Author Archives: Dana Pico

Posted on by

Hamas delendum est Concern for the hostages should not stop Israel from doing what is necessary

My New York Times subscription is less expensive than my subscription to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The New York Times, one of the few newspapers which continues to engage in serious journalism these days, had a very long article on Yahya Sinwar, the senior Hamas official in Gaza:

Yahya Sinwar Helped Start the War in Gaza. Now He’s Key to Its Endgame.

Hamas’s leader in Gaza is considered an architect of the Oct. 7 attacks that prompted Israel to retaliate. As mediators seek a cease-fire, a deal depends on Mr. Sinwar as well as his Israeli foes.

By Patrick Kingsley, Julian E. Barnes and Adam Rasgon, Reporting from Jerusalem and Washington, the reporters spoke to officials from Hamas, Israel and the United States about Mr. Sinwar. | Mother’s Day, May 12, 2024

After Hamas attacked Israel in October, igniting the war in Gaza, Israeli leaders described the group’s most senior official in the territory, Yahya Sinwar, as a “dead man walking.” Considering him an architect of the raid, Israel has portrayed Mr. Sinwar’s assassination as a major goal of its devastating counterattack. Continue reading →

Posted on by

Holding their breath until they turn blue

The Princeton Princess, her neckbearded ally, and the girl who really needed to go on a hunger strike.

The only real weapon a hunger striker has is the concern of those against whom he is striking that the hunger strikers might actually die, bringing negative repercussions on those the striker opposes. If the hunger strikers are not actually prepared to die for their cause, they have no power at all. And, as I previously noted, a hunger strike is only effective if someone actually cares if you starve yourself to death.

Many people, including me, mocked the Princeton princess and her whining about the rigors of the students’ hunger strike, because it showed the unseriousness of it. Now we have this:

Princeton University students end anti-Israel hunger strike ‘due to health concerns’

The end of the ‘hunger strike’ came after members initially vowed not to eat or drink again

by Lawrence Richard | Monday, May 13, 2024 | 4:14 AM EDT

Students at Princeton University protesting Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza have called an end to their hunger strike after just 10 days.

Princeton Divest Now, the student protest group that is calling for the New Jersey Ivy League university to divest from America’s Middle Eastern ally due to the high civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip, said additional strikers would be continuing their efforts. Continue reading →

Posted on by

Crazy people are dangerous

The First Street Journal has twice previously written about the murders of black transgender ‘women,’ pointing out that most politically incorrect of facts, that the majority of such victims were working as prostitutes, and that meant many of the victims were killed by ‘johns’ they tricked — pun most definitely intended — into thinking they were real women, and the ‘johns’ reacted violently when the found out that they had been sexually assaulted by another male.

Let me be plain here: if a male disguises himself as a woman in order to have some form of sex with another male, and the other male does not realize that the disguised male is not really a woman, he has been raped!

Now we come to the other side of this situation:

Texas murder suspect runs victim over twice before kissing, stabbing his limp body: VIDEO

By Brooke Taylor, KTRK | Saturday, May 11, 2024 | 11:38 AM CDT

HOUSTON — Our Houston sister station, ABC13 Eyewitness News, obtained a deeply disturbing video of a murder in broad daylight.

On May 3, the victim, Steven Anderson, was walking on a Texas street to pick up mail when a car ran him over.

The suspect is 20-year-old Karon Fisher, identified in court records as a man but also described as a woman by police.

Video below the fold. Continue reading →

Posted on by

What part of “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” don’t they understand? Hamas are not peaceful, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that their collegiate supporters have not been either

Gaza Rally, May 1, 2024, photo by Abbey Cutrer, Kentucky Kernel. How many were there supporting the rally, and how many were just spectators?

No one has been more supportive of the right of the pro-Hamas demonstrators to exercise their freedom of speech and right to peaceably assemble to proclaim their positions than The First Street Journal has been. We have pointed out how the keffiyeh-wearing activists — and I regard wearing the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh as qualitatively indistinguishable from wearing a Nazi swastika armband — had their demonstration at the University of Kentucky, made their points in a rally in front of the school’s main library, waved their Palestinian flags, and, when it was over, picked up their stuff and went home. I have supported the right of the Princeton University hunger strikers to starve themselves to make their point, even as I mocked them, because I unequivocally support Israel in their war against Hamas and I support freedom of speech. I have even said that it’s a bit pointless to use force to break up the protest encampments, because, with the semester ending, these encampments will just wither away.

As it happened, the powers that be at the University of Pennsylvania decided against just leaving the encampments alone, and the Philadelphia Police broke it up and arrested some of the campers. They were definitely the Usual Suspects, as Fox 29 News reported that only 7 of the 33 people arrested for ‘defiant trespassing’ were actually Penn students. Continue reading →

Posted on by

The muddled Methodists

There are times when things get published that are just unintentionally humorous whiloe being nevertheless very sad. The always homosexual and transgender supporting Philadelphia Inquirer had this one Friday morning:

My husband had to quit his Methodist ministry for being gay. The new rules on LGBTQ clergy are long overdue.

I only wish Michael Collins were alive today to see his dream for an inclusive Methodist church finally come true.

by Huntly Collins | Friday, April 10, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT

We had just gotten settled into the second-floor apartment of a house in the Rockhill neighborhood of Kansas City, Mo., when my husband burst through the door with disturbing news. A psychological test given to the entering class at St. Paul’s School of Theology, a Methodist seminary, indicated he was gay. If that were true, he might not be able to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a Methodist minister. Tears filled his eyes as he explained the test results to me. “But you’re not gay!” I insisted. “We know that!” Continue reading →

Posted on by

A hunger strike is only effective if someone actually cares if you starve yourself to death

Do you know who Aaron Bushnell was? Perhaps the name is familiar, but most people would be forgiven if they didn’t remember who he was or why they had heard his name. Senior Airman Bushnell, an enlisted man in the United States Air Force, poured an inflammable liquid on himself and committed suicide via self-immolation outside of the gates of the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest American support for Israel in their war against Hamas. SrA Bushnell was famous for a couple of days, but, let’s be honest here, while people do remember the event, the late Mr Bushnell personally wasn’t famous for long.

As we previously reported, Khader Adnan was a long-time Palestinian Arab activist, and at one point a spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Arrested many times, Mr Adnan’s weapon of choice in detention was the hunger strike. His first hunger strike, ten days long, occurred in 2000, when he was locked up not by the Israelis, but the Palestinian National Authority. In 2011, he began another hunger strike, one which lasted 66 days. In 2015, he undertook a 56-day hunger strike, which resulted in Israel releasing him. He kept getting himself arrested, and finally, after another, much longer 87-day hunger strike, died in prison on May 2, 2023.

We also reported, in February, how several Brown University students went on an eight-day-long hunger strike, and then mocked the quaint story that 30 Harvard students went on a 12 hour hunger strike in solidarity with their fellow Ivy Leaguers.

And now? Roughly 15 pro-Hamas students have gone on a hunger strike at Princeton, and hunger strikes are serious things, but they’ve opened themselves up to justifiable mockery. Continue reading →

Posted on by

You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! As Leroy Jethro Gibbs once said on NCIS, “Believe me, son, you will not do well in prison.”

Wilmer Romero, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Only 18 years old, already a hardened criminal, and now he’s facing life in prison without the possibility of parole. It seems that young Wilmer Geovvany Romero isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.

The mugshot? That’s the most recent of four mugshots for young Mr Romero, who has a listed birthday of September 6, 2005, and is listed as being 5’4″ tall (64″) and weighing 130 lb. His stay in jail might wind up on the unpleasant side.

Teenager arrested in connection to Lexington shooting that left an 18-year-old dead

by Christopher Leach | Thursday, May 9, 2024 | 10:31 AM EDT

The Lexington Police Department has arrested an 18-year-old man in connection to a deadly shooting that left another 18-year-old man dead. Continue reading →

Posted on by

We all have #FreedomOfSpeech, but that does not come with freedom from consequences The anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas protesters are finding out that some people have listened to them, and don't like what they've said

I spotted this on my feed this morning, and the different reactions are humorous.

Conservative judges say they will boycott Columbia University students

The judges accused Columbia of becoming “ground zero for the explosion of student disruptions, anti-semitism, and hatred for diverse viewpoints on campuses.”

By Tobi Raji | Tuesday, May 7, 2024 | 6:42 PM EDT

More than a dozen conservative federal judges are threatening to not hire law clerks who attend Columbia University or its law school starting this fall — an attempt to show the judges’ displeasure over the institution’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests.

Continue reading →

Posted on by

Another five bite the dust! More layoffs at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Last Tuesday, I attended a meet-and-greet presentation held by the Lexington Herald-Leader, listening to Executive Editor Richard Green and Managing Editor Lauren Gorla. It was a decent meeting, and Miss Gorla said one thing which stuck with me. While newspapers used to depend primarily on advertising, she stated that currently what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal is primarily funded via subscriptions, and occasional donations from philanthropic organizations.

Available was a complete list of newspaper staffers, 32 to them, of which only 17 were listed as reporters, and only 13 of which were not listed as sports reporters.

I was thinking about that when I read a series of tweets from the News Guild of Greater Philadelphia.

We are disgusted and enraged to report that The Inquirer has laid off 5 of our members today.

This is the bulletin we sent to our members a short time ago:

Less than a week after The Inquirer announced a desire to have employees increase their days working in the office in the spirit of “collaboration, inclusion, and sense of urgency about our work” today the company informed five Guild members who have been extraordinary contributors to our mission that they are being laid off. So much for collaboration and inclusion. Continue reading →