The Brew: With the Pennsylvania Governor Targeted by Arsonist, Maybe Political Violence Is Actually a Bad Thing
We should all be grateful to God that no one was killed in an appalling arson attack against Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, which happened while he and his family were inside the house around 2 a.m. Sunday morning. The New York Post reported:
Pennsylvania State Police have arrested a Harrisburg man for the arson attack on Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family that sent them fleeing from the governor’s residence on the first night of Passover.
Cody Balmer, 38, of Harrisburg, is expected to face charges of attempted murder, terrorism, aggravated arson, and aggravated assault against an enumerated person, authorities said.
Shapiro, who is Jewish, became visibly emotional as he spoke about the 2 a.m. attack on his home as he and his family slept inside.
The unhinged young man who has confessed to committing it was apparently one of those lonely, disgruntled malcontents who typically turn up as assassins — especially in a climate where political violence gets glamorized, excused, or even enabled by the Deep State (see the Gretchen Whitmer fednapping, and perhaps the two attempted assassinations of Donald Trump). So far, we see no evidence of an ethnic/racial or partisan motive for the attack, though Balmer had posted a few social media rants attacking Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and “the government.” From USA Today:
Balmer’s mother told CBS and the Associated Press on Monday that she tried to get him assistance for his mental health, but “nobody would help.” She told the news outlets her son had bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. “He wasn’t taking his medicine, and that’s all I want to say,” Christie Balmer told the AP, speaking in Harrisburg.
This isn’t the time or place to talk about Shapiro’s political virtues and vices, nor the charges that he was involved in election fraud. That should come later, as come it must. Nor was the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson a proper occasion for venting people’s grievances about the corrupt, corporatist health care system that Obamacare made much worse. No conservatives should be fan-girling over Balmer the way countless leftists (including prominent journalists such as Taylor Lorenz) oohed and ahhed about Thompson’s killer, Luigi Mangione — who’s apparently wading through thousands of love letters in prison.
Taylor Lorenz on murderer Luigi Mangioni: “Here’s this man who, who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart — he’s a person that seems like a morally good man, which is hard to find”pic.twitter.com/o2rmSu1MNV
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 13, 2025
No, we should not go out and commit similar crimes against the Left so that leftists will “know how it feels.” It’s one thing to take the gloves off and abandon nonsense like “civility” and “norms” when you’re facing Antifa thugs and corrupt federal judges. It’s quite another to do things that are intrinsically evil, no matter the circumstance, simply to punish your enemies. We aren’t Mongol hordes, or Bolsheviks, or jihadis. We don’t want to live in the earthly hell of a country where such deeds become the norm, nor end up in the place where those who commit them spend eternity.
So how can we convince those on the Left to adopt a similar code? By the fierce, relentless prosecution of genuine crimes, especially by those abusing the power of the state. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, when we will start seeing indictments?
Just Trust the Science, and the Nice Front Men Working for Big Pharma
The indomitable Naomi Wolf is offering fresh evidence of just how corrupt Big Pharma is, and how culpable the political and religious leaders who coerced or guilted us into taking an untested, abortion-derived experimental “vaccine” during the COVID panic were in everything that happened. At Wolf’s The Daily Clout, we find internal Pfizer documents, plus analysis and summary of them. The conclusion is summed up in the story’s title: “Pfizer and FDA Knew in Early 2021 That Pfizer mRNA COVID “Vaccine” Caused Dire Fetal and Infant Risks, Including Death. They Began an Aggressive Campaign to Vaccinate Pregnant Women Anyway.”
Read it and weep. Be thankful that Trump appointees such as National Institutes of Health chief Jay Bhattacharya are reading it, too. If you’re wondering who in the Church helped Francis Collins bully, bribe, and gaslight pastors into teaching their congregations that taking a vaccine that endangered unborn babies was your duty if you “loved your neighbor,” check out Seth Gruber’s X feed. That pro-life filmmaker is on fire, and he’s naming names.
“Paganism Was Beautiful and Natural Before Those Christian Buzzkills Came Along”
How many times in your life have you encountered the message above in one form or another, via romanticized depictions of American Indians in movies or fake accounts of sexual “freedom” among Pacific Islanders? In countless Christian seminaries, the heroic history of missionary activity is now taught as a cautionary tale of “imperialism” and even “cultural genocide.” The Vatican enshrined an Amazonian pagan idol, Pachamama, at St. Peter’s Basilica in 2019. But what really goes on in pagan societies? The answers are sobering: slavery, polygamy, and human sacrifice. See the latest archaeological finding from Central America, which CBS News did its best to spin late last week:
An altar from the Teotihuacan culture, at the pre-Hispanic heart of what became Mexico, was discovered in Tikal National Park in Guatemala, the center of Mayan culture, demonstrating the interaction between the two societies, Guatemala’s Culture and Sports Ministry announced this week.
Well, that sounds nice, doesn’t it? Who’d be so narrow-minded and bigoted as not to welcome the recovery of an ancient civilization that was tragically hijacked by Christian conquerors and clergy? Read on:
Lorena Paiz, the archaeologist who led the discovery, said that the Teotihuacan altar was believed to have been used for sacrifices, “especially of children.”
“The remains of three children not older than 4 years were found on three sides of the altar,” Paiz told The Associated Press.
María Belén Méndez, an archaeologist who was not involved with the project, said the discovery confirms “that there has been an interconnection between both cultures and what their relationships with their gods and celestial bodies was like.”
“We see how the issue of sacrifice exists in both cultures. It was a practice; it’s not that they were violent, it was their way of connecting with the celestial bodies,” she said.
By using … the children’s bodies. Got it. Thanks, professor!
Everywhere, Christianity Made Life Better for the Weak, Especially Children
Child welfare advocate Katy Faust (see her Ruth Institute videos, which we’ve featured here at The Stream) created an epic tweet-storm documenting how the Gospel has transformed children’s lives wherever it has been carried. Check it out for a little uplifting fodder for your next discussion with some sophomore who just read Rousseau or Margaret Mead.
1/ Wherever Christians went, children’s lives got better.
They fought abuse, ended deadly customs, and transformed entire cultures to protect the vulnerable.
Here’s a thread of Christians who changed history by protecting children. And how kids are victimized today. pic.twitter.com/wZhF8r7dgp
— Katy Faust (@Advo_Katy) April 13, 2025
Giant Statues of Hindu Demons in Texas: Our Diversity Is Our Strength
Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once quipped that you can have a welfare state or open borders, but you can’t have both. (At least, not for long.) It turns out that the following is also true: You can have a tolerant, humane society that doesn’t split into murderous conflict over religious differences, or you can have mass immigration from every corner of the “unreached” world. But you can’t have both.
See this giant Hindu demon now looming over Texas that was erected last August in Sugar Land.
Be outraged at this, but your real anger should be towards the people who allowed this through LEGAL immigration. https://t.co/bkzWYxGkVS
— True Texas Project (@TrueTXProject) April 14, 2025
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was intended to prevent intra-Christian conflict and the persecution of Jews. Its authors had no idea that millions of Muslims and pagans would flood into America, demanding sharia law or practicing vicious caste persecution. Letting that happen invites discontent with our inherited freedoms.
America was always envisioned as a bastion of tolerant, Anglo-Protestant culture with room for a few eccentrics (such as my Catholic ancestors). Should we keep on remaking it as a circus tent full of exotic imports from halfway across the world? Americans voted on that in 2024, and they said, “No.”
Along The Stream …
Make sure to read Joachim Osther’s thoughtful piece “We Must Not Go Back To Normal,” to remind yourself that political victories, while absolutely necessary, are absolutely not sufficient.
John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.