MARK JUDGE: The Real America: Instapundit, Nancy in Nebraska—and Rick the Bartender.

I recently wrote that I’m going to be leaving journalism soon. I want to thank people who’ve helped me survive and produce work the last few years. One of them is Glenn Reynolds, otherwise known as Instapundit. Instapundit is a conservative American political blog created by Glenn Reynolds, a law professor. It launched in August 2001 and is now one of the biggest and best sites in the world.

It’s also the place that helped me finish my book. In the summer of 2020 I was about halfway through my book The Devil’s Triangle when the small advance I received ran out. I didn’t mind going back to work at Home Depot fulltime, but there was no way I was ever going to finish the book. Instapundit came to the rescue. He put out an appeal to readers, who boosted the crowdfunding site I was using for donations. People even sent checks to my UPS box. Because of them I was able to finish the book. I won’t forget that.

There are people like Instapundit, who aren’t elites, who’ll offer support when all other options have run out. That was the position I found myself in in 2020. I’d been the target of a nasty attempted political hit in 2018 when a woman named Christine Blasey Ford claimed that Brett Kavanaugh, nominee for the Supreme Court, had sexually assaulted her in 1982. Ford claimed that I was in the room where the assault allegedly took place. It was a set-up, an opposition research hit that invoked criminal activity. It was also traumatizing.

Exit quote: “Then a [Washington] Post reporter made the mistake of showing up at Rick’s home, the rural Virginia house where he lives with his wife and dogs. Rick was bartending at the time, but a neighbor tipped him off to some loser with a notebook and a ponytail who was snooping around. Rick told the neighbor to feel free to arm himself. Rick’s phone rang. It was the Post reporter. ‘I just have two things to say to you,’ Rick said. ‘Everybody on my street hates the media, and everybody on my street owns a gun.’ At that point the reporter saw the neighbor approaching, locked and loaded. The reporter fled.”

Needless to say, read the whole thing.