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.

After the Deep State Sabotaged His Presidential Bid, Bernie Sanders Mocks Those Who Believe it

Since Eisenhower’s pointed warnings, and long before Trump’s election, the massive power and incomparable dangers of the U.S. Deep State have been widely and explicitly documented — from leftist foreign policy critics Mike Lofgren and Peter Dale Scott to the 2013 book by journalists Marc Ambinder and D.B. Grady entitled “Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry.”

A three-part Washington Post exposé in 2010, by two-time-Pulitzer-winner Dana Priest and William Arkin, was entitled “Top Secret America.” It described the “hidden world, growing beyond control,” which “has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.” This, said the Post, all “amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight.”

During the Trump years, the U.S. media alternated between vehemently denying the existence of this well-documented Deep State to celebrating the Deep State’s noble anti-Trump subversions. As I noted last week:

[Democrats and allied media outlets were] cheering reports that unelected security state officials were concealing information they did not want the elected President to have, and more recent reports that they misled him about troop positions in Syria to prevent his withdrawal efforts: classic Deep State coup behavior whereby unaccountable military and intelligence officials prevent the elected president from implementing polices they decide are misguided.

The more honest liberal pundits explicitly said they were grateful for the Deep State. Writing under the headline “God bless the ‘Deep State,’” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson — while dismissing right-wing claims of a “Deep State conspiracy” — nonetheless argued that the hidden intelligence officials who operate in the dark are performing a vital service in undermining Trump: “with a supine Congress unwilling to play the role it is assigned by the Constitution, the deep state stands between us and the abyss.”

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Joe Biden Exploring Ways to Tie Climate Change Legislation to Coronavirus Relief

Biden, whose environmental agenda is heavily influenced by the recommendations of a unity task force set up with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) after the Democrat primaries, has proposed spending $2 trillion over four years to combat climate change.

A major portion of the money will be used to create one million new jobs in the auto industry by boosting the production of energy-efficient vehicles. In order to achieve the goal, Biden is backing legislation, introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), to incentivize individuals to trade in their gas-powered vehicles for ones running on either electricity or hydrogen.

The former vice president has also proposed to adopt a 100 percent clean-electricity standard by 2035. A similar idea was initially raised by Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) during his own ill-fated run for the Democrat nomination in 2019. If implemented, it would ensure that all electricity produced in the United States would be “carbon-free.

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Mayor Garcetti Bans Walking As Latest LA Lockdown Begins

As LA Mayor Eric Garcetti kicks off the most restrictive lockdown in the country in the City of Angels, it appears even walking and exercise are now banned as California takes a page out of Australia’s COVID-19 playbook.

During comments earlier this week, the LA Mayor warned “it’s time to cancel everything”, including “unnecessary travel on foot” – also known as ‘walking’.

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THE MICROSOFT POLICE STATE: MASS SURVEILLANCE, FACIAL RECOGNITION, AND THE AZURE CLOUD

NATIONWIDE PROTESTS AGAINST racist policing have brought new scrutiny onto big tech companies like Facebook, which is under boycott by advertisers over hate speech directed at people of color, and Amazon, called out for aiding police surveillance. But Microsoft, which has largely escaped criticism, is knee-deep in services for law enforcement, fostering an ecosystem of companies that provide police with software using Microsoft’s cloud and other platforms. The full story of these ties highlights how the tech sector is increasingly entangled in intimate, ongoing relationships with police departments.

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CDC urges ‘universal’ indoor mask use when not at home

Lewandowski, Bossie added to Pentagon advisory board after latest purge

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday recommended the “universal use of face masks” as a key step to fighting the coronavirus pandemic, warning the U.S. has “entered a phase of high-level transmission.”

The agency recommended in a report that officials at the state and local level “issue policies or directives mandating universal use of face masks in indoor (nonhousehold) settings” as one strategy to combat the virus, a tactic President Trump and many GOP governors have resisted.

The CDC said wearing a mask is most important when someone is indoors somewhere besides their house and outdoors when six feet of distance cannot be maintained. Masks should also be used inside one’s household when someone is infected or has had recent exposure to the virus, the report said.

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