Author Archives: Dana Pico

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World War III Watch: North Korean troops are ‘training’ in Russia

With the presidential election only twelve days away, this story is not getting nearly as much traction as it should have. From The Washington Post:

North Korean troops are in Russia, would be ‘legitimate targets’ in Ukraine, U.S. says

Citing newly declassified intelligence, the Biden administration said that at least 3,000 personnel are undergoing combat training in Russia, though it is unclear if they’ll join the war.

By Dan Lamothe, Missy Ryan, and Michelle Ye Hee Lee | Wednesday, October 23, 2024 | 6:20 AM EDT | Updated: 5:56 PM EDT

The U.S. government has evidence that at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia receiving training, senior Biden administration officials said Wednesday, a development they said could have global implications and make those troops “legitimate military targets” in Ukraine should they enter the ongoing war there.

The disclosure, which officials said is based on newly declassified U.S. intelligence, coincides with similar pronouncements in recent days from the governments of Ukraine and South Korea. NATO and the United States had not previously confirmed the North Korean troop movements, and the administration said Washington was doing so now to convey the seriousness with which it views the matter.

“We recognize the potential danger here,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told reporters at the White House. “And we’re going to be talking to allies and partners, including Ukrainians, about what the proper next steps are going to be.”

He emphasized repeatedly that the U.S. government does not yet know for certain that any North Korean soldiers will join the fighting in Ukraine, but he warned there would be consequences if they do.

“If these North Korean troops are employed against Ukraine,” Kirby said, “they will become legitimate military targets.”

That’s a simple statement of fact, but the obvious question becomes: “legitimate military targets” by whom? Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said yesterday the US should consider taking “direct military action” if North Korean troops enter the war in Ukraine.

Not just no, but Hell no!

I would not anticipate that, if the story details are accurate, that the troops are undergoing training at military bases in eastern Russia, those troops would enter the war before our election. With winter approaching, the ‘traditional’ seasons for ground troop warfare are ending. The распу́тица, the season of mud, can occur in Ukraine at any time in the autumn that heavy rains fall, to be followed by the hard freezes of winter. I feel confident that, if elected, Donald Trump would not be sending American troops to fight in Ukraine even if elements of the Korean People’s Army Ground Force did join the battle and move into Ukraine, but the possibility exists that Kamala Harris Emhoff will be the one taking that decision.

However, even if the chances that the United States would take “direct military action” are relatively low — though neocons like Bill Kristol, who wants to get the United States involved in every war that comes along, though he never chose to serve when he could have during the latter stages of the war in Vietnam, would push for it — there would be huge pressure on our European NATO allies to send troops to fight in Ukraine.

The Russo-Ukrainian War has mostly been a stalemate for the better part of two years, and I have said it before: Ukraine might be able to hold off the Russians for a while, but they cannot win their war and expel Russia from Ukraine without NATO troops on the ground in direct combat with Russia. If North Korean troops appear on the battlefield, it will be seen as legitimizing the introduction of NATO troops in Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine has largely faded in the American conscience, with the real military debate being about the war between Israel and the Islamist terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the possibility of expansion of that war to Iran. But the war in Ukraine is the one in which the enemy has nuclear weapons, and any move of NATO troops into Ukraine to defend against the Russians, and perhaps North Koreans, brings with it the possibility of Vladimir Putin ordering the use of ‘tactical’ nukes against NATO troop concentrations and supply bases.

This is a very bad thing.
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Also posted on American Free News Network. Check out American Free News Network for more well written and well reasoned conservative commentary.

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Killadelphia: Gang-banger killed, two more gang-bangers arrested for it Not the worst result in the world

Two months ago, we noted the murder of Abdul Vicks, 25, a rapper going by the stage name of YBC Dul. Mr Vicks was a ringleader in a Philly gang calling themselves Young Bag Chasers, and I called it a “public service homicide,” because this gang was particularly violent.

Part of that public service was that the punks who targeted and shot Mr Vicks would themselves wind up off the streets, once the Philadelphia Police identified and arrested them: both killers and killed would be removed from society. And so arrests have finally been made:

Second teen arrested for killing West Philly rapper, gang member YBC Dul

Rashawn Williams, 18, has been charged with killing Abdul Vicks, aka YBC Dul.

by Ellie Rushing | Wednesday, October 23, 2024 | 9:46 AM EDT

An 18-year-old has been charged with fatally shooting a local rapper and West Philadelphia gang leader — the second teen in two months to face charges in the high-profile killing.

Rashawn Williams, 18, was arrested Tuesday and charged with the murder of Abdul Vicks, the 25-year-old rapper affiliated with the West Philadelphia-based gang the Young Bag Chasers, or YBC.

Vicks, also known as YBC Dul or “Mr. Disrespectful,” was shot multiple times in a drive-by-style shooting in Olney on Aug. 23. Vicks had just picked up a friend, and was driving down the 100 block of West Olney Avenue when a white car pulled up alongside him at a stoplight. At least two people fired multiple shots into Vicks’ car, before speeding off, police said.

Vicks was struck multiple times in the chest and hand. In a panic, his friend drove back to his house on North Sixth Street, and then, with the help of his uncle, rushed Vicks to Einstein Medical Center, where he died just before 4 p.m.

16-year-old Aiden Waters had been arrested for the same crime in early September. Messrs Williams and Waters were both members of “Fastbreak, a previously little-known gang affiliated with the area around Fourth Street, Nedro Avenue, and Spencer Street in Olney.”

In our previous article on the subject, we noted the violence of Mr Vicks’ gang. The Philadelphia Inquirer described Mr Water’ (alleged) activities:

This dude is just 16! With any luck, the two (alleged) shooters hadn’t knocked up anyone, and will be locked up long enough that they will have Darwin Awarded themselves.

Gang-bangers killing other gang-bangers isn’t really that bad a thing. The biggest problem is that they are so often such rotten shots that they kill or wound innocent bystanders.

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Another one bites the dust!

We now have another reason why Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, fled Lebanon on the orders of his bosses in Iran. Just days after Hezbollah’s fearless leader, Hassan Nazrallah was sent to Jahannam, the late Mr Nasrallah’s cousin, Hashem Safieddine, seen as his likely successor, also went to see his 72 bacha bazi boys. From The New York Times:

The late Hashem Safieddine.

Israeli Military Says It Killed Top Hezbollah Leader

Hashem Safieddine was widely seen as a potential successor to his cousin, Hassan Nasrallah, the armed group’s former leader whom Israel also killed in September. There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024 | Updated: Wednesday, October 23, 2024 | 3:58 AM EDT

Israel’s military said on Tuesday that it had killed Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to Hezbollah’s recently slain leader, in an airstrike near Beirut, Lebanon, in early October.

The airstrike had targeted a meeting of senior Hezbollah leaders. It was one of the heaviest bombardments to hit the area known as the Dahiya since an Israeli assault killed Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on Sept. 27.

Perhaps “meeting(s) of senior Hezbollah leaders” aren’t the safest places to be. I suppose that Mr Safieddine didn’t have his pager with him.

CNN has a list of Hezbollah’s top leaders, and how many of them became former leaders.

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Another #Hezbollah leader goes into exile Have governments-in-exile ever achieved liberation for their countries?

My good friend William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove reported that, now that Yahya Sinwar has been sent to his 72 bacha bazi boys in Jahannam, the so-called ‘Palestinian Authority’ in Judea and Samaria are calling for a ceasefire. No Westerner can truly comprehend what passes for ‘thinking’ among the Arabs, but at least to me, it sounds as though the ‘Authority’ are worried that, now that Mr Sinwar is dead, the Israel Defense Force might turn more of its attention to the West Bank. I’d say that the IDF has more work to do in Gaza and the Hezbollah-controlled areas of southern Lebanon first.

We noted on Saturday that Mr Sinwar’s top surviving deputy, Khalil al-Hayya, has vowed that Hamas will continue the fight, but also noted that Mr al-Hayya lives comfortably in exile in Doha, Qatar, where many of the wealthy Hamas leaders stayed. Mr Sinwar, at least, had remained in Gaza, to ‘lead’ his Hamas followers in their war against Israel.

Which leads me to this article from The Jerusalem Post:

Fearing an Israeli targeted strike, Hezbollah’s new chief relocates to Tehran – report

Qassem left Beirut for Tehran on October 5, accompanied by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

By WALLA! | Sunday, October 20, 2024

Also read: The Jerusalem Post, “‘We were completely at Hezbollah’s mercy,’ former UN peace-keeper says: UNIFIL forces were heavily restricted by Hezbollah, and little was done when they reported violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.“

Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, has relocated from Lebanon to Iran out of fear that Israel may attempt to assassinate him, according to a Sunday report by the Emirati website Aram News, citing an Iranian source.

The Iranian source claimed, according to the website, that Qassem, who is considered the de facto leader of Hezbollah since the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, has been in Tehran since October 5.

The source added that Qassem left Beirut that same day on an Iranian plane, accompanied by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, to Damascus, and from there, he continued to Tehran.

The report continued to note that Sheikh Qassem’s second speech was recorded in his new residence in Tehran, and the move to Iran was ordered by senior officials in the Iranian government. But, as we have previously noted, Ismail Haniyeh found out that being safely ensconced in Tehran isn’t necessarily as safe as hoped.

The Palestinian Chronicle reported, in a biography of Sheikh Qassem, that he studied Islam under Shi’ite scholars, so that would make him appeal even more to Iran’s religious overseers. ‘Governments in exile’ are formed by governments and ‘leaders’ who have been defeated in their home countries. Poland’s leaders fled first to Paris following the Nazis’ September 1939 invasion, and later to London, after the Third Reich turned West and quickly defeated France. General Charles de Gaulle formed a French government-in-exile in London after France surrendered in June of 1940. These governments in exile exerted some small influence, but they never actually won the liberation of their countries; that was accomplished by other, foreign powers.

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Hamas say they won’t give up, even with Yahya Sinwar in Hell

At what point in history did the losers in a war ever get to dictate terms to the winners?

All kinds of people were sagely telling the world that, with the express train that sent Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, to his 72 bacha bazi boys in Jahannam, there was a fresh opportunity for a ceasefire to be negotiated. But the next dead man walking says no. From The New York Times:

Hamas Says Its Demands Are Unchanged as Biden Pushes for Gaza Cease-Fire

A top deputy to the killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar vowed that his “banner will not fall” and that the group would hold to its cease-fire conditions.

By Liam Stack, Aaron Boxerman, Bilal Shbair, and Jim Tankersley

Khalil al-Hayya.

A top Hamas official vowed on Friday that the killing of the group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, would change nothing for its war with Israel, saying that it would fight on even as President Biden pressed for a deal to stop the conflict in the Gaza Strip and free the remaining hostages there.

In Hamas’s first official comments since Israel announced Mr. Sinwar’s death on Thursday, his deputy, Khalil al-Hayya, said that the group maintained its conditions for a cease-fire. He said Hamas still insisted on an end to Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, as well as its complete withdrawal from the territory and the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

“We are continuing Hamas’s path,” Mr. al-Hayya, who lives in exile in Qatar, said in televised remarks in which he praised Mr. Sinwar for dying on the battlefield and added that his “banner will not fall.” It remained unclear when Hamas would announce a successor to Mr. Sinwar, who was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza on Wednesday.

Mr. Sinwar orchestrated the Hamas assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken to Gaza as hostages. The assault led to Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which has killed 42,000 people, according to local health officials, and left much of the territory in ruins.

Mr al-Hayya continued to say that there would be no release of the 101 hostages being held by Hamas until their demands are met. Of course, as the Times noted, Mr al-Hayya lives comfortably in exile in Doha, Qatar, where many of the wealthy Hamas leaders stayed. He’s far less vulnerable to Israeli attack, but, as Ismail Haniyeh and Hassan Nasrallah learned the hard way, living outside of the ‘Palestinian’ areas does not guarantee that your health won’t take a very quick turn for the worse.

There is continual political pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut a deal that gets the hostages released, but that’s a poor idea. In 2011, Israel traded 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, one of whom was Mr Sinwar, for the release of one captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, and look how that turned out. It’s cold-hearted to say, but the 101 hostages, perhaps a third of whom are believed to already be dead, need to be considered casualties of the war, and lost forever. If, by chance, there are a few left alive and they are somehow rescued, great, but no ‘Palestinian’ prisoners — Mr Sinwar was in prison for killing four ‘Palestinians’ in Khan Younis — should ever be released.

The hostages are the only point of strength Hamas have; if Mr Netanyahu and the Israeli government take the hard decision to regard themas casualties, Hamas will have nothing left.

Mr Sinwar’s body will probably be given a Muslim burial in a secret place in Israel, to prevent it from becoming some sort of sick shrine for the ‘Palestinian’ irredentists to visit.

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Yesterday’s news? The journolism of The Philadelphia Inquirer

My morning routine is very much a routine: I check two of my favorite sites, The Pirate’s Cove and The Other McCain, and tweet out links to any new stories they have; I think that any extra publicity for sites which have supported mine is appropriate. I check my own site, and then I go to my news sources, with The Philadelphia Inquirer always being the first one I check. Today’s front page of the dead trees edition is screen capped to the right, but I checked the print edition for one reason: always being the first one I check. Today’s front page of the dead trees edition is screen capped to the right, but I checked the print edition for one reason: the story on the killing of Yahya Simwar, the biggest story of yesterday, was nowhere to be found on the Inky’s main page, at least as of 8:30 AM EDT.

There was nothing in the headline section, nor in the, in descending order, sections on The Region, Food & Drink, Sports, Politics, Inquirer Newsletters, Health & Science, Arts & Entertainment, Education, Nation & World, Opinion, and finally, Crime. The only story in which Mr Sinwar’s death was noted was in Nation & World, and it was an opinion piece by columnist Trudy Rubin. In the first sentence of Mrs Rubin’s column were hyperlinks to news stories on it, one from The New York Times, and two from The Washington Post. What, an Inquirer columnist couldn’t find even one news story about the most important news story of yesterday in her own newspaper?

I went through her column, and checked every hyperlink she had included, and none linked back to the Inquirer. There were two “Read More” blurbs, but both were links to other opinion columns by Mrs Rubin.

I have frequently used the spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’, as I have in this article’s headline, which comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. And I have to ask, how does our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, older than the Times and the Post, winner of many Pultizer Prizes, relegate the killing of the terrorist who started the unholy war in Gaza, which has led to the deaths of dozens of thousands of people, to just yesterday’s news?

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Real women have to sacrifice their games to protest men males trying to horn in on their sports If Brayden Fleming wasn't such an [insert slang term for the anus here], this wouldn't be necessary.

UPenn Women’s Swim Team, via Instagram. It isn’t difficult to pick out the one man male in a women’s bikini top. Click to enlarge.

There are two competing and unreconcilable positions when it comes to ‘transgender women,’ the word salad used to denote males who believe that they are female, and ‘identify’ as women. The left take the position that ‘transwomen’ real women, while sensible people understand that there are only two sexes, and they cannot be changed. If ‘transwomen’ were effectively keeping quiet about it, and not trying to compete athletically against real women, like Will Thomas did, no one would really care, because Mr Thomas calling himself “Lia” would not have trampled upon anyone else’s rights.

Alas! Mr Thomas did insist on competing on the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team, and, as John Lohn, Editor-in-Chief of Swimming World, noted, Mr Thomas went from a mid-500 ranking as a male swimmer — he did compete on Penn’s men’s team before his ‘transition,’ to top ranks in women’s swimming. While he had been taking medication to get his testosterone levels down, he had already gone through puberty as a male.

The San José State University women’s volleyball team has a ‘transwoman’ playing. Apparently Brayden Fleming, who now goes by the name “Blaire”, hid the fact that he is male, well enough that he was able to compete on the girls’ volleyball team at John Champe High School in Virginia, and a year on the women’s volleyball team at Coastal Carolina University, before transferring to SJSU. Whether team members, or the athletics department, at SJSU knew that Mr Fleming is male has not been disclosed, yet if they were aware, it was kept hidden, but one team member, Brooke Slusser, has joined a lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing ‘transwomen’ to compete on women’s athletic teams.

This has come to a head, now that collegiate volleyball season has begun — Mr Fleming’s status as being ‘transgender’ was not made public until last spring, after volleyball season was over — several teams have decided to forfeit matches with SJSU rather than go along with the idea that girls can be boys and boys can be girls. So far, Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State, and Nevada-Reno have refursed to compete, but now comes the kicker:

A volleyball team balked at playing against trans woman. The university wasn’t having it.

The players voted to forfeit because there’s allegedly a trans woman on San Jose State’s team

By Mira Lazine | Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Individual players with the University of Nevada’s women’s volleyball team will be allowed to opt out of their upcoming match against the San Jose State University women’s volleyball team.

Nevada’s team had initially voted to forfeit the October 26 match due to San Jose State University allegedly having a transgender woman, making Nevada’s university the fifth recent one to forfeit. However, the University of Nevada, citing the Nevada Constitution and state laws, said it will have its team compete as originally agreed.

Note that the article, from the very much transgender supporting LGBTQ Nation, states that the player is “allegedly” a male claiming to be a female. SJSU has not confirmed that Mr Fleming is ‘transgender,’ but the university has not denied it, either. While it could be considered a violation of privacy for the university to confirm that he’s male without his consent, if Brayden was actually Blaire, she would have said so publicly.

In a statement explaining its decision, the University of Nevada wrote that a majority of the women’s volleyball team voted on October 13 to forfeit the match.

“The players’ decision and statement were made independently, and without consultation with the University or the athletic department,” the statement said, adding that the players’ decision didn’t represent the position of the university.

“The University and its athletic programs are governed by the Nevada Constitution and Nevada law, which strictly protect equality of rights under the law, and that equality of rights shall not be denied or abridged by this state or any of its subdivisions on account of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry or national origin,” the statement continued. “The University is also governed by federal law as well as the rules and regulations of the NCAA and the Mountain West Conference, which include providing competition in an inclusive and supportive environment.”

“The University intends to move forward with the match as scheduled, and the players may choose not to participate in the match on the day of the contest,” the statement concluded. “No players will be subject to any team disciplinary action for their decision not to participate in the match.”

We have not been told how many of the 17 members of the UN-R team voted to forfeit the match, simply that a majority did, which means at least nine of the players. Volleyball matches are conducted with six players on the court, meaning that, if there were as few as 11 players choosing to forfeit, Nevada-Reno could still field the team. But if twelve voted for the BOYcott, and stick to their guns, Nevada-Reno would enter the match one player short, unless they recruited walk-ons.

I have mockingly suggested that the men’s volleyball players — and at UN-R, men’s volleyball is a club sport, not a varsity team — all claim that they identify as women for that night, and show up to play the match.

One thing is certain: the media will be there in force for the scheduled SJSU-UNR match, and if the players hold strong to their positions — and I will bet euros against eclairs[1]My version of dollars against doughnuts. I suppose pounds vs pretzels would also work. I had to buy a $2.50 item a couple of days ago, and it had a discount for cash, but all I had in my wallet were … Continue reading that the UN-R administration are lobbying the players hard to play the game — it will make great television.

It’s a shame that real women have to sacrifice their games to protest men males trying to horn in on their sports, but that’s apparently what it takes. If so many of the ‘transgendered’ weren’t just absolute [insert plural slang term for the anus here] about things, this wouldn’t be necessary, and Brayden Fleming is an [insert slang term for the anus here].

References

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↑1 My version of dollars against doughnuts. I suppose pounds vs pretzels would also work.

I had to buy a $2.50 item a couple of days ago, and it had a discount for cash, but all I had in my wallet were two 5€ notes.
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Killadelphia: The weapon of choice now seems to be speeding cars

We noted, just yesterday, the third hit-and-run homicide in the City of Brotherly Love in recent days, and now there’s one again this morning.

Woman in wheelchair killed in fatal hit-and-run crash

The fatal hit-and-run crash Tuesday morning marks at least the third such incident in four days, according to police.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Tuesday, October 15, 2024 | 9:19 AM EDT

A woman in a wheelchair was killed in Fairmount Park early Tuesday morning in yet another hit-and-run, police said, the latest in a recent string of such crashes that have left several people dead and investigators searching for the drivers.

The woman, who police said was in her 40s, was hit by a person driving a silver car on the 2200 block of Reservoir Drive at 1:46 a.m., said Police Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore. The woman, whom police did not identify, suffered injuries to her head and other parts of her body, Chief Inspector Scott Small said at the scene.

She was pronounced dead minutes later, at 1:56 a.m., said Vanore.

The impact was so great that the woman was flung 100 feet, said Small. A medical boot she had been wearing was found that distance from her body, he said.

There’s more to reporter Rodrigo Torrejón’s story, but it’s just a rehash of previous incidents.

CBS News added that Chief Inspector Small stated that police believe that the vehicle was “going at a high speed,” judging by how far the victim and wheelchair were thrown.

The accident site, Reservoir Drive near West Diamond Street, is all parkland, and it’s not difficult to picture kids racing there, especially after midnight. But whether they were gang-bangers, as yesterday’s hit-and-run driver and passengers probably were, or ‘good kids’ who were just having fun and made a mistake, someone has still been killed.

Were they hardened thugs, or scared teenagers who’ve hidden the damaged vehicle in daddy’s garage? Who knows at this point, but if it is the latter — that’s the mental picture in my mind — we’ll see if mom and dad try to cover up the crime, or turn their son over to the police.