The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 05.18.21 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | May 18, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 05.18.21 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Back from the DC area and ready to play catch-up. The FMJRA will appear later today, as will the evening edition of In The Mailbox. Thanks to Stacy and John Hoge for having me on The Other Podcast and for their hospitality.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Minneapolis Mayor – “Defund The Police” Was A Bad Idea
EBL: St. Pancake, also, Masks Now, Masks Tomorrow, Masks Forever
Twitchy: President Biden Tells Rep. Tlaib He Admires Her Intellect & Passion 
Louder With Crowder: Cop Car Tosses Protesters Blocking HIghway, also, Crowder Starts Legal Action Against YouTube
Vox Popoli: The Canceling Of Literature, also, “Dozens Of Meetings”
Stoic Observations: Brother & Sister
Gab News: The Incompetent Grifters Around President Trump

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: This Ain’t Your Country Any More
American Conservative: The Other Virus – Learned Helplessness
American Greatness: Biden Diverts Money For America Healthcare To Illegals, also, Space Force Commander’s Book On Marxist Takeover Of The Military Soars To #1 After He’s Relieved Of Command
American Power: Ashley Rindsberg, The Gray Lady Winked
American Thinker: Dr. Fauci Finally Unmasked, also, Why Are Media Ignoring Massive COVID Vaccine Death Spike?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Spain Busts Money-Laundering Operation Shipping Drug Money To Cuba
BattleSwarm: Followup – IDF To Hamas “Psych!”, also, The Lab Leak Hypothesis Revisited
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, Where Is Red China’s Zhurong Rover?
Cafe Hayek: A Weak Hypothetical In Support Of Tyranny, also, The Beginning Of The End Of Liberal Civilization?
CDR Salamander: The Army – Climate, Politics, & Pork
Da Tech Guy: Plausible Deniability AP Style, also, Chicago Aldermen Make Wrong Turn On Proposal To Rename Lake Shore Drive
Don Surber: Statuary Rape, also, Why Joe Biden Acts Like An Asshole
First Street Journal: The Left Are Pro-Choice On Exactly One Thing (Part II), also, Why June 11?
The Geller Report: U.S. Sending Aid To Palestinian Terrorists As Jihad Against Israel Continues, also,  Democrats In Congress Parrot Terrorist Talking Points
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, Words Have Meaning
Hollywood In Toto: Woman In The Window Lives Down To All The Bad Buzz, also, The Movie Star Era Is Over – Are Franchises Next On The Chopping Block?
The Lid: Judge Has Bad News For Hillary About IRS Investigation Of The Clinton Foundation
Legal Insurrection: Lincoln Project Targeting Children [sic] With “Franklin Project” Civics Program, also, University Of California Dropping SAT & ACT In Settlement With Minority Students
Nebraska Energy Observer: Random Observations, also, Malaise & Renaissance
Outkick: Martin Truex Says Bubba Wallance “Needs To Get His S**t Together”, also, Rob Manfred Remains Wildly Unpopular
Power Line: NYT – Slow Joe Getting Slower, also, The Deep Unpopularity Of Kamala Harris
Shark Tank: Democrats Have A Socialism Problem
Shot In The Dark: Demotion, also, Hope I Die Before I Get…Young
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Black Panthers, also, Oklahoma Vs. Critical Race Theory
This Ain’t Hell: Armed Forces Day, also, A Different Kind Of Military Phony
Transterrestrial Musings: The Climate Doom Mongers, also, Sharing Office Space With Terrorists
Victory Girls: Bill Gates Proves Money Can’t Buy Morals, also, Yes, AP Knew Hamas Was In The Building
Volokh Conspiracy: FCC Commissioner Brendan Car Slams Marilyn Mosby’s Complaint Against WBFF
Weasel Zippers: Biden Proving To Be A Bigger Disaster Than Carter Ever Was, also, Biden Economic Advisor Blames Bad April Jobs Report On Easter Being In March (It Was In April)
The Federalist: Twitter Suspends Spanish Politician For Saying “A Man Cannot Get Pregnant”, also, Army Takes On “Climate Change” As Serious Threat To National Security
Mark Steyn: Good Times & Hood Times, also, America’s Political Prisoners

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Category: Linkagery

‘Caring, Loving and Charitable … He Got a Kick Out of Pulling Pranks on People’

Posted on | May 17, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘Caring, Loving and Charitable … He Got a Kick Out of Pulling Pranks on People’

Theodoro Macias Jr., known by the nickname “Lolo,” was only 28 when he died on May 9. His obituary includes these remembrances:

Junior grew up in Longmont and attended schools in the area. He recently worked for a national cell phone network. He was dedicated to his job, and was passionate about serving people. Lolo was a caring, loving and charitable individual. He enjoyed spending time with his friends, and family. He loved to explore the mountains in search of scenic spots to contemplate. He enjoyed working out at the gym, listened to a variety of music genres, attended numerous concerts, and cherished going on long road trips with his friends, always seeking unique adventures and memorable experiences.
He adored his nieces and nephews, frequently bought them toys and video games, spoiling them like no other. He became a kid all over again when playing with them. Junior was extremely playful, he got a kick out of pulling pranks on people, since a young boy all throughout his life, and for this he will be mostly remembered. Not even his grandparents escaped his mischievous tricks. His frequent jokes and sayings will never be forgotten. Lolo was a loving son and brother, an excellent, fun, and best uncle, an amazing cousin, and a real and faithful friend.
He will be deeply missed by his loved ones. We love you Lolo. Forever.

Macias was less fondly remembered by other residents of Colorado Springs, where he committed the worst mass murder in the city’s history:

The man suspected of fatally shooting his girlfriend and five members of her extended family in a Colorado Springs mobile home had a history of jealous, controlling behavior and opened fire at the family’s birthday party in part because he was upset he wasn’t invited to the celebration, police said [May 11].
Investigators believe Teodoro Macias, 28, walked into a mobile home in the 2800 block of Preakness Way shortly after midnight Sunday and shot his girlfriend, 28-year-old Sandra Ibarra-Perez, and the five others in quick succession and in a deliberate manner, Colorado Springs police Lt. Joe Frabbiele said at a news conference Tuesday.
The suspect then killed himself, according to police.
“At the core of this horrendous act is domestic violence,” Chief Vince Niski said. “The suspect… displayed power and control issues. When he wasn’t invited to a family gathering, the suspect responded by opening fire.” . . .
Those killed were identified as Melvin Perez, 30, his wife Mayra Ibarra De Perez, 33; Melvin’s brother, Jose Gutierrez, 21; and the men’s mother, Joana Cruz, 52. Also killed were Mayra’s siblings, Ibarra-Perez and Jose Ibarra, 26.
The suspect and Ibarra-Perez had been dating for about a year, Frabbiele said. While there were no official reports of domestic violence by Macias, Frabbiele said family members told investigators he was jealous, controlling and tried to isolate Ibarra-Perez from her family. Macias and Ibarra-Perez’s family had a conflict a week prior to the shooting at a different gathering, Frabbiele said. . . .
The Mother’s Day mass shooting is one of the deadliest in state history and happened just seven weeks after a gunman killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder. It is the deadliest shooting in Colorado Springs history, Mayor John Suthers said. . . .
Nine of 39 people killed in homicides in the city last year died in connection to domestic violence, according to Colorado Springs police statistics. About a third of aggravated assaults in the city in the first three months of 2021 were related to domestic violence.

So domestic violence accounted for 23% of the city’s homicides last year, and this mass shooting was just a domestic violence incident. The weapon Macias used was a 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol, which had been purchased legally by someone else in 2014, and police said they don’t know how Macias obtained the weapon. But it was just an ordinary pistol, not one of those evil “assault weapons” that Democrats want to ban, nor was this mass murder a “hate crime” committed by white supremacists, so there’s no political angle to the story, which is why it disappeared from the national media immediately after it happened. If only Macias had been shot by a cop, rather than committing suicide, maybe the media could have worked some kind of “social justice” angle into their coverage, but as it is, this grisly massacre in Colorado is just “local news,” like most of the 15,000 or so homicides in America annually.

The reason I led with Macias’s obituary — “his mischievous tricks”! — is because every time a black criminal gets shot by police nowadays, we get the “Family Demands Answers” story, where the perp’s grieving relatives hold a televised press conference with the local “civil rights” lawyer. We are expected to sympathize with these people, who tell us what a wonderful person the deceased suspect was.

Family demands answers after police-involved shooting that led to man’s death
— June 5, 2020

Family demands answers after Ohio deputy fatally shoots Black man
— Dec. 7, 2020

Delaware family demands answers after fatal police-involved shooting
— Feb. 5, 2021

Family demands answers after DeKalb man shot, killed by police
— April 14, 2012

Family demands answers and reform after 37-year-old Latoya James was killed in a raid
— May 7, 2021

Those are just a few of the dozens of such headlines in recent months, as the media seems to assume — and expect their audience to believe — that no criminal ever deserved to be shot by police. Some of these cases are more ambiguous than others, but even where the police shooting was indisputably justified (e.g., the Ma’khia Bryant case), the media still promotes the narrative that what happened was somehow the fault of police, rather than a reaction to the suspect’s criminal behavior.

Next time you see one of these “Family Demands Answers” stories, where they’re trying to convince you the deceased criminal was an innocent angel, just keep in mind Teodoro Macias’s obituary.

Oh, “his mischievous tricks”!




 

Category: Colorado, Crime

Rule 5 Sunday: Get In The Robot, Alegrachan

Posted on | May 17, 2021 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Get In The Robot, Alegrachan

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Spent a good part of the weekend hanging out with friends I hadn’t seen in a couple of years, which is why instead of spotlighting new talent, we’re going with Alegrachan cosplaying the tsundere pilot of Neon Genesis Evangelion‘s EVA-02 unit, Asuka Soryu-Langley.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Apparently the budget fell short when it came time to buy the pants for her plugsuit.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1351, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

At Animal Magnetism, it’s Rule Five Maybe Things Aren’t So Bad Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL’s herd this week includes La Boheme, Don Giovanni, Tristan & Isolde, Rachel McAdams, Der Rosenkavalier, Retro Gas Line Rule 5, National Council Auditions Final, Elise Stefanik In & Liz Cheney Out, Il Barbiere Di Siviglia, Roberto Devereux, MAGA Stands With Israel, and St. Pancake.

A View From The Beach submitted From the Lipstick Jungle – Lindsay Price, Election 2020: Insomnia Edition, No Mas(k)!, Fish Pic Friday – Islandshae23, Land Use Blamed for Transsexual Smallmouth Bass, Avalanche, The Wednesday Wetness, Annals of the Biden Family: Hunter in a Honey Trap, Masks Now, Masks Forever!, Tattoo Tuesday, Free The Nipple Campaign Challenges Ocean City Again, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Molon Labe! and Palm Sunday.

Brian Noggle wraps up with a look at Newsweek’s 1977 Swimsuit Issue, which proves that not all designs from the 1970s sucked. 

Thanks to everybody for the luscious linkagery!

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Category: Rule 5

The Streisand Effect and the Results of Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day

Posted on | May 16, 2021 | Comments Off on The Streisand Effect and the Results of Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day

Three months ago, almost everyone had forgotten about Rebekah Jones, and so most people didn’t pay too much attention when Christian Pushaw published a 2,000-word exposé in Human Events:

THE “FLORIDA COVID-19
WHISTLEBLOWER”
SAGA IS A BIG LIE

Pushaw’s article was published less than a month after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, when the Biden presidency was just getting underway and few Americans were looking ahead to the political future. Yet to anyone with eyes focused as far forward as 2024, it was becoming apparent that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was well-positioned to contend for the next GOP presidential nomination. His handling of the state’s COVID-19 pandemic had been vindicated. Not only had DeSantis’s policies successfully protected Florida’s large population of retirees from the deadly virus, but his emphasis on rapidly reopening businesses had spared the state the economic damage experienced in states where draconian lockdown policies were imposed.

If Democrats wanted to sabotage DeSantis as a future rival, obviously the “whistleblower” claims of Rebekah Jones were potent ammunition, and thus Christina Pushaw’s article was important as a preemptive defense of DeSantis against attacks based on Jones’s claims. Jones then made the mistake of trying to silence Pushaw, seeking a peace order from a Maryland court “to suppress Ms. Pushaw’s First Amendment free speech and free press rights,” to quote my podcast partner John Hoge.

In response to that threat, we organized “Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day.” For a while, it seemed that our efforts to publicize this situation had little impact, but Hoge kept pounding away at the story, and earlier this month, a Maryland judge dismissed the Jones v. Pushaw case.

Then last week, Charles C.W. Cooke did a National Review article about Jones that got widespread attention, including from The Daily Caller (“The Media Elevated A COVID-19 Conspiracy Theorist To Hurt Ron DeSantis”). So now everybody knows the story — demonstrating again how “The Streisand Effect” operates. The truth is great and will prevail.




 

Category: Florida, Media Bias

Times Square Shooting Suspect ‘Career Criminal With a Lengthy Rap Sheet’

Posted on | May 15, 2021 | Comments Off on Times Square Shooting Suspect ‘Career Criminal With a Lengthy Rap Sheet’

When you’re on the run, don’t run out of gas:

Farrakhan Muhammad, 31, was arrested in Florida on Wednesday on suspicion of being the man responsible for shooting three people in New York City’s Times Square neighborhood earlier this week.
According to the Associated Press, Muhammad was taken into custody in a McDonald’s parking lot near Jacksonville, Fla. where he was with a woman believed to be his girlfriend.
He was arrested by U.S. Marshals and was listed in an inmate database for the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office, the outlet reports.
Two dogs were also reportedly in the car.
The arrest occurred without incident, according to police.
Initial media reports noted that Muhammad’s girlfriend was not arrested at first but that police were only in the very early stages of their investigation. That girlfriend, Kristen Vergara was, however, later arrested and charged with accessory after the fact.
According to New York City-based Spectrum NY-1, Muhammad was eating in his car at the time he was found out and had only taken refuge in his vehicle (and the fast food chain’s parking lot) because of an East Coast fuel shortage. After running out of gas, the suspect reportedly had no choice but to briefly stop in Starke, Fla.

Coincidentally, Starke is the location of Florida’s main state penitentiary — institutions with which Muhammad should be quite familiar:

The suspected gunman who allegedly wounded three people in Times Square — including a 4-year-old girl — is a career criminal with a lengthy rap sheet, sources familiar with the cases told The Post.
Farrakhan Muhammad, 31 . . . has a criminal record dating to 2007, including two felony robbery arrests and a 2012 bust where cops seized a 12-gauge shotgun, a 22-caliber handgun, and body armor, according to sources.
According to the sources, Muhammad’s first arrest was in January 2007, when he was picked up on a robbery charge for allegedly stealing a victim’s cellphone in Brooklyn.
In November 2009, Muhammad was hit with another robbery charge for allegedly grabbing a woman’s bag while she was loading up a car — with him and a second suspect fleeing the scene, sources said.
His other busts include turnstile jumping and aggravated harassment, the sources said. . . .
In total, Muhammad was arrested at least nine times — most recently on an assault charge on March 14 last year for allegedly grabbing a man by the neck and throwing him into a garbage can at 51st Street and Seventh Avenue, a high-ranking police source said.

Why can’t New York keep people like this behind bars?




 

Category: Crime, New York

Just Think of the Media as Hamas Propaganda Operatives With Bylines

Posted on | May 15, 2021 | Comments Off on Just Think of the Media as Hamas Propaganda Operatives With Bylines

Associated Press acting as human shields for terrorists:

An Israeli airstrike on Saturday targeted and destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of The Associated Press and other media outlets. Hours later, Israel bombed the home of Khalil al-Hayeh, a top leader of Gaza’s ruling militant Hamas group.
The Israeli military said Al-Hayeh’s home served as part of what it said was the militant group’s “terrorist infrastructure.” Al-Hayeh is a senior figure in the Hamas political leadership in Gaza, and the attack marked a further escalation, signaling that Israel is going after Hamas’ top leadership, and not just military commanders. His fate after the strike was not immediately known.
Earlier, AP staffers and other tenants safely evacuated the building after the military telephoned a warning that the strike was imminent within an hour. Three heavy missiles struck the 12-story building, collapsing it in a giant cloud of dust.

Gosh, it sure was a smart decision to put your objective journalism offices in a building controlled by a terrorist organization:

The CEO of the Associated Press claims he is “shocked and horrified that the Israel military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza.”
This is a very important admission from the head of a global news organization. The building Israel blew up is actually an intelligence facility for the terrorist group Hamas. This is a statement of objective fact that is not actually in dispute.
Gary Pruitt, with his statement, is admitting the Associated Press worked out of Hamas’s building.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)




 

Category: Terrorism

LSHS Class of 1977

Posted on | May 15, 2021 | Comments Off on LSHS Class of 1977

My old buddy Phil Underwood came to town Friday, and we got to hang out for a few hours, going out to eat pizza and then visiting with my youngest son and his bride. Phil and I graduated from Lithia Springs (Ga.) High School in 1977, and I hadn’t seen him in nearly 40 years.

Phil’s late father was pastor of the Lithia Springs Church of God, and Phil used to invite me to go to church with him, which was something of an educational experience for a Southern Baptist boy, because Church of God is what is known as charismatic — speaking in tongues, faith healing, etc. — or, as most folks call them, “holy rollers.”

As a preacher’s kid (“PK”), Phil got into a little bit of teenage rebellion, but nowhere near the level of juvenile delinquency of most of my childhood friends, so my folks liked him. We both played trombone in the school band until Phil got kicked out of the band at the end of our freshman year because he went riding in a dune buggy with some girls during a band trip to Florida. There was great irony in the fact that Phil was expelled from band while I, a genuine criminal, was not.

For many years, Phil was pastor of a church in Gwinnett County, Georgia, but since has become a consultant and motivational speaker and now lives in the Florida Keys where his neighbors include former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson. Phil recently published a book, New Every Morning: 30 Days of Reflections on the God Opportunities in Each Day, which you can (and obviously should) buy from Amazon.

Our visit gave us a chance to share old stories, and for me to explain to Phil how I went from working in a warehouse on Fulton Industrial Boulevard to being a local newspaper reporter and then, eventually, becoming such a nationally notorious person. Like the old hippie song says, what a long strange trip it’s been. And meanwhile . . .

Tonight, our blog’s resident aggregator and troll-smasher Wombat will be in town, and will be a special guest on The Other Podcast with John Hoge and Dianna Deeley — 7 p.m. ET — don’t miss it!




 

Category: Religion

Mask Fetishists Mourn End of an Era

Posted on | May 15, 2021 | Comments Off on Mask Fetishists Mourn End of an Era

Joe Biden was having a terrible week and, I suspect, James Carville must have advised the White House that it was a bad look for them to be insisting that people keep wearing masks even after they’d been vaccinated against COVID-19. Also, what else could explain why the American Federation of Teachers — the radical union that had been dictating Democratic Party policy on whether schools should re-open — suddenly reversed its position and embraced re-opening plans?

Someone (and, as I say, I strongly suspect it was Carville) must have penetrated the MSNBC/CNN groupthink bubble surrounding Biden and said, “Hey, man, you’re looking like a big loser here.”

At any rate, with Israel under attack, the jobs report sending “stagflation” signals, and the Colonial Pipeline shut down, the Biden administration decided that, contrary to its earlier position, mandatory mask-wearing is now over. And liberals immediately mourned this news.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said Thursday she would need to “rewire” herself to no longer look at unmasked people as a “threat” in response to relaxed federal guidelines for vaccinated persons.
Following months of criticism, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that vaccinated people could ditch masks in nearly all circumstances. While met with relief and calls like “it’s about damn time” from Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, some liberal figures fretted about the sudden shift.
“I feel like I’m going to have to rewire myself so that when I see someone out in the world who’s not wearing a mask, I don’t instantly think, ‘You are a threat,’” Maddow said. “Or you are selfish or you are a Covid denier and you definitely haven’t been vaccinated. I mean, we’re going to have to rewire the way that we look at each other.”

You see? You’re selfish and ignorant, and so wearing masks was, for liberals, a symbol of their own power to force other people to comply.

Honestly, I was never one of those anti-mask rebels. Because I work from home anyway, the only time mask requirements affected me was when I had to go to the store or out to eat at a restaurant. Is it annoying and uncomfortable? Sure, but I understood that store clerks are exposed to hundreds of customers every day, so that if having customers wear masks reduced the risk of contagion even marginally, then mask mandates would help ensure that stores remained open for business.

It was the government-ordered lockdowns of “non-essential” businesses that caused the real economic damage, whereas mask requirements were merely bothersome and yet, to a certain type of liberal, wearing masks was a ritual of political symbolism. They knew that lots of people hated wearing masks, and that there was not a lot of scientific evidence in support of masks as a disease-prevention measure. However, symbolic obedience was the real value of mask mandates. Liberals derived from this the thrill of seeing everyone forced to comply with their demands, and ending mask mandates deprives them of that source of pleasure.

Why would anyone vote to be governed by liberals? I mean, you might not like Tucker Carlson, but he’s not afflicted by the kind of sadomasochistic urges that inspire Rachel Maddow, et al.




 

Category: MSNBC, Science
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