Mailbucket #19: It’s Been Zero Days Since….

Also: Get ready for the These Two Suck 501(c)4!

You write long/funny/informative emails, we periodically post some of the best ones (w/ some light editing & italicized responses), and etc.

First, though, a reminder to subscribe to our YouTube channel!

From: [self-redacted, because Wokies]

Subject: The Blackface Boston Tea Pary History My Teachers Never Told Me

Date: Sept. 28, 2025

Gents,

Paid subscriber (ding, ding MFer). Loved the reference to the Boston Tea Party in the latest episode. Kmele made an offhand joke about the blackface nature of it. But I am about to share a true, please-dear-god-make-me-anonymous story about this topic from the depths of 2020-2021 insanity.

We had a staff virtual educational presentation around Black His/Herstory by an academic. Ph.D., named professor, etc. He was going through American history, obviously centered on our roots in 1619. He then flips to a slide about the Boston Tea Party and says that the people who did it dressed as Indians specifically to have the British think Indians did it, which they fell for. As a retaliation, the British then slaughtered Indians in the area.

My ears perked up, since as a quasi-serious fan of Revolutionary history, I’d never heard any of this. Nor did it make sense on multiple levels. So, I Googled on one screen while watching on the other and found literally not a shred of evidence this was broadly or mostly true. In the meantime, there are people in the chat typing things like, “This is the history our teachers never told us!” and sad-face emoji.

Rather than do a career-ending “This is not true” in the chat, I had a back-channel conversation about it with our Diversity Officer the next day, and she said, “Even if the details maybe aren’t true, the broad narrative is.”

I thanked her for her time.

(Truthiness! Also, consider this some foreshadowing for our final email of this batch.)

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From: [self-redacted, because commies]

Subject: Additional thoughts on Thor Halvorssen’s Venezuela discussion

Date: Sept. 18, 2025

Hi Gentlemen,

I’m a fan of the show, but your most recent episode, #524, hit
especially close to home. I have loved ones from Venezuela, and I
shared this episode with one who agreed with much of what your guest,
Thor Halvorssen, had to say. One thing he would like to add, however,
is that for Venezuelans to effect change themselves, the foreign
influences currently within the country, such as the Cubans and
Russians, should first be forced out. I have a few minor points of my
own to add to the discussion.

First, many of the PDVSA employees fired after the massive strike
against Chávez were offered large bonuses to return to the company --
some a million dollars or more. Many took the bonuses, while others
saw it as a sellout of their colleagues and country and refused the
money, even though they were not millionaires themselves. These roles
were particularly difficult to fill because of the type of oil
Venezuela has; in its crude form, it is especially heavy. Most
non-Venezuelan oil experts at the time lacked experience with this
type of oil in its unrefined state. Furthermore, most countries
(outside of the U.S. and Venezuela) didn’t have the refineries needed to
process this type of oil then, which led to a drop in its value.

Second, socialism was indeed one contributing factor to the country’s
downfall. The expropriation of many companies and the price-fixing
demanded by the Chávez regime drove numerous businesses under when
they couldn’t produce their products at the government-mandated prices
-- including food products. This is something that perhaps Mamdani
should consider before advocating for such practices in NYC.

Lastly, it wasn’t just misguided socialist policies that led to the
destruction of the economy, but also rampant corruption. As I
understand it, Venezuela’s former currency exchange program allowed
people with treasury connections to exchange Venezuelan bolívares for
U.S. dollars at the official preferred rate, and then sell the dollars on
the black market at a much higher price. If repeated over enough
cycles, people could become millionaires -- and in a few instances,
perhaps even billionaires -- through this approach. Examples of this can
be found in Miami news headlines.

Anyway, I thought your guest was insightful, and I wish more Americans
better understood the tragedy that has befallen the people of
Venezuela. If you use any part of this letter, please do not include
my name, as it could potentially cause security issues for my
Venezuelan loved ones. Thanks for another great show!

(This is basically the reason we started Mailbucket in the first place: Informed additional intel from listeners! Thanks for it.)

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From: Aaron M.

Subject: Megyn Kelly

Date: Sept. 28, 2025

Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly Megyn Kelly.

Megyn Kelly.

(You’re not wrong. And may even be prescient!)

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From: m b

Subject: A Bit of Historical UVU Context

Date: Sept. 17, 2025

As Matt Welch has suggested lately, I am emulating my favorite socialist writer (Steinbeck; dogshit politics, great novels) and road-tripping across the country with a bird dog to discover America. Instead of looking for pro-segregation protests to cover, I’m trying to shoot my limit of nonnative (a conservation term, not disputing their birthright citizenship) Hungarian partridge and native, all-American, good old-fashioned Sharptail grouse. The birds my Mormon Pioneer ancestors likely ate as they crossed these same plains. Tradition.

So far the birds have been scarce, the weather is rainy, the dog is worn out, and I have a bee sting on my eyelid. The trip is going well.

I was listening to the Megyn Kelly podcast in camp while making lunch on the tailgate in between Montana thunderstorms. I was reminded of a mostly unimportant fact that seems to have been missed -- UVU is no stranger to controversies about free speech.

Megyn said (paraphrasing) that nobody on the right is trying to shut down speech. That may be true in the modern context, but it did happen while I was studying at Utah Valley State College, now known as Utah Valley University, in 2004.

As I recall it, a student group used school funds to invite Michael Moore to speak. At the time he was hyping his anti-Bush 9/11 documentary. It was intensely controversial at the time, given the conservative Mormon community of Utah Valley. While the UVSC student body was actually politically moderate trending blue (the serious religious conservatives go to BYU; UVSC was kind of a second high school for those of us who didn’t make the cut), the wider community (largely the parents of students) were outraged. It turned into about a month of local news headlines, and a BYU film student made a documentary about the controversy.

After weeks of heated protests from both sides, a tenuous compromise was struck: Moore was allowed to speak, and Sean Hannity was invited to give a (pro bono) speech as a rebuttal. Students were all encouraged to watch both speeches on campus TV if we couldn’t attend; classes were canceled to allow it. Maybe nobody would have noticed had there not been such a hubbub. I watched both speeches and largely concluded that both speakers were fucking idiots. But this was my first experience with campus speech cancellation, and it was coming from the right, not the left.

Frankly, I think the school handled it pretty well at the time. Apropos of nothing, I saw Jello Biafra speak (an anti-GWOT rant with anarcho-punk themes that I was interested in at the time) at an event in NYC a year later, and concluded he was an idiot, too.

These events were pretty pivotal in my disillusionment and disinterest in politics for the next 15 years. I really only got interested again with the Covid lockdowns. Data point of one, but there might be a model for bringing down the political temperature here, just by allowing everybody to speak and show what dumbasses they are.

Free speech. Who would have thought?

Anyways, the rain is letting up, and my Hungarian partridge mac-and-cheese (Cracker Barrel pasta!) is done. So is this bottle of whiskey, so I guess I won’t be chasing any more birds today.

I’ll be eating these (non-native, shot-on-BLM land) birds and camping on BLM land tonight, and enjoying American greatness in all its glory. Welch was pretty dismissive of the public lands controversy recently on the Reason Roundtable, and he was wrong then, but that’s another topic for another time.

(Not gonna take that bait! You are doing it very well indeed, sir, and now I have a strange craving for Hungarian partridge….

Fun fact that I probably mentioned on some ancient episode: Jello Biafra gave a talk at USCB in 1987 on “Why I’m glad the space shuttle blew up.” The crowd ate it up. He was also dating a copy editor at our campus paper, so he’d come around occasionally; nice little guy, wimpy handshake.)

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From: Michael P.

Subject: Am I in Coach? First Class? The Cargo Hold?

Date: Sept. 14, 2025

Gentlemen,

I’ve been subscribed on Substack for about a year, and to this day, I have no idea what class I’m flying. Coach? Business? Just clinging to the landing gear, screaming into the void?

Either way, I give you money, so please pretend I matter.

I wanted to ask this during the last Zoom call, but my dog needed exercise, and I didn’t think my sweaty, wheezing rant would add much value for my fellow Fifthers. You’re welcome.

Anyway. Last Thursday, I saw Sam Harris live in San Jose. He touched briefly on the Charlie Kirk assassination, but spent most of his time lamenting our broken information ecosystem. Incidentally, a confused (possibly ill) young man shooting a political commentator isn’t not connected to the industrial-strength insanity of our media diets.

But then came the solution segment: Log off. Meditate. Love your family. Pet your dog. Throw a frisbee. You’ve heard it before. Heck, I think I’ve even heard you say it. While I get it -- and I appreciate the sentiment -- it’s starting to feel a little… “If each of us does our part and recycles, we can beat global warming!” Like, thanks, but I don’t think deleting Twitter is gonna stop the next guy with a manifesto and a TikTok account.

The abyss we’re staring into isn’t something you escape by hugging your kids more (though, sure, do that, too). This thing feels industrial. Structural. Like fossil fuel burning and cement production, but for political dysfunction.

So here’s the half-baked idea I wanted to float:

What if there were a nonpartisan PAC -- not some milquetoast third-party cosplay or Lincoln Project wannabe, but a truly nonpartisan effort -- with one job: Every two years, identify the worst member of Congress from each major party (defined loosely as “most toxic to the discourse” or “most likely to start a Cameo account post-Ethics Committee investigation”), and fund a primary challenger against each of them. No ideology required, no policy demands -- just be less awful and vaguely competent. You know, the basics.

A rotating, bipartisan “Let’s All Agree These Two Suck” committee.

Would it fix anything? Probably not. But it might introduce a little radical centrism into the attention economy. Or at least give us normies somewhere to send political dollars without feeling like we’re subsidizing Laura Loomoer’s next lip augmentation or a Gender Studies reboot of The West Wing.

Look, I’m just a (relatively) young guy with time and energy and no money, and I’m growing a little desperate for a cause that’s anti-all-this-shit. Is trading in my iPhone for a brick really the best I can do?

Love the show. Keep the whiskey flowing.

(Not gonna lie, this isn’t the WORST idea…. Acknowledges the political reality that hate is the driving organizational fuel; has a built-in modesty/attainability of scope. Bountiful possibilities for user participation & juvenile meme-branding [brown paper bags over heads, that kind of thing].

What I would like to see from the These Two Suck 501(c)4 is an expansion plan after the initial bouncing of Marjorie Taylor Greene/Ilhan Omar that applies the model to state and local: worst two governors, worst two mayors, worst two attorneys general, and so on. Ideally determined by the people within that given polity. After all, over-obsessiveness about national politics + disengagement from the far more relevant-to-our-lives local stuff is part of the overall Problem.

Speaking of which: You are a Youth, so I will give you a pass on the gentle mockery of Gen X grass-touching. [Recalling that my own 10^th grade self was furious that Henry David Thoreau would rather peace out at Walden & withhold his taxes rather than try to convince anybody at anything beyond giving him more money to be a Bohemian.] I don’t know about Sam Harris, but the aim of my proselytizing is NOT for people to drop out and do nothing, but on the contrary step outside of the meme/social media/passive-political-consumption doom-loop and into the consciously human, practical, community-oriented, perspective-enhancing and frankly more FUN stuff of interacting with your physical surroundings. Touching grass and hi-fiving neighbors can make you MORE effective at influencing political outcomes [if that’s your bag]; alternately, it may suggest to you avenues outside of electoral politics where your influence can go even further.

Looking forward to your prospectus….)

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From: Jonathan F.

Subject: Sept. 29, 2025

Date: Short Time Listener, First Time Emailer

Gentlemen (if the term doesn’t reveal too much about my upbringing in the genteel late-50’s early-60’s.... I’ll throw in some with-it “fuckwads” later):

I am a new listener and subscriber, having been brought to your doorstep from Moynihan’s appearance on Jonah Goldberg’s Remnant podcast. I listened to two episodes, subscribed immediately, and am delighted until you fuckwads piss me off. (Oooh.... I feel so transgressive.) (I should note for Matt’s attention that I subscribed to Reason back when I was in grad school, even before he was cursed by a witch.)

I really don’t feel I’ve yet earned the right to comment critically, but I’d like to provide two anecdotes to accompany podcast #277.

1. On the affiliations of mass murderers: I was drinking buddies with fired-at-one-time-or-another-by-every-media-outlet in NYC Sidney Zion from about 1983-2009. There were a few stories he often told when he was drunk. One was about how James Earl Ray’s attorney Percy Foreman told him that Ray was actually a patsy in the MLK murder. But that one’s for another day. The relevant story here is that he was working at the Post (most of which seemed to involve hanging out in a bar across the street) when someone came over from the newsroom to tell the assembled scribes that police had caught the Son of Sam murderer and that he was a guy named David Berkowitz. Immediately the conversation turned to how this was going to be bad for the Jews. Sidney stood up and began to read the Riot Act to his compatriots. In an impassioned seven-minute speech (which he could reproduce at will, so that we generally needed refills when started in to tell this one), he explained that murderers were a diverse bunch, that their murders were unrelated to their ethnicity and/or religion, and that he was ashamed that anyone would even try to connect the fact that the mass murderer whose wave of terror transfixed NYC for the entire summer happened to be Jewish with any characterization of Jews in general. Again, it was a long speech that included a digression on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the slurs on the Italians engendered by Sacco and Vanzetti, etc., etc. The speech went on so long, in fact, that a second guy came over from the Post newsroom to breathlessly announce that in fact David Berkowitz was adopted. “Thank God!” said Sidney, who then sat down.

2. On curses from witches. My high school girlfriend was a witch. Indeed, she still is, running some sort of coven/Wiccan retreat in Western Massachusetts to this day. I ran into her one day some years after our time together and she said to me: “You know ... the only reason you slept with me in high school was because I cast a spell on you,” and she proceeded to describe some aspects of this spell. I stopped her and said: “Deirdre, having been a successful witch all these years, you have passed whatever market test there is to demonstrate the utility of your sorcery. But while you have a fabulous knowledge of witchcraft, you may have the worst knowledge of teenage boy psychology I’ve ever encountered.”

Keep it up ... your podcast is great.

(Ding ding ding! Welcome, Jonathan! And that’s a solid 2 for 2 on storytelling….)

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From: Dave H.

Subject: Gratitude First, Then a Question About Bullshit

Date: Sept. 17, 2025

Evening Gentleman, and listeners if you happen to mention the gratitude part on air.

First, Heather and I want to say thank you. We were floored by the kind messages, the generous donations, and the genuine care that came from the 5th community. I don’t know what donations came from this community, but I know some did, and I suspect more than I realize. Your support provided Jenny with nearly a month in a rehab facility. Thank you all.

Jenny is home now, out of the hospital, out of the rehab facility, and even out of her parents’ downstairs bedroom. She’s back with her husband and her boys. She’s not going back to teaching this year, maybe not next either. Her short-term memory is still compromised. Her speech pattern is slower. Movement on her right side is limited. But she’s improving, slowly, patiently, and with growing purpose.

That alone is a blessing we weren’t sure we’d get. When Jenny first came to, in the hospital, she was profoundly depressed. It wasn’t clear that she wanted to live, let alone fight to recover. But now? She’s here. She’s smiling. She’s joking. She’s trying. And that’s everything to us.

Thank you again. From the bottom of our hearts.

Now, if I could ask something of you guys, less personal, but no less nagging. I’d appreciate your take.

I work in private land conservation in the American West. It’s meaningful work, and I believe in it. A significant piece of the work is to talk with donors, visitors, foundation boards -- good people, by and large -- about protecting open space, conserving habitat, and stewarding land for future generations. I don’t find it difficult to make the case for that, and often I don’t need to bring politics into it.

But increasingly, I can’t avoid it.

As you might imagine, many of the people who fund our work lean liberal, center-left to far-left. And while I’ve always had a bleeding heart and can speak the language of progressive environmentalism or conservation just fine, lately, the conversations have taken a more ... apocalyptic turn.

Democracy is ending, fascism is taking hold, climate catastrophe is irreversible, white nationalists are organizing everywhere, and Trump is basically the anti ... what? Washington? Lincoln? Biden? Christ? I don’t know. Just today I had a potentially significant donor tell me, with real conviction, that the Overton Window has shifted so far right that it’ll take centuries to undo the damage. If the country still exists after MAGA has their way. He was surprised the local NPR affiliate hadn’t been shut down just because its call letters were KUER, too close to “queer” for the alleged bigots in the state we were touring.

I shit you not.

Now, I generally just nod politely, steer the conversation back to land-use policy, and get on with the business of saving actual land. I don’t challenge them. I don’t “call bullshit.” I don’t roll my eyes or push back. I smile, and then mentally drift off to thoughts of the Dodgers’ bullpen problems, my fiancée’s legs, or the bourbon I’ll have later.

But lately, I’ve been thinking about Kmele’s challenge. When he said it, I thought it was a noble sentiment, but maybe a little reckless. I wasn’t going to risk my job just to say I didn’t think DEI training was effective or that posting black squares on Instagram was performative. Anyhow, it mostly went away when I went about my work.

But the inauthenticity I live with is starting to corrode something in me. I often feel like a fraud. I don’t lie exactly, but I intentionally ignore a lot of things, and sometimes that feels worse. I feel like my silence is a kind of cowardice.

So my question to you is this:

Where’s the line? When does playing along become dishonesty? When does politeness become complicity? How do you stay grounded and sincere in a world that increasingly demands your public assent to things you quietly think are insane?

I don’t want to offend donors. I don’t want to lose funding for land conservation over some tangent about national politics. The money they provide spends the same. I also don’t want to risk losing work I believe is important. I know of no classical liberal land trust I can apply to.

But I also don’t want to become someone who just nods along forever, in silence, afraid of speaking their mind.

Where do you draw the line between authenticity and self-preservation? Am I making too much of this?

I’m mostly just typing to vent. I guess this is just another question about “Be brave and call bullshit.” I’ll go pour that bourbon I was thinking about while he insisted the KUERs were threatened.

But I’d particularly appreciate hearing your thoughts. And I apologize for the length.

(First, a big hearty congrats & go-get-‘em to Jenny! Second, you’re right, the situation really is hopeless with the Dodgers bullpen, though maybe they’ll stick some starters back there during the playoffs. Third … I mean, there’s PERC!

Now let’s tackle your question. The three of us, Michael and I in particular, have been living and breathing and talking and writing politics 80 hours a week since forever, which probably makes it both more easy and necessary to sidestep after-hours political chatter. So, unlike you, we don’t have this kind of lump of burning coal in our stomach when sitting on the receiving end of yet another factually challenged political rant at our workplaces -- we do not lack for outlets, nor opportunities to parley!

You should not mess up your job, is the initial and obvious thing. If what yr peddlin’ can be made more attractive by fitting it into their political mania, why, all the better! [People do love to hear how you care about their problems, etc.] Note here, though, that there’s a difference between client-side relations and inter-office politics. If someone comes at you with some DEI B.S. in the workplace, you should be able to cheerfully state your skepticism, perhaps in the form of follow-up questions most such H.R.-hasslers have trouble with. It is always and everywhere appropriate to remind people that it’s a big ol’ country out there, filled with scores of millions of non-evil people who disagree, and that it’s worth knowing where they’re coming from, or at least not treating them like dirt. Quietly and calmly and good-humoredly advocating for more tolerance and pluralism is a hard thing for people to object to, unless they launch into full sputter/derangement mode. Which would then move fence-sitters closer to your side….)