Author Archives: Dana Pico

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Pennsylvania just became a little less safe

Well, of course.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat of course, opposes capital punishment, as do I, but the Governor of the Keystone State does not have arbitrary power to issue pardons or sentence commutations on his own. The most Mr Shapiro could do, as his predecessor Tom Wolf did before him, was to decline to sign any death warrants. But now, the Governor is happy that the state Supreme Court held that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole for second-degree murder violate the state constitution.

We have previously noted this case.

Under Title 18§2502(b), murder of the second degree is a criminal homicide which is committed while defendant was engaged as a principal or accomplice in the perpetration of a felony. That’s pretty simple: the murderer is already committing a crime, so even if he wasn’t necessarily planning on killing someone, he was already on the scene, already planning on committing a crime, and prepared to kill if he thought it necessary.

Whether you’re the guy who fires the fatal shot or not, you’re still a really bad guy, and there’s no good reason for you to ever be put back out on the streets with decent people again.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s story on the case can be found here. The opinion of the court can be found here. From the newspaper:

One of the lead lawyers in the case, Bret Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center, said the decision “will have profound ramifications” for the state’s criminal justice system, and that it “represents the culmination of decades of movement-building by incarcerated people and their families and communities.”

Ben Grote, huh? How unserious is Mr Grote? He couldn’t even be bothered to clean up his beta male beard before going before the state Supreme Court. But, alas! he won his case.

Image from main page of Abolitionist Law Center website, screencaptured on October 9, 2024.

Mr Grote works for the Abolitionist Law Center, which we have previously mentioned. What is not mentioned is that the Abolitionist Law Center is opposed to incarceration for anything, opposes all prison sentences, and would, if they could, free every murderer, every rapist, every drug dealer, and every assailant locked up in Pennsylvania’s prisons.

We challenge every point on the criminal punishment conveyor belt including policing, courts, jails and prisons, and various forms of legal supervision, as well as other aspects of the carceral machine.

Boldface in the original.

I might have ignored this story, especially since I was eating the very delicious lamb chops my wife made for supper, were it not for a very lovely lady on Twitter. Miss Long has in her Twitter bio a background illustration saying:

Roses are red,
No lives are blue,
Defund the Police,
Abolish ICE too.

Miss Long posted a series on Twitter, beginning here, praising the Abolitionist Law Center for its work. We already know that the Abolitionist Law Center wants to abolish prisons completely, to give dangerous predators some cockamamie “restorative justice” bovine feces.

Some people are beyond redemption, some people are simply evil and can never be trusted in society. Miss Long and the Abolitionist Law Center would see the gates of prisons thrown open and deranged killers like Wesley Cook let back out on the streets. They don’t even like, as noted above, “legal supervision,” which means probation and probation officers. Miss Long wants to see criminal illegal immigrants, some guilty of murder and rape, left free to terrorize innocent people.

I assume that Miss Long and the others believe that people are just innately good, and if the people we now see as bad guys are just left alone and shown sweetness and light, they’ll all be great people and credits to their communities.

Well, that’s just plain bovine feces. Some people simply need to be removed from society, for society to remain safe and secure for the people who are actually good citizens. I can’t even understand how some people can think differently.

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The rise of anti-Semitism by recent Catholic converts

It has been said that Catholic converts are among the most zealous of all. And so it is with Carrie Prejean Boller, or, as I prefer to call her, Carrie Prejean Hez-Boller, because she has been extremely vocal in her support of the ‘Palestinians’ and their war against Israel.

On March 23, she tweeted:

Israel is a terrorist state committing an absolute death camp in Gaza, and Lebanon. This evil regime must be called out. Zionists want you to think these are “God’s chosen people” causing mass murder of innocent life, all while justifying it.

Absolute blasphemy!

These are God’s enemies.

This is the woman who lost her crown as Miss California over a leaked masturbation tape of herself she sent to her then-boyfriend when she was 17 — something which was technically dissemination of child pornography — and now she is whining that she lost a seat on a ‘religious liberty commission’ due to her continual anti-Semitic remarks.

How, I have to ask, can she be entrusted with any position on ‘religious liberty’ when she calls the Jews of Israel “God’s enemies”?

Now she’s trying to pick a fight with two Catholic bishops, Timothy Cardinal Dolan and Robert Barron which led Richard Hanania to tweet, “This woman seems to think the Catholic Church is some kind of global Walmart where you can just keep demanding to see the manager and yell at him for not being antisemitic enough.” 🙂

It turns out that I am not the only one to notice this:

The Catholic Convert Boom Is Real But A Troubling Pattern Is Emerging

Some new Catholic voices are using the faith for something else entirely.

By Ryan Girdusky • Tuesday, March 24, 2026 • DailyWire.com

As we approach the holiest day of the year for the Catholic Church, tens of millions will prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Americans across the country are preparing to join the faith I have belonged to since birth.

Converts to the faith have played a crucial role over the last two millennia, from St. Paul’s journey to Damascus, to St. Augustine’s departure from a life of debauchery that would make Hugh Hefner blush, to G.K. Chesterton, whose writings still speak to millions nearly a century later, to St. Elizabeth Seton, the first American-born saint.

I firmly believe the Catholic Church is the greatest civil institution ever created. Since its founding, the Church has clothed the naked, educated the young, fed the hungry, tended to the sick, and through divine mercy provided the path to salvation for billions of people.

During the darkest times in human history, the Catholic Church was the only institution that separated the West from barbarism. The very fabric of Western civilization is tied to the history of the Church.

This is absolutely true! Catholicism spurred Western civilization, but Catholicism specifically, and Christianity in general, are dependent upon Western civilization for survival. Christianity is fractured these days, and has been since the rise in Protestantism. Religious tolerance did not come easily with the Reformation, with King Henry VIII persecuting Catholics, and his successor and elder daughter, Queen Mary I, turning right around and persecuting Protestants. Queen Elizabeth I was famously Protestant, but while she was no friend of the Catholics, she didn’t take working against Catholicism to nearly the extent of her father. Tolerance for various Christian denominations grew, albeit slowly. As part of the restoration of the monarchy, King Charles II promised religious tolerance, meant to be between Anglicans and Presbyterians, but it was a policy that included Catholics.

While it’s easy for me to wax poetic about a church I have repeatedly fallen in love with over the years — even with all of its shortcomings — other high-profile converts appear to be using their newfound membership in the Catholic faith as nothing more than a political prop.

It is true, the vast majority of new converts join for all the right reasons. But a small, vocal cadre of political influencers are using their Catholicism to build social media platforms, feigning purity as an E-girl or, even worse, promoting antisemitism. It is people doing the latter who pose the most credible threat to the integrity of all Catholics and create a widespread erroneous belief that Catholicism has an issue with Jews.

More specifically, people like Mrs Boller and Candace Owens Farmer, someone initially conservative and sensible, who then fell into anti-Semitism, and then went full bananas into conspiracy theories — I wonder if she’s fallen into 9/11 Trutherism yet? — are convinced that the Jooooos run the world

Mira Fox wrote:

“As a Catholic, I don’t agree that the new, modern state of Israel has any biblical prophecy meaning at all,” (Mrs Boller) said in the hearing. Later, she doubled down on X. “I’m a proud Catholic. I, in no way will be forced to embrace Zionism as a fulfillment of biblical prophesy,” she wrote.

What she was referring to was the idea of Christian Zionism — the theological belief among some Christians that the Bible supports the existence of the modern state of Israel. Some forms of Christian Zionism support the Jewish state as a necessary, prophesied precursor to Jesus’ return; all Jews must return to Israel before the end of days. Others may simply support Israel because they believe it shares their “Judeo-Christian” biblical foundations. But whatever the reasons, there has historically been widespread political support for Israel among American Christians. And that support has been core to Israel’s relationship with the U.S.

Zionism.

Theodor Herzl was a Hungarian Jewish journalist and lawyer who was the father of modern political Zionism, with his book Der Judenstaat. Herzl formed the Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine, which, in the late 19th century was part of the Ottoman Empire, in an effort to form a Jewish state.

Zionism exists because we good Christians forced it on the Jews.

While European Jews might have supported Theodor Herzl’s ideas, few of them actually chose to emigrate to the Holy Land. The ending phrase of the traditional Passover seder, “next year in Jerusalem,” expressed a hope, but it wasn’t one that the Jewish diaspora in Europe took seriously enough to make aliyah — emigrate to Israel — themselves. But then the good Christians in Germany voted for Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. Even before the outbreak of war in Europe, those same good Germans went along with the despoilation of the Jews. Little by little, their property was confiscated, their businesses driven out, their jobs taken away.

After the war in Europe started, and the Third Reich overran much of Europe, our good Christian ancestors of just two generations ago willingly helped the Nazis find those Jews who were in hiding, in Germany and the occupied countries, helping to load them in the boxcars and be shipped off to a (supposedly) unknown but nevertheless dreaded fate.

Remember: Cuba, the United States, and Canada all denied entry to the MS St Louis, a ship with over 900 Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis in 1939, just before the war began. The surviving Jews in 1945 could count on no more help from the Western Hemisphere than they could from Europe. Many private colleges in the United States imposed Jewish quotas, because ‘too many’ Jews were winning admissions without them.

After the war ended, the surviving Jews chose to make aliyah because there was no place else for them to go! Their homes and property were destroyed and gone, and their surviving old neighbors were frequently the same people who identified them to the Gestapo. The good Christians of Europe had proven to the Jews, once again, that they could not count on their Christian neighbors to help and protect them; the Jews could count only on themselves.

Then, as they tried to make their way to the Holy Land, the British, who were siding with the Arabs because the Arabs had oil, put many of them in ‘displaced persons’ camps, and tried their best to keep the surviving Jews out of the Holy land.

What other conclusion can be drawn? The surviving Jews could count on no one but themselves, and that turned Theodor Herzl’s Zionist dreams into hard-nosed reality. We good Christians created the Zionism of the post-war years, and which continues today!

Like so many other people, now 81 years after World War II, I’ve always found it difficult to understand how the Nazis were able to get so many good and decent Europeans to go along with their round-up of the Jews. I could see how people submitted at the point of a gun, but there were so many Europeans who helped voluntarily, under no compulsion other than their own decisions.

But now? Now I can see it, I can understand it. We have good Americans, citizens of this country, which was a major contributor to winning World War II against both Germany and Japan in part by bombing them back to the Stone Age, whining about Israel’s destruction in Gaza while never mentioning that Hamas and their supporters in Gaza started the war.

I can also understand how some people, including a lot of sensible conservatives, didn’t like or want the United States bombing attack against Iran. I didn’t like it either, though I am certainly happy that the Islamist leadership have mostly been sent to their 72 bacha bazi boys. I want to see us out of that war as soon as possible, and wouldn’t support any ground troops being used there for anything other than the purpose of seizing all of Iran’s fissile material and destroying all of their nuclear armament equipment.

But this ridiculous anti-Semitism, this hatred of Jews and Israel, our easternmost outpost of Western civilization, and our bulwark against the hordes of seventh-century Islamist barbarism, is the ultimate in stupidity. We can argue about the wisdom of the American involvement in attacking Iran, but the notion that we’re somehow controlled by the Jooooos and puppets of Israel is ridiculous and ignorant and just plain stupid.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! Hold them accountable

One would have thought that Abdimahat Bille Mohamed would have been in a heap o’ trouble when he was arrested on charges of having raped a child and sexually assaulted another woman in Hennepin County, Minnesota, but if one would have thought that, one would have been wrong. From Minnesota Public Radio, on December 9, 2025:

Mohamed pleaded guilty in April to state charges of criminal sexual conduct for the rape of the child victim and the sexual assault of another woman in 2024, but he avoided prison as part of a plea deal with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. County prosecutors also pledged not to prosecute him for a 2018 rape in which he was suspected.

Emphasis mine.

What? Prosecutors gave him a sweetheart plea deal which allowed him to escape prosecution for the rape of a minor? How the Hell does that work?

Oh, wait, I know how it works: the same source tells readers that Mr Mohamed is not an American citizen, but a foreign national “is living in the country as a legal permanent resident.” As you might guess with this being Minneapolis, he is Somali.

The local prosecutor tried to make excuses. From the Minnesota Star-Tribune:

Attorneys on both sides of the plea deal rejected the notion that Mohamed avoided prison because Minnesota’s judicial system is too willing to give violent criminals a pass.

The Justice Department comments are “a clear attempt to politicize a sexual assault prosecution to inflict further harm on our entire Somali community,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement. “Those who actually prosecute sexual assault cases every day know there are significant evidentiary hurdles to obtaining a prison sentence.”

Moriarty pointed out that her office “overcame the loss of critical witnesses to secure felony convictions against Mr. Mohamed earlier this year. Because our case was substantially weakened, we could not get the prison sentence we wanted.”

Thomas Beito, Mohamed’s attorney who negotiated the earlier plea agreement, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that “the prosecution did not give us anything out of the goodness of their hearts.” He said there were “serious problems with the credibility of the [teenage] victim.”

In the second case under the plea deal, he said, “we had a great consent defense. … We turned up a video of the act itself showing that this was consensual. That’s why [prosecutors] gave him what they did.”

Except, of course, the state had actual DNA evidence! From the United States Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs:

Minor Victim 1 was forced—at gunpoint and in fear for her life—to perform oral sex on Mohamed. He then raped her vaginally. After the group sexually assaulted the girl, they let her out of the car. Minor Victim 1 ran, hid, and called the police. The police took Minor Victim 1 to the hospital, and she consented to a sexual assault exam. On September 17, 2024, after Mohamed’s DNA was taken in connection with another sexual assault, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) laboratory matched Mohamed’s DNA to the swabs taken from Minor Victim 1’s body, excluding more than 99.99% of the general population.

“Minor Victim 1” was 15 years old when she was raped. Under Minnesota state law, the age of sexual consent is 16, but persons between the ages of 14 and 15 can consent to sex with someone not more than 24 months older, the old “Romeo and Juliet” exception which exists because people do not want to send high school juniors to prison for f(ornicating) with their sophomore girlfriends. Mr Mohamed, now 28, would have been 19 in 2017, four years older than his victim, so Mr Beito’s claim that there had been consent in the latter case would not have held water in the rape of a minor girl.

Miss Moriarty? She’s openly queer and was the county’s chief public defender before becoming prosecutor. She has a soft spot in her heart for criminals, refusing to try as adults two 15 and 17 year old brothers guilty of murder, saying “Our goal is to treat kids like kids,” and “We know that kids that age are impressionable, they are impulsive, they’re easily manipulated and subjected to peer pressure.”

Now the federal Department of Justice has gotten involved.

In September 2025, Mohamed committed another kidnapping and rape. On September 15, 2025, Mohamed picked up an adult woman (Victim 5) in Mankato, Minnesota. Victim 5 met Mohamed that night and Mohamed was supposed to take Victim 5 to get food and then bring her back home. Instead, after Victim 5 was in Mohamed’s car, he kidnapped her. After Victim 5 asked Mohamed to bring her home, Mohamed kept driving and said, “you are not going home.” Mohamed drove Victim 5 approximately 70 miles to a hotel in Bloomington, where he kept her for nearly a week. When Victim 5 tried to leave on the first day, Mohamed grabbed her by the hair, slapped her face, and told her she could not leave. Mohamed raped Victim 5 twice. Mohamed choked Victim 5 while he raped her. Victim 5 was able to text her sister, that “I think I’m getting kidnapped” and needed help, but Mohamed took her phone away. Victim 5’s sister contacted the police, who worked to find Victim 5. On September 21, 2025, Victim 5 jumped out of Mohamed’s car and told a nearby man, “Can you help me? I am being kidnapped.” The man called 911 and police responded to the scene. Police took Victim 5 to the hospital, where she consented to a sexual assault exam. The DNA profile obtained from Victim 5 matched to Mohamed’s known sample.

But Miss Moriarty wanted to treat Mr Mohamed leniently, to not lock him in a cage, and possibly see him shipped back to his [insert slang term for feces here]hole country. This is what happens when leftists try to shield criminals from the consequences of their crimes: innocent people get punished instead as those criminals stay out on the streets committing even more crimes. According to the New York Post, the distinguished Mr Mohamed committed his last (known) rape after the state had already released him in his sweetheart deals. Whoever the unnamed rape victim was, she received the punishment, she paid the penalty for Mr Mohamed’s previous crimes.

I wonder how we can hold Miss Moriarty accountable, because she is just as responsible for the ‘extra’ rapes Mr Mohamed committed as he is. She could have at least tried to have him locked up, but didn’t.

As for the local media cited, the Star-Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio, they had long stories, but neither of them noted that the state, and now the federal government had the DNA evidence, irrefutable evidence, concerning Mr Mohamed’s crimes. I wonder why that is.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boys! These guys might not do all that well in prison

One would think that, with the hullabaloo over the Epstein files, that educated people, teachers who must have college degrees, would know better than to try to entice minors, but apparently Jordan Cobb, formerly a teacher at the Magoffin County, Kentucky, public schools is actually dumber than a box of rocks.

From the Salyersville Independent:

Former teachers federally indicted

By Heather Oney | Monday, May 5, 2025

PIKEVILLE – Two former Magoffin County Schools teachers were federally indicted and arrested on online enticement charges.

On Thursday, April 24, Jordan Cobb, 32, of Coon Creek Rd, in Salyersville, and Jason W. Back, 42, of Painters Lick Rd, also in Salyersville, were both federal indicted and charged with online enticement and Cobb was charged with an additional cyberstalking charge, according to federal court records. There are sealed indictments in both of their cases that may possibly include more charges, however.

Cobb’s federal indictment accuses him of attempting “to knowingly persuade, induce, entice, or coerce an individual under the age of 18, using a means or facility of interstate commerce, to engage in sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, namely, Rape in the Third Degree,” in or about April and May 2023. It further states that between June 2 and June 13, 2024, Cobb allegedly, “with the intent to harass or intimidate another person under the age of 18 years old, used an interactive computer service or electronic communication service of interstate commerce, or any other facility of interstate or foreign commerce, to engage in a course of conduct that causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause emotional distress to that person.”

That was almost a year ago, and now Mr Cobb has been convicted and sentenced:

EKY middle school teacher sentenced to 11 years for enticing a former student

By Austin R. Ramsey | Groundhog Day, February 2, 2026 | 4:07 PM EST

A former Magoffin County middle school teacher was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to enticement of a minor.

Jordan Cobb, 32, of Salyersville, pleaded guilty in October to engaging in an inappropriate Snapchat conversation with a former student. He sent a series of sexually explicit messages, offered to provide the minor with marijuana and made plans to meet for sex, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

Under federal guidelines, Mr Cobb must serve at least 9 years and 4 months before becoming eligible for parole.

I will admit it: I missed both of these stories when they were first published, and only spotted them on doing some research after a subsequent story in which Mr Cobb was sentenced in state court, to five years on basically the same charges. Sadly, it’s no additional time for this terrible teacher:

It said under the terms of Thursday’s plea agreement, Cobb agreed to a five-year sentence and will be ineligible for probation. The sentence will run concurrent with federal charges related to the same investigation.

Concurrent, huh? No wonder Mr Cobb agreed to the plea deal; it means no additional time behind bars for him.

So, what about the other pervert?

Former teacher pleads guilty in federal court

By Heather Oney | Friday, January 16, 2026

ASHLAND – A former Magoffin County Schools teacher pleaded guilty to a federal charge of online enticement on Monday.

In federal court on January 12, Jason W. Back, 43, of Salyersville, was rearraigned in the case before District Judge David L. Bunning, changing his plea to “guilty” in exchange for a plea agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office.

According to the plea agreement signed by Back, he admitted to knowingly persuading, inducing, enticing, or coercing an individual under the age of 18 to engage in unlawful sexual activity; he used a means or facility of interstate commerce to do so (i.e. a cell phone and/or online messaging); and that he knew the individual was under the age of 18.

The plea agreement states that from between March 6 through 9, 2023, in Magoffin County, Back persuaded the minor to engage in sexual activity, specifying that he was a high school teacher when he engaged in a text message conversation with a 17-year-old student, sending a series of sexually explicit messages using his iPhone, including messages outline a plan to meet for unprotected sex on March 9, 2023. According to the plea agreement, the prosecution has evidence that shows Back picked up the minor and that the two had sexual intercourse in Back’s car.

The plea agreement also indicated that, through a pattern of messages sent by Back, who was in a position of authority or special trust as a teacher, enticed the minor to engage in sexual intercourse, which would constitute a charge of third-degree rape.

The age of consent in Kentucky is 16, but this was still criminal because Mr Back held a position of authority over the student.

Mr Back is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday, May 4th, but the crime requires a minimum sentence of ten years, and can be up to life in prison.

These guys must be absolutely nuts. Magoffin County is a poor county, with a median household income of just $33,080 in 2024, but public school teachers in that county had a median salary of $42,043, certainly better than most people in that southeastern Kentucky county earned. These two guys aren’t exactly Brad Pitt in the looks department, but one would think that they could have managed to find a decent young lady who was an actual adult.

Instead, now they get to spend a decade behind bars, where life might be . . . unpleasant . . . for them. At the moment, I’m unable to generate much sympathy for them.

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Electric heat is fine, as far as it goes, but I always want a backup

That rascally rodent, Punxsutawney Phil projected six more weeks of winter, something which should have expired on Monday, but Tuesday sure was cold as well. We know that the groundhog’s projections are scientific, because the Weather Channel sends very scientifically-minded Meteorologist Jen Carfagno to cover it.

Alas! Not only did we not get an early spring, but winter in the eastern half of the United States was colder than usual for much of the season, and The Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Erin McCarthy researched how much it was costing Philly-area residents to heat their homes.

Philly-area residents share how much they paid to keep warm this winter

As the region experienced one of its coldest winters, see how much it cost to heat a Chester County farmhouse, a Fairmount condo with electric, an Ardmore twin, and more with different fuel sources.

by Erin McCarthy | Wednesday, 18 March 2026 | 5:01 AM EDT

If you’re getting burned by high heating bills this winter, you’re in good, and equally stressed, company.

U.S. households are expected to pay more than $1,000 on average to heat their homes this winter, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association’s projections, which were updated last month. That’s about $100 more than households paid last year, according to the association, which advocates for federal funding for low-income ratepayers.

Consumers are paying more whether they heat their homes with electricity, natural gas, or heating oil. Residential propane costs are on par with last year.

And customers usually pay more in freezing temperatures, when more energy is required to keep their homes comfortable.

Miss McCarthy gave us several examples, and, as expected, it cost more to stay warm, even though a couple of the respondents said that they kept their thermostats at 65º Fahrenheit.

I confess: our thermostat was set at 72º F!

The propane fireplace that is our secondary heat source.

As I have mentioned previously, our fixer-upper house was all-electric when we moved in, in July of 2017, and that meant our heat was entirely dependent upon our heat pump-based HVAC system. We had some very cold weather in January of 2018, and the heat pump couldn’t quite keep up. During our remodel in 2018, we added propane, because my wife wanted a gas range, and added not only that range, but a propane water heater and fireplace.

During the bitterly cold days, we supplemented the HVAC system with the fireplace. On Sunday, January 25, the electricity went out, though fortunately for only three hours. The propane fireplace works without electricity, so we stayed nice and warm, on a day which was right around freezing.

Other customers were not so lucky, and hundreds were without electricity for a few days, as the weather dumped two inches of snow, followed by 1½ inches of rain, and temperatures plummeting into the teens the following day. Last December 29th, we lost power for 6½ hours.

Our good fortune continued as we did not lose electricity as a major cold front, with some serious winds, came through on Monday of this week, but a lot of Jackson Energy Cooperative’s customers did. That simply drives home the need for an alternative heat source, something the global warming climate change warriors do not want you to have; they want total electric homes, to save Mother Gaia.

I ordered another propane delivery on Tuesday, as the tank got down to 30% of capacity; our previous delivery was on December 15, 2025, so I can’t complain. When the delivery came, it cost me $336.00, not too terrible for propane usage through winter. Once I turn off the propane to the fireplace, a full tank of propane will last us until next winter!

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Will Bunch wants yet another failed impeachment of President Trump He knows it would just be more political theater, but his #TrumpDerangementSyndrome overrides any political sense he has

We noted on Monday The Philadelphia Inquirer’s far-left columnist Will Bunch’s skeet telling us that, assuming the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives following the elections this coming November, that President Trump will ‘inevitably’ be impeached. It took longer on Tuesday for Mr Bunch’s column to be published than I had guessed, 11:52 AM EDT, but finally it came out. It was the same laundry list of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ that the denizens of Bluesky always parrot, but really nothing new.

The ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ as the columnist listed them:

  • The pardon mess, as described above. Trump’s outrageous abuse of his clemency pen has proved America’s founders made a big mistake in granting such absolute power to just one man. Congressional hearings can and should spur pardon reform, but could also expose evidence that could be used in a Trump impeachment case.

The pardon power is explicitly listed in the Constitution, and Congress cannot simply change it.

  • Cryptogate. Presidents used to put their assets in a blind trust, as Jimmy Carter famously did with his peanut farm. Trump, on the other hand, keeps doing deals and has seen his net worth roughly triple to more than $6 billion in just the first year of his second term. There are many tentacles to what I called Cryptogate with this handy guide I published last spring. Trump’s pump-and-dump meme coin launched on inauguration weekend seems a high crime unto itself.

I am amused that Mr Bunch cited an opinion article, his own opinion article, to declare something a “high crime”. But if making money while in public office is a high crime or misdemeanor, the members of Congress, many of whom have become far wealthier while in office themselves, far wealthier than their congressional salaries would support, would be hanging themselves with such a charge.

  • War crimes. The war in Iran is illegal, period. The president did not seek congressional approval to start dropping bombs up and down the Persian Gulf as required by both the U.S. Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Act. It’s also an illegal, aggressive war under international law. Ditto his regime-change assault on Venezuela, which killed more than 100 people. Ditto his regime’s unending lethal attacks on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, which have no legal basis. Congress can reassert its authority by impeaching Trump.

The distinguished columnist apparently does not understand the War Powers Resolution of 1973 that he claims was violated because the “president did not seek congressional approval to start dropping bombs up and down the Persian Gulf”. As we pointed out here, under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 USC §1541-1550), the President is required to notify the Speaker of the House of Representatives and he President pro tempore of the Senate within 48 hours after “any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances”, which Mr Trump did. Prior notification is not required under the law.[1]§1543(a)(3)

  • Abuse of power in the justice system. The flip side of Trump’s pardons has been the unprecedented attempt to use the Justice Department to go after the president’s perceived enemies, from former FBI chief James Comey to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell. These investigations, directly urged on by Trump in Truth Social posts, have repeatedly failed to pass muster with judges or grand juries, but that doesn’t erase the stain of such clearly wrongful prosecutions.

Would this be the same Justice Department which pursued mostly working-class people for the January 6th Capitol kerfuffle, charging the vast majority with four crimes[2]The standard four charges with which the majority were charged: 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(1) – Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds Without Lawful Authority. If there … Continue reading but allowing them to plead down to a single count of Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building, for which most received little or no time in jail, and a fine, using the bullying power of the federal government against people who could not afford to fight the charges.

Would that be the same Department of Justice which was surveilling traditionalist Catholics, based almost entirely on an assessment from the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center? Would that be the same Department of Justice whose FBI Director, Christopher Wray, lied to Congress about the extent of the program?

Would that be the same Justice Department which constantly went after Mr Trump’s friends and attorneys?

Despite the constant pleas of his base to “Lock her up,” in reference to Hillary Clinton, during his first term, President Trump had no such effort made. The tactic of going after the previous Administration’s people started under President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Whatever aggression is being made to go after Mr Trump’s enemies falls in the category of “What comes around, goes around.”

The columnist actually admitted that it was highly unlikely that there would be the 67 votes in the Senate necessary to actually remove the President from office; he’s actually asking for just more political theater, hoping it damages a President who can’t even run again.

Nothing is more central to that than reestablishing that high crimes and misdemeanors against the Constitution have consequences — including the stain of impeachment.

This is a laughing out loud moment, because not one, not two, but three failed impeachments against a single President will be no stain at all, and only make a mockery of impeachment itself, a laughable display of failed partisanship because the Democrats hate Mr Trump and his policies. The “stain” of two previous failed impeachments didn’t prevent 77,302,580 Americans from voting Mr Trump back into office! Mr Bunch ought to be smart enough to realize that, but his #TrumpDerangementSyndrome simply overwhelms any good sense he might have.

References

References
↑1 §1543(a)(3)
↑2 The standard four charges with which the majority were charged:

  • 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(1) – Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds Without Lawful Authority. If there is no accusation of harming anyone or carrying a deadly weapon, the maximum punishment under (b)(2) is a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.
  • 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(2) – Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds. If there is no accusation of harming anyone or carrying a deadly weapon, the maximum punishment under (b)(2) is a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.
  • 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(D) – Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building: utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of a hearing before, or any deliberations of, a committee of Congress or either House of Congress; The penalty for violating 40 U.S.C. §5104(e)(2) is a misdemeanor conviction punishable by a maximum fine of $5,000 fine or up to six months in prison, or both.
  • 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(G) – Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building; The penalty for violating 40 U.S.C. §5104(e)(2) is a misdemeanor conviction punishable by a maximum fine of $5,000 or up to six months in prison, or both.
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I check Bluesky so you don’t have to!

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s indefatigable far-left columnist Will Bunch is still dreaming of impeaching and removing President Trump from office; this was his Monday morning skeet on Bluesky. You can click on the link to read, and laugh at, some of the comments from the leftist sycophants.

I might be the only conservative who follows the columnist on Bluesky.

The Democrats currently hold 47 seats in the Senate, and need 67 to remove the President from office; in the 2026 elections, there are twenty seats currently held by Republicans. The Democrats would have to win every Senate race in the country to reach 67 seats, and anything less than that would require the votes of Republican senators to reach 67, and no Republican senator who plans on running for re-election in 2028 would dare vote to remove the President.

Finally, if President Trump fails to complete his term, J D Vance becomes President, a huge advantage for him in the 2028 election.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!

Were I to write this the way my good friend Robert Stacy McCain would, I’d start by saying, “Say hello to Israel Flores Ortiz, and while you’re at it, say goodbye to him as well,” but, alas! if the Democrats in northern Virginia have their way, he’ll be back among decent people fairly soon. Young Mr Ortiz, just shy of his 19th birthday, is a junior at Fairfax High School who allegedly thinks it’s cool to sneak up behind the girls in his school and grope between their legs, but, just a few years removed from #MeToo, it seems that the Democrats don’t want this illegal immigrant shipped back to his native El Salvador, and would rather see him out on the streets, taking his particular kink to whatever other levels it goes.

From the New York Post:

‘Schoolboy’ charged with groping nine 11th grade classmates is exposed as adult illegal migrant released under Biden

By Adam Silverstein | Saturday, March 14, 2026 | 5:46 AM EDT

An 18-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador allegedly groped 12 female classmates at a Virginia high school — and was allowed into the US under the Biden administration.

Israel Flores Ortiz, who is almost 19 but a junior at Fairfax High School, has been charged with nine counts of assault and battery after he was accused of repeatedly creeping up behind the students in crowded hallways and grabbing them between the legs.

Ortiz, who entered the country illegally in 2024, was released under a federal government policy during the Biden administration, according to local outlet 7News.

I can understand how some of our good friends on the left have tremendous sympathy for the illegal immigrants who just came here for a better life, and have been working hard in our economy, trying to become good members of their communities. But surely such sympathies would not extend to someone who thinks he can molest teenaged girls, right?

Meanwhile, a Fairfax County judge denied Ortiz bail this week — even though prosecutors did not oppose his release — after reviewing surveillance video and determining the proposed conditions did not adequately protect the public.

ICE lodged a detainer seeking custody of Ortiz for deportation, but the agency said the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office failed to honor it.

“Unfortunately, sanctuary politicians like Gov. (Abigail) Spanberger are outlawing cooperation with ICE and choosing to RELEASE criminal illegal aliens from their jails back onto their communities to create more American victims,” an ICE spokesperson said.

“We are calling on Fairfax County to honor our detainer to ensure this violent criminal is removed from our country so he can never claim another victim again.”

Ortiz’s charges — misdemeanor assault and battery, not sexual assault — carry a maximum penalty of one year in jail.

I omitted much of the middle of the Post article, which details how there had been complaints about young Mr Ortiz for months, and how the school district tried to “diminish” what had happened. The article is not behind a paywall, so you can read it freely if you wish.

When I lived in Virginia, the Old Dominion was a reliably Republican state in presidential elections, but northern Virginia has seen such growth in the population of federal government employees that the Democratic presidential candidates can reliably count on Virginia’s electoral votes. Abigail Spanberger campaigned for Governor as a more moderate Democrat last year, but went hard left once she won.

Fairfax County borders Loudoun County, about which we have written several times in the past. Loudoun County was where the public schools protected a boy who frequently dressed in skirts who raped one girl in the girls’ bathroom, quietly transferred him to another school, where he did the same thing. The story only came to public knowledge when the victim’s father was demanding answers from the school board, and then dragged to the floor and arrested. It was all a big right-wing myth, the credentialed media told us:

The media’s defense of transgenderism fell apart quickly when the rapist was found guilty.

And now, here they go again, defending an (alleged) sexual assailant, throwing women and teenaged  girls under the Woke Bus, all to defend criminals, criminals! because it somehow goes against conservative policies, opposition to ‘transgenderism’ then and the enforcement of our immigration laws now. Thankfully, young Mr Ortiz hasn’t gone as far as rape, but who can know to what crimes he will graduate if he isn’t seriously punished for what he’s done and is then released back into unsuspecting communities?

Are the Democrats so adamantly opposed to President Trump that they’d rather let a predator loose than eventually deport a criminal?

I’ve reused my frequent title, “You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!” — this is the 51st time I’ve used it — for this article, but the fact is that the left do not want to see young Mr Ortiz in too much trouble, all because they hate Donald Trump so much. And if Mr Ortiz gets a slap on the wrist, and then released, what will they say if his sexual fetishes and assaults become more serious?

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Transgender-Affirming Specialist Ignores Reality

The tweet from Slate simply said, “The GOP’s most dangerous new policy just forced my family out of our home. I’m afraid they’re not done with us yet,” with a stock image of two blond children putting suitcases into the back of a suburban mother’s SUV. Naturally, I wondered what policy of the evil, reich-wing Donald Trump was kicking them out: families losing their homes because an illegal immigrant father had been picked up and kicked out, or a now former government employee losing her job and no longer being able to live in a high-cost subdivision in northern Virginia. But no, that wasn’t what it was. Rather, some #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading (supposed) adult pissed off because she couldn’t ‘transition’ her son or daughter into another sex.

The GOP’s Anti-Trans Crusade Already Forced Me to Move My Family. I’m Still Not Sure We’re Safe.

We thought our new state would be a haven after the last one turned on us. But I know the signs, and they aren’t looking good.

By Kalen D. Zeiger | Tuesday, March 10, 2026 | 11:04 AM

In May of 2020, my family moved so I could attend a clinical mental health doctorate program at the University of Iowa. I remember being so excited about the program’s LGBTQ Counseling Clinic, where I would be the assistant director and where I would get to focus on providing much-needed therapeutic care for queer folks. It was the deciding factor for me on what program I ended up attending.

At that time, I would never have predicted that the same clinic that had drawn me to Iowa would no longer exist when my family would be forced to flee the state in 2025.

I first read the article on my tablet, loaded via the tweet, while still in bed early this morning, but, of course, I needed my desktop to be able to write about it. That’s when I found out that Slate had the article hidden behind the paywall for a non-first visit. Undeterred, I Google searched for it elsewhere, and found it here as well.

At the beginning of our Iowa adventure, my kids were 9 and 12, and the plan was to stay at least until our oldest graduated from high school in 2026, if not longer. A few years into our time in the Hawkeye State, my oldest child came to us because they wanted to start on puberty blockers, since they were trans, and wanted to delay bodily changes that didn’t match their gender. When my child first came out, I was worried that because I’m a trans clinician who works in gender-affirming mental health care, others would assume my child’s choices were influenced by me. I was very careful to make sure they knew that whether to pursue gender-affirming care was entirely their own choice. The most important thing was that they knew we loved them and that we would support whatever choice they made.

Really? Dr Zeiger claims that such was entirely “their” own choice, but one thing is clear: having a mother who “works in gender-affirming mental health care” doesn’t exactly lead to a parent telling a child the truth, that no amount of hormones or surgeries can actually change a boy into a girl or vice versa.

By early 2023, my 15-year-old was sure they wanted to start puberty blockers, so we followed the World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards to get them started, including getting a letter of support from a doctorate-level mental health clinician after a thorough evaluation. At first, my child felt relief and joy; they were glowing, and so happy that they could do something to slow the changes to their body that did not feel congruent with who they actually are. But that lightness would soon be crushed by a statewide ban on care for transgender minors.

Note that this was 2023, and while the author is blaming all of this on Donald Trump, he was not President at the time, and at the time, it appeared improbable that he’d ever be President again. Federal and state prosecutors were seeking some way, any way, to lock him up and keep him from ever running for President again. In 2023, Joe Biden was President and he and his woke staffers were pushing every possible means of supporting the cockamamie notion the girls could be boys and boys could be girls.

Kalen Zeiger, from Psychology Today.

The fact that children would be denied medically necessary, age-appropriate care did not matter to the fact that children would be denied medically necessary, age-appropriate care did not matter to the Iowa legislators who passed the ban. It did not matter to Iowa legislators that this ban didn’t change the fact that my child was trans—something I think they believe (or at least hope) they can control. It did not matter that this ban meant my child would have to wait three more years to access a well-researched, basic standard of care supported by multiple professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society, and more. It also did not matter that this ban means my child will have to undergo far more expensive and invasive procedures down the road than they would have if they had been able to stay on puberty blockers at 15. After years of unnecessary stress and pain, that child started gender-affirming care the week after they turned 18.” target=”_blank”>Iowa legislators who passed the ban. It did not matter to Iowa legislators that this ban didn’t change the fact that my child was trans—something I think they believe (or at least hope) they can control. It did not matter that this ban meant my child would have to wait three more years to access a well-researched, basic standard of care supported by multiple professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society, and more. It also did not matter that this ban means my child will have to undergo far more expensive and invasive procedures down the road than they would have if they had been able to stay on puberty blockers at 15. After years of unnecessary stress and pain, that child started gender-affirming care the week after they turned 18.

In the summer of 2025, we were packing our bags yet again. Less than a month after my child was finally able to access trans care, my two kids and I moved to Colorado. I had just spent the last five years completing a Ph.D. in Couple and Family Therapy and a Master of Arts in Educational Measurement and Statistics. My now-18-year-old, a summer baby, had one more year of high school left. Where originally we wanted to make sure they were not moved mid-high-school, we now desperately did not want them coming of age in the state whose legislature had just voted to roll back civil rights protections from trans people like them and myself, including the right to be free from discrimination when it comes to education, employment, housing, and existing in public.

There’s a lot more in the article, and I don’t want to quote it all, but note from that final paragraph, in which Dr Zeiger referred to rolling back civil rights protections from trans people “like them and myself.”

Dr Zeiger was very careful in her article to avoid any indications of whether she was male or female, whether her “partner” or “spouse” was male or female, and whether her child was biologically male or female, though it’s obvious from her professional photographs that the author was born female. I haven’t seen any photos of her now 18 or 19-year-old child, but if it is obvious that Dr Zeiger is biologically female, regardless of how she chooses to present herself, and the guy at the right is male, regardless of his clothing, hair, and earrings, one would hope that the author told her child that “they” would almost certainly be recognized as “their” biological sex rather than the sex “they” pretended to be.

Try a little experiment the next time you are out driving or walking around. When you see an adult 80 yards away, a person with his back turned to you and wearing just blue jeans and a shirt, can you tell if that person is male or female just from that? If your eyesight is good, of course you can, because males and females are built differently. Males are normally taller than females, but proportionally women have longer legs and shorter upper bodies than men. The ability to distinguish between sexes of their own species is something that every bird, every reptile, and every mammal has instinctively; only liberal humans have managed to ‘educate’ that ability out of themselves.

Henry Berg-Brousseau is seen with his politician mother Karen, father Bob, a marketing director, and sister Rachael, a rabbi. Photo from the Daily Mail. Click to enlarge.

We previously noted, in December of 2022, the suicide of “Henry” Berg-Brousseau, the daughter of Kentucky state Senator Karen Berg, who thought that she really was a man. She was given every opportunity, with a supportive father and quack physician mother, and apparently supportive friends.

But I included a photo of the Berg-Brousseau family. In it, “Henry” — I have been unable to find her real name — is shown, seemingly shorter than her mother and sister, and certainly shorter than her father, as well as significantly overweight. Were she an actual boy who grew up that way, “he’d” have been the last picked for a team in Phys Ed, and been dateless as high school girls, real girls, would have rejected “him” for more masculine guys. As an adult, she might somehow ‘pass’ as a male, if no one asked any questions, but she’d have been the least impressive of ‘guys’.

Dr Berg claimed that Miss Berg-Brousseau believed that she was at risk, I assume from violence, walking out in public, but, in the end, the person from whom she wasn’t safe was not evil tormenters, but from herself. Had she been an actual boy who grew up to look the way she looked, she’d have had to get used to the kinds of insults that all boys growing up not masculine enough hear. But Dr Berg wants to blame her daughter’s suicide on people who recognize that her “transgender son” was actually her daughter, and refused to lie about it.

The truth is simple: no matter that the Kinks sang that girls can be boys and boys can be girls, it’s simply not true. As “a Ph.D. in Couple and Family Therapy and a Master of Arts in Educational Measurement and Statistics,” Dr Zeiger ought to be able to recognize that, but as a female who thinks she’s male, she has subordinated reality to what she apparently wants. Normal people just don’t do that.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.