealed government documents.

The documents, released by the Brennan Center for Justice following an open records request with the LAPD, have raised concerns among critics that law enforcement’s online surveillance operations harm freedom of expression and encourage profiling.

“Social media surveillance can facilitate surveillance of protest activity and police presence at protests, which can chill both online and offline speech,” the organization said. “Further, the highly contextual nature of social media also makes it ripe for misinterpretation.”

The Brennan Center released an initial set of documents in September, showing that LAPD officers use fake social media accounts to monitor online activity. The FBI and other federal intelligence agencies are restricted from using such tactics under a Reagan-era executive order that require agents to reveal their identities when participating in private organizations.

“Social media situational awareness is gained by the passive and active searching for information impacting operations, including information found in discussion forums, posts, videos, and blogs,” a 2015 LAPD social media user guide says, adding. “In this capacity, social media use can be covert and/or clandestine.”

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NY Times ‘Experts’ Says Face Masks Could Become Permanent

The New York Times has published an article citing “experts” who say mask wearing is now “normalized” and could remain in place permanently even when the pandemic ends.

Titled ‘When Can the Covid Masks Finally Come Off?’, the article explores when it’s likely the restrictions will come to an end, but then concludes that mask wearing may never end.

The piece cites scientists who say the general public “should be prepared to put masks back on in the event of future surges” and that older adults should continue to wear them anyway.

“Do we all wear masks the rest of our lives?” asked Dr. Stephen Luby, an infectious disease expert and epidemiologist at Stanford University.

“Before the pandemic there was a stigma associated with wearing masks in this country, but I think it’s become normalized in a lot of places,” noted Dr. Linsey Marr.

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Conflict of Interest? WashPost Owner Jeff Bezos Gives Obama Foundation $100 Million

It looks like The Washington Post may run into a conflict of interest problem the next time it fawns over former President Barack Obama’s allegedly “chiseled pectorals.”

The Obama Foundation released a statement saying that leftist Post owner and mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos was donating a whopping $100 million “in honor of Congressman John Lewis” (D-GA), who recently passed away. The Foundation called the donation “the largest individual contribution received to date.” The purpose of the grant includes “help[ing] expand the scope of programming that reaches emerging leaders in the United States and around the world.”

But this could present an issue for the newspaper Bezos owns, which has a sordid record of cheerleading for Obama. The most glaring example of the outlet’s bias was in December of 2008, when The Post was giddy for how “[t]he sun glinted off [Obama’s] chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.”

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