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.

Senate Crypto Bill At Risk Beyond Midterms If Not Passed By August: NYDIG

The US Senate’s crypto market structure bill could take until August to pass and risks not advancing at all if lawmakers cannot pass it before the midterms, said Greg Cipolaro, head of research at financial services firm NYDIG.

Patrick Witt, a senior White House crypto adviser, said earlier this month that he was targeting July 4 for the Senate’s crypto bill to pass, saying there was enough time for a Senate markup, floor vote and House vote. 

“This may represent an aspirational benchmark rather than a fixed legislative deadline,” Cipolaro said in a note on Friday. “The realistic window, however, is June through early August.”

The crypto market structure bill would outline how US watchdogs would regulate crypto and is seen as one of the most important pieces of crypto legislation this year. However, it has been marred by delays as lawmakers and lobbyists have sought to add or amend provisions around stablecoins and government officials’ use of crypto, among other issues.

The bill passed a long-delayed markup in the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, which voted largely along party lines to advance it to the Senate floor, where it will need 60 votes to avoid prolonged debate and pass.

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Garden Grove Reminds California That Competence Saves Lives

Garden Grove gave California a Memorial Day weekend emergency no family wanted: A damaged chemical tank at the GKN Aerospace facility forced tens of thousands of residents from their homes after methyl methacrylate began creating a serious fire, vapor, and explosion risk.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Orange County, and state officials said the tank held roughly 5,000 to 7,000 gallons of the volatile chemical.

Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Craig Covey described the tank as unstable after crews found its internal temperature had climbed from 77º F to 90º F and was rising about 1º F per hour, saying that responders couldn’t accept a tank failure or explosion as an outcome, which was the right message for a public already staring at road closures, shelter plans, and evacuation maps. From Reuters:

Craig Covey, division chief of the Orange County Fire Authority, said crews had gone back into the danger zone in Garden Grove overnight after drone readings on Friday suggested water sprayed on the tanks was helping stabilize the situation.

But those drone readings measured the outside of the vessel, not the chemical inside, Covey said in a video update posted on social media on Saturday morning. When crews reached the tank’s gauge, they found ⁠the internal temperature was 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), up from 77 degrees (25 C) when responders had pulled back.

The temperature was increasing by about one degree an hour, he said. “That’s the bad news,” Covey said.

Officials have warned since Friday that the tank, which contains methyl methacrylate, a flammable chemical used in plastics and manufacturing, could rupture and spill up to 7,000 gallons (26,500 liters) of toxic material or explode and endanger nearby tanks.

On Saturday, Covey said firefighters were exploring whether a heavy flow of cooling water might slow the curing process inside the tank enough to reduce pressure and prevent an explosion.

“Letting this thing just fail and blow up is unacceptable to us,” Covey said. “Our goal is to find something and not allow that to happen.”

Garden Grove Police Chief Amir El-Farra said about 15% of residents in the evacuation zone had refused to leave. Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, chief health officer for the Orange County Health Care Agency, warned that extended exposure to chemical vapors could create serious respiratory concerns, along with eye irritation, headaches, nausea, and other symptoms.

Emergency orders reached Garden Grove and nearby communities, including Cypress, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park, and Westminster.

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MSNOW Senior Washington Correspondent Thinks Abortion and Trans Kids Are ‘Kitchen Table Issues’

Eugene Daniels is the senior Washington correspondent for MSNOW and he has a rather untraditional take on what the term ‘kitchen table issues’ means to most people.

During a recent segment about the Democrat autopsy of the 2024 election, Daniels was asked what he thinks Democrats should do going forward.

Daniels suggested that it is possible for Democrats to continue embracing identity politics while also talking about things like abortion and trans kids, which he goes on to suggest are kitchen table issues.

Someone needs to clue him in that for the vast majority of the country, those are not actually kitchen table issues.

NewsBusters reported:

Eugene Daniels Says Dems Should Focus On Kitchen Table Issues Like Trans Kids

Even by the low standards of MS NOW, senior Washington correspondent Eugene Daniels’s Thursday appearance on Chris Jansing Reports was a stellar example of how not to do journalism. Daniels’s title suggests that the network views him as a reporter, but he decided to go full activist. According to him, Democrats need “to be more comfortable with power” and that the party needs to focus more on “kitchen table issues,” which he somehow defined as abortion and gender transitioning children.

Reacting to the DNC’s autopsy, Jansing read a portion aloud that suggested Democrats’ problem is that they are just too smart for the electorate, “They claim Republicans are just better at politics. Quote, ‘At times it seems Democrats are trying to win arguments while Republicans are focused on winning elections. Democrats operate in an ecosystem defined by reason, even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage.’ What should Democrats do with that?”…

Usually, kitchen table issues mean things like the jobs or the cost of living, but Daniels took an extremely broad definition:

When you talk about whether or not people can have access to healthy abortions—safe abortions, that is a kitchen table issue, right? Whether or not a trans kid can get the services they need, that is a kitchen table issue for families. So, it’s about crafting the message in a way that actually gets to the point that Chuck and a lot of other folks say, which is people look at the money leaving their pockets, they look at the party in power, they want some change, and they’re willing to flirt with candidates and with parties they haven’t been before.

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Billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer Does Campaign Stop in Rough Part of LA – Gets Violent Threats, Man Pulls Knife on Staffer

Billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer recently decided to make a campaign stop in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. Things did not go well.

Clearly angry residents surrounded his vehicle and some of them shouted threats. One man even allegedly pulled a knife on one of Steyer’s staffers.

Some people in the small mob were even demanding reparations.

This almost sounds funny but as you’ll see below it was actually a very tense situation.

The New York Post reports:

Protester pulls knife on Tom Steyer staffer at LA campaign event — as wild video shows angry activists confronting billionaire

A protester at a Los Angeles campaign event hosted by California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer pulled a knife on his staff — as angry agitators blocked his SUV while shouting down the progressive billionaire.

Steyer had been attending a gathering last Saturday at ORA Cafe in Leimert Park, during which he told a crowd of black voters that they are owed a “gigantic debt” and that the black community is “the moral leader of the United States,” journalist Maeve Reston reported.

The event took a turn when a group of protesters arrived and things turned ugly.

“Tom attended an event in Leimert Park last Saturday to meet voters,” a Steyer spokesperson told The California Post.

“After the event was over, staff escorted him to a vehicle in the alleyway because protesters were present, including one individual who had pulled a knife on campaign staff. The campaign did not contact CHP or request a security escort.”

Video of a confrontation between agitators and Steyer’s team in the alley showed several individuals scuffling as protesters screamed at the billionaire as he apparently took shelter in his SUV.

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Trump says Netanyahu ‘will do whatever I want’ after long phone call with Israeli leader

Donald Trump has said Benjamin Netanyahu will do “whatever I want him to do” after the two leaders held a lengthy phone call over the war in Iran.

In a “dramatic” conversation on Wednesday, the pair are said to have clashed over whether to resume strikes in Iran or give negotiators more time to reach a deal.

The US president had been expected to relaunch military attacks imminently, but called off plans on Wednesday in order to give Tehran a chance to “give the right answers”.

Speaking to Israel’s Channel 12 following the call, Trump said he was in “no hurry” but that the US was prepared to strike if a deal was not agreed.

“Believe me, if we don’t get the right answers, it goes very quickly. We’re all ready to go,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. Asked how long he would wait, Trump said: “It could ⁠be a few days, but it could go very quickly.”

Speaking about Netanyahu’s stance on resuming military action, the US president said: “He’s a very good man. He’ll do whatever I want him to do. And he’s a great guy. Don’t forget he was a wartime prime minister.”

When asked if he is on the same page as the Israeli president, Trump replied: “Yeah”.

Both the US and Israel have said they draw a red line at Iran having a nuclear programme. Trump’s other demands include a surrender of the country’s uranium, which he has referred to as “nuclear dust”.

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Democrats Suddenly Oppose ALL Redistricting When Republicans Start Winning

The topic was redistricting in South Carolina, where Republicans have advanced a congressional map aimed at unseating Rep. James Clyburn, the powerful Democrat who has represented the state’s 6th Congressional District since 1993.

The South Carolina House approved the GOP-backed map, which still faces the state Senate, and the proposal would also delay the state’s congressional primaries from June to August.

Clyburn is South Carolina’s only Democrat in Congress and the state’s only black member of Congress. That fact became the entire basis of MSNOW’s argument.

The network framed the Republican map as an attack on black voting power, a threat to democracy, and part of some broader racial scheme. But the basic reality is much simpler: Republicans are targeting Clyburn because he is a Democrat, not because he is black.

Political redistricting may be aggressive. It may be self-interested. It may even be bad policy in some cases. But calling every partisan move racist is exactly how Democrats have destroyed the meaning of racism in American politics.

Race is not the motivation every time a Republican tries to defeat a Democrat. Sometimes politics is just politics.

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Report: Dems Caught in an ‘Anger Trap’ over Trump that Could Cost Them More Elections

Some Democrats are concerned that after a decade of fighting President Donald Trump they are now held captive by anti-Trump resentment with little chance of escape.

That’s the conclusion of a report published in the Hill Saturday, which pointed out that the long-awaited post-2024 election autopsy of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) reinforced that point.

Democrats leaned too heavily on negative partisanship, the nearly 200-page autopsy concluded, and focused too much on attacks on Donald J. Trump in messages to Americans who would ultimately cast the votes.

That autopsy was not without its controversy as members of Congress and some pundits are calling for DNC chair Ken Martin, who ordered it, to resign, Breitbart News reported Friday.

Some lawmakers and observers, including Democrat mega donor John Morgan, told Fox News that the party — and candidate Kamala Harris — failed because they ignored issues. And, he said, they backed policies like open borders and transgender sports that alienated voters — something the autopsy completely ignored.

Ironically, the autopsy itself appeared to have fallen into what the Hill called the Trump “anger trap,” or what Republicans commonly refer to as Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS.

As Breitbart reported, the autopsy also stated that Democrats failed to make a strong case against the former president in the 2024 campaign.

But “anti-Trump sentiment” can only go so far in achieving success at the polls, the Hill concluded, saying that what was missing is a vision that could win voters over, or a case as to what Democrats would do with power if they achieved it.

The outlet reported the anger only continues, writing:

This week at the 2026 IDEAS Conference hosted by the Center for American Progress, anger was also displayed by a series of Democratic speakers, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is a front-runner in the 2028 presidential race.

He and others spoke mostly about fighting the president and his party, a message that Democrats caution will fire up the base but may not be enough to win over independents, and thus, elections.

“Trump is the best base mobilizer for Democrats right now,” Democrat strategist Joel Payne told the Hill. “But I think there is a broad understanding that the clock is ticking on how much longer Democrats can rely on polarization because of Trump to galvanize our voters.”

Democrat strategist Dan Turrentine also sounded an alarm. In a Substack post this week titled “Can D’s Control Their Fury?” the analyst said Democrats were “becoming blinded by” seething anger.

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Here’s What We Know About Trump’s “Largely Negotiated” Iran Deal

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that a deal to end the war with Iran has been “largely negotiated,” signaling what could become one of the most consequential foreign policy developments of his presidency.

As The Gateway Pundit recently reported, Trump said the final details of the agreement are still being discussed and will be announced shortly. The president described the emerging arrangement as a “Memorandum of Understanding pertaining to PEACE,” following calls with leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain. 

Trump also said a separate call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went “very well.”

The central issue appears to be whether Iran will agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the critical shipping passage that has been at the center of global economic concern throughout the conflict. 

Reuters reported that the proposed framework would unfold in three stages: formally ending the war, resolving the Hormuz crisis and opening a 30-day window for a broader agreement.

That broader agreement would likely focus on Iran’s nuclear program, the biggest sticking point between Washington and Tehran. 

Iran has insisted that nuclear issues are not part of the current negotiations, while Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei described the draft as a framework agreement meant first to end the war. 

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Tens of Thousands Protest in Madrid Demanding Resignation of Socialist Prime Minister Sánchez

Spaniards took to the streets of Madrid in their thousands on Saturday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in the wake of the latest corruption scandal to rock his Socialist Workers’ Party.

Gathering under the banner “Sánchez, resign now!”, protesters flooded central Madrid, marching from the Plaza de Colón to the Victory Arch. According to government estimates, some 40,000 people attended; however, organisers claimed that upwards of 120,000 took part in the demonstration, public broadcaster RTVS reported.

The protest was held in the wake of former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero being indicted this week for alleged influence peddling and money laundering from Venezuela amid the €53 million ($57.2 million) public bailout of the Plus Ultra airline following the Chinese coronavirus crisis.

Zapatero, who has long faced criticism over his close ties to Venezuelan socialist dictators Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, is alleged to have received €1.95 million ($2.11 million) for himself and his inner circle in the claimed influence peddling scheme.

It is just the latest corruption scandal to hit a major figure within the governing Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose own wife, Begoña Gómez, is currently facing charges of influence peddling and embezzlement over claims that she used her position as first lady to benefit her business associates.

Amid the scandals, Sánchez has apparently sought to distract from his domestic woes by casting himself as an opponent to U.S. President Donald Trump on the world stage, by barring American troops from using bases in Spain during the Iran conflict.

At the protest on Saturday, the leader of the right-wing populist VOX party, Santiago Abascal, called on Zapatero to be held in prison during his trial and for Prime Minsiter Sánchez to be compelled to testify.

“There is no one left in Pedro Sánchez’s entourage who is not accused of very serious crimes,” Abascal said, lamenting that his country has been “kidnapped by a corrupt mafia that is impoverishing the Spanish people.”

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Another Detransitioner Wins A Huge Settlement

A woman who underwent a double mastectomy after identifying as “nonbinary” has reportedly secured a confidential $3.5 million settlement after suing the mental health professionals who approved her for the life-altering procedure. Camille Kiefel, 36, alleged in a malpractice lawsuit that two Oregon therapists signed off on the surgery after only brief telemedicine consultations, despite a documented history of mental health issues. The settlement was reached just days before the case was set to go to trial. 

The case is already fueling renewed scrutiny of how quickly some medical providers have approved irreversible gender procedures for vulnerable patients struggling with serious mental health issues.

The settlement comes after another detransitioner, Fox Varian, won a $2 million judgment back in February against the providers who referred her for a double mastectomy at age 16. Soon after the settlement was announced, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons announced its position on gender transition surgeries for minors, concluding “there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for the pathway of gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents.” According to reporter Benjamin Ryan, at least 30 detransitioners have sued healthcare providers in the past four years.

Kiefel’s complaint, filed in 2022, named licensed clinical social worker Amy Ruff and licensed professional counselor Mara Burmeister, along with their respective employers, Brave Space and the Quest Center for Integrative Health. According to the suit, it took only two telemedicine Zoom sessions, each lasting about an hour or less, for Kiefel to get approval for the surgery.

Kiefel’s history at the time of those consultations showed obvious signs of mental health issues that should have been taken into account, but clearly were not. She had a documented record of trauma, depression, ADHD, and suicidal ideation. Her path toward identifying as “nonbinary” began even earlier.

She has described a childhood incident in which her best friend was sexually assaulted when both girls were in the fifth grade. “I started dressing more masculine after that,” she recalled. “I just wanted to protect myself.” In college, a women’s studies course introduced her to the concept of being nonbinary, and she came to believe adopting that identity could explain the gender-related distress she had carried since childhood.

Despite the approval of the mental health professionals, the surgery did not resolve her gender dysphoria, and within two years, she detransitioned. 

In the interim, she developed vertigo, tinnitus, and Raynaud’s syndrome, a condition that causes extremities to go numb and cold. She eventually began working with a naturopath and exploring the relationship between gut health and mental wellbeing. Once she addressed her physical health through nutrition, she says both her mental and physical condition improved substantially. 

That improvement is what forced the harder question.

“So while I’m addressing all my physical health issues, I start to question whether or not the surgery was helpful for me,” she told Fox News Digital. “And then about a year and a half later, I de-transitioned.”

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