The Other McCain

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

Rule 5 Sunday: Probably Not Mrs. Santa

Posted on | December 29, 2025 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Probably Not Mrs. Santa

— compiled by Wombat-socho

We’re willing to accept a reasonable facsimile. H/T @kbdabear on X.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Animal’s First Red Friday News and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, Heat, American Hustle, Roofman, It’s A Wonderful Life, Regretting You, Feast of Seven Fishes, Green Book Christmas Eve Dinner, Let’s Make Pizza, “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”, “Kyrie Eleison”, Kate Bush, MAGA – Make Midterms Great Again, Aimee Carrero, Zooey Deschanel, Christmas Mountain, and Casadh Tsolais.

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Diana Mots, Fish Pic Friday – Katka Švagrová, You Trashed My Christmas, Christmas in Prison, Jingle Bells, Merry Christmas!, Silent Night, More Wednesday Wetness, Carol of the Bells, The Wednesday Wetness, Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight), Christmas Time is Here by Golly, Disapproval Would Be Folly, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Happy Solstice!, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Palm Sunday, Last Christmas and Epstein Files Dumped

BACON TIME: Rule Five – The Weather Outside Is Frightful

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

 

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Stuck In The Ruts

Posted on | December 28, 2025 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Stuck In The Ruts

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It was another one of those weeks for the Senators. We lost three painfully close games to the DayTraders, but then came home to RFK and took two out of three to Pete’s Brewers, which left us 2-4 on the week and three games behind the Brewers and Twins at 25-35. Next up, we’re facing California on Tuesday and Kansas City on Friday, which means that unless we get really lucky against the 33-27 Angels, it’ll be another 2-4 week next week.
If you’re interested in dipping your toes into Dynasty League Baseball, Pete has a once-a-week league starting with the 1999 season. Let me know in the comments if you’re interested.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

‘Yes, We Stole the Election. Oopsie.’
The Pirate’s Cove
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Thoughts From a ‘Heritage American’
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

FMJRA 2.0: A Week In The Ruts
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Rule 5 Sunday: In Honor Of Alice Cooper
Animal Magnetism
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 12.22.25
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Journalism, Credibility and ‘Experts’
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Make Nakatomi Plaza Great Again
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 12.24.25 (Afternoon Edition)
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 12.24.25 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 12.26.25 (Afternoon Edition)
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 12.26.25
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: Uncategorized

In The Mailbox: 12.26.25

Posted on | December 27, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.26.25

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a pleasant Boxing Day/Feast of St. Stephen.
Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Good Guys 2, Bad Guys 0
Director Blue: Top Ten New Epstein Insights From Mike Benz
EBL: American Hustle, Roofman, Yelloweye Snapper, Regretting You, and “Good King Wenceslas”
Twitchy: Ghost Daycares – No Kids – Million$ Vanished, Ilhan Omar’s Dad Was Colonel For Siad Barre Linked To Isaaq Genocide, and Scott Jennings Breaks Out Puppets & Crayons To Explain ILLEGAL to Abby Phillip
Louder With Crowder: Minneapolis Mayor Threatens If Trump’s ICE insists on enforcing the law, they might get killed or something, Minnesota Lt. Gov. takes pandering to new heights with hijab, White House uses Christmas Vacation for pro-MAGA content – it leads to a hilarious response from a co-star, and “Why is there a microwave in the tub?”
Vox Popoli: How AI Killed Scientistry, Maybe They Just Need More Immigrants, and H1B is Invasion
According To Hoyt: Europe And Other Lost Civilizations, ON SALE NOW AND OVER Christmas, Peace On Earth, Let It Go, and Hallucinations
RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Washington May Need to Deal With a Nuclear Japan
American Greatness: Slouching Toward Open Season on Jews
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s First Red Friday News
Baldilocks: Mundane things
BattleSwarm: Merry Christmas: Stellarscope’s “Silent Night”, also, LinkSwarm For December 26
Behind The Black: China launches weather satellite, Former ULA CEO Tory Bruno now working for Blue Origin, Japanese bank invests in Starlab, The SpaceX alumni that are reshaping the space industry, and Russia launches classified weather satellite
Cafe Hayek: Trade Surpluses Are Not Evidence of ‘Overcapacity’
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Don Surber: It’s Trump’s World – We Just Live In It
First Street Journal:  He’s ugly, and his mother dresses him funny, also, “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” ? William F. Buckley
The Geller Report: Not A Single Track Has Been Laid, Obama Judge Blocks Ban On Toxic Artificial Food Dyes, DO-NOTHING GOP Squanders House, Senate & White House With Historic Inaction, University of Texas Muslim Student Arrested For Arson, Terror Attack on Church, and RULE BRITANNIA NO MORE – Guardian Begs for Cash While Britain Silences Speech and Imports Chaos
Hollywood In Toto: President Trump Is His Own Worst Late-Night Enemy, also, The Secret Agent Is Like No Other Film This Year
Legal Insurrection: U. Oklahoma Fires Instructor Who Failed Student for Citing Bible in Essay on Gender, Latin America’s Rightward Drift Accelerates as Trump-Backed Candidate Wins in Honduras, DEI Policies Have Caused Real Harm to Young White Men, Trump Taps Louisiana Governor as Special Envoy to Greenland, and Nineteen States Suing Trump Admin Over Transgender ‘Healthcare’ for Minors
Nebraska Energy Observer: Merry Christmas, if you’re reading today, I’m a bit sorry for you, also, Boxing Day
Outkick: Michigan Hires Kyle Whittingham As New Coach Following Sherrone Moore Scandal, Was Notre Dame Planning On Backing Out Of SC Rivalry All Along? Georgia Tech Scientists Attempt To Determine Nature’s Best Pop-Tart In Hilarious Video, The NHL Standings Look Like They Got Sauced On Eggnog This Christmas, and Sofia Vergara Got Stuffed Into A Rather Revealing Christmas Dress, Olbermann Melts Down & LeBron’s Minus-33
Power Line: Minnesota fraud: between the holidays, Seconds, The rightward shift, and What fraud?
Shark Tank: Byron Donalds Mocks Idea Of Democrat “Rebranding” Before Midterms
STUMP: 2025 Twelve Days of Christmas Costs – Update
This Ain’t Hell: The Christmas Truce, California Air Guard scores – again, Valor Friday, and Trump Targets Genocidal Nigerians
Transterrestrial Musings: Merry Christmas, also, Tory Bruno
Victory Girls: John Kennedy’s Stuffed Alligator Wins Christmas Internet
Watts Up With That: Why Molecular Biology Labs Are Almost Always Stocked With Salmon Sperm DNA, Some Men Downplay Climate Concerns Because of Gender Insecurity, Why America Might Find Coal in Its Stocking This Christmas — And Be Jolly, How a PNAS Study Confuses Institutional Authority with Truth, and How the Grinch Stole Greenie Christmas
The Federalist: Here’s What Trump Means By Calling For ‘Peace Through Strength’, AI In The Classroom Destroys Actual Intelligence In Students, New York Legalizes Doctors Prescribing Death, Ladies, You’re Loading The Dishwasher All Wrong, and The Best Classic Movies And T.V. To Watch With Your Family This Post-Christmas Week
Mark Steyn: Show Your Swag, Christmas Day with Mark and Friends, Boxing Day Blowout Sale, and Café Imperial Boxing Day Bonanza

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 12.26.25 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | December 26, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.26.25 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Happy Boxing Day!
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Force Awakens Tenth Anniversary
Director Blue: A Day On The Oregon Trail, 1848
EBL: Baroque Christmas Concert – Bach, Handel, and Mozart, Nativity of the Lord, The World Famous Fish From Nobu, Feast Of The Seven Fishes, and Let’s Make A Pizza 
Twitchy: NYT Shredded Again For Spinning Trump’s Christmas Message, The Americans Have It Coming? and ABC News Reports Trump Has Ruined These Illegals’ American Dreams
Vox Popoli: Merry Christmas!
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Merry Christmas, Everyone!
Defending The Wood Perilous: Winny & The Blessing Angels
Stoic Observations: Consulting Concepts – AI vs. IP
Upstream Reviews: Here Comes Santa Claus & White Christmas

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Baldilocks: Clearing The Table
CDR Salamander: Merry Christmas!!!
Don Surber: Monroe crossing the Delaware
Glenn Reynolds: Merry Christmas To All!

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 12.24.25 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | December 25, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.24.25 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Kamen America explains the history of Santa Claus. No heretics were hurt in the making of this webcomic, unfortunately.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Merry Christmas from the Kamen Corps! Including the traditional KFC bucket!

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Horrible Movies of 2025, also Another Idiot Shooting At Someone In His Driveway
Director Blue: Ten Insights from “The Lost Generation”, also, A Day at the Salem Witch Trials
EBL: Male or Female Lobsters, Cured Salmon, Kyrie Eleison, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and 7 Fishes, 1 Feast: The Italian Christmas Eve Tradition
Twitchy: Former EU Commissioner Butthurt About Being B& From U.S. For Censorship, “You Know Who I Am!”, and Ho Ho No – Libertarian Compares Santa To Illegals, Gets Ratioed To North Pole
Louder With Crowder: First lesbian Archbishop whines that people are leaving her Christian church just because she’s a gay woman
Vox Popoli: It’s Got to Change
Cedar Sanderson: Taking Your Time, 
Bugscuffle Gazette: Joyous Noel Part 4
Jim McCoy: Class A Threat
Defending The Wood Perilous: Merry Christmas Savings!
Ammo.com: How Much Does a Suppressor Reduce Noise?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Neoconservatives Are Attacking Trump Nominees Again
American Greatness: “Stupid in America” Turns 20, also, State Dept Restricts European Leaders Who Pressured Tech Firms to Censor Americans Online
American Thinker: Fifth Circuit rules libraries don’t have to buy LGBTQ porn, also, The unaffordable Affordable Care Act
Animal Magnetism: Merry Christmas!
BattleSwarm: Rand Paul Airs The Festivus (Budget) Grievances, also, Donald Trump – Censorship Fighter
Behind The Black: Layers in the biggest canyon in the solar system, Recovering Maven appears increasingly dim, India launches AST SpaceMobile’s sixth Bluebird satellite, Starlink added a million new customers in just the past month, and Next Starship/Superheavy launch in March?
Cafe Hayek: Peter Navarro’s Protectionist Illogic
CDR Salamander: So, We Have A New Frigate?
Chicago Boyz: The Last 130 Meters, also, Christmas 2025
Don Surber: Spinning a 4.3% jump in the economy, also, Remembering peak Trump
First Street Journal: You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!
Gates Of Vienna: Grope Like an Egyptian
The Geller Report: 87% Of TPUSA Audience Supports Israel, “Top Ally,” Despite Carlson, Owens and Fuentes’ Unrelenting Jew-Hatred, US Economy Surges 4.3% in Third quarter — Strongest Growth in Years, Antisemitic Mobs Storm Paris Performance of Israel Philharmonic, Throw Bombs, Attack Attendants and Musicians, Muslim Trio Arrested For Plot to Attack Large Jewish Gathering in England, and Will the West Fight Back?
Glenn Reynolds: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Hollywood In Toto: HiT’s Best Movies of 2025 (Behold the Ping Pong Prodigy!), Shell Makes Most of Body Horror Run Amok, and Film Threat Schools Judd Apatow on Comedy
Legal Insurrection: Ninth Circuit Rules in Favor of Professor in ‘Land Acknowledgement’ Parody Case, Cassandra Versus Pollyanna: The Annus Mirabilis of Trump 2.0, Jewish Center at Michigan State Vandalized Twice Over Hanukkah, Bari Weiss Cans 60 Minutes El Salvador Prison Story Since It Lacked Response From Trump Admin, and State Dept. Bars Five Europeans for ‘Extraterritorial Censorship of Americans’
Nebraska Energy Observer: Life, Liberty, and Libertinism, also, On Love
Outkick: Finally, The Most Pathetic, Embarrassing Streak In Baseball Has Come To An End, Broncos Coach Sean Payton Says ‘Small-Market’ Comment Was Twisted by Jaguars’ Liam Coen, Kansas City Chiefs Show Nobody’s Learned Their Lesson With Sports Franchises, Lindsey Vonn Is Olympics-Bound, Nostalgic Toys, Toothless Chrissy Teigen & Dogs On Santa’s Nice List, and Torrie Wilson Gets Tangled In Tinsel & The Christmas Eve Eggnog Match That Helped Make Her A Hall Of Famer
Power Line: The Trump economy [Updated], The Epstein nothingness, Walz rests from his labors, Speaking of fraud, and Mass Casualty Attack Averted
Shark Tank: AG Uthmeier Announces Arrest Of Floridian In Virginia On Human Trafficking Charges
STUMP: Best Wishes to Ben Sasse – Pancreatic Cancer Trends in the U.S. 1999-2024
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2025 (Day 11), also, 12 Posts of Christmas, 2025 (Day 12)
This Ain’t Hell: Pearl Harbor survivor Ira Schab passes, Privateers of the Caribbean, Here comes the Trump-class battleship, Search for missing Air Force plane to reopen after 75 years, and Judge strikes California’s ‘gender secrecy’ school policy down
Transterrestrial Musings: The One-Party State, also, The Scrooges Of 2025
Victory Girls: Minneapolis Mayor Takes First Amendment To The Edge, also, What’s Driving Megyn Kelly’s Meltdown in Conservative Media
Watts Up With That: Destroying countrysides to save Earth from a climate non-crisis, From Apocalypse to “Oops” – The Emily Litella Climate Moment has Arrived, Fuel rationing chaos looms in New York State, Counting Our Energy Blessings During This Season of Hope, and Tech Behemoth Gobbles Up Power Company In $5 Billion Deal to Juice Data Centers
The Federalist: Illegal Aliens Will Say And Do Anything To Stay In America. We Don’t Need A 60 Minutes Sob Story To Tell Us That, SCOTUS Shoots Down Trump’s Deployment Of National Guardsmen To Chicago, Meet The Saint Who Shaped The Modern Nativity Scene, 5 Years Too Late, Fulton County Proves Trump’s Call To Raffensperger Right, and How Many Chinese Visa Holders Have To Be Charged Before Trump Stops Importing Them Into Our Universities?
Mark Steyn: The Future Shows Up, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, A Lesson from Luke, and Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols

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Category: Linkagery

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, 

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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.



 

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