The Other McCain

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

Radical Vegan Transgender Cult Update: Maryland Trial Postponed Until June

Posted on | February 17, 2026 | No Comments

Left to right: Jack LaSota, Michelle Zajko, Daniel Blank

Monday was the one-year anniversary of the capture of three members of the “Zizian” cult, including the group’s leader Jack “Ziz” LaSota. The trio had been camping on private property near Frostburg, Maryland, when the property owner called police who arrested them on state charges, only to discover that they were subjects of a nationwide manhunt. LaSota and Michelle Zajko were both wanted in connection with various crimes to which the cult was believed to be connected, including the January 20, 2025, murder of a Border Patrol agent in a shootout in Vermont. The third member arrested in Frostburg was Daniel Blank, who had dropped out of UC-Berkeley and cut off contact with his family in California for two years prior to turning up in western Maryland.

On the anniversary of the Frostburg arrests, the Associated Press published an update on legal proceedings against the cult members:

CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) — The violent deaths linked to the group known as Zizians stopped at six a year ago, after a U.S. border agent was killed and three members were arrested on trespassing and gun charges in the woods of western Maryland. Seven of the group’s members are jailed in three states, all awaiting trial.
Police in Maryland quickly connected Jack “Ziz” LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank to homicide investigations in California, Pennsylvania and Vermont after a landowner found them living in box trucks at the end of a snow covered dirt road last February, according to court documents and pre-trial testimony.
“All the suspects involved are to be questioned regarding other crimes that have occurred across the country and have ties with the Zizians Cult,” Maryland state Trooper Brandon Jeffries wrote after their Feb. 16, 2025 arrests. But their prosecutions have only inched along amid trial delays and little action in other cases.
Called “Zizians” by outsiders, the young, highly intelligent computer scientists appear to share radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity and artificial intelligence. Since 2022, members have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on a California landlord, the landlord’s subsequent killing, the shooting deaths of Zajko’s parents in Pennsylvania, and a highway shootout in Vermont that left the border agent and another Zizian dead.
Jury selection was supposed to start this week in Cumberland, Maryland, where LaSota, Zajko and Blank are charged with possession of LSD and possession with intent to deliver LSD, multiple gun violations, trespassing and hindering a police officer.
The trial was delayed until June, however, after Zajko, who also is charged with resisting arrest, fired her attorney, briefly represented herself and hired a new lawyer.
In handwritten filings, she has made sprawling allegations of rights violations by snitches inside the Allegany County Detention Center and lies by police and prosecutors.
“In the interest of Hope, Justice and Truth, for the good of all people, and for the establishment of a true peace, the defense moves to dismiss this case,” Zajko declared in 20 pages of neat but almost indecipherably small handwriting.
Their lawyers and the lead prosecutor have all declined comment or not responded to interview requests.
Zajko also is accused of supplying the guns two other Zizians used in a fatal shootout in Vermont in January 2025, although her federal court docket starts and ends with the complaint charging her with lying to a Vermont gun dealer.
In that case, Teresa Youngblut is accused of opening fire on Border Patrol Agent David Maland during a traffic stop before another agent wounded her and killed her companion, Felix Bauckholt. The encounter happened just hours after President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term, but in a Maryland court filing, Zajko sought to blame it on a culture of impunity she says is now evident in the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
“Renee Good is probably dead because the regime has so far been able to get away with murdering Ms. Bauckholt & framing Youngblut,” Zajko claimed. Good was fatally shot last month by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. Neither ICE nor border patrol officials responded to messages seeking comment.
Zajko claimed authorities arrested the group to prevent them from exonerating Youngblut, who has pleaded not guilty in Vermont to murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.
“It is an act of obscene cruelty, despotism & the mark of a tyrannical regime to use a bad faith investigation & the threat of phony charges to conceal exculpatory evidence, threaten witnesses into silence, or threaten to put an innocent person to death, all to protect a murderous border patrol human,” wrote Zajko.
The judge in Youngblut’s case last week suspended deadlines for pretrial motions, citing the complexity of the capital case and noting that the exchange of evidence “will include material related to investigations into other individuals in multiple jurisdictions.”
Two other Zizians, Suri Dao and Alexander Leatham, are charged in a 2022 attack on a landlord in California that left another member, Emma Borhanian, dead, but their trial has been postponed multiple times. Another member, Maximilian Snyder, is charged with killing the landlord, Curtis Lind, three years later, just days before the Vermont shooting.
Dao’s attorney, Brian Ford, said proceedings are suspended for competency hearings and that his client is not guilty. Attorneys for the others, as well as family members of victims and those accused, either declined to comment or did not respond to messages.
LaSota, described by authorities as the apparent leader of the Zizians, has a May trial date in Baltimore federal court on a separate charge of being an armed fugitive — a charge she has asked to have dismissed, arguing it violates her Second Amendment rights.
Authorities allege LaSota faked her own death to evade charges after a 2019 protest in California and disappeared again after being accused of obstructing the investigation into the December 2022 shooting deaths of Zajko’s parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania.
No one has been charged for killing the Zajkos, and the Delaware County district attorney’s office said only that it still is being investigated. Jeffries, the Maryland trooper, said in a report that “Blank is under investigation for a double homicide that occurred in Delaware County, PA.”
Authorities also have described Zajko as a person of interest in her parents’ death. She has denied any role. In her recent filing, she referred to them as “adoptive guardians” and suggested her father might have killed her mother and then himself. Richard Zajko’s sister-in-law, Rosanne Zajko, declined to comment on behalf of the family.
James Broadwater wasn’t sure what to make of the strangers dressed all in black who parked their trucks near his home in Eckhart Mines, outside Frostburg, Maryland. Then Jeffries, the state trooper, told him to Google “Zizians.”
Broadwater testified recently that he had encountered LaSota and Zajko about a half-mile uphill from his house. They asked to stay, but Broadwater gave them until the next morning to leave. After talking with his wife he called state police.
“He changed his mind because he was afraid what would happen if he asked you guys to leave,” Jeffries said when questioned by Zajko in court.
Jeffries testified that a dispatcher had told him about an Associated Press article on the Zizians, published the day before, reporting details about the six deaths. He said LaSota told him they were willing to leave but the three would not identify themselves.
Jeffries said his suspicions were heightened because of the news coverage, their tactical gear that included ammunition on gun belts, and how the trucks were parked with chains on their tires. “I wanted to make sure I identified them before they left,” he testified, and they made the arrests.
The Zizians in Maryland have been working on a joint defense while jailed, though Blank’s parents are pressing the judge to release their son on bail, and his lawyer has sought to distance him from the others. Blank “should not be detained because of the company in which he was arrested,” attorney Rebecca Lechliter wrote.

Quite a thorough summary of a complex tale, and the excerpts from Zajko’s court filings (when she was representing herself, before getting a new lawyer) make clear that she’s far gone into paranoia and the kind of grandiose thinking typical of manic-phase bipolar disorder.

The most important news here is that the trial on state charges in Cumberland will be postponed until June, and meanwhile LaSota faces a May federal trial in Baltimore. This means three or four months of waiting, and if I decide to make a road trip to cover either of those trials in person, at least I won’t be traveling in the ice and snow.

PREVIOUSLY:



 

Category: California, Crime, Maryland, Pennsylvania, The Transgender Cult, Vermont

In The Mailbox: 02.16.26

Posted on | February 17, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Spring 2026 Based Book Sale Top Ten…So Far
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: The Day of Pickett’s Charge (1863), Rubio’s Munich Speech – The Graphic Novel, and A Day On Moonbase Alpha (2034)
357 Magnum: California Hydroelectric Failure on Friday the 13th, also Self-Defense in Washington, DC?
EBL: Robert Duvall RIP, The Rest of the Fish – Salmon, Horrific – Olive Garden Worker Deep Fries His Head, The (Imposed) Silence of the Trans, and Whitefish in Great Lakes
Twitchy: Deranged Troon Shoots Six At Rhode Island Youth Hockey Game, Gov. Hairgel Gets Torched For Playing Victim After Ted Cruz Jab, and Occasional Cortex Stuns Munich Crowd With Her Geographical “Knowledge” of South America
Louder With Crowder: Father goes off on school board after finding out they forced his son to protest ICE, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins claims with a straight face that CNN covers Trump fairly and has no bias against him whatsoever, White woman films herself harassing an ICE Agent outside of a school…except he was just a cop, Nick Shirley strikes again, uncovering homeless illegal alien kids living on the streets of Gavin Newsom’s California, and Trans lawmaker has to correct himself when she/them misgendered a “boogeyMAN”
Vox Popoli: The End of Deep Time, Why Journalism Can’t Survive, The Summons of the Sleeper, The Convergence of D&D, and The Missing Verse in Matthew
Cedar Sanderson: Getting Somewhere, also, Cookbook Wisdom – Introduction
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Conspiracies, also, Pocket Litter
Stoic Observations: The New AI God Botherers
Mazelit Airaksinen: CUNY To Host Talk On Hamas Tunnels As “Resistance To Oppression”
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: AI – Taking Your Job Or Your Pension?
Upstream Reviews: Twelve Months
Defending The Wood Perilous: Pathways & Feminine Thinking

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: ‘Nothing to Fear but Keir Himself’, also, Who’s Afraid of an Iranian Refugee Crisis?
American Greatness: AOC Facing Ridicule After Series of Embarrassing Gaffes on World Stage, Leftists Hold ‘President’s Day Flip Off’ , House Judiciary Chairman Jordan Considering Legislation to Counter Sanctuary Cities, Election 2026 – California Republicans Have a Chance, and How Deep Is the Deep State?
Animal Magnetism: Animal Magnetism LIVE Ep. 75 – Double Feature
Baldilocks: Some Personal Black History, also, Not Trying To Get Rich
BattleSwarm: Labour – The Pedophile Party, Microsoft AI Head Claims Most White Collar Jobs Will Be Automated In 18 Months, and Texas 2026 Primaries: Mayes Middleton Vs. Chip Roy For Attorney General
Behind The Black: A sinuous Martian ridge of uncertain origin, Fairing from India’s Bahubali rocket launched in December found in Maldives, Rocket Factory Augsburg getting close to launch, SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites, and Only the power-hungry truly lust for war
Cafe Hayek: Trump Aims to Repel Global Capital and Make the U.S. More Like the E.U., also, Protective Tariffs Are Designed to Obstruct Citizens’ Access to Imports
CDR Salamander: February Free For All – On Midrats, also, The Seven Sons of China Are Stealing Our Stuff
Dana Loesch: Three Very Stupid Things
Don Surber: Our presidents
Elizabeth Nickson: This Is Armageddon Energy – For Them
First Street Journal: A kerfuffle over Altar Girls
Gates Of Vienna: Valentine’s Day in Rotherham, Two Quotes on Cultural Enrichment, Trump’s Islam Policy Remains Incoherent, and Beaten to Death by Antifa
The Geller Report: SCOTUS Hands Trump Huge Foreign Aid Victory, Racist Spike Lee Wears Jihadi Outfit To NBA All-Star Game, Mass Protests Against Mullahs Reignite In Iran, Muslims Burn Nigerian Pastor & Wife Alive In Their Church, and UN Official Calls Israel “Common Enemy” Of Humanity
Hollywood In Toto: Consider Elizabethtown as a Valentine’s Day Treat, How Close Encounters of the Third Kind Special Edition Changed Hollywood, Kathy Griffin’s Comeback Captures Moral Collapse in Real Time, ‘Free Speech’ Bullying Shows Sorry State of Hollywood, Journalism, and Wake Up, Hollywood – Audiences Want Romantic Movies
Legal Insurrection: Japan Nets Chinese Trawler as Global Backlash to Beijing’s Fishing Raiders Grows, Rubio’s Munich Speech: A Powerful Message Delivered With Grace and Diplomacy, Maryland Woman Tells School Board She Called Child Protective Services Over TPUSA Meeting, Congress Demands Answers From ATF Over Backdoor Gun Registry, and Potomac Interceptor Rupture Poised to Become the Largest Sewage Spill in U.S. History
Nebraska Energy Observer: Amelia on G. K. Chesterton, and life now in the formerly free world, McClintock, and Rubio
Outkick: Dramatic Bubba Wallace Acted Unbelievably After The Daytona 500, Driver Quits With Two To Go & We’ve Got BEEF!, Here’s How NBC’s Disastrous Investment in the NBA Could Cost Network the NFL, Stephen A. Smith: The Dunk Contest Died On LeBron James’ Watch, Losing A Hockey Fight To A Frenchman Should Be Grounds For Automatic Expulsion From Olympics, and MLB Network’s Abby Labar Melts Brains In An Upside-Down Dress, ESPN Had A ROUGH Weekend & AOC Knows Geography!
Power Line: Elon and the Engineers, Why Khanna can do it, In re Presidents Day, Day No. 2 of ‘shutdown’ No. 3, and When all men are paid for existing
Racket News: The Swamp Log
Shark Tank: DeSantis Touts Success Of State’s Iguana Removal
STUMP: The Week In Meep
This Ain’t Hell: Army veteran Robert Duvall dies aged 95, Cuba’s Impending Collapse, and President Donald Trump says Voter ID will be in place for midterms, with or without Congress
Transterrestrial Musings: Ice Dancing, About That Wet Dress Rehearsal, and The Manchurian Candidate
Victory Girls: Valentine’s Day at the 2026 Winter Olympics: Milan’s Olympic Village Runs Out of Condoms, Hillary Clinton’s “Women’s Rights” Panel Featured a Man, and TSA Takes The Brunt Of Latest Democrat Government Shutdown
Watts Up With That: AI and Air Conditioning are Allegedly Threatening Renewable Energy Dominance, The University of East Anglia Discovers the Urban Heat Island Effect, WUWT Leads The Way Again, The hidden impact of polluted snow, and Models Gone Wild: The Ionosphere Triggers Earthquakes?
The Federalist: From Chuck To AOC, Here Are The Worst People Of The Week, EXCLUSIVE: Chip Roy Lays Out How Senate Can Vote On SAVE Act Without Nuking Filibuster, Andrew Sullivan Is A Trump Supporter, But As With Most Things Political He Just Doesn’t Know It, Rooting Against Anti-American Olympians Is The Patriotic Thing To Do, and Ed Crane Was Right About Free Speech And The Iraq War Years Before The Country Caught Up
Mark Steyn: The End Game, If It’s Tuesday This Must Be the Belgian Stabber, Dead Man Walking: Lee Marvin in Point Blank, On the Town: In the Pink, and A Presidential Medley, Part One

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Category: Linkagery

Warning: Stay Away From St. Louis

Posted on | February 16, 2026 | No Comments

The headline probably seems like common sense to anyone who knows anything about St. Louis. If you’re from Missouri or the part of western Illinois near St. Louis, you probably don’t need any warnings, because the city is notorious dangerous, and folks in the immediate vicinity know to avoid it. “Well, Stacy, how dangerous is St. Louis?” you ask.

IT’S WORSE THAN BALTIMORE!

This is a Third World category of danger found in very few places in the United States. In 2023, only two cities — New Orleans, with a homicide rate of 46 per 100,000 residents, and Memphis, at 41 per 100,000 residents — exceeded the rate in St. Louis which, at 38 homicides per 100,000 residents, was worse than either Baltimore or Washington, D.C., which tied for fourth place that year. My friend Dana Pico likes to joke about “Killadelphia,” but the homicide rate there was just 26 per 100,000. And there were twice as many homicides per capita in St. Louis than in either Cleveland or Detroit. That’s pretty doggone bad.

Did I mention that the population of St. Louis has seen a drastic decline in recent decades? There are currently fewer than 300,000 residents in the city, down more than 50% since 1970, but not all of the lost population was murdered. Most of them escaped to the suburbs, or left the area entirely, as rampant crime turned St. Louis into a nightmare of violence and thievery. Did I mention that St. Louis is a stronghold of the Democratic Party? The city is part of Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, which is rated D+29 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index and was formerly represented by “Squad” member Cori Bush, before she lost the 2024 Democratic primary to Wesley Bell. (Who to blame? The Jews!)

Former Rep. Cori Bush (D-St. Louis)

In the 2024 election, Kamala Harris got 81% of the vote in St. Louis. Nothing good ever happens in a place where 80% of people vote Democrat, which is why it would be a mistake to think that you could grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks in St. Louis and survive the experience:

ST. LOUIS — A woman was fatally shot Tuesday morning in the drive-through area of a Starbucks coffee shop in the city’s Tower Grove East neighborhood, police said.
The incident took place about 10 a.m. in the 2300 block of South Grand Boulevard near Sidney Street.
Police were searching the area for a man wearing a lime green vest and hard hat who was walking away from the scene.

If you’ll look at the map at the top of the post, you can see that this Starbucks is near Tower Grove Park, actually one of the “good” neighborhoods in St. Louis, but given the wretchedness of the city, even the “good” neighborhoods are awful. The victim of Tuesday’s shooting was soon identified as 28-year-old ice skating coach Sam Linehan.

Murder victim Gabrielle ‘Sam’ Linehan

It did not take long for police in St. Louis to apprehend the suspect who, to no one’s surprise, had “a lengthy criminal record”:

A former Team USA skater was reportedly shot and killed in a Starbucks drive-thru in Missouri during an alleged armed robbery involving a suspect with a lengthy criminal record.
Citing court documents, the New York Post said Gabrielle “Sam” Linehan, 28, was sitting in her car outside the coffee shop when she was murdered on Tuesday shortly after 10 a.m.
The media outlet identified the suspect as 58-year-old Keith Lamon Brown.
Online jail records show Brown was arrested early Wednesday morning. He was charged with first-degree murder, three counts of first-degree robbery, four counts of armed criminal action, as well as one count of unlawful possession of a gun connected to Linehan’s death and other recent robberies, according to the records.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department shared surveillance photos of the suspect, which showed him wearing a high-visibility vest and white helmet during the time of the deadly shooting.
Police said a SWAT team later executed a search warrant at his home, where detectives found evidence from two prior robberies.
Court documents allege that Brown was wanted for two armed robberies that happened just a few days before Linehan’s murder.
“On or about February 6, 2026, the defendant pointed a firearm into the Confidential Victim 1’s vehicle while she was in the drive-thru. He stole a 9mm handgun, her purse containing bank cards, and Confidential Victim 1’s and her daughter’s cell phones,” the documents noted.
“On or about February 8, 2026, the defendant went into a store and pointed his firearm at Confidential Victim 2, who was working as a cashier, demanding and receiving money. At both locations, he discharged his firearms,” according to the documents.
The documents also described Brown as a convicted felon, noting that he has a criminal history that dates back to 1986.
“On or about November 14, 1986, in County of Saint Louis, the defendant was convicted of the offense of armed criminal action,” the documents show.
About a decade later on October 31, 1996, he was convicted of the offense of armed criminal action, per the records.

Accused killer Keith Lamon Brown

This guy is a one-man crime wave, and appears to have been perpetrating felonies more or less continuously since he was a teenager. Which is to say, he is a typical resident of St. Louis, a city where Kamala Harris got 81% of the vote. Nothing good ever happens there, and the only advice I can offer is to avoid St. Louis entirely. Don’t become a statistic.



 

Category: Crime, Missouri

Rule 5 Sunday: Snow Bunnies

Posted on | February 16, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

From the files.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Jamie Lee Kendall, Arizona Willy Wonka Ferry Ride of Terror Continues, Fish Pic Friday – Nicky’s Addicted to Fishing, Bay Salmon Farm Seeks Tighter Pollution Controls, Thursday Tanlines, Bay Foundation Throws its Weight Behind MD Rockfish Regs, The Wednesday Wetness, Watermen Want More Time to Get That Last Oyster, WaPoo Openly Worries About Hot Trump Economy, Interceptor, Lindsey Vonn Crashes Out, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Super Bowl LX, If Only, Random Celebrity News and Palm Sunday

BACON TIME: Rule 5 – Yes, I Will Have A Beer, and Rule 5 – Butt It’s Friday

Thanks for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Harvey Dent Week

Posted on | February 15, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The Senators went 3-3 this week, sweeping the hapless A’s before going to Minneapolis and getting swept by the division-leading Twins, who we are now trailing by 9.5 games. We’re facing the Daytraders tonight and the Tribe on Friday, so I’m not too optimistic about this week. We’ll see what happens.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

“A Perfectly Good White Boy”
EBL
357 Magnum

FMJRA 2.0: Better Late Than Never
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum


Rule 5 Monday: Boots & Bikinis
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 02.10.26
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 02.11.26 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

A Heinous Crime and a Mystery Motive
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 02.13.26 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 02.13.26 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

The Canadian ‘Gunperson’ and the Syllogism of the Liberal Narrative

Posted on | February 15, 2026 | No Comments

The phrase “deranged transgender teenager” may be somewhat redundant, and especially when you add “Canadian” to the phrase. Is there any such thing as a normal transgender teenager? And isn’t everybody in Canada more or less deranged? Nevertheless, perhaps we can all agree that 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar was not even normal by Canadian standards. Notice my use of the past tense.

Roostselaar (who also has been called Jesse Strang, because that was his mother’s surname) began his Tuesday murder rampage in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, by killing his mother and stepbrother, then went to the nearby elementary school where he killed six people and wounded 27 others before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot. And what’s really important, of course, is not to “misgender” the mass murderer:

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police described the suspected shooter as a “gunperson” in a presser on Tuesday’s attack at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia.
CTV News aired the press conference, during which a reporter asked about a “gunperson” and RCMP North District Commander Chief Superintendent Ken Floyd responded by referencing “the deceased gunperson.” . . .
The BBC noted that an alert went out when the incident was reported that described the alleged shooter as a “female in a dress with brown hair.” During the presser, Floyd confirmed that the shooter was the same individual described in the alert.

Ace of Spades points out that in Canada, mental health professionals are forbidden by law from expressing doubt about a patient’s desire for gender treatment. If a schizophrenic declares himself to be “a woman trapped in a male body,” a psychiatrist must “affirm” the patient’s gender identity, without regard for how otherwise crazy the patient may be.

Jesse Van Rootselaar

Weird how he looks like every glam-metal guitarist from the 1980s, but Jesse Van Rootselaar apparently didn’t spend his time in the garage with a Gibson Les Paul plugged into a Marshall stack, the way long-haired teenage boys used to do. Instead he was plotting mayhem:

The teenager who murdered his mother and step-brother in a mass shooting in a Canadian town had tried to kill his family before, a neighbour revealed. . . .
Melanie, who lives several houses down from the home Van Rootselaar shared with his mother and four younger siblings, said he had previously deliberately set fire to the house in 2023.
She told The Telegraph: “A couple of years back, he lit their house on fire because he was trying to kill his own family… it almost completely burnt down.
“He was just sitting out in the front when the fire trucks arrived.”
Melanie, who only provided her first name, described how “everyone on the street saw the blaze”, which she said destroyed most of the inside of the wooden plank home.
However, the incident was later “dismissed” by police, she added. Authorities have not confirmed the incident.
The troubled teenager had a history of mental health issues and was struggling to transition to a female. Police had made numerous call-outs to their home over the last several years, related to mental health and firearms incidents.
Van Rootselaar had mentioned the arson attack in a social media post seen by The Telegraph, saying he did it under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms.
The gunman, who discussed using illegal hallucinogens several times online, wrote on Oct 28 2023: “I went crazy and burnt my house down the second time trying shrooms, but still have the desire to try alternatives.”
He said he had a “complete break from reality and did a lot of irrational things, I felt like I was dreaming. Many consequences ensued.”

Why are we expected to have sympathy for this weirdo? Why did Canadian authorities and most of the news media feel the need to avoid “misgendering” a mass murderer? It has to do with how the liberal belief system is organized around sympathy for Victim Groups.

Every time I use the word “liberal” to describe the ideology of the Left — the motivating belief system of the Democratic Party — some pedant is sure to pop into the comments lecturing me about classical liberalism, as if he’s a college professor and I’m an ignorant sophomore who signed up for his Political Science class. The pedantic comments always annoy me, with the insulting implication that I don’t already know this distinction. And then you have another bunch of know-it-alls who want to make distinctions between liberal Democrats of the old-fashioned Walter Mondale variety and those left-wingers (e.g., AOC) who nowadays call themselves “progressives.” These fine points of nomenclature, however interesting they may be, are not relevant to the phenomena at issue.

Have you ever read Up From Liberalism by William F. Buckley Jr.? If not, you should order a copy immediately. It was published in 1959, the year I was born, but is still very valuable as a study of rhetorical methodology. Buckley was a fine writer who knew how to construct an argument. On page 4 of Up From Liberalism, Buckley remarks:

I detect a little discomfort, here and there, when the word “Liberal” is bandied about. Many people are not satisfied to be unique in the eyes of God, and spend considerable time in flight from any orthodoxy.

He solves the problem by reference to Eleanor Roosevelt:

Because Liberalism has no definitive manifesto, one cannot say, prepared to back up the statement with unimpeachable authority, that such-and-such a man or measure is “Liberal.” But one can say that Mrs. Roosevelt is a Liberal, and do so confident that none will contradict him.

For you kids out there, it is perhaps necessary to explain that, after FDR’s death, his widow continued to be politically active. Her syndicated column was published in newspapers until her death in 1962, for example. Buckley’s point was, if Eleanor Roosevelt was not a liberal, nobody was a liberal, and the category “liberal” could thus be given actual meaning. Buckley went on to name other individuals and institutions (e.g., Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Edward R. Murrow, the Washington Post) as examples belonging to the category “liberal.” It is not necessary for me to repeat Buckley’s exercise with updated examples in order to demonstrate the continued existence of the category “liberal,” although I might cite Hillary Clinton, Mika Brzezinski, and others as such.

Having disposed of that chore — to preempt you damned pedants from lecturing me about liberalism, as though I were a schoolboy in need of your tutelage — now I will proceed to the main task of explaining the underlying psychological mechanism of liberal belief. Here I make no claim to real originality. Anyone can grab a copy of Thomas Sowell’s 1995 classic The Vision of the Anointed and see how he shows that the Anointed worldview involves dealing with “mascots” (groups for whom the Anointed pose as advocates, e.g., the homeless) and “targets” (the villains in this political melodrama, e.g., the U.S. military).

There is a syllogism hidden behind all liberal rhetoric:

  • A. Group X are victims of wrongful oppression;
  • B. Democrats want to help Group X;
    therefore
  • C. VOTE DEMOCRAT!

It really is as simple as that. It is as true now, as much as it was the year I was born (when Buckley was examining the phenomenon of liberalism), that there is a symbiotic relationship between liberal beliefs and electoral propaganda of the Democratic Party, so much so that a chicken-and-the-egg question of causality arises: Are Democrats advocating a particular policy because a significant element of their constituency demands it, or have these constituents been persuaded to support this policy because prominent Democrats have told them it will help them win elections?

Leaving aside such questions, the point is that liberal beliefs are a matter of categorical sympathy — certain groups of people are classified as victims of social injustice, and are therefore deserving of sympathy merely because of their membership in the category. In the beginning (if I may plagiarize the Book of Genesis), liberals professed concern for the plight of “the poor,” who were said to be victimized by “the rich.” Sometimes this was expressed as a conflict between “workers” and “industry,” but however it was described, the rich/poor dynamic was liberalism’s original version of categorical sympathy.

After World War II, however, liberalism began to de-emphasize this economic warfare rationale for two reasons: First, postwar prosperity made the middle class a far more important constituency than “the poor,” and second, the Cold War cast a shadow of suspicion on anyone who spoke of “workers” as possibly being a Communist sympathizer.

Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency represented the pinnacle of 20th-century middle-class politics. Ike was neither an ideologue nor much of a partisan, and conservatives like Buckley grew dissatisfied with the moderate bipartisanship of Eisenhower-era Republicanism. Liberals, meanwhile, were grasping for something — anything — to replace the political leverage they’d lost with the decline of the rich-vs.-poor rationale that won the Democratic Party landslide majorities in the New Deal era.

You can never understand liberalism if you do not view it in the context of partisan politics. It is true that there were, and to some extent still are, conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, but at least since 1964 — when Barry Goldwater presented the electorate with what Ronald Reagan called “A Time for Choosing” — political controversy in America has been largely a matter of liberal Democrats vs. conservative Republicans. It is foolish to pretend that ideology (a belief system or worldview) transcends partisanship (electoral politics).

Civil rights (blacks oppressed by whites) became the crusading issue for liberals in the 1960s, with feminism (women oppressed by men) subsequently ascending to an equal prominence in the pyramid of priorities defining categorical sympathy. Adding these two vectors to the liberal Democratic worldview, you come up with this basic formula:

VICTIMS vs. OPPRESSORS
Poor vs. Rich
Black vs. White
Women vs. Men

The ultimate victim was a poor black woman and the ultimate oppressor was a rich white man. It is nevertheless remarkable that a lot of the most prominent Democrats promoting this worldview were rich white men like Ted Kennedy and Al Gore. In the 1980s, the AIDS crisis boosted gay rights as a priority for Democrats, so that a new categorical sympathy vector of gay-vs.-straight was added to the pyramid of oppression, and more recently, transgenderism has become a another priority.

It is important to emphasize that the political priorities of liberalism make the requirement of sympathy categorical — all black people are entitled to sympathy, simply by their group membership, without regard to their individual behavior or other factors. No matter how rich a black person may be (e.g., NBA stars), they must be regarded as sympathetic victims of racial oppression, and never mind how this may conflict with the original rich/poor dynamic of liberal belief. For similar reasons, although white males are automatically regarded as villains in the liberal worldview, one may not criticize Pete Buttigieg, who is gay and therefore entitled to categorical sympathy by his membership in a victim group.

The term “intersectionality” was coined by black feminist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to reconcile such apparent contradictions in liberal beliefs, arguing for a sort of “Popular Front” strategy against the dual menace of racism (white supremacy) and sexism (patriarchy). Then in 1990 Judith Butler published Gender Trouble, the founding document of postmodern “queer theory,” which had the effect of adding transgenderism to the intersectionality formula:

VICTIMS vs. OPPRESSORS
Poor vs. Rich
Black vs. White
Women vs. Men
Gay vs. Straight
Trans vs. Cis

Ru Paul is now the ultimate victim, except for the fact that Ru Paul is very rich, so that a poor black cross-dresser must be considered as sitting at the apex of those entitled to categorical sympathy. Like all other dynamics in the liberal worldview, their advocacy on behalf of transgenderism comes with a set of rules — a protocol of victimhood etiquette, as it were — including for example taboos against “misgendering” or “dead-naming” any member of the category.

Here, at last, we arrive at the explanation for why officials and media were so careful in discussing the “gunperson” Jesse Van Rootselaar. Even though Canada does not have the same Democrat/Repubican partisan divide that shapes liberalism in the United States, one finds that throughout the English-speaking world — including the U.K., Australia, etc. — a similar symbiotic relationship between ideology and partisanship prevails, liberalism having become one of America’s major exports.

Categorical sympathy means that those considered to be members of victim groups are to be regarded as saintly heroes, no matter what they do, and that is why everybody is required to tiptoe lightly around the issue of Jesse Van Rootselaar’s transgenderism, lest we somehow stigmatize the mass murderer of innocent schoolchildren.



 

Category: Canada, Crime, Liberals, The Transgender Cult

In The Mailbox: 02.13.26 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | February 14, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

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

Drunk catgirls on Roombas. This is the way.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: The Day They Killed JFK (1963), also, Ring, Nest, & The Invisible Surveillance State
357 Magnum: How Do You Run a City Without a Tax Base? also You didn’t think Windows 11 could actually get more annoying
EBL: Kathryn Ruemller, Clinton and Obama Attorney and Epstein Pal, Out At Goldman, Great Lake Invaders, Flatfish Friday, Cool Papa Bell, and Japan’s Empty Island
Twitchy: One Simple Graph Shows How Democrats Tried To Destroy America With Illegal Immigration, Gov. Hairgel Promises Climate Deniers Will Face A Religious Reckoning, and Administration To Investigate School Over Charges That Troon Assaulted Girl During Wrestling Match
Louder With Crowder: They let Occasional Cortex speak in Munich, where she tosses a word salad on “authoritarianism” that only makes sense to her, “Raging Grannies” perform their latest CRINGE anti-ICE anthem instead of spending time with their grandkids, Creepy guy hoping to replace Nancy Pelosi drops video where he hangs out with children protesting ICE, and Democrat senator demands you show your ID to attend rally…where he tells you Blacks and women don’t know how to get an ID
Vox Popoli: The Waking of the Palantír, McCarthy and the Molecular Clock, Happy Darwin Day, and The Epstein Inquisition
According To Hoyt: Coming Home to You, The Writer In A State, You Pay The Price, Blast From The Past: We Don’t Make Ourselves, and Risk and Opportunity
The Bugscuffle Gazette: All right
Gab: Why AI Can’t Save Us

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Don’t Trade Away America for Some Soybeans, Trump’s Cuba Policy Is a Humanitarian Disaster, The Promise and Perils of Korean Reunification, Europe, South Korea, and Brazil Attack U.S. Tech Over Free Speech, and Starmer Survives a Palace Coup, But for How Long?
American Greatness: Feds Have Reportedly Charged 158 Anti-ICE Agitators With Federal Crimes in Minnesota; More Expected, Rep. LaMonica McIver Asks ICE Director If He Thinks He’s ‘Going to Hell’ During House Hearing, Trans Maniac Kills 8, Injures 25 in Mass School Shooting in British Columbia, Former Obama White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler Resigns From Goldman Sachs Amid Epstein Fallout, and SBA Uncovers Massive Fraud in California: 111,620 Borrowers Linked to $8.6 BILLION in Pandemic Fraud
Animal Magnetism: Animal Magnetism LIVE Ep. 74 – Visiting Moose
Baldilocks: Great Black Patriots Of The U.S. Congress – Revisited
BattleSwarm: Jeffrey Epstein Revelations Update, No More Illegal Alien Buyers For Colony Ridge, California’s Wealth Streams For The Exits, Uncle Sam Assembles Big Stick For Iran, and LinkSwarm For February 13
Behind The Black: FAA confirms “no significant impact” to environment for Starship/Superheavy at Boca Chica, SpaceX launches new crew to ISS, Axiom raises another $350 million in private investment capital, Vast wins sixth ISS slot for tourist mission, and NASA testing SLS fuel leak repairs; UPDATE: Problems!
Cafe Hayek: On Job Growth in 2025 – Even Worse, Compared to 2017, Than Earlier Reported, More on Jobs Growing More Slowly in 2025 than in 2017, Katherine Mangu-Ward Is Right, and Comparing U.S. Economic Performance in 2025 to that of 2017
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: In Washington Post Delendum, Worthwhile Reading, and Rabbit Season (UPDATED)
Da Tech Guy: Under the Fedora: Somebody is Listening
Don Surber: The stupidity of environmentalism
First Street Journal: A half-hearted defense of Jeff Bezos, Will Bunch and due process of law, Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen, and Now you know why I call it Journolism!
Gates Of Vienna: Knife Attack Thwarted at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Culture-Enriching Dismemberment in Belgium, Those Railroad Blues, Monarchy, and What Do They Know?
The Geller Report: Thirty Years, $10 Trillion—and Absolutely Zero Impact on the Climate, FIERCE: AG Bondi SLAYS Democrats at Congressional Hearing, VIRGINIA: Loudoun County Trains Staff to Fight ‘Terrorist’ Parents, Female Muslim TV Host: “Allah Allows Muslim Men to Rape Non-Muslim Women to Humiliate Them.”, and Major Trump Win: Mandatory Detention, No-Bond For Illegals
Glenn Reynolds: The Coming Revolution Down South
Hollywood In Toto: Charlie’s Angels to Rise from the Woke Ashes, Shock: Three Major Stars Refuse to Get Political, Bill Maher Says Jimmy Kimmel Ended Our Friendship Over Politics, One Battle After Another’s Price Tag Just Got Even Higher, and This Wuthering Heights Will Drive Purists Mad
Legal Insurrection: Alleged NYC Antisemitic Stabbing Suspect Out on Bail as Incidents Rise 182% Under Mamdani, USDA Deploys Sterilized Flies, High?Tech Arsenal to Guard the Border Against Screwworm Threat, State Dept. Links ‘Code Pink’ and Other Far-Left Groups to the Chinese Communist Party, January 2026 Inflation Eases a Bit to 2.4%, and In the End, it is Trump Who Has Done More Than Anyone to Bring Down Epstein
Nebraska Energy Observer: Christ Come to Cleanse the Temple, The Midweek Report, Remembering the Great Emancipator, The Ghost of England’s Past, continued, and The Guthrie Kidnapping
Outkick: EXCLUSIVE: Dept. Of Ed. Opens Investigation Into Alleged Sexual Assault By Trans Wrestler During HS Match, Whiskey Sales, NIL, Tennessee Fans: Joey Aguilar’s Fight Against NCAA Had It All, With Vols Arguing In Court, ‘Quad God’ Ilia Malinin Falls Twice, Finishes Eighth After Shocking Performance, Olympic Curling Chaos As Sweden Accuses Team Canada Of Cheating During Heated On Ice Confrontation, and Nancy Mace Shoots Up The ‘Hot Congresswoman’ Chart In A Tiny Top, Daytona 500 Cheerleaders & Libs Vs. A Grill!
Power Line: The Law, With Entertainment Value, Obama White House Counsel ?? Jeffrey Epstein [Updated], Unhouse me here, Remembering Mr. Lincoln, and What’s Wrong With White Women?
Racket News: A Play-By-Play of Jeffery Epstein’s Staggering Financial Illiteracy
Shark Tank: Byron Donalds Says He’ll Visit Israel As Governor, Outlines Existential Threat Of Sharia Law
Shot In The Dark: Where There’s Smoke, The Security B-Movie, and Squirrel
STUMP: Political Mortality – Rahm Emanuel Says There Should Be A Mandatory Retirement Age of 75 For Key Federal Roles
The Political Hat: The Post-American Arsonists, Quick Takes – Speed Bumps Against Euthanasia, and Firing Line Friday: Firing Line 1966-1986: A Potpourri of Persuaders
This Ain’t Hell: Wealthy Californians eying move to Las Vegas as a means to reduce their tax burden, Virginia Democrats are pushing a redistricting bid to increase the numbers of House Democrats in Congress, Valor Friday, Gotta be careful, and Fly the Friendly Skies of El Paso
Transterrestrial Musings: Trump/Epstein, Iran Thoughts, and Elon’s Mars To Moon Pivot
Victory Girls: Tampon Timmy Has a Tantrum, Come On, Eileen Gu, You’re Not American Any More, and SAVE America Act Passes House, Can It Pass The Senate?
Watts Up With That: The Super Bowl Without EVs Tells You Everything, New York Times Gives Wind Turbines a Free Pass to Slaughter Birds, Harvard Divinity School and the New Climate Inquisition, New York Climate Act Issues, and Macron says Spain’s mega-blackout was due to the country’s reliance on renewable energy
The Federalist: Don’t Wait Until Valentine’s Day To Romance Your Spouse , Virginia High Court Greenlights Democrat Effort To Give Millions Of Republicans A Single Seat In Congress, While Jimmy Lai Sits In Prison, Eileen Gu Takes The CCP’s Millions, The Nixon Library Is Wrong About Nixon And The Deep State, and Mamdani Demands U.S. Immigration Policy Start Obeying Islam
Mark Steyn: Groovy and Gone, Bob Fosse Uncut in My Sister Eileen, If You Were the Only Girl in the World, Gross for Grapes, and Live Around The Planet – The Mounties Always Get Their Person

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Best Sellers – Tools & Home Improvement
New Releases – Tools & Home Improvement
H&R Block Deluxe & State Tax Software


 

Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 02.13.26 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | February 13, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The 2026 Spring Based Books Sale is underway!
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: The Day Mount Vesuvius Erupted (79), also, How The West’s Censorship Infrastructure Was Built 
357 Magnum: More Improvised Weapons, also Florida Is a Bad Place for Bad Guys
EBL: The Scream, The Women of the Rockford Files, Pink Porgy, Ponies, and Trees Taking Over The Great Plains
Twitchy: U.S. Oil & Gas Association Realizes Democrats Use Them As Props but Demonize Them Otherwise, Meteorologist Takes Al Gore’s Freakout Apart, and Watch As Keith Ellison Realizes He Just Told The Truth About Democrats & Illegals And Can’t Spin It
Louder With Crowder: Illinois Town Starts Handing Out $25,000 To 44 Black People As A Form Of Reparations, ICE arrests migrant charged with 50 pounds of meth, check the DISHONEST way legacy media is covering it, Rand Paul blasts Katie Couric for minimizing arrests of violent illegals, attempts to explain it slowly to her, Scott Jennings causes CNN meltdown when no one would answer his one-word question about them opposing voter ID, and Jasmine Crockett spews more hate, claims even white democrats are probably racist “behind closed doors”
Vox Popoli: Recalibrating Man, Not Necessarily Self-Inflicted, The Black Spies of Dunland, The Corpocrats Complain, and Book Review: The Frozen Gene
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: The End of 2Tier Keir
Cedar Sanderson: Akbar’s Bridge
Weird Catholic: The Wood of the Cross
Gab: The Patronage Problem,
Stoic Observations: We Are Spirits In The Material World
Jim McCoy: Let’s Fix ‘Em
The Abbey of Misrule: Writers Against AI
Ammo.com: How Many Guns In The U.S.?
Upstream Reviews: Reviews From The Spring Based Book Sale

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: All Euro-NATO Reporting Is Suspect Until Further Notice, also, Well You Could Have Had A Deployment Like Truxtun
Dana Loesch: Catholic League Removes Wannabe Influencer From White House Religious Commission, also, It’s An Epidemic – Canadian Troon Killer Targets School 
Don Surber: Macron v. Trumpzilla, also, Transgendering into a killer
Racket News: Dr. Jekyll & Ms. Bondi, Brits Spied On Racket & Other Journalists, Activism Uncensored – A Return To Minneapolis, and FBI Gathered Intel On Thousands of Journalists, Politicians & Religious Organizations On Flimsy Grounds

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Best Sellers – Snacks & Sweets
Survival Foods
H&R Block Deluxe & State Tax Software




 

Category: Linkagery
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