The Other McCain

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

Methods of Journalism 301

Posted on | April 29, 2026 | Comments Off on Methods of Journalism 301

Welcome to J-School, boys and girls, and before we start today’s lesson, somebody needs to hit the tip jar for $16.04, for reasons to be explained later. This morning I had an online colloquy with my friend Ladd Ehlinger over the merits of When Harry Met Sally. It was Ladd’s contention that, as a director, Rob Reiner had never produced a masterpiece, to which my rejoinder was that he needed to rewatch that movie, which is certainly one of the best romantic comedies of all time. As much as we all despise Reiner’s left-wing politics, it seems to me wrong to deny him credit for that. Ehlinger shot back with some argle-bargle technical/artistic stuff, to which I replied, “Film school.”

What you have just witnessed, class, was my attempt at what Hunter S. Thompson called the Symbiotic Trapezoid Quote — the lead being a bizarre digression apparently irrelevant to the actual subject , ending with an admission of failure before continuing onward to compile your notes into some semblance of an article. Advanced technique, you see, and not for entry-level students of the craft. Having been in this racket for 40 years, I can make some claim to knowing what I’m doing, and the fact that you’re still reading this post after that (deliberately) botched lead is testimony to this advanced skill. What made Hunter S. Thompson great, at least in the years before chronic substance abuse wrecked him, was that he knew how to grab the reader by the eyeballs and drag him along with vivid phrasing, the reader/victim always wondering, “What’s this crazy son of a bitch going to do next?” Among other things, he accused the editor of the Columbia Journalism Review of being afflicted with “brain syphilis,” and given that the CJR editor did not sue for libel, we can assume that Dr. Thompson’s diagnosis was correct.

So as I was arguing with Ehlinger about the merits of When Harry Met Sally, the analogy occurred to me that Ladd’s film school standards of assessing what constitutes a movie masterpiece is sort of like the CJR editor’s version of what constitutes “quality journalism.” The real test of a movie is whether audiences like it — never mind the artistic quibbles — and the test of journalism is whether people actually read it.

Getting the facts right kind of counts, too, but even a beginner knows that. Learning how to tell the story in such a way that people feel compelled to read all the way to the end? That’s the trick.

OK, there’s your daily quota of Important News, but you didn’t need me to tell you that story, did you? Social media and 24/7 cable news have changed the game in ways that could not have been imagined back in the day when most people got their news from the daily paper, or the 30-minute nightly broadcasts on ABC/NBC/CBS. Now any random son of a bitch with a WiFi hookup can be a “journalist,” which means that I have to find a way to do something different, something valuable, something that might inspire you to hit the tip jar for $16.04. And it so happens that getting a WiFi hookup is relevant to the real reason I wrote this post:

One afternoon in August 2011, I set up my laptop in a restaurant in Omaha, Nebraska, ready to write a column for The American Spectator. It was the week before the Iowa Straw Poll, and I’d spent the day following Herman Cain’s presidential campaign bus, ending the day with a rally at a park in Council Bluffs. My friend Dave Weigel was there, and when he said he was going to have dinner at a German restaurant in Omaha, just across the river, I sort of invited myself to join him.
When I set up my laptop, however, I kept having trouble getting a WiFi connection. After an hour of fruitless effort — and a couple of cold beers — I gave up, telling Dave that it was obvious that I’d fallen afoul of The Gods of Dateline Integrity. . . .

Read my latest Substack article, which among other things includes the explanation for why I’m so specific about that $16.04.



 

Category: Fear. Loathing., R.S. McCain School of Journalism

In The Mailbox: 04.28.26 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | April 29, 2026 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.28.26 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

We’ll see if I have the energy after driving back from Vegas to do the evening edition.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

“Hakeem Jeffries calls for unity” – Sky News

OVER THE TRANSOM
Doug Ross: With Eisenhower On D-day (1944), The Nuland Prophecy also, A Day With Pvt. John Steele of the 82nd Airborne (1944),
357 Magnum: The Direct Impact of Banning Fossil-Fuel Generated Electricity
EBL: Hamburg Fish Sandwich, Roman Puls (porridge), “Shoot To Kill”, Saturday Spot Prawns, and Why Hasn’t China Collapsed?
Twitchy: Elevenhan 0mar World War 11 Memes are Off The Charts Perfection, Richard Stengel Farts Out That Holding NerdProm In WH Ballroom Could Violate First Amendment, and Seashell Enthusiast James Comey Indicted A Second Time  
Louder With Crowder: Dog hospitalized after accidentally ingesting meth on the streets of Democrat run California, Joy Behar swears on God that Donald Trump is totally trying to kill everyone, Mother of teen who stomped a girl’s head on the streets of NYC claims her baby boy is the real victim here, Superintendent testifies it’s totally fine for kindergarteners to read book featuring two dude kissing in fetish gear, and Neighborhood that voted 70% for Mamdani isn’t happy he’s moving the homeless into THEIR neighborhood
Vox Popoli: Confirmed Oncogenic, UK Jets Attack Russian Targets, Round 4, The Warning Shot, and A Deep and Debilitating Dive
Cedar Sanderson: Cultivating Words, 
Stoic Observations: Remembering Charlottesville, also Assassins Creed
The Bugscuffle Gazette: White House Correspondents’ Dinner, also, On April 27 2006, 
Upstream Reviews: Mech War 3 – Dynamo
Ammo.com: States With The Highest Murder Rate
Weird Catholic: The Devil’s Mousetrap
Mazelit Airaksinen: Professor claims algebra & geometry perpetuate whiteness and “unearned Privilege” in society
Jim McCoy: Escaping Fate

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: Latin American Policy – On Midrats, also, I’ll take LCC 21 & 22, and 23 & 24 as well, thank you
Dana Loesch: Shots Fired At Nerd Prom, Motive & Targets Revealed In NerdProm Shooting, and SecWar’s Wife Criticized For Modest Cost of NerdProm Dress
Don Surber: Hail Caesar – A patriot’s statue returns
Elizabeth NIckson: James Howard Kunstler & I Discuss Globalism’s Dark Mysteries, also, The Gleaming City of the Future Will Rise From Gaza’s Blasted Plain
Glenn Reynolds: Our Self-Colonized Nation
Racket News: The Press Promotes Violence And Everyone Knows It

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Category: Linkagery

‘Pretending Not to Know’

Posted on | April 27, 2026 | Comments Off on ‘Pretending Not to Know’

In 2011, explaining his abandonment of “brain-dead” liberalism, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet published The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture. It was there that he expressed what has become known as The Mamet Principle: “In order to continue advancing their illogical arguments, modern liberals have to pretend not to know things.” We see this all the time in the make-believe play-acting of TV personalities like Jake Tapper, who did a perfect imitation of Claude Rains in Casablanca in describing how he was shocked — shocked! — by the revelation that Joe Biden was senile.

As a journalist, one of my biggest gripes is that TV news has given people a mistaken idea about what journalism actually is. Writing a 700-word news article is a full day’s work for the reporter who has to rely on his own notes of conversations with sources. To be an actual reporter — as opposed to a TV talking head — means spending a lot of time on the phone, trying to get people to tell the truth when it would better suit them to keep the truth out of the newspaper. By contrast, if you understand what TV news actually is, you realize that the anchorman is paid for his ability to convey the proper emotion about what he’s telling you.

As Mamet remarked, newscasters are hired “not for their probity or for their intelligence, but for their ‘believability,'” and that is how Barack Obama became president — he had that same kind of superficial “believability” that characterizes a successful TV news anchor.

This brings us to Obama’s disingenuous (unsolicited and unnecessary) comment about Cole Allen’s botched assassination attempt Saturday night at the annual White House Correspondents dinner. By the time he pushed the “publish” button on that tweet, we did indeed “have the details about the motives” of the gunman. Allen’s social-media archives and his written “manifesto” made clear that Allen was a Democrat, inspired by the same vicious lies about Trump that Democrats and their media allies have been promoting for the past decade.

“His beliefs mirrored mainstream Democrat talking points” — in other words, he was radicalized not by some obscure fringe website, but by what every Democrat with access to a microphone or a camera has been saying publicly ever since Trump beat Hillary nearly 10 years ago.

Barack Obama’s intent was to conceal and obscure this truth, to assert that Democrats are against political violence, no matter how often we have seen them incite, defend, justify and participate in such violence (e.g., the “fiery but mostly peaceful” riots of 2020). As David Mamet said, Obama must “pretend not to know things” (and encourage others to join him in that pretense) or else the very existence of the Democratic Party might be jeopardized, because everybody would realize what a colossal scam it is (as all honest and intelligent people already do).



 

Category: Barack Obama, Donald Trump

Rule 5 Sunday: It’s (Almost) That Time of Year Again

Posted on | April 27, 2026 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: It’s (Almost) That Time of Year Again

— compiled by Wombat-socho

We’ve featured Terann Hilow of Vengeance Bikinis before, but it’s been a while, and her hand-knit bikinis are kinda cool anyway.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Terann Hilow in some fine lemon cake.

EBL: Saturday Spotted Prawns, Saturday Night Girls With Guns, “La Marseillaise“, Private Property, Jeannie Rousseau, Casting Calamities, He’s Just Not That Into You, MAGA Indictment of $PLC, Happy Birthday Rome, Logan’s Run at 50, Lucrezia Borgia, and Mae West. 

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Georgiana Rosas, Fish Pic Friday – Jean Billy, Thursday Tanlines, Offshore Power Goes Live in Virginia, The Wednesday Wetness, Lady’s On Fire, US Navy Fires On, Captures Iranian Blockade Runner, Random Celebrity News and Sunday Sunrise

BACON TIME: Rule Five Red Hot

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Down To The Wire

Posted on | April 27, 2026 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Down To The Wire

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Will the Senators make the playoffs? It all depends on the Kansas City Royals and the Minnesota Twins. We took two of three from the A’s and then lost two of three to the Reds, our sole win coming from a ninth-inning rally against Dick Woodson and a solid relief inning from Diego Segui and Jim Shellenback. We’re playing the Twins in our last series, at home in RFK, and I’m hoping the home advantage allows us to take two games from the division-leading Twins, who we’re 5-6 against for the season. We’re 77-82 right now, ahead of the 75-81 Royals, but as you can see the Royals have yet to play their Friday games at Philadelphia (0-3) before they head west to play the A’s (6-3). So if they get swept by the Phillies again and take two of three from the A’s while we take 2 of 3 from the Twins, that leaves us at 79-83 and the Royals at 77-85. We’ll see if it actually works out that way.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

The Ivy League Is Decadent and Depraved
EBL
357 Magnum

FMJRA 2.0: Probably Not This Year
A View From The Beach
EBL

 

Guess Who Made an Interesting Point? UPDATE: Sarah Palin Explains Herself
EBL
357 Magnum

Aspiring Rapper Update
EBL
357 Magnum

Rule Five Sunday: More Hot Girls & Hot Cars
A View From The Beach
EBL

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

 

VA’s 21Apr Vote: This Dog Don’t Hunt
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

IT’S ‘STOP THE LOBSTER’ DAY!
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 04.21.26 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

VIRGINIA ELECTION RESULTS: Will Voters OK Spanberger’s Gerrymander? UPDATE: Network Declares ‘Yes’ Win
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.22.26
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

SPLC’s Clayton Bigsby Moment
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 04.23.26 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.23.26 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

The Ivy League Is Decadent and Depraved
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 04.24.26
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

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Category: FMJRA Award

Newly Released By Chris Cassone,
“The Art of the Stomp Box” Is A Treat

Posted on | April 26, 2026 | Comments Off on Newly Released By Chris Cassone,
“The Art of the Stomp Box” Is A Treat

by Smitty

Chris Cassone is an old and dear friend of the blog, having recorded arguably the best blues ever:

Thus, when word broke out about his new book, “ART OF THE STOMP BOX: Celebrating The Visual Artistry of Effects Pedals” I didn’t hesitate to order a copy. I have an equally old friend who is a guitarist and is getting married in June. When it arrived, I sent the book to Chris for an autograph. This volume will make a perfect wedding gift.

The book is a visually interesting snapshot of the state of the art, whether or not you are a guitarist. My personal favorite was the Shellfire Screamer, by Ulrich Dahlgren. But that’s just because I have both spent some time in Dahlgren, Virginia as an enlisted sailor and Dahlgren Hall while I was at Sing-Sing on the Severn.

Having grown up listening to rock-and-roll, I had questions. For a Wikipedia-deep review, the first stompbox to make a big impact was the 1962 Maestro Fuzz Tone in Ben Shapiro’s favorite, 1965’s (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. I recall the double-negative in the title setting Shapiro off regarding the question of whether Jagger ever did or did not obtain satisfaction. Feel free to opine in the comments.

Later effect pedals like the MXR M-117 flanger drove Unchained by the mighty Van Halen.

Anybody who knows how to get ahold of Rick Beato, please speak up. We need him to interview Cassone.

In a world increasingly awash in the fakery of Artificial Intelligence, this book is a breath of fresh air. Real human beings are still hand-crafting unique artifacts.
Consider getting this book and finding some of the vendors mentioned and musician using their wares. Then go take in some live music. Fight the power!

Category: Blogging, Chris Cassone

Yet Another Democrat Has Failed to Assassinate President Donald Trump

Posted on | April 26, 2026 | Comments Off on Yet Another Democrat Has Failed to Assassinate President Donald Trump

Democrats are crazy and evil, but also utterly incompetent:

A man armed with guns and knives stormed the lobby outside the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner attended by President Donald Trump on Saturday night, charging toward the ballroom in a chaotic encounter with Secret Service agents as guests dived under tables at the sound of shots being fired.
The president was uninjured and was rushed off the stage. The armed man, who officials said was a guest at the Washington Hilton where the dinner was being held, was taken into custody and was expected in court Monday. Police believe he opened fire and acted alone but did not say who was his intended target or describe a motive.
“When you’re impactful, they go after you. When you’re not impactful, they leave you alone,” Trump, safe and uninjured and still in his tuxedo, said at the White House two hours later. “They seem to think he was a lone wolf.”
The shooting unfolded just outside the vast subterranean ballroom holding thousands of dinner guests, disrupting minutes after it began an annual event meant to honor journalism and the First Amendment that was being especially scrutinized this year because it was the first time since Trump became president that he had attended. . . .
Video posted by Trump showed the suspect running past security barricades as Secret Service agents ran toward him. One officer was shot in a bullet-resistant vest but was recovering, officials said. The gunman was tackled to the ground and was not injured, but was being evaluated at a hospital, police said.
The shooting suspect was identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. He is facing two firearm-related charges, including a count of assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon.

Notice something missing in that Associated Press story? “Assassination.” You could say, “an apparent assassination attempt,” or use the phrase “would-be assassin,” but the AP goes out of its way to avoid saying the obvious: THIS GUY WANTED TO KILL TRUMP.

Furthermore, despite cramming the story full of all kinds of irrelevancies — quotes from this or that politician in attendance — the AP doesn’t include important details about the suspect’s background: First, that Cole Allen donated to Kamala Harris’s campaign, and second, that there was a campaign sign for a Democratic candidate for a state judge position in the front lawn of Allen’s home in California. In other words, evidence clearly suggests the shooter is a Democrat with a political motive, but the Associated Press didn’t think that merited inclusion in the story.

Why is it that everything turns into a story about media bias?

This is what irritates me, after 40 years in the news business. There would be no need for conservative journalism, as such, if it were not for the pervasive bias of the industry. If journalists at the Associated Press, the New York Times, the major networks, etc., would just do their jobs without turning every story into some kind of Democratic Party propaganda message, guys like me would be out of work.

It is rather symbolic that a deranged Democrat decided that the best place to kill the president was at the most prestigious annual gathering of journalists in America. And I’m sure members of the White House Correspondents Association are disappointed that their fellow Democrat failed to murder the president they’ve demonized for years.



 

Category: Crime, Democrats, Donald Trump, Media Bias

In The Mailbox: 04.24.26

Posted on | April 25, 2026 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.24.26

— compiled by Wombat-socho

You know what today is.
Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Turns out Taqiyya Qatarlson may not be an heir of the Swanson family fortune, Normandy Salmon, Jeannie Rousseau, Casting Calamities, and The AI Bubble?
Twitchy: Falklands Fallout, From Human Traffickers To Terrorists – The Convict Parents Of The Left’s Loudest “Anti-Rich” Voices, and Rep. Brandon Gill Blows Up Spectrum’s Scooter Story
Louder With Crowder: DOJ announces it’s going to make firing squads great again, Dem congressional candidates had an anti-ICE struggle session, so let’s remind voters of the criminal illegals they fight for, Biden Admin sent the FBI after a pro-life American, who just received a million-dollar settlement over the lawfare, Commie Super Friends: Hasan Piker Teams Up With New Yorker Reporter In Dumbest Podcast of Year, and CA democrat running for governor claims requiring truck drivers to be able to read road signs is racist
Vox Popoli: Colorblind Morality, Can’t Hide the Cancers, and Nothing Left for Taiwan
According To Hoyt: We Need To Talk, We’re Not The Same, It’s Always Darkest Before Dawn, Witch’s Daughter, and Against Feffers [plus a whole bunch of posts about authors who don’t hate you]
Upstream Reviews: Battleborn Magazine
Cedar Sanderson: Tools in the Garden
Bugscuffle Gazette: Publisher Stuff – Squee!
Postcards From Barsoom: From A Concrete Pad In Nova Scotia To The Stars

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Mother of Brute Who Head-Stomped Girl in Harlem Says Her Son is the Victim, Harvard Students Push Back Against New Stricter Grading Policy, Depopulation Fears Are Overblown, Why the US Must Deliver Full US Nuclear Propulsion and Fuel Cycle Technology to South Korea Now, and Remember the Alamo! The Indian Invasion of Texas
BattleSwarm: So When Are The “Punch A Nazi” Sorts Going To Punch $PLC Donors? also, LinkSwarm For April 24
Behind The Black: Blue Origin opens (secretly) its first foreign office, in Luxembourg, China launches another “set of test satellites promoting internet technology”,  and New data says interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas IS different from comets in our solar system
Cafe Hayek: What Does Dani Rodrik Think of Consumers? also, It’s a Floor Cleaner AND a Dessert Topping!
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: The Political Hall of Mirrors, also, What if Iran’s stalling doesn’t work?
Da Tech Guy:  Pintastic NE 2026 Videos of the Day: Pixels and Pinballs & EMP Pinball
Don Surber: American exceptionalism lives on
First Street Journal: A Philadelphia Inquirer sob story about a poor, poor, misunderstood murderer
Flopping Aces: The Week In Radical Leftism
Gates Of Vienna: Dead Spooks in Chihuahua, also, Targeting Beth Israel
The Geller Report: Mamdani will VETO NYC schools ‘buffer zone’ bill — he’s determined to protect anti-ICE, pro-Hamas student protesters, Maryland: Residents ‘fleeing in droves’ after ‘insane’ far-left takeover, East Village residents voted 70% for Mamdani, and now they’re suing him, Hamas-CAIR Official Repeats One of the Absurdest of All Antisemitic Charges, and One More Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Killed by the IDF
Hollywood In Toto: Burnt Offerings at 50 – The House That Haunted Us, Comic Skewers $PLC for Allegedly Funding Hate Groups, Animal Farm Targets Capitalism, Not Soviet-Style Repression, Left-Leaning NJ.com Shreds Bruce Springsteen’s Hypocrisy, and Podcast Bros Can’t Boost Busboys at Box Office
Legal Insurrection: Montana High Court Allows ‘Gender Identity’ Birth Certificates, Driver’s Licenses, $PLC False Flag Operations Reminiscent of Tactics Used Against Tea Party, Drexel U. Exhibit Downplays Lewis and Clark Discoveries in Favor of ‘Tribal Knowledge’, Cincinnati Fires Social Justice Obsessed Police Chief Terri Theetge, and VA Democrat Claims “I Know Rural America — I Watched The Waltons, Opie, Dukes of Hazzard”
Nebraska Energy Observer: Founders, also, Then Came Friday
Power Line: A real-life Somali pirate, Electing Communists, A tough week for Ilhan Omar, My country, right or wrong, and To the moon!
Racket News: Activism Uncensored – “No Queens!”, also, Twitter Files, $PLC Edition – Hate Inflation?, 
Shark Tank: Vern Buchanan Introduces Bipartisan Bill Protecting Animal Migration Routes
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: Should Books like Little Black Sambo Be on Library Shelves?
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, “Seeking” – at DHS?
Transterrestrial Musings: The Real Reason Hegseth Is Targeted, The $PLC, Better Late Than Never, and The Current State Of Ethics In Government
Victory Girls: Shoplifting Socialists: Protesting Capitalism One Lemon At A Time, also, Zohran Mamdani Not Socialist Enough
Watts Up With That: Friday Funny: Net Zero Hits the Fan, The Chance of Blackouts, The Urban Heat Island and Urban Cool Island, Activist Yorkshire Councillor Demands the British Government make Fossil Fuel Extraction More Difficult, and Electrify Everything Policies in the Aussie State of Victoria are Breaking the Grid
The Federalist: How Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill Is Reversing Rampant State Waste And Fraud, VA Gerrymander Language Is So Dishonest, Dems Refuse To Defend It In Court, Calls Grow For House To End Tax Funding For Transing Kids After Collins, Murkowski Kill Senate Effort, Dobbs Lawyer Was Pressured To Avoid Taking On Roe. He Chose Courage Instead, and Mourning The Loss Of USAID, The New York Times Makes A Clear Case For Its Death
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet – Suing Me Back To Old Virginny, Blockade Busters, A Little Bit of Light, and The Crossroads of Europe

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Category: Linkagery
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