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.

Wikipedia Editors Label Biden Corruption Allegations ‘Conspiracy Theory’ After Censorship Attempts

Despite efforts on Wikipedia to censor any mention of the New York Post’s bombshell revelations about Joe and Hunter Biden’s alleged involvement in potentially corrupt foreign business dealings, claiming the Post is an “unreliable” source, editors have since reluctantly allowed mentioning the story provided the Post is not cited. However, coverage has been largely confined to an article labeling the allegations a “conspiracy theory,” and editors have sought to portray the story as discredited or even as “Russian disinformation” in the article and in a “FAQ” on its discussion page.

Editors have rejected mentioning Fox News reports confirming some of the Post’s reporting due to the outlet being discouraged as a source for politically contentious content since a Wikipedia discussion in July. The claims have so far been kept out of the page for Hunter Biden entirely, where corruption allegations are characterized as “debunked” conspiracy theories.

After the Post published e-mails obtained from a laptop purportedly owned by Biden suggesting he introduced an adviser for the allegedly corrupt Burisma energy firm to his father, Vice President Biden, social media sites Facebook and Twitter began censoring or suppressing posts about the story with Twitter locking accounts and blocking links to the Post’s article. On Wikipedia, editors added the allegations to the article on “Conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal” citing the Post, Fox News, and the Daily Mail, yet their edits were repeatedly removed mainly citing a discussion last month declaring the Post an “unreliable” source. Citing Daily Mail has similarly been prohibited on Wikipedia and the same is true for numerous other conservative media outlets, including Breitbart News.

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House resolutions clearing leakers Snowden and Assange gain third co-sponsor in sole Libertarian

Rep. Justin Amash threw his support Wednesday behind congressional resolutions calling for the U.S. government to abandon its cases against wanted leakers Edward J. Snowden and Julian Assange.

Mr. Amash, Michigan Libertarian, announced on Twitter that he signed on to become a co-sponsor of separate, similar resolutions urging the government to drop the charges facing the two secret-spillers.

Both resolutions were introduced by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii Democrat, and had already gained slight bipartisan support before Mr. Amash — the only registered Libertarian in Congress — joined in.

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Why Are So Many Grateful Dead Fans Being Murdered?

“When you think of the Grateful Dead, you think of peace and love and music and community,” podcaster Jake Brennan tells The Daily Beast. “You don’t think of murder and true crime.”

Brennan and co-host Payne Lindsey are behind the podcast Dead and Gone, which has been grabbing attention since its release earlier this month for its investigations into the unusual spate of missing and murdered fans of the Grateful Dead, better known as Deadheads. (The aforementioned cases are just a handful of the examples.)

There’s a record-scratch intrigue in the seeming dissonance between the vibe associated with the psychedelics-devouring, hippie-skewing, tie-dye-wearing anti-establishment fan community and the darkness underscoring the violent crimes and mysteries outlined in Dead and Gone.

The podcast explores the surprising darkness at the core of the Dead’s music and the culture surrounding them, and the phenomenon of how susceptible Deadheads, in their free-wheeling nature, have been to predation. (After founding member Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, surviving band members continued to tour.)

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For the First Time in US, City Proposes Ending Police Enforcement of Traffic Laws

In what is being touted as a first in the nation proposal, the City of Berkeley, California has proposed ending police traffic enforcement. The effects of such a radical shift in policing could be massive.

The move comes after claims that police officers all too often escalate minor traffic stops into deadly situations. These claims are well founded.

“Most traffic stops don’t really warrant a police officer,” said Darrell Owens, the co-executive of East Bay for Everyone, a housing and traffic non-profit. He helped pitch the new, one-year plan to Berkeley City Council. According to ABC 7, he says ideally the city would take money away from Berkeley PD to fund a new department.

“A minor traffic violation should not have resulted in the murder of a black or brown body, but at the same time we can also re-examine the nature of punitive law enforcement and broken windows policing that makes traffic enforcement so deadly to begin with.”

The officials who proposed ending police traffic enforcement dispelled any preconceived notions that this would allow dangerous criminals and drunks to rule the roads.

“We don’t want to inhibit apprehending dangerous criminals or drunk drivers. That is not the intent,” said Berkeley City councilmember, Lori Droste.

Though it is a step in the right direction, because government relies on revenue generated from traffic stops to fund itself, this proposal stops short of actually ending the practice of extorting citizens.

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Anonymous Website Hosts Database Of All Donald Trump Donors’ Addresses In Voter Intimidation Campaign

The website DonaldTrump.Watch created a database of every single person who donated to the Donald Trump campaign, using publicly available information provided by the FEC. The creator of the site took this information, created a data table with the donor’s addresses, and plotted their information on an interactive map using software created by OpenStreetMap (and openly available to the public).

Visitors to the site can find the names and addresses of Trump donors within a searched zip code, under an individual’s last name, or from a number of other queries.

The owners of the database, who have not disclosed their identities (despite doxing thousands of donors) also own the domain racist.watch. That website resolves to DonaldTrump.watch once loaded. Very little information about the company can be found otherwise.

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