In The Mailbox: 02.23.26

Well, that went better than I thought it would. We played the Daytraders last Sunday and took two games out of three; we lost the opener to Vida Blue but won game 2 in extra innings on an RBI single by Tom Grieve, and in game three we pounded Larry Gura for 12 runs while holding the Daytraders scoreless. Against the Tribe, we likewise lost Game One to Steve Busby 0-3, but in Game 2 we thumped Dave Freisleben 3-0 and in Game 3 Jim Kaat went the distance against Mickey Lolich and we rallied for three runs in the bottom of the 8th against Bob Reynolds to win it 5-2. So we’re still in second place, seven games behind the Twins and 1.5 games ahead of the Brewers. We may slither into the playoffs even if we don’t reach .500. This week we’re facing the Giants on Tuesday and the Dodgers on Friday.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

4-2 continues to be good.

The Canadian ‘Gunperson’ and the Syllogism of the Liberal Narrative
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

FMJRA 2.0: Harvey Dent Week
EBL
357 Magnum

Rule 5 Sunday: Snow Bunnies
EBL

Warning: Stay Away From St. Louis
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 02.16.26
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Radical Vegan Transgender Cult Update: Maryland Trial Postponed Until June
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 02.18.26 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

‘He Was Mr. BLM’
EBL
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach

In The Mailbox: 02.20.26 (Morning Edition)
EBL
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach

What Happens When Liberals ‘Succeed’
357 Magnum
EBL
A View From The Beach

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Amazon Essentials

Category: FMJRA Award

‘Zizian’ Cult Member Gets Bailed Out

Posted on | February 21, 2026 | No Comments

Daniel Arthur Blank

Latest news in the radical vegan transgender death cult case:

CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) — A member of a group known to outsiders as Zizians that is linked to six deaths was bailed out of jail in Maryland on Friday.
Police in Maryland connected Jack “Ziz” LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank to homicide investigations in California, Pennsylvania and Vermont after a landowner found them living in box trucks at the end of a snow-covered dirt road last February, according to court documents and pretrial testimony.
Blank was bailed out Friday at about noon after posting $15,000. Blank’s attorney Rebecca Lechliter declined comment. Zajko and LaSota remain in custody and are being held without bail.
Blank’s release includes conditions that he must live alone and submit to GPS tracking.
The deaths linked to the group reached six last year when a U.S. border agent was killed in Vermont. The three members were later arrested on trespassing and gun charges in the woods of western Maryland. Seven of the group’s members are jailed in three states, all awaiting trial.
Maryland state Trooper Brandon Jeffries wrote after their Feb. 16, 2025 arrests that all the “suspects involved are to be questioned regarding other crimes that have occurred across the country and have ties with the Zizians Cult.”
Called “Zizians” by outsiders, the young, highly intelligent computer scientists appear to share radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity and artificial intelligence. Since 2022, members have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on a California landlord, the landlord’s subsequent killing, the shooting deaths of Zajko’s parents in Pennsylvania, and a highway shootout in Vermont that left the border agent and another Zizian dead.
Jury selection was supposed to start recently in Cumberland, Maryland, where LaSota, Zajko and Blank are charged with possession of LSD and possession with intent to deliver LSD, multiple gun violations, trespassing and hindering a police officer.
The trial was delayed until June, however, after Zajko, who also is charged with resisting arrest, fired her attorney, briefly represented herself and hired a new lawyer.

This isn’t too surprising During their initial hearing in Allegany County District Court last year, Blank’s case for release was clearly the most sympathetic. Whereas both LaSota and Zajko are facing federal charges and are “persons of interests” in active homicide investigations, Blank has not been implicated in any crimes other than the state charges related to the trio’s arrest while trespassing last year near Frostburg. His stepfather appeared on Blank’s behalf at that hearing, where the defendants were represented by public defender Rebecca Francoeur-Breeden:

Sitting in the courtroom Tuesday, we heard Daniel Blank’s squeaky voice blabbering incomprensibly, then Ms. Francoeur-Breeden mentioned that Blank has mental health issues. She said Blank’s stepfather, who was willing to help Blank get some kind of local residence if he could be released, had flown in from California and was present in the courtroom. Judge Bean asked the stepfather to stand up and address the bench. He was a gray-haired man in a brown overcoat, obviously distraught, and said he would do whatever he could to help his stepson. Daniel Blank reportedly has dyslexia and is somewhere on the “spectrum” of autism. Yet, as Ms. Francoeur-Breeden told the court, he was unquestionably “brilliant”:

Daniel Blank was born in Berkeley, California and always excelled in school, earning straight A’s and praise from his teachers, his mother Nadia Blank told Open Vallejo. He competed on a science bowl team throughout middle and high school and was fluent in three languages, she said.
Blank, who became vegan in college, graduated a semester early from the University of California, Berkeley with a double major in bioengineering and computer science, according to a resume posted on his LinkedIn profile. As an undergraduate, he conducted research for two Berkeley professors and interned at Oracle and Daphnia Labs.
Blank’s mother said he accepted a high-paying corporate offer in Oakland following graduation.

Blank disappeared in 2022, and seeing his stepfather in court was emotionally jarring. Being a father myself, what must it be like to have your “brilliant” stepson disappear, end up in some kind of weird cult, and get arrested in connection with a nationwide crime spree?

And so it appears that the court, not wishing to seem unreasonable — and considering that the prosecution has apparently found no evidence implicating Blank in any other crimes connected to the Zizian cult — has finally agreed to let him out on bond pending the state trial now scheduled for June. Will keep you updated on any further developments.

PREVIOUSLY:

February 17, 2026: Radical Vegan Transgender Cult Update: Maryland Trial Postponed Until June
January 17, 2026: Radical Vegan Transgender Cult Update: Three ‘Zizians’ Make Court Appearance
November 28, 2025: Radical Vegan Transgender Cult Update: Ziz Claims to Be ‘Genocide’ Victim
August 14, 2025: Vegan Transgender Death Cult Update: Feds Seek Death Penalty in Vermont
June 29, 2025: LGBTQIA2S+ Pride Month Update: New Maryland Charges for Three Members of Radical Vegan Transgender Cult
June 20, 2025: Radical Vegan Transgender Cult Update: Federal Weapons Charge Indictment
April 21, 2025: Radical Vegan Transgender Death Cult Update: Brainwashed Zombie Praises ‘Ziz’ and Denies Killing Her Own Parents
February 19, 2025: ‘Ziz’ Misgendered and Other Highlights of Tuesday’s Court Hearing for Cult Suspects
February 18, 2025: Bail Hearing Today for Cult Suspects
February 17, 2025: MUGSHOTS: Jack ‘Ziz’ LaSota, Michelle ‘Jamie’ Zajko, Daniel ‘Hastur’ Blank
February 17, 2025: BREAKING: Cult Leader Jack ‘Ziz’ LaSota and Michelle Zajko Arrested in Maryland UPDATE: Third Suspect Also Captured
February 17, 2025: ‘Remembrance’ for a Criminal
February 16, 2025: Radical Vegan Transgender Death Cult Gets Mainstream Media Coverage
February 2, 2025: Scott Siskind Didn’t Start the Fire: Rationalism, NY Times and the Zizians
February 1, 2025: Real Murders, Fake Suicides: ‘Zizian’ Death Cult Fugitives Still at Large
January 30, 2025: Vegan Transgender Death Cult Update: Zizian ‘Anti-Law Enforcement Ideology’
January 27, 2025: Radical Vegan Transgender Cult Implicated in Border Agent’s Death

Category: Crime, Maryland, The Transgender Cult

What Happens When Liberals ‘Succeed’

Posted on | February 20, 2026 | No Comments

Liberalism is about winning elections. Whatever the actual results of liberal policies may be, in terms of the well-being of the people who vote for liberals, are of no real consequence. So long as liberals keep winning elections, they consider their policies successful. We see this all the time in places like Baltimore, Philadelphia and St. Louis where, no matter how objectively bad things get — no matter how much poverty, misery and violence prevail — Democrats keep getting re-elected.

The Chicago Bears are reportedly ready to relocate to Hammond, Indiana, because Illinois has been controlled so long by Democrats that not even relocating from Chicago to the suburbs would have saved the franchise; the only hope for the Bears was to leave the state entirely. Businesses and people are fleeing the state; such companies as Boeing, Caterpillar and Tyson Foods have pulled their headquarters out of Illinois. One reason that Democrats in Illinois are so desperate to stop the deportation of illegal aliens is because without foreigners, the state would be losing population. Despite the deepening crisis in Illinois, however, the people there keep voting for Democrats — Kamala Harris got 54% of the vote there in 2024. There is no incentive for change if Democrats keep winning no matter what. And something similar is underway north of the border, which brings us to the news that has shocked Canada:

For eons, Canadians have viewed Alabama as a small state that, save for a few pockets, is dirt poor. All anybody seems to know about Alabama is that Montgomery and Birmingham were the centre of the civil rights movement. In 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he called Birmingham “probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States.”
So, it was a shock when Canadian economist Trevor Tombe and the International Monetary Fund ran the numbers in 2023 and 2024 and concluded that Canada had, in fact, become poorer than Alabama. . . .
After adjusting for foreign exchange and some cost differences in both countries, the average for Canada’s 10 provinces was estimated at at US$55,000 in 2022, the same as Alabama. Shortly after, the IMF found Canada had actually fallen behind the southern state. (Canada has since edged ever-so-slightly higher than Alabama; the numbers are volatile from year to year.)
The timing was terrible for the Canadian psyche. Home prices were on an astronomical trajectory, inflation made everyday items such as groceries far more expensive and there was deep resentment toward Ottawa. Canadians could probably stomach having their living standards slip relative to the broader U.S., the epicentre of the world’s tech revolution. But Alabama? . . .

Yes, Alabama! If anyone wonders why Canada is now lagging behind Alabama, let me make a digression. About 30 years ago, I noticed an emerging theme in Democratic messaging. Our problem, they said, was a “growing gap between rich and poor.” This was the theme of numerous newspaper columns and a talking point in speeches by Democratic politicians, and it got me to wondering why this gap was growing.

Was it a matter of economic policy? Was racism — “RAAAAACISM!” — somehow a factor in this growing gap? And after some study, itn finally hit me: Immigration! It turns out that an influx of cheap labor from the Third World increases poverty. You don’t need a Harvard Ph.D. to figure this out. Every year during the 1990s, at least a million immigrants (both legal and illegal) were being added to the U.S. population. Most of these immigrants came from countries much poorer than the United States, lacked specialized work skills and arrived with few if any assets.

Most were not fluent in English, and quite a few of them were completely illiterate, even in their own native languages. No matter what other policy the government might pursue, the constant addition of so many immigrants — a million this year, a million next year, and so on, year after year — would inevitably increase the percentage of the population living at or below the poverty line. But liberals were ignoring this obvious factor in economic trends, instead focusing on statistical changes that got translated to “a growing gap between rich and poor.”

Well, guess why Canada has fallen behind Alabama?

“Migrants tend to make the economies they move to a lot like the ones they left.” —@GarettJones https://t.co/nFMU4rM9s8 pic.twitter.com/rmEVaPRqmj

— William Meijer (@williameijer) February 20, 2026

"Out of nowhere"

Importing 8 million immigrants, hosting them and their children, and reducing foundational Canadians to 60% of the population is what has made Canada poorer than Alabama. https://t.co/UL0iZwn7ww pic.twitter.com/fgriGljfp3

— White Papers Policy Institute (@WhitePapersPol) February 20, 2026

Millions of foreigners are on welfare, the city of toronto spends over 100 million a year on just hotels for these welfare bums

immigrants are a net negative for Canada and costing Canadians billions pic.twitter.com/DFkNWbXCXc

— Aisha was 6 years old (@Ralston727) February 20, 2026

Canada adopted the immigration policies advocated by @Noahpinion and @bryan_caplan and became even poorer. https://t.co/HqWzQJdaU7 pic.twitter.com/WwWJTCfIEK

— Project for Immigration Reform (@PFIRorg) February 20, 2026

In the 2015 election, Canada’s Liberal Party defeated the Conservative Party, and Justin Trudeau was the Prime Minister for the next 10 years before being succeeded by another Liberal, Mark Carney. So during a decade when the United States has rocked back and forth — Obama, then Trump, then Biden, then Trump again — Canada has been governed the whole time by the Liberal Party. And as long as the Liberals keep winning elections, that’s success, even though they’re falling behind Alabama.

Category: Alabama, Canada, Economics, Immigration, Liberals

In The Mailbox: 02.20.26 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | February 20, 2026 | No Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It’s 24 degrees and there’s a couple of inches of snow on the ground. At least the roads are clear.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: Overthrowing Nixon – The Graphic Novel, A Day With Ulysses S. Grant At Vicksburg (1863),
357 Magnum: Another Failure of the Victim-Selection Process, Disney Tries to Create New Black Superhero – Fails Spectacularly, also SJW Doesn’t Care About the Child Victim, or the Murder Victim
EBL: Iwo Jima, Prince Andrew Arrested in UK, Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima, Pink Shrimp, and Ash Wednesday
Twitchy: Republicans Celebrate Dems Choosing Governor In Name Only Spanberger To Give SOTU Response, U.S. Women Win OT Hockey Gold, Leave Canadians Spinning & Seething, and Renee Good Memorial Burned In Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Incident
Louder With Crowder: Parents call cops on their son over the crime of (check notes) posting right-wing opinions on social media, Canada assisted a young man’s suicide, but it turns out he was just “seasonally depressed,” and his family wants answers, AOC laughs at ICE agents while bragging about encouraging the disorder the left created, The Irony of Leftist Empathy , and NYC Hospital Ends Gender Treatment For Kids After Risk Of Losing Federal Funding
Vox Popoli: The Ending of All Endings, Extended Air War on Iran, Feature, Not Bug, Prince Andrew Arrested, and Did Iran Miss its Chance?
Stoic Observations: The New Intelligence Meritocracy, also, Defend Your Moat
Mazelit Airaksinen: California Nurse Claims “There’s No Jewish Race”
Upstream Reviews: Time God Warlock, Kevin James Meets The Tolerance Mob, and Beyond The Rift
Cedar Sanderson: Making A Home, I Remember, and FenCon – Mars Or Bust
The Bugscuffle Gazette: Maltese Taters
Jim McCoy: Amazon’s Fallout Series Is Must-See Streaming
Ammo.com: U.S. Firearm Deaths Per Year
Postcards From Barsoom: Dominion Congress

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Baldilocks: What’s Growing In Your Garden? also, Typing Small
CDR Salamander: Russia’s Middle-Aged Poor To The Grinder, also, Again – ESB’s Carry The Tactical Load
Dana Loesch: It’s Not About Dogs, also, Tucker Carlson Claims Israel Detained Him At The Airport
Don Surber: The Ironic Curtain, also, Why they want California ruined
Racket News: FDA’s Straight Shooter – Don’t Bring Crappy Data To A Gunfight, also, How Politicians Smear The World Vol. 1
STUMP: The Return of Wealth Taxes – California & The Netherlands, also, 2024 Top U.S. Causes of Death By Age Group,

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

Category: Linkagery

‘He Was Mr. BLM’

Posted on | February 20, 2026 | No Comments

Big hat-tip to Luke Rosiak of the Daily Wire for calling attention to a story I missed last year. Probably gonna write more about this later on my Substack, but it’s a big enough story I can give you the gist of it here and still have plenty left to chew on over there. Ten years ago, Wesley Lowery was basically the poster boy for diversity in journalism.

In college, Lowery did internships at the Detroit News, the Columbus Dispatch, and the Wall Street Journal, then hired on at the Boston Globe in 2013, when he was 23. A year later, he was hired at the Washington Post, which had just brought in ex-Globe editor Marty Baron as their new top editor. Not long after Lowery joined the Post, he was sent to Ferguson, Missouri, to cover the 2014 race riots there. Talk about a career being “fast-tracked,” Lowery was moving at hyper-speed — front-page bylines in the Washington Post at age 24? Bob Woodward didn’t even join the Post until he was 27. Lowery’s star soared even higher the next year when he was made the lead reporter on the Post’s “Fatal Force” project, which compiled a database of police shootings (and other fatalities) nationwide, a project awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2016.

There were book deals, etc., and a job with CBS News before, in 2023, Lowery became a faculty member at American University, executive editor of the university’s Investigative Journalism Workshop (IJW).

Behind all this success, however, it appears that Lowery had a drinking problem and also a woman problem — the two problems were not unrelated — and while womanizing drunks have never been rare in the world of journalism, you can’t do that if you’re a university professor, because Title IX essentially criminalizes male heterosexual behavior:

Wesley J. Lowery, a Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter and one of the most influential journalists of his generation, has left his positions as the executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop and as an associate professor of journalism at American University in Washington, DC, after less than two years there. His departure follows a number of complaints against him, according to former colleagues, including at least three Title IX allegations, in which he was accused of improper behavior with colleagues and female students.

That was March 2025, and Lowery’s getting axed from his university gig wasn’t the end of the story. In the post-“Me Too” environment, it was necessary not merely to get Lowery fired from his job, but to drive a stake through the heart of his career, to ensure that he was permanently excluded from journalism forever. Two months after Lowery’s exit from American University, the Columbia Journalism Review published a lengthy account of his habitual lechery. One of the CJR’s sources was Imani Moise, a Wall Street Journal reporter who knew Lowery through the National Association of Black Journalists:

At the time of these encounters — which spanned from 2018 to 2024, when he had reached the height of his media stardom — each of these women viewed Lowery as a professional contact, someone they knew socially and looked up to, not as a romantic partner with whom they were engaging in consensual sex. Until now, some had feared making noise about Lowery, beyond telling a few confidants. “He was the golden boy, held up on this pedestal,” Moise said. She deeply felt his importance to journalism, to American culture, to so much. “He was Mr. BLM.”

Almost like a metaphor or something.