The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In The Mailbox: 04.23.26 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | April 23, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Doug Ross: A Day At Corregidor With MacArthur (1942)
EBL: China vs. Taiwan, Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Leave Virginia Alone, Scallops, and American Silicon Empire
Twitchy: Scott Jennings Goes off On Spanberger’s Gerrymandering – Leaves CNN’s Kasie Hunt Speechless, California Democrats Epic Fail During Debate – Watch ‘Em Flop On “Truck Drivers Speaking English” Question, and Spanberger’s Got Some Splainin’ To Do About Her Energy Czar’s Connection To SPLC
Louder With Crowder: Ms. Rachel is lying about visiting a migrant center (and a bunch of other things), Joe Rogan says paying more in taxes would be fine if the government didn’t suck so bad at fixing anything, Funding Racism: DOJ Slams SPLC For Secretly Funding “White Supremacy” Groups, Reporter shows just how hard Donald Trump SHUT DOWN the border compared to the “migrant president” Joe Biden, and Woke Democrat Rep. Jayapal Praises “Remarkable” Cuban Healthcare System
Vox Popoli: Animated ATOB, The Iran That Can Say No, The Satanic SPLC, The End of Hollywood, and Globalization and Travel
Cedar Sanderson: Modern Machinery
Jim McCoy: The Most Disappointing Book I Ever Read

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: What Are The Details For 18 Battle Force & 16 Non-Battle Force Ships II: Electric Boogaloo
Dana Loesch: INDICTMENT – Southern Poverty Law Center Paid Extremist Groups To Agitate
Don Surber: Trump has had it with NATO
STUMP: Congressional Mortality Update 2026 – RIP Rep. David Scott, 80

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Category: Linkagery

SPLC’s Clayton Bigsby Moment

Posted on | April 23, 2026 | No Comments

There is a lot of irony in the federal grand jury indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 counts including wire fraud. About 30 years ago, it was explained to me why the SPLC’s “hate watch” racket exists — i.e., that Morris Dees had taken the mailing list of donors to the 1972 George McGovern campaign and turned it into a gold mine.

Dees discovered that rich Yankee liberals would give! give! give! if you told them you were fighting racism in the South. Never mind that, by the time the SPLC got rolling, the Civil Rights era had come and gone, and nearly everybody in the South had made their peace with integration. Liberals had a weird nostalgia for the “heroic struggle” narrative in which they taught a lesson to those benighted bigots down in Dixie, and they’d pay big money if you could keep that narrative alive, which is what Dees and the SPLC were really all about. Sometimes you’ll hear conservative critics of the SPLC contend that the SPLC originally did worthwhile things, but then strayed from their noble mission. No — it was a scam from the outset, an elaborate fraud to collect money from gullible liberals.

Anyway, this week’s news is darkly humorous:

The Southern Poverty Law Center is accused of funneling millions of dollars to at least eight leaders and members of hate groups — including a Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard and a fundraiser for a neo-Nazi group — to act as informants, which one nonprofit leader likened to paying an arsonist to help put out a fire.
The Alabama-based non-profit was charged by the Department of Justice with wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering conspiracy on Tuesday for allegedly hiding from donors the fact that it doled out more than $3 million over the course of nearly a decade to “field sources” tasked with infiltrating violent extremist groups, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced Wednesday.
The field sources — or “Fs” — were “secretly paid” by SPLC between 2014 and 2023, the indictment claims.
America First Legal president Gene Hamilton, a former DOJ official, told The Post Wednesday it’s unprecedented for a tax-exempt nonprofit to use donor funding to pay informants in violent extremist groups
“I’ve seen some leftists talking about, seen some chatter on social media and elsewhere saying, ‘Oh this is a commonly used tactic amongst the government for years to infiltrate organizations,’” added the lawyer for the conservative group. “That’s one thing if it’s the government — the government can prosecute people.”
Hamilton likened it to paying the proverbial arsonist to help put out a fire.
He said it would be like if his own MAGA-tied group was secretly giving money to DEI officials to set up more DEI programs — while raising money to fight against DEI.
“It’s mind bogglingly dumb,” he said.
Liora Rez, the founder of StopAntisemitism, said that SPLC’s work fighting antisemitism appeared to have fallen off in recent years. He was infuriated by the allegations.
“It’s unimaginable to us that a civil rights group would gin up fake bigotry in order to solicit donations from concerned Americans,” he said.
“If this is what the SPLC did, it is shameful and outrageous.” . . .
One informant was part of an “online leadership chat group” organizing the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and ended up posting racist comments at the SPLC’s behest while also coordinating rides for others to attend, per the indictment.
In total, SPLC paid the informant $270,000 between 2015 and 2023, the papers claim.
A veteran informant from the neo-Nazi National Alliance was paid $1 million over the same period and assisted SPLC at one point by stealing 25 boxes of documents from the violent extremist group’s headquarters, the filing alleges.
He worked as a fundraiser for the neo-Nazi group, according to the DOJ.

You can read the whole thing. If you’re laughing at the SPLC’s disgrace, that probably means you’re a neo-Confederate supremacist.

Clayton Bigsby could not be reached for comment.



 

Category: Racism

In The Mailbox: 04.22.26

Posted on | April 23, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

If I had any brains I would already have been in bed, but I don’t want to fall even further behind on the blogging.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Patrick ‘Tate’ Adamiak Is a Political Prisoner
Director Blue: Meet The A-11 Thunderhog, 
EBL: Dover Sole Meuniere, Logan’s Run at 50, Battle of Mutina, Battle of San Jacinto, and Don’t Mess With The Bull
Twitchy: Hasan Piker Joins NYT To Talk About “Microlooting” As Political Protest, ACLU Whines That DC Curfew Puts Kids At Risk Of Unnecessary Police Encounters, and Talarico Camp Rumored To Be Sitting On Career-Ending Dirt On Both Paxton & Cornyn
Louder With Crowder: Alleged red state court rules that the government can’t make “trans” people be either man or woman on their license, LA residents convicted of insurance fraud, and it somehow involves a bear costume, Woman who Donald Trump destroyed in Election 2024 goes on rant that he’s “incompetent” or something, and Woke woman claims trans people will be sent to concentration camps, asks Pete Buttigieg what he plans to do about it
Vox Popoli: Baby Steps, The Dirty Patriots, Fight the Power, THE FUNAJI SCROLL, and Desperation in Defeat
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Sunday Story, also, Ugh
Upstream Reviews: Torchship, 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: Did China Culminate And N One Noticed?
Dana Loesch: No One Asked For This
Don Surber: Obama is tired of Trump winning

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Category: Uncategorized

VIRGINIA ELECTION RESULTS: Will Voters OK Spanberger’s Gerrymander? UPDATE: Network Declares ‘Yes’ Win

Posted on | April 21, 2026 | No Comments

UPDATE 8:49 p.m. ET: NBC News has just declared that “yes” will win the referendum vote in Virginia. Only 80% of the vote has been counted, but the remaining vote in Fairfax County and Richmond will be enough.

UPDATE 8:39 p.m. ET: Lead for “No” is less than 30,000 votes:

YES …………….. 1,197,131 (49.5%)
NO ……………… 1,219,875 (50.5%)
(76% of the vote counted)

This is starting to look discouraging.

UPDATE 8:14 p.m. ET: “No” continues to hold the lead:

YES …………….. 969,934 (48.0%)
NO ……………… 1,051,768 (52.0%)
(64% of the vote counted)

The margin keeps tightening. Fingers crossed.

UPDATE 7:59 p.m. ET: With more than half the vote counted, “no” is now leading by more than 90,000 votes:

YES …………….. 794,155 (47.2%)
NO ……………… 887,372 (52.8%)
(54% of the vote counted)

The lead is now narrowing, percentage-wise. As more urban vote comes in, expect it to become very close.

UPDATE 7:44 p.m. ET: Even wider lead for “NO”:

YES …………….. 568,383 (45.5%)
NO ……………… 681,792 (54.5%)
(41% of the vote counted)

BTW, it’s nearly 2-to-1 “no” in Louisa County.

UPDATE 7:34 p.m. ET: “NO” is gaining ground:

YES …………….. 424,523 (47.3%)
NO ……………… 473,156 (52.7%)
(30% of the vote counted)

Now leading by more than five points — encouraging.

UPDATE 7:24 p.m. ET: Getting results quick tonight:

YES …………….. 183,280 (49.5%)
NO ……………… 187,151 (50.5%)
(12% of the vote counted)

UPDATE 7:14 p.m. ET: The first numbers are in:

YES …………….. 29,862 (48.1%)
NO ……………… 32,275 (51.9%)
(3% of the vote counted)

You can’t tell anything from these first returns. Be patient.

EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .

 

* * * PREVIOUSLY (6:46 p.m. ET) * * *

 

Polls close at 7 p.m. ET tonight and within hours we will know whether Virginia voters have approved a referendum that would redraw the Commonwealth’s congressional districts from their current alignment (6 Democrats, 5 Republicans) to give the Democrats a likely 10-1 advantage. People who have followed the process whereby this measure got to the ballot have assured me that it is unconstitutional on at least three different points, which would mean a court battle if the “yes” vote wins tonight, but it would be far better if the “no” vote wins — a direct repudiation of this nefarious scheme by Gov. Abigail Spanberger and her Democrat accomplices in the legislature. As regular readers know, I traveled to Louisa County last weekend for a “Vote No” rally:

“It’s unfair, it’s unconstitutional and it’s illegal,” Second District Rep. Jen Kiggans said of the referendum, expressing an opinion shared by many Republicans who have noted what might mildly be termed procedural irregularities in the way the redistricting measure made its way onto the ballot. (See David Catron’s February column, “Redistricting Betrayal in Virginia,” for more about that.) In her speech to the courthouse rally here, Kiggans mentioned the uphill battle she fought in 2022 to win her seat in a competitive coastal district that includes Virginia Beach. Kiggans would almost certainly have no chance to be reelected in this fall’s midterms if the redistricting referendum passes, and the same is true of McGuire, despite the fact that he carried the fifth district by a 15-point margin in 2024.
The map Democrats would inflict on Virginia is a Frankenstein monster, and what it would do to Louisa County is a nightmare horror story. Currently, the fifth district is geographically coherent, covering a wide area west of Richmond down to the North Carolina border. Under the proposed new map, Louisa County would be shoved into the Seventh District, the shape of which resembles a lobster, its head and two claws pointing southwest (Louisa County being the elbow of one claw), and its tail reaching all the way up to touch the Potomac River in Arlington County. From its southernmost point in Powhatan County to Arlington, this mutant district would span more than 130 miles and, with its westward lobster claw, also reaches over into the Shenandoah Valley to slice off parts of Rockingham and Augusta counties. It’s about 100 miles from one claw to the other, but in driving that distance along I-64, a motorist would travel roughly half of it through the proposed new sixth district.

The early vote — they have 45 days of that in Virginia — was reportedly heavier in Republican-leaning areas, and there were reports today of continued high turnout for the final voting today, but that’s anecdotal, and we won’t know the result until they actually count the votes. Spanberger won by a 15-point margin last November, and so the “no” vote has an uphill battle. We shall see what the evening brings.

UPDATE 7:05 p.m. ET: Earlier today, everyone on X was blabbing about projections based on reported turnout in different counties, and that’s a fool’s errand. This is a single-issue referendum — nothing else on the ballot — and it is impossible to estimate results based on the kind of metrics that (might) help predict a regular election. Based strictly on my own observation, it seems to me that the “no” campaign is more energized and motivated. Republicans have a greater incentive to vote against the redistricting than Democrats have to vote for the redistricting, and it’s hard for me to imagine most independents thinking, “Yeah, let’s just ignore the state constitution and redraw the map to give Democrats four more congressional seats.” That’s merely my observation, which doesn’t count for much, but some conservatives on X are just too pessimistic about what is likely to be a very close contest.



 

Category: Election, Virginia

In The Mailbox: 04.21.26 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | April 21, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Yesterday was eaten by snakes – or would have been if the super had brought his.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Relatives of Dead People Don’t Like Self-defense
Director Blue: A Day With Audie Murphy At The Colmar Pocket (1944),
EBL: George Harrison and the Lumberjack Song, Lucrezia Borgia, Shrinking Visceral Fat, Jamaican Me Hungry, and Mae West
Twitchy: DataRepublican Drops Receipts In Bombshell Thread About Why Pete Hegseth Is REALLY Being Targeted, Maury Povich’s Reaction To Joy Reid’s Claim Democrats Play By The Rules Is Hilarious Perfection, and Chris Murphy Smugly Backpedals After Cheering For Iran & Makes Things WORSE
Louder With Crowder: Creepy CA state senator looking to replace Nancy Pelosi is celebrating forcing a restaurant to put a pride flag back up, Obama and Mamdani represent the America you never wanted, Canada & Israel Both Messed Up Bigly This Weekend, Seven months after reports her net worth exploded, Ilhan Omar claims it was an accounting error and she’s actually poor, and Woke city finally cleans up all the needles and garbage, but only while foreigners are in town for the World Cup
Vox Popoli: How Galaxy’s Edge Damaged Disney, The World Inside the World, Amazon Kills Kindle-PC, Still Definitely Not Meth,  and A Millennial’s Observation
Upstream Reviews: Once A Spy
Jim McCoy: The Last Dungeon Crawler
Cedar Sanderson: One Jar Down
Stoic Observations: Progressive Liberals vs. Black Conservatives,

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: Latin American Policy With Colin Dueck – On Midrats, also, Looks Like Commerce Raiding Is Back On The Menu
Don Surber: Even electricity is leaving blue states
Elizabeth Nickson: Trump Is A Moderate – What’s Coming Is Far More Conservative,
Racket News: How Big Pharma (Successfully) Targeted Women, 

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Category: Linkagery

IT’S ‘STOP THE LOBSTER’ DAY!

Posted on | April 21, 2026 | No Comments

After I called it “Spanberger’s lobster” last week, many others have taken up that phrase to describe the crustacean-like shape of the district that Democrats would inflict on Virginia if today’s referendum passes.

By now, every true Virginian knows to VOTE NO in today’s referendum (if you haven’t already voted early) and Smitty yesterday weighed in from his perch in the blue part of the Commonwealth.

Every analyst expects the vote to be close. Polls close tonight at 7 p.m., and then we’ll see if the deep-blue precincts in the D.C. suburbs can manufacture enough fake “yes” votes to cancel out the overwhelming “no” from the more rural areas of Virginia like Louisa County.



 

Category: Virginia

VA’s 21Apr Vote: This Dog Don’t Hunt

Posted on | April 20, 2026 | No Comments

by Smitty

Somebody I know who is credentialed in the art of surveying people (pharma, for drug trials) was unimpressed by then quality of the question on the ballot tomorrow in Virginia. After feeding Spanberger’s dirty diaper into Claude:

(Judge Hurley’s injunction)

Much has happened since the 28Feb Fairfax GOP meeting. One speaker offered an estimated 20% turnout. Early voting closed Saturday, and the the pre-election turnout for the redistricting question (1,358,628) indicates that the final turnout might rival the November 2025 gubernatorial (3,433,340).

I have lived in Northern Virginia and supported elections since 2012. I can tell you that the final tally here in Occupied Territory will be ~20+D, because Trump just hasn’t trimmed enough federal workers to help them get their minds right.

Tomorrow is a skirmish on the road to Making America Great Again. The career politicians (as well as bureaucrats and oligarchs who lurk in the shadows behind them) aren’t even trying to package the lies with any validity, per the graphic above.

Somewhere along the line, our republic turned into a Progressive golden shower:

Like I said to the mighty PolitiBunny on X:

Category: Politics, Virginia

‘Several Young Individuals’: At Least Two Dead in North Carolina Mass Shooting UPDATE: Not the Expected Victims

Posted on | April 20, 2026 | No Comments

Euphemisms are amazing, aren’t they? Perhaps you can think of some other phrases that would be more helpful in describing the likely participants in the situation that “escalated” into a mass shooting Monday morning at Leinbach Park in Winston-Salem, North Carolina:

Two people were killed after a mass shooting at a park in North Carolina on Monday morning, according to the [State Bureau of Investigation].
The shooting reportedly happened at Leinbach Park near, but not at, Jefferson Middle School in Winston-Salem on Monday, April 20. The school was placed on a “secure hold” on Monday morning, but that has since been lifted.
Police said the shooting escalated from a planned fight between “two young individuals.” During the brawl, several people “began shooting at each other,” resulting in “multiple victims,” according to officers.
Nearly two hours after the shooting was first reported, the SBI confirmed two people died and that “several” others were shot.
As of this writing, the conditions of those who were shot are unknown, and authorities have not announced any arrests. The Associated Press described the incident as a mass shooting.
Authorities urged the public to avoid the area “for now” and said parents who need to pick up children from nearby Jefferson Middle School may do so.

Are suspects still at large? Not known at this time.

Leinbach Park is in the suburban Mt. Tabor area of Winston-Salem, about three miles southwest of the campus of Wake Forest University. The park is named for the woman who donated the property to the city; her husband was a bank executive, a descendant of one of the earliest Moravian missionaries who first settled the Salem community in the 1760s. While it’s best not to speculate in the aftermath of a mass shooting, I have a pretty strong hunch that the “several young individuals” involved in the gunfire at the park were not Moravian.

UPDATE: Police have announced a press conference for 4 p.m. ET, which will likely give us some answers.

UPDATE 4:30 p.m. ET: During the press conference, police named the two individuals killed — both Hispanic males, ages 16 and 17. Five others were wounded, including three females, but their names were not released. The police chief could not say whether suspects are in custody, but did note that some of the victims may have also been shooters. The investigation continues. No more facts are known now.



 

Category: Crime, North Carolina
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