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.

‘The Globalists Really Want It’: UN Renews Push for Vaccines in 100 Days

The United Nations is renewing a push to build the infrastructure needed to develop a vaccine within 100 days of the next pandemic, an effort backed by Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation.

In a policy brief published earlier this month, the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health said the goal is equity-driven — to help low-income countries access vaccines as quickly as wealthier countries during a global health emergency.

According to the brief, models suggest that rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine within 100 days of sequencing the virus would have saved about 8 million lives by the end of 2021, and up to $14 trillion in healthcare costs and lost productivity.

Based on those projections, improving vaccine equity in future pandemics will require the global health community to prioritize regional manufacturing capacity alongside “resilient, pre-established preparedness frameworks.”

One such framework, according to the report, is “The 100 Days Mission” — a Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) initiative that aims to “potentially contain outbreaks before they spiral out of control.”

An ‘absolute nightmare waiting to happen’

The 100 Days Mission can contribute to “a global system that can respond quickly to future health emergencies while directing protection to populations with the greatest need,” according to the U.N. brief.

But for Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Children’s Health Defense (CHD), prioritizing speed over safety leaves insufficient time to evaluate the efficacy or potential risks of vaccines. Hooker called the plan an “absolute nightmare waiting to happen.”

He added:

“No intervention that is untested should be rolled out within 100 days of a ‘pandemic threat’ … Even if the platform to roll out a shot was adequately tested, there would be no clues as to how the vaccine antigen … would react physiologically, no time for animal studies and no evaluation of any long-term sequelae to vaccination.

“Not only would this produce a vaccine that doesn’t work, but also it could cause way more damage than the infection that inspired the intervention.”

Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, told The Defender the U.N. plan lists lockdowns as a key component of containing a future outbreak.

“This plan imagines 100 days of lockdown before the release of the shot, if that is even possible. Compliance with this will be very low,” Tucker said.

According to Tucker, there’s no record of any pandemic having been stopped by vaccines, because vaccines “cannot stay ahead of mutations.” He said the shots “will drive the mutations and thereby deprecate the shot formula.”

“This plan exists on paper and has nothing to do with reality. If attempted, it could conceivably do more harm than the previous attempt during COVID,” Tucker said.

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El-Sayed Supporter Thrown Down by Police After Tackling Conservative Reporter on Michigan College Campus, Screams “I Should Have F*cking Killed You” During Arrest

A self-described liberal mental patient attacked and threatened to kill a conservative reporter during a free speech event at the University of Michigan on Sunday.

According to independent reporter Cam Higby, the insane woman is an Abdul El-Sayed supporter.

Liz Benichou, a Jewish activist who was filming man-on-the-street interviews on campus, was shoved to the ground by the lunatic during an apparent debate.

Out of nowhere, the woman shoved her to the ground and jumped on top of Benichou as multiple individuals tried to hold her back before police arrived.

The cop threw her on the ground and slapped cuffs on her as she tried to resist and screamed profanities at the cops, admitting to the attack. “What the f*ck are you going to do to me because I hit a f*cking dumb ass b*tch in the face?” she said.

Then, as police loaded her into the cruiser, she began screaming, “You stupid f*cking c*nt!” She screamed at Benichou, “I should have f*cking killed you when I had the f*cking chance!”

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Pedophile President: Trump & Epstein Argued Over Who Would Take 13-year-old’s Virginity, New House Report States

A new Democrat-led House Committee on the Judiciary report released this week sheds more light on President Donald Trump’s close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The Document, entitled “‘We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey’: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ’s Desperate Efforts to Cover it Up,” is based on the accounts of eleven women, five of whom alleged Trump raped or sexually assaulted them in the presence of the disgraced financier. Two of those women were 13-year-old children at the time of the alleged events.

The report portrays both Trump and former United States Special Representative for Global Partnerships Paolo Zampolli as being members of Epstein’s trafficking inner circle, and catalogs how Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) “actively obstructed the Epstein investigation into any co-conspirators” and attempted to block the release of the Epstein Files in order to protect the president.

Even so, Trump’s name still appears roughly 38,000 times in the released Epstein Files, with Epstein himself claiming that he introduced Trump’s future wife Melania to him, and that the pair first had sex aboard his infamous “Lolita Express” jet. Melania was, at the time, a model working for Zampolli’s agency.

A Host of Women Come Forward

Beatrice Keul – In 1993, Miss Switzerland Beatrice Keul was in New York City competing in Trump’s American Dream Pageant. It was there that she met both the future president and Jeffrey Epstein. Trump offered to secure her a place at New York University, and for Zampolli to arrange her visa. Epstein, she said, described himself as “Don’s best friend.”

Keul went to a suite in the Plaza Hotel for what she thought was a meeting about NYU. However, upon entering the suite, she said, Trump grabbed her from behind and “brutally” raped her, tearing her dress and caused bleeding and bruising across her body.

“Katie Johnson” – (a pseudonym) alleges in a lawsuit that Trump raped and sexually abused her on multiple occassions in 1994, when she was just 13-years-old. At an Epstein party in New York, she states that she was ordered to strip down to her underwear, massage Epstein, and touch Trump’s penis. Trump and Epstein argued over who would take her virginity, with Epstein getting angry and “violently raping her” when he found out Trump had already done so.

Johnson also alleges that Trump and Epstein threatened to kill her if she went to the authorities, stating “we will make you disappear like [name redacted].”

In a separate complaint, Johnson said that, on another occasion, she pleaded with Trump to wear a condom, to which he struck her in the face and screamed that he “would do whatever he wanted.” After he finished, Johnson claimed that Trump threw money at her and screamed “get a fucking abortion.”

Jane Doe 4 – Another 13-year-old allegedly assaulted by Trump was Jane Doe 4. She told the FBI that, in 1983, she bit Trump while performing oral sex on him, in response to which he hit her in the face. She said that Epstein flew her to New York City on multiple occasions, where she was offered up as “fresh meat” at “intimate gatherings with other, prominent, wealthy men,” where she was “brutally and forcibly battered, assaulted, and raped by these other men.”

Stacey Williams – Williams, a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, dated Epstein in the 1990s. While at Trump’s Christmas party at the Plaza Hotel, she said that Trump groped her in front of Epstein. “His hands were all over me. They were on my breasts, they were on my butt, they were on, you know, my hips, up and down,” she said. Epstein berated her for letting Trump touch her.

Jill Harth – Harth alleges that in 1993, Trump bundled her into his daughter’s bedroom at Mar-a-Lago, kissed and groped her, and prevented her from leaving.

Jane Doe 1 – At just 14-years-old, Epstein brought her to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, telling him “this is a good one, huh?” to which Trump responded “Yes.” She described in detail the sexual abuse she received from Epstein and others, but did not name Trump as one of those individuals.

Maria Farmer – Epstein’s former assistant alleges that, while at the financier’s New York City office, Donald Trump marched into the office in an imposing “predatory” manner. Epstein then appeared and told Trump that Farmer was “not for you,” escorting him to another room where Farmer believes another girl was waiting. She also stated that Trump said he “thought she was 16” although she was actually 25 at the time.

“Kate” – Kate (another pseudonym) states that Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell introduced her to Trump, “with the clear understanding that she was available for sex.” This sex, she said, did not happen. However, in 1997, the British tabloid, The Sunday Mirror, ran a story reporting how “America’s best known billionaire Donald Trump has fallen under the spell of a 20-year-old English girl” (Kate). It also noted that Maxwell had “introduced several of her attractive friends” to Trump. The Sunday Mirror was owned by Ghislaine’s father, Robert Maxwell, until his death in 1991.

Obfuscating Reality

Many of these allegations were already publicly available. But the fact that they are appearing in an official government publication is highly significant, especially as the report concludes that “there is more than enough evidence” against Trump and that he “must be investigated and prosecuted.”

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Beyond Netanyahu: What Israel’s Election Means for Palestinians

In the past, many Palestinians and Arabs followed Israeli elections closely.

They did so not because they entertained illusions that a Zionist leader would deliver peace and justice, dismantle the occupation or remove illegal settlements. Rather, they feared that some Israeli leaders were worse than others. They hoped to avert the worst-case scenario.

Over time, however, that distinction gave way to the belief that all Israeli leaders were essentially the same. This is not pessimism. It is experience.

Consider, for example, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements during the Oslo peace process under Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Between 1992 and 1995, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, increased from 111,673 to 140,235 – a rise of more than 25 percent, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, drawing on Israeli statistical records.

The same pattern continued under the Labor government of Ehud Barak.

Within his first six months, Barak’s government issued tenders for 3,196 settlement housing units, exceeding the annual average under his right-wing predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.

When Naftali Bennett formed a coalition government in June 2021 that included the Arab party Ra’am, settlement expansion continued unabated.

According to Peace Now, the Bennett–Lapid government advanced plans for 7,292 settlement housing units during its first year, a 26-percent increase over the annual average recorded under previous Netanyahu governments.

The settlements are themselves a driving force behind the occupation. They require land, and therefore land confiscation; protection, and therefore an expanded military presence; water, roads and infrastructure, and therefore the appropriation of Palestinian resources. Together, these elements deepen dispossession and generate further Israeli violence.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the West Bank contained 645 Israeli settlement sites, outposts and other occupation installations by the end of 2025, including 350 settlement outposts.

The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission reported that Israeli authorities targeted approximately 29,335 dunums of Palestinian land through declarations of so-called “state land” between October 2023 and August 2026—one of the largest waves of such land appropriation since Oslo.

By September 2026, the Commission had also documented the advancement or consideration of plans for more than 18,000 additional settlement housing units across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

Alongside this expansion is the violence unfolding across the West Bank.

By the end of 2023, the West Bank had experienced its deadliest year for Palestinians since the UN began systematically recording casualties in 2005.

The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission documented 23,827 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians and their property during 2025 alone. In the first seven months of 2026, settler attacks increased by 63 percent compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.

Typically, this violence, carried out by the Israeli occupation army and armed illegal settlers, is contextualized within the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But violence in the West Bank also serves another purpose beyond collective punishment: the confiscation of Palestinian orchards, the annexation of land, the expansion of settlements and the crushing of Palestinian resistance, including nonviolent opposition to this colonial enterprise.

Any Israeli candidate in the October 27 elections who supports settlement expansion does so with full knowledge of its consequences: further dispossession, military occupation, annexation and violence.

The difference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and politicians presented as less extreme, is often one of language, strategy and timing.

Former Israeli military chief and Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, for example, openly supports the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite his reputation as a more ‘moderate’ alternative to Netanyahu.

What, then, about Gaza?

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Explosive New Evidence Challenges Connecticut’s Supermajority Attack on Homeschoolers.

A lethal cocktail of two adult-strength psychiatric drug medications and an over-the-counter allergy medicine caused 12-year-old Eve Rogers to drown in behavioral health and drug company products, exploding the state’s calculated narrative against homeschoolers to pass overreaching state mandates.

The medical examiner’s staggering toxicology report revealed a lethal level of diphenhydramine (Benadryl) alongside toxic amounts of the prescription antidepressants Prozac (fluoxetine) and Wellbutrin (bupropion). Armed with these chemical findings, Enfield police arrested the girl’s mother, 39-year-old Melanie Federline, on October 30, 2026, charging her with risk of injury to a minor following the lethal exposure and a pattern of reckless medical neglect.

Twelve-year-old Eve Rogers did not just die; she literally drowned in a cocktail of psychiatric drugs and heavy over-the-counter sedation. This case has become historically critical because state lawmakers immediately weaponized Eve’s death to force sweeping, highly restrictive regulations onto the entire Connecticut homeschooling community.

AbleChild worked directly with prominent homeschool defense attorney, Deborah Stevenson, to alert the Country to the brutal political battle homeschoolers are fighting in Connecticut. Explosive new information coming forward following the arrest of her mother has blown apart the supermajority legislators’ narrative against homeschoolers.

According to the latest evidence, the treating psychiatrist has still not been identified, the mental health records of both the mother and child have been withheld from the public, as well as what role state agencies played with the family prior to the death of Eve. This complete lack of transparency makes it impossible to hold the treating medical professionals or the state accountable for their severe lack of clinical oversight, unless all the treatment records are released along with the name of the psychiatrist(s) or doctor(s) involved.

According to the state medical examiner’s finalized toxicology report published by the Hartford Courant, Eve was killed by acute multi-drug intoxication. Detectives discovered she had an astounding 23,000 nanograms per milliliter of the over-the-counter antihistamine diphenhydramine in her system, more than five times the lethal threshold for a child.

But it is the remainder of the lab work that has elevated this investigation into a criminal homicide track: lethal levels of Prozac and Wellbutrin were also found.  These powerful psychiatric drugs were never prescribed to Eve, but it appears other psychiatric drugs were, and Eve was currently being evaluated by an “expert”; the name of that “expert” and behavioral health company is being withheld.  Why?  When was the last time Eve’s blood work was done prior to her death?

The state has officially ruled her death an intoxication with “undetermined intent,” leaving investigators to parse whether the child swallowed the lethal cocktail voluntarily, accidentally, or if it was forced down her throat.

What is certain is that the medications a doctor did prescribe to manage her autism, pending bipolar evaluation, and severe Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a debilitating chronic cardiovascular condition that causes a rapid heart rate, lightheadedness, and fainting upon standing, sat completely untouched in a weekly pill organizer.  What were those drugs? Were therapeutic levels tested?

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Who is Making Billions from the Iran War?

At a campaign rally over the weekend, President Trump dismissed Americans’ concerns over high oil and gas prices, claiming that it’s a small price to pay for the hundreds of billions of dollars “we” are making from these higher prices.

“We’re making a fortune,” he said. “Hundreds of billions of dollars. Trillions of dollars.”

People are paying a little bit more for gas, he explained, but it doesn’t matter because “we” are making so much money.

The question is, “Who is ‘we’?” We know it is not the American people. They are seeing wage stagnation, inflation, and more pain at the pump. An Economist/YouGov poll earlier this month found that inflation and prices are the top concern among Americans by a wide margin. And in second place were jobs and the economy.

The same poll asked Americans how they rate the state of the US economy and in first place – again by a long shot – was “poor.”

If “we” as in the American people were making hundreds of billions of dollars from the war, you would think these would not be their top two concerns.

But we understand what the President meant by “we.” He meant that part of the “private” sector directly or indirectly in bed with the government war machine. From oil companies to weapons manufacturers and everything in between, war and conflict drive up profits in well-connected corporations at the expense of the rest of us.

That is why we are in a constant state of war. Twenty years in Afghanistan and a similar length in Iraq. Endless bombing in places like Somalia. A twelve-year (and counting) proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Military bases and covert operations across the globe.

And if we find that the largest military budget in the world does not deliver enough actual weapons to win a war? Well, that’s all good too: just double military spending and accuse anyone who objects of not being patriotic!

“Private” companies with enormous political power – many of them revolving doors between government and business – “make so much money” on war, as Trump would say. Whether these wars produce US wins, loses, or stalemates, these corporations in bed with government always win. The money-printing machine makes sure the money cycles into government-favored companies, while campaign contributions are made to the politicians who support the wars.

And if you don’t support the wars? You get the Thomas Massie treatment.

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Israel’s Ugly Election Aftermath: Netanyahu’s War Against Israeli Palestinians

Netanyahu’s response to the October 27 election has been extraordinary, even by his increasingly incendiary standards. Having failed to secure a governing majority, he and Likud have moved from contesting political opponents to questioning the legitimacy of the electorate itself.

Israeli Palestinian voters turned out in unprecedented numbers, helping the two “Arab-led parties”, as the Israeli government refers to them, win 19 seats. Netanyahu responded with allegations of widespread fraud, bribery and foreign interference, without producing a shred of evidence of systematic electoral manipulation.

The distinction matters. Israel’s Central Elections Committee said there was no basis for claims that the integrity of the vote had been systematically compromised. The Shin Bet likewise stressed that its narrowly focused investigation into possible foreign interference did not implicate Israeli-Arab voters collectively. President Isaac Herzog warned against tarnishing an entire community. Yet Netanyahu’s political machinery continued to portray the result as a “stolen election” and an “assault on Israel.”

It was a new low to a shrewd veteran politician who has sustained his career on incendiary campaigns. But this is not simply a sore loser refusing to leave the political stage. It is an attempt to redefine legitimate democratic participation according to ethnic and ideological criteria – and to pre-tarnish those Israeli parties willing to cooperate with the “Arab parties” and perhaps to set the stage for a new attack against Iran, to foster domestic support.

An Israeli Palestinian citizen’s vote is constitutionally valid when it supports Netanyahu’s political survival; apparently, it becomes suspect when it threatens it.

Qatar: Another convenient scapegoat

Netanyahu’s latest accusation introduces a familiar foreign villain: Qatar. Likud alleged that Doha, possibly alongside Turkey, financed organizations mobilizing Palestinian voters, thereby helping manufacture the electoral defeat of the Israeli right.

Like most calculated nonsense, the accusation is politically convenient. Qatar hosts Hamas’s political leadership, has mediated negotiations over Gaza, and has become an established target of Israeli nationalist rhetoric. Yet the evidence presented so far does not establish that Qatar financed electoral fraud or manipulated the Israeli vote.

Qatar categorically denied interference, describing the allegations as a disinformation campaign. More damaging to Netanyahu’s narrative, the Central Elections Committee’s acting director-general, Dean Livne, rejected claims of widespread electoral fraud as baseless. The committee stated that there was no basis for alleging systematic damage to the election’s integrity.

The Shin Bet confirmed that, while its foreign-interference investigation was limited, originated in its own intelligence rather than information supplied by political parties, it did not implicate an entire community of Palestinian voters.

Investigating possible foreign interference is legitimate; converting an unfinished intelligence inquiry into proof that its “Arab citizens” stole an election is political manipulation. Netanyahu has transformed a narrowly defined security investigation into an expansive political indictment.

Qatar may be a convenient suspect, but it cannot substitute for evidence. And foreign interference, even if established in individual cases, cannot invalidate the lawful votes of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens, which is what Palestinians are.

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$34 Million Los Angeles School Sits Vacant And Vandalized Since 2021

In 2003, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) had 703,000 students. “The district had been running year-round schedules, with the school year shortened by nearly a month, to accommodate its burgeoning student population,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

Over the last 23 years, district enrollment has declined by more than 50%. When it became obvious that enrollment had passed its peak, the LAUSD canceled 18 construction projects for new schools in 2007.

But one of those projects, zombie-like, came back from the dead. A charter school, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, won approval from the school board to build a school at 1215 Miramar Avenue. The state had already earmarked the funds for a charter school, so LAUSD gave the project the green light.

“The school was paid for with a combination of state funds, district funds, and a state loan the charter would have to repay,” reports The Times. “The district’s facility division acquired the land and managed the construction, which began in 2011, with the Camino Nuevo charter school opening in 2013.”

At the time, the LAUSD school board was all for charter schools. It helped relieve some of the overcrowding in the district and didn’t appear to threaten enrollment.

All that changed as the decades rolled by. Camino Nuevo closed the campus in 2021 and left behind an $8 million construction debt that any new tenant must pay.

“Ultimately, the campus was too far away” from the other Camino Nuevo schools, said Ana Ponce, head of Camino Nuevo at the time. “Those students found alternatives, predominantly other charter high schools, that were closer to our middle school campuses.”

So a beautiful campus built to accommodate 500 students never saw more than half that number, then closed its doors. In debt and facing a now-hostile school board, other charters are reluctant to take possession.

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NPR Reveals Democrat Scheme To Rig AIs Into Deceiving Voters

Democrats love to decry misinformation, and they do so for a very specific reason: to distract from the fact that misinformation and Narrative™ control are the most powerful tools in their toolbox.

Don’t get me wrong; everybody wants to control The Narrative™. That is why everybody has a PR agent of some kind and uses rhetoric to persuade people. It’s just that the Democrats have a vice grip on the cultural means of production and the bureaucracies and institutions that provide “reliable” information, so Republicans have a tough time competing on this battleground, and their voters tend to be a lot more skeptical of narratives in the first place.

One of the brilliant things about decrying “misinformation” or “money in politics” is that you are telling people what they want to hear – that deceiving people is bad and that buying elections is wrong – and that makes people less likely to notice that you are deceiving people and buying elections.

After all, you are the people against that, right?

Yeah, well, no. Not in the least. The Left is all about both. Obama ran against both, for instance, but he ran the most expensive campaign in history, by far, when he ran and won, and one of the tools his campaign used was manipulating Google results to create a playing field that favored him.

Life in 2026 is far more complicated and sophisticated, and Democrats have adapted well to the landscape. And they have deep connections in Big Tech and own the PR landscape, so it shouldn’t surprise us that their geniuses have figured out how to poison AI to feed sophisticated misinformation to voters.

Ahead of the midterms, some voters are turning to ChatGPT to help them decide who to vote for. When asked for information about candidates in some highly competitive races, NPR found that OpenAI’s AI chatbot cited a set of websites that are thinly veiled political ads made to look like reporting from local news outlets.

Less than two weeks before Election Day, when asked “Which House candidates in [Michigan’s 4th Congressional District] care about affordability?,” the chatbot said Democrat Sean McCann had the “Most detailed published affordability plan” at the very top of its answer. The stakes in this race are high – it’s one of the competitive U.S. House races that could determine control of the chamber.

ChatGPT’s response when NPR asked “Which House candidates in [Michigan’s 4th Congressional District] care about affordability?”

As a citation, ChatGPT linked to a website called the Kalamazoo Beacon. The Beacon labels its articles as “news articles” in the website’s source code. The outlet also describes itself in the site’s source code as “Reporting on Kalamazoo, southwest Michigan, and the issues shaping lakeshore communities.”

But the Kalamazoo Beacon has only published 16 stories, all about McCann, his policy positions and his record as a state legislator, NPR’s review shows.

The Beacon is one of 10 “local news” websites that promote one Democrat apiece in competitive U.S. House races. The 10 sites are part of a larger group of 37 websites identified by the digital security firm VisionHeight that promote many more candidates, mostly Democrats, for a slew of federal, state and local offices, as well as some nonpartisan posts like judges.

ChatGPT’s citation of these websites highlights how AI-generated answers can become yet another avenue for stealthy political advertising as more voters consult chatbots before they head to the polls.

This is a far more sophisticated version of a tactic Democrats have used in the past: creating fake newspapers delivered to people’s homes, presented as “news” but really PR packages for candidates or parties.

But those were fairly transparent; seeding fake news into AI is not, because AI presents information as if it comes from neutral “news” sources, when in fact it is just laundered propaganda not identified as such.

In much the same way that Google will launder Wikipedia answers as authoritative in its AI summaries, making the left-leaning “editors” at the site extremely powerful in creating a Truman Show reality, the fake “news” sites provide another layer of credibility to campaign propaganda.

The set of 37 websites presents candidates in different, overlapping groups. Each of the 10 Democrats covered by a site purporting to cover local news is also the sole subject of a site that offers opinion articles about why voters should support them. The various candidates, who are running in different states, also show up in roundup-style articles on five more websites that have names such as “Public Safety Democrats” and “Democratic Women in the House.”

The volume of websites and articles may also help the network’s operator boost their preferred narratives, DiResta said.

Another 12 websites, each focusing on a state, covered the House candidates in those states as well as other state and local candidates running for office. The state and national websites also boosted an 11th House candidate that did not have her own dedicated site purporting to be local news.

While most of the sites are openly partisan, the articles published by the network link out to sources for the claims they make, such as congressional voting records, mainstream news articles and partisan news sources, such as the pro-Democrat Courier network.

The genius of these sites is that they are not meant to be read by humans at all. They are designed to optimize for web crawlers and cross-link so the network appears far larger and more credible than it actually is. It’s the same principle used in academic journals, where citations serve as a form of credibility checking (“peers take this work seriously”), which has led to junk papers actually getting more citations because they create a web of cites that make them appear influential.

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