Thanks to All the Tip-Jar Hitters!

Posted on | April 15, 2026 | No Comments

That is a 200-gram firework “cake,” a multi-shot repeater that shoots 20 aerial bursts in about 24 seconds. We just ordered a case of 18 of those — $154.90 wholesale, but with the 25% Early Bird discount, we paid just $116.18 to add 360 shots into our Fourth of July finale.

After publishing the “Big Yellow Button” post Sunday morning, I left it “sticky” at the top of the page for three days, and am grateful to everyone who hit the tip jar to contribute to our purchase of eight cases of fireworks — including 168 mortar shells and two beautiful zig-zag cakes called “High Stepper” that fire 200 shots in 25 seconds:

Among the contributors was a young Virginian named Jonathan, who attended last year’s show and helped with the final set-up. Thanks also to Mr. McCartney; Robert in Oak Brook, Illinois; Charles in Teaneck, New Jersey; and Mr. Schmidt in San Francisco. Gary sent $25 and the message, “Make it spectacular!” (We will!) Mr. Yoder from Pennsylvania contributed, as did Mr. Dodge and Mr. Miller, both of them from the good part of Maryland. Mr. Heath from Texas kicked in, as did Mr. Spear, who shared that he enjoys reading updates about my Army son. Cheryl gave the patriotic sum of $17.76, as did William and Irvin, both of whom expressed their admiration for Mrs. McCain (and her bikini).

Finally, we got $25 and a message (“Blow shit up. Buy McBurgers.”) from someone named Kevin in Nye County, Nevada. Seems suspicious.

Anyway, the order has been placed and will be picked up tomorrow or Friday by one of my sons and, perhaps you might ask, “Is this enough fireworks?” Friends, there is no such thing as “enough fireworks.” Eight cases is a nice start, but with the clock ticking down to the 4th of July — a mere 80 days away now — we continue our quest to acquire the quantity of pyrotechnical awesomeness required to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our independence. By the way, all of y’all are invited to come see the show in Berkeley County, West Virginia; if you’ll be in the vicinity, be sure to get in touch. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far to our celebration, and to our other readers, I once more remind you that the Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Category: Shoe Leather Fund

Crazy People Are Dangerous

Posted on | April 15, 2026 | No Comments

Say hello to Noemi Guzman and, while you’re at it, go ahead and say good-bye, because Omaha Police on Tuesday saved Nebraska taxpayers the cost of incarcerating Guzman forever:

An attempted kidnapping at an Omaha Walmart ended with a child injured and a woman dead.
According to Omaha police, officers were called to the Walmart near 72nd and Pine streets around 9:20 a.m. on Tuesday.
When officers arrived, they saw a woman, identified as 31-year-old Noemi Guzman, outside the store holding a knife to a 3-year-old boy, who was in a shopping cart, officials said.
Officials said Guzman approached the caretaker with a knife, giving the caretaker commands to go in front of the shopping cart. Investigators believe Guzman stole the knife from the store.
Police said Guzman followed the caretaker out of the store and into the parking lot.
The caretaker was able to get away and ask a woman in the parking lot to call 911. . . .
Two officers arrived at the store and approached the woman, who was making threats with the knife.
Video showed the suspect swiping the knife at the child, cutting him across the face.
Two Omaha police officers shot and killed the woman after she didn’t respond to verbal commands. . . .
Omaha police said it is unknown what provoked the suspect to approach the caretaker.

You say it’s “unknown”? No, “what provoked the suspect” is very obvious: SHE WAS CRAZY! BONKERS! LOONEY TUNES! WACKO!

Omaha cop prepares to cure Noemi Guzman’s mental illness.

The 31-year-old woman shot dead by police officers during a kidnapping attempt at an Omaha Walmart had committed violent crimes in the past.
Omaha Police have identified the woman as Noemi Guzman.
She had been on the news before. In one case, the courts had found her not responsible for violent crimes by reason of insanity.
In March 2024, Guzman was accused of setting her father’s home on fire and then breaking into St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Omaha — allegedly armed with a kitchen knife. Investigators said a priest had barricaded himself in an upstairs bedroom while Guzman tore the place apart.
For the four felonies, the courts found Guzman “not responsible by reason of insanity.”
In June 2025, the judge ruled that Guzman continued to suffer from a mental illness, namely schizophrenia. It was noted that she was a danger to herself or others and should remain under the court’s supervision.
The psychiatrist was tasked with notifying the courts immediately if Guzman didn’t follow the treatment plan. Until what unfolded Tuesday at Walmart, there was no indication in court records that Guzman hadn’t been following the treatment.
She was scheduled for an annual review on June 12.

Well, she won’t show up for that appointment. Her mental illness has been cured by well-aimed gunfire. Crazy People Are Dangerous.

Category: Crime, Nebraska

In The Mailbox: 04.14.26

Posted on | April 15, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

You know what tomorrow is.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Swedish Rape Crisis
EBL: Bananas, Cobia Cheek Sandwich, MAGA Strait of America, Biggest Regrets and Lessons Learned, and Sabrina Carpenter should embrace her inner Amelia
Twitchy: Iran Announces Deployment Of It’s Mini-Sub Fleet & X Can’t Stop Laughing, “All Black Guys Look Like Obama”?, and Occasional Cortex Claims Congressmen Think They Can Get Away With It Because The President’s A Rapist
Louder With Crowder: Leftist who assaulted a TPUSA reporter gets booted off the UW-Stevens Point soccer team, That trans baby killer released from jail 30 years early has an OnlyFans now, Joy Behar claims Jesus Christ was a narcissist, TMZ launches new DC era by confronting Lindsey Graham, and What the Pope has to say about Trump vs. what he has to say about actual terrorists
Vox Popoli: The Islamabad Debacle, Anti-Natalism and d, and The MAGA Catastrophe
Defending The Wood Perilous: Redistricting Virginia – The Death of Fairness
Ammo.com: Gun Laws vs. Crime Rates

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Cook Political Report Claims Four Key Senate Races Shift Toward Democrats, Trump DoorDashes McDonald’s to Oval Office to Promote ‘No Tax on Tips’, Tax Invasion, Iran – A Longer View, and No SAVE Act? Congress Still Holds the Trump Card
BattleSwarm: Two Slimeballs Depart Congress
Behind The Black: All is well, Update on Superheavy/Starship, First data from Europe’s Proba-3 satellites suggest the Sun’s slow solar wind is faster and more chaotic than expected, and Space Force selects Blue Origin as possible lessor of “Sudden Flats” site at Vandenberg
CDR Salamander: Bring Rainier & Bridge Out of Reserve
Chicago Boyz: Worth Pondering, also, When David Met Leo
Da Tech Guy: Pintastic NE 2026 Video of the Day Some New Games
Don Surber: Rooting for Iran
Gates Of Vienna: Adequate Vetting a Chronic Weakness of the Trump Administration
The Geller Report: California Passes Bill To Criminalize Undercover Journalism, Iran’s Crown Rises: Pahlavi Ignites a Generational Revolt, ABUSIVE TAXATION: Top 25% Pay Nearly 90%—Bottom 50% Pay Zero, Gabbard Unleashes Docs Showing Intelligence Plot to Frame Trump, and Deranged Tom Friedman Opposes Iran Freedom If Trump, Netanyahu Get Credit
Hollywood In Toto: Crime 101 Is Inferior Spin on This Cop Classic, Is This Hollywood’s Most Unlikely Action Hero? Adam Carolla: How to Lose Friends Yet Influence People, and Why Frank Caliendo’s Trump Take Is Different from the Rest
Legal Insurrection: Two Democrats Running for California Governor Call for Suspension of Gas Tax, When Primate Politics Turn Deadly, Texas Tech University Closing All Gender and Sexuality Programs, Sheriff Sues Woman for $1 Million After She Allegedly Falsely Claimed ICE Detained Her for Two Days, and Ancient Alcoholic SanFran Hag Denies Democrats had Any Prior Knowledge of Allegations Against Swalwell
Nebraska Energy Observer: Brain Drain
Outkick: Jemele Hill, Michelle Beadle And Elle Duncan Predictably Turn Russini Mess Into Gender Grievance, Sabres Social Media Admin Rips Critics After Team Clinches Top Spot In The Division, Think It’s Easy To Buy A World Series?, Chris Pronger Reveals He Once Drunkenly Agreed To A Five-Year Deal With The Oilers, and Sydney Sweeney Wore Her Lingerie Brand In ‘Euphoria’ Dressed Up Like A Dog Making OnlyFans-Like Content
Power Line: Liberals Are Screwed, S&P 500 on the march, Big wow for Judge Rao, Boasberg Slapped Down, and Weekend at Whipple -Harmeet speaks
Shark Tank: Singer Touts “America First” Approach In FL-23 Bid
This Ain’t Hell: Every Marine a Rifleman, also, Two old guys
Transterrestrial Musings: Cats And Cancer
Victory Girls: DNI Tulsi Gabbard Exposes Democrats’ Overthrow Attempt
Watts Up With That: Mike Lee Takes On ‘Valley Of Death’ Plaguing Nuclear Energy Developers, “World Should be Optimistic About Our Fossil Fuel Future”, After All These Years, Alternatives Are Finding Ways to Stand on Their Own, and Is Plug-In Solar Worth It?
The Federalist: Dozens Of Pro-Life Groups Urge DOJ To Stop ‘Siding With’ Abortion Pill Industry, Appeals Court Torches Boasberg For Targeting Trump Immigration Officials, Exclusive: Watchdog Files Complaint Against Obama Judge At Center Of Arctic Frost Lawfare, At Coachella, Sabrina Carpenter Learns There’s A Fine Line Between An Audience And A Woke Mob, and A Supreme Court That Doesn’t Stop Birthplace Citizenship Isn’t Originalist

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Category: Linkagery

NY Times Keeps Lying About Everything, Including the Basic Facts of Life

Posted on | April 14, 2026 | No Comments

It should go without saying that you should never trust anything published by the New York Times, but Dartmouth College economics professor Paul Novosad has done a great service with this latest demonstration of the NYT “fake news” phenomenon.

The Upshot is a section of the New York Times that advertises itself as providing “analytical journalism in words and graphics,” which is to say, this is the part where they try to add the aura of statistical certainty to their dishonest propaganda: “See? Here’s a chart — numbers don’t lie!”

Last week, they published this steaming pile of poo:

“Fertility delayed is fertility denied” is one of the great maxims of demographics. As a matter of statistical average, postponing parenthood means reducing the total number of children. It requires a few more sentences to explain why this is true, but the fundamental fact is that every woman begins her fertile years at puberty (menarche) and concludes her fertility at menopause. Biology establishes a window of roughly 30 years (roughly ages 15 to 45) during which pregnancy can occur. Let us suppose that the reader is among those who feel a sense of horror about “teenage pregnancy.” While I could argue that this attitude is irrational, I’ll not belabor that point here. But in seeking to eradicate teenage motherhood, what you are attempting to do is to subtract five years from the potential baby-making years of the female population.

Stipulating, then, that no woman should ever give birth before age 20, you still have (in theory) a 25-year period during which births can occur. Ah, but biological fertility declines significantly after age 30, and the risk of birth defects (particularly Down syndrome) increases after age 35. The window for successful childbearing, you see, is actually narrower than the menarche-to-menopause span of 15-to-45 would suggest. That five-year delay you demanded to prevent teenage motherhood has consequences down the line, which is why in recent decades we have had so many 30-something women in crisis at the ticking of their “biological clock.” We cannot go back in time to take advantage of opportunities we have already passed up — fertility delayed is fertility denied.

Liberals don’t want to acknowledge this reality, and for many years have been selling false hope about egg-freezing, IVF and other advanced medical treatments as a panacea for the problems created by attempting to beat the biological clock. Even if you are buying what they’re selling — i.e., that becoming a mom at 45 is medically feasible — does it make sense that any large number of childless women would pursue these expensive procedures? You’ve gone childless for decades, and now at middle age, you’re going to pay tens of thousands of dollars to make a baby? Do you want to be the only 50-year-old mom at your kindergartner’s PTA? And then you’ll be eligible for Social Security by the time this kid graduates high school. This kind of choice just doesn’t make sense, which is why very few women actually do it. Yet the New York Times assigned Claire Cain Miller to keep selling this unrealistic idea:

Fertility in the United States has been declining since the Great Recession, and reached a new low last year, according to federal data released Thursday, causing some to fear a baby bust.
But it’s not clear that will happen. Instead, there could be a lull, demographers say — a period of very low fertility that could eventually rebound.
That’s because of a drastic shift among American women who are now of childbearing age: They are waiting longer to have babies. They’ve become much less likely to have them in their teens or 20s — and much more likely to in their 30s or 40s.

This is not true. Women are no more “likely” to become mothers in their 30s and 40s than they were when I was born in 1959, when my mom was 30 and I was her second child. In fact, the birth rate for women in their 30s and 40s is much lower now than it was during the Baby Boom.

Miller tries to sell this with a chart showing percentage increases in births to older women, but as Professor Novosad demonstrates, this misrepresents the change in the actual number of births.

Here's what the Upshot's graph looks like when we do it in number of births instead of % changes.

This was a felony-level chart crime. https://t.co/UFgKBpMu0o pic.twitter.com/7rH1KzTJCD

— Paul Novosad (@paulnovosad) April 13, 2026

While it is true that, compared to 2007, there were about 120,000 more births to women 35 and older in 2024, this is a drop in the bucket compared to 1.2 million fewer births among women under 30.

The question of what can be done, as a matter of public policy, to reverse the current alarming trend of below-replacement fertility has perplexed the intellectuals and politicians of our age, but we can never fix a problem by denying the problem exists, which is what Claire Cain Miller is doing with her dishonest chart. Miller and the New York Times are still committed to promoting the same anti-marriage/anti-motherhood feminist propaganda that got us here in the first place. They are still part of the problem, and therefore cannot be part of the solution.

Category: Media Bias, New York Times

In The Mailbox: 04.13.26

Posted on | April 14, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Two days left until the tax deadline. Get ‘er done, people.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Looks like the Democrats actually decided to do so. For their own advantage, of course.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: Top 20 Swalwell Scandals, also, Anatomy of a Manufactured Scandal
357 Magnum: MB&F – Insane High End Watches and More, also Is The Buffalo City School System Obstructing an Investigation?
EBL: HOA Karen gets arrested, Baked Red Snapper, “The First Gun is Fired; May God Protect the Right”, Orbán Out in Hungarian Elections, and Baked Fish
Twitchy: Bad Orange Woman Shares Wisdom Of Minnesotan Who Assaulted TPUSA Reporter, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) “Shocked” To Find Bestie Swalwell Lived Double Life, and Does Anybody Believe Pelosi’s Answer To This Question About Swalwell’s Resignation?
Louder With Crowder: California attempting to pass new “Stop Nick Shirley Act” to make investigating illegal immigrants a crime, Investigative Footage Shows Taxpayer Funded USAID Food Donations Being Sold In Haitian Street Market, Mamdani celebrates his first 100 days of socialism by mocking iconic Margaret Thatcher quote, Reporter excitedly interviews the new first-place winner of a girls’ high school track meet, and There’s been a lot of Good Trump vs. Bad Trump lately
Vox Popoli: AIPAC Rejects Peace, Saving the Strait, and Mailvox: TFG in Print
Cedar Sanderson: Cleaning Up Infodumps, also, Oatmeal Cookies
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Women’s Self Defense, also, Lessons Should Be Learned
The Abbey of Misrule: The Easter Rising
Upstream Reviews: Engines of Liberty
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: A Weekend In Geopolitics Is A Long Time
Draw & Talk Comics: I Had It Right The First Time
JIm McCoy: Zombie Deserter

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Greatness: Eric Swalwell Suspends Campaign, Resigns From Office, DOJ Opens Investigation Into Mob Attack on Conservative Journalist in Minneapolis, Los Angeles Teachers Unions Force Major Raise to Avoid Strike, Congress to Tackle DHS Shutdown, Govt. Funding, Voter ID Bill on Return, and Democrat Perfidy Knows No Bounds
Animal Magnetism: Animal Magnetism LIVE Ep. 83 – Gun Leather
BattleSwarm: “Enhance. Enhance. Enhance.”, Swalwell’s Crime: Rape, Or Opposing The Party? and Followup – Farewell To Swalwell
Behind The Black: A pause in posting, also, Three launches, two by SpaceX and one by China
Cafe Hayek: On Trump’s Latest Boast About His Tariffs, also, More on Job Growth On Trump’s Watch
CDR Salamander: European Navies’ Lessons, 34 Ships & $65.8 Billion Is Nothing To Sneeze At
Chicago Boyz: A Day At Folkfest, also, The Chavezing of Eric Swalwell
Da Tech Guy: My Pintastic NE 2026 Gallery
Dana L:oesch: Swalwell Quits CA Governor Race, Tucker Carlson Presents Russell Brand As New “Christian” Influencer, Breaking – Swalwell Resigns From Congress,
Don Surber: Gay propaganda
Elizabeth Nickson: Globalism Is A Crime Scene – Iran Is The Master-Level Reset, There’s A Lot Of Ruin In A Nation,
Gates Of Vienna: Brescia Imam Likes ’Em Young, I’m Polishing My Hubcaps, and Baa-a-a-a!
The Geller Report: Illegals Killed 13,000 Americans, That’s 64% of All Murder Cases , Israel Takes Out Chemical Weapon Factory Making Fentanyl Bombs in Iran, Oil Surge – Tankers Flock to Gulf of America as Hormuz Blockade Reroutes Global Supply, Muslims Slaughter An Entire Christian Family in Nigeria, and Victor Orbán Concedes Defeat in Hungary Election
Hollywood In Toto: Why Adam McKay’s Thrash Drowns in Climate Fearmongering, Will Prada 2 Be More ‘Maverick’ than Malcolm?, Here’s Only Excuse for Tim Dillon’s Insane Anti-Trump Rant, Mark Normand Asks Gen Z the Ultimate Culture War Question, and Will Public Accept Sanitized Michael Biopic?
Legal Insurrection: Several States Considering New Campus Carry Laws, Newly Released 2019 Impeachment Files Point to Previously Undisclosed Exculpatory Evidence, Blue States Bleed Families While Red States Gain Ground, Trump Says We May Stop by Cuba After We’re Finished With Iran, and Judge Dismisses Trump’s Lawsuit Against Wall Street Journal Without Prejudice
Nebraska Energy Observer: REAX, Iran, and Is NATO Finished?
Outkick: USA Today’s Billy Napier Fluff Piece Is The Worst Thing You’ll Read All Week, When Asked A Simple Question, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert Raises Question Of Gender, Overnight Masters Sensation Costs Himself Disgusting Amount Of Money During Sunday Disaster, Rangers And Athletics Pitchers Searching For Footing, and Sophie Cunningham Keeps Ripping Off Her Clothes For SI, Amanda Balionis Had A Big Masters & A Dumb Rory Debate
Power Line: The harder they fall, S&P is UP for 2026, Viktor Orban Departs the Scene, Canada, Circling the Drain, and California to Tax Billionaires? Hold Our Beer!
Racket News: We Are Doomed & Our Leaders Are Insane
Shark Tank: Byron Donalds Dismisses Edited Immigration Video, Says Both His Opponents Are “Losing Big”
The Political Hat: Normies Don’t Like Political Histrionics
This Ain’t Hell: Never-ending repairs…ended, US-Iran Talks Fail, Straits, Monster, and ammo, and Trumped!
Transterrestrial Musings: Swalwell, New-Car “Features”, and The “Ceasefire”
Victory Girls: Artemis II Mission Complete, Space Dreams Are Alive, Terrorist State Iran Chooses Unwisely — Trump Closes Strait of Hormuz, and Newsom Tax Virtue Signaling Comes Back To Bite Him
Watts Up With That: Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life, Wrong Again, Associated Press, New England electricity prices among the highest nationwide, Fossil Fuels Shine Light of Hope in Africa, and When is a “Drought” NOT a Drought?
The Federalist: America’s 250th Anniversary Is The Perfect Time To Resurrect Our Slain Statues, 6 Things To Know About 2019 Impeachment Coup Against Trump, As New Docs Confirm Federalist Reporting, Democrats Aren’t Far Behind Canada In Efforts To Ban Christian Speech, The Other Villain In The Swalwell Allegations Is The Complicit Corporate Press, and Fixing The Fertility Rate Starts With Getting Boys And Girls To Talk To Each Other
Mark Steyn: You Don’t Have to Be Bananas to Work Here, Defiant Spirit – Whisky Galore! tells a Scottish Joke, “Taxman”, Plus ça régime-change, plus c’est la même chose, and Only Connect

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Category: Linkagery

Rule Five Monday: Blue Monday

Posted on | April 13, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Today’a appetizer is a last minute grab from @rulefivetweets on X.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

EBL: Masters Weekend, Saturday Night Girls With Guns, Rock & Roll, Rovers on the Moon, “I’m A Believer”, Make American Immigration Great Again, MAGA Airman Rescue & Iran Deadline, The Predator That Almost Wiped Out Mankind, “Waterloo”, and Nuremburg

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Suvi Laiho, Fish Pic Friday – Allie Butler, Mercy, And I Bet She Was a Good Dog Too, The Wednesday Wetness, Tattoo Tuesday, Maryland Has Crabs, Trump Sets Sights on Iran’s Power, Bridges and Oil, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Good News, F15 WSO Rescued in Iran Firefight and Happy Easter!

BACON TIME: Rule Five – Yes, I Will Have A Beer

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

Natives vs. Newcomers in Virginia: What ‘Spanberger’s Lobster’ Is Really About

Posted on | April 13, 2026 | No Comments

Current Virginia congressional districts (click image to enlarge)

When I was a young newspaper staffer in Rome, Georgia, my boss was Pierre-Rene Noth. He was half-Jewish and half-Catholic. His father had been a left-wing journalist in France before the family fled the Nazis. Pierre was very liberal, but when it came to journalism, his motto was “local, local, local.” Realizing that news consumers turned to TV and other media for national news, his obsession was about focusing on local issues, and one of Pierre’s pet peeves was how the congressional map in Georgia at the time had Rome being represented in Congress by a guy from the Atlanta suburbs in Cobb County. Pierre believed that, if the map were properly drawn, the northwest corner of the state would be its own congressional district, with Rome in the middle of it. Pierre died a few years ago and did not live to see the fruition of his vision, although I can’t imagine he would have been pleased when the Rome-based 14th District elected Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress. Anyway . . .

Pierre’s idea about properly drawn congressional maps was on my mind Sunday as I drove — via Winchester, Warrenton and Culpeper — to Louisa, Virginia, to cover the “Vote No” rally. That route took me through some of the most scenic country I’d ever laid eyes on, and the beauty of the place just made me more angry that Abigail Spanberger wants to deprive the people who live there of their rightful representation.

As you can see from the map above, the current district map of Virginia is a masterpiece of simplicity. The two basic principles of a good map are that districts should be (a) coherent and (b) compact. By “coherent,” I mean that the geography of a district ought to make some kind of sense; counties shouldn’t be split up unnecessarily and districts ought not to cross mountain ranges or major rivers if such distortions can be avoided. By “compact,” I mean that a district ought not to go sprawling over the countryside for no reason. The shape of the district should not resemble a lizard or a crustacean. In both of these regards, it’s hard to find any fault with the current Virginia congressional maps. You’ll notice that two small districts — the 8th and the 11th — are crammed up next to the Potomac River across from D.C., representing the urbanized precincts of Alexandria, Arlington and Fairfax. The 10th District encompasses the rapidly growing area around Dulles International Airport, as well as Fauquier, Prince William and Rappahanock counties. Most admirable is how the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, stretching from Roanoake up toward the West Virginia panhandle, is all encompassed in the Sixth District, while the southwest corner of the state — coal country down there — is represented as District 9. This is a near-perfect map, and you see that District 5 is both coherent and compact, covering central Virginia down to the North Carolina border. Now look at this:

Spanberger’s Lobster. https://t.co/pxe2yZ9HgP

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) April 13, 2026

That monstrosity is what the 5th District of Virginia would look like if this redistricting referendum passes next Tuesday. You could consult a thesaurus for the right words to describe it — abomination, etc. — but you certainly can’t call it compact or coherent. If you’re a Republican voter, it’s the Creature That Ate Your Representation.

Did I mention that Spanberger is from New Jersey? Her family moved to Virginia when she was 13, and she has hated it ever since. Being in Congress — she won her seat by a slender margin in 2018, a high-tide year for Democrats — was a way for Spanberger to inflict revenge on the Virginia natives she has always despised. And this is the factor you have to realize about Virginia politics: In the D.C. suburbs, almost none of the residents are actually from Virginia. They’re all from somewhere else originally, and often quite recent transplants. They are ambition-fueled careerists with no real roots in the community. Virginia has been positively overrun by these newcomers in recent decades. The population of the Commonwealth has increased by almost 2.5 million since 1990, and the bulk of those are crammed into Northern Virginia, living in townhouses, condominiums, apartments and cookie-cutter subdivisions of “McMansions” built on quarter-acre lots.

Get out into the countryside, however, and you meet the real Virginians. That’s who turned out at the Louisa County Courthouse on Sunday. Folks in that part of Virginia can not only tell you what regiment their Confederate great-grandfather fought with, they can tell you which regiment his great-grandfather served in under General Washington. These people have actual roots, some of them all the way back to Jamestown, and the Democrats absolutely hate these real Virginians.

Well, that’s why I drove all the way to Louisa:

Roadsides in this part of the Old Dominion are festooned with signs: “VOTE NO APRIL 21.” From here to Winchester, a distance of more than 100 miles, scarcely any signs could be seen expressing support for the Democrat-backed referendum that would redistrict Virginia’s congressional delegation and effectively silence the voices of those who dwell in the rural parts of the Commonwealth. But those voices were heard loudly Sunday afternoon on the lawn of the county courthouse here.
“What are you going to do?” Republican Rep. John McGuire asked the crowd.
“Vote no!” the hundred or so attendees shouted.
“I think you can do better than that,” the fifth district’s congressman said. “What are you going to do?”
“Vote no!” they yelled in reply.
Early voting has been going on for weeks, and when those at the courthouse rally were asked for a show of hands of who had already voted, nearly every hand was raised. With barely more than a week to go before April 21, however, the question is whether their votes — and those of Republican voters elsewhere in Virginia — will be enough to prevent passage of the partisan gerrymander that newly-installed Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the Democrat-controlled legislature would impose. . . .

You can read the rest of my latest American Spectator column.

Category: American Spectator, Congress, Virginia

FMJRA 2.0: Grinding Forward

Posted on | April 13, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Another good week to be a Senators fan! The week began badly as we lost two out of three at Cleveland, but tonight we swept Pete’s Brewers to finish the week 73-74, still in second place behind the Twins but now 15.5 games ahead of the Brewers – and more importantly, just a bit ahead of the 71-73 Royals, who are coming off a four-game losing streak and facing the Tribe, against whom they are 3-6. So I have a good chance to expand my hair-thin lead in the race for the last AL wildcard spot. Go Tribe!
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.