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.

Newsom signs bill restricting law enforcement access to California ballots

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Wednesday aimed at tightening California’s election security rules ahead of the June 2 statewide primary.

Senate Bill 73 takes effect immediately. It limits when law enforcement can access ballots, voter lists, rosters or certified voting technology.

The bill comes after Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized more than 650,000 ballots from last fall’s Proposition 50 Special Election. The investigation was later halted amid legal challenges from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

“We have to clarify the rules of engagement. That’s why this legislation is important. There are fines associated with it, criminal fines, and jail time, three years,” Newsom said at Wednesday’s signing ceremony.

The bill prohibits peace officers from interfering with election administration, except in urgent public health or safety situations. It also requires a court order before law enforcement can take possession of key election materials. Removing packages containing voted ballots from the custody of elections officials would also be a crime. The law allows civil penalties of up to $50,000 for ballot custody violations.

The measure also directs the attorney general to issue guidance to local election workers on how to respond to law enforcement requests.

“SB73 puts in protections to ensure that ballots will be secured and that voters have confidence in our election system that their voices will be heard at the ballot box,” said California State Senator Sabrina Cervantes, one of the primary authors of the law.

Bianco, who is running as a Republican candidate for California governor, said he seized the ballots as part of an investigation into claims of voting discrepancies. Election officials disputed those claims.

Bianco later called the effort to halt his investigation “politically motivated.”

The bill signing came on the same day Assembly Democrats brought 23 separate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-related bills to a floor vote.

That legislation includes restricting federal law enforcement presence near polling places, stopping ICE officers from becoming California peace officers, requiring hotels to notify workers and guests when ICE has a reservation on site and withholding state tax breaks from companies that contract with the Department of Homeland Security.

“Don’t do that, man,” Republican Assemblymember James Gallagher said. “There’s several people on that side of the aisle I’m looking at. You know that’s wrong.”

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Zelensky sends letter to Trump, Congress pleading for Patriot interceptor missiles

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sent a letter to President Donald Trump and the United States Congress requesting more Patriot interceptor missiles.

In the multi-page letter sent on Tuesday, provided by CBS News, Zelensky said it had already been “proposed that Ukraine is ready to purchase the number of Patriot systems and interceptor missiles” needed.

The Ukrainian president recognized and expressed gratitude for U.S. support but emphasized the country’s reliance on the United States for ballistic missile defenses.

“And when it comes to defending against ballistic missiles, we rely almost exclusively on the United States,” Zelensky said. “Patriot systems remain the most effective defense against every type of Russian ballistic missile.”

While asking for the product, he recognized the high demand for “Patriot antiballistic missiles” in many regions, including in the Middle East.

“For us–for a nation fighting for its survival–there is hardly anything more painful to see than Patriot batteries with no missiles loaded. I ask for your help in protecting Ukraine’s skies from Russian missiles,” the leader said.

He claimed that ballistic missiles remain Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “last major advantage on the battlefield.”

“The one challenge that remains extremely difficult for us–and the one that Europe cannot solve alone at this stage–is Russian ballistic missile threat,” he said.

“They can be intercepted. With Patriots. With your help. And you have the power to help,” Zelensky added.

Zelensky’s letter comes in the wake of one of the largest Russian attacks on Kyiv since the war broke out, involving nearly 700 air attack assets.

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Seattle Residents Forced To Barricade Their Streets To Protect From Gun Violence

Fed up with years of gun violence and repeated shootings near Aurora Avenue, some residents in North Seattle have started installing their own street barricades in an effort to protect their neighborhoods, KOMO News writes. 

Neighbors living near North 97th, 98th, and 102nd streets recently placed large planter boxes, piles of dirt, and gravel across parts of residential roads that connect to Aurora Avenue North. The goal, residents say, is to make it harder for shooters to speed through side streets during violent incidents linked to ongoing prostitution and human trafficking activity in the area.

Tensions escalated again over the weekend after another shooting near Aurora Avenue N and N 98th Street. Seattle police said officers found around 40 shell casings at the scene after multiple people exchanged gunfire. Security footage reportedly captured several seconds of rapid shooting, with bullets hitting nearby apartments, homes, and parked cars. In one recent case, a stray bullet entered a family’s home and came to rest near the bassinet of a 6-week-old baby.

The KOMO report says that many residents say the violence has become unbearable and accuse city leaders of failing to respond effectively despite years of complaints and calls for stronger enforcement. In response to the latest incidents, Seattle police said they are increasing overnight patrols along Aurora Avenue and assigning additional resources from the department’s Gun Violence Reduction Unit.

The homemade barriers, however, have sparked disagreement within the community. Some residents worry blocked streets could slow firefighters, ambulances, or police responding to emergencies. Others point out that Seattle requires permits for any structures placed in public roadways, meaning the barricades could eventually be removed by the city.

Still, supporters argue the measures are necessary to keep residents safe, especially children and families living near the repeated violence. They say enough routes remain open for emergency vehicles and believe the immediate threat from ongoing shootings outweighs concerns about the temporary roadblocks.

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Former Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times Reporter Claims She Was Attacked with ‘Direct Energy Weapons’ at Her Home Over Epstein Reporting

A veteran journalist who has spent months covering Jeffrey Epstein’s sprawling Zorro Ranch compound in New Mexico says she is permanently leaving the United States after suffering what she describes as two “direct energy weapon” attacks inside her home office in New Mexico.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, a former Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times reporter turned bestselling novelist and independent investigator, announced her plan to flee the country in a post on her Substack last week.

The reporter claims the attacks left her with symptoms matching “Havana syndrome” and forced her to abandon her New Mexico residence immediately.

“Okay, folks. It appears my home has been located by, well, whomever is unhappy about my reporting about Zorro Ranch and the local cover up here and the military intelligence roots of the child sex trafficking operation Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were running here in New Mexico,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote.

The post continued, “This morning, I was hit in my home office by two episodes of what I later learned were likely Direct Energy Weapon attacks. Look up Havana Syndrome. My symptoms are consistent with such attacks, and entirely new. We wasted no time in leaving the house, for good. We will be staying in safe houses while we finish plans to permanently relocate abroad.”

“The hardest part will be transporting our pets. It is very expensive. I am going to set up a gofundme to help cover that expense and a security detail until we are out of the USA. Yes, it has come to this. We kind of figured it might,” the post concluded.

The U.S. Department of Defense defines DEWs as systems that use concentrated electromagnetic energy, rather than kinetic energy, to “incapacitate, damage, disable, or destroy enemy equipment, facilities, or personnel.”

The U.S. has researched DEWs since the 1960s, with billions invested. The first operational U.S. DE weapon was a 30 kW laser installed on the USS Ponce in 2014.

Other nations, including China, Russia, and Israel, are also actively developing DEWs.

Valdes-Rodriguez wrote in a later post that the attacks may have involved a “backpack-sized” device placed on or near her roof by “private military contractors” and a second incident from “the back of a large semi truck that parked across from my house.”

“These are the most cowardly weapons ever created. They attack you at your most vulnerable and trusting, in your home, in bed, and do not kill right away,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote.

No police report or independent verification of the attacks has been made public.

Valdes-Rodriguez was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and built a respected career in mainstream journalism before transitioning to fiction and, more recently, independent investigative work.

Earlier this year, after the Department of Justice released millions of pages of previously unseen Epstein files, Valdes-Rodriguez began systematically combing through the documents with a laser focus on Epstein’s 7,500-acre Zorro Ranch, now renamed Rancho de San Rafael, located roughly 30 miles outside Santa Fe.

Key elements of her Zorro Ranch investigations include claims that Epstein hired Bradbury Stamm Construction, New Mexico’s largest industrial contractor, known for building facilities at the state’s nuclear weapons labs to construct the remote ranch.

The firm’s phone number appeared in Epstein’s personal contacts.

Valdes-Rodriguez linked this to Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, and alleged Israeli intelligence penetration of U.S. nuclear programs in the 1980s.

Additionally, she reported on a still-active private microwave communications license at the property and its strategic location forming a near-perfect triangle with the two top-secret nuclear labs. She has alleged the ranch may have been used for surveillance operations.

Drawing on FBI tips and DOJ files, she has reported on allegations of buried victims, “two foreign girls,” young girls allegedly raped at the ranch, and possible disappearances of American scientists tied to the area.

Valdes-Rodriguez also reported that former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico John J. Kelly served as Epstein’s personal power of attorney for the 1993 purchase of the ranch from then-Governor Bruce King.

Kelly has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and called the insinuations “categorically false.”

She also highlighted the Zorro Trust’s $85 million Oklahoma Lottery win shortly after Epstein’s 2008 prison stint.

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The Public School Mess

For most of my life, I’ve wanted to do two things: teach and write. I’ve now done both, but I’ve been more successful at one than the other. I went to college to be a teacher. It took me five and a half years to get my degree and teacher certification. It took me a year and a half of substitute teaching to get a teaching position. I taught 9th-grade English and, later, World Geography at a majority minority high school southwest of Houston. I was teaching there on 9/11. I quit two years later. I lasted all of five years. It took me longer to get my degree and teacher certification than the time I was actually on the job. 

Why didn’t I stay longer? There is a very long list of reasons, far too many to list here. Had the public school system been the one I had graduated from 10 years before, I might have stayed in the classroom. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The public school system is a mess and has been for decades. People wonder why public school teachers today have purple hair and like to talk about their sexuality with their students. They wonder where the normal teachers are. The normal teachers quit like I did. It’s simple, really. When you chase away the people who want to be there, like me, you’re stuck with what’s left, including the purple hair people. 

Don’t believe me? The turnover rate for the state I live in, Texas, is 12%. Twelve percent of all teachers hired do not return for a second year. In the state’s largest district, the Houston Independent School District, the turnover rate is 15% higher! Nearly 30% of all teachers hired by Houston I.S.D. do not return for a second year. This absurdly high turnover rate is one of the many reasons that Houston I.S.D. is being run by the state right now and not the school district.

What is the problem? Why do so many teachers quit? What can be done to improve the public school system, if at all? The main problem, as I see it, is that teachers are no longer valued. They’re appreciated a couple of times a year, but they’re not valued. Teachers are interchangeable. Today, teachers are seen as the hired help. If one quits, you just find another. No big deal. My school district, the district I graduated from, did not see me as a teacher. I was a babysitter at a “problem school.” The district would never say that in public, but that was the very clear implication. 

Students are believed over teachers. Teachers are expected to solve all the problems thrown at them without help or backup and without stopping the lesson. If the problems aren’t solved, it’s the teacher’s fault. In fact, it’s ALWAYS the teacher’s fault, ALWAYS. Misbehaving student? Teacher’s fault, poor classroom management. Lack of supplies? Teacher’s fault, they didn’t bring enough. Not enough copies for the classroom? Teacher’s fault, they used up their allotment before the end of the month. Higher than average failure rate? Teacher’s fault, the lessons aren’t interesting enough. Do you see a pattern? I certainly do. It turns out that constantly being told you’re terrible at your job and that you’re wrong about everything is not conducive to teachers wanting to return for another year. 

I would hope that this doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this. Teachers do not teach for the money. I promise you, they don’t. I didn’t. I taught because I was good at it and I enjoyed it until I didn’t. Why complain? Teachers get the summers off. Surely that’s enough time to recover. It might be if teachers were paid during the summer. They’re not. Not unless they’re teaching summer school. Teachers are paid for nine months. They stretch nine months of pay to cover all twelve months. I know, I’ve done it. Who gets paid all twelve months? Administration. All the paper pushers sitting in their nice offices, making twice or three times what the average teacher makes, miles from any school, making sure they justify the continuation of their job, those are the ones who take an ever larger chunk of the money the school district receives. Those are the ones who need to go. Every last school district in the U.S. needs to be DOGED. Every last one. 

There has been a fundamental shift in public education in the last twenty to thirty years, moving from student accountability to permissiveness, under the guise of equity and inclusion. Everyone, from the students to the faculty to the staff, is allowed to live their truth. Now, it’s okay for students to run wild, talk back to the adults, and assault the teachers. Anything goes nowadays. It’s not even babysitting, it’s chaos with an educational imprimatur. What happened? 

Progressives happened. They rule with emotion, not logic. If they hear something they don’t like, they ignore it. Boys in the girls’ locker room? What’s the big deal? The boys identify as girls; it’s sexist to kick them out. The girls should be more understanding. It’s never a progressive’s fault, either. They mean well. They just want everyone to be happy and equal. Yes, equally miserable. 

With progressives in control, there is no one to enforce standards and accountability, so there are no standards or accountability. The agency supposedly created to enforce educational standards, the U.S. Department of Education, has been an absolute disaster. After its creation, the U.S. was no longer #1 in the world in terms of education. Today, according to the World Population Review, the U.S. is 38th in Math and 24th in Science. 

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SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler Reveals $200 BILLION in Fraudulent PPP Loans Were Hidden by Biden Admin – “People Are Going to Jail”

Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler revealed during a White House cabinet meeting on Wednesday that her agency has uncovered staggering amounts of fraud, including $200 billion in fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that the Biden regime kept hush-hush. 

“We found $200 billion in fraudulent PPP loans that the Biden administration tried to hide and forgive and sweep under the rug,” she said.

Amid discussions about fraud and Vice President JD Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, Loeffler made the stunning announcement.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump went off on the Somali fraudsters in Minnesota and Somali Rep. Ilhan Omar for pillaging the US Treasury. He further suggested that even more fraud has been discovered that will shatter the earth.

“In two months, we’ve exposed 10s of billions of dollars of defrauded taxpayer money, prosecuted numerous fraudsters,” he said.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Trump added. “Wait till you see. I’m getting reports from Todd, from JD. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

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US, India Sign Critical Minerals And Rare Earths Mining Pact

The United States and India signed a key agreement on May 26 to secure critical minerals and rare earth mining, processing, and supplies, further loosening China’s grip on the global market, during Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s four-day visit.

“We are two countries who have a strategic interest in ensuring reliable long-term access to critical minerals and supply chains that are important for our innovation economy,” Rubio said during the signing. “This is a very important step.”

Rubio was in India for a four-day diplomatic visit May 23-26 to shore up the United States’ partnership with what he called “one of our most important strategic partners in the world.”

He said the talks included a scope of issues that the United States works together on with India.

In a similar statement about the agreement, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said the framework will strengthen resilient and diversified supply chains, help both nations collaborate on financing, and also help with the effective management of critical minerals and rare earths.

“I think it’s a very important initiative,” Jaishankar said during the signing. “It’s one more sign of how close our cooperation is and how important it is today in a world where there are so many challenges but also so many opportunities.”

The framework for the agreement first began to take shape in February when India signed onto Pax Silica, a U.S.-led strategic initiative and coalition aimed at securing a global supply chain for artificial intelligence (AI) progress and economic security. India was one of 14 countries to sign the agreement.

India has one of the world’s largest rare earth elements reserves, and existing processing capabilities that can be developed, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan think tank organization. The country has rich sand deposits containing monazite, which includes thorium and other minerals. Thorium is a nuclear fuel.

China accounts for about 60 percent of global rare earth elements production and about 90 percent of processing.

On May 26, Rubio also announced signing a partnership charter and agreement on critical minerals with Armenia.

Rubio held a ceremony with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan signing the bilateral framework agreement on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. They also signed a Strategic Partnership Charter and agreement on critical minerals.

Armenia mainly mines iron, copper, molybdenum, lead, zinc, gold, silver, antimony, and aluminum. The country also has valuable reserves of rare metals, including gold-polymetallic, copper-molybdenum, and copper pyrite deposits, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration.

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California’s New Age-Verification Bill Frees Linux But Expands Age Tracking to the Open Web

California Assembly Bill 1856 is getting friendly press coverage because it now exempts Linux from the state’s age-tracking mandate. The part nobody’s talking about is that it simultaneously expands the surveillance to your web browser.

AB 1856, authored by the same lawmaker who wrote the original Digital Age Assurance Act, amends the law to exclude open-source operating systems from its definition of “operating system provider.”

Any software distributed under a license that lets users “copy, redistribute, and modify the software” would no longer be covered. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, and Mint all walk free. That sounds like a win and tech outlets are reporting it as one. It’s also a distraction from what the bill adds.

The original law, AB 1043, required operating systems to harvest users’ ages during device setup and feed that data to app stores and app developers through a real-time API.

AB 1856 keeps all of that and extends the data pipeline to browser providers and website operators. Browsers would now be required to collect age signal data from the OS and pass it along to any website subject to online age verification laws.

We obtained a copy of the amended bill for you here.

Those websites, in turn, would have to request the age signal when you visit them. Your age bracket, declared once during OS setup, would follow you from app to app and now from site to site, broadcast to every developer and website operator who asks.

This is how a law originally limited to apps and app stores becomes an age-tracking system for the entire internet.

The Expanding Universe of “Covered” Websites

The category of websites subject to age verification laws started narrow as the earliest mandates targeted pornography sites. It has since expanded to social media platforms and a growing list of sites legislators consider likely to “harm” children in loosely defined ways. That list keeps getting longer and AB 1856 doesn’t define its own boundary. It piggybacks on whatever other laws exist, meaning every future expansion of age verification requirements automatically expands the reach of AB 1856’s browser-based data pipeline, too.

California has actually built an age-tracking infrastructure that scales itself.

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The Israeli Knesset just voted to dissolve itself, but this won’t end the Gaza genocide

Israel might change its government sooner than expected after the Israeli Knesset voted to dissolve itself last week. The bill presented to the parliamentary body on May 20, which passed with a majority of 110 votes in favor and no opposing votes, could lead to early elections in September rather than November of this year. The vote was held in the absence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is set to be reconsidered at three more readings before moving toward implementation.

If passed, the current Knesset will expire, along with the government coalition based on its composition and the current cabinet led by Netanyahu. According to Israeli polls, Netanyahu’s main coalition allies, namely hardline ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, have low chances of winning. Although the two main opposition leaders, Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid, joined forces in a new party, polls indicate that Netanyahu’s Likud Party would still win 56 out of 120 seats in the Knesset. This leaves the Likud as the main political force in Israel, but without enough of a majority to form a government on its own, forcing it to form a coalition with other opposition parties.

The vote came amid renewed controversy surrounding the military drafting of Orthodox Haredi Israelis to military service. Haredi leaders presented the bill after Netanyahu’s government failed to advance another bill to exempt the Haredis from military service. 

The vote to dissolve the Knesset also comes amid mounting criticism of Netanyahu over his performance during the war on Iran and the security failure on October 7, 2023.

But what would the dissolution of the Israeli Knesset mean for Palestinians? And what does it say about the current state of Israeli politics that Netanyahu didn’t oppose the vote to move to early elections?

The short answer is: not much, or at least not for the better. Israel’s opposition parties have backed the war on Gaza, the expansion of settlements, and the war on Lebanon just as fervently as Netanyahu’s coalition, and in some cases have criticized him for not going far enough. Any new government will most likely pursue the same fundamental policies toward Palestinians. In the near term, the more pressing concern is what the current government will do to shore up its electoral standing before it leaves office. Precedent suggests that means further escalation.

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Germany Moves to Control Social Media: ‘Trusted’ News Sources To Be Algorithmically Boosted By Law

Germany is moving toward what critics are calling a sweeping new form of state influence over online speech, after plans surfaced to force social media platforms to prioritize content from government-approved outlets—raising serious concerns about censorship, narrative control, and the future of free expression in Europe.

According to documents obtained by Apollo News, regulators are preparing a system that would require platforms such as X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to give preferential treatment to content from so-called “reliable” media.

What makes the proposal particularly controversial is not just the intent, but the mechanism. For the first time, state-linked authorities would directly shape the algorithms that determine what information citizens see—effectively inserting government priorities into the digital public square.

At the center of the plan is the concept of “public value” media. In theory, these are outlets that provide socially beneficial information, but in practice, critics argue, they are media organizations vetted and approved by the same political system they are meant to scrutinize.

That distinction is crucial. The power to define what is “reliable” would rest with regulatory bodies tied to the state, not with citizens, readers, or independent market forces.

Once granted this status, approved outlets would receive algorithmic advantages. Their content would be pushed higher in feeds, made easier to discover, and given preferential visibility over competing voices.

The proposal does not stop there. Individual articles and videos could also be labeled as “public value,” creating a two-tier information system where some content is actively promoted while other viewpoints are quietly deprioritized.

Platforms would then be required to adjust their recommendation systems accordingly. In some cases, regulators are even discussing quotas to guarantee exposure for approved content, effectively turning private platforms into vehicles for state-guided messaging.

For many critics, this crosses a fundamental line. It transforms social media from an open marketplace of ideas into a managed information ecosystem shaped by political authorities.

Supporters of the initiative claim it is necessary to combat “disinformation” and preserve democratic discourse.

But that justification is precisely what alarms opponents. They argue that “fighting disinformation” has increasingly become a catch-all rationale for restricting dissent and controlling narratives.

“This is not about removing illegal content,” one observer noted. “This is about deciding which legal speech deserves to be seen—and which does not.”

Critics describe the system as a form of “soft censorship.” Instead of banning opposing views outright, it ensures they are drowned out by state-preferred content.
“It is reverse censorship,” analysts warn. “You don’t delete the message—you just make sure nobody sees it.”

The consequences for independent and alternative media could be severe. Outlets that challenge government policy or question mainstream narratives may find their reach quietly throttled, without any formal accusation or legal recourse.

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