‘Trans’ Gaslighting; No, Canada Shooter Was Not ‘Female in a Dress.’ Guthrie Glove. REAL Epstein Files. Seeking a Rich Sugar Daddy—Your Friends at WaPo. More
The initial description was fishy. Early reports identified the shooter in the terrible mass shooting in Canada as “a female in a dress.” But was this accurate?
Powerline seems to have been the first to question this curious description. The post was headlined “Another Trans Mass Shooting?” Remove that question mark.
Here is how the New York Times describes the shooter, who has been identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar:
Ms. Van Rootselaar was biologically born male and began transitioning to female six years ago, Mr. McDonald said. He added that the police would continue identifying her as a female. He said that the authorities were not yet able to say why the suspect had carried out the murder spree, one of the worst in Canadian history.
Here’s a picture of Van Rootselaar. Look like a female to you? The more reliable New York Post calls him “transgender” in the headline and describes his sick massacre:
The transgender high school dropout who gunned down his mother and stepbrother before killing six others at a British Columbia, Canada school was seen for the first time in resurfaced photos posted by his family – including one eerie snap showing the smiling teen holding a rifle.
Jesse Van Rootselaar, the 18-year-old ex-student who went on a gun-wielding rampage at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, was spotted straight-faced in several pictures posted by his grandmother on Facebook for his 14th birthday.
“Happy 14th birthday to our grandson Jesse !! Love you always !! XOXO,” the post from August 2021 read.
Van Rootselaar launched the horrifying attack at a private residence in the remote community before continuing the carnage at the high school, where authorities said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In the same honest media outlet, Bethany Mandel calls upon the mainstream press to “stop gaslighting” us about “the reality of trans shooters.” Mandel writes:
The tragedy in British Columbia is not an isolated incident.
Over the past several years, a disturbing number of mass attacks have involved individuals who identified as transgender.
In Nashville, a transgender-identified shooter murdered six people at a Christian school.
In Minneapolis, another attacker with documented gender-identity turmoil targeted a church.
The alleged murderer of Charlie Kirk had transgender associations and beliefs.
Yet the media insist that violence by mentally ill people and their transgender identity is mere coincidence.
The Federalist comments on “an epidemic of transgender violence” and has this about the Canadian shooter’s mother:
An Instagram account purportedly belonging to Jesse’s mother, Jennifer, appears to show she was a trans activist who posted that “you have any idea how many kids are killing themselves over this kind of hate,” adding “ProtectTransKids.”
When it comes to the “trans” issue, it’s not only the public at large that suffers from gaslighting. “What I Suffered Being ‘Transgender’” is an eloquent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Soren Aldaco, an Independent Women Ambassador, who is suing the medical professionals who gaslight her, encouraging her to undergo radical surgery to “transition” into a male.
There is a belated break in the Nancy Guthrie case. Investigators have found a black glove dropped near Mrs. Guthrie’s yard, potentially a breakthrough. A retired FBI agent believes the suspect is an amateur—in which case, he or she has had a pretty good run so far.
“A Welcome Jobs Rebound” is a headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial on the Labor Department’s January jobs report.
The economy created a net 130,000 new jobs in the first month of the year, according to the Labor Department. But the story is better than that because the private economy created 172,000, offset by a decline of 42,000 jobs in government.
The Biden years were a boom time for government, and the Trump course correction is much needed. …
A major complication in this data is the impact of the Administration’s mass deportation policy. The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) looked at the BLS data and found a decline of 534,000 foreign-born workers in the U.S. since a peak in March 2025. That’s a reduction of about 1.4 million foreign-born workers than would be expected from previous government estimates. ….
NFAP says the unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers was 4.7% in January, compared to 4.3% in January 2025. The jobs that foreign workers filled may simply go away over time, as the deportation wave continues. But at least in January the labor market showed signs of a welcome rebound.
Meanwhile, the number of voluntary self-deportations skyrockets as (some) illegal immigrants find that the Trump administration means business.
I’m Napoleon. And I Voted. The Free Beacon has a truly smashing piece on the Mamdani official, whose previous pursuits included registering psychotic people to vote. Alister Martin, New York’s new Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Chief, helped provide help for doctors to register mental patients to vote:
Citing the “therapeutic” benefits of voting, the institute has used Vot-ER’s tools since at least 2021 to register patients hospitalized for schizophrenia, suicidal thoughts, and life-threatening addictions. Some of those patients had been involuntarily committed, raising thorny questions about informed consent and the use of vulnerable people as political pawns.
History Calling. President Trump’s intentions in Iran remain a mystery. “Serious Trump biographies in the decades ahead will begin with the decision he makes on Iran now,” Hugh Hewitt argues.
One door is marked “Truman/Reagan” and the other door is marked “Carter/Obama/Biden.”
President Donald Trump has to choose one. Again. And this time, the choice will define Trump’s place in history.
A New York Post editorial suggests “Iran’s rulers plainly fear US strikes — Trump should prove them right.” Former CIA analyst Martin Gurri writes that from Venezuela to Tehran, Trump keeps the world guessing—to his advantage.
In “The Real Epstein ‘Ring’” Barton Swaim debunks the usual take on the late pedo:
The Jeffrey Epstein files were supposed to uncover the financier’s sex-trafficking and blackmail operation. They haven’t, for the excellent reason that there was no such operation. …
Its nonexistence is, ironically, the main thing to emerge so far from the document dump. … The press purports to think the salient fact here is that Mr. Trump in 2019 claimed he knew nothing about Epstein’s creepy actions. But the salient point is that Mr. Trump in 2006 volunteered his view to the cops that Epstein’s behavior revolted him and is thus unlikely to have participated in it.
Today’s liberals spend a lot of energy discoursing on the American right’s pathologies, often justly. But it ought to bother them that 20 years ago the man they loathe most took a look at Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct and got the hell out of there.
Washington’s Neediest Cases. “Rich Liberals, Please Step Up and Save the Washington Post” is the headline on Michael Tomasky’s plea at The New Republic. Behind the paywall, but you get the gist. Laughter Is the Best Medicine. Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter has a different idea: indulge in some good old schadenfreude. He writes:
There’s a glorious symmetry in their suffering, but there’s so much more. There’s their incessant whining about Jeff Bezos refusing to continue to subsidize their little bubble, like some bratty girl at Wellesley who graduates and finds that Daddy is cutting off her money and she’s got to actually work. Did these people actually work? They told themselves consistently how important and vital their “work” was ….
Personally, I love their incessant whining that Jeff Bezos somehow owes them sinecures. Why, he’s got so much money he could easily continue paying for them to provide zero value! It’s his moral duty! One even referred to his “stewardship” of the Washington Post in a typically overwrought X post. Stewardship? He’s a steward? What, like some sort of ink-stained Denethor? Well, they’ve got the funeral pyre part down.
What Does This Mean? Gallup will no longer chart presidential approval ratings. Gallup has been tracking them for 90 years. … Nina Shea asks what is next for Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong newspaper owner, behind bars at the behest of the communist regime in Beijing. Shea provides a glimpse of Lai’s life in prison through his daughter.
