This website has repeatedly noted the efforts of The Philadelphia Inquirer to paint over the abysmal failures of Presidents Claudine Gay of Harvard University, Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and especially Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania in their utterly and completely boneheaded testimony before a House Education Subcommittee. Well, another day, and another tactic, somewhat along the lines of a defense attorney with an obviously guilty client throwing all kinds of [insert slang term for feces here] against the wall, hoping to see something stick. Continue reading
Author Archives: Dana Pico
The Inky’s Editorial Board have weighed in: they think that genocide of the Jews is a subject for debate
This website has expended considerable bandwidth documenting the anti-Semitism on college campuses, the University of Pennsylvania in particular, and we have noted that, following the firing resignation of Penn’s President, Liz Magill, over her idiotic testimony in Congress, The Philadelphia Inquirer has been engaged in a half-hidden support of Dr Magill’s “context dependent” testimony, calling it a defense of free speech.
The newspaper’s Editorial Board had not opined on the subject until Thursday morning, but, as I had guessed, they came out along the same lines:
Despite Magill’s departure, Penn must stay the course on free speech issues | Editorial
It is essential that the university does not allow the recent chaotic series of events to further compromise its commitment to open expression and academic inquiry.
I’ll wait for more evidence before I believe this story.
Both Riley Gaines Barker and Collin Rugg posted a story which just plain sounds fishy to me. From Mr Rugg:
REPORT: A male volleyball player apparently snuck his way into a full women’s athletic scholarship to the University of Washington after concealing his biological gender since 12
Tate Drageset has verbally committed to play on Washington’s women’s volleyball team
One problem: Drageset is a male.
Drageset is the first known biological male to receive a full athletic scholarship for a women’s sport.
According to a report by Reduxx, Drageset’s transgender identity was hidden from the public, parents and even coaches for years.
One source says suspicions were raised when Drageset was 12 and playing against 14 year old females.
Drageset’s mom Stacey appears to be a far-leftist who was convinced her son was transgender since he was a toddler and published a children’s book on gender identity.
Mrs Barker’s story is shorter, but tells us the same thing. Here was their source: Continue reading
Israel and the Second Amendment
Armed Israeli police, Via Dolorosa, near the fourth Station of the Cross, November 13, 2022. Photo by D R Pico, may be freely used with proper attribution.
Gun control in Israel is relatively strict, and firearm licenses are generally only granted to those who can show a need for extra security in their line of work or daily life. Meaning, one of the key criteria for a private citizen to receive permission to own a gun is where they live.
We think of Israel as being a heavily armed nation, replete with images of soldiers carrying automatic weapons, and the near-universal military draft for men and women alike, but that’s not the case. Even in the kibbutz near the border with Gaza, most weapons were kept not in private residences, but central armories, and, hit with a surprise attack, few residents had time to arm themselves, and they were met with torture, rape, and murder. The Times of Israel, just three days after the attack, still put a loosening of gun control laws as a “right-wing” issue: Continue reading
The media don’t like that deep pockets donors won’t tolerate anti-Semitism! Colleges really hate the fact that they are not somehow "above" the real world, but a part of it
If the questions had been whether calling for the genocide of blacks or the killing of homosexuals, there is no way on earth that university Presidents Liz Magill of Penn, Sally Kornbluth of MIT, or Claudine Gay of Harvard would ever have said that such decisions on violations of rules or codes of conduct would ever depend on the “context” of such speech. Nor would Will Bunch of The Philadelphia Inquirer, be telling us that Dr Magill’s “ouster” at the University of Pennsylvania is an attack on free speech, but a horrible racist who just had to go. And while the newspaper’s Editorial Board have not weighed in on the subject, the selection of articles and OpEd columns in the Inky is certainly on the side of allowing open debate on a question once thought completely settled. Continue reading
In the end, there will be no peace without victory
Sgt Benjamin Netanyahu
In Dueling Remarks, Biden and Netanyahu Spar Over Gaza’s Future
Israel’s prime minister says he won’t allow the Palestinian Authority to take over Gaza
By David S. Cloud, Carrie Keller-Lynn, Summer Said, and Andrew Restuccia | Updated, Tuesday, December 12, 2023 | 4:09 PM EST
President Biden and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clashed Tuesday over who should govern Gaza after the war, in a remarkable public display of differences emerging between the two leaders over the conflict.
Speaking during a fundraiser in Washington, Biden made his toughest remarks since the war began about Netanyahu’s government. He suggested that its hard-line stance has prevented Netanyahu from accepting the Biden administration’s postwar plan to have the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza, and that it would also obstruct progress toward political, economic and security arrangements that could spawn a separate Palestinian state—an outcome the U.S. president sees as a long-term solution to the conflict.
If you do not subscribe to the Journal, you can read the article here. Continue reading
Well, of course they did!
Our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, loaded up with the #woke as it is, has been very, very upset about Israel defending itself from the Hamas attack of October 7th through the policy of trying to utterly destroy the terrorist group, and with neocon columnist Trudy Rubin, who loves her some warfare when it comes to the Russo-Ukrainian War, fretting that Israel is causing too many civilian casualties as they try to cut down the Hamas fighters hiding amongst the ‘non-combatant’ population, is now worried that former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill’s firing resignation under fire will have a “chilling effect” on colleges: Continue reading
Well, of course he doesn’t! Will Bunch doesn't like people in authority being held accountable for what they said
I will admit it: despite paying too much for my subscription to The Philadelphia Inquirer, I only infrequently read hard-left columnist Will Bunch’s stuff, but Christine Flowers pointed it out to me this morning. The distinguished Mr Bunch, whose Inky bio states that he “the national columnist — with some strong opinions about what’s happening in America around social injustice, income inequality and the government,” waxed wroth that University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill will shortly be Penn’s former President:
Liz Magill’s ouster at Penn will help the worst people take down free speech, higher ed
Critics celebrating the scalping of Penn’s president won’t stop there. Free speech, and college itself, are in grave danger.
by Will Bunch | Sunday, December 10, 2023 | 11:44 AM EST
A band of raiders never stops at just one scalp. Just minutes after the University of Pennsylvania’s president Liz Magill pulled the plug on her stormy 17-month tenure, under intense pressure for her handling of antisemitism questions on Capitol Hill, her chief inquisitor — GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York — was back on the battlefield calling for more.
“One down. Two to go,” a clearly ebullient Stefanik posted on X/Twitter, urging on her dream of an academic Saturday Night Massacre that would also take down the two college leaders who testified last week along with Magill — MIT’s Sally Kornbluth and Claudine Gay of Harvard, which, in a controversy with more ironies than a Jane Austen novel, happens to be Stefanik’s alma mater.
I’m old enough to remember, back in the days of quill pens and parchment print-on-paper only newspapers how columnists were limited to roughly 750 words, but Mr Bunch’s rant was 1,663 words long, so prepare for it if you click on the embedded link!
But what Stefanik promised on Saturday night, and what her allies are cheering on, goes well beyond a few high-profile resignations. She promised the current crisis — over what constitutes antisemitism on college campuses, and how administrators like Magill have been handling it — will lead to more congressional hearings on “all facets of their institutions’ negligent perpetration of antisemitism including administrative, faculty, and overall leadership and governance.”
This one’s pretty long, so I’ve moved the bulk of the article below the fold. Continue reading
The most important news this Saturday Yes, Liz Magill is gone, but Army beat Navy to win the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy.
I wrote, in a comment on one of Robert Stacy McCain’s articles, “The over/under on Dr Magill’s resignation date is Monday, December 11th. There’s a meeting of the Board of Trustees set for Sunday, Sunday! afternoon.” Well, the lovely Dr Magill didn’t make it to Sunday, resigning on Saturday.
Breaking: Penn’s Magil Resigns.
by Robert Stacy McCain | Saturday, December 9, 2023
Mere hours after I blogged about this (“‘Context Dependent’: Ivy League President Belatedly Realizes Maybe She Answered That Question About Genocide Wrong”), now the University of Pennsylvania’s embattled President Liz Magill has resigned:
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has resigned as president of the university in the wake of intense backlash over her failure during a recent congressional hearing on Capitol Hill to say whether advocating for the genocide of Jews is permissible on campus.
“Dear members of the Penn community,” the university began in its announcement. “I write to share that President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation as President of the University of Pennsylvania.” Continue reading
