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.

Supreme Court rejects Meta’s appeal in Vermont social media addiction case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a push to avoid a lawsuit alleging that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users, a decision that comes as social media companies increasingly face legal scrutiny.

Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. appealed after Vermont’s highest court allowed a suit filed by its attorney general in 2023 to move forward. The company is facing similar lawsuits from states across the country, accusing it of knowingly designing addictive features.

Meta had argued that it can’t be sued in Vermont court because neither the company nor the app design has specific ties to the state. Vermont countered that the sites’ large number of teen users gives its courts jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. The procedural decision comes after court losses for Meta and YouTube in social media addiction lawsuits in California and New Mexico.

Vermont’s lawsuit was filed after an investigation by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in several states. Newspaper reports based on Meta’s own research also found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.

Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.

Meta, for its part, has said that it has already introduced dozens of tools to support teens and their families and suggested it would have worked with the states on standards for youth social media use.

Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark applauded the decision, saying it affirms “that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids.”

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Food Stamp Fraud Pipeline Exposed: U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Groceries Shipped Overseas And Sold For Profit

Food stamps and food pantries are intended to keep struggling Americans fed.

What we found is that, in some communities, that food never reaches an American table. Instead, it gets shipped overseas and sold for profit.

The scheme works like this. Residents in cities like Lawrence, Massachusetts collect food through two channels: purchasing it at local markets using EBT cards, and picking it up for free from food banks and churches. That food is then packed into large blue barrels, dropped off at shipping companies, and sent by container ship to the Dominican Republic. Once it arrives, it is sold for profit in local stores. The people doing this see nothing wrong with it. In many cases, they do it openly.

According to a local that assisted us with this story, this fraud has been happening for over a decade.

Over the course of several weeks, Muckraker Foundation traced the full pipeline from food pantry lines in Lawrence, Massachusetts, through shipping warehouses in New York, to store shelves in Santo Domingo. This is what we found.

Lawrence, Massachusetts

Lawrence is a small city about 30 miles north of Boston. It has the highest concentration of Dominican immigrants of any city in Massachusetts, and the highest rate of SNAP enrollment in the state.

John has been delivering goods in Lawrence for over 11 years, six days a week, 35 stops a day. He knows the community intimately.

“I’ve been witnessing the Dominican residents going to food bank lines and collecting non-perishable goods,” he told us, “and then packing it in barrels and in boxes, and then they ship it back to the Dominican Republic.”

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“She’s Lying” – Former Biden Official Reacts to Jill Biden’s Claims She “Never” Saw Joe Biden Stroke Out Before Or After the 2024 Debate

A former Biden official reacted to Jill Biden’s interview with CBS Mornings in which she claimed she thought Joe Biden had a stroke during the 2024 debate.

Dr. Jill told CBS Mornings host Rita Braver that she thought Joe Biden was having a stroke during the 2024 presidential debate.

Jill Biden insisted she never saw Joe Biden stroke out like this before or after the June 2024 debate.

“I was frightened, because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never since,” Jill Biden told CBS News Sunday Morning’s Rita Braver.

“I don’t know what happened. As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death,” Jill Biden added.

A day after the debate, Jill Biden got on stage and praised Joe for answering all the questions perfectly.

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Breaking Free of Psyops: Who is Causing the West’s Drug Epidemic?

Spoiler: it’s not China. In this episode of Breaking Free of Psyops, I trace North America’s drug crisis from the British Empire’s original opium wars through the CIA’s Air America heroin pipeline, Afghan poppy fields guarded by Western troops, and the Sackler family’s OxyContin empire.

We review how Afghan opium production exploded the moment US forces arrived in 2001 and collapsed again the moment the Taliban returned in 2023, a fact the Pentagon’s trillion-dollar budget apparently could not replicate.

We also review some of the actual proven players fueling today’s fentanyl crisis: Khalistani organized crime networks in British Columbia, money-laundering banks including TD Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan and Bank Coutts- the official bank of the Royal Family, as well as a pharmaceutical company that paid a fine smaller than its profits. Major shipping companies such as Maersk, Mediteranean Shipping Company (which partnered with Blackrock to snach up China’s international ports), have actually been caught smuggling billions in drugs, yet we are supposed to believe that Beijing is out to get us.

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75% of Blairmore residents want a coal mine — so why are outside activists allowed to block it?

The people of Blairmore already had their say. They want the coal mine.

While celebrity activists from outside the region push for a province-wide referendum to stop a proposed coal mine in Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass, locals in Blairmore voted nearly 75 percent in favour of the project. But apparently, that democratic result only counts if the “right” people vote the “right” way.

On tonight’s episode of The Gunn Show, longtime energy advocate and Oil Sands Strong founder Robbie Picard talks about his work amplifying the voices of the people who actually live in the region and stand to benefit from the jobs, investment and economic activity tied to the proposed mine.

Instead, the debate has been hijacked by celebrity opposition campaigns led by musicians like Corb Lund and George Canyon, whose province-wide citizen initiative petition seeks to override the wishes of the local community through a referendum driven largely by outside activists.

Picard argues this fight is about more than coal. It’s about whether rural Albertans still have the right to shape their own economic future without being steamrolled by urban activists, celebrities and political pressure groups who parachute in for the headlines and leave locals to deal with the consequences.

If “local voices matter” is more than just a slogan, why are the people of Blairmore being ignored after already voting overwhelmingly in favour of the project?

And why is Alberta’s resource economy subjected to veto campaigns, while the communities that depend on these projects are treated like their opinions don’t count?

Robbie Picard joins me to discuss the growing backlash from rural Albertans who are tired of being talked down to by people who don’t live there, don’t work there and won’t suffer the economic fallout if these projects are killed.

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Homeland Security ‘Drawing Up Plans’ to Suspend International Flights Into Sanctuary Cities Until They Stop Protecting Illegal Aliens

The Trump administration is considering plans to suspend immigration and customs processing at airports in Democrat-run sanctuary cities.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the administration is drawing up plans to halt processing at airports in Democratic-run jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

Mullin confirmed the plans in an interview on Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“We’re currently drawing up plans to say listen, in these sanctuary cities, where the local, radical left Democrats aren’t allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws, then we shouldn’t be processing international flights into their cities either,” he explained.

“Because they don’t want us to enforce immigration, but they want us to process immigration at their facilities? Nothing about that makes sense to me.”

The proposal would impact some of the country’s busiest international gateways, including airports in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, and Newark.

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Carney says majority will not be enough for Alberta to secede, citing the Clarity Act

Bloc Québécois MPs are calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to drop the Clarity Act, arguing it complicates secession referendums by adding conditions beyond a simple majority vote. Carney, however, said the Clarity Act does not apply to the current Alberta independence question and defended the Act’s requirements.

During Question Period in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Carney said the 50 per cent “plus one” threshold, a standard measure of majority support, does not automatically apply to questions of provincial independence, as set out in the Clarity Act.

The Act, passed in response to a 1998 Supreme Court ruling on Quebec secession, states that even if a majority votes to leave the federation, Parliament must determine whether the result reflects a “clear majority,” taking into account factors such as voter turnout and the size of the margin.

Bloc MP Christine Normandin pressured Carney in the House of Commons on Tuesday after he declared that he would use the Clarity Act to interfere in an Alberta referendum to separate from Canada.

“Any province or Quebec has the right to ask its citizens the question of its choice in a referendum. Citizens have the right to answer freely, and the majority wins with 50% of the votes plus one,” Normandin said in French. “ This concerns only two groups, the government that asked the question and the citizens who answered it. That is democracy. It’s that simple.”

Carney stated that the current question before the Alberta government is a “question on the question” and the Clarity Act wouldn’t apply, but that a “clear majority” on a secession question would need to be recognized by parliament for a province to leave confederation.

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Report: Zohran Mamdani’s Harlem Grocery Store Already Received $25M in Taxpayer Funds, Bringing Total to $55M

Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s chosen site for a $30 million, government-owned grocery store in East Harlem was approved for a $25 million taxpayer-funded facelift several years ago, setting up the total price tag at a whopping $55 million.

The proposed location is La Marqueta, a food-forward market located between East 111th and East 119th streets under the elevated Metro North tracks on Park Avenue. The purpose of the city-run store would be to offer super low prices because the store would not pay rent or taxes. 

“That same site, however, already won approval from the city’s Economic Development Corporation nearly a decade ago for a $25 million project to redevelop La Marqueta — bringing the total price tag of the market’s proposed makeover to a staggering $55 million, city officials confirmed,” New York Post first reported. 

Stephen Zagor, adjunct associate professor of food studies at Columbia Business School, told the outlet the $30 million price tag was already “an outrageous number,” and “you’d expect the doorknobs and cash registers to be solid gold.”

“And to think there is another $25 million allocated years ago for the rest of La Marqueta, which is well past its prime, I’d think they would have to revisit that,” Zagor added.

Anthony Pena, president of the National Supermarket Association, said city leaders have “not been transparent and open about anything they are doing” and noted that Mamdani never mentioned the location’s previous project in the report. 

Mamdani has allocated approximately $70 million for five government-run stores, one for each borough. Pena said the final cost raises questions about why the city would be spending so much on the East Harlem location specifically. 

“They are going to spend $10 million on a 20,000-square-foot store and $30 million on a 9,000-square-foot store,” Pena said. “There is a massive disconnect right now and there are more questions than answers.”

The Economic Development Corporation (EDC) confirmed to the Post that the $25 million deal and the $30 million store are two separate investment items. 

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Petition to Ban Hunting and Fishing in Oregon Reaches Threshold to be on the Ballot This Fall

Back in February, we told you about a petition that was being circulated by progressives in Oregon, to essentially ban hunting and fishing in the state. It’s actually worse than that. They are trying to ban the killing of animals in the state, so this would not only affect hunting, but also the raising of animals for food.

Well, the leftists got their signatures and this is actually going to be on the ballot in Oregon this fall. Do you think this is what the pioneers who settled Oregon had in mind?

These people are completely insane.

The New York Post reports:

‘Animal cruelty’ ballot initiative criminalizing hunting and fishing moves forward in Oregon

A wild new “animal cruelty” ballot proposal would put hunters and fishermen on the hook.

Controversial legislation that would outlaw killing or “injuring” any animal — even while shooting or catching your dinner — is one step closer to landing on the ballot in Oregon, officials said Wednesday.

The measure, Initiative Petition 28, has garnered 120,000 signatures, more than the roughly 117,000 it needs to go to vote in November, The Oregonian reported.

Along with banning hunting and fishing, the legislation would also prohibit slaughtering livestock and using animals in rodeos and for scientific research.

It would also prohibit operating a commercial poultry business and castrating or neutering livestock, among other practices.

Hunting advocates said the legislation misses the mark — by a mile.

“[It’s] an all out assault on Oregonians’ way of life,” gubernatorial candidate Sen. Christine Drazan (R-Canby) told the Statesman Journal.

“It criminalizes ranchers, farmers, meat producers and threatens to kill thousands of jobs. It would mean the end of hunting and fishing in Oregon, killing not only traditions and ending access to an essential source of food, but butchering natural resource-based industries that support hunting and fishing,” she said.

Do these people have any idea what they’re doing?

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Doing The Math: UC Faculty Urges Return To Standardized Testing After Shocking Decline In Skills

Years ago, I wrote a column denouncing the decision of the University of California system to drop standardized testing in the cause of greater racial diversity. Now, hundreds of UC mathematics faculty have called for a return to such testing after reports showing a thirtyfold increase in students with math skills below high school level.

It was heralded as a way to preserve diversity after voters in California repeatedly rejected race-based admissions and the Supreme Court appeared ready to bar such practices (commonly proven with reference to standardized test differentials among applicants).

Now, many professors in the California system have come to the same conclusion as some of us who denounced the move years ago. They have witnessed the drop in academic skills and abilities among incoming students.

These tests not only have the most significant predictive value for performance but also play an important role in the advancement of minority students. Former University of California President Janet Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.

Napolitano responded to such criticism with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students.

The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.

Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”

Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.”

In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.

That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted.

So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions.

The system would go to a “test-blind” system until it developed its own test.

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