In The Mailbox: 07.08.25 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | July 8, 2025 | No Comments

Obligatory seriousness about the America Party
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

The world wonders

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: Reimagining Security Clearances
357 Magnum: Wyoming Opens Most Government Buildings to Concealed Carry, also Ozzy’s Last Performance
EBL: Sherlock & Daughter, The Battle of Hubbardton, Heads of State, Barbara Alyn Woods, and Flash floods—how do the hills and valleys turn rain into a wall of water?
Twitchy: ABC Trounced For Going Straight Up Pro-Hamas, Insane TikToker Who Claims It’s Racist To Help Texas Flood Victims Posts Disturbing Sequel, and Ten Antifa Members Arrested, Charged With Attempted Murder In Ambush Of ICE Agents
Louder With Crowder: Transgender influencer finally stops preying on women’s bathrooms, after Florida’s AG launches an investigation, Activists stage funeral for Harry Potter in a bookstore to protest JK Rowling, Mexico City Rioters demand Americans stop immigrating to THEIR country and stealing THEIR homes (and DHS got jokes), Animal rights activist glues hand to Trader Joe’s fridge, discovers what the word “felony” means, and Trump Treasury Secretary cuts through CNN’s BS about Medicaid cuts: “Democrats think poor people are stupid”
Vox Popoli: Don’t Trust the Disinformation, Lippman Gap = Imperial Overstretch, Movie Posters and dAI, Throw ‘Em in Dat Briar Patch, and You Just Thought of That NOW?
Cedar Sanderson Make It Sizzle
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Texas Hill Country,
Upstream Reviews: Age of Legends, The Icarus Needle,
Draw & Talk Comics: Super Plumber Sisters #4 Live on Wednesday!
Stoic Observations: The Helicopter Government
Toni Airaksinen: “I am Hamas! We are all Hamas!” Prof Yasmeen Hanoosh Will Be Back In The Classroom This Fall

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: How To Blunt A PRC Invasion of Taiwan? Operation Swooper
Dana Loesch: Independence Day Recap
Don Surber: Grok-aganda
Elizabeth Nickson: Civilian Hero Mode Activated
Matt Taibbi: Activism Uncensored – Alligator Alcatraz

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Category: Linkagery

Terrorism in Texas: Michigan Maniac Opens Fire on Border Facility in McAllen

Posted on | July 7, 2025 | No Comments

As of 6 p.m. ET Monday, we know nothing about the shooter’s background or motive, but we all probably have our hunches:

Law enforcement officials in McAllen, Texas, shot and killed a man after he opened fire with a rifle on a Border Patrol facility, the latest in increasing violent attacks on federal immigration and border agents.
McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said local police responded to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s McAllen Station after reports of a shooting shortly before 6 a.m.
The shooter was identified as 27-year-old Ryan Louis Mosqueda, who was reported missing roughly two hours before the shooting.
Chief Rodriguez told reporters that Mr. Mosqueda fired “dozens of rounds” at the building, and border patrol agents in the building returned fire, killing the suspect.
“This morning, an individual opened fire at the entrance of the United States Border Patrol sector annex in McAllen, Texas,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “Both Border Patrol agents and local police helped neutralize the shooter.”
DHS said two officers and a border patrol employee were injured and were transported to the hospital.
Chief Rodriguez said the motive was unclear.
Mr. Mosqueda had more ammunition and weaponry in his vehicle, which had Michigan license plates and was parked near the facility. His last known address was in Michigan.
“We have no reason to believe at this point in time that there are any more particular threats in this area,” he said.
The FBI is leading the investigation.
The border patrol facility is located across the street from McAllen International Airport, which was temporarily shut down after the shooting.
The shooting comes as the Trump administration makes an aggressive push to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and illegal drugs from crossing into the country along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The number of border crossings has plummeted, including in McAllen.
“ICE is acting like a terrorist force,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Washington Democrat, said recently on social media. “People across the country of all legal statuses — including U.S. citizens — are being kidnapped and disappeared off the street by masked men.”
“No oversight, no accountability. Completely lawless,” she said.
Asked whether the administration wants Democrats to tone down the rhetoric, White House press secretary Karoline told reporters Monday that “we certainly call on Democrats to tone down their rhetoric against ICE and border patrol agents.”

To repeat, all we know for certain about Mosqueda is that he was from Michigan. However, my research indicates he was likely from Saginaw and, if that’s correct, he traveled nearly 1,700 miles to commit this terrorist attack. This wasn’t random, in other words, and it would appear to have been planned well in advance. Mosqueda was reported missing from Weslaco, which is a little more than 15 miles east of McAllen on I-2. My hunch is that Mosqueda was staying at a motel in Weslaco, using it as a base of operations to reconnoiter the Border Patrol facility in McAllen.

So when you take into consideration the expense of traveling 1,700 miles cross country, plus renting a hotel room for several nights, add in the cost of a rifle and ammunition, etc., this terrorist attack required a lot of resources. Where did Mosqueda get all that money? Did he have accomplices? Was he affiliated with any groups? Had he previously been involved in protests? Or was he just a “lone wolf” lunatic, radicalized in online forums? The mainstream media don’t seem to be very curious about any of this, for some reason. It’s just so mysterious . . .

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Category: Crime, Immigration, Michigan, Terrorism, Texas

Rule 5 Sunday: Surf’s Up

Posted on | July 7, 2025 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

This week’s appetizer courtesy of kbdabear on X.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Happy Independence Day, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, Happy 4th of July, John Adams – Declaration of Independence, MAGA Big Beautiful Bill, Declaration of Independence Vote, Cha Cha Real Smooth, Happy Canada Day, Wait What, Salt, Tehran, and Smoke

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Irina Voronina, Fish Pic Friday – July 4, 2025, BBB Passes House Test Vote, Thursday Tanlines, Senate Passes the BBB, The Wednesday Wetness, The BBB Trundles Along, Hungry, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Random Celebrity News, Palm Sunday and Oregon, My Oregon

Thanks to everyone for the luscious linkagery!

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Category: Rule 5

A Notorious Menace to Public Safety

Posted on | July 6, 2025 | No Comments

Say hello to Da’shontay “Day Day” King and, while you’re at it, go ahead and say good-bye, because Day Day got shot to death by a cop in Racine, Wisconsin, in May 2022. The reason I’m writing this up now is kind of a long story, and let me preface this by repeating what I’ve often said before: Crime is a people problem. If you want to prevent crime, you must first understand that the vast majority of violent crime is committed by a relatively small percentage of the population, i.e., habitual criminals. These are repeat offenders, who generally begin their criminal careers while still juveniles, and are more or less constantly involved in criminal activity their entire adult lives. The public is never safe as long as these habitual criminals are on the street, and so the goal of law enforcement should be to identify these hard-core types and, when they are apprehended for one of their many crimes, make sure they go to prison for the maximum sentence. I’ve called this “The Al Capone Rule” — it was difficult to get criminal convictions against the Chicago gang boss, so the feds indicted him for income tax evasion and put him away. It didn’t matter what charge Capone was finally convicted for — he’d obviously gotten away with all kinds of crimes, including murder. What really mattered was getting Capone off the streets. If modern-day law enforcement would use the same approach with habitual criminals, we’d have a lot less crime. And so . . . felon in possession of a firearm:

Chilling dashcam footage shows a Florida man chasing and shooting at sanitation workers.

Quinson De’Shawn Croson has been arrested after opening fire on a garbage truck, chasing it through Zephyrhills and shooting at it following an argument at a Wawa. The incident left two… pic.twitter.com/OPvvX215Ty

— I Meme Therefore I Am ?? (@ImMeme0) July 4, 2025

Quinson De’Shawn Croson, 46, got into an argument with an acquaintance inside a Wawa convenience store in Pasco County, Florida, about 30 miles northwest of Tampa:

Croson reportedly followed the other man and his coworker to their Waste Connections garbage truck, where the argument “quickly escalated.”
Other witnesses told Zephyrhills P.D. that Croson grabbed a handgun from his vehicle and began firing multiple rounds at the garbage truck while chasing it down the street.
Authorities say Croson eventually crashed his vehicle into the garbage truck near Dairy Road, causing the passenger side door to open and eject the passenger. . . .
Croson was later located in Hillsborough County and arrested. He is charged with two counts of attempted homicide and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Dianna Deeley called that story to my attention, and I immediately focused on that charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. We hear so much rhetoric about “gun violence,” but there seems to be little public understanding of how much of this violence is committed by habitual criminals with prior felony convictions who, if prosecutors and judges were doing their jobs right, would have already been locked up. Dianna sent me that story with a Crazy People Are Dangerous suggestion — Florida man chasing a garbage truck — but instead it made me wonder, “Why was this guy out on the streets to begin with?”

Also, how does an argument turn into attempted murder? My guess is that, in kindergarten, Quinson De’Shawn Croson did not “play well with others.” That is to say, this convicted felon has a personality problem, which explains why he was a convicted felon in the first place. No rehabilitation program can fix a problem like that. And now, speaking of Crazy People Are Dangerous . . .

That 11-minute video shows a scene recorded on police body cameras in August 2023. Police officers were called to some kind of halfway house, where one of the female residents had assaulted a staff member. When the staff member got in her car to leave, the woman jumped on top of the staffer’s car. As becomes apparent from comments made by some of the officers, the suspect named Kayla was known to them from previous incidents. At one point, Kayla climbs down from the roof of the car, and gets into the backseat of the car to again assault the staffer. As police are trying to drag Kayla out of the car, she kicks a female officer in the face, giving the officer a bloody nose. Did I mention that, as soon as the cops arrived on the scene, Kayla began insulting them as “crackers”?

The most shocking part of the video, however, comes at the end, when we learn that after being charged with a litany of crimes — including bail jumping for prior offenses — Kayla managed to get a plea deal in which she pleaded no contest to a felony charge of battery on a law enforcement officer and was sentenced to three years of probation.

She kicked a cop in the face! She was only in jail for three days!

Despite diligent research efforts, I was not able to figure out Kayla’s surname or find any news articles about her case. However, someone left a comment on the video that indicated it happened in Racine, Wisconsin, where the District Attorney is Tricia Hanson. You know when I go down a research rabbit hole like this, I’m not stopping until I’m down at the bottom, neck-deep in rabbit poop, which is how this inquiry led me to the case of Da’shontay “Day Day” King:

A Racine police officer has been cleared in a deadly shooting.
Racine County District Attorney Patricia Hanson announced Tuesday that she will not file charges against Officer Zachary Brenner, who fatally shot Da’Shontay King on May 20 during a police pursuit.
The state Department of Justice led the investigation into the shooting and turned its findings over to the district attorney.
Hanson released the body camera footage and her 27-page decision before family had a chance to view it Tuesday.
Brenner said he tried pulling King over for a traffic violation when King stopped the car and took off running.
Video footage shows Brenner chasing King, telling him multiple times not to reach for a weapon or he would shoot him. Still images of the video, included in Hanson’s report show what she says is a gun falling out of King’s pocket, WISN-TV reported.
Hanson said it shows him turning to pick up the gun and then holding the gun. Moments later, Brenner said he feared for his life and shot King several times.
“My review of the facts and circumstances of this case led me to the conclusion that Officer Brenner is immune from criminal liability in this case as the death of Mr. King was a direct result of Mr. King’s conduct that posed a reasonable and imminent threat to Officer Brenner, under the circumstances as they existed at the time,” Hanson wrote.

That article has some important omissions, which I’ll explain momentarily, but you can watch the video here:

If you’ve watched that video, you know that the most relevant fact omitted from the news article was that Day Day King wasn’t pulled over for any “traffic violation.” He was a suspect in prior shootings:

On May 17, 2022, Officer Zachary Brenner was working as a Community Oriented Policing (COP) Officer for the Racine Police Department. An Investigator from the Racine County Gang Crime Task Force advised Officer Brenner of an active search warrant that had been signed by a Judge, and provided Officer Brenner with a copy of the search warrant. A judge found that there was probable cause to believe that Dashontay L. King, dob 8/84, and/or EAS [a criminal associate of King’s], dob 5/80, would be in possession of firearms, despite both being prohibited from possessing a firearm due to prior felony convictions. Probable cause was also found by the judge that a rental vehicle being used by Mr. King and EAS might contain firearms, a gray 2021 Volkswagen Atlas with a Wisconsin registration of AKT8763.
Officer Brenner stated that he reviewed the search warrant and that he recognized the names from other recent shooting investigations where the names had been mentioned as being involved, but that he had never had contact with the two people mentioned in the warrant. Officer Brenner was given photos of Mr. King and EAS, and that he kept the photos of the subjects and a copy of the search warrant with him at all times on the visor of his vehicle. Officer Brenner stated that he also looked up the vehicle type, a Volkswagen Atlas, on Google to make sure he knew what type of vehicle he was looking for.

That’s from the 27-page official report from the DA and, as you see, the local Gang Crime Task Force was very familiar with Day Day King, who was sufficiently notorious in Racine that Officer Brenner recognized the name “from other recent shooting investigations.” Furthermore, I’ve read the affidavits in the case, and can tell you that (a) the car was rented two weeks earlier by a female associate of Day Day, and (b) police noted that there was a bullet hole in the car. We may presume that at some point in the previous two weeks, Day Day (or his accomplice “EAS”) had been in a shootout with rival gangsters while driving the rented Volkswagen.

That’s a screenshot from the police chief’s briefing which includes more relevant facts that didn’t make it into that news article. Day Day King got his first felony conviction while still a teenager and had since twice been convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, raising the question: “How many second chances does a criminal deserve?”

If Republicans ever recapture control of the legislature and governor’s office in Wisconsin, they need to take a long, hard look at this problem. Every time I hear liberals bemoaning “gun violence,” this issue of felons in possession of firearms comes to mind. Surely the first conviction on such a charge ought to merit at least five years in the state penitentiary, and a second conviction ought to be worth at least 10 years behind bars.

You just can’t keep turning loose repeat offenders like that, and the fact that Day Day King was still on the streets of Racine is an indictment of the criminal justice system in Wisconsin, which is clearly failing in its duty to protect public safety. The Al Capone Rule should apply.

Oh, but there are more relevant facts that didn’t make it into that news article. The pistol that Day Day King was carrying was sent to the Wisconsin State Crime Lab:

Recovered in the field on Carroll St. was an olive green and black Springfield XD 9/40, .9mm handgun. The magazine had 15 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Analysis at the Wisconsin State Crime Lab revealed that the Springfield handgun had also been used at a shooting that resulted in property damage in the area of Edgewood and St. Patrick Street on April 21, 2022.

How many crimes had Day Day King gotten away with before he finally got shot to death by Officer Brennan? You might as well ask, how many stars are in the sky? There is simply no way of knowing, but permit me now to call your attention to an interesting coda to Day Day’s death:

A manhunt is on for the gunmen who opened fire at a Racine funeral.
The gunfire broke out as family and friends laid Da’Shontay King to rest Thursday afternoon [June 2, 2022] at Graceland Cemetery.
Two women were injured, and King’s family is grieving and outraged.
King’s family told WISN 12 News they had just begun a prayer at his burial when bullets started flying at Graceland Cemetery.
Their final goodbyes were violently interrupted by gunfire.
His casket was grazed by a bullet. . . .
King’s family doesn’t understand why a man being laid to rest would be targeted.
“You have all of these innocent people who were there who could have been seriously hurt or worse. Enough is enough, something has to give. This is not acceptable and, obviously, we want someone to be caught for this because this is absolutely absurd,” [King’s sister Natasha] Mullen said.

Yes, ma’am, I think we do understand why your brother’s funeral was targeted. Didn’t I mention that the Gang Crime Task Force was familiar with Day Day King? Arrests were made for the funeral shooting:

Left to right: Lamarion Blair, Cornelius Evans, Cameron Elam

All three suspects were 19 years old, including Elam, “who was found to be in possession of a stolen Glock pistol with an automatic switch at the time of his arrest,” and there was this very relevant information:

Following Blair’s arrest, the Racine Police Department said the shooting at Graceland Cemetery was the result of gang rivalries; Blair is a known member of the Racine-based NFL (North Side For Life) gang, “a younger, more violent offshoot of the Vice Lords street gang,” according to the RPD, while King was a member of the 12th Street Gangster Disciples.

Oh, the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples! Wikipedia tells us that the Vice Lords are “the second-largest and one of the oldest street and prison gangs in Chicago,” while the Gangster Disciples are “an African American street and prison gang” that “began in Englewood (in Chicago, Illinois’s South Side).” Racine is about 75 miles north of Chicago, and we may surmise that many gang-bangers in Racine are the offspring of folks who relocated from Chicago, bringing with them their gang affiliations.

This shows why it’s wrong to think of crime as a problem confined to inner-city ghettos. What starts in the ghetto is unlikely to stay in the ghetto, and I guarantee you there are residents of Racine who are old enough to remember when they didn’t have a problem with Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples shooting up their streets every night.

Once this culture of violent thuggery takes root in a community, it is very difficult for law enforcement to eradicate it. Anti-gang efforts in Racine have been making headlines for many years:

Forty-one men were charged Thursday [October 22, 2009] in federal court with being part of violent, drug-dealing gangs in Racine — the third wave of indictments against criminal outfits in the city, officials said.
The arrests in Racine were part of a larger law enforcement effort this year in federal court in the Milwaukee area, where more than 200 people have been charged with drug crimes. In October alone, 70 defendants from three drug organizations have been charged.
The latest indictment, unsealed Thursday, targeted two gangs: the North Side Gangsters and the North Side Vice Lords.
Nineteen defendants were in custody before Thursday, and 200 officers raided 20 Racine homes, arresting 15 people during the bust, officials said.
Besides drug dealing, the 41 defendants are suspected in more than 200 acts of violence, including shootings and homicides, all to protect drug-dealing turf in Racine, officials said. . . .
The investigation — known as Operation Cracked Cane — began a year ago, teaming up FBI and other federal agents with state and local law enforcement, officials said.
Their first move came in June 2008 when 16 members of Racine’s Midtown 12th Street Gangster Disciples were indicted. Then in February, 14 Racine-based drug dealers were charged.

That was in 2009. Then in 2011:

Early morning raids here Wednesday [January 26, 2011] resulted in the arrests of 18 alleged members of the Gangster Disciples gang, who are now facing either federal or state charges related to drug trafficking and firearm offenses.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that 10 indictments were unsealed between December of 2010 and this month, charging 10 of the men. Another eight were arrested on state charges and will be prosecuted by the Racine County District Attorney’s Office.
Most of the defendants, if convicted, face between 10 years and life imprisonment, a fine of up to $4,000,000 and five years to life on supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The raids and arrests were reportedly part of a lengthy and ongoing investigation by local, state and federal authorities, with the purpose of eradicating the sale of crack cocaine and other controlled substances by violent gang members in Racine.

Racine is not a big city. The population is less than 80,000, of which about 18,000 are black. If the feds were rounding up Gangster Disciples by the dozens, year after year, and if the Gangster Disciples in Racine are constantly at war with the local Vice Lords, what percentage of the total population of young black males in Racine are involved in gang activity?

Someone with better math skills than me would have to make that calculation, but if the local residents of Racine were to assume that every young black male they encounter is a gang-banger, you couldn’t say this was ignorant prejudice, but just erring on the side of caution.

(Scott Adams could not be reached for comment.)

When thug life becomes normalized, this leads some people to believe they have a right to thug life. It is therefore not surprising that the family of Day Day King — the convicted felon Gangster Disciple who had been thugging since adolescence — recently filed a federal lawsuit:

A Racine family is pursuing justice in federal court following the death of Da’Shontay King, who was shot and killed by a police officer three years ago.
“There was no reason for him to be shot multiple times while he was running away from a police officer,” said King’s sister Natasha Mullen. . . .
“Da’Shontay doesn’t do anything to turn toward the officer, point a firearm at the officer, or anything like that,” said civil rights attorney William Sulton.
Their lawsuit filed by Sulton argues Officer Brenner used “excessive and unreasonable force.”

This lawsuit will almost certainly be thrown out of court — one hopes the federal judge will use some subtle sarcasm in explaining his decision — and we return, once again, to the “Al Capone Rule.” Identify the habitual criminals, and get them off the street. It doesn’t matter how. You can put them in prison, or you can put them in the graveyard.

You live the thug life, you die the thug death.

Officer Zachary Brenner deserves a marksmanship medal.

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Category: Crime, Wisconsin

FMJRA 2.0: Not Long Before The End

Posted on | July 6, 2025 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

After a week like this, I’m tempted to let the robot run the team for our last series on Thursday in Pittsburgh, but that would be dishonorable. We lost two out of three to the Red Sox. the sole win coming as Dave Sells vultured a win off Jim Kaat by giving up a run in the top of the 9th, only to be bailed out by a rare Nate Colbert dinger that gave us a 7-5 win…the last one of the week, as the boys couldn’t buy a run off Schueler, Renko, or Slaton. So we finished the week 1-5, 71-88, just two games ahead of the cellar-dwelling Red Sox. Pittsburgh is 94-65, but we beat them 2-1 in our only other series, so I’m hoping for the best.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Of Declarations and Independence
The Pirate’s Cove
The Daley Gator
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

LGBTQIA2S+ Pride Month Update: Fugly Tranny Gets Tased in Portland ICE Riot
The Pirate’s Cove
The Daley Gator
EBL
A View From The Beach

FMJRA 2.0: Kiss .500 Goodbye
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Make Fireworks Great Again
EBL
357 Magnum

LGBTQIA2S+ Pride Month Update: New Maryland Charges for Three Members of Radical Vegan Transgender Cult
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Rule 5 Sunday: Overall Beauty
Animal Magnetism
EBL
A View From The Beach

In The Mailbox: 06.30.25
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 07.01.25
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

The Hills Are Alive … With Rachel Zegler?
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 07.02.25
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Big Win for President Trump as House Votes to Pass the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 07.03.25
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Thank You, Tip-Jar Hitters!
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 07.04.25
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Amazon Warehouse Deals
In the not too distant future, wars will no longer exist…
but there will be Rollerball.

Category: FMJRA Award

Chicago Celebrates 4th of July With Patriotism and Deadly Gunfire

Posted on | July 5, 2025 | No Comments

But, yeah, mainly it was the gunfire:

Seven people were hospitalized following another mass shooting Friday night in Chicago, this time on the city’s Southwest Side.
It happened after 11 p.m. in the 4800 block of South Justine Street in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.
Chicago police said officers responded to a call of multiple people shot. Preliminary reports indicated that two unknown men approached the victims on foot, pulled out guns, and shot into a crowd of people who were standing outside, hitting the seven victims.
A 27-year-old woman was hit in the left leg, a 21-year-old woman was hit in the right thigh, and a 21-year-old man was hit in the right quad and right foot. They were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital in serious condition.
Four others were taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center.
A 29-year-old man was shot in the left arm and is listed in serious condition. A 25-year-old woman was hit in the left flank and is in serious condition. A 25-year-old woman was hit in the rear and is in critical condition, and a 42-year-old man was hit in the left calf and is in critical condition.
As of Saturday, no one is in custody. Area 1 detectives are investigating.
This is the fifth mass shooting in the city since Wednesday. That’s when 4 people were killed and 14 others were wounded in a shooting outside a River North nightclub, where an album release party for Chicago rapper Mello Buckzz occurred.
Two other mass shootings followed in less than 24 hours. Four people were wounded in a mass shooting early Thursday in the Riverdale neighborhood. Four other men were also wounded in the West Englewood neighborhood later that evening.
Early Saturday morning, four other men were shot while sitting inside a parked car in the Marshall Square neighborhood.

The media don’t offer descriptions of the suspects, so I’m just going to guess they were Trump supporters wearing red “MAGA” caps.

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Category: Chicago, Crime

In The Mailbox: 07.04.25

Posted on | July 5, 2025 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
The famous Gettysburg Address was actually delivered on October 19, but it’s the logical capstone to posts about the battle. What people tend to forget is that Lincoln’s now-famous speech wasn’t the main event that day. Rather, a then-famous orator, Edward Everett, went on for two hours and almost 14,000 words (as was customary in those days), while Lincoln’s remarks lasted only two minutes…yet those brief remarks are what everyone remembers about that day.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

President Lincoln delivers his remarks at Gettysburg, Nov. 19 1863.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Mythical Modern Audience Also Doesn’t Buy Cars
EBL: James Brown – Living in America, John Adams – Declaration of Independence, and Happy 4th of July
Twitchy: They Can’t Even Win A Meme War, Creative X Users Enjoy Reimagining Jimmy Gomez’ Staged Capitol Steps “Crying” Pic, and Scott Jennings Lays Out Why The Democrats Keep Bleeding Voters
Vox Popoli: China Backs Iran, also, War in the Middle Ages
According To Hoyt: How Bloggers Are Paid, Uniformly Spherical Countries in Frictionless Vacuum, This That And The Other Thing, and Happy Fourth
Monster Hunter Nation: Academy of Outcasts 2
Upstream Reviews: Rebel Heart
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Happy Independence Day!
Stoic Observations: My Teenaged Bedroom

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Trump Makes the Right Move on Syria
American Greatness: ‘Make American Elections Great Again’ MTG Proposes Census Reform Bill, also, Biden Claims European Leaders, Dems and Republicans Are Calling Him as Trump Unravels His ‘Accomplishments’
American Thinker: Happy Birthday USA: A Simple Fix for Healthcare Fraud, and Healthcare Too!
Animal Magnetism: Happy Independence Day!
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For July 4
Behind The Black: ULA finally begins stacking Vulcan for next launch, A Martian meteorite discovered in Africa is up for auction, Two Russian satellites are maneuvering toward an American military satellite, and A nation founded on the idea of allowing people to pursue happiness
CDR Salamander: Happy July 4th
Chicago Boyz: Gell-Mann Revisited, The Spirit of ’76, and Shall It Be Sustained?
Da Tech Guy: Hermit of Loreto 2 Planned Parenthood 0
Don Surber: Republicans talk, Trump does
First Street Journal: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran?
Gates Of Vienna: We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident, also, Groping the Crippled Negro Boy is Forbidden!
The Geller Report: July 4th: Did you know?
The Lid: Liberals Claim Illegals Pay Taxes and Add to Society…The Numbers Don’t Show That at All
Legal Insurrection: China Poised to Target Europe’s Energy Underbelly via Libya, EPA Suspends over 140 Toxic Employees Who Wrote Letter Denouncing Trump Policies, Illinois Keeps Hemorrhaging Young People, Hezbollah Reportedly in Disarray as Thousands of Terrorists Quit After Terror Chief Nasrallah’s Elimination , and Elizabeth Warren 2.0 – NYC Socialist Zohran Mamdani Identified as “Black or African American” on Columbia Application
Matt Taibbi: America Is More Than A Political Argument
Outkick: Michael Kay Gets Roasted As Juan Soto, Mets, Extend Yankees Losing Streak, Chicago Cubs Set New Home Run Record On Historic Fourth Of July, One NHL Team Is Bringing A Wild Horse To Its Development Camp, Joey Chestnut Wins Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest In Return, Downs 70.5 Dogs To Claim 17th Mustard Belt, and NASCAR’s Natalie Decker Has A ‘Hot Mommy’ Day, MAGA Bikini Congresswoman Bears Her Arms & Deportation Machine!
Power Line: $500k For A Lifeguard Job, The People’s Justice, The Eternal Meaning Of Independence Day, and Thoughts From The Ammo Line
Shark Tank: DHS Says These Convicted Illegals Could Be Heading To Alligator Alcatraz
Shot In The Dark: Happy Independence Day
The Political Hat: When in the Course of Human Events
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Thank You, Tip-Jar Hitters!

Posted on | July 4, 2025 | No Comments

A finale board from our 2019 show

Thinking back on the history of our family’s pyrotechnical celebrations of American independence, the 2020 show was probably the apogee, the zenith, the ne plus ultra. We had 35 cases worth of fireworks that year, and the grand finale was nearly a minute of extreme intensity.

That was the conclusion of an 11-minute show and, really, you shouldn’t go longer than that. I’ve watched a lot of videos of backyard shows, including some d0ne with electrical firing systems that make possible a greater precision of effects. But no matter how excellent your planning and execution may be, if your show is much longer than 10 minutes, the audience will get bored. There are only so many different effects available, and after a few minutes of boom-boom-boom, it becomes repetitive. What we do — how I learned it, back 20 years ago when I was haunting the online message boards of fireworks enthusiasts — to help avoid this problem is what is called the “roller coaster” approach. You build up to a peak, then go back down, then peak again, and back down until at the end, you blow their minds with a massive finale barrage.

What really counts in a finale is intensity, which can be expressed mathematically as “breaks per second” (BPS). The bursting of a fireworks shell is called the “break,” which is not always synonymous with the number of shots being fired, because not every shot has a break. Some shots are comets or mines that don’t produce an exploding break. In our shows, we usually include what are called Color Pearl cakes (48 or 96 shots) that are just small red and green comets, in order to Create a multilevel effect — the little comets going up from the bottom, with the big shells breaking up top. You can also do this using roman candles.

Roman candle racks from our 2020 show

We’ll be shooting a dozen 48-shot Color Pearl cakes in one of our finales this year, which means 576 little red and green comets flying into the air in the span of about 20 seconds. You’ll notice I said “one of our finales,” because part of the “roller coaster” method of doing a fireworks show is building up to at least one fake finale before you do the massive barrage of the Grand Finale. If you execute this properly, with the fake finale intense enough to make people think this is the end, then give about a 10-second delay (“pause for applause,” as we say), it’s a pretty shocking thing for the audience when you hit the fuse for the real finale.

Thanks to generous donations from the tip-jar hitters, I’m now looking at an inventory list that tells me we’ve got 374 shots in the 30-second real finale — an intensity of 12 shots per second. Is that enough?

Well, there’s no such thing as “enough,” probably, but I’ve sent thank-you notes to several of y’all who chipped in to help me acquire this year’s fireworks stash. That includes Bernard in Wisconsin, Stephen in Arkansas, a certain resident of Connecticut, and a young Virginia fellow who says he might be able to make it up to see our show when we shoot next Saturday, July 12, in West Virginia. The reason for that delay is that one of my grandsons is at camp this week, so in order for him to be able to see the show, we had to postpone it by eight days. Which means . . .

Maybe I could hit the fireworks stores again this coming week and take advantage of their deep post-4th of July discounts to add even more boom-boom to that finale! It’s certainly not too late to remind you that the Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!