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.

Justice Jackson Takes Aim at Fellow Justices, and the Results Aren’t Pretty

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is distinguishing herself on the U.S. Supreme Court — and not in a positive way. It’s as though she’s positioned on an island defined by woke ideology, racial justice, and equity, while the other eight justices remain on the mainland of restraint.

For proper context, it’s important to know about a case that was in front of her and the other members of the court.

The case centered on an early morning police stop in Washington, D.C., where a Metropolitan Police officer responded to a call about what was described as a suspicious vehicle. At around 2 a.m., the officer approached the car, and immediately—without any further provocation—two individuals fled the vehicle. A third person remained inside with the door open. That individual, identified only as J.W., slowly backed the car out of the parking lot.

The officer ordered the driver to put his hands up while drawing his service weapon.

The lower court, in this case the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (DCCA), ruled that the officer stopped R.W. without reasonable suspicion and concluded that this violated the Fourth Amendment. That amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The Supreme Court heard the case and reversed the DCCA’s ruling in a 7-2 decision. Leftist Justice Elena Kagan joined the majority. Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson were in the minority on this one, though Sotomayor said she would not have agreed to hear the case.

In the end, the majority on the court upheld law enforcement’s authority to make a stop based on “the totality of the circumstances” involved.

Now that you have the context, let’s turn to one of our foremost legal minds, none other than Jonathan Turley, to lay it out with clarity. On the X platform, Turley posted, “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has issued another sole stinging dissent…Jackson wrote that ‘I cannot fathom’ how the seven justices could second-guess the lower court in rejecting the police claims. She accused her colleagues of mere ‘wordsmithing.’”

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ICE agent charged with assault in Minnesota for allegedly pointing gun at motorists

An ICE agent has been charged with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car while driving on a Minneapolis highway, prosecutors in Minnesota said on Thursday.

Hennepin county attorney Mary Moriarty said she believed it was the first criminal case brought against a federal immigration officer involved in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that surged federal authorities into cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and New Orleans.

An arrest warrant says Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr was charged with two counts of second-degree aggravated assault. The warrant says Morgan was working as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in the Minneapolis area on 5 February when he pointed a gun at the occupants of a vehicle on Minnesota state highway 62.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and justice department officials didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment. The Associated Press called a number associated with Morgan and sent a message to his possible email address but did not receive any immediate response.

Moriarty said during a news conference that Morgan was driving a rented, unmarked SUV on the shoulder of the highway when a car on the road moved into the shoulder to try to slow Morgan down, not knowing he was a federal officer. After the car returned into the legal lane, Morgan pulled up alongside and pointed his service weapon at the people in the car.

Morgan, 35, and his partner, who was not charged, were on their way to the federal building to end their shift when they were caught in traffic. Charging documents note Morgan did not say the incident occurred during an enforcement action.

According to the charging documents, Morgan told a Minnesota state patrol officer that he pulled up alongside the victim’s vehicle, drew his firearm and yelled: “Police. Stop.” The warrant says the victims couldn’t hear him because their windows were up.

Morgan was charged with two counts of assault because he threatened both people in the vehicle, and there is a warrant out for his arrest, Moriarty said.

She said Morgan’s actions were beyond the scope of a federal officer’s authority.

“There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents who violate the law in the state of Minnesota,” she said.

In Minnesota, felony second-degree assault is punishable by up to seven years in prison, or up to 10 years’ imprisonment if the assault inflicted “substantial bodily harm”.

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Ukraine police chief resigns after officers allegedly fled deadly shooting

The head of Ukraine’s patrol police, Yevhen Zhukov, has resigned after two of his officers faced criticism for allegedly fleeing a deadly mass shooting in the capital, Kyiv.

Six people died and 14 others were injured on Saturday after a man opened fire on people in the street in Kyiv’s southern Holosiivskyi district before taking others hostage in a nearby supermarket. He was later killed in a shoot-out with police.

Footage has since been shared online appearing to show officers leaving civilians and running away from the scene.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said the officers in question had been suspended and that an investigation into their actions was under way.

“‘Serve and protect’ is not just a slogan. It must be supported by appropriate professional actions. Especially at critical moments, when people’s lives depend on it,” he wrote on Telegram.

However, Klymenko cautioned: “It is not entirely correct to make generalisations about the entire police only by the actions of two employees.”

Zhukov told a news conference on Sunday that the officers had “failed to assess the situation properly and left civilians in danger”. He also said they acted “unprofessionally and unworthily”.

“As a combat officer, I have decided to submit my resignation from the position I currently hold,” Zhukov said.

The Ukrainian authorities say they are treating Saturday’ shooting as a terrorist act but have not yet spoken about a motive. Klymenko described the man’s mental state as “clearly unstable”.

Eight people remain in hospital, of whom one adult was in an “extremely serious condition” and three were in a serious condition, officials said.

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Joe Rogan Destroys Bernie’s Climate Change Fairy Tale with One Simple Graph

Sen. Bernie Sanders and podcast host Joe Rogan discussed climate change, energy policy, and the role of financial interests during a recent exchange, presenting differing views on how the issue should be understood and addressed.

Sanders emphasized the urgency of confronting climate change, citing temperature trends and the potential for economic changes tied to energy policy.

He said the issue should be addressed as part of broader national priorities.

“You got to deal with this climate change issue. And I know that, you know, there are some people think climate change is a hoax. It ain’t a hoax. I think the last 10 years have been the warmest on record, and we can’t create millions of good paying jobs transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency to solar to wind and other sustainable energies.”

Sanders framed the discussion around what he described as the need to move toward alternative energy sources while also focusing on job creation tied to those industries.

Rogan responded by describing climate change as a complex issue and raised questions about long-term climate data. He referenced a Washington Post article examining climate patterns over an extended period.

“I think the climate change issue is very complicated. And I think Did you see the Washington Post piece that they wrote where they did this long term view? First of all, the reality is that the Earth’s temperature has never been static, right? We both agree on that. It’s always been up and down. There’s been ice ages and heat waves. And then the Washington Post looked at it. What was the time period that they looked at that? Essentially, they found that we’re in a cooling period that the earth over the past X amount of years. And this was like a very inconvenient discovery, but they had to report the data, and kudos to them for doing that.”

Rogan continued by referring to scientific efforts to track long-term climate patterns.

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Now that Orbán Is No Longer Prime Minister, Zelensky Finally Restores the Druzhba Pipeline Flow of Russian Oil to Hungary

As expected, the oil will flow again soon.

Conservative champion, former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the man Brussels loves to hate – and Kiev too.

Unlike the Globalist ‘leaders’ of the EU, Orbán rejected Ukraine’s membership in both the EU and NATO, and refused to send money for Kiev’s war effort.

This made him an enemy for Volodymyr Zelensky, who ridiculed him, called him fat, threatened to unleash his military on him, and finally, in the runup to the Hungarian elections, cut the flow of Russian oil passing through Ukrainian territory in the Druzhba pipeline.

And now that Péter Magyar won the election with a wide margin, to no one’s surprise, Zelensky announces that the pipeline will be opened in less than ten days.

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IDF escalates efforts to prevent civilian return to southern Lebanon after ceasefire

The next big “battle” for southern Lebanon has started, though it is one that does not involve bombs or rockets.

As of April 17, the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire had kicked in. By Sunday, large numbers of Lebanese civilians attempted to return to southern Lebanon, despite IDF instructions not to.

Foreign media reports and social media showed videos and included interviews of Lebanese civilians using a variety of makeshift means to cross the Litani River into southern Lebanon, even at points where the IDF had destroyed the existing bridges.

Some said that they succeeded in reaching their villages and found significant amounts of damage.

Others said that though they were able to get into southern Lebanon, the IDF blocked the road to their village or used warning fire to make them turn back.

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‘Predators’: Amnesty slams Netanyahu, Putin, Trump as human rights decline

The heads of Israel, Russia and the United States are leading the destruction of global human rights, Amnesty International has said, describing them as “voracious predators” intent upon economic and political domination.

“A global environment where primitive ferocity could flourish has been long in the making,” Agnes Callamard, the head of the global rights group, wrote in an annual report on the state of the world’s human rights that was released on Tuesday.

In 2025, “sharp U-turns were taken away from the international order that had been imagined out of the ashes of the Holocaust and the utter destruction of world wars, and constructed slowly and painfully, albeit insufficiently, over these past 80 years,” she said.

In a news conference on Monday in London, Callamard said that most governments tend to appease the “predators” rather than confront them.

“Some even thought to imitate the bullies and the looters,” she said.

Spain, however, which is an outlier in Europe for its criticism of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and US-Israeli attacks on Iran, “is standing above the double standard that is destroying the international system”, Callamard said.

She argued that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who in 2022 sent his forces into neighbouring Ukraine, have had an “absolutely dramatic” impact on the world.

Their conduct is “emboldening all of those that are tempted by similar behaviours,” said Callamard. “It is allowing for the multiplication of copycats around the world, and therefore what we are confronting now is much more aggressive and ferocious than what we had to confront three or four years ago.”

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Washington pastor accused of using AI to create sexually explicit images of real children

A pastor and educator in southeastern Washington state was arrested after allegedly using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to create sexually explicit images of real children.

Kevin Johnson, 54, has been charged with four felony counts of possession of depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He worked as a lead pastor of Impact Church in Pasco and as a paraeducator at Cottonwood Elementary School in nearby Kennewick, according to his Linkedin account.

Johnson pleaded not guilty during an April 10 court appearance, according to NonStop Local, a network of NBC affiliates in the area. During the hearing, prosecutors said they had identified two victims.

“Law enforcement is still working on processing through the defendant’s devices but as of this time have identified an additional victim of which the defendant had generated AI child sexual abuse material,” a prosecutor said at the hearing, NonStop Local reported.

The Southeast Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a law enforcement collaboration in southeast Washington led the investigation. Google had flagged suspected child sexual abuse material that had been uploaded to an online platform, according to the Richland Police Department. 

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British universities paid security firm to ‘spy’ on pro-Palestine students

Twelve British universities paid a private firm run by former military intelligence officials to “spy” on student protesters and academics, including those who have expressed solidarity with Palestine, it can be revealed.

A joint investigation by Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates has uncovered evidence that Horus Security Consultancy Limited trawled through student social media feeds and conducted secret counter-terror threat assessments on behalf of some of Britain’s most elite institutions.

Horus, which describes itself as a “leading intelligence” firm, has been paid at least 440,000 pounds ($594,000) by universities since 2022.

Among those monitored were a Palestinian academic invited to give a guest lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University and a pro-Gaza PhD student at the London School of Economics, according to internal documents.

In October 2024, the University of Bristol provided the firm with a list of student protest groups it wished to receive alerts about, an internal university email suggests. It included pro-Palestinian and animal rights activists.

In total, 12 universities paid the firm to monitor campus protest activity. Others include the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London (UCL), King’s College London (KCL), the University of Sheffield, the University of Leicester, the University of Nottingham and Cardiff Metropolitan University.

There is no suggestion that this activity is illegal.

These findings have come to light after Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates submitted freedom of information (FOI) requests to more than 150 universities.

All the institutions named in this article were approached for comment by Al Jazeera and Liberty Investigates.

The University of Oxford, UCL, KCL, the University of Leicester and the University of Nottingham did not respond to requests for comment.

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‘Iran’s Enemy is Our Enemy: Russia Detains 40 Israelis at Moscow Airport – Report

Israelis Detained at Moscow Airport

Russian authorities detained at least 40 Israeli citizens at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport after their arrival from Tel Aviv, according to official Israeli sources cited in the Times of Israel. 

The outlet reported that the Israeli Foreign Ministry confirmed that the group was held before later being released following diplomatic intervention.

According to reports cited by Times of Israel, the Isreali citizens were detained on suspicion of having connections to Israel’s military aggression against Iran.

Russian security personnel reportedly told detainees that Iran is an ally of Moscow and that anyone who is an enemy of Iran is “our enemy as well.”

Conditions of Detention

The Times of Israel also cited a source cited by the Russian outlet Mediazona, which said that the detainees were interrogated for several hours under these suspicions.

According to the same source, detainees were asked to unlock their mobile phones. When they refused, they were instructed to turn the devices off.

The group reportedly included both Israeli nationals and individuals holding dual citizenship.

They were eventually released after signing documents stating the “inadmissibility of violating the law,” according to the report.

Diplomatic Intervention

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it intervened immediately after learning of the incident.

“Immediately upon learning of the incident, at the instruction of Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, the Foreign Ministry acted both with the foreign ministry in Moscow and with the Russian embassy in Israel,” the ministry said.

“Following this intervention, the incident was resolved, and the Israelis’ entry was approved,” it added.

The ministry also said that Russian authorities were informed that the conduct was “completely unacceptable” and that Israel views the matter seriously.

The detentions come amid heightened geopolitical tensions linked to the war involving Iran, a key ally of Russia.

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