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.

Whistleblower Was Ignored After He Provided Information About 9/11 Attacks to CIA

In December 1998, Michael Riconosciuto was serving out a 26-year prison sentence at Allenwood Penitentiary in Pennsylvania on drug charges when he was given information by a rabbi close to his family about an al-Qaeda plot to hijack airplanes and crash them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and U.S. military bases around the Washington, D.C., area.

Riconosciuto had been a scientist working for U.S. intelligence agencies and CIA consultant whose family had close ties with people working in Israeli intelligence and in high levels of the Israeli government.[1] Riconosciuto himself mowed CIA Director William Casey’s lawn as a child.

There is strong evidence that Riconosciuto had been set up on the drug charges because he knew too much about secret CIA operations, including the theft of computer software known as PROMIS (Prosecutor’s Management Information System) from entrepreneur Bill Hamilton that was used by the CIA to facilitate illegal surveillance and money laundering.

Riconosciuto had helped modify the PROMIS software for the CIA and knew about all kinds of CIA criminal activity, including the CIA’s paying off drug lords with a vast secret cash supply.[2]

According to Daniel Sheehan, an investigator and attorney who interviewed Riconosciuto at length, the rabbi provided Riconosciuto with the information on the al-Qaeda terrorist plot drawn from Israeli intelligence with the hope that Riconosciuto could negotiate a reduction of his prison sentence after alerting federal authorities about it.

The plan did not work because when Riconosciuto reported his tip to agents from the CIA and a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agent, nothing was done. A presidential briefing from CIA Director George Tenet to Bill Clinton on December 4, 1998, did note Riconosciuto’s warnings about bin Laden preparing to hijack U.S. aircraft, though Clinton and the White House did not act on it.

In early 2001, Riconosciuto’s lawyer, Louis Buffardi, reached out to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft, as well as attorney Scott Lassar and Keith Cutri, an FBI Special Agent from the Williamsport, Pennsylvania, office, about the planned attacks involving hijacked planes but was ignored.

Sheehan spoke about all this on February 26 on the “Uncontrolled Opposition” radio program airing on WBAI and the Progressive Radio Network with Peter Osborne, a researcher close to Riconosciuto, whose software company was stolen by the CIA in the late 1990s and whose life was threatened by CIA agent Robert Booth Nichols.

Both Sheehan and Osborne are speaking out now because they want the public to be alerted to the failure of government authorities to act on Riconosciuto’s information and to investigate what happened. They want the public to demand a proper investigation, a real 9/11 commission, unlike the fraudulent official one that failed to investigate so many things.

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Pentagon Prepares for Possibility That Iran War Will Last Through September

The US military is preparing for the possibility that the US-Israeli war against Iran lasts until September of this year, according to a report from POLITICO, far beyond President Trump’s initial four-week timeline.

The report said that US Central Command is asking the Pentagon to send more intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days, but likely through September.

The news of the Pentagon preparing for a long war comes as US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said that the US is sending more forces to the Middle East and will be escalating its bombing campaign.

“More bombers, fighters are arriving just today. And now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1000-pound, and 2000-pound GPS-and-laser-guided precision gravity bombs, which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile,” Hegseth said on Wednesday.

Hegseth has also declined to set a timeline on the war. “You can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three,” he said. “Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo. The enemy is off balance, and we’re going to keep them off balance.”

So far, more than 1,000 Iranian civilians have been killed by US-Israeli strikes, and at least six US soldiers have been killed by Iranian drone attacks. The Pentagon is working to get more missiles and air-defense munitions into the region, as its stockpiles have quickly dwindled after the first five days of war.

The POLITICO report also detailed how the State Department was scrambling to get stranded Americans out of the Middle East as the administration had no evacuation plan despite a months-long military buildup in the region and Trump’s constant threats to bomb Iran.

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X Users Find Their Real Names Are Being Googled in Israel After Using X Verification Software “Au10tix”

Awide range of anonymous X (Twitter) users have reported that their real names are suddenly being Googled in Israel shortly after they began criticizing the country for its actions in Palestine. Some connected the phenomenon to Au10tix, the software X requires users (even anonymous ones) to use in order to verify their real identities.

Au10tix is an Israeli company founded and staffed by former Israeli spies from the elite Israeli military intelligence group Unit 8200. MintPress News investigates this disturbing phenomenon.

“The Largest Honeypot Operation On the Planet”
“I’m not even kidding when I say my full legal name, including my middle name, has been searched up in Israel 11 times in the past day,” wrote TransFemPOTUS, an anonymous X user who has been highly critical of Israel’s actions.

This was not an isolated incident. “So apparently my full legal name got searched for in Israel the other day,” revealed TheAtlantean9, an anonymous far-left user with a Palestinian flag in their bio.

Meanwhile, artist Bionico Bandito stated that “My full name got searched 100 times in Israel when I posted this,” referring to a cartoon depicting associates of Jeffrey Epstein being executed.

Across the world, from conservative Japanese accounts to American conspiracy theorists, anonymous users are reporting that data from Google Trends shows their real names, not divulged anywhere online, are being mass searched in Israel.

How could this be happening? Some laid the blame at Au10tix’s door. “Only Au10tix and X holds my data obtained from ID verification,” wrote one user in a viral post, adding, “The rumors are absolutely true.”

“Israel is now 100% confirmed to be Googling anonymous users on X and their family members shortly after they speak out against the country,” wrote another, concluding that, “X is now the largest honeypot operation on the planet.”

The theory centers around Israeli security company Au10tix, who, in 2023, was tasked with verifying users’ identities, a prerequisite for joining X’s premium service which allows users a far greater reach.

The process requires individuals to upload a picture of their passport or other photo I.D., and allow Au10tix to scan their face via their device’s camera. Au10tix claims that it deletes users’ data within 72 hours of receiving it. However, the fact that the company was founded and is staffed by veterans of notorious Israeli spying group Unit 8200 – a group that has been behind many of the most outrageous hacking, infiltration, and cyberwarfare scandals of the past decade – has led many to be extremely suspicious.

The idea that Au10tix itself, or the Israeli government could be using the data given to it by users in order to combat online criticism is far from outlandish. The Department of Homeland Security is already known to be doing the same, sending hundreds of subpoenas to Google, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, and other large social media apps demanding they share the personal information and identities of anonymous users who have criticized the actions of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). Government officials confirmed to The New York Times that platforms have often complied with their requests.

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Covid Lockdowns May Have Permanently Stunted Brain Development in Children, Alarming Study Finds

The Covid lockdowns may have inflicted long-term harm on children’s brain development, an alarming new study has found. The Mail has the story.

The research, led by the University of East Anglia, found that the pandemic hampered children’s ability to regulate their behaviour, stay focused and adapt to new situations – skills known collectively as executive functions.

The greatest impact was seen among pupils in reception, aged four to five, when the first lockdowns began in March 2020.

This age bracket is a crucial stage when children normally learn to socialise, follow routines and navigate the busy world of the classroom, but millions of youngsters were forced to stay home and be taught either online, or by their parents.

The children in this cohort are now around 10 to 11 years old, in their final year of primary school. 

The research, published in the journal Child Development, found these children showed less growth in their self-regulatory and cognitive flexibility scores over time compared to a second group of children who were in preschool when the pandemic started.

The researchers from the University of East Anglia, Lancaster University and Durham University say these children may still be feeling the effects years later.

Scientists were already running a long-term study tracking youngsters from toddlerhood to early school years when the Covid pandemic hit.

The study followed 139 children aged between two-and-a-half and six-and-a-half years old over several years, including 94 families who joined the study before Covid struck.

This meant that they had a baseline of children’s abilities before the pandemic began, which allowed them to track exactly how development changed during and after the lockdowns.

Using a standardised assessment called the Minnesota Executive Function Scale, they were able to measure the same cognitive skills at regular intervals.

Lead researcher Professor John Spencer, from UEA’s School of Psychology, said: “Children who were in reception when the country shut down showed much slower growth in key self-regulation and cognitive flexibility skills over the next few years than children who were still in preschool.

“Reception is a critical year for peer socialisation. It’s when children learn classroom norms and build early friendships that shape their confidence.”

For the cohort who started school in 2020, classrooms were closed, routines collapsed overnight and opportunities for social interaction were severely limited.

“Without these experiences, children’s self-regulatory skills didn’t develop as quickly year-on-year after the lockdowns ended,” he said.

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‘Cowardly and Despicable’: Hegseth Condemned for Sinking of ‘Defenseless’ Iranian Ship

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday was condemned for his boasts on Wednesday about sinking an Iranian military ship after allegations emerged that it was “defenseless” at the time it was torpedoed in international waters by a US submarine.

Military.com reported Thursday that the Iranian ship had been departing from a biennial multinational naval training exercise that it had been invited to participate in by the Indian government.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has so far remained silent on the US attack on the ship, but other politicians in India delivering sharp condemnations.

According to the Times of India, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi tore into Modi for not speaking up after the US torpedoed a boat that his government had invited into its waters.

“The conflict has reached our backyard, with an Iranian warship sunk in the Indian Ocean,” Gandhi said. “Yet the PM has said nothing. At a moment like this, we need a steady hand at the wheel. Instead, India has a compromised PM who has surrendered our strategic autonomy.”

In a social media post, former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal said there was no way that the Iranian ship could have been perceived as any kind of military threat.

“I am told that as per protocol for this exercise ships cannot carry any ammunition,” he wrote. “It was defenseless… The attack by the US submarine was premeditated as the US was aware of the Iranian ship’s presence in the exercise to which the US navy was invited but withdrew from participation at the last minute, presumably with this operation in mind.”

Drop Site News reporter Ryan Grim noted that, in addition to striking what appears to have been a defenseless boat, the US also didn’t help rescue any of the shipwrecked men who were aboard the vessel.

“The Sri Lanka Navy was left to pull the dead bodies from the water,” Grim commented. “I am hard pressed to think of any other nation throughout history that would do something so cowardly and despicable. We are genuinely in a league of our own, and American media—mostly shrugging off the bombing of a girls school and acting as if carpet bombing Tehran is a normal military tactic—is deeply complicit.”

Author Bruno Maçães also pointed to the decision to leave the shipwrecked crew at sea as an act of historic depravity.

“Really quite extraordinary that the US bombed an Iranian ship and then left the surviving sailors to drown,” Maçães wrote. “There are many many accounts of the Nazis or Imperial Japan saving survivors at sea. I see we have now dropped below that level.”

Mohamad Safa, executive director of PVA Patriotic Vision, an international multilateral organization with special consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council, said that the US attack on the Iranian ship constituted either a war crime or straight-up murder.

“What Pete Hegseth ordered the military to do violates international law,” he wrote. “The Iranian ship was near Sri Lanka, in international waters outside the combat zone and on a training exercise. Under the Geneva Conventions, you are obligated to rescue the crew of a ship that you sink during war. Abandoned any survivors and leaving them to drown is illegal and a war crime.”

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The Misconception That Air Supremacy Has Been Achieved Over Iran

There are growing misconceptions that the U.S. and Israel have achieved total control of the airspace in Iran and sanitized the threat of ground-based air defenses to a degree that their forces have relatively free rein — commonly referred to as air supremacy. This is absolutely not true, nor has this been the outright claim of the U.S. military. It also should be of no surprise at this point in the campaign.

A lot of the commentary I try to provide for events like this is on X. It allows me to respond quickly to what is going on, and often that includes trying to swat down false narratives, some of which originate in the social media echo chamber and among general commentators/influencers, but also increasingly among the mainstream media. This is one of those times.

Moving as fast as possible from standoff attacks to stand-in (direct) attacks isn’t just about trying to conserve expensive long-range munitions. In fact, this is far from the primary concern. Doing so is absolutely essential to ramping up the frequency and amplitude of the air campaign. This is something we have been highlighting in our rolling coverage of the conflict for days.

Moving to direct strikes allows for a significant increase in the total volume of targets hit, as well as offering a broader array of effects to be brought to bear on those targets. Very deep-penetrating bunker-buster munitions, for instance, are typically not available in a standoff capability.

This transition to direct attacks has now begun.

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Covering for International Abusers, Media Reverse Victim and Offender in Iran

People who study domestic violence have an acronym, DARVO, for the set of tactics abusers use to avoid accountability: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.

It’s that last tactic that came to mind while reading news reports of the United States and Israel’s unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran, and the assassination of Ali Khamenei, its leader. US corporate media frequently presented Iran as responsible for the predictably violent consequences of the US/Israeli aggression.

Sometimes the reversal is straightforward, as when an NBC News “analysis” (2/28/26) warned that “Iran’s Retaliatory Strikes Threaten an Escalation Across the Region”—as though it is Iran’s response, and not the ongoing attacks by the US and Israel, that poses a threat to the region.

Another NBC analysis (2/28/26), by Richard Engel, more subtly tried to pin the blame on Iran, noting in the headline that “Iran Is Now in Conflict With Pretty Much All of Its Neighbors.” Wrote Engel:

Today Iran has launched drones and missiles not only at Israel, but also at US military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq…. It puts Iran in a difficult position, because now it is at conflict with pretty much all of its neighbors.

Pretty much all of its neighbors, that is, except for Turkiye, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. (Azerbaijan said Iranian drones crashed in its territory on Thursday; Iran denies targeting the country.) And if we’re going to count Jordan as Iran’s “neighbor,” then Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well. Aside from those, though, pretty much all of them.

The point of depicting Iran as “in conflict” with “pretty much all of its neighbors,” of course, is to paint it as the country that no one can get along with. In reality, the countries Iran isn’t getting along with are the ones allowing the US to use them as platforms for launching bombs and missiles at it—behavior that will put a damper on any relationship.

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Florida Legislators Advance a Bill Authorizing Government Surveillance Based on ‘Views’ or ‘Opinions’

A bill that is advancing in the Florida Legislature would authorize government surveillance of people whose “views” or “opinions” are deemed “a threat” to state or national “interests.” What could possibly go wrong?

“This outrageous claim of authority would be a profound betrayal of Americans’ First Amendment rights,” Carolyn Iodice, legislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, warns in a press release. “Imagine being arrested or having your home raided because the government has decided that your opinions are a ‘threat’ or simply don’t align with its interests. This puts everyone’s free speech rights at risk. Even if your views aren’t in the state’s crosshairs today, they could be tomorrow. Free societies do not investigate or arrest their own citizens for their opinions.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida also has “grave concerns” about the bill. It “could easily be used to silence dissenting voices under the guise of security,” ACLU of Florida strategist Abdelilah Skhir told Florida Politics last month. “The vague and overbroad language could easily be weaponized against everyday Floridians engaged in First Amendment protected activity.”

State Rep. Danny Alvarez (R–Riverview), who filed the bill on December 30, does not understand what all the fuss is about. He says he is simply trying to combat threats such as “drug cartels,” “terrorist organizations,” and foreign “intelligence entities.” Last week, the Florida Phoenix reported that “Alvarez said it’s only been in the past week that he’s become aware of First Amendment concerns.”

Alvarez’s bill, H.B. 945, would create a Statewide Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Unit within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, consisting of “at least seven” 10-member teams. The unit would be charged with “identify[ing] threats by analyzing patterns of life, gathering actionable intelligence, and formulating effective plans of action, and by executing arrests or by revealing its intent to compel a response using all counterintelligence and counterterrorism tradecraft necessary to protect the state from adversary intelligence entities.”

What is an “adversary intelligence entity”? The bill’s definition goes far beyond spies employed by foreign governments. It says the term “includes, but is not limited to, any national, foreign, multinational, friendly, competitor, opponent, adversary, or recognized enemy government or nongovernmental organization, company, business, corporation, consortium, group, agency, cell, terrorist, insurgent, guerrilla entity, or person whose demonstrated actions, views, or opinions are a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state and the United States of America.”

On its face, the bill would empower the Statewide Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Unit to investigate organizations and individuals based on the “views” or “opinions” they express. Alvarez insists that is not his intent. But by his own account, he did not recognize the obvious First Amendment implications of that broad mandate until a month and a half after he introduced the bill.

When some of his colleagues alerted him to those civil liberties concerns, Alvarez promised to address them. “We are very, very aware of the questions regarding [the] First Amendment,” he told Florida Politics last week. “We’re going to address that in an amendment that comes to the next committee.” He told reporters he was willing to excise the language referring to any “person whose demonstrated actions, views, or opinions are a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state and the United States of America.”

So far, however, the original version of the bill is the only one listed on the Florida Legislature’s website. And despite his avowed willingness to amend the bill, Alvarez does not seem to think it is actually necessary to do so.

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In Senate Testimony on DHS Shootings, Kristi Noem Lies About Her Lies

After Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees fatally shot Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti on January 24, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed he was “brandishing” a gun and “attacked those officers.” She also said Pretti “committed an act of domestic terrorism.”

None of that was true, as bystander video immediately showed. But when given the opportunity to correct the record during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Noem instead lied about what she had said. Her obfuscation and dishonesty provoked angry rebukes not only from the Democrats on the committee but also from Sen. Thom Tillis (R–N.C.), who reiterated his recommendation that she resign.

“I did not call [Pretti] a domestic terrorist,” Noem told Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.). “I said it appeared to be an incident of [domestic terrorism].” Noem offered the same revisionist account when Sen. John Kennedy (R–La.) asked her about the “domestic terrorism” label. “In answer to questions at the press conference that afternoon,” she said, “it was that it appeared to be” domestic terrorism.

Here is what Noem actually said on the day of the shooting: “When you perpetuate violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of domestic terrorism. This individual, who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers, committed an act of domestic terrorism. That’s the facts.”

Those were not, in fact, the facts. Videos showed that Pretti never “attacked those officers” and never drew his holstered pistol, which he was licensed to carry. The officers did not even notice the gun until after they tackled him, and he had been disarmed by the time the shooting started. Yet Noem did not merely say Pretti “appeared to be” a domestic terrorist, which would have been bad enough; she asserted, flat out, that he was a domestic terrorist.

By contrast, the official DHS statement about the incident hedged a bit. “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” it said.

Initial impressions are often wrong, of course, which is why it was reckless to describe Pretti as a would-be mass murderer just a couple of hours after he was shot. That is especially true because the only basis for that characterization was the self-interested account of the same immigration agents whose conduct was at issue.

“We were being relayed information from on the ground from CBP [Customs and Border Protection] agents and officers that were there,” Noem said during a Fox News interview five days after Pretti’s death. “We were using the best information we had at the time.”

Noem reiterated that excuse during Tuesday’s hearing. “We were relying, in the hours after that incident that was so horrific, on information we were getting from the ground from our agents,” she told Klobuchar. “We’re relying on reports from the ground and from agents that are there,” she told Sen. Richard Durbin (D–Ill.). “I was getting reports from the ground from agents at the scene, and I would say that it was a chaotic scene.”

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Appallingly shoddy Vietnam War memorial to be torn down after $1million was spent on building it

A $1million memorial dedicated to Vietnam War veterans is set to be torn down just a year after a fraud scandal plagued the community behind the project.

California officials announced the memorial in 2023 as a way to honor Vietnamese soldiers allied with the US during the war. 

The construction began in the upscale Orange County neighborhood, which is also home to the largest Vietnamese population in the US. 

Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do spearheaded the project, allocating $1 million in taxpayer funds to the Viet America Society nonprofit. 

It was later revealed that Do was funneling money through the organization for his personal gain, and the disgraced politician was sentenced to five years in prison on conspiracy charges as a result.

Do’s fall from grace left the Vietnam War memorial in shambles, with new leadership appalled by the shoddy construction. 

A county report obtained by the Los Angeles Times found that repairing the unfinished monument would cost between $168,000 and $420,000, with an additional $40,000 to finish engraving the names of fallen soldiers. 

Since demolition would only cost a fraction of that estimate, county officials opted to start the project from scratch. 

Crews arrived at Mile Square Regional Park this week to tear down what remained of Do’s tarnished legacy. 

His successor and former political rival, Janet Nguyen, called the monument a ‘disgrace’ in a statement to the Daily Mail. 

‘The county decided to tear down the wall because we can do better. This memorial is a disgrace to veterans and not the respect they deserve. We have been looking for alternative options, including a space at the new veteran’s cemetery,’ she added. 

Nguyen told California news outlet, KTLA, in November that it was ‘heartbreaking’ to see how veterans were honored.  

The new county supervisor added that the monument was not even accessible to those with disabilities. 

Veterans from Vietnam are now elderly, but the monument was designed in a part of the park without a wheelchair-accessible path. 

‘What was the point?’ Nguyen questioned at a press conference in November. 

‘They … put up these cheap materials that are getting worn down already within not even a year, just so they could launder the rest of the money themselves.’ 

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