The Other McCain

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

Has #GamerGate 2.0 Begun? Bizarre Clash Over Sick Fetish Videogames Wrecks ‘Games Journalism’ Site Waypoint

Posted on | July 27, 2025 | 1 Comment

Like the original #GamerGate, this is a complex story, involving (a) a feminist anti-porn censorship campaign, (b) online payment processors, (c) producers of videogames with content so disgusting I don’t want to describe it, and (d) the staff of a videogame review website associated with Vice Media. In case you didn’t realize it, Vice declared bankruptcy last year and its main websites were taken over by a Nashville-based company called Savage Ventures. One of the “verticals” (i.e., affiliated sites) that Vice rebooted under the new ownership was the videogame-focused site Waypoint. Among the writers who contributed frequently to Waypoint was a transgender who calls himself “Ana Valens.”

Phil Wythe, a/k/a “Ana Valens”

You will not be surprised to learn that Phil/“Ana” has his/“her” own lolcow thread at KiwiFarms, which is where I learned about this controversy. Honestly, the KiwiFarmers provide such a unique public service — dead-naming trannies, etc. — that it should be considered eligible for 501(c)3 tax-exempt charity status, but I digress . . .

So I was at KF looking for background on a completely different story when I saw this headline: “Ana Valens, notable transgender rape enthusiast and author, has had their articles removed from Vice after condemning payment processors compelling Steam to remove a collection of incest and rape games.” What the actual . . . ?

OK, several years ago, Australian feminist Melinda Tankard Reist started an organization known as Collective Shout:

Collective Shout, among other activist and government groups, criticized Valve and its Steam storefront for allowing the release of the video game No Mercy in April 2025, which the group described as a “rape simulation game”, leading to Valve removing the game from Steam. In the wake of discovering No Mercy, Collective Shout identified hundreds of games on Steam that appeared in searches for the term “rape”, or otherwise contained themes of incest, sexual violence, and/or child abuse. By July 2025, Collective Shout launched an open letter campaign “demanding credit card companies and PayPal block payments” for games on Steam and Itch.io.

This is where Phil/“Ana” enters the story:

Following the Steam game removals, Vice[dot]com reporter Ana Valens wrote about the group’s claim for responsibility, saying the group had retweeted a trans-exclusionary radical feminist who claimed that “pervert nerds are responsible for most of society’s ills,” and expressed doubts that the games targeted actually depicted child abuse. In a follow-up article, Valens . . . accused the group of “targeting popular video games that depict children in scenarios where they face distress or harm — even if these depictions are intended to encourage concern and care in the player.” . . . Both articles were subsequently pulled by Vice[dot]com’s operator Savage Ventures due to “concerns about the controversial subject matter”, followed by the stepping down of Valens and multiple coworkers from the website.

The offending TERF, by the way, was Meghan Murphy:

Whatever your opinion of “pervert nerds,” notice that what outraged Phil/“Ana” was that Collective Shout had retweeted a TERF (i.e., a feminist who doesn’t play along with tranny delusions). So while Phil/“Ana” claims to be against censorship, he/“she” is totally in favor of censoring anyone who disagrees with him/“her.” In other words, Phil/“Ana” poses as a courageous free speech activist when the issue at hand is videogames depicting the rape of children, but advocates censorship if anyone says anything that might hurt a tranny’s feelings.

The website Aftermath reports:

Valens told Aftermath she was informed by Waypoint managing editor Dwayne Jenkins Sunday morning [July 20] that leadership at Savage Ventures had ordered Jenkins to remove the articles; Valens informed Jenkins that she would quit her Waypoint contributing role if this happened and, once it did, announced her departure. . . .
Valens discussed the situation further in a Twitch stream Sunday morning, in which she claimed that Savage Ventures had previously worried about how Waypoint articles covering sexual or political topics might affect the site’s performance on Google. Valens said on stream that “I’ve been told very specifically with a number of articles that it’s an issue with… Google, Google overlords. We actually had to fight very hard to keep some of our more politically-oriented VTuber coverage up because [Savage Ventures] were nervous it was going to be too R-rated for Google… I was told especially [of issues with] Google Discover.” . . .
Following Valens’ announcement that she was leaving Waypoint, she posted on Bluesky that “Savage Ventures requested I no longer contribute to VICE… several hours after my announcement.” Later on Sunday, Waypoint writers Shaun Cichacki and Matt Vatankhah both announced they were quitting the site. “I can’t sit back and watch Savage Ventures silence Ana and stifle actual journalism out of fear of being ‘too controversial,’” wrote Vatankhah, while Cichacki wrote that “I cannot stand by and watch [Valens] be censored for doing her job and doing it properly.” . . .
On Monday, managing editor Dwayne Jenkins also quit Waypoint . . .
In further conversation with Aftermath, Jenkins said that, following the resignations of Valens, Cichacki, and Vatankhah, it felt challenging to stay at the site. He messaged his boss to resign, offering to stay on until the end of the month, and says that rather than receiving a reply to the message, “my boss gave it the green checkmark emoji, and deactivated all four of our Slack profiles in one fell swoop.”

Recall that the original issue in #GamerGate was “ethics in journalism” after it was discovered that some writers covering the videogames industry might have conflicts of interest (cf., “Can We Ever Forget the Tattoo-Covered, Mentally Ill Ex-Stripper Whose Real Name Is Chelsea Van Valkenburg?”). So what we have here is a controversy that has led to the resignation of the editor and three writers at a games journalism site and what, exactly, is this controversy about? Censorship?

Phil/“Ana” and his/“her” former colleagues at Waypoint aren’t actually anti-censorship. In fact, one of the previous controversies Phil/“Ana” had provoked — in classic psycho-tranny drama queen fashion — involved his/“her” trying to get videogamer Kirsche Verstahl canceled by smearing her as a Nazi. Verstahl responded by hinting at a defamation lawsuit, and the article was taken down. Furthermore, if you dig a bit deeper into the Phil/“Ana” thread at Kiwi farms, you’ll find that he/“she” has frequently been accused of creepy, dishonest or unethical behavior.

What’s really at the core of this drama is “de-banking”:

De-banking, more commonly spelled debanking, also known within the banking industry as de-risking, is the closure of people’s or organizations’ bank accounts by banks that perceive the account holders to pose a financial, legal, regulatory, or reputational risk to the bank. . . .
The closure of accounts is generally performed without giving a reason and without the prospect of appeal. De-banking can have severe consequences for individuals, as it cuts them off from many activities in society.

The Biden administration was accused of using de-banking as a weapon against its perceived political enemies. It appears that what the feminists at Collective Shout have done is to pressure online gaming platforms with the threat of de-banking if those platforms host games with content that the feminists find objectionable. While I certainly would oppose allowing feminists to censor anything that offends them — because let’s face it, they’re very easily offended — some of this stuff is so vile that its existence might very well be criminal. Pornography is addictive and, as with drug addiction, there is the problem of tolerance, where the addict requires more, more, more to get the same high. When Melinda Tankard Reist refers to the target audience of such videogames as “porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists,” she’s not exaggerating in the least.

What has apparently happened is that pornography addiction has seeped into videogame culture, and this has created a market demand for games featuring bizarre fetish content. The threat of “de-banking” inspired panic among the consumers of such products, and Phil/“Ana” quit his/“her” gig at Waypoint (ultimately wrecked the site, with most of the staff resigning in solidarity) because he/“she” was prevented from using Waypoint as a platform for a crusade on behalf of “porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists.” And all this I learned because of KiwiFarms.

Two cheers for this feminist victory — as previously noted, I’m hesitant to endorse a standard where feminists wield the power to censor anything they deem offensive, even though I agree with them on this particular matter. But somehow I suspect we have not heard the end of this. The “porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists” are nothing if not persistent, and the weird drama that wrecked Waypoint is likely to continue playing out in other venues. Stay tuned . . .



 

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Category: Feminism, Journalism, The Transgender Cult

FMJRA 2.0: Playoff Season

Posted on | July 27, 2025 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Playoff Season

— compiled by Wombat-socho

As I said earlier in the week, I was kinda busy with Son of Silvercon III, and the way the pingbacks work I can’t reach back more than a week, so I apologize for not being able to double-dip the FMJRA the way I can Rule 5 Sunday. I finally figured out how many players I can keep for next season in the 1969 Continual Draft league that Pete runs, and I have some hard choices to make. Speaking of which, we’re looking for a new manager to run the Expos. Contact me or Pete and we’ll get you set up.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Season tickets go on sale at the end of the 1974 draft, date TBA

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‘Forgetting Is Sin’: Some Thoughts on the Life and Career of My Friend Jeff Dunetz

Posted on | July 26, 2025 | 2 Comments

Tuesday my friend Jeff Quinton sent me a message saying he heard that our blog friend Jeff Dunetz had died after suffering a fall. I quickly reached out to Warner Todd Huston, and to Jeff’s daughter Alexa, and learned that Jeff was still on life support, but he died Thursday. At Jeff’s blog, Warner Todd Huston posted the obituary:

Jeff Dunetz, the creator and operator of LidBlog, passed away on Thursday, July 24.
Dunetz passed after a series of medical issues that have struck him over the last year. He was 67 years of age.
Jeff, a life-long New Yorker, was a man of good humor and even temperament and even during his late illnesses and health scares, he was always upbeat and ever ready with a quip or two, ofen at his own expense.
A graduate of Oceanside High School in Oceanside, New York, Jeff studied political science and government at the State University of New York at Oswego, then went on to earn a BA in political science at the University of Albany, and later an MBA in business at Hofstra University.
Jeff spent much of his professional life in magazine marketing and advertising working for such companies as Disney Publishing, Nickelodeon, Discover Magazine, MTV, and Marvel Comics.
But it was blogging and commentary on current events that was Jeff’s real passion. Dunetz was one of the early blogging leaders and commentators when the world of center-right blogging really caught fire in the early part of the 2010s. And by 2013 he had formally started the LidBlog to deliver news and views on U.S. and Israeli politics and history. And in doing so, Jeff became one of the leading self-made bloggers appearing on TV, Radio, Podcasts, and the Internet throughout the media.
Dunetz leaves a strong and important legacy of writings and commentary about Israeli history and American politics and left us with stories and information that remain to this day invaluable to all of us.
Along with his LidBlog, the indefatigable writer’s work appeared at The Jewish Press, Aish.com. The Jewish Star, Breitbart News, MRCTV.org, the Daily Caller, PJM, The Washington Times, and Hot Air, and many, many more.
He also hosted the Lid Radio Show which ran for some time on the SHR and High Plains Talk Radio networks.
He leaves behind his wife, Lois, and his son Perry and daughter Alexa. He also leaves behind his first and only grandchild, Benjamin.
Jeff will be missed by literally millions of people who have read and appreciated his work over the years.

Yesterday, I messaged Alexa — who just recently gave birth to Jeff’s first grandchild — and said, “I’m sure your dad would be glad to know he got an Instalanche,” of which he’d had many over the years.

Like most of my Old School blogging friends, including HotAir’s Ed Morrissey, I’d first met Jeff Dunetz at CPAC. Back in the day, Jeff’s blog was called Yid With Lid, as he was always vehemently proud to be a Jew. When I went searching for our previous links to his old Blogspot site, one of them involved a memorable spat with Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. That was 15 years ago, my friends, and while digging down that rabbit hole, I came across this video from CPAC 2012, where Andrew Breitbart posed for a photo with Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, quipping: “This is the Charles Johnson special.”

 

“Memories, light the corners of my mind . . .”

Some of y’all kids — by which I mean, folks who haven’t been following the blogosphere for 20 years — may not get Breitbart’s joke.

Circa 2004, Charles Johnson’s LGF was one of the most influential right-wing blogs, but within a few years, Charles started getting crazy. The first big hint was when he began attacking Geller as a “fascist,” because of her association with such European figures as Geert Wilders. Johnson also went after Spencer on the same grounds, and two years later — September 2009 — was when the Great LFG Blog War finally burst into the open, and Charles got his ass kicked so badly that he announced he had “parted ways” with conservatives. I bring this up in connection to Jeff Dunetz because in 2011, Jeff threw down on the Southern Poverty Law Center after they hate-listed Pamela Geller.

Alexa was pleased when I told her that her dad got a shout-out from John Podhoretz, which is pretty doggone big league. Speaking of Jeff being “a fighter for his people,” he went to bat for me when my @rsmccain account got banned from Twitter in February 2016:

My friend Stacy has fallen victim to a problem with most social media today, which is they do their damndest to censor conservatives. It’s up to all of us to fight to get him back on twitter–because if Twitter is allowed to get away with banning Stacy McCain for free speech, they will be able to ban any of us for basically anything.
So I support the #FREESTACY movement not just because Stacy McCain is a friend, but because what happened to him could happen to any of us.

If “the memory of Jeff Dunetz [is to] be for a blessing,” of course, this requires us to remember Jeff Dunetz, which calls to mind the phrase I used in the headline: “Forgetting is sin.” It was about 30 years ago, when I lived in Rome, Georgia, that I heard a Presbyterian minister speak on that theme. And when I say “Presbyterian,” I mean a hard-core old-fashioned Calvinist, not one of these worthless Laodicean liberals.

The minister was talking about why history is so important in understanding who we are, and he referenced the prophet Jeremiah: “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” A respect for history and tradition — following “the old paths” — is not merely about finding “rest for your souls,” but is essential to preserving a sense of identity. The minister pointed out how we, as Chritians, read the history of ancient Israel and are astonished by how quickly they could forget all the miracles God had wrought for them. He sent plagues on Egypt, parted the Red Sea, fed them with manna from heaven and yet, somehow, they forgot all He had done for them and decided instead to make a golden idol they could worship.

“But how are we any better?” the minister then asked. When we look at the history of America, and consider all the earnest prayers of our ancestors, who proclaimed their gratitude to God for the many blessings He had bestowed upon them — for how else could a few settlers have survived on the wilderness frontier, and flourished into a great nation? — are we any less guilty of forgetting than were those ancient Israelites?

“Forgetting is sin!” The minister’s words have stuck with me through all the intervening years, and perhaps readers now understand better why I sometimes dwell on historic themes (e.g., “Of Declarations and Independence” on the Fourth of July, and “The Meaning of Thanksgiving” last November). The remembrance of history is a religious obligation, a debt we owe to God, and certainly in this matter, Christians would be wise to study the example of the Jews.

Jeff Dunetz knew who he was. His sense of identity was a source of inspiration, as well it should be. Not all of my acquaintances share my admiration of the Jews (note the tactful understatement) and among the criticisms one sometimes hears is about how “those Jews all stick together” — like that’s a bad thing, or something. Far from disapproving of such tribalism, I consider it a trait worthy of emulation.

Here, I must my mention my friend Pete Da Tech Guy, who is as proudly Sicilian as Jeff Dunetz was proudly Jewish. While we were covering Scott Brown’s 2010 Senate campaign, Pete and I were in the North End of Boston when he insisted we step into an Italian cafe. After we’d gotten our coffee, Pete pointed out how the little old ladies in the place had stopped speaking English, switching their conversations to sotto voce Italian when we walked in. Clannish and distrustful of outsiders? Oh, gosh, the Sicilians are as notorious for that as . . . Well, some of my backwoods Southern ancestors, now that I think about it.

An appreciation for tradition — following “the old paths,” as the minister reminded us — ought to be part of what unites us as conservatives, no matter what our particular ethnic identity may be. And this is why it is so important to remember history. Five years ago, I wrote an American Spectator column called “The High Price of Forgetting,” about Al Sharpton’s sordid history, and guess whose work I cited?

The rampage of violence against Jews in Crown Heights [in 1991] has been called a “pogrom,” and many have pointed the finger of blame at Sharpton. What began as a tragic automobile accident, in which a car in a Hasidic rabbi’s motorcade struck and killed a seven-year-old child, turned into a three-day riot. Businesses were burned or looted, more than 150 police officers and nearly 40 civilians were injured, and a 29-year-old graduate from Australia, Yankel Rosenbaum, was fatally stabbed by a gang of black teenagers. . . .
Sharpton has vehemently disclaimed any responsibility for the riots or the murder of Rosenbaum, but what happened after the riots ended is beyond dispute. At the funeral of Gavin Cato, the boy killed in the accident, Sharpton “gave an anti-Semitic eulogy, which fueled the fires of hatred,” as Jeff Dunetz recounted:

“The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident.… It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights.… Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid.…
“All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin’ and grinnin’. Pay for your deeds.” …
Sharpton and the lawyer representing the Cato family counseled them not to cooperate with authorities in the investigation and demanded a special prosecutor be named.
When Sharpton was asked about the violence, he justified it:
“We must not reprimand our children for outrage, when it is the outrage that was put in them by an oppressive system.”
The first Sabbath after the funeral, Sharpton tried unsuccessfully to kick up tensions again by marching 400 protesters in front of the Lubavitch of Crown Heights shouting “No Justice, No Peace.”

Shouldn’t a man of God be expected to know the commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”? By defaming the Jews as perpetrators of “apartheid,” a word deliberately chosen to inflame racial hatred, Sharpton earned the permanent contempt of every decent American.

As long as Jeff Dunetz lived, that history would never be forgotten, and if we wish to honor Jeff’s memory, we ought to do what we can to preserve the legacy of his valuable work. All of us owe a debt to God, which must be paid in the currency of remembrance, and forgetting is sin.



 

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Category: Yid With Lid

Hey, Who Had ‘Illegal Immigrant Colombian Transgender Pedophile Rapist’ on Their 2025 Headline Bingo Card?

Posted on | July 26, 2025 | Comments Off on Hey, Who Had ‘Illegal Immigrant Colombian Transgender Pedophile Rapist’ on Their 2025 Headline Bingo Card?

Congratulations, you’re a winner:

A transgender migrant appeared in court [Thursday] after being arrested for raping a 14-year-old boy in a park bathroom.
Nicol Suarez, 30, allegedly followed the boy into a bathroom at Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem back in February at around midday, police told the Daily Mail.
The boy reportedly left the bathroom and flagged down people nearby, who called the police. The migrant was then charged with first-degree rape and stalking.
Suarez wore head-to-toe beige prison garb and a full face of makeup as she stuck her nose up at her court appearance on Thursday.
She scowled as officers led her into the courtroom, her expression even more pronounced due to her heavy contour, penned eyebrows and bright pink lip.
As she sat down for the court proceedings, Suarez’s neck tattoo peaked out from underneath her beige crewneck.
She had spent the entire day waiting in Department of Corrections custody after the building was put on lockdown due to unknown reasons.
Suarez required an interpreter to understand the proceedings as the two sides went back and forth over the status of her case, a court attendee reported.
Her lawyer asked for more time to file her motions, but Judge Michele Rodney declined the request.
After 10 minutes of deliberation, the Judge set a date for a pre-trial hearing in mid-September and Suarez was escorted back to the holding cells.
The accused rapist is being housed at Rikers Island, a large jail complex in New York City, located on a 413-acre island between the Bronx and Queens in the East River.
Originally from Colombia, Suarez was also wanted in New Jersey and Massachusetts and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement had a detainer on her.
After her alleged crime in February, a source told the New York Post that they blamed New York City’s sanctuary laws for the attack and said: ‘ICE could just pick this person up and deport them back, but due to our sanctuary laws we can’t do anything.’
‘I feel really bad for the kid that has to go through this because his life will never be the same,’ the source added.
‘We worry about the migrants but what about the victim? This is a true victim.’ . . .
Prosecutors initially asked for $500,000 bail and a $1.5 million bond, but the amount was lowered by Democratic Judge Elizabeth Shamahs.

Excuse my flippant sarcasm, but sometimes the news is so grim that we must choose between two reactions: (a) laugh at it and try to maintain our sanity, or (b) take it seriously and end up in a sort of catatonic madness like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness: “The horror! The horror!”



 

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Category: Crime, Immigration, New York

In The Mailbox: 07.25.25

Posted on | July 26, 2025 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Hulk Hogan RIP, King George III stomps the Magna Carta, Big Ol’ Sturgeon, Jeff Dunetz RIP, and Eighties beach time
Twitchy: Pelosi Says Trump Is Crazy & Biden One Of Our Greatest Presidents, Wheel of Misfortune, and Journalists Use Hulk Hogan’s Death To Whine About Gawker’s Demise
Louder With Crowder: Superman director James Gunn drops new excuse for his movie failing: how much the world hates America, also, Thanks For The House, Brother
Vox Popoli: Release ALL the Epstein Files NOW, Where Does China Stand, Book of Ephesians, Rhetoric and Pride, and Neither Will the USA, Mr. President
According To Hoyt: Okay, I have to say this, A Decent Respect, The 48 Hour Rule, Canadian Non-Healthcare  – a Guest Post By the Balloonatic, and The Man Who Sold The Moon — Reading the Future of the Past
Upstream Reviews: The Icarus Coda
Gab: Gab’s New Truth-Seeking AI Is Here

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Restore the Redskins 
American Greatness: Feds Arrest Two Staffers From Surgery Center in California For Allegedly Interfering With ICE Arrest, How Gabbard’s Revelations Complete the Case Against Comey and Brennan, and Dear Democrats
American Thinker: They’re Not Sanctuary Cities; They’re Slavery Cities
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Terms You Shouldn’t Use Friday
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For July 25
Behind The Black: Mars and its two moons seen in the infrared by Europa Clipper, Dassault lobbies ESA to fund its Vortex reusable mini-shuttle, Starlink went down for almost 3 hours yesterday, Spain offers $470 million to move Thirty Meter Telescope to Canary Islands, and Like the Senate the House appropriation committee rejects Trump’s NASA cuts, but differently
Cafe Hayek: Naive and Arrogant Protectionists
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Don Surber: Media’s never-ending Trumpgates
First Street Journal: You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!
Gates Of Vienna: Death to the Druze!, French Socialists vs. Islamophobia, 
The Geller Report: President Macron Says France Will Recognize Terror State, US Pulls Out of Hamas Ceasefire Talks, and Trump Confronts Fed Chairman Powell During Visit to Federal Reserve Building Under Renovation
Hollywood In Toto: Why the Left Can’t Stop Crying Over Colbert’s Cancellation
Legal Insurrection: New Trump EO Bans Govt Purchases of AI Systems That Promote DEI, Woke Ideologies, Key Dem Insiders Including Hillary Clinton in 2024 Knew Biden Was Not ‘Politically Viable’, NY Times Frets Over Redistricting Battles, Makes Admission About Dem Gerrymandering, Kansas Public University Leaders Order Employees to Remove Pronouns From Email Signatures, and Ghislaine Maxwell Gave DOJ Details About 100 People Linked to Epstein
Outkick: Deion Sanders Ready To Address Mysterious Health Issues As Colorado Opens Training Camp, New York Yankees Get Ryan McMahon In Trade To Upgrade Disastrous Defense, Elle Duncan Uses ‘I’m A Girl’ Card In Defense Of ‘D’ Joke During WNBA All-Star Game, Another Big Ten Coach Roasts SEC For Laughable Scheduling, and WNBA’s Cameron Brink Wears The World’s Shortest Skirt, Stumblin’ Hillary Clinton & Powell-Trump Memes!
Power Line: Tucker Carlson’s dark turn, A Classic Democratic Party Fail, Gerrymander, Anyone? and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Rep. Lee Introduces Bill Cutting Red Tape On Marine Use of LNG
STUMP: More On Chicago Pension Finance – Those Pension Sweeteners Sure Are Sour
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The Problems in the Philippines
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, Woke Wars Veteran Named AF Undersecretary, ‘The View’ going out of view, and Democrats try to showcase Biden inflation as Trump inflation
Victory Girls: FCC Approves Skydance-Paramount Merger, Cue More Outrage
Watts Up With That: Another £806 Million of Your Money Down The Net Zero Drain, Climate Change Is Reducing, Not Increasing Food Costs, Make Gas Cans Great Again by Improving Flow, and Reagan on Abolishing the U.S. Department of Energy (it’s Trump’s turn)
The Federalist: SCOTUS Stays Lower Court Ruling In North Dakota Voting Rights Act Dispute, 5 Virginia School Districts Found In Violation Of Title IX For Allowing Boys In Girls’ Restrooms, Biggest Trans Mutilation ‘Clinic’ Shuts Its Doors Thanks To Trump’s Common-Sense Executive Order, 9th Circuit Rules Oregon Law Forcing Adoptive Parents Into Gender Ideology Violates First Amendment, and Rogue ERLC Bands With Soros-Tied Group To Push Amnesty Bill
Mark Steyn: The Insurrectionists

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Return of the Pro Se Pipsqueak: Disney and Hulu Get Sued by Brett Kimberlin!

Posted on | July 25, 2025 | Comments Off on Return of the Pro Se Pipsqueak: Disney and Hulu Get Sued by Brett Kimberlin!

In 1978, four teenagers who worked at a Burger Chef fast-food restaurant in the Indianapolis suburb of Speedway, Indiana, were kidnapped and murdered. The local police badly bungled the investigation, and no one was ever convicted for what was at the time a very notorious local crime. The popularity of “true crime” podcasts has renewed attention to this case, and last year a documentary film, The Speedway Murders, was released. It’s now streaming on Hulu and — because it mentions a certain convicted bomber — it has become the target of a lawsuit.

[ snip ]

[ snip ]

In reporting that Brett Kimberlin’s lawsuit has been removed to federal court from its original Maryland venue, Eugene Volokh says, “The allegations are complex, and I don’t have the time to summarize them. I’m flagging the case chiefly because some of our longtime readers might be interested in Brett Kimberlin from his various appearances on the blog, chiefly stemming from brushes with early bloggers.”

Yes, we all remember that. One of the things you must remember is that I’ve been a journalist since 1986, and spent decades with a copy of the AP Stylebook and Libel Manual on my desk. The secret to avoiding libel is simple: (a) stick to the facts and (b) always attribute accusations. It is not me, the reporter, who is accusing the suspect of a crime; rather, I am merely reporting what “police say” the suspect has done.

“Sue Me Again, You Evil Liar” was the headline on my post reporting how Brett Kimberlin’s defamation lawsuit against me, Aaron Walker, John Hoge and Ali Akbar was laughed out of court by a Maryland judge in 2014. Among the sources I cited in my blogging about Kimberlin was Mark Singer’s definitive book Citizen K, as well as contemporary reporting by Joe Gelarden in the Indianapolis Star.

Brett Kimberlin’s convictions as the Speedway Bomber are a matter of public record. The pro se pipsqueak recently tried to have his convictions overturned, but lost at every step of the way, getting brutally curb-stomped by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which declared flatly, “Kimberlin’s arguments . . . are meritless.” Undeterred, Kimberlin appealed to the Supreme Court and, when they denied certiorari for the case Kimberlin v. United States in January 2023, I wrote:

Because you can’t argue pro se before the Supreme Court, the pipsqueak perjurer enlisted the legal assistance of well-connected Democrat lawyer Neal Katyal’s firm, but Kimberlin’s case was so preposterously weak that not even a big-dollar law firm could salvage it. So, if you’re keeping score at home, the final tally:

United States ………… 1
Brett Kimberlin …….. 0

Despite all that, however, I cannot presume to know whether the producers of The Speedway Murders might have somehow defamed Kimberlin. As I’ve explained, my reliance on such sources as Singer’s book and Gelarden’s reporting protected me against any finding of libel — it was not me making these accusations, see? I never claimed to have any more knowledge about what happened in Indiana circa 1978 than had previously been reported by others, or established as matters of fact in legal proceedings. Possibly, the makers of this documentary movie about the Burger Chef murders were not as careful about such things, and defeating Kimberlin’s litigation might not be such a slam-dunk for them as it was for me and my co-defendants. However . . .

If Kimberlin is contesting whether he was suspected of involvement in the murder of Julia Scyphers — making the filmmaker’s reference to that suspicion the basis of his defamation claim — he is likely to fail once again. Although the Scyphers murder has never been officially solved, certain facts about the case have been previously reported:

While no motive [for the 1978 bombings] was established at trial, prosecutors and police believe Kimberlin went on the bombing spree to deflect attention away from an ongoing investigation of the murder of 65-year-old Julia Scyphers. Scyphers “violently disapproved” of her daughter Sandra Barton’s relationship with Kimberlin as well as the “strange affection” Kimberlin paid to Barton’s pre-teen daughter, who had accompanied Kimberlin on several long unsupervised out-of-state trips. On July 29, 1978, Scyphers was shot to death just outside her home. Her husband Fred Scyphers, who briefly saw the shooter, identified William Bowman as the gunman. Bowman was a close associate of Kimberlin in the drug trade but Fred, the prosecution’s only witness, died shortly after the murder and Bowman was never charged. Scyphers’ murder still remains unsolved.

So said Wikipedia last time I checked.

Joe Gelarden referred to Barton’s daughter (Julia Scypher’s granddaughter) as “Debbie,” but when it came time for Singer to publish his 1996 book about Kimberlin, he used the pseudonym “Jessica.”

“For three consecutive summers, 1974 through 1976, they took vacations of a week or longer in Disney World, Mexico, and Hawaii. Sandi couldn’t get time off from work, so on these summer trips it was just the two of them — Brett and Jessica.
“Eyebrows levitated. A drug-dealing colleague had memories of conversations with Kimberlin that struck him as odd: ‘We’d see a girl, who was pubescent or prepubescent, and Brett would get this smile and say, “Hey, what do you think? Isn’t she great?” It made me very uncomfortable.’ Another recalled Kimberlin introducing Jessica as ‘my girlfriend,’ and if irony was intended, it was too subtle to register. To a coworker . . . Sandi confided that Kimberlin was ‘grooming Jessica to be his wife.’ To another, Sandi explained that although Kimberlin’s relationship with Jessica was chaste, he intended ‘to wait for her and would marry her.’”
— Mark Singer, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin, Page 78

“Debbie”/“Jessica” was only 10 years old in 1974, and thus would have been 14 when her grandmother was murdered in 1978.

Obviously, suspicion is not synonymous with proof, but one does not commit libel merely by expressing suspicion, especially when that same suspicion was shared by law enforcement officials. Which is to say, if you add 1 + 1 and decide the answer is 2, your arithmetic is not a tort.

Just for the record, by the way, I am informed by people who have looked into the Burger Chef murders that Kimberlin almost certainly was not involved with that particular crime which was likely committed by someone personally connected to one of those teenage victims.

We shall see what becomes of Kimberlin’s latest lawsuit, but I wish the attorneys for the defendants in the Kimberlin v. Hulu case would get in touch with me. I could offer them some excellent advice — for a price.



 

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Category: Crime, The Kimberlin Files

In The Mailbox: 07.24.25

Posted on | July 25, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.24.25

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

RIP Hulk Hogan
(cartoon by Kukuruyo)

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Cultural Wasteland that is 2025
EBL: Brother Brigham, Brother Young, Marvin the Martian, MAGA – Tulsi Time , and One of My All Time Favorite Fish
Twitchy: Sen. Hirono Asks If Any Court Has Found DEI Unconstitutional, “Do You Even 2A, Bro?” 9th Circuit Spanks Gov. Hairgel Again, and Jonathan Turley Says John Brennan Is Most Vulnerable to Charges In Obama’s Russiagate Hoax 
Louder With Crowder: NFL Coach shows the playbook on how NOT to be baited by an anti-Trump reporter into bashing the President, Democrat senator attempts to use Detroit Lions to appeal to normies, but doesn’t know how football works, and Tom Homan nukes Hunter Biden into orbit, responds to Hunter’s illegal immigration rant with new “job title”
Vox Popoli: Correction, That Was Fast, Last Call for Coffee, Clown World Turns on Zelensky, and Forget The Village
Stoic Observations: The Conservative Brotherhood
Toni Airaksinen: Why Palestinians Need To Admit Their Victimhood Narrative Is A Lie
Jim McCoy: Dude, Seriously?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: U.S. Delegation Withdraws From Gaza Ceasefire Talks
American Greatness: Senate Advances Jeanine Pirro as US Attorney for DC in Tense Hearing Marred By Paid Protesters, 65,000 Unanswered Calls to Biden Era Safety Hotline for Unaccompanied Migrant Children, DOJ Meeting With Ghislaine Maxwell Set for Thursday, The Autopen Presidency Controversy Is Just Beginning, and Revenge or Justice?
American Thinker: Obama’s Self-Incriminating Defense, ‘They all must be held accountable’, and The Law Strikes Back
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Red Thursday News
BattleSwarm: Video Tab Clearing – Potted Pelosi, Hunter For Prez, Pool Fix, .50 BMG Myth, also, Texas Mobilizes National Guard To Help ICE
Behind The Black: JAXA/Mitsubishi test upgraded engines for H3 rocket, Study identifies range of interference produced by Starlink satellites, Rocket startup IRocket merges with investment company, T-Mobile makes its Starlink capability available to everyone, and Mexico’s president says it will investigate SpaceX for doing salvage operations off its coast
Cafe Hayek: The Protectionist Troll Serves the Case for Free Trade, also, Full Text of Gramm’s and Boudreaux’s “Steel and Aluminum: These Are Trump’s Worst Tariffs”
CDR Salamander: What Does The Expected New CNO Think?
Chicago Boyz: Uncontrollable Anger
Da Tech Guy: Five Thoughts Under the Fedora
Don Surber: When in doubt, shout First Amendment
First Street Journal: The Hassan Elliot case finally comes to a close, also, Every once in a while, the left will say the quiet part out loud
Gates Of Vienna: Illegal Mosques Sprouting Like Mushrooms In Padua, Those Moroccan “Youths” Are Busy Boys, and An American Tourist Gets Culturally Enriched In Milan
The Geller Report: Department of Justice Launches STRIKE FORCE to Investigate Russia Hoax Evidence, Jewish Summer Camp Children Removed From Flight in Spain, Supreme Court Protects President’s Right to Fire Agency Heads, and Trump Secures $221M Columbia University Settlement Over Civil Rights Violations
Hollywood In Toto: Darrell Hammond – How Trump Crushed It on ‘SNL’, Fantastic Four – Pro-Family, Pro-Life and Pro-MCU, and How Osiris Star Max Martini Meets This Hollywood Moment
The Lid: On the Passing of Our Host Jeff Dunetz
Legal Insurrection: 65,000 Calls to Biden Admin Hotline for Unaccompanied Alien Children Reportedly Ignored, Conservative Blogger Jeff Dunetz of ‘The Lid’ Passes Away at 67, Colorado Hit With Another Lawsuit Over Controversial Anti-Discrimination Law, 22 States Back NJ Father’s Fight Against School For Keeping Daughter’s Sex Transition Secret, and Appeals Court Affirms Nationwide Injunction on Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order
Matt Taibbi: Activism Uncensored – Christopher Columbus & Stephen Colbert, also, Fact-Checking Glenn Kessler
Outkick: Rest Easy, Hulk Hogan, President Trump Signs Executive Order To ‘Save College Sports’, Nico Iamaleava Explains Decision To Leave Tennessee, Savannah Bananas Player Attempts Backflip Live On CNN, Fails Spectacularly, and Paige Spiranac Slams Beer In Daisy Dukes, ‘The View’ Gasbags Are In Timeout & CNN Finally Airs Something Good!
Power Line: Defund the IEA, Land war in Asia, and Who Cares What Putin Wanted?
Shark Tank: Rep. Bean Introduces Bill Seeking Harsher Penalties For Harming Police Animals
Shot In The Dark: The Ultimate Berg’s Seventh Law, also, No Kings…But Lords?
STUMP: RIP Malcolm Jamal-Warner – Drowning As The Summer Menace
This Ain’t Hell: Thursday notes
Victory Girls: FireAid $100M MIA and Other Insults
Watts Up With That: Suspicions Mount as Met Office Continues to Open More Junk Temperature Measuring Sites, Climate Activism In Judicial Drag, How the Trump AI Action Plan will Wreck Green Energy, and California Dems Reportedly Scrambling To Find Buyer For Refinery After Running Owner Out Of Town
The Federalist: The Intelligence Community Needs To Be Dismantled, Politico Wants You To Believe The Massive Russiagate Scandal Is Just A Story About Trump’s ‘Impulses’, There Was No Peaceful Transfer Of Power In 2017, The Wall Street Journal’s Epstein Reports Are Kind Of Proving Trump’s Point, and How Reddit Destroyed Mainstream American Culture
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet – Seeking Justice In The Swamp, Jewlepathy, and The Return of Durham?

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In The Mailbox: 07.23.25 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | July 24, 2025 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard gets her marching orders

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Outrageous, Casimir Pulaski Day, Tom Homan – ICE ICE Baby, The Reason it’s Hard to Fillet Sheepshead, and Ukraine Women Drone Fighters
Twitchy: Reporter Asks Ravens Coach Jim Harbaugh Why He Met Trump & Immediately Regrets It, Scott Jennings Zings Catherine Rampell’s WaPo Exit By Sharing Go Goo Eyes She Made At Doug Emhoff, and CNN’s John King Says No Trump Voters He’s Talked To Are Leaving Him Over Epstein Files
Louder With Crowder: Democrat Congresswoman demands more illegals in her district ‘for redistricting purposes’ in surfaced video, also, Sunny Hostin claims CBS cancelling Stephen Colbert for losing $40 million a year totally violates the Constitution or something
Vox Popoli: Someone is All Talk, Just the Payments, Scott Adams is a Liar, Japan Moves Right, and Point of Order
Upstream Reviews: Jurassic World Rebirth Gets Back To Basics
Based Book Sale: Indie Primer – Useful Things To Know
Cedar Sanderson: Clementine
Monster Hunter Nation: Two Big Announcements

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: God Made Us Perfect, also, Why does Lifesite News have a CEO?
American Conservative: Hong Kong has Become Just Another Chinese Captive, also, Is Israel Losing American Christians?
American Greatness: DNI Tulsi Gabbard Declassifies HPSCI Report Detailing How Team Obama ‘Manufactured’ Intel Assessment That Launched RussiaGate, The World Woke Up, President Trump Signals Support for Bill Eliminating Capital Gains Taxes on Home Sales, New WSJ Report Claims AG Pam Bondi Informed President Trump in May That His Name is Mentioned in Epstein Files, and Supreme Court Okays Trump’s Restructuring of Department of Education
American Thinker: They Buried the Truth to Destroy Trump, also, Russiagate Was Treason; Will Trump Prove That No One Is Above the Law? 
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday, Animals Daily Border Closure News, and Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For July 18, Republicans Dominate Texas Fundraising, Did Microsoft Outsource DoD Data To China? Is Russia Finally, FINALLY Running Out Of Tanks In Ukraine? and For Democrats, It’s Always Social Justice Graft All the Way Down
Behind The Black: Curiosity amid the boxwork, SpaceX launches NASA’s twin Tracers solar wind monitoring satellites, Rocket Lab’s new Neutron rocket faces red tape delays at Wallops, One of China’s big satellite constellations appears in trouble, and Trump administration moving to reduce rocket launch environmental regulations
Cafe Hayek: Donald “Bernie Bro” Trump, Correcting the Record on the 1980s-1990s VERs, and What Business Is This Of Trump’s?
CDR Salamander: I Think I Know What We’re Calling The F/A-XX
Chicago Boyz: Absence of Abilities, Dug-in Like an Alabama Tick, and Globalization, Reindustrialization, and Movies
Da Tech Guy: Br’er Trump and the Epstein Patch
Don Surber: Why Obama and not Hillary
First Street Journal: Poor, poor Larry Krasner is tearfully upset that he couldn’t lock up another cop for longer, For the people of Gaza to receive any aid, they must repudiate Hamas and surrender, The journolism of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Why should it be illegal to do something for money that is perfectly legal to do for free?
The Geller Report: “This Was Treason”, President Trump Pulling US Out of UNESCO Over DEI & Other Policies, Over $100 Million Was Donated to California Fire Victims – Who Received NOTHING, CBP Officer Shot In The Face By Illegals in New York, and AG Bondi Backs Clinton Email Investigation After Bombshell Report Reveals FBI Botched and Scotched Investigation
Glenn Reynolds: The Elvis Problem
Hollywood In Toto: Explorers at 40: How Joe Dante Captured Childhood Awe & Wonder, Late Night R.I.P.? CBS Pulls Plug on Colbert’s ‘Late Show’, Billy Joel: And So It Goes Will Delight Hardcore Fans, Neal McDonough: From Canceled to Constant Film, TV Gigs, and Are These Stephen Colbert’s Worst ‘Late Show’ Moments?
The Lid: ICE Had to Arrest Illegal Alien Who Murdered a Woman Since Illinois Officials Kept Releasing Him, also, Trump Border Czar Has a Warning for Sanctuary Cities Continuing to Obstruct the Law
Legal Insurrection: The Battle for Higher Education and the Manhattan Statement, Dept. Education Investigates Discrimination Against American-Born Students After Equal Protection Project Complaints, Media Driven Story About ICE Secretly Deporting Pennsylvania Man to Guatemala is a Hoax, 2016 Russian Intel Alleged Hillary Clinton Used Heavy Tranquilizers, Faced Serious Illnesses, and Tulsi Gabbard Demolishes Obama’s Weak Attempt at Damage Control
Matt Taibbi: In a Brutal Document Release, The Russia Hoax Is Finally Exposed, also, Russiagate Explained – The Sins of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment
Outkick: Bill Belichick Already Paying Off Financially For North Carolina, Rockies Stun with First Shutout In More Than A Year, Snapping 220-Game Drought, Tennessee Freshmen Travis Smith, Jr. and Jaedon Harmon Give $10K From NIL Earnings to Knoxville Kids, Apprentice Brunette Erin Elmore Turns On The White House, Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans & Tread Lightly, ESPN, and Does FSU QB Thomas Castellanos Understand What ‘No Disrespect’ Means?
Power Line: Thoughts from the ammo line, Another Colbert Coda, Overcoming the Times, and Sanctuary no more
Shark Tank: DeSantis Suspects Video Of Jax Sheriffs’ Violent Traffic Stop Has Been Debunked
Shot In The Dark: The Invisible Hangover, More Vibrancy! Where’s The Beef?, Berg’s 21st Law Is Universal, and Ask Not Why Stephen Colbert Is Gone
This Ain’t Hell: Rancid Cherry Theory Proven Once Again, Wednesday “We Remember”, Marine Nominated to Head USNA, Beta O’Rourke: We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power, and How do you kill a drone?
Transterrestrial Musings: Light Blogging
Victory Girls: Mahmoud Khalil: “Absurd” To Ask If I Support Hamas, Martin Luther King, Jr. Files Released; Officially Nothing New Here, and Obama Had Direct Role In Setting Up Russia Collusion Hoax
Watts Up With That: Another Day, Another Model of Future Climate Doom, COPocalypse Now, Department of Energy Terminates Taxpayer-Funded Financial Assistance for Grain Belt Express, and Steeper Road for Zero-Emissions Vehicles
The Federalist: Austin Fire Chief Who Refused To Deploy Rescue Boats For Flood Victims Was A DEI Hire, DOJ Launches Strike Force To Investigate Obama Team’s ‘Weaponization’ Of Russia Hoax, House Committees Issue Subpoena To ActBlue CEO In Donation Fraud Probe, SCOTUS Hands Trump Win In Consumer Product Safety Commission Case, and Nike’s Scottie Scheffler Dad Ad Signals A Serious Cultural Vibe Shift
Mark Steyn: The Day the Earth Stood Still – The Spaceman Slaps Our Wrists, Ladders at the Palace, Nice’n’Easy, Omar, He’s Making Eyes at Me, and T is for Treason

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