Author Archives: Dana Pico

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Whenever there is a truth you cannot tell that is a truth you must tell!

Rational people want rational explanations for everything. The worst mass murder event in the United States was on October 1, 2017, as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on a music festival crowd from the Mandalay Hotel, killing 60 people and wounding 413 others. Coupled with the ensuing panic, a total of 867 people were injured. Unlike other mass murder events, the killer did not leave any explanation or ‘manifesto,’ and even years later, there has been no ‘official’ explanation.

And so it is with the latest mass murder attempt, the shooting by disturbed man male who thought he was a girl. From The New York Times:

What Motivated the Minneapolis Church Shooter? We May Never Know.

Investigators combing through piles of evidence from an attack on a Minneapolis church cautioned that these kinds of shooters often leave more questions than answers.

by Ernesto Londoño | Sunday, August 31, 2025 | 5:02 AM EDT

It has become a hauntingly routine paradox in the aftermath of horrific shootings.

An assailant leaves piles of evidence that investigators scrutinize. But law enforcement officials are often left with more questions than answers as they seek to determine a motive.

Officials in Minneapolis were bracing for that outcome as they examined the writings and social media posts of the person they say opened fire through the window of a church packed with schoolchildren on Wednesday, killing two.

“We will follow all of the evidence to its logical conclusion,” Brian O’Hara, the Minneapolis police chief, told reporters on Thursday. “This may not ultimately provide the answers that our public is looking for.”

We were told the same thing following the killing of six people at the Covenant School outside of Nashville, Tennessee, by Audrey Hale, the 28-year-old white woman who was so mentally ill that she thought she was a male named ‘Aiden.’ The authorities scrutinized Miss Hale’s writings, and then kept them hidden away. When conservative — the media called him “right-wing” — podcaster Stephen Crowder managed to obtain photocopies of three pages from her notebook, and published them, the authorities were far angrier that the information was leaked than they were about the killings.

Robin Westman, 23, carried out the attack and died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the authorities said. The attacker left behind a lengthy suicide note, journal entries and scribbling on the weapons used in the ambush at the Church of the Annunciation, which is affiliated with an adjacent Catholic school.

Note here that the Times used the killer’s fake name, rather than his real name of Robert, and the feminine pronouns to refer to him. The credentialed media do that pretty consistently, because they want to at least tacitly support the notion that girls can be boys and boys can be girls. Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer is right along with that, with an opinion piece in support of transgenderism, just a few days after a ‘transgender woman’ killed two kids, and wanted to kill more.

The content includes disparaging messages about President Trump, Christians, Black people, Hispanic people, Jews and Israel.

“The shooter expressed hate toward every group imaginable,” said Joseph H. Thompson, the acting United States attorney in Minnesota. “The shooter’s heart was full of hate.”

The sprawling nature of the assailant’s rantings and grievances led government officials and other observers to zero in on single pieces of information in the immediate aftermath of the attack, which also injured 15 children and three adult parishioners.

I cannot (legitimately) publish the entire Times article, but please, feel free to click on the title and read the rest yourself. The author points out that Mr Westman and Miss Hale were ‘transgender,’ but also tries to focus on other things, along with noting that some mass shooters taken alive and talk about their actions are often unable to provide coherent reasons.

But one thing I have noticed is that, while these shootings usually generate considerable talk about stricter gun control laws, that has been mostly missing in this case, because every proposal I have ever seen includes banning the mentally ill from purchasing firearms, and the last thing the left want to do is concede the obvious point, that the ‘transgendered’ are, by definition, mentally ill.

Colbert King of The Washington Post did raise that question .  .  . sort of:

Suppose Westman had undergone mental health screening to qualify for acquiring a lethal weapon. Would disqualifying mental health conditions have been identified? Would she have passed go?

Some psychological and psychiatric disorders render people ineligible for certain roles in life due to safety risks. Ought not the ability to own deadly weapons also be subjected to tests? And should that decision, with all due respect, be left to pawnbrokers?

Of course, Mr King didn’t write, probably didn’t dare write, that ‘gender dysphoria’ should be number one on the list of “psychological and psychiatric disorders render people ineligible for certain roles in life due to safety risks,” because acceptance of the delusions of the ‘transgendered’ is practically a cause célèbre among our friends on the left, and even a very liberal person on other things, like author J K Rowling is hated by those who support ‘transgenderism.’

Whether the editors of the Post would have spiked such an addition to Mr King’s column is unknown.

We previously reported, noting Robert Stacy McCain’s story on the Tennessee Star, one of those evil, reich-wing news and commentary sites, doing the actual journalism — not journolism — in investigating the parts of the story the FBI and Nashville authorities tried to keep secret concerning Miss Hale:

Thanks to The Tennessee Star, this week we learned a whole lot more about Audrey Hale, the deranged 28-year-old woman who wanted to be a man named “Aiden” and who killed six people at Covenant School in Nashville before being shot dead by police. Among the revelations this week, we learned that Hale had been a “patient of mental health professionals at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC)” since she was six years old! Heck of a job, “mental health professionals.”

At the time she perpetrated the Covenant School massacre, Hale was under treatment by both a psychiatrist and a therapist. The distinction is important — a psychiatrist is an M.D., who can write prescriptions, whereas a therapist is basically a counselor, someone with a degree in psychology, to whom the patient talks about their problems. So medication and conversation are, in such a case, handled by two separate “mental health professionals” who, we suppose, consult with each other.

The fact that Audrey/“Aiden” Hale was not healed by this treatment — to the contrary, she became a worst-case scenario of therapeutic effectiveness — is not unusual. Most people who are subjected to treatment by “mental health professionals” never really become healthy. With the assistance of anti-depressants or other medications, they may be able to get through life OK, but how can you say turning someone into a drug addict is “success”? Excuse me for speaking so bluntly, but if the goal is “mental health” and you require Prozac (Zoloft, Paxil, etc.) just to make it through the day? No, you haven’t achieved “mental health.”

Mr McCain is, of course, one of those evil Republicans, so you’re not supposed to pay attention to him either, but he noted that the Star actually did the journalistic legwork. I’m not going to go over the part in which he documented that Miss Hale was just plain crazy; you can read his original, which is not behind any kind of paywall.

Mr McCain went into the efforts by the federal Department of Justice, specifically the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to keep the evidence about Miss Hale suppressed. It wasn’t as though evidence needed to be protected for her trial, since she was killed by the police when they responded to the attack.

It’s hardly a surprise, because the Biden Administration specifically and the left in general are all in on normalizing ‘transgenderism,’ and the last thing they want is documentary evidence that a transgender school shooter and mass murderer not only was crazy, but knew she was crazy, and was taking a drug store’s worth of medication to suppress the crazy, and it still didn’t work. They most certainly don’t want people associating ‘transgenderism’ with people being just plain nuts. And in the Minneapolis case, though we now have a sensible regime in the Department of Justice, you can bet your last euro that Minnesota officials will do whatever they can to keep this quiet. The New York Post, our nation’s second oldest continuously published newspaper, has a conservative editorial policy, and has been reporting on this case all along, reported that one of the Minneapolis killer’s former teachers revealed that he had been a troubled student all along.

Did being crazy make the school shooters transgender, or were the feelings of ‘gender dysphoria’ what led to them being crazy in other ways? Who can say, but we do know that most of the credentialed media have been soft-peddling the ‘transgender’ part about the killers, because they do not want the public believing that the ‘transgendered’ are just plain nuts. That is a truth that must be told.

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When judges assume executive authority What could possibly go wrong?

Conservatives have been gleeful that some out-of-control federal judges like James Boasberg have been frequently bitch slapped by higher courts in their attempts to stymie President Trump’s agenda, and those are the things about which we hear, but those are not the only instances of judges deciding that they know how to run executive agencies better than the people who are supposed to have the authority.

SEPTA fare increases and Regional Rail cuts can’t start next week, judge rules

Judge Sierra Thomas-Street issued her order from the bench, telling the attorney for the transit agency that “everything must stop.”

by Abraham Gutman and Andrew Seidman | Friday, August 29, 2025 | 5:39 PM EDT

A Philadelphia judge on Friday ordered SEPTA to halt planned service cuts to Regional Rail and fare increases due to begin next week, following a daylong hearing in a City Hall courtroom.

Judge Sierra Thomas-Street issued her order from the bench, telling the attorney for the transit agency that “everything must stop.”

“Status quo must be maintained,” Thomas-Street said.

The parties will meet again in court on Thursday, when Thomas-Street will consider whether to make the order permanent and expand it to include reversing cuts already in place.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportion Authority (SEPTA) has been taking steps to remain solvent since the hoped-for $213 million assistance from the state government has not yet been approved by the General Assembly. Democrats control the state House of Representatives by one vote, 102-101, and want to give SEPTA the money, but the state Senate, controlled by Republicans 27-23, hasn’t been willing to go along. The state budget was due July 1st, the beginning of the Commonwealth’s fiscal year but still hasn’t been passed by the legislature, and that $213 million remains in limbo.

So, SEPTA’s leadership had to deal with the fact that the anticipated aid hasn’t come yet. General Manager Scott Sauer didn’t want to make the cuts, didn’t want to cut service at all, but he still has to make SEPTA operate within its means.

The ruling came after attorney George Bochetto filed a lawsuit this week in Common Pleas Court on behalf of a consumer advocate and two riders who argued the transit agency’s actions were unlawful. They contended that the cuts — which started Sunday amid a state budget stalemate — would have a disproportionate impact on marginalized groups, violating their rights protected by the Pennsylvania Constitution.

“The judge is saying: No more further cuts,” Bochetto said after the ruling. “Enough double talk, enough triple talk. Do it.”

What? Does Her Honor believe that she can order the state Senate to pass the budget she wants?

We previously reported on Mr Bochetto’s lawsuit and his attempt to compel SEPTA to act as a welfare agency.

SEPTA maintains a Service Stabilization Fund of roughly $300 million, which the system uses “to pay bills and unexpected expenses, as well as a reserve for potential catastrophes.” Some $100 million from that fund had already been spent to fill the budget deficit. The plaintiffs want SEPTA to use that fund to avoid the fare increases and service cuts, which could be done, and here’s where Judge Thomas-Street’s order comes into play: SEPTA’s leadership took executive decisions, the decisions which are their responsibility and for which they are paid to take, but the judge is saying that no, their decisions were wrong, and those decisions must be taken a different way. Judge Thomas-Street has, in effect, arrogated SEPTA’s leadership to herself, dictating a decision to SEPTA’s managers.

It is legitimate to argue with a decision taken by someone in authority to take those decisions; who hasn’t at times thought of his bosses as ‘those idiots up there’? But that does not and should not mean that a judge should have the authority to change those decisions and specify a new one. SEPTA’s decisions were not illegal; they just didn’t go the way that some people wanted them.

There is some wry humor in all of this. With Judge Thomas-Street’s decision, the pressure on Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman to cough up that asked-for $213 million is reduced. With slightly over $300 million in the Service Stabilization Fund, SEPTA could more than cover that $213 million deficit, the taxpayers of the Commonwealth don’t have to fund SEPTA at all! And next year is next year, so who cares, right?

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Now this I can support! Let the counties served by SEPTA pay for SEPTA

While there are all sorts of reports on movement in the Pennsylvania General Assembly on additional funding for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), at least as of this Friday morning writing, no funding agreement has been reached. Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins has paid forward some of the city’s $135 million subsidy, to keep city bus service for schools, but that’s only a stopgap for the system’s projected $213 deficit.

But this story from The Philadelphia Inquirer is at least a little bit better than the notion that the taxpayers throughout the Commonwealth should pay for SEPTA:

Philly’s collar counties are only authorized to tax property. Could SEPTA’s budget crisis change that?

County officials have long sought broader taxing authority. Some say the debate over transit funding could force the issue.

by Katie Bernard | Friday, August 29, 2025 | 5:00 AM EDT

Officials in Philadelphia’s collar counties are hopeful that the monthslong impasse over funding for SEPTA may push lawmakers to consider a change to state tax law they have sought for years.

With many of their residents dependent on SEPTA for daily work commutes and other trips into Philadelphia, officials across the suburban counties — Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, and Chester — say they are committed to its success, and they contributed more than $30 million to it last year. But the state’s laws, which allow counties to tax only property, prevent them from doing more to support the agency without raising property taxes.

Officials have long asked state lawmakers to grant them the authority to tax wages, sales, or property transfers. Some wonder if the current debate over the beleaguered transit authority may finally push the issue.

“They’re holding up public transit funding for the entire commonwealth,” said Monica Taylor, a Democrat who chairs the Delaware County Council. “All of these things are piling up and coming together, and they haven’t passed a budget. … This is hopefully pushing for the opportunity for people to come back to the table and start talking.”

There’s much more at the original, but you get the drift: the counties want to be able to wring more and more money out of their people.

My position is simple: the people who use SEPTA should be the ones who pay for SEPTA, through a reasonable fare increase of 75¢.[1]Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the … Continue reading

But, if the government leaders want to keep treating SEPTA not as a public transit system but a welfare agency, frequently welfare for the well-to-do, at least if Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, and Chester counties start taxing their own residents for a system that is available to them, then the people of Carbon, Cameron, and McKean counties, which do not have access to SEPTA, will not.

Chester, Bucks, Montgomery, and Delaware counties are, respectively, the four wealthiest counties in the Commonwealth.

If those heavily Democrat counties — Philadelphia, Chester, Montgomery, and Delaware counties all voted heavily for then Vice President Kamala Harris Emhoff, while President Trump carried Bucks County by the slimmest of margins, 291 votes out of 402,349 total votes cast — want to tax their people more heavily to pay for SEPTA, let them!

The fairest system is for SEPTA riders to pay for SEPTA, but what I have suggested is at least the second most fair system.

References

References
↑1 Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total. With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.
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Now this pisses me off!

We noted, in December of 2021, that my wife and I bought a house. No, we didn’t buy it for ourselves, but for my wife’s sister, as she was retiring back to the Bluegrass State, and couldn’t really afford to do it herself. When we croak, it’ll be inherited by our two daughters, and my sister-in-law’s son.

Fortunately, we bought it in a small town without the ridiculous prices in larger cities — it would probably have cost $100,000 more in Lexington — and before Bidenflation hit interest rates. Alas! we couldn’t just pay for it in cash, as we did for our present home, but had to get a mortgage. And during the negotiations for the mortgage loan, when I mentioned that it was a rental house, I was informed that the mortgage rate for a non-primary residence would be one percentage point higher, while I might have thought ‘darn’ and ‘heck’ and even ‘shoot!’ we nevertheless didn’t try to list it as a primary residence, because that would have been a lie.

Lisa Cook is a well-connected former academic who currently serves on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors — currently serves perhaps being outdated, in that President Donald Trump is trying to fire her — with a guesstimated net worth if $1.1 million to $2.7 million. Dr Cook apparently declared both of her homes as her primary residence, supposedly to get the interest rate down. If Mrs Pico and I, who have a net worth of much less than Dr Cook and her husband, can tell the truth and bite the bullet on the higher interest rate, why can’t wealthier people?

But this is the part which really pisses me off. From The New York Times:

Trump Is Claiming Mortgage Fraud to Attack Enemies. Is Your Information Public?

After President Trump accused a Federal Reserve governor of mortgage fraud, everyday citizens are waking up to just how much information is out there.

by Ron Lieber and Tara Siegel Bernard | Thursday, August 28, 2025 | 10:00 AM EDT

Politicians are using mortgage data against their enemies, so it’s time to figure out how much of it is available and what law-abiding citizens can do to shield it from prying eyes.

On Monday, President Trump said he was removing Lisa Cook from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. He has accused her of declaring both of her homes as her primary residence, which can be a form of mortgage fraud given that interest rates are often higher for vacation homes or investment properties. . . . .

Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who asked the Department of Justice last week to investigate Ms. Cook, suggested this week that she wouldn’t be the last person to face such charges.

“There is too much mortgage fraud in Chicago,” he said on social media, calling out the city where Mr. Trump has threatened to send troops. Mr. Pulte also asked for tips on fraud from the public.

Ms. Cook also wasn’t the first public figure to come in for this scrutiny. Other Trump adversaries, including Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, and Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, are facing similar inquiries. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, a Republican, has also had to answer for his housing records.

Dr Cook is, of course, suing the President over her firing, saying that he’s a big meanie-hoonie, and it’s “illegal and unprecedented” for him to fire her “for cause“. Dr Cook listed two separate residences as her primary residence in 2021, before President Joe Biden appointed her to the Board of Governors in 2022.

Someone who looks a lot like me starting the bathroom renovation at the rental house.

The five quoted paragraphs, if the reader got only that far, leads the reader to believe that this is all political, all Mr Trump using the law to attack his political enemies. Given the multitude of ways that Democrats attempted to attack and even imprison him at the end of his first term, I don’t blame him one bit for returning the favor.

But if you read further, you’ll see that the meat of the article is telling people what information is publicly available at the county clerk’s office, in the property deed of trust or filed mortgage, and that it is public information; anyone can look it up.

The article notes things like primary residences, whether the home is a rental or second home, of, in my case, whether it has a property-tax-saving “homestead exemption”, something we have on our real residence but which we did not claim for the rental house, because that would also be illegal.

The thrust of the article is informing readers what they can do to restrict the publicly available information, or, simply put, how to better commit mortgage fraud.

My wife and I are retired, and we were working-class throughout our careers. A lot of working-class people have bought more than one home, primarily to use as rental income sources, which my wife and I are doing, though the entirety of the rental payments are used for paying off the mortgage; we’re not making a profit off of this. [1]Full disclosure: we bought our current home in 2014, as our retirement home, three years before we moved here, and we rented it out, making a small profit, but we didn’t have to make any … Continue reading

But the people like Dr Cook, who have two residences they use themselves? The people with the money for vacation homes or the hoitiest and the toitiest of summer homes aren’t working-class people. They are the people who have connections in government and can afford the extra interest percentage point, and I admit that I have very little sympathy for those committing fraud to save what, for them, are a few bucks. And that The New York Times is trying to help some of their readers commit mortgage fraud is just plain wrong.

References

References
↑1 Full disclosure: we bought our current home in 2014, as our retirement home, three years before we moved here, and we rented it out, making a small profit, but we didn’t have to make any “homestead exemption”, because we were a bit too young to qualify for it at the time, or “primary residence” claims, because we bought it for cash, and had no mortgage on it.
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From where will all of this money come?

The biggest issue in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia at the moment is more state funding for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, the mass transit agency which run buses, trains, trollies, and subways in the metropolitan area. SEPTA has a projected $213 million deficit, and has instituted significant service cuts to try to keep the operating expenses in line with projected revenues without the aid from Harrisburg for which they’ve been begging. My good friend Daniel Pearson and the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer have been adamant that the Commonwealth must come through with money, or utter disaster will strike. Note how the elevated train comes to destroyed tracks in a tweet from the newspaper!

We noted here that the solution is actually simple: a 75¢ fare hike completely closes SEPTA’s projected deficit.[1]Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the … Continue reading The newspaper in general, and Mr Pearson specifically, are opposed to further fare increases, pointing out that the base fare has jumped from $2.00 to just under $3.00 since 2018.

But, as the city is desperately looking for money from SEPTA, what else is the Inquirer presenting to readers?

Everywhere you look in the newspaper you’ll find stories of more and more money being spent, and more and more money being demanded, and no one seems willing to ask: from where will all of this money come?

The Transportation Workers Union Local 234 approved a new contract in November of 2024, which included “a 5% pay raise and safety improvements including bulletproof enclosures on buses to protect Bus Operators, upgrades to radios, and fixes to allow uninterrupted communication in tunnels.” That contract expires on November 7th of this year, which means the union will be going back to ask for more money again. From where will this money come?

I get it: the inflation of the Biden economy hit everyone hard, and though inflation started coming down during Mr Biden’s final year in office, the inflated prices never went away. As much as President Trump tries, inflation could come under control, but prices almost never go back down. Everyone is still trying to catch up, but when it’s government spending that is trying to catch up, the taxpayers are the ones who have to shell out. Pennsylvania’s state income tax rate is fairly low, just 3.07%, but the Commonwealth and the localities make up for that by trying to nickel-and-dime people to death on everything else.

Would you believe that the Borough of Jim Thorpe actually requires people to buy a permit, for the price of $5.00, to move into or out of any place in the borough, and that no public or private moving company shall enable such without verifying the moving permit? Violation of such can bring a fine of $600 and possible jail time. $5.00 might not seem like much, but this is an example of the petty ways in which the governments keep trying to stick their grubby hands into people’s pockets.

Philadelphia doesn’t require a move in permit, but charges $25.00 — $50.00 in Center City and University City — for a permit to occupy two street parking spaces for your moving truck.

Someone who looks a lot like me snowblowing in my old neighborhood, December 29, 2012. Does my neighborhood look wealthy to you? Click to enlarge.

Is it any wonder that the Republicans who control the state Senate are reticent to just give and give and give the taxpayers’ dollars to SEPTA and to Philly? Every dollar they give just means the more dollars that will be demanded in the next budget, and while Republicans are reasonably strong throughout the Commonwealth, Philly is as close to a “No Republican” zone as it can get. Do my former neighbors in relatively low-cost, conservative Jim Thorpe[2]Voters in Carbon County gave 66.90% of their votes to Donald Trump, while the voters in Philadelphia and Delaware counties gave 78.57% and 61.15% of their votes, respectively, to Kamala Harris … Continue reading really want to send more of their hard-earned tax dollars to subsidize wealthy inhabitants of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Lower Merion to take the train to Center City?

When Mr Pearson wrote “Harrisburg can’t let regional factionalism keep them from finding common ground on SEPTA: The stalemate over the state budget has entered a new, fractious phase, pitting lawmakers who represent predominantly rural areas against their counterparts from the commonwealth’s larger cities,” he was noting just how different Philly is from the “predominantly rural areas,” as though that’s a surprise, but his goal was a victory for SEPTA and the “commonwealth’s larger cities” over the rural areas. The people of those predominantly rural areas have expressed their differences at the voting booth, and they expect their elected representatives to vote their interests, not Philadelphia’s, yet the stories listed above show us, show the people of those predominantly rural areas how the commonwealth’s larger cities want to spend and spend and spend. Is it really any surprise that the Republican-controlled state Senate is reluctant to throw more and more and more money to Philly?

References

References
↑1 Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total. With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.
↑2 Voters in Carbon County gave 66.90% of their votes to Donald Trump, while the voters in Philadelphia and Delaware counties gave 78.57% and 61.15% of their votes, respectively, to Kamala Harris Emhoff. Both the state Representative, Doyle Heffley, and state Senator, David Argall, for Jim Thorpe, are Republicans.
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Will Vanity Fair staffers quit over their #TrumpDerangementSyndrome?

Job cuts and layoffs in the credentialed media have been a persistent problem for a couple of decades now, especially in the print medium. Vanity Fair has been among those reporting layoffs at The Washington Post as well as other places, the magazine has seen its share of layoffs, and the people working there have to know just how precious jobs like theirs are right now. So, when an ‘unidentified staffer’ says, “If I have to work bagging groceries at Trader Joe’s, I’ll do it. If [Editorial Director Mark Guiducci] puts Melania on the cover, half of the editorial staff will walk out, I guarantee it,” it sure sounds like the emptiest of threats to me!

Vanity Fair employees lash out over proposed Melania Trump cover: ‘I will walk out the motherf–king door’

By Emily Crane | Tuesday, August 26, 2025 | 7:43 AM EDT

Vanity Fair’s new boss reportedly wants first lady Melania Trump to grace the glossy magazine’s coveted cover — leaving disgruntled woke staff threatening to “walk out the motherf–king door” if it goes ahead.

The fashion mag’s global editorial director, Mark Guiducci, has floated the possibility of putting President Trump’s wife on the cover of the Conde Nast-owned publication as he tries to make his mark in his newly minted role, Semafor reported.

But the mere thought of having the former model as a cover girl sparked fierce backlash from raging lefty staffers.

“I will walk out the motherf–king door, and half my staff will follow me,’ one sensitive editor fumed to the Daily Mail.

“We are not going to normalize this despot and his wife; we’re just not going to do it. We’re going to stand for what’s right,” the unidentified staffer whined.

“If I have to work bagging groceries at Trader Joe’s, I’ll do it. If [Guiducci] puts Melania on the cover, half of the editorial staff will walk out, I guarantee it.”

It sounds to me as though Mr Guiducci’s job just became easier: he won’t have to decide on more layoffs if a bunch of #TrumpDerangementSyndrome afflicted staffers walk out the door!

But, alas! the chances that many, or even any, of the staffers would carry through with such a threat are pretty small. Perhaps the ‘unidentified staffer’s’ guarantee isn’t all that solid?

We previously noted how The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch got his thong panties in a twist over Ivanka Trump Kushner visiting the Philadelphia Eagles Nova Care practice facility with her son and his flag football team. Mrs Kushner is not part of President Trump’s present Administration, the article he referenced had nothing to do with politics, yet the columnist was appalled anyway.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing these days.

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The solution to SEPTA’s woes is simple I did something ridiculously simple: I did the math!

I lived in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, for fifteen years, from 2002 into 2017, a long enough time to get pretty familiar with the place. So, when Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) decided to tweet that “Mass transit is a lifeline for the people across all 67 counties who rely on it every day to attend school, get to work, and power our economy,” I had to think about it: had I ever seen a bus, other than a school bus, in Carbon County?

The answer, of course, was no, I never had, never in fifteen years noticed a public transportation bus.

Jim Thorpe is a small, very ‘walkable’ town, and I spent many of my days off doing just that, walking through town. Here’s one of the photo albums I took, on October 12, 2013, and you can see just why I walked through the picturesque town.

Mass transit in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Photo by D R Pico. Free for use with appropriate credit. Click to enlarge.

The latest outrage in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia isn’t crime, isn’t murder, but the fact that the Republican-controlled state Senate has been unwilling to pass a huge, additional appropriation for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, and my good friends at The Philadelphia Inquirer have waxed apoplectic about the whole thing.

Philly lawyer George Bochetto hired to sue SEPTA to stop service cuts

Bochetto said that a suit would challenge the service cuts on the grounds of a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged communities.

by Thomas Fitzgerald | Monday, August 25, 2025 | 8:39 AM EDT

Philadelphia lawyer George Bochetto demanded SEPTA halt service cuts and said he has been hired by a group of riders to sue the transit agency, in an email sent Sunday night.

“SEPTA’s planned service reductions are draconian in nature and will have a severe impact on racial and ethnic minorities and low-income citizens in Southeastern Pennsylvania without any legitimate basis,” Bochetto wrote in the notice, which was first reported by Big Trial on Substack.

Consumer advocate Lance Haver is among those involved in the action to block SEPTA’s service cuts, according to the Substack post. The action comes as Harrisburg has failed to approve new state funding for mass transit. The first round of service cuts began on Sunday.

“SEPTA’s legal counsel is reviewing the letter and intends to contact George Bochetto today,” said Andrew Busch, a spokesperson for the transit agency.

SEPTA had been living on post-COVID funds from the Federal government, but those ended. In 2024, Governor Shapiro redirected $153 million in federal highway funds to SEPTA, because, horror of horrors, the Governor didn’t want SEPTA’s customers to have to pay more to use their services:

Earlier this month, SEPTA moved to enact a 29% across-the-board fare increase followed by deep service cuts next summer, as the agency grapples with what officials call an “unprecedented” post-pandemic financial crisis. It faces a recurring deficit of $240 million annually.

While Shapiro’s efforts have paused the 21.5% fare increase expected for Jan. 1, riders will still face an increase of 7.5% beginning Dec. 1. Shapiro said the federal cash infusion would limit service cuts, but did not provide further detail.

So, it wasn’t just Pennsylvanians in the small towns and counties throughout the central part of the Commonwealth who were being taxed to provide cheaper bus and subway rides for Philadelphians, but taxpayers in Montana and Wyoming and Missouri who were having to dig deeper into their pockets as well.

Back to the first cited article:

Bochetto said in an interview Monday that a suit would challenge the service cuts on the grounds of a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged communities. SEPTA completed an equity analysis before adopting the cuts.

Oh, so now SEPTA isn’t a public transit service, but a welfare program? Got it! But that’s not an argument which will play well with Republicans.

“They’re committing a fraud on the public,” Bochetto said, noting SEPTA has $390 million in a reserve fund. “There is no reason why these cuts are necessary.”

Haver will be a plaintiff in the action, Bochetto confirmed. He declined to discuss other groups or individuals who may join.

The group plans to seek a judge’s injunction to stop the cuts, Bochetto said in the email, addressed to SEPTA General Counsel Gino Bendetti. That likely would require SEPTA to draw from its service stabilization fund instead of cutting bus routes and reducing trips across all modes of transit.

Pretty typical these days: the lawsuit seeks to have a judge usurp the executive decision on how SEPTA’s funds are to be spent. This is the kind of bovine feces which needs to be slapped down, hard. I don’t care what you believe SEPTA should be doing; that’s for the agency’s leadership to decide, not judges.

SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total.

So, let’s do the math! With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.

As we previously noted, the Inquirer reported that SEPTA was losing roughly $50 million a year from fare jumpers, much of it by people who could easily pay:

Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson said the agency has learned so far that the majority of fare evaders are everyday working residents — nurses, lawyers, even city employees with free passes, who, in a rush to catch the train, or out of habit after not paying in recent years, step over the turnstiles.

In a city like Philadelphia, nurses can make up to $100,000 a year. Attorneys? Normally they make pretty good money as well. City employees with free passes? When they use their passes, the city pays their fares. SEPTA has been trying to make turnstile jumping more difficult, but needs to install more barriers to do so. More, the system needs point out to those who skip fares they could easily pay just how much they are damaging the entire system.

The entire SEPTA crisis is caused by the cockamamie concept that the people who use SEPTA should not have to pay for the benefit they receive. Just raise the fares to what they need to be to operate the system!

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Every time you think the left can’t possibly get more stupid, they say, “Hold my beer!”

I will admit it: when I first saw this tweet from Greg Price, I had trouble believing it. No one, and I mean no one, could possibly be this stupid.

Total Chaos at Arlington School Board Meeting, and You Won’t Believe What Left-Wingers Were Defending

By Bonchie | Friday, August 22, 2025 9:45 AM EDT

What started with a racist sign outside an Arlington school board meeting devolved into total chaos on Thursday night, as left-wing activists went wild.

The meeting first drew attention when a left-winger of the Boomer generation was pictured holding a sign that read, “Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water fountain.” That was an insanely racist shot at Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears (R-VA), who is now running for governor. She showed up at the meeting to stand in solidarity with normal parents against the school district’s policy of allowing boys and men to use female restrooms and locker rooms.

Little did we know that a racist sign was just the beginning.

Once the meeting started, things went from bad to worse, with parents being heckled by rainbow-clad activists. Why? Because said parents had the audacity to object to a registered sex offender being allowed to use a girls’ locker room by claiming to be “transgender.”

Who is Richard Cox? He’s a man that the school district let use the aforementioned girls’ locker room, at which point he allegedly exposed himself to children. Innocent girls were actually forced to change next to him. That’s apparently something worth defending if you’re a deranged left-wing lunatic from Arlington, VA.

There’s more at the original.

As much as I like Bonchie and RedState, I will admit that they can get a bit strident, and not everyone will accept RedState as a legitimate news source, so I searched for credentialed media sources as well, and yup, Mr Cox was arrested for indecent exposure:

Transgender sex offender to appear in court for alleged exposure at Virginia schools, gyms

by WJLA Staff | Monday, March 3rd 2025 | 8:02 AM

ARLINGTON, Va. (WJLA) — Richard Cox, a registered child sex offender who identifies as transgender, will appear in court Monday for a hearing on alleged indecent exposure at a fitness center and two Virginia schools.

Cox, 58, is facing more than 20 charges in Arlington County, where he is accused of exposing himself to women and girls in female locker rooms. Continue reading →

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World War III Watch: Do the left really hate Mr Trump so much that they’d rather see more and more blood flowing than the President get some credit for stopping a war? The left would rather see the killing continue than President Trump achieve a diplomatic victory and peace

Our good friends on the left — and I include the recent neoconservatives, who are not really conservative in very much among the left — are up in arms that the wicked, evil, hated President Donald Trump is trying to get at least a ceasefire, and possibly a lasting peace agreement, between Russia and Ukraine, claiming that such would lock-in Russia’s conquests of roughly 20% of Ukraine. The Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer, about which I would have written yesterday but was afraid of sounding like a broken record, was simply the latest.

The left are just deathly afraid that Mr Trump might win the Nobel Peace Prize, said to be one of his heartfelt desires, as though promoting peace is somehow a bad thing. But the President said that he just loved stopping wars! Continue reading →