In The Mailbox: 04.17.25 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | April 18, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.17.25 (Evening Edition)

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: “Rabbit strike” forces United Airlines plane to do an emergency landing, Your Friends & Neighbors, The Last Supper : Holy Thursday, and David Hogg: The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Twitchy: Bodycam Footage Of “Community Leader” Released, Rob Schneider Nails Why Democrats Have A Love Affair With Illegal Alien Criminals, and Harvard Imitates National Lampoon Cover In Real Life
Louder With Crowder: Chris Pratt prepares for Easter as only he can – by erecting a giant cross, It’s now a hate crime to ask people to “speak English” in the UK, As CNN’s Scott Jennings warns about adults dressed as rabbits, here’s one pummeling some dude on these streets, and As CNN tries convincing you people regret voting for Donald Trump, their polling guru has news that will break their hearts
Vox Popoli: Insufficient Brutality, Clown World Fears Peace, and Everyone Knows
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: AI = Actively Incinerating Cash?
Jim McCoy: Blood Country
Gab: The Biggest Plot Twist In History

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: We don’t need social cohesion, our house is worth $3 million
American Conservative: The Chinese Honeypot Problem, also, What Would Jesus Do?
American Greatness: Father of Stabbing Victim Austin Metcalf Kicked Out of Karmelo Anthony Press Conference in Dallas, Deported MS-13 Gang Member Kilmar Abrego Garcia Was Detained For Human Trafficking in 2022, $660 Million Judgment Against Greenpeace Shows Org was Guilty of ‘Attacking Others’ Legal Freedoms’, DHS Sec. Kristi Noem Announces $2.7B in Grants to Harvard Are Cancelled, and Ten Environmentalist Myths
American Thinker: No One Is Above the Law—Including Letitia James, Pam Bondi and the Genesis of Black Lives Matter, Katy Perry, Astronautesse and Unifying Force, Trump’s National Security Emergency Investigation Into Election Fraud Is Ongoing, and Ready for Your Home to Become a Government School?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday, Animal’s Daily Eagle News, Animal’s Hump Day News, and Animal’s Red Thursday News
BattleSwarm: How Trump’s Tariffs Are Crushing China, Bill And Don’s Excellent Dinner, The Semiconductors Tariff Yo-yo, Russia Reveals They Control Drones From Atop School For Psychics, and Nvidia News Roundup
Behind The Black: Oman announces aggressive ’25 launch schedule and public viewing area at its new Duqm spaceport, Japan’s Hayabusa-2 asteroid probe in safe mode, Texas lawmakers now lobbying to move NASA headquarters to Houston, Astronomers detect chemicals on exoplanet that on Earth come from life, and An American government program to get to the Moon is simply not necessary
Cafe Hayek: On Mid-20th-century Manufacturing Jobs, Kent Lassman Calls on Congress to Stop Shirking Its Constitutional Duty, Victor Davis Hanson Should Stick to the Classics, “Trump’s Tariffs Have McKinley Turning in His Grave”, and Again, Trade ‘Deficits’ Are Not Necessarily Debt
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Chicago Boyz: Woe, Canada, Diverse Problems, and “Service Industries”
Dana Loesch: The FSU Shooting – What We Know,
Don Surber: J.K. Rowling vindicated
First Street Journal: Could Daniel Pearson be a conservative? You in a heap o’ trouble, boy, and Thank you, Jill Biden!
Gates Of Vienna: Boy-Rape and Attempted Murder in Modern Multicultural France, Culture-Enriching Defenestration in Hamburg, Requiem for a Culture, Part 8: The Battle of Front Royal, Here We Go Again, and Culture-Enriching Knife Murder in Charlottenburg
The Geller Report: Vile Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen Flew to El Salvador to Bust Out Deported Illegal Gang Member But No One Would Meet With Him, Wifebeating MS-13 Gangbanger Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s History of Violence, About Those Students Arrested by the Department of Homeland Security, California Sues Trump Over Tariffs, and Federal Agency Refers NY AG Letitia James For Prosecution for Fraud
Hollywood In Toto: Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling Set Biopic Bar Sky High, Kimmel Clueless on Real Costs of Trans Sports Debate, Why the Left Self-Censors in Trump 2.0 Era, Sinners Offers Colossal Upgrade to Vampire Genre, and Pro-Israel Michael Rapaport: Hollywood Won’t Hire Me
The Lid: Another Victory: Marco Rubio Ends Biden’s Department of Censorship, also, Here We Go: Corrupt NY AG Letitia James Referred to DOJ for Criminal Prosecution
Legal Insurrection: CNN’s Harry Enten Debunks Network’s Spin About Trump Supporters Regretting Their Votes, Sen. Van Hollen Sips Margaritas With Wife-Beating Illegal Alien, California Gov. Gavin Newsom Makes Desperate Bid for Relevancy and Money, Trump Admin Pulls the Plug on Construction of New York’s Offshore Wind Projects, and STEM Panelist at UW-Madison Says Gender Binary is ‘Eugenic Construct’
Matt Taibbi: Timeline – Harvard vs. Trump
Nebraska Energy Observer: Saturday Thoughts, also, Palm Sunday – 13 April 2025
Outkick: Syracuse Coach Fran Brown Was Not Giving Into NIL Demands From WR Trebor Pena, Told Him ‘You Got To Go’, Transfer Portal, NIL Should Be Fans Wake Up Call Not Get Invested In College Athletes, Just Your Favorite Team, New York Rangers Players Pay Tribute To Sam Rosen Prior To Broadcasting Legend’s Final Game, Haley Cavinder Engaged to Cowboys TE In Beach Sunset Proposal, and The NL West Is Dominating Baseball, So What Is The Rest Of MLB Going To Do About It?
Power Line: Harvard, Meet Bob Jones, The Strange Case of Abrego Garcia, and Everything is racist at PBS
Shark Tank: No-Bid Concession Extensions At MIA Stir Transparency Concerns Amid Push For Modernization
Shot In The Dark: Schooled, So The Question Of The Day Is, Ex-Cel, Oversold, It Ain’t Over, and The Mean Girls Club Strikes Again
This Ain’t Hell: Navy Base Housing Lawsuit, Vaughn Drake Jr. dies age 106, Marine Corps News, Updates Tax Day style, and Living big and fraudulently courtesy of the American tax dollar
Transterrestrial Musings: Fixing NASA, Why DOGE Is Important, The Senior Ranks Of The Military, “Why Do I Have Guns?”, and The Bloodless Coup Of The NGOs
Victory Girls: Don’t Discount AOC becoming Obama 2.0 in 2028, Democrats Plan To Rescue MS-13 Gang Member, and Whacko Environmental “Study” Says Pet Dogs Are Toxic Villains
Watts Up With That: Fishermen Urge DOGE-Style Reforms Of ‘Leviathan Bureaucracy’ That Throttled Industry Growth, Katy Perry Slammed for Climate Hypocrisy Over Trip to Space, and Alaska vs Renewable Portfolio Standard: The Public Awakens
The Federalist: Officials Won’t Show Public Records About Noncitizen Voters At U-Michigan, Maine AG Wildly Claims ‘No Concerns Of Safety’ With Men In Women’s Sport, Report: AI Company DeepSeek ‘Funnels’ American User Data To Red China, The King Of England Can’t Even Celebrate Easter Without Mentioning Islam, and No, The First Amendment Doesn’t Protect Anti-American Agitation
Mark Steyn: House Proud – Cary Grant in Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House, Flight of Fancy, Fly Me to the Moon, When Haters Can’t Hear, and Live Around the Planet: When Throwing The Book Boomerangs

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In The Mailbox: 04.17.25 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | April 17, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.17.25 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Finally back to the full set of linkagery tonight.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Australian Home Destroyed, Charging EV Suspected Cause
EBL: At Last – The EBL Action Figure, Judge Boasberg Finds Probable Cause To Hold Trump Administration In Criminal Contempt, also, NY AG Letitia James accused of mortgage fraud?
Twitchy: Texas Republicans Can’t Help But Laugh As Democrat Gene Wu Melts Down Over School Choice, Must-Read Thread Explains The Attempted Weaponization Of Due Process By Democrats, and The Look On CNN’s Kacie Hunt’s Face As Linda McMahon Schools Her on Basic Biology Is Priceless
Louder With Crowder: Dems make mistake of letting Joe Biden speak in public, where he calls Black Americans, quote, “colored”, Landmark UK Supreme Court decision rules that trans women are not, in fact, women, Angel Mom goes off on Democrat senator caring more about an illegal alien than he does her daughter who was murdered by one, and Whoopi Goldberg shocks “The View” DEFENDING major Trump initiative, producers cut her off before she gets too red-pilled
Vox Popoli: Importing Taiwan’s Semiconductor Industry, Trans Women are Not Women, and The Invention of William Shakespeare
Bugscuffle Gazette: Let me check my stock of Giveadamn

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Baldilocks: You Might Not Believe In Principalities & Powers, also, Life of Baldilocks
CDR Salamander: So Does China’s Shipbuilding Capacity Concern You?
Dana Loesch: 4chan Got Hacked,
Don Surber: Harvard, Welfare Queen
Glenn Reynolds: My Life As A Caregiver
Matt Taibbi: A Reckoning Is Coming For The Private Equity Economy,

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In The Mailbox: 04.16.25 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | April 17, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.16.25 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Major General Tereshkova might not be this rude to Katy Perry and the other a$$tronauts, but then she might, being a working-class girl from Maslennikov in the Yaroslavl oblast.
Call for Authors! North American Fantasy Sale is impending!
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

“??? ? ?ë???, ? ??????? ???? ? ???? ?????????? ??? ?????.”

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: EV Production Causing Environmental Devastation in Indonesia
EBL: Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf hires (former) Bud Light Ad Campaign Manager Alissa Heinerscheid, Happy Face, Parisians Gather in Song as Notre Dame Burns, The YouTubers Must Be Crazy, and Chairman Xi Plots His Revenge
Twitchy: Some Of J.K. Rowling’s Best Reactions To UK Supremes Protecting Women’s Rights, Here’s What El Salvador’s VP Told Sen. Van Hollen Has To Happen Before He Can Visit Imprisoned Illegal, and President Trump Reflects On Christ’s Suffering & Resurrection In Moving Easter Speech
Louder With Crowder: Trump lets Oval Office take turns blasting CNN’s simping over an illegal alien gang member, then Scott Jennings joins in, Occasional Cortex vs. Taylor Lorenz: Who said more batsh*t crazy stuff this weekend? Liberals have found something else Americans love that’s destroying the planet, Woke city council declares itself a “trans, intersex, and gender diverse sanctuary city” and does so UNANIMOUSLY, and As Trump wows the UFC, Bernie Sanders goes on cranky old man rant at Coachella about the oligarchy
Vox Popoli: The Billionaires are Scared, Gangstalking is Real and Federally-Funded, IF YOU HAD A TIME MACHINE, The Empire Never Ended, and NATO’s Failed War on Russia
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Chickens defending KFC
Stoic Observations: Cavemen In Connecticut, Liars At Langley
Upstream Reviews: Shadow Card Guardian

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: Kendall, NGAD, & The Acquisition Mindset That Must Go
Don Surber: No CBS, Maryland is not part of El Salvador
Matt Taibbi: Timeline – The Case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia

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Cody Balmer Update: Crazy, Yes, But Also Ranting About ‘the Palestinian People’

Posted on | April 16, 2025 | Comments Off on Cody Balmer Update: Crazy, Yes, But Also Ranting About ‘the Palestinian People’

After Tuesday’s victory lap — in which I congratulated myself for deducing that Cody Balmer was mentally ill — it is now time for me to eat some crow for dessert, as it turns out that the arsonist who lit up the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion also had a political agenda:

The madman who carried out a firebomb attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home was driven by antisemitism and fury over what the Democrat “wants to do to the Palestinian people” – and called the Jewish governor a “monster,” police alleged in a search warrant.
Alleged firebug Cody Balmer, 38, called 911 following the Sunday attack, identified himself by name, and delivered the chilling message addressed to the governor over the phone, according to warrant details obtained by The Post.
Balmer said he needed to know that Shapiro — who had hosted Passover dinner just hours before the attack — “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people,” the police warrant read.
He also said the governor needed to stop killing his friends, telling police “Our people have been put through too much by that monster” and that “all he has is a banquet hall to clean up.”
“You all know where to find me. I’m not hiding, and I will confess to everything that I had done,” Balmer allegedly told a 911 operator over the phone, according to the warrant.
Prosecutors say the phone call indicates antisemitism and anti-Israel beliefs were behind Balmer’s alleged attack. . . .
But even if antisemitism is found to be the motivation, [Dauphin County District Attorney Fran] Chardo said adding a hate crime charge wouldn’t change Balmer’s sentencing if he’s found guilty.
“Pennsylvania hate crimes statute would just increase the grade of the offense, that’s all it does. We’ve got five first degree felonies that we’ve charged. It doesn’t get any higher than that,” Chardo said.

So he wasn’t merely a kook, but a pro-Palestinian kook — like those dangerous mobs at Harvard, Columbia and other Ivy League schools.

Dana Pico at First Street Journal:

With his past criminal background and his obvious mental issues, no one can say that there was any real, logical reason behind Mr Balmer’s actions, but it is true that bad causes attract bad people. Is it also the case that bad causes attract crazy people?

Cody Balmer was both bad and crazy.

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In The Mailbox: 04.16.25 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | April 16, 2025 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.16.25 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Monday and Tuesday were eaten by tax returns.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Breaking news from last week

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: Capitalism vs. Socialism
357 Magnum: Math Is Racist Again (According to The Left)
EBL: White Bird, The Amateur, Rory McIlroy Wins Masters, On the Death of President Abraham Lincoln, and The Amateur (1981)
Twitchy: LA Times Sports Columnist Cries Foul Over Dodgers’ Visit To White House, Trump’s Move After Judge Restored AP Access Didn’t Go The Way The Media Expected, and Tom Homan Brings The Hammer Down On Dems Trying To Bring Back Deported Illegals
Louder With Crowder: Trans Activist demands Democrats double down on trans issue because, quote, “science is on our side”, Shocker! NYC actually arrested the woman who assaulted a pro-life journalist , Out of 212 Democrats, only FOUR voted to prevent illegal immigrants from voting in our elections, Jasmine Crockett makes scandalous claims she is in an abusive relationship… with Donald Trump, and Ukrainian immigrant with ties to satanic cult murders his parents to obtain money for his next target… Donald Trump
Vox Popoli: The Banned Taxonomy, Trade Deficit = Whip Hand, Ill-Suited for War, Mailvox: The War on Fertility, and This Would Be Why
Upstream Reviews: Children of the Enaisi
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Recharged
Defending The Wood Perilous: Susan Got What Was Coming To Her
Stoic Observations: That Time I Knew, also, It’s Only Star Trek

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: The SECNAV Received His Direction & Guidance
Dana Loesch: RFK Jr. & Autism, also, That Blue Origin Flight
Don Surber: Trump listed NO illegal aliens as dead
Matt Taibbi: Taylor Lorenz Is Cretinous & Deranged
Michele Catalano: Where I Am (Not Here)
STUMP: The Week In Meep – Holy Week 2025

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Crazy People Are Dangerous: Pennsylvania Arsonist Edition

Posted on | April 15, 2025 | Comments Off on Crazy People Are Dangerous: Pennsylvania Arsonist Edition

As soon as Pennsylvania State Police announced that Cody Balmer had been charged with setting the fire at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in Harrisburg, someone found Balmer’s Facebook page and a deep dive found little evidence to point to a motive. Like most other people — including Gov. Josh Shapiro himself — I immediately assumed the motive must be antisemitism. Like, you attack the residence of the Jewish governor on the first night of Passover, what else could it be?

So when I plunged into Balmer’s Facebook page, I expected to find evidence that the suspect was either (a) a neo-Nazi Jew-hater or (b) a “progressive” pro-Palestinian Jew-hater. But there was no evidence of either inclination. In fact, there was very little hint of political inclinations at all. The guy was a welder and mechanic, with a black wife and four mixed-race kids, which obviously seemed to rule out any neo-Nazi tendencies, but there weren’t any “free Palestine” messages, either, He had a couple of sarcastic posts indicating he wasn’t a big fan of Joe Biden, but there weren’t any MAGA pro-Trump messages, either. Thomas Stevenson of The Post Millennial dug even deeper than I did and discovered that Balmer described himself as a “registered socialist,” so it’s a fair surmise he was a Bernie Bro back in the day, which might explain his disdain of Biden as an “establishment” Democrat.

However, there were also a couple of indications that Balmer’s life had taken a downward turn in recent years. In 2023, he was charged with three counts of assault, and more recently his Harrisburg home — which reportedly had once belonged to his grandmother — had been lost in foreclosure and sold at auction at the county courthouse. Then on Monday afternoon, the anchor on CNN (I watch CNN, so you don’t have to) mentioned that police said “mental health issues” might be a factor. And then there was a court hearing, and oh, boy!

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania man accused of firebombing Gov. Josh Shapiro’s mansion was out on bail when he allegedly carried out the arson, The Post can reveal.
Cody Balmer’s mother, meanwhile, said she desperately tried to get police to lock up her son prior to the attack.
Balmer, 38, pulled sick faces as he was hauled back into a Harrisburg courtroom for his arraignment Monday, where he was hit with eight charges including terrorism, aggravated arson, criminal homicide and prowling at night.
The former mechanic, who said he is now jobless, penniless and lives with his parents, was free after making bail for a 2023 simple assault charge, courts spokesperson Stacey Witalec told The Post.
In that case, he was accused of stomping on his 10-year-old son’s broken leg and battering his wife, according to a police report.
Judge Dale Klein promptly order him held without bond, to which he replied, “Thank you, ma’am.”
He had a ragged beard and looked gaunt as he struggled to hold his belt-less pants up while being led in and out of the courthouse. He sat breathing heavily in the defendant’s chair as he spoke with the judge.
Police said Balmer hopped the fence at the official governor’s mansion in Harrisburg home about 2 a.m. Sunday and hauled a handful of Molotov cocktails into the historic residence while Shapiro, his wife and his two children slept.
Shapiro, a Democrat who is Jewish, had just celebrated the first night of Passover. He and his family escaped unharmed, but the damage to the mansion is estimated to be in the millions.
Balmer told the judge that he had no income and had been living with his parents for the last year, and when asked whether he had any kids replied that he had “a lot” but declined to elaborate.
He also said that “the rumor” about his dangerous mental health was true, and suggested that medication he took to treat it had been negatively affecting him.
“Medication led me to different types of behaviors,” Balmer told the court.
Balmer’s mother Christie told CBS News that her son was “mentally ill and he went off his medication” in the days before the fiery attack.
Exactly what mental ailments Balmer suffers from remains unclear, but his mother said she went to four different police departments for help to get her son “picked up” before the firebombing – but was rebuffed each time.
Balmer turned himself into police Sunday afternoon and allegedly confessed to the attack, according to a Harrisburg police report.
He told investigators that he made the improvised bombs with Heineken beer bottles and gasoline from his lawn mower.
Balmer also allegedly told police he was ready to beat Shapiro with a hammer if he encountered the governor inside the mansion, and that he knew the pol’s family was likely inside at the time.

He’s not MAGA. He’s not Antifa. He’s not a Nazi or a “free Palestine” type, he’s just crazy, and Crazy People Are Dangerous.

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Rule 5 Sunday: Fresh From The Shower

Posted on | April 14, 2025 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Fresh From The Shower

— compiled by Wombat-socho

No deluge of Substackery this weekend so no Sunday linkagery.
This week’s appetizer courtesy of Rule5Texan, I think.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Self-Deporting Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, Julie Andrews, Noone Is Shocked By Lauren Boebert In Miniskirts, Willow, Real Genius, Unicorn Day, Winston Churchill Day, The Masters, Venus De Milo, Interesting Things, MAGA – Markets Continue To React To Trump, A Complete Unknown, Abba – “Waterloo”, and The Doors

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Kathi Mod?l, I Hope So, Now, About Those “Dire Wolves”, Fish Pic Friday – Tisha Rodrigues, Thursday Tanlines, The Wednesday Wetness, Zen, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Palm Sunday, and Watermen Still Not Happy With Striper Regs

BACON TIME: Rule Five Butt It’s Friday

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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‘Clearly a Fanatic of Some Type’

Posted on | April 13, 2025 | Comments Off on ‘Clearly a Fanatic of Some Type’

Robert Shawn Detherow

Flagler County, Florida, is a wonderful place with many wonderful people, including Sheriff Rick Staly, who is one of the most experienced law-enforcement officers in the entire United States. Sheriff Staly first became a cop in 1975 in Oviedo right out of high school, then spent a year with the Altamonte Springs Police Department before becoming a deputy in Orange County, where he rose through the ranks for more than 20 years before retiring as the No. 2 man in the department in 2001.

Staly formed a private security company, then sold it, and decided to return to law enforcement in Flagler County, where he has been elected sheriff three times since 2016. During his 50-year career, Sheriff Staly has probably seen a lot of crazy things, but perhaps none as crazy as the standoff last June in the town of Palm Coast. It began just after dawn on the morning of June 5, with “a disturbance call on Forsythe Lane in reference to an individual who had blocked the road with ‘junk’ and was playing loud music.” Forsythe Lane is a middle-class development just a mile or so inland from the beach. It’s a pleasant-looking neighborhood, and most people would consider themselves extremely fortunate to live there, with the palm trees and sunshine. But most people are not insane, which was the problem with 55-year-old Robert Shawn Detherow.

Video of the resulting incident has been uploaded to YouTube, and you can see a female deputy arrive to encounter this scene:

Detherow had apparently emptied out his house, strewing his possessions in the front yard and blocking the street. And as for the neighbor’s complaint of “playing loud music,” shortly after the deputy steps out of her vehicle, Robert Detherow’s stereo begins blasting the Hoyt Axton version of a very old song:

Oh, I’m a good old Rebel,
Now that’s just what I am.
For this Yankee nation
I do not give a damn.
I’m glad I fought against her,
I only wish we’d won.
I ain’t asked any pardon
For anything I’ve done.

That song was first published as a poem in 1867, written by Confederate Maj. James Innes Randolph. Far be it from me to disdain any expression of Southern pride, but if you’re a sheriff’s deputy responding to a disturbance call and hear that song? Not a good omen.

Robert Detherow was bonkers, berserk, demented, deranged, daffy, wacky, off his rocker, non compos mentis, nuttier than a Snickers bar, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

The deputy wisely called for backup. There is some explanation of Detherow’s mental condition. He has claimed to be a military veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), although this information was not verified. He had once been employed by Flagler County, but quit in 2021. And in March 2024, just three months before this incident, Detherow’s 22-year-old son had been arrested for stabbing a man in an argument about religion at a Circle K convenience store.

In a press release, the sheriff’s department said that, due to the prior investigation of the son’s crime, deputies knew that Detherow “had an arsenal of firearms in his home.” Furthermore, investigators “located disturbing videos Detherow made and posted to his Facebook profile and YouTube channel in the previous few days alluding to ‘suicide by cop’ and becoming a martyr.” The title of that video is “Come to my house and arrest me Rick Staley” [sic] and shows Detherow standing in his living room, wearing a Confederate cap and waving a Bible around while claiming that his Fourth Amendment rights have been violated.

What ensued was a five-hour standoff that, thank God, ended without anyone getting hurt. Afterwards, Sheriff Staly spoke to the media:

“I would describe [Detherow] as a religious fanatic, to some degree one of these ‘sovereign citizens.’ . . . He’s clearly a fanatic of some type and I’m sure that the neighborhood is glad that he’s been apprehended.”

At a court hearing about a week later, Detherow seemed sufficiently self-aware to admit he was crazy as a loon:

After his arrest, Detherow unleashed a string of verbal attacks on the arresting deputy.
“I don’t know what I said. I was having a psychotic break. Obviously I needed help,” Detherow said, after Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis asked him if he’d threatened the life of Sheriff’s deputy Necole Marsan, if he’d threatened to dismember her, rape her and torture her for billions of years. . . .
“The allegations with regard to this incident describe behavior that’s not only dangerous, but completely irrational,” [Circuit Judge Terence Perkins] said. Detherow “chose to escalate the response by law enforcement for no apparent reason in ways that not only put the community in danger and the law enforcement officers specifically, but put him in danger, for reasons that relate to his post traumatic stress is what I’ve heard.” . . .
Perkins said he had no evidence regarding Detherow’s PTSD, his mental health history or any psychiatric issues. His attorney presented none. . . .
“My obligation is to keep the community, law enforcement and the defendant safe,” Perkins said. “I’m not going to risk this type of incident happening again . . .”

At that point, the judge denied bail for Detherow. Jail records indicate that Detherow was released in September on $34,000 bond, and so far there’s been no further news on the case. However, in the case of Detherow’s son — accused of stabbing a man at the Circle K — the charges were thrown out in a “startling” ruling under Florida’s “stand your ground” law. It turns out that there was no surveillance video of the incident, and after hearing testimony from everyone involved, the judge decided that the younger Detherow’s testimony was most credible, raising a self-defense claim that could not be disproven. That’s . . . crazy.

On the other hand, maybe “this Yankee nation” is not all bad. Maybe the “religious fanatic” and his son (who was reading his Bible on the picnic table next to Circle K before the stabbing happened) got some divine intervention. Maybe there is still hope for justice in America.

We could speculate on the cosmic implications of all this, but in the end we are certain of only one thing: Crazy People Are Dangerous.

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