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.

How a rural US sheriff’s department was able to obtain a military-grade vehicle

A sheriff’s department in a remote rural California county with only 18,000 people, no incorporated cities, few sworn officers and almost no crime, was able to obtain a second military-grade MRAP armored vehicle in 2017 by giving brief answers to a simple questionnaire, according to documents obtained under freedom of information requests.

MRAP stands for mine-resistant ambush protected, though the prospect of encountering mines or being ambushed would seem to be unlikely in even the toughest US police precincts.

The documents, provided to the Guardian by the transparency non-profit Property of the People, show how quickly Donald Trump’s 2017 reversal of the Barack Obama administration’s curtailment of the transfer of battlefield equipment to law enforcement agencies led to their renewed proliferation, and how little agencies had to do to demonstrate any real need for them.

The documents include Mariposa county sheriff’s office (MCSO) application for the second MRAP from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). The application in September 2017, about a month after Trump reversed a 2015 Obama executive order which prohibited the transfer of equipment like armored vehicles, grenade launchers and high-caliber weapons to civilian agencies.

With one-line or one-paragraph answers to 15 questions, the rural county sheriff was able to add the vehicle to its already extant Mamba MRAP, acquired in 2014.

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While Trying to Kill Family’s Dog, LAPD Cop Reportedly Shoots His Partner Instead

According to police, the 33-year-old man was holding a pair of scissors when officers arrived. He was accompanied in the home by his wife, mother-in-law and three small children — and the family’s pet Rottweiler.

Police say that during the response, an officer fired a shot which they suggested was directed at the dog. During the firing, a female officer was struck.

During an encounter, a female officer was struck by gunfire in the wrist, but it is unclear what led to the shooting. At some point, a fire extinguisher was used, apparently to try and control the dog. The officer had residue from the extinguisher on her boots, LAPD Chief Michel Moore said, according to KTLA.

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Eyeing big China box office, Hollywood bows to censorship

The lure of the massive Chinese market has led Hollywood to readily self-censor its films to please Beijing, according to a new report by Pen America, an anti-censorship group.

Screenwriters, producers and directors in the huge US film industry are changing scripts, deleting scenes and altering other content, afraid of offending Chinese censors who control the gateway to the country’s 1.4 billion consumers, according to the report released Wednesday.

The actions include everything from deleting the Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise’s bomber jacket in the upcoming “Top Gun: Maverick,” to removing China as the source of a zombie virus in 2013’s “World War Z.”

But it also means completely avoiding sensitive issues including Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong politics, Xinjiang and the portrayal of LGBTQ characters, the report said.

Faced with blacklisting and other punitive measures, Hollywood producers are even censoring films not targeting the Chinese market, in order to not impact others planned for Chinese theaters, Pen America says.

“Steadily, a new set of mores has taken hold in Hollywood, one in which appeasing Chinese government investors and gatekeepers has simply become a way of doing business,” the report said.

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Biden Asked Point Blank About Apparent Cognitive Decline… It Didn’t Go Well

Over much of the past year there’s been increased scrutiny focused on presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s possible cognitive decline, given a series of bizarre statements, mishaps, and sometimes testy exchanges with constituents.

To our knowledge, the below televised CBS interview this week is the first time the 77-year old former VP was asked directly on a major TV network whether he’s willing to submit to a “cognitive test” in order to put widespread concerns of his perceived mental decline to rest. 

“Why the hell would I take a test?” Biden exploded. This was followed by a strange and somewhat nonsensical cocaine analogy, and ended with Biden once again sputtering and trying to get out simple words — a familiar pattern. In short, it didn’t go well…

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