The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 12.24.25 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | December 24, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.24.25 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

H/T @ShamashAran on X

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Alice Jones Webb on Women and Shooting
Director Blue: A Day Crossing The Atlantic to America 1760
EBL: MAGA: Make Midterms Great Again , God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen in Old English, and Aimee Carrero and Spirited
Twitchy: Ratio Alert! PBS Lets Us Know How Many “People In Small Boats” Have Been Killed So Far, A Biden COVID Christmas, and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) Suggests “Best Way To Oppose Fake News” And We Can’t Stop Laughing
Louder With Crowder: Young Somali girl claims none of us are illegal since, like, America is literally stolen land or something, Striking Starbucks worker claims they can barely afford “spaghetti and meatballs from a can,”, and Student blasts her school after she was accused of “misgendering” a man who was in the girls’ locker room
Vox Popoli: Immigrants and Their Idea Nation Lie, also, A Taste of the Bass
Upstream Reviews: Silver Bells, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: So We Have A USS Defiant (BBG-1)
Don Surber: When CBS silenced Andy Rooney – Twice
Matt Taibbi: Candace Owens – The Great American Basket Case, 

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Best Sellers – Home & Kitchen
Holiday Clearance
Amazon Essentials


 

Category: Linkagery

Make Nakatomi Plaza Great Again

Posted on | December 24, 2025 | Comments Off on Make Nakatomi Plaza Great Again

Hard to believe it’s been 37 years since NYPD Detective John McClane saved his estranged wife Holly from the evil terrorist Hans Gruber, a saga memorialized in the classic documentary Die Hard, which all good patriotic Americans know is the best Christmas movie ever.

Wishing everyone the happiest of holidays!



 

Category: Christmas

Journalism, Credibility and ‘Experts’

Posted on | December 23, 2025 | Comments Off on Journalism, Credibility and ‘Experts’

Brittany Bernstein at National Review notes:

NPR’s standards chief, Tony Calvin, had to issue an unusual bit of guidance to staff this week: stop quoting Carl Tobias. The instruction came after Calvin found NPR reporters had quoted the University of Richmond law professor 77 times on a variety of topics. “If Tobias’s name sounds familiar, it’s because Professor Tobias’s hobby seems to be getting himself quoted about anything and everything in news stories,” Calvin told staff, according to Semafor. “Professor Tobias often emails reporters offering his expert opinion on stories of the day and while I don’t presume to judge his expertise in legal matters, the professor is certainly an expert at getting himself quoted.”

The full text of the National Public Radio staff email reveals that, in addition to his frequent citation by NPR, the professor’s “expert” quotes have also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, all three broadcast networks, the Associated Press, Reuters, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the Fresno Bee. Not since “Kilroy Was Here” has anyone been so ubiquitous as Professor Tobias.

At risk of going off on a tangent, permit me to note a relevant fact: University of Tennessee Law Professor Glenn Reynolds has opinions on all kinds of subjects, but you never see him quoted as an “expert” by NPR, the New York Times, Associated Press, etc. Why do you think that is?

Professor Reynolds is not a partisan Democrat, that’s why. These journalists quoting Professor Tobias are partisan Democrats, and his dial-a-quote service flourished because so-called “mainstream” journalism has become nothing but Democratic Party propaganda.

For many years, conservatives criticized “liberal bias” in the news media, but the bias is not ideological so much as it is partisan. Most journalists seem to wake up in the morning, pour themselves a cup of coffee, and then go looking for ways to help the Democratic Party or, conversely, to hurt Republicans. Every aspect of major media coverage is shaped by this crude partisan calculus, and none of the allegedly objective journalists acting as “Democratic operatives with bylines” seem to have the slightest shame about their completely one-sided coverage.

Most journalists never get to the existential questions about their profession: What are we doing and why are we doing it? My admiration for Hunter S. Thompson was that he pondered those questions very deeply, although his thoughtfulness was concealed by dark humor. It would behoove all media critics to carefully read Hell’s Angels, the book that was Thompson’s first big breakthrough. He had paid his dues as a roving correspondent in Latin America in 1962-63, and was living in San Francisco in 1964 when the Hell’s Angels were accused of gang raping two girl, ages 14 and 15, at a Labor Day beach bonfire in Monterrey. The charges were dismissed, but that incident sparked nationwide media attention from outlets including Life magazine, depicting these outlaw bikers as a nationwide menace who might suddenly appear anywhere in the country and rape every girl in town — the Visigoth horde reincarnated in 20th-century America. Thompson set out to get the real truth.

Hunter S. Thompson on his motorcycle in 1965

Thompson met the Hell’s Angels, drank beer with them in their Oakland clubhouse, purchased a Triumph motorcycle and rode along with them on their road trips — “embedded” with them, so to speak. This began with a freelance assignment for The Nation, “The Motorcycle Gangs,” which included this indictment of how the Labor Day incident was covered in newspapers: “The difference between the Hell’s Angels in the paper and the Hell’s Angels for real is enough to make a man wonder what newsprint is for.” For Thompson, this was the real story — the distance between reality and the media-generated perception of events.

Thompson was keenly aware of how reporters and editors create perceptions that shape public opinion, and the whole purpose of his “Gonzo” approach was to break through the reality/perception gap by abandoning the posture of journalistic objectivity.

What conservatives despise about NPR and other “mainstream” media is their pretense of objectivity, the bogus claim that they are simply doing factual “reporting” when, it can easily demonstrated, they are engaged in one-sided partisan propaganda with a bias that affects their coverage of everything from national security to the weather. What’s interesting about the media’s reliance on the all-purpose “expert” Professor Tobias is that this went on for years before anyone noticed it. How is it that all these reporters kept quoting this one law professor at a not-very-prestigious university, citing his supposed expertise on all kinds of subjects, and none of their editors seemed to notice? Professor Tobias could be counted on to provide quotes advancing the Democratic Party line, and therefore his universal expertise was never called into question.

Too many journalists see themselves as heroic truth-tellers, crusaders for justice, when all they are is partisan hacks, part of a herd of bleating sheep, indistinguishable from each other in their blind loyalty to the Democratic Party. They have lost their credibility, and this loss is permanent, because they refuse to admit their own errors.



 

Shop Electronics at Amazon

Save on Groceries and Everyday Essentials

Shop Amazon Basics

Office & School Supplies

Category: Media Bias

In The Mailbox: 12.22.25

Posted on | December 23, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.22.25

— compiled by Wombat-socho

News – Senator Mike Lee introduces the Cartel Marque & Reprisal Reauthorization Act.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Captain Sweeney leads her gallant crew of privateers against Venezuelan oil tankers and drug boats (2026, colorized)

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: A Day in the Life of a Pompeian Slave, The Great Feminization, AI Time Travel – Arriving at Ellis Island 1907, A Walking Tour of Andersonville Prison 1864, and The Decline of Expertise & Meritocracy
357 Magnum: Electric Vehicles Were Always a Bubble
EBL: Michelin Quality Salmon, Hidden Fjord Atlantic Salmon, Pan-Roast Cod, Zooey Deschanel in Elf, and Oklahoma Onion Burger
Twitchy: Ezra Klein & The NYT Ask a Very Stupid Question – X Supplies Answers!, Moronic Congresswoman Appalled That Trump & Vance Can’t Stop with the Openly Racist Comments, and Hilarious NPR Memo Ends Carl Tobias’ Reign as Rent-A-Quote King
Louder With Crowder: Kamala Harris attempts to explain why Biden never released the Epstein Files, Nicki Minaj STUNS crowd at Turning Point with her uniquely pro-Trump, pro-Christian message, Jasmine Ratchet throws fit after JD Vance mocks her fake street girl persona, Woke ESPN host lashes out at Uber drivers he claims are “musically profiling” him, and School bus driver gets fired during the holidays for asking students to please speak English
Vox Popoli: Fixing Kimura, Alabama-Oklahoma, Bankrupt Them All, Never More Blessed, and The Probability is Zero
Cedar Sanderson: Forensics for Writers Part 2,also, Trail Manners
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Joyous Noel Part 3,also, About the Valkkykettu
Based Book Sale: The Black Friday 2025 After Action Review
Jim McCoy: Troll Hunter

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Failed State Of Minnesota, also, Can Trump Convince America of His Domestic Agenda?
American Greatness: Slouching Toward Open Season on Jews, Columbus, Ohio City Officials Openly Defy ICE, and Trump Never Sleeps—But the Media Keeps Dreaming
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
BattleSwarm: U.S. Bombs Islamic State in Syria, Ukraine Secures $105 Billion Loan From Europe, and Japan Halting Photoresist To China?
Behind The Black: China’s Long March 12A launches but fails to land the first stage, The first launch by South Korean rocket startup Innospace fails shortly after liftoff, Tory Bruno resigns as CEO of United Launch Alliance, Florida opposition grows against renewing Blue Origin’s wastewater permit, and There is little good will on the left, and the right seems eager to lose it too
Cafe Hayek: Oh That the Absurd Mercantilist Concept of “Balance of Trade” Had Never Been Devised, also, On Reagan, China, and Protectionism
CDR Salamander: The Lessons of Pearl Harbor At 84, also, The Australians Give a Sober View of American Naval Decline
Chicago Boyz: Affordability continued, also, The Hallmark-Style Flannel Romance
Da Tech Guy: Under the Fedora
Don Surber: America Alone updated
Elizabeth Nickson: 400,000 Women Left the Workforce This Year,
First Street Journal: And now the news you missed, also, Twitter has become a go to site for left-wing propaganda
Gates Of Vienna: Election Jihad Coming to a Jurisdiction Near You, Memo to the Australian Public, Biden Funded Jihadi Terrorist Groups; Trump Still Wobbly, and Islam: Religion of Peace? — Not for Women
The Geller Report: Australia’s Response to Islamic Terror – SUBMISSION, US Carries Out ‘Massive’ Strike Against Islamic State in Syria, Jury Finds Left-Wing Judge Hannah Dugan GUILTY Of Obstructing ICE, Toronto Muslims Arrested For Attempts to Kidnap Jewish Women & Other Crimes, and RECKONING – Epstein Files Photos Hit Democrats Hard
Hollywood In Toto: Powerful Anemone Highlights This Legend’s Startling Return, Rob Schneider Roasts ‘Grifter’ Candace Owens, Jay and Silent Bob Stare Down Middle Age, Late-Night Hosts Go Silent on Massive Minnesota Fraud, and Jimmy Kimmel to Face Ultimate Free Speech Test in U.K.
Legal Insurrection: New Bird Flu Strains Appear to Target Dairy Cattle More Effectively, Feds Open Investigation Into Brown Univ Over Security Failures, as Campus Police Chief Placed on Leave, Professor Jonathan Turley Reacts to News About Lack of Republican Profs at Yale, Waymo Robotaxis Stall and Snarl San Francisco Traffic After Massive Blackout, and EEOC Chair & VP Vance Urge White Men to Sue Over Discrimination
Matt Taibbi: Life in the Fast Lane with Robinhood Markets
Nebraska Energy Observer: Fourth Sunday in Advent, also, Follow the Flag
Outkick: NFL Suspends DK Metcalf For Interaction With Fan In Detroit And Sides Have Lawyered Up, Taylor Swift Fans Again Rig Pro Bowl Fan Votes For Travis Kelce Making Process As Much A Joke As Event, Biff Poggi: Michigan’s ‘Malfunctioning Organization’ After Latest Scandal With Sherrone Moore Has To Be Fixed, USC-Notre Dame Rivalry The Latest Casualty Of Modern College Football, and Nicki Minaj Pops Off At AmFest, Sydney Sweeney Gets Schooled On ’90s Toys & A Few Good Dogs
Power Line: Trump Delivers Pharmaceutical Affordability, Today in Minnesota fraud, Lawyers: An Official Adjunct of the Democratic Party, and What’s wrong with this sentence?
Shark Tank: Cory Mills Calls For War Department To Prioritize American Firms
Shot In The Dark: I’m a Uniter, also, A Local Secret?
STUMP: Movember 2025 Wrapup
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2025 (Day 8), (Day 9), and (Day 10)
This Ain’t Hell: Biased Minnesota media reporting facilitated Somali fraud, also, The US military launches strikes against ISIS in Syria
Transterrestrial Musings: The Dark Ages
Victory Girls: Walz And Lapdog MN Media Cover Up $9 Billion Somali Fraud, also, Bondi Beach: Albanese Halfheartedly Apologizes To Jewish Community
Watts Up With That: Quit Lying, TNR – Climate Change Isn’t Threatening ‘Favorite Holiday Foods’, New York Unheated EV School Bus Horror, The Wind Energy Paradox, Wind turbine eagle-kill secrecy may soon end, and Trump Dismantles Climate-Industrial Complex
The Federalist: The Health Care-Industrial Complex Is Lying About Obamacare Premiums Doubling — And They Know It, Noncitizen Says She Voted In Multiple Georgia Elections, Try To Avoid Sending Christmas Letters About Your Perforated Bowel, Ohio Enacts ‘Commonsense’ Law Requiring All Mail Ballots Be Returned By Election Day, and Michigan Election Integrity Warriors Stop ‘Disastrous’ Ranked-Choice Voting Drive
Mark Steyn: On the Town: A Continental Christmas, Christmas Rations – Ginger Rogers in I’ll Be Seeing You, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Christmas in the Age of Bollards, and Next-Level Groomers

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Best Sellers – Automotive
Holiday Gifts
Amazon Essentials


 

Category: Linkagery

Rule 5 Sunday: In Honor Of Alice Cooper

Posted on | December 22, 2025 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: In Honor Of Alice Cooper

— compiled by Wombat-socho

One of the anime that got me seriously interested in the medium was Gunsmith Cats, an anime about a pair of fun-loving gals who run a gun shop in Chicago. The protagonist, Rally Vincent, was not only a hot babe who could shoot, but she could drive like a bat out of hell. What better gal to look for, if you need a girl with a gun and a job? Too bad they didn’t make a full series out of it.  
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Annoying A**holes Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, “In Bleak Midwinter”, MAGA Clinton Epstein Files, Splitsville, Materialists, “He’s Going Blonde”, Annie Lennox, Pluribus, Julie London, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”, “The Little Drummer Boy”, “Angels We Have Heard On High”, Lower Your Standards, La Maritza, Katherine Jenkins, and “Joy To The World”

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Epstein Files Dumped, Virginia Sanhouse, O Holy Night, This is Your Bay on Drugs, Fish Pic Friday – Bridget Fabel, Santa Claus is Back in Town, Probably Not, Thursday Tanlines, Run, Run, Rudolph!, The Wednesday Wetness, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Nick Reiner Arrested in Rob’s Murder, Brown Shooter Evades Capture, Promises, Well That Clears Things Up, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Random Celebrity News, Sunday Sunrise and The Venezuelan End Game

BACON TIME: Rule Five – A Trip To Hooterville

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Deals on Premium Beauty Products
Visit Amazon’s Intimate Apparel Shop
Shop Sex & Sensuality Gifts


 

Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: A Week In The Ruts

Posted on | December 22, 2025 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: A Week In The Ruts

— compiled by Wombat-socho

So the Bravos came to town and utterly wrecked our shit. Jim Kaat held them to two runs in the opener, but Steve Renko and Pat Dobson got beaten like red-headed stepchildren; game 2 was a 15-10 slugfest, but it really wasn’t that close. Fortunately, the Twins were next up, and we took two out of three from them to end he week 2-4, 23-31 for the season, just one game behind the Brewers. Next up are the 36-18 Daytraders, followed by the Brewers on Boxing Day. Notable casualties are Juan Marichal, who’s out for the season. Told him to stop pulling his groin. 
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

A Warm Welcome To Our Chinese Affiliates
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

FMJRA 2.0: The Hits Just Keep On Coming
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Red States, Blue Cities: Minnesota, Somalia and ‘The Great Replacement’
The Pirate’s Cove
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Rule 5 Sunday: More Like Sparking Ramp, Amirite?
Animal Magnetism
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.16.25 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 12.17.25 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 12.17.25 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Finally: ‘Person of Interest’ Reportedly Identified in Brown University Shooting
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Claudio Neves-Valente Identified as Brown University Gunman, Found Dead
EBL
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach

In The Mailbox: 12.19.25 (Morning Edition)
EBL
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach

In The Mailbox: 12.19.25 (Evening Edition)
EBL
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach

Amazon Warehouse Deals




 

Category: FMJRA Award

Thoughts From a ‘Heritage American’

Posted on | December 21, 2025 | Comments Off on Thoughts From a ‘Heritage American’

Grave of John Pelham in Jacksonville, Alabama

Perhaps you’re not on X (formerly known as Twitter) and therefore have been spared the quarrel over “Heritage Americans.” Don’t know who coined that term or in what context it originated, but it seems to be a critique of the “proposition nation” ideology that George Will did so much to promote. Far be it from me to embrace or endorse a crypto-Nazi “blood and soil” ideology — the polar opposite of “proposition nation” — but the problem is that we are (or should be) talking about public policy.

In the long-running battle between neocons and paleocons, my sympathies are decidedly paleo (cf., “First They Came for Mel Bradford”). However, the really important battle is to keep Democrats from getting back in power and ruining everything while we are quarreling amongst ourselves, hurling insults back and forth. The whole intramural donnybrook between Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, et al., pains me for this reason. We are less than a year away from a crucial midterm election, with the historical odds against us, and should be united, not divided.

As I have said, it is public policy we should be discussing, especially in regard to immigration. President Trump has done a remarkable job in halting and even reversing the flood of illegal invaders that Joe Biden and the Democrats unleashed, and our task now is to ensure that this policy is continued, which cannot happen if Democrats win the next midterms. These thoughts are related to what I have to say in my latest American Spectator column:

About 20 years ago, I received an email from a young man congratulating me on my good fortune in being hate-listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is not pleasant to think back to what was then a rather dark moment in my life. At the time, the SPLC had not yet completely discredited itself by its wild accusations of “extremism” against just about anyone to the right of Chuck Schumer, and surviving their attack was not quite as easy for me as some might nowadays suppose.
My great sin — the Thought Crime for which the SPLC arraigned me — was to be a Southerner who was not ashamed of my ancestors, and to dare speak in defense of my beloved homeland. When I attended Jacksonville (Alabama) State University, I learned that the highway which bisects the campus was named for the most famous native of that region. Pelham Road memorializes Confederate artillery officer John Pelham, who gained fame as commander of J.E.B. Stuart’s “horse artillery.” During the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862, Stuart, with two guns, held up the advance of an entire Union division for more than an hour, a feat witnessed by Gen. Robert E. Lee, who praised Pelham’s “unflinching courage.” Three months later, when the young major was killed in the Battle of Kelly’s Ford, Lee mourned the loss of “the gallant Pelham.” He was posthumously promoted to lieutenant colonel and buried in the city cemetery in Jacksonville, a site I have visited, contemplating the life of that young hero who died at age 24. . . .

Please read the whole thing. Deo vindice.



 

Shop Electronics at Amazon

Save on Groceries and Everyday Essentials

Shop Amazon Basics

Office & School Supplies

Category: American Spectator, History

‘Yes, We Stole the Election. Oopsie.’

Posted on | December 20, 2025 | Comments Off on ‘Yes, We Stole the Election. Oopsie.’

A brutal fact-check from the land of Fani Willis:

Earlier this month, Fulton County admitted that approximately 315,000 early votes from the 2020 election were illegally certified but were nonetheless still included in the final results of that election.
The admission came during a Dec. 9 hearing before the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) stemming from a challenge filed by David Cross, a local election integrity activist. Cross filed a challenge with the SEB in March 2022. Cross alleged that Fulton County violated Georgia statute in the handling of advanced voting ahead of the November 2020 election, counting hundreds of thousands of votes even though polling workers failed to sign off on the vote tabulation “tapes” critical to the certification process.
And Fulton County admitted to it.
Ann Brumbaugh, attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, told the SEB in the hearing that while she has “not seen the tapes” herself, the county does “not dispute that the tapes were not signed.” Brumbaugh continued, “It was a violation of the rule. We, since 2020, again, we have new leadership and a new building and a new board and a new standard operating procedures. And since then the training has been enhanced. … But … we don’t dispute the allegation from the 2020 election.”
Georgia’s Secretary of State Office investigated the alleged failure to sign tabluation tapes and “substantiated” the findings that Fulton County “violated Official Election Record Document Processes when it was discovered that thirty-six (36) out of thirty-seven (37) Advanced Voting Precincts in Fulton County, Georgia failed to sign the Tabulation Tapes as required [by statute],” according to a 2024 investigation summary. In addition to probing the unsigned tabulation tapes, the investigation also found that officials at 32 polling sites failed to verify their zero tapes.
Georgia law requires that election officials have each ballot scanner print three closing tapes at the end of each voting day. Poll workers must sign these tapes or include a documented reason for refusal. Voting laws also require poll workers to begin each day of voting by printing and signing a “zero tape” showing that voting machines are starting at zero votes.

Read the whole thing. Five years after the election — when it is too late to rectify the crime, and never mind all the injury inflicted on those branded “election deniers” for protesting this fraud — we learn the truth.

Elections are, and must be, governed by law. Rules and procedures are established to ensure not only that votes are accurately counted, but also that the accuracy can be verified after the fact, in the case of disputed outcomes. Failure to follow the established procedures undermines public confidence in election integrity. Given what we now know about what went on in Fulton County, Georgia, in the 2020 election, the accusation of spreading “misinformation” should be made not against those who claim Democrats stole the election, but rather against those who claim there is “no evidence” of such fraud. Here you have more than 300,000 ballots illegally included in the tally, which is nearly 30 times more than Biden’s margin of (alleged) victory in Georgia.

Why would any honest person vote for Democrats? What ridiculous frauds they are, presenting themselves as defenders of “Our Democracy,” as they call it, when there’s nothing democratic about what they do?



 

Shop Electronics at Amazon

Save on Groceries and Everyday Essentials

Shop Amazon Basics

Office & School Supplies

Category: Election, Georgia
« go back — keep looking »