The Other McCain

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

Rule 5 Sunday: Redhead in the Snow

Posted on | March 2, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Probably from kbdabear on X, but I honestly don’t remember.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

EBL: Dracula – A Love Tale, Saturday Night Girls With Guns, A Bar at the Folies Bergere, Nigella’s Pasta with Anchovies, Vanished, MAGA SOTU, Snowday, The Little Drummer Girl, Canada Sadz, and Fred Astaire & Rita Hayworth

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Mayra Veronica, Fish Pic Friday – Andy Hines, “These People are Crazy”, Tattoo Thursday, SOTU and Beyond, Wednesday Wetness, Oregon, My Oregon, Tuesday Tanlines, MD Oystermen Want Federal Bailout, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Random Celebrity News, and Palm Sunday 

BACON TIME: Rule Five – Butt Its Friday

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

 

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Maintaining the Balance

Posted on | March 2, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Confinement VII went well. Almost certainly coming back next year.
It was an okay week for the Senators fans too: we lost two of three to the Giants before Jim Kaat salvaged Game Three by holding the Jints to two runs while the boys scored three off Buzz Capra. Next, we went to LA and won two out of three before Tom Seaver held us to two runs while the weak Dodger offense managed to scratch out three runs against Pat Dobson. That makes us .500 on the week, still 6.5 behind the Twins and 1.5 ahead of the Brewers. Good enough to hang on to second place in the division.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
‘Zizian’ Cult Member Gets Bailed Out
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Still Winning
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Rule 5 Sunday: Mustang Gal
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 02.23.26
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 02.24.26
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

An Odd Sequel to the Bubba/‘Brittni’ Saga
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

The Worst People in the World (Part II)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 02.27.26 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 02.27.26 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

ISLAMIC TERRORISM IN TEXAS? UPDATE: ‘Property of Allah’ Shirt

Posted on | March 1, 2026 | No Comments

Please note the question mark in the headline, because officials are not saying that it definitely is terrorism, but it kind of looks like it:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it has discovered evidence at the scene of the mass shooting at a popular Austin nightclub that indicates a potential nexus to terrorism. During a press conference held in Austin early Saturday morning, FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Alex Doran of the San Antonio FBI office said the evidence was discovered on the shooter and in his vehicle.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, at least three people have been killed and 14 injured after shots rang out at a popular Sixth Street bar in the Texas capital city of Austin early Sunday morning. According to authorities, the shooter was killed by police officers who responded to the location of the shooting within a minute of the first emergency call.
Speaking at the latest press conference, Doran told reporters that the FBI is working with the Austin Police Department to collect and process evidence at the scene, including the agency’s evidence response team and digital forensics specialists. Commenting on the nexus to terrorism, Doran said, “It’s still way too early in the process to determine an exact motivation, but there were indicators that, on the subject and in his vehicle, indicate potential nexus to terrorism.” . . .
The suspect . . . left the scene and travelled farther down Sixth Street, where he was encountered by Austin police officers who engaged the suspect and killed him less than one minute later.

Austin shooting suspect Ndiaga Diagne

Suspect is an African immigrant:

The shooter, who is reportedly a Senegalese male with American citizenship, opened fire on a crowd of patrons with a handgun and an “assault rifle.” He has been identified as Ndiaga Diagne. He was described to be wearing “Islamic garb,” according to the New York Post. It was also suggested that his undershirt may have had an Iranian flag printed on it.

Maybe the guy was just crazy — crazy people are dangerous — but on the other hand, the timing seems perhaps not coincidental.

UPDATE 2:10 p.m. ET: Kind of a large hint about the motive:

UPDATE 3:15 p.m. ET: The motive is so mysterious:



 

Category: Crime, Islam, Senegal, Terrorism, Texas

Behind Enemy Lines In NOVA, The Fairfax County GOP Met Today

Posted on | February 28, 2026 | No Comments

by Smitty


The lower half of the Fairfax High School auditorium was full, as just over 400 delegates from the various districts met. The population of the county is over a million, and votes +20D, but that is no excuse for failure to participate, especially for State-wide contests.

Proceedings opened just ahead of 0930 with prayer and parliamentary flourishes. Springfield Supervisor Herrity gave a keynote; County Chairman candidates spoke, including incumbent Katie Gorka (husband Sebastian present also). Voting was orderly. Various other local and State candidates, including November hopefuls. We heard from Senatorial primary candidates:

I’ve seen road kill that is more useful than Senator Mark “Bucky” Warner. A dead deer is a non-negative thing. Bucky, on the other hand…

Also a couple of House of Representatives hopefuls for Virginia 8:

The reason for my presence (not having had bandwidth for the Fairfax GOP since the Tea Parties (or blogging, for that matter)) came in the form of the second keynote: Virginians for Fair Maps, whose server appears to have been slashdotted at the moment.
Not unlike what happened to Winsome Sears last November in the Gubernatorial race. The victor was someone who, at the risk of hyperbole, seems like she fell out of Revelation Chapter 17.

Finn Lee spoke in lieu of Mike Young against the 21Apr referendum.

  • Tazwel County submitted a lawsuit. VA Supreme Court allowed both the case and the referendum to continue. Nice double bind: if the measure fails on 21Apr, VA Supreme Court is all “Never mind.” If the measure succeeds, “The people have spoken.” We did speak, in 2020, in favor of a non-partisan commission to do this thing, but Grabby Abby is unconcerned with these pesky details.
  • RNC has submitted a suit, as well.

Here is their ad:
Here is there 30sec YouTube ad:

Estimated turnout for this referendum, according to Lee, is around 20%. Polls show over half of voters are opposed, but a phone sample does not qualify as a vote.
TPUSA, he continued, is planning on knocking doors. But it’s up to everyone to get the word and the vote out. Finally, Lee cautioned against relying upon USPS to deliver anything. Put your ballot into a box or, better still, feed it into the ballot scanner on 21APR.

I left the meeting intact, which is more than can be said of the IRGC. But the Democratic Party is very much a wounded, cornered animal right now, if not as bad off as their fellow anti-Trump buddies in Iran.

We can expect the Democrats to fight tooth and nail for every last scrap of political power they can retain. 2028 is a vastly important mid-term, conceivably the “most important mid-term of our lifetimes”. Why would I trot out this tired cliche? Because the 120th Congress that gets sworn in next January will be priming the Census Bureau for the decennial census. And if that census is conducted honestly, and illegal aliens (the modern 3/5 Compromise for the Democrats) are omitted, then they stand to lose double digit seats in Congress.

Forward this post and get every Virginian who can legally cast a ballot to participate.

P.S.: Yes, I haven’t been doing much beside gag jokes on X in years. Grabby Abby in general, and this referendum in particular, are some scary stuff. Ron Wilcox pinged me to attend the meeting today. Will have to see if he’s going to do a rally or something.

Category: Census, Congress, Democrats, Politics, Republicans, Virginia

‘Major Combat Operations’ in Iran UPDATE: Is the Ayatollah Dead, or Not? UPDATE: He’s ‘Pining for the Fjords’

Posted on | February 28, 2026 | No Comments

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

UPDATE 5:10 p.m. ET: The Associated Press:

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the United States, Israeli officials told The Associated Press on Saturday. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. or Iran on his status.

The old Monty Python parrot sketch reference via Aaron Walker at Twitchy. It is elsewhere reported that pretty much the entire military leadership of the Tehran regime has been eliminated and, if indeed the Ayatollah himself has now shuffled off this mortal coil, the Islamic Republic is done, finished, kaput. War is over, we win.

We do not know what comes next, of course, but the Left’s predictable noise about a long war in Iran appears to be immediately void. In a one-day lightning strike, the U.S. and Israel have destroyed the Shiite theocracy, and whatever happens now, the future in Iran will be different.

But the protesters already had their signs printed!

 

* * * PREVIOUSLY (8:36 a.m. ET) * * *

A couple of weeks ago, it was noticed that roughly one-third of the U.S. Navy was within striking range of Iran, at a time when Iran was “negotiating” over their nuclear program with the Trump administration. One must put “negotiating” in quotation marks, because Donald Trump clearly had in mind a specific outcome — the elimination of Iran’s nuclear threat — and the Iranians did not seem to understand the consequences of not giving Trump what he wanted. That was the fuck around stage of the process, and we have now reached the find out stage:

The US and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran Saturday morning in response to the regime’s refusal to dismantle its nuclear program after weeks of negotiations — targeting military infrastructure and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s compound in Tehran.
The attacks — which the Department of War called “Operation Epic Fury” — follow a massive US military buildup in the Middle East and come after President Trump repeatedly warned Tehran that it would face consequences if it didn’t make a deal with the US.
Iran then launched missiles towards Israel in a retaliatory attack as officials claimed the response would be “crushing.”
“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” Trump said in an eight-minute video address on Saturday.

In addition to the expected outcries from Democrats, who are not just anti-Trump but objectively pro-Iran, this event will trouble many of Trump’s most loyal supporters, whose ideas of an “America First” foreign policy certainly do no include a joint U.S.-Israeli strike against Tehran. What Trump is doing now is very much the kind of thing neoconservatives have advocated for many years, and yet the most prominent neocons have been anti-Trump since 2015. In other words, Trump is disappointing many of his friends by doing what should please many of his enemies. My own concern is for the U.S. troops involved, wishing them success, decisive victory being the shortest route to peace.

UPDATE 12:55 p.m. ET: So you were promised updates and updates ye shall have, but confirmed facts are unfortunately scarce:

Initial indications from intel sources are that Ali Khamenei has at least been hit in the attack, and that the IRGC’s top commander has been killed. The Times of Israel followed up on a report from KAN:

Israel “assesses” that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was likely killed in an Israeli strike earlier today, Channel 12 says, citing unnamed Israeli sources. It says there are “growing indications” to this effect.
There is no official confirmation of the report.
The TV station had minutes earlier said the Israeli assessment was that Khamenei was “hurt at the very least, ” and that this was not an assessment based on satellite imagery showing Khamenei’s presidential compound being flattened, but rather on information from unnamed sources.

The Jerusalem Post corroborates that report, albeit with a bit more caution:

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been cut off from contact, and there is no certainty about his fate, Israeli officials told Walla on Saturday afternoon. Iranian officials promised to release a recording from Khamenei soon after Israeli strikes targeted his Tehran compound.
The preliminary assessment among Israeli officials was that Khamenei was hurt in the strike. No official confirmation has been received by Israeli, American, or Iranian sources. …
Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh and Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammed Pakpour are believed to have been killed in Israeli attacks, two sources familiar with Israel’s military operations and one regional source said.
Israeli and Iranian sources said earlier on Saturday strikes on Iran killed several senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders and Islamic Regime political officials.

Unless and until we see a mob of enraged Iranian civilians dragging the Ayatollah’s corpse through the streets of Tehran, we’re unlikely to have actual confirmation. What we can confirm, however, is that a lot of Democrats are busy making jackasses of themselves.

.



 

Category: Donald Trump, Iran, Israel, Military

In The Mailbox: 02.27.26 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | February 28, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

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

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Self-Defense Is Legal in Michigan
Director Blue: 1984 – The Graphic Novel, 
EBL: Mr. Nobody Against Putin, Panic at CNN, Cobia for grilling, The Great Blizzard of 1888, and Andersonville
Twitchy: “Heated Rivalry” Stans Discover Real Hockey Players Aren’t Their Fanfic Boyfriends, Ilhan Omar Claims US Loves Striking Muslims During Ramadan, Gets Rekt, and Nice Business You’ve Got There – Be A Shame If Dems Broke It Up Because You Backed Trump
Louder With Crowder: Famous Hollywood actress inexplicably wants you to boycott cheeseburgers to protest Trump deporting people, Crazy person dressed in trans flag has hysterical meltdown at city council meeting over they/thems “crying out for justice”, NY taxpayers paid 14 people up to shovel the same pile of snow, thanks to Mamdani, It’s all happening! Jasmine Crockett earns the coveted Cardi B. endorsement in the Texas primary, and White liberal tells Black woman that minorities have no idea how to get a voter ID on their own. BIG mistake
Vox Popoli: Unquiet on the Western Front, The Farmer’s Almanac is Dead, BIOSTELLAR: Space Fleet Academy, The End of Ideology in Britain, and The Core of the Epstein System
According To Hoyt: The War On Things That Work, Your Friday Post, Go on, Take a step, It’s A Trap, and The Weight of Honor
Upstream Reviews: Tenure 3 – Extra Credit
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: Family Voting In The Yookay?
Stoic Observations: The Suspicions of Post-Modernity
Draw & Talk Comics: Is 2026 The Year I Quit Comics?
Based Book Sale: Help Out A Based Author
Postcards From Barsoom: The State of Canada
Cedar Sanderson: Tanager’s Fleet

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Killing Cartel Bosses Won’t Solve Mexico’s Organized Crime Problems, also, Cuba and the U.S. Are Bogged Down in History
American Greatness: YouTuber Gets Slap on the Wrist For Alleged Snowball Assault Against NYPD Officer, Maryland Woman Notifies CPS Over Turning Point USA December High School Event, Good Business for Small Businesses in Alaska: Saving Alaska Native Corporations, NJ Governor Mikie Sherrill Loudly Booed Right After Jack Hughes Gets Standing O at Hockey Ceremony, and National Defense: Is Immunity for Glyphosate Makers a Betrayal of the MAHA Movement?
BattleSwarm: Ted Cruz Endorses Crenshaw Opponent Toth, “Tony Gonzales Is A Wicked Man”, Texas 2026 Republican Primaries: Comptroller and Railroad Commissioner Races, Microsoft Considered Harmful, and LinkSwarm for February 27
Behind The Black: Mars’ fast moving gigantic lava floods, Japanese rocket startup Space One to attempt third orbital launch this weekend, China outlines plans for manned space program, Isaacman announces major reshaping of Artemis program, and NASA’s corrupt Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel: NASA must be bigger and have more control!
Cafe Hayek: Trump’s Pronouncements About Tariffs Are Ludicrous, Nobel-laureate Vernon Smith on Trump’s (Mis)Understanding of Trade, An Open Letter to Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV), Beck Bungles the History and Economics of Trade, and Perhaps I Am Indeed “a Closed Minded Globalist”
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Don Surber: The facts about Trump and Epstein
First Street Journal: The absolute insanity of “sanctuary” policies
Gates Of Vienna: Culture-Enriching Serial Gang Rapists in Heinsberg-Unterbruch, Our Muslim Troubles: A Video Series, Part Two, and The Malleability of Truth
The Geller Report: New York City Muslim Crowd Calls for New, ‘Stronger’ October 7 Jihad Massacre, Churchill Desecrated, Soros DA Alvin Bragg Released Career Criminal Who Assaulted NYPD Police Officers, Susie Wiles Lawyer Categorically DENIES He Allowed Biden FBI To Secretly Record Their Conversations, and Democrat “TRAILBLAZER” – First Openly Trans Lawmaker Pleads Guilty to CHILD SEX Charges (As Young As 3)
Hollywood In Toto: Kimmel’s Free Speech Brigade Silent Over Bari Weiss Cancellation, Are Critics Review Bombing Scream 7? Genre Mashup Night Patrol Lacks Bite, Humor, Testament of Ann Lee is Cinematic Test Worth Taking, and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Hurts Its Own Cause
Legal Insurrection: Judge Bans Bakersfield College From Punishing Professor Over DEI, Yet Allows Required Training, Crazed Leftist Who Yelled at Senator Jeff Flake Over Kavanaugh Vote Gets Job in Mamdani Administration, Pro-Abortion Prof Backs Out of Notre Dame Leadership Role After Protests, Ridicule Just Might Be the Republicans’ Most Powerful Weapon, and DOJ Charges 30 More People in Anti-ICE Minnesota Church Invasion
Nebraska Energy Observer: SOTU, Trump on Jefferson, It’s just a Refinery, Miracle V,2 and V.2.1, and Monday Maunderings
Outkick: ‘They Take Too Much Money’, Atlanta Falcons Fire Former Michigan Assistant Amid Sexual Assault Investigation, Cadillac Gives Mario Andretti The Ultimate Salute With Car Name, Here’s Why The Leaked MLB Salary Cap Proposal Means We’re Headed For A 2027 Lockout, and Sophie Cunningham Goes All-Natural By The Pool & The Great Brooks Nader Debate
Power Line: When you say nothing at all, Wrong-way Abdiasis, Something happening here, So much habeas, and Do Americans Hate ICE?
Racket News: Gone Fishing – How The FBI Can Spend Years Trying To Hook You
Shark Tank: Nine FL State Senators Back Byron Donalds For Governor
STUMP: Demographics v. Public Finance
The Political Hat: Quick Takes – Dead Canadian Babies, also, Firing Line Friday: Sports, Persecution, and Christians
This Ain’t Hell: Some action on barracks? Maybe, Army shoots down eebul drone, and Texas Dem, When the chickens come home to roost: Pakistan versus the Taliban, Valor Friday, and The surging of airpower to the Middle East does not mean “another forever war”
Transterrestrial Musings: Hiatus, A Good First Step, and Celebration
Victory Girls: Suddenly Tim Walz Has A Plan To Fix Fraud, Eventually, also, Ilhan Omar’s Heckling Wasn’t Unavoidable. It Was Immigration Politics
Watts Up With That: EPA’s CO2 Reversal Is Welcome Opening For Developing World, Bloomberg Net Zero Obituary, We Didn’t Just Get Expensive Electricity – We Built a System That Makes It Inevitable, RealClear Politics Is Right – The Climate Hoax Is a Massive Financial Scam, and Rooftop Solar: Is There a Case? (Part III)
The Federalist: Don’t Let Miserable Media Hacks Suck The Joy Out Of U.S. Hockey’s Gold Medal Wins, Study Shows Voting Republican Saves Lives, Viral Twenty One Pilots Song ‘Drag Path’ Offers A Christian Antidote To Gen Z Angst, Parents, Staff Claim Expensive Nashville Christian Prep School Has Gone ‘Woke’, and This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Mark Steyn: Strangers in the Night, “Hallmarks of Hate”, Live Around the Planet, I Am Your Karma, and The State of the State of the Union

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 02.27.26 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | February 27, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The worst thing produced with AI so far – or the best?
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: A Day at the Alamo with Davy Crockett (1836), The Tlaib Dossier by DataRepublican, and With JFK on PT-109 (1943)
357 Magnum: Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0, also, British Cops Didn’t Just Ignore Rape Gangs, They Trafficked British Girls
EBL: Vanished, February Fennel Fish, American Chestnut, Colt .45, and MAGA SOTU
Twitchy: Rep. Ro Khanna Plays “Didn’t Know That” Card When Pinned Down On Epstein Files & Democrat Doxxing, Hillary Explains Why Ghislaine Maxwell Was At Chelsea’s Wedding, and Stitt Storm In Oklahoma
Louder With Crowder: Gavin Newsom praises school superintendent who came here illegally…and who just got raided by the FBI, Mamdani’s city-run grocery stores will cost taxpayers $70 million just to “study” if it’s possible, Squad Democrat has no original material, so she slanders ICE agents as the “KKK”, Democrat Senator, with a straight face, claims that demanding voter ID will help people CHEAT in elections, and Nancy Pelosi malfunctions when CNN asks how it felt to see Elizabeth Warren give Trump a standing ovation
Vox Popoli: The Israel-China Intelligence War, The Corpse Wasn’t Epstein, Ahistorical Heresy, Victory Lap, and ConJournoPros
Upstream Reviews: Dracula’s Guest
Cedar Sanderson: Invisible Horses
Defending The Wood Perilous: Hell is a Holodeck,
The Bugscuffle Gazette: After Action Report, also, Unfeminism
Stoic Observations: The Grumpy Old Man Problem
Ammo.com: How old do you have to be to buy a gun?
Weird Catholic: The Pierced Heart of Mary

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: USAF’s Antique Roadshow of Logistics, also, Secondary I&W of China Getting Ready For War
Don Surber: Highlights of the Trump, also, Taladro, bebe, taladro
Racket News: What The Longest SOTU In History Didn’t Clarify, also, The NYT Makes Sports Miserable

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Category: Linkagery

The Worst People in the World (Part II)

Posted on | February 27, 2026 | No Comments

You will never understand liberals until you read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. However often I’ve recommended that book over the years, I occasionally feel the need to repeat the recommendation for the simple reason that Sowell demystifies what would otherwise be incomprehensible, i.e., the persistent tendency of the Left to make their own good intentions an argument for supporting policies that are objectively harmful to the very people that liberals claim to be “helping.” Liberals think of themselves as morally and intellectually superior (i.e., “the Anointed”) and regard others as ignorant, at best, if not indeed immoral (“the Benighted,” as Sowell says). Because liberalism is so prevalent in the education system and the media, it is possible for the liberal to go through life with this attitude and never be forced to examine their own belief system.

It is not anomalous, but is instead a logical consequence of this problem with the Anointed that objectively bad people are often the loudest voices on the bandwagon of the latest liberal crusade. If all the most prestigious media outlets are proclaiming that it is a moral duty to oppose ICE agents engaged in deporting illegal aliens, we can then predict that the anti-ICE protests will attract various deranged fanatics who, having no objective basis for feeling good about themselves, seek an ego-boost by aligning themselves with the Anointed crusade. Hence, Renee Good.

Renee Good’s life was a series of failures. She had three kids by two different fathers, losing custody of two of her own children, then took up with a lesbian “wife” and decided to move to Canada before relocating to Minnesota and joining the anti-ICE protests there. What accomplishment in her own life could Renee Good cite as a success? On what basis could she think of herself as entitled to lecture others on right and wrong?

It was during the 2013 Kaitlyn Hunt controversy that I began repeating a simple slogan: “Bad causes attract bad people.” Here you had a story that the liberal media was trying to sell as a fight against homophobic bigotry — 18-year-old high school senior prosecuted for her involvement with a 14-year-old freshman girl — but if you looked past this victimhood narrative, the facts of the case were such that Kaitlyn was scarcely a martyred heroine. She had clearly broken the law and, according to the younger girl’s parents, had obsessively stalked her victim even after the parents had warned her to stop. Prosecutors had offered Hunt a plea bargain, as is common in statutory rape cases because prosecutors do not like having to go to court in circumstances where they must rely on the “consenting” victim being forced to testify. Every year, hundreds of statutory rape cases are settled by this kind of plea bargain, but for some reason Kaitlyn Hunt’s family decided that the deal offered by prosecutors wasn’t lenient enough and instead launched the #FreeKate movement, portraying their daughter as the victim of homophobic prejudice.

Kaitlyn Hunt’s 2013 mug shot

Lunatics came out of the woodwork to jump onto the #FreeKate bandwagon and, because my blog was one of the few that was regularly following the story, these lunatics turned on me with a rabid frenzy, spewing all manner of threats and imprecations. And in every instance where it was possible to identify these people (most of whom were hiding behind online pseudonyms), they could best be described as unsavory.

When caught in the midst of such a lunatic frenzy (which has happened a few times over the years), I find it necessary to remind myself that I’m a professional journalist. I’m not an idealist crusading for a cause, but rather a guy trying to make a living as a writer. “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money,” to quote Samuel Johnson, and if you’d like to hit the freaking tip jar, this would be as good a time as any.

The #FreeKate firestorm was, as I say, one of those moments when I had to step back and take stock: “Why am I doing this? What is my objective purpose here?” and then I remembered: MEDIA BIAS!

If the regular media were doing their job correctly, there would be no reason for me to dig in on something like the Kaitlyn Hunt saga. But you had major media outlets — including ABC’s 20/20 show — promoting the #FreeKate victimhood narrative, and here I was just a guy with a blog trying to fight back against that narrative, while being threatened by an online swarm of raving lunatics: “Bad causes attract bad people.”

Memories of that experience came back to me early this morning when I saw some of the weird Trump Derangement Syndrome reactions to the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s gold medal victory. One of the weirdest reactions was when the official NHL account posted to its X account a picture of a player who wasn’t even on the U.S. team, Washington Capitals center Dylan Strome, posing with his daughter at Disneyland, with a caption praising Strome as “the ultimate girl dad.” In response, a bunch of “pronoun people” (as Greg Price calls them) jumped in with vile comments ranting against the U.S. hockey team.

Do you see the relevance to The Vision of the Anointed? Because they are liberals, supporting the current crusade of the Anointed, these people believe they’re on the side of the angels and are justified in making hateful comments about a guy who actually had nothing to do with whatever it is they’re angry about. Dylan Strome and his wife were shocked and confused, and the NHL ended up deleting the tweet.

Daniel Friedman commented on this weird brouhaha:

A lot of progressives are really bad people, and the fact that these bad people think they’re good people — the best people who have ever lived — makes them much, much worse people.

Bingo! They are the worst people in the world (the reason the headline says “Part II” is because I’d previously used the same headline for a post last month about Slate’s Heather Schwedel). The point that Friedman makes is very important: It is precisely because “these bad people think they’re good people” that they are so despicably bad. Their belief in their own inherent righteousness makes them dangerous fanatics.

Once you figure this out — that the self-professed “good intentions” of liberals are, as Sowell says, an exercise in self-congratulations — everything else about them becomes transparent. And maybe that insight is valuable enough that you’ll consider it a good idea to hit the freaking tip jar, because I’m not a blockhead. Just doin’ my job here . . .



 

Category: Media Bias, Progressivism
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