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.

Did modern humans wipe out the Neanderthals? New evidence may finally provide answers.

About 37,000 years ago, Neanderthals clustered in small groups in what is now southern Spain. Their lives may have been transformed by the eruption of the Phlegraean Fields in Italy a few thousand years earlier, when the caldera’s massive explosion disrupted food chains across the Mediterranean region.

They may have gone about their daily life: Crafting stone tools, eating birds and mushrooms, engraving symbols on rocks, and creating jewelry out of feathers and shells.

They likely never realized they were among the last of their kind.

But the story of their extinction actually begins tens of thousands of years earlier, when the Neanderthals became isolated and dispersed, eventually ending nearly half a million years of successful existence in some of the most forbidding regions of Eurasia.

By 34,000 years ago, our closest relatives had effectively gone extinct. But because modern humans and Neanderthals overlapped in time and space for thousands of years, archaeologists have long wondered whether our species wiped out our closest relatives. This may have occurred directly, such as through violence and warfare, or indirectly, through disease or competition for resources.

Now, researchers are solving the mystery of how the Neanderthals died out — and what role our species played in their demise.

“I think the fact is, we do know what happened to Neanderthals, and it is complex,” Shara Bailey, a biological anthropologist at New York University, told Live Science.

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RFK JR: $100 Billion a Year in Medicare and Medicaid Fraud, Mainly in Blue States

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said an estimated $100 billion is stolen each year from Medicare and Medicaid and outlined new efforts to detect and prevent fraud during a discussion with Theo Von.

Von asked Kennedy about what he discovered after reviewing operations within federal agencies.

“What were some of the biggest cases of fraud, like, when you got in there and got behind the curtain, see, like, you know, like the NIH, the EPA, like, just see what’s going on back there. What were some of the biggest cases of fraud that you kind of found?” Von asked.

Kennedy pointed to Medicare and Medicaid as the largest sources of fraud.

“I mean, the biggest cases are, what were we got between Medicaid and Medicare? There’s about 100 billion stolen every year, and a lot of it is like what’s happening in Minnesota with the Somali community and what’s happening now, even worse in California,” Kennedy said.

He described what he called systemic issues within the programs.

“But you know, one of the problems is that that’s a systemic problem, is that Medicaid, Medicare now no longer. It used to be that they that they paid for your medical treatment, your doctor’s visit, but now they pay for the person who takes you to the doctor, and they pay for home care, and they pay for a person to come in and pay your bills, right? So there, there’s, there’s all kinds of opportunities for fraud,” Kennedy said.

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AOC Falls Apart on the World Stage When Asked a Simple Foreign Policy Question at Munich Security Conference

This was painful to watch.

Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez completely fell apart on the world stage when asked a simple question about foreign policy at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

Many speculated that AOC’s decision to speak on foreign policy at the Munich Security Conference was her way to signal a possible 2028 run.

AOC spoke on two different panels on Friday: “Vox Populi? Responding to the Rise of Populism” and “Breaking (With) the Past: Seismic Shifts in US Foreign Policy.”

The moderator asked AOC if the US should commit troops to defend against China and she turned into a stuttering mess.

Of course, AOC would hang Taiwan out to dry, but she could not string together a sentence.

“Would and should the US actually commit US troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move?” the moderator asked AOC.

“Um, you know, I think that, uh, this is such a, uh, you know, I — I think that this is a, umm, this is of course a, uh, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States – uh and I think what we are hoping for is we want to make sure that we never get to that point,” AOC said.

“And we want to make sure that we are moving all of our economic research and global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise,” she said.

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CA Pot Tax Heist: $370 Million Stolen from Kids’ Drug Prevention to Fund Dem Voter Registration Scam

Steve Hilton announced the first findings from the newly formed California Department of Government Efficiency, led by Jenny Ray LaRue, alleging large-scale fraud involving state funds.

Speaking outside the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, Hilton said the new department had begun examining financial activity within state agencies and tracking alleged misuse of taxpayer money.

“Welcome everyone. We are here outside the California Department of tax defeat administration. This is where your money goes. This building is where your money goes into the Democrats bottomless money pit,” Hilton said.

Hilton referenced a prior estimate released weeks earlier, which he said projected at least $250 billion in fraud statewide.

“Our estimate, as you may remember, that we put out a few weeks ago, at least $250 billion of fraud in California,” Hilton said.

“And today, we’re announcing our first findings since we got to work in Cal DOGE just a few weeks ago, just a couple of weeks ago, and here it is. It’s a classic.”

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Cause of Death Revealed for Doctor Found Dead and Naked in Miami Dollar Tree Freezer

The cause of death for the woman who was found dead and naked inside a walk-in freezer in a Miami Dollar Tree store last year was revealed this week.

As previously reported, a female doctor was found dead in a Dollar Tree freezer in Miami in December.

32-year-old Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez was found deceased and naked inside the store’s walk-in freezer in Little Havana.

Sanchez reportedly entered the Dollar Tree the night before she was found. She made no purchases and was found in an area designated for employees only.

At the time, authorities said no foul play was suspected.

It was revealed on Wednesday that Sanchez died of environmental hypothermia, with ethanol use (alcohol) being a contributory cause.

“According to the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office, the cause of death for 32-year-old Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez was environmental hypothermia, with ethanol use being a contributory cause,” NBC Miami reported.

“Her toxicology report showed that her ethanol levels were 0.112%. Ethanol is the active ingredient in alcoholic beverages,” the outlet reported.

A medical expert said Sanchez may have taken her clothes off after she became confused and disoriented as the hypothermia set in.

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Fauci’s Cruel Animal Experiments Quietly Continue Under RFK Jr. 

The gain-of-function labs you thought were shut down are still running.

Fauci-era biolabs are importing exotic viruses and conducting high-risk experiments in the U.S.—with no national ban in place.

That alone should concern you. But it doesn’t stop there.

In one case, we learned that these poor, defenseless dogs had their heads secured in mesh enclosures while sand flies were allowed to bite them. Some of those dogs even had their vocal cords cut out to reduce the noise of those “procedures.”

A core promise of MAHA was to put an end to this. RFK Jr. was reportedly so disgusted by what Fauci was doing that he wrote about it in his book. So naturally, you would expect stopping this kind of animal cruelty to be one of the first priorities.

Right? Wrong.

Under RFK Jr.’s leadership, not only has the animal testing not stopped, it has expanded, with new projects funded as recently as last month.

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Meet the Convicted Murderers and Child Rapists Set Free by Making NC Democratic Senate Hopeful Roy Cooper’s ‘Early Release’ List

Former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper agreed to fast-track the release of 3,500 inmates as part of a racial equity settlement with the NAACP—and the list included 51 convicts serving life sentences for murder or rape, the Free Beacon’s Andrew Kerr reports. The “early release” list, obtained by Cox’s WSOC-TV as Cooper campaigns for the state’s open Senate seat, came as part of a 2021 settlement with the NAACP, which sued the state over crowded prisons during the pandemic. The NAACP claimed COVID-era prison conditions were unconstitutional and disproportionately endangered black inmates.

Cooper’s administration assured state lawmakers that nobody who “committed a crime against a person” would be released early. That didn’t happen. Among the convicts on the list was Tony D. Hartsell, who “strangled and beat the 84-year-old North Carolina woman who lived across the street from him before stabbing her 44 times, mutilating her body beyond recognition,” writes Kerr. Also included was Lorenza D. Norwood, who burned a man alive; Jervon K. Wilks, convicted of sexually abusing a 7-year-old child; and Louis E. Boyd, who raped his 12-year-old stepdaughter. All walked free after decades behind bars.

Cooper’s campaign now insists the governor had nothing to do with the releases, arguing the inmates were already parole-eligible when the settlement was reached. More than 90 percent of the 51 lifers on the list, however, were released after the settlement took effect, raising fresh questions about Cooper’s record on crime as governor of the Tar Heel State. Cooper has already faced criticism over the issue thanks to his “racial equity” task force that pushed to eliminate cash bail for certain crimes. That policy led to the release of career criminal Decarlos Brown not long before he senselessly murdered Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte subway train, the Free Beacon reported.

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This Is The LOCUST Laser That Reportedly Prompted Closing El Paso’s Airspace

An AeroVironment LOCUST laser directed energy weapon owned by the U.S. Army was central to the chain of events that led to the recent shutdown of airspace around El Paso, Texas, according to Reuters. Though many questions still remain to be answered about how the flight restrictions came to be imposed, LOCUST was designed to respond to exactly the kinds of drones that regularly fly across the southern border from Mexico.

Readers can get caught up on what is known about the clampdown in the skies above El Paso on Wednesday in initial reporting here.

Multiple outlets had already reported yesterday that the use of a laser counter-drone system was a key factor in the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) sudden decision to impose the temporary flight restrictions over El Paso. Reuters‘ report says “two people briefed on the situation” identified the laser system in question as LOCUST. TWZ has reached out to AeroVironment and the U.S. Army for more information. U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which oversees U.S. military operations in and around the homeland, declined to comment.

Last July, the U.S. military released a picture, seen below, showing Army personnel assigned to Joint Task Force-Southern Border (JTF-SB) conducting sling-load training with a LOCUST mounted on a 4×4 M1301 Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) at Fort Bliss. This had prompted some speculation that LOCUST systems might be in use along the U.S. border with Mexico. JTF-SB was established in March 2025 to oversee a surge in U.S. military support to the border security mission. Fort Bliss, situated in El Paso, is a major hub for those operations. It is also home to the 1st Armored Division and a significant number of Army air defense units.

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Chicago Claims Its Budget is Balanced. Independent Audit Shows a $41.1 Billion Deficit.

The city of Chicago exists on another plane of the universe than the rest of us. It’s a place where up is down, black is white, and the basic laws of physics are held in abeyance so that when adding one plus one, any number that’s convenient (and politically viable) can be the answer.

In Chicago’s budget, the “new physics” includes the caveat that nothing is real unless we (the aldermen and the city’s hapless Mayor Brandon Johnson) say it is. And even then, nothing is permanent in this alternate plane of the universe. An equation that’s “true” today may not be so “true” tomorrow.

Do you think I’m being facetious? 

“Chicago finished fiscal year 2024 with a $41.1 billion gap between the money it has available to pay bills and the obligations it owes, according to a new report from Truth in Accounting, placing the city among the worst financially managed major cities in the nation,” according to The Center Square.

That’s only half the story. The city denies there’s a deficit at all. City officials say (how can they not giggle when saying this) the budget is balanced.

Truth in Accounting CEO Sheila Weinberg clears up any ambiguity.

“They only include the expenses they’ve paid, not all the expenses they’ve incurred,” Weinberg said. “They also include loan proceeds as revenue and still claim the budget is balanced. In the real world, borrowing money to balance your budget would be insane. But in government budgeting, that’s how they do it.”

One person’s “insanity” is another’s denial of reality.

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The Arrogance of Migrants Is Something to Behold

There are few things more natural than people from different places and cultures being suspicious of one another. Human beings are tribal by nature, and tribes have always been exclusive. 

As human societies grew larger, the “tribe” to which we are loyal has expanded, and the characteristics we use to identify who belongs to it can shift beyond mere proximity and familiarity. We can even have allegiances to different tribes at the same time. Texans tend to see themselves as members of their local community, Texas, the “tribe” of their favorite sports teams, and as Americans. Sometimes the tribal allegiances overlap, and sometimes not. 

I guarantee you that Floridians and Texans worry about the influx of people from Blue states changing their politics, so imagine what happens when a person from a different country, culture, religion, and who behaves very differently from you, horns in and demands that you change for their benefit. 

And, by the way, demands that you pick up the tab for their new lives. 

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