Sunday, August 9, 2026

Jon Rappoport, R.I.P. (1938-2026)


Writer Jon Rappoport passed away on July 8, 2026 at the age of 88. Rappoport published several books including THE SECRET BEHIND SECRET SOCIETIES, OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING: THE SUPPRESSED TRUTH, U.S. GOVERNMENT MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN, AIDS INC., THE OWNERSHIP OF ALL LIFE, VISIONS OF THE EMPIRE, MADALYN MURRAY O'HAIR: MOST HATED WOMAN IN AMERICA, and several others. 

One of my favorite Rappoport books is VISIONS OF THE EMPIRE. Sadly, very few people have had the opportunity to see this work. Back in 2013, Rappoport released a limited edition chapbook of VISIONS OF THE EMPIRE, an exhilarating epic poem that took him fifteen years to complete. When the poem was originally published, I wrote, "VISIONS OF THE EMPIRE deserves to be ranked alongside Pablo Neruda's legendary THE HEIGHTS OF MACCHU PICCHU. It is a rare and beautiful paradox that only a true magician could succeed in conjuring forth. It dissects the old, tired myths--political myths, religious myths, social myths--that threaten to swallow our minds while simultaneously creating new myths with which the human race might lift itself up out of spiritual darkness." 

I highly recommend THE SECRET BEHIND SECRET SOCIETIES, a peculiar mixture of memoir and journalism. I gravitated toward this hybrid form of literature when I first encountered the book upon its initial publication in 1998, as my favorite writing has always been that which combines many different forms into one. THE SECRET BEHIND SECRET SOCIETIES might be one of the most intriguing memoirs I've ever read. 

 


I first heard Rappoport, completely by chance, on an episode of MIKE HODEL'S HOUR 25 radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles when I was fifteen. Rappoport was talking at length about Grace Halsell's excellent nonfiction book, PROPHECY & POLITICS: THE SECRET ALLIANCE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE U.S. CHRISTIAN RIGHTAs a result, I went out and bought Halsell's book from the late, lamented EITHER/OR BOOKSTORE in Hermosa Beach and read it cover to cover. From there I followed Rappoport's work over to Roy Tuckman's SOMETHING'S HAPPENING late night radio show where I heard his iconoclastic HEALTH NEWS journalistic series, which eventually evolved into the far more stream-of-consciousness FREE FORUM RADIO. You can listen to Harlan Ellison interviewing Jon Rappoport on MIKE HODEL'S HOUR 25 on May 22nd, 1987 by clicking HERE.
 
By the way, if you want to check out COVERTACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN #27 (Spring 1987), which is the "Special Issue on the Religious Right" referenced by Rappoport near the end of this episode, then click HERE. Sadly, this topic is even more relevant in 2026 than it was in 1987!
 
If you want to hear Rappoport's prerecorded farewell message to his readers, then click HERE
 
Over the years, Rappoport went out of his way to promote several of my books including CRYPTOSCATOLOGY, SPIES & SAUCERS, CHAMELEO, UNTIL THE LAST DOG DIES, and CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES, for which I will always be grateful. You can read Rappoport's review of CHAMELEO by clicking HERE.
 
One of these days, ask me to tell you the story about the strange afternoon in October of 2013 when I was scheduled to meet Rappoport at Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar right next to the Disneyland Hotel only to be waylaid by roving troglodytes instead.
 

Rest in Peace, Jon Rappoport! 

Saturday, August 1, 2026

Organized Surveillance and Harassment in Tennessee

Recommended Reading: Stephanie McCrummen's 7-7-26 ATLANTIC article entitled "The Demons of Maryville" (hat tip to Stephen R. Bissette for bringing this article to my attention). Here are three brief excerpts:

EXCERPT #1:  

[Andrea Brewer] began gathering what she called “spiritual intelligence.” She kept track of what demons had been identified during deliverances at the Well [a charismatic-Christian church in Maryville, Tennessee established by Andrea Brewer and her husband, Mike]. As she drove around the area, she told me, she made note of Masonic lodges, tarot-card readers, and anything else that made her feel uneasy. She paid attention to her dreams. Then came the day that Mike noticed an event posted on Facebook, an upcoming fundraiser for local foster kids that involved death-metal and drag performances. The Murvul Punk Toy Drive was being held at a bookstore right across the street.

The Brewers had not heard much about Southland, but scrolling through the shop’s Facebook page, they saw rainbow flags. They saw postings about local Democratic Party meetings and a drum circle, along with videos of past drag shows, including one in which Icky Stardust performed an elaborate routine to a blasting metal version of “White Wedding” and poured fake blood all over their dress. Mike thought that he saw a teenager in the audience.

“It was obvious,” Andrea said. The high-ranking demon influencing the region was Lilith, a Mesopotamian wind goddess who ruled over forbidden sexual desire, and Southland was the stronghold, which Mike defined as a place where certain thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors contrary to God were flourishing. Mike informed the church elders. “I said, ‘We cannot just let this stuff go,’” he told me. “I said, ‘This is evil’” [...].

EXCERPT #2: 

[T]he Brewers turned a conference room at the Well into what they called a “war room.” They put maps of all the surrounding counties on the walls, representing what they considered their spiritual theater of operation. Mike began posting about the fundraiser to his thousands of social-media followers, saying that it was from “the pits of hell.” At some point, he said, someone apparently upset by this sent him an envelope full of excrement; others sent checks and urged him to keep going. A few congregants started “prayer walking” near the bookstore, a tactic of spiritual warfare that had been deployed in the days and weeks before the January 6 insurrection, when people marched around the U.S. Supreme Court and state capitol buildings, calling the Holy Spirit into battle.

Meanwhile, Andrea began doing research into Tennessee laws and found an old statute banning cabaret performances within 1,000 feet of a church. The Brewers sent the information to the local district attorney, the police, the sheriff, and city and county commissioners. Soon, a wider circle of activists and pastors became involved in the cause, including one who had recently held a book burning in the town of Mt. Juliet, about three hours away—a huge bonfire that had drawn a crowd of cheering people who’d tossed copies of Harry Potter and other books deemed demonic into the flames [...].

EXCERPT #3: 

Soon after, [Lisa] Misosky [owner of the Southland bookstore] got a call from the Anti-Defamation League. There had been some chatter about a protest at Southland on neo-Nazi forums that the group monitored. At the time, all kinds of LGBTQ events around the country were being targeted by extremist groups. A gunman had just killed five people and injured 19 at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado. Misosky called the police. She called some local pastors she knew and asked that they show up at the fundraiser wearing their collars. She posted on Facebook that “MAGA fascists” were threatening the toy drive.

The next evening, she stood with dozens of supporters in front of the bookstore, watching as a group of nine men, some with their faces covered with bandannas, marched down a side street and up to the sidewalk in front of the entrance, where police stopped them from going any farther. According to local press reports, the men held signs that read GROOMERS ARE PEDOPHILES and IT’S OK TO BE WHITE. At least one of them appeared to have a gun.

The Brewers said that they had no idea who the protesters were, and that they were at home at the time. On Facebook, Mike speculated that Misosky had organized a “false flag” operation to smear Christians. Later, the ADL and another watchdog group would identify the men as members of a neo-Nazi group called the Tennessee Active Club, part of a network of such clubs across the United States.

To read McCrummen's entire article, click HERE

For those of you who have already read my 2015 book, CHAMELEO: A STRANGE BUT TRUE STORY OF INVISIBLE SPIES, HEROIN ADDICTION, AND HOMELAND SECURITY, please note the fact that one could easily replace the words "spiritual intelligence" with "gangstalking" in the above  excerpt, and the meaning of McCrummen's article would remain exactly the same. Alas, unconstitutional surveillance and harassment has always had a religious component to it, going back to the good ol' COINTELPRO days, as I intimated in this passage from CHAMELEO:

Let’s not be obtuse: We’re dealing with a rule-crazy, Puritanical, hypocritical, Old-Testament-style perception of reality that desperately needs to wipe out anything or anyone that is Other. Different. Contrary. 

If devils don’t exist today, rest assured these insane fuckers will figure out a way to bioengineer them into existence tomorrow. And when an unacceptable, transgressive thought invades the holy sanctity of your mind’s eye, the devils will know.

The devils have always known. 

Yes, the old daemons are being summoned from the mists of myth at the courtesy of an unlimited black budget and a military mindset that never forgets—nor forgives. 

The tenets of the Old Testament, along with even more ancient grimoires, are now being deployed as strategic military weapons. What was mere religion yesterday will become covert policy tomorrow. 

Fear God, demands our Novo Ordo Seclorum. Fear the devils He created in his own image. Fear yourself. Fear the invisible. 

That’s the new National Anthem of the Disassociated States of Amurrrica. 


 

Friday, July 31, 2026

Dr. Future and I Return to CONSPIRINORMAL to Discuss the Destruction of the Georgia Guidestones

The latest episode of Adam Sayne and Serfiel Stevenson's CONSPIRINORMAL podcast features an in-depth conversation between Yours Truly and Michael C. Bennett (AKA Dr. Future), author of TWO MASTERS AND TWO GOSPELS, about the unsolved destruction of the Georgia Guidestones. We review THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION'S recent True Crime podcast, WHO BLEW UP THE GUIDESTONES?, a seven-part documentary that shines a spotlight on Bennett's often neglected research into the connections between the infamous eugenicist and white supremacist, Dr. Herbert Kersten, and the creation of the Guidestones. Bennett definitively solved the mystery of who funded the Guidestones in the 2015 documentary, DARK CLOUDS OVER ELBERTON, which Bennett co-wrote and co-produced.


In the second half of the show, we take a side road into the realm of cinephilia and discuss DISCLOSURE DAY, OBSESSION, BACK ROOMS, and one of Bennett's own films, LORD OF THE SHADOWS.

 

You can hear this latest episode of CONSPIRINORMAL on YouTube...

Conspirinormal 507- Dr. Future and Robert Guffey- Georgia Guidestones Revisited:


You can listen to my previous appearances on CONSPIRINORMAL alongside Dr. Future by clicking HERE and HERE.

Monday, July 20, 2026

THE FARM: "Strange Tales From the Beltway: A MAGA PSYOP As An MKULTRA Hearing"

I highly recommend checking out the 7-6-26 episode of THE FARM PODCAST, "Strange Tales From the Beltway: A MAGA PSYOP As An MKULTRA Hearing," in which host Steven Snider deconstructs the recent Republican-led House Oversight Hearing on CIA's MKULTRA Project in great detail.  

Quote of the Day: 

"It's now time to consider the absurdity of [this hearing about MKULTRA]. The implication is that the Democrats (probably in conjunction with the CCP) have induced mass mind control in America among liberals in a bid to assassinate Trump. What was remarkable to me about this implication is that it was made before an audience that--in most cases--had voted for a billionaire, mobbed-up, Zionist, Epstein associate not once, not twice, but three times... and on the basis that he is some populist champion sent forth to save the heartland from the Deep State and the paedocracy. Much of the audience still seems to be True Believers even after Iran and the administration's attempts to suppress the Epstein files. If this isn't mind control, I don't know what is."

--Steven Snider, THE FARM, 7-6-26 

To listen to this entire episode of THE FARM, click HERE.

Among the multiple experts called to testify at the hearing was Tom O'Neill, co-author of the fastidiously researched 2019 book, CHAOS: CHARLES MANSON, THE CIA, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE SIXTIESDirectly below, you will find photos of my well-read (and personally annotated) copy of O'Neill's CHAOS...

 


Saturday, July 18, 2026

Happy Birthday, Hunter S. Thompson!


In honor of what would have been Hunter S. Thompson's 89th birthday, I suggest delving into the following books. Assuming you've already read the foundational texts of FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS and FEAR & LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, I recommend checking out the first volume of Thompson's letters, THE PROUD HIGHWAY: SAGA OF A DESPERATE SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN, 1955-1967, as well as his underrated novel, THE RUM DIARY (cited by horror novelist Brian Keene as one of his top five favorite novels). Speaking of Keene... for some time now THE DAMNED HIGHWAY by Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas has been high on my personal Top Ten List of Lovecraft-inspired novels, right alongside Fritz Leiber's OUR LADY OF DARKNESS and Victor LaValle's THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM. If you've ever yearned to read a political novel that combines the cosmic horror of "The Call of Cthulhu" with the amphetamine-fueled, psychedelic mindfuck that is FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, this is your ticket. A sympathetic high school History teacher gave me a copy of FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS when I was seventeen, and I haven't been quite the same since. I've been teaching FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (off and on) to my Composition students at CSU Long Beach since 2002; I now know that book better than myself. In THE DAMNED HIGHWAY, Keene and Mamatas pull off the impossible task of mimicking Thompson's persona without degrading it into a base cartoon caricature. By the time one reaches the final chapter, a great deal of emotional resonance rises unexpectedly off the page. I've been thinking of pairing THE DAMNED HIGHWAY with FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS in my Composition and Creative Writing classes, but I'm not certain the acolytes of Cthulhu would allow me to get away with such a brazen act. 

On a related note, if you want to see HST's personal reading list, check out this previous CryptoPost

Other HST related CryptoPosts can be found HEREHEREHEREHERE, and HERE.


“Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube.”

—Hunter S. Thompson, KINGDOM OF FEAR, 2003

Sunday, July 12, 2026

FILM INTERNATIONAL: Cronus Devouring His Children: William Richert’s Winter Kills

An excerpt from my latest book, HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CINEMA OF OCCULTED TABOOS (Headpress, 2025), has just been published by FILM INTERNATIONAL. If you want to read "Cronus Devouring His Children: William Richert’s Winter Kills," then click HERE!

You can order the book HERE or HERE!

 

PRAISE FOR HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD: 

 
"In HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD, Robert Guffey takes his readers for a trip behind the magic curtain to reveal the true Wizards at work - those behind the lenses, making magic and moving the secret levers. To this end, Guffey plays the role of Toto, tearing the curtain aside to reveal these flesh and bone Wizards of the military-industrial-entertainment complex, and the occult role they play in influencing our inner dreams and everyday realities."

--Adam Gorightly,  
author of SAUCERS, SPOOKS, AND KOOKS
and THE SHADOW OVER SANTA SUSANA: BLACK MAGIC, MIND CONTROL, AND THE MANSON FAMILY MYTHOS


"Hollywood has truly haunted the world. So too should this book, one of the best ever written on American cinema."

--Gary D. Rhodes,
author of THE PERILS OF MOVIEGOING IN AMERICA and TOD BROWNING'S DRACULA, 
from his Foreword
 
"A heady, occult-driven exploration of cinema!"
 
--Larry Wade Carrell,
director of GIRL NEXT, THE QUANTUM DEVIL, and THE DARKSIDE OF SOCIETY
 
 "This is a fascinating, mind-expanding trip into some seriously dark corners."
 
--CINEMA RETRO 
 
 "[An] enjoyable trip from a tour guide likely (and proudly) on at least one agency watchlist."
 
--FLICK ATTACK 
 
"Highest recommendation!"
 
--Stephen R. Bissette,
writer/artist of TYRANT, CRYPTID CINEMA, and SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING

Friday, July 3, 2026

Star Spangled & Sour

Some bent philosophers might suggest that the above photograph (taken at a local Target) is a summation of every shallow distortion the Powers That Be want you to take away from the 250th anniversary of the United States. If you feel like digging past the "star spangled & sweet" Twinkie loam and getting down to the real heart of the matter, I suggest reading my recent EVERGREEN REVIEW essay entitled "One Nation Under G: Celebrating 250 Years of the Revolutionary Spirit," which examines the true roots of the American Experiment (as opposed to the soft, spongy, cream-filled version displayed for public consumption)I wrote this piece for the express purpose of commemorating the Semiquincentennial of the United States. If you want to read my entire article, then click HERE.

Note: Near the end of the article, I mention a Scottish Rite performance entitled THE LIVING CONSTITUTION that took place in Pasadena last October. If you want to see several photographs I took of that event, click HERE.



Wednesday, July 1, 2026

The New FOMO: Fear Of Mangione Outrage!

Here are some illuminating excerpts from Glen Stellmacher and Noah Hurowitz's 6-25-26 THE INTERCEPT article entitled "Cops Warn CEO Bodyguards That Luigi Mangione Fever Could Spark Class War":

A law enforcement intelligence hub in New Jersey fretted that the growing class divide in the U.S. could drive a wave of lone-wolf attacks on high-flying corporate executives, according to a report obtained by The Intercept.

The New Jersey Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, one of the so-called fusion centers that serve as intelligence clearinghouses for cops, warned in a bulletin earlier this year that disaffected Americans were increasingly blaming society’s ills on rich people and corporate bigwigs.

The report specifically cited the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 — allegedly by Luigi Mangione — as an expression of anti-fat-cat rhetoric. To the analysts at the New Jersey fusion center, Thompson’s killing hinted at a larger trend.

“Public discourse increasingly attributes the challenges faced by the middle and lower classes to the actions and influence of wealthy corporate executives,” the fusion center memo says [...].

Michael German, a former FBI agent specializing in domestic terrorism and longtime critic of fusion centers, said that by warning CEOs of threats, the bulletin was effectively taking the side of the rich and powerful over ordinary people who are critical of inequality — a typical dynamic at fusion centers.

“The way it’s written, the report seems to be putting forth the view that that is an extremist viewpoint, rather than something that the state has some responsibility in correcting,” German said. “All the resources of the national network of fusion centers, which includes federal resources along with state and local resources, are devoted toward providing security information to private entities” [...].

The report went on to cite a list of seemingly disparate incidents to highlight a possible surge in threats to the wealthy, including a satirical Christmas wishlist that called for sabotaging CEOs; a handful of 4chan posts calling for violence against executives at Netflix and elsewhere; a “far-left forum” calling for a campaign against people tied to a mining project in Michigan; and an act of vandalism by pro-Palestine activists at the home of a New York Times executive.

Another incident that made the list was the federal case against the so-called Turtle Island Liberation Front, a group of left-wing activists arrested last year whose alleged bomb plot appears to have been largely driven by a member of their group who was a longtime paid FBI informant.

“The problem with a lot of these fusion center reports is that they take a handful of incidents, not necessarily related to one another, and use them to justify and amplify these threats without any kind of analysis,” said German. “Rather than actually looking at data, their performance is measured by the number of reports they produce.”

Fusion centers, which bring together state and federal law enforcement agencies to share intelligence on potential terror threats, rose to prominence in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The centers operate under state authority, often with grants from federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security.

While data on any terror plots actually foiled by fusion center operations is scant, they have been roundly criticized for compiling surveillance and data on protest movements, communities of color, student organizers, and, recently, critics of AI data centers [...].

A 2023 report by Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race, and Rights warns of the potential for abuse in the New Jersey fusion center. The report cited the fusion center’s practice of drafting dossiers on “known troublemakers” and its reliance on so-called “intelligence-led policing,” a practice of surveilling and data collection that the American Civil Liberties Union has cited as a potential violation of the right to due process [...].

Then there is the issue of the center’s shadowy public-private partnership. The New Jersey fusion center does not make public which private agencies or organizations it partners with, or to whom it disseminates reports.

To read the entire article, click HERE

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Zine Terrorists!

From Lex McMenamin's 6-24-26 GUARDIAN article entitled "‘This Is Injustice’: How Leftist Zines Were Used to Sentence Anti-ICE Protesters to Decades in Prison":

Last year on the Fourth of July, a small group from Dallas-Fort Worth held a night-time noise demonstration, setting off fireworks outside the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility south of the cities, in solidarity with the detainees. A few protesters broke away and spray-painted graffiti on employees’ cars and a security post, slashed the tires on a government van, and broke a security camera. The facility’s guards ordered the protesters to disperse, and most of them did. When a police officer arrived at the scene, drawing his gun, an armed protester shot her rifle, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.

After a three-week trial, a jury found eight of nine protesters guilty of “providing material support to terrorists”, among other crimes. For the Sotos, this “material support” included owning a “printing press” used to print anarchist zines and being part of a leftist book club, the federal government argued. The couple had already left the scene by the time guns were drawn. All eight of the defendants sentenced so far have received unusually harsh sentences – 30 to 100 years – essentially life in prison.

Their attorneys announced their intention to appeal, but many supporters are doubtful that anything short of a presidential pardon from a future administration would free them.

The Prairieland case was the first tried and convicted under the Trump Department of Justice’s “counter-terrorism” initiatives targeting “antifa” – short for antifascist – a decentralized movement the administration has officially categorized as a “domestic terrorist organization”. The federal government argued the Prairieland defendants, what they called a “North Texas Antifa cell”, had planned the demonstration as an assassination attempt against a law enforcement officer. The government alleged this conspiracy even though the defendants were loosely connected, and some who attended the protest did not even know each other.

The conviction of the Prairieland defendants has shocked legal and civil liberties experts, who say the Trump administration is making examples of them and setting a dangerous precedent for what this means for the first amendment right to protest and to create and distribute information.

“It is not only an attempt at chilling speech,” said Chip Gibbons, policy director at the advocacy group Defending Rights and Dissent, “but an indication that the [the Trump administration is] going to continue going after protests extremely hard.”

In total, 22 people have been charged in connection with the protest: five others took plea deals, another five have state charges pending and three more were indicted last month. What the federal government has described as “antifa extremists” are activists you’d find anywhere in the US: trans people, tattoo artists, vegans and anti-ICE community members who engage in mutual aid. The federal government’s focus on the possession of leftwing literature, including zines, and other basic security measures common in our modern era – like owning Faraday bags, meant to block wireless signals to prevent surveillance; using the encrypted messaging app Signal; or dressing in all-black clothing – is alarming to activists.

“Zines are a foundational first amendment document” going back to the Federalist papers, said Xavier de Janon, the director of mass defense at the National Lawyers Guild and the attorney representing Elizabeth in her state case. “Zines discussing ideas of revolution, mutual aid, ideas of a world after capitalism should not be able to be criminalized in and of themselves … That’s just dangerous to all of us” [...].

One zine found in multiple homes during FBI raids was a 2019 review of the films Hereditary and Midsommar by the feminist theorist Sophie Lewis, titled: “The Satanic Death-Cult Is Real.”

“If you weren’t crying, you would laugh, because it looks as though they didn’t read any further than the title,” Lewis said, “and so it’s almost like a confession – as though the words on the pamphlet are: ‘We worship the devil, signed, antifa’.”

Donald Trump’s targeting of “antifa” began in his first administration and has only intensified since he retook office. Last month, the Trump administration issued its “counterterrorism strategy”, describing “anarchists and anti-fascists” as “violent left-wing extremists” and equating “pro-transgender ideology” to terrorism. This strategy built upon its National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7), issued in September shortly after the killing of far-right commentator Charlie Kirk, which the right inaccurately blamed on violent leftwing protesters and trans people. 

To read the entire article, click HERE

Sunday, June 28, 2026

Reports from Trumplandia: The "Smash and Grab"/"Were We Controlled?" Edition


1) From Bernard Condon's 5-19-26 
Associated Press news report entitled "Trump Discloses Thousands of Stock Trades, Some in Companies Directly Influenced By His Policies":

Call him the Trader in Chief.

Recent presidents have stayed away from trading stocks in companies whose fortunes they could lift or scuttle with the stroke of a pen, but Donald Trump smashed that precedent in the first quarter of this year with more than 3,600 buy and sell orders, many of them involving companies whose profits have been directly impacted by his decisions as head of the government.

Among the Trump trades in a recent report filed with a federal ethics agency was as much as $6 million in Nvidia, whose advanced chips Trump approved for sale to China last year. His portfolio also scooped up stocks of several U.S. military suppliers impacted by the Iran war, including Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.

“If he were defense secretary, he would be committing a crime,” said Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics adviser in the George W. Bush administration and a big critic of congressional trading, too. “Technically he can do this, but it is a fundamental breach of trust.”

To read the entire article, click HERE.

2) From Liz Landers' and Doug Adams' 5-28-26 PBS NEWSHOUR report entitled "Trump Stock Trades Fuel Accusations of Corruption and Profiting Off Presidency":

It's one thing to watch the market, but it's another thing altogether to actively trade stocks while in office. Mr. Trump's most recent federal financial disclosure form, filed earlier this month, reveals more than 3,700 trades in the first three months of this year, a flurry amounting to tens of millions of dollars in transactions.

The disclosure filing, called a Form 278, is required of senior government officials by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics within 45 days of any financial trade. It doesn't list specific amounts, only broad value ranges, and it's designated to ensure some level of transparency [...].

In the State of the Union this year, President Trump threw his support behind efforts to ban stock trading by members of Congress. But what he didn't say is that there's no such ban for presidents, and he didn't call for one [...].

In 2025, Mr. Trump's accounts traded almost exclusively in municipal and corporate bonds, which didn't raise conflict of interest concerns. But that changed in January this year, when Mr. Trump's accounts started to actively trade individual stocks, and some of the companies have ongoing direct involvement with the federal government.

Take Palantir Technologies. It has billions of dollars in contracts with the Trump administration, including a $1.3 billion contract with the Pentagon to develop A.I. systems to help orchestrate military operations.

Since January, Mr. Trump's account has made nine purchases of Palantir stock worth up to $680,000. When the stock declined nearly 15 percent in early April, Trump posted on TRUTH Social -- quote -- "Palantir Technologies has proven to have great war-fighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies."

Within 10 days, the stock had more than regained its value [...].

In early January, the president's account purchased between $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock. A week before, Commerce officials approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China.

In February, he purchased between $1 million and $5 million more just days before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with Meta.

Vice President J.D. Vance defended the trading in the president's portfolio.

To read the entire article, click HERE

3) From Ben Protess' 6-19-26 NEW YORK TIMES article entitled "Inside Trump’s Stock Trading Surge":

The trades came in bursts, sometimes dozens or even hundreds in a day, all for the benefit of the Trump family.

In the first three months of the year, President Trump’s brokerage accounts placed more than 3,600 trades, as they bought and sold a wide variety of stocks and bonds, according to a disclosure form released last month.

On the surface, it appeared to be an unusual trading spree. In prior months, Mr. Trump typically reported a couple hundred trades or fewer. One disclosure last year showed only 25, The New York Times found.

Some of the trades early this year also appeared to be well timed, notably a purchase of Dell shares that came months before the company secured a lucrative government contract.

Mr. Trump’s critics contend that he is profiting from his presidency, and worry that he could be trading on inside information, while his supporters argue that any well-timed trades are coincidental. In a recent statement, Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, said that he and his family had no ability to direct the trading, all of which is controlled by outside brokerage firms [...].

Mr. Trump routinely namedrops companies in his social media posts and in public appearances. He owns shares in many of them.

But it would be difficult to ascertain whether these references were designed to affect a share price, or if they were simply musings.

To read the entire article, click HERE

"Were they mere pawns in a fantastic game of international finance?"

--from the dust jacket copy of Lincoln Lawrence's WERE WE CONTROLLED? (1967) 

Friday, June 26, 2026

Bigfoot, THE GUARDIAN, and THE EXPECTANT MOTHER DISINFORMATION HANDBOOK!


From Leyland Cecco's 6-11-26 GUARDIAN article entitled "Sasquatch ‘Sightings’ Reignite Fervour and Scepticism About Ape-like Beast": 

Sceptics argue that Sasquatch believers underestimate just how many of these mammals would have to exist in order to maintain a breeding population that could persist for generations. For a giant primate to survive, there would need to be a population of several hundred individuals, across a large and wild environment. So far, no bones, body or DNA samples have ever been recovered. Footprints have proven frustratingly divisive.

Still, this has done little to dim the hopes of groups such as the Bigfoot Mapping Project, which has catalogued more than 16,600 sightings across North America. The reports are concentrated around some of the continent’s wildest landscapes, but they also include golf courses, suburban ravines and prairie treelines.

For [Josh] Redstone, one of the most overlooked aspects of the Sasquatch phenomenon is how dramatically conceptions of the creature have changed over time. The idea of the giant ape hiding in the wilderness is now so culturally pervasive that many people assume the stories have always existed. But many Indigenous traditions understood it differently.

“When people cite Indigenous stories of Sasquatch, they often ignore that for many communities, these creatures were actually a society of giant people who had clothing and tools but they just lived far away in the wilderness,” he said. “The idea of an ape – a lost primate – is relatively new.”

To read the entire post, click HERE

By the way, in case you're not already aware of this, Bigfoot endorsed my Wonderland Award-winning book, THE EXPECTANT MOTHER DISINFORMATION HANDBOOK, back in October of 2025! Surprisingly, the Sasquatch people make three separate appearances in my comprehensive guidebook for the recently impregnated. No vital subject (including cryptids) remains overlooked in this useful tome. Yes, a panoply of werewolves, sea serpents, and Bat Boys also pop up from time to time. Even more wondrous manifestations of the strange and the supernatural await you in the hermetic pages of THE EXPECTANT MOTHER DISINFORMATION HANDBOOK! If you want to see why Bigfoot and his kith and kin are so excited about this unique book, order a copy or two for yourself by clicking HERE... or HERE!!!

 

PRAISE FOR THE EXPECTANT MOTHER DISINFORMATION HANDBOOK:

"Robert Guffey’s The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook is weirder than parthenogenesis, weirder than the Republican Party, weirder than the fetishizing of pregnancy that suffuses our culture, weirder than all the back issues of Weird Tales combined. You will laugh, gasp, and scratch your head in pleasurable bemusement. I can’t recommend this tongue-in-cheek tour de force too highly."

—James Morrow, award-winning author of Only Begotten Daughter and Behold the Ape


"Here it is. THE perfect baby-shower/gender reveal party gift. Forget all the binkies, blankies, cute little onesies, and diaper-service subscriptions. Those are so overdone and boring. Want to make a REAL impact? This book. This book right here [...].

"Well-written, lively, engaging, easy to read, and tons of fun. If I were a truly evil imp with plenty of money, I’d sneak copies into every OB/GYN office and ‘Parenting and Family’ bookstore section in the country."

Christine Morgan, award-winning author of Spermjackers from Hell and Lakehouse Infernal 
 

"We've got plenty of people who think that they know best--better even than a given pregnant woman. We don't need more of them, but we could damn well use more examples of them turned into buffoons just like we get to see in the Handbook [...]. [The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook] is often weird, often funny, frightfully well written, and it gives us that unique satisfaction that only fiction can provide by putting the bastards into a magic circle of their own disinformation and locking them away. Isn't it sweet to think that they'd stay there."

 Géza A. G. Reilly, Dead Reckonings 
 
You can hear me talking about the secret origins of THE EXPECTANT MOTHER DISINFORMATION HANDBOOK on multiple podcasts and radio shows including Steven Snider's THE FARMMatthew M. K. Hopewell's THE AP STRANGE SHOW, and Seriah Azkath's WHERE DID THE ROAD GO? (Warning: Bigfoot may or may not be mentioned during these particular interviews.)

Wednesday, June 24, 2026

THE INTERCEPT: "Philly Cops Admit That They’re Tracking 'First Amendment Activity' Critical of AI"

From Matt Sledge and Sam Biddle's 6-1-26 THE INTERCEPT article entitled "Philly Cops Admit That They’re Tracking 'First Amendment Activity' Critical of AI":

Americans speaking out against artificial intelligence data centers on social media are falling under police surveillance, a confidential law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Intercept reveals.

A fusion center in Philadelphia combed through spicy internet comments from AI critics and concluded there is a growing risk of physical violence against data centers from “domestic violent extremists,” ranging from white supremacists to anarchists.

“Domestic violent extremists (DVEs) are likely interested in targeting artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, posing a physical and cyber threat to infrastructure in the Philadelphia regional area,” the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center wrote in a December alert.

The fusion center distributed its warning, marked “for official use only,” through the national fusion center network of state, local, and federal police agencies.

Like many of the reports produced by fusion centers, the bulletin points to news reports and social media posts, but cites little in the way of tangible threats. It acknowledges “a lack of specific information on plans to target AI data centers in the Philadelphia area,” but warns law enforcement that three planned data center facilities in the region could become targets of future protests.

Some of the anti-AI posts included in the document reflect hyperbolic anti-AI rhetoric that is widespread across social media, including an unnamed internet user who “indicated a desire to ‘burn down’ data centers.” Other examples of potentially terroristic posts included references to a fictional anti-robot movement in the science fiction novel “Dune” and a Facebook meme.

The fusion center, housed inside the Philadelphia Police Department, warned that “disruptive First Amendment activity” is an “indicator” of risk from “Domestic Violent Extremists,” an expansive term favored by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

Fusion centers, which sprouted up across the country after the September 11, 2001, attacks, have long been criticized for doing little to thwart actual terror plots and too much to subject lawful protesters to suspicion and surveillance

To read the entire article, click HERE

Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Father's Day with Godzilla!

To celebrate Father's Day, my wife and daughter took me to the charming Bay Theater in Seal Beach to see an entry in the GODZILLA series that had somehow escaped me up to this point: Kazuki Omori's GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE (1989), in which the King of the Monsters fights a dead girl who has taken the form of a giant red rose with teeth. This might be the strangest kaiju beatdown I've ever seen, and that's saying something! I recommend it highly, of course... 

 





Note: The 2025 Criterion blu-ray edition sports a brand new cover painted by the inimitable Eric Powell of THE GOON fame...