‘Forgetting Is Sin’: Some Thoughts on the Life and Career of My Friend Jeff Dunetz

Posted on | July 26, 2025 | 2 Comments

Tuesday my friend Jeff Quinton sent me a message saying he heard that our blog friend Jeff Dunetz had died after suffering a fall. I quickly reached out to Warner Todd Huston, and to Jeff’s daughter Alexa, and learned that Jeff was still on life support, but he died Thursday. At Jeff’s blog, Warner Todd Huston posted the obituary:

Jeff Dunetz, the creator and operator of LidBlog, passed away on Thursday, July 24.
Dunetz passed after a series of medical issues that have struck him over the last year. He was 67 years of age.
Jeff, a life-long New Yorker, was a man of good humor and even temperament and even during his late illnesses and health scares, he was always upbeat and ever ready with a quip or two, ofen at his own expense.
A graduate of Oceanside High School in Oceanside, New York, Jeff studied political science and government at the State University of New York at Oswego, then went on to earn a BA in political science at the University of Albany, and later an MBA in business at Hofstra University.
Jeff spent much of his professional life in magazine marketing and advertising working for such companies as Disney Publishing, Nickelodeon, Discover Magazine, MTV, and Marvel Comics.
But it was blogging and commentary on current events that was Jeff’s real passion. Dunetz was one of the early blogging leaders and commentators when the world of center-right blogging really caught fire in the early part of the 2010s. And by 2013 he had formally started the LidBlog to deliver news and views on U.S. and Israeli politics and history. And in doing so, Jeff became one of the leading self-made bloggers appearing on TV, Radio, Podcasts, and the Internet throughout the media.
Dunetz leaves a strong and important legacy of writings and commentary about Israeli history and American politics and left us with stories and information that remain to this day invaluable to all of us.
Along with his LidBlog, the indefatigable writer’s work appeared at The Jewish Press, Aish.com. The Jewish Star, Breitbart News, MRCTV.org, the Daily Caller, PJM, The Washington Times, and Hot Air, and many, many more.
He also hosted the Lid Radio Show which ran for some time on the SHR and High Plains Talk Radio networks.
He leaves behind his wife, Lois, and his son Perry and daughter Alexa. He also leaves behind his first and only grandchild, Benjamin.
Jeff will be missed by literally millions of people who have read and appreciated his work over the years.

Yesterday, I messaged Alexa — who just recently gave birth to Jeff’s first grandchild — and said, “I’m sure your dad would be glad to know he got an Instalanche,” of which he’d had many over the years.

Like most of my Old School blogging friends, including HotAir’s Ed Morrissey, I’d first met Jeff Dunetz at CPAC. Back in the day, Jeff’s blog was called Yid With Lid, as he was always vehemently proud to be a Jew. When I went searching for our previous links to his old Blogspot site, one of them involved a memorable spat with Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. That was 15 years ago, my friends, and while digging down that rabbit hole, I came across this video from CPAC 2012, where Andrew Breitbart posed for a photo with Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, quipping: “This is the Charles Johnson special.”

“Memories, light the corners of my mind . . .”

Some of y’all kids — by which I mean, folks who haven’t been following the blogosphere for 20 years — may not get Breitbart’s joke.

Circa 2004, Charles Johnson’s LGF was one of the most influential right-wing blogs, but within a few years, Charles started getting crazy. The first big hint was when he began attacking Geller as a “fascist,” because of her association with such European figures as Geert Wilders. Johnson also went after Spencer on the same grounds, and two years later — September 2009 — was when the Great LFG Blog War finally burst into the open, and Charles got his ass kicked so badly that he announced he had “parted ways” with conservatives. I bring this up in connection to Jeff Dunetz because in 2011, Jeff threw down on the Southern Poverty Law Center after they hate-listed Pamela Geller.

May the memory of Jeff Dunetz be for a blessing. He was a fighter for his people.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) July 24, 2025

Alexa was pleased when I told her that her dad got a shout-out from John Podhoretz, which is pretty doggone big league. Speaking of Jeff being “a fighter for his people,” he went to bat for me when my @rsmccain account got banned from Twitter in February 2016:

My friend Stacy has fallen victim to a problem with most social media today, which is they do their damndest to censor conservatives. It’s up to all of us to fight to get him back on twitter–because if Twitter is allowed to get away with banning Stacy McCain for free speech, they will be able to ban any of us for basically anything.
So I support the #FREESTACY movement not just because Stacy McCain is a friend, but because what happened to him could happen to any of us.

If “the memory of Jeff Dunetz [is to] be for a blessing,” of course, this requires us to remember Jeff Dunetz, which calls to mind the phrase I used in the headline: “Forgetting is sin.” It was about 30 years ago, when I lived in Rome, Georgia, that I heard a Presbyterian minister speak on that theme. And when I say “Presbyterian,” I mean a hard-core old-fashioned Calvinist, not one of these worthless Laodicean liberals.

The minister was talking about why history is so important in understanding who we are, and he referenced the prophet Jeremiah: “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” A respect for history and tradition — following “the old paths” — is not merely about finding “rest for your souls,” but is essential to preserving a sense of identity. The minister pointed out how we, as Chritians, read the history of ancient Israel and are astonished by how quickly they could forget all the miracles God had wrought for them. He sent plagues on Egypt, parted the Red Sea, fed them with manna from heaven and yet, somehow, they forgot all He had done for them and decided instead to make a golden idol they could worship.

“But how are we any better?” the minister then asked. When we look at the history of America, and consider all the earnest prayers of our ancestors, who proclaimed their gratitude to God for the many blessings He had bestowed upon them — for how else could a few settlers have survived on the wilderness frontier, and flourished into a great nation? — are we any less guilty of forgetting than were those ancient Israelites?

“Forgetting is sin!” The minister’s words have stuck with me through all the intervening years, and perhaps readers now understand better why I sometimes dwell on historic themes (e.g., “Of Declarations and Independence” on the Fourth of July, and “The Meaning of Thanksgiving” last November). The remembrance of history is a religious obligation, a debt we owe to God, and certainly in this matter, Christians would be wise to study the example of the Jews.

Jeff Dunetz knew who he was. His sense of identity was a source of inspiration, as well it should be. Not all of my acquaintances share my admiration of the Jews (note the tactful understatement) and among the criticisms one sometimes hears is about how “those Jews all stick together” — like that’s a bad thing, or something. Far from disapproving of such tribalism, I consider it a trait worthy of emulation.

Here, I must my mention my friend Pete Da Tech Guy, who is as proudly Sicilian as Jeff Dunetz was proudly Jewish. While we were covering Scott Brown’s 2010 Senate campaign, Pete and I were in the North End of Boston when he insisted we step into an Italian cafe. After we’d gotten our coffee, Pete pointed out how the little old ladies in the place had stopped speaking English, switching their conversations to sotto voce Italian when we walked in. Clannish and distrustful of outsiders? Oh, gosh, the Sicilians are as notorious for that as . . . Well, some of my backwoods Southern ancestors, now that I think about it.

An appreciation for tradition — following “the old paths,” as the minister reminded us — ought to be part of what unites us as conservatives, no matter what our particular ethnic identity may be. And this is why it is so important to remember history. Five years ago, I wrote an American Spectator column called “The High Price of Forgetting,” about Al Sharpton’s sordid history, and guess whose work I cited?

The rampage of violence against Jews in Crown Heights [in 1991] has been called a “pogrom,” and many have pointed the finger of blame at Sharpton. What began as a tragic automobile accident, in which a car in a Hasidic rabbi’s motorcade struck and killed a seven-year-old child, turned into a three-day riot. Businesses were burned or looted, more than 150 police officers and nearly 40 civilians were injured, and a 29-year-old graduate from Australia, Yankel Rosenbaum, was fatally stabbed by a gang of black teenagers. . . .
Sharpton has vehemently disclaimed any responsibility for the riots or the murder of Rosenbaum, but what happened after the riots ended is beyond dispute. At the funeral of Gavin Cato, the boy killed in the accident, Sharpton “gave an anti-Semitic eulogy, which fueled the fires of hatred,” as Jeff Dunetz recounted:

“The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident.… It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights.… Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid.…
“All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin’ and grinnin’. Pay for your deeds.” …
Sharpton and the lawyer representing the Cato family counseled them not to cooperate with authorities in the investigation and demanded a special prosecutor be named.
When Sharpton was asked about the violence, he justified it:
“We must not reprimand our children for outrage, when it is the outrage that was put in them by an oppressive system.”
The first Sabbath after the funeral, Sharpton tried unsuccessfully to kick up tensions again by marching 400 protesters in front of the Lubavitch of Crown Heights shouting “No Justice, No Peace.”

Shouldn’t a man of God be expected to know the commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”? By defaming the Jews as perpetrators of “apartheid,” a word deliberately chosen to inflame racial hatred, Sharpton earned the permanent contempt of every decent American.

As long as Jeff Dunetz lived, that history would never be forgotten, and if we wish to honor Jeff’s memory, we ought to do what we can to preserve the legacy of his valuable work. All of us owe a debt to God, which must be paid in the currency of remembrance, and forgetting is sin.

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Category: Yid With Lid

Hey, Who Had ‘Illegal Immigrant Colombian Transgender Pedophile Rapist’ on Their 2025 Headline Bingo Card?

Posted on | July 26, 2025 | Comments Off on Hey, Who Had ‘Illegal Immigrant Colombian Transgender Pedophile Rapist’ on Their 2025 Headline Bingo Card?

Congratulations, you’re a winner:

A transgender migrant appeared in court [Thursday] after being arrested for raping a 14-year-old boy in a park bathroom.
Nicol Suarez, 30, allegedly followed the boy into a bathroom at Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem back in February at around midday, police told the Daily Mail.
The boy reportedly left the bathroom and flagged down people nearby, who called the police. The migrant was then charged with first-degree rape and stalking.
Suarez wore head-to-toe beige prison garb and a full face of makeup as she stuck her nose up at her court appearance on Thursday.
She scowled as officers led her into the courtroom, her expression even more pronounced due to her heavy contour, penned eyebrows and bright pink lip.
As she sat down for the court proceedings, Suarez’s neck tattoo peaked out from underneath her beige crewneck.
She had spent the entire day waiting in Department of Corrections custody after the building was put on lockdown due to unknown reasons.
Suarez required an interpreter to understand the proceedings as the two sides went back and forth over the status of her case, a court attendee reported.
Her lawyer asked for more time to file her motions, but Judge Michele Rodney declined the request.
After 10 minutes of deliberation, the Judge set a date for a pre-trial hearing in mid-September and Suarez was escorted back to the holding cells.
The accused rapist is being housed at Rikers Island, a large jail complex in New York City, located on a 413-acre island between the Bronx and Queens in the East River.
Originally from Colombia, Suarez was also wanted in New Jersey and Massachusetts and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement had a detainer on her.
After her alleged crime in February, a source told the New York Post that they blamed New York City’s sanctuary laws for the attack and said: ‘ICE could just pick this person up and deport them back, but due to our sanctuary laws we can’t do anything.’
‘I feel really bad for the kid that has to go through this because his life will never be the same,’ the source added.
‘We worry about the migrants but what about the victim? This is a true victim.’ . . .
Prosecutors initially asked for $500,000 bail and a $1.5 million bond, but the amount was lowered by Democratic Judge Elizabeth Shamahs.

Excuse my flippant sarcasm, but sometimes the news is so grim that we must choose between two reactions: (a) laugh at it and try to maintain our sanity, or (b) take it seriously and end up in a sort of catatonic madness like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness: “The horror! The horror!”

Every single issue of the Culture War in one story? https://t.co/d1IWthJabL

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) July 26, 2025

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Category: Crime, Immigration, New York

In The Mailbox: 07.25.25

Posted on | July 26, 2025 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Hulk Hogan RIP, King George III stomps the Magna Carta, Big Ol’ Sturgeon, Jeff Dunetz RIP, and Eighties beach time
Twitchy: Pelosi Says Trump Is Crazy & Biden One Of Our Greatest Presidents, Wheel of Misfortune, and Journalists Use Hulk Hogan’s Death To Whine About Gawker’s Demise
Louder With Crowder: Superman director James Gunn drops new excuse for his movie failing: how much the world hates America, also, Thanks For The House, Brother
Vox Popoli: Release ALL the Epstein Files NOW, Where Does China Stand, Book of Ephesians, Rhetoric and Pride, and Neither Will the USA, Mr. President
According To Hoyt: Okay, I have to say this, A Decent Respect, The 48 Hour Rule, Canadian Non-Healthcare – a Guest Post By the Balloonatic, and The Man Who Sold The Moon — Reading the Future of the Past
Upstream Reviews: The Icarus Coda
Gab: Gab’s New Truth-Seeking AI Is Here

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Restore the Redskins
American Greatness: Feds Arrest Two Staffers From Surgery Center in California For Allegedly Interfering With ICE Arrest, How Gabbard’s Revelations Complete the Case Against Comey and Brennan, and Dear Democrats
American Thinker: They’re Not Sanctuary Cities; They’re Slavery Cities
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Terms You Shouldn’t Use Friday
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For July 25
Behind The Black: Mars and its two moons seen in the infrared by Europa Clipper, Dassault lobbies ESA to fund its Vortex reusable mini-shuttle, Starlink went down for almost 3 hours yesterday, Spain offers $470 million to move Thirty Meter Telescope to Canary Islands, and Like the Senate the House appropriation committee rejects Trump’s NASA cuts, but differently
Cafe Hayek: Naive and Arrogant Protectionists
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Don Surber: Media’s never-ending Trumpgates
First Street Journal: You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!
Gates Of Vienna: Death to the Druze!, French Socialists vs. Islamophobia,
The Geller Report: President Macron Says France Will Recognize Terror State, US Pulls Out of Hamas Ceasefire Talks, and Trump Confronts Fed Chairman Powell During Visit to Federal Reserve Building Under Renovation
Hollywood In Toto: Why the Left Can’t Stop Crying Over Colbert’s Cancellation
Legal Insurrection: New Trump EO Bans Govt Purchases of AI Systems That Promote DEI, Woke Ideologies, Key Dem Insiders Including Hillary Clinton in 2024 Knew Biden Was Not ‘Politically Viable’, NY Times Frets Over Redistricting Battles, Makes Admission About Dem Gerrymandering, Kansas Public University Leaders Order Employees to Remove Pronouns From Email Signatures, and Ghislaine Maxwell Gave DOJ Details About 100 People Linked to Epstein
Outkick: Deion Sanders Ready To Address Mysterious Health Issues As Colorado Opens Training Camp, New York Yankees Get Ryan McMahon In Trade To Upgrade Disastrous Defense, Elle Duncan Uses ‘I’m A Girl’ Card In Defense Of ‘D’ Joke During WNBA All-Star Game, Another Big Ten Coach Roasts SEC For Laughable Scheduling, and WNBA’s Cameron Brink Wears The World’s Shortest Skirt, Stumblin’ Hillary Clinton & Powell-Trump Memes!
Power Line: Tucker Carlson’s dark turn, A Classic Democratic Party Fail, Gerrymander, Anyone? and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Rep. Lee Introduces Bill Cutting Red Tape On Marine Use of LNG
STUMP: More On Chicago Pension Finance – Those Pension Sweeteners Sure Are Sour
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The Problems in the Philippines
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, Woke Wars Veteran Named AF Undersecretary, ‘The View’ going out of view, and Democrats try to showcase Biden inflation as Trump inflation
Victory Girls: FCC Approves Skydance-Paramount Merger, Cue More Outrage
Watts Up With That: Another £806 Million of Your Money Down The Net Zero Drain, Climate Change Is Reducing, Not Increasing Food Costs, Make Gas Cans Great Again by Improving Flow, and Reagan on Abolishing the U.S. Department of Energy (it’s Trump’s turn)
The Federalist: SCOTUS Stays Lower Court Ruling In North Dakota Voting Rights Act Dispute, 5 Virginia School Districts Found In Violation Of Title IX For Allowing Boys In Girls’ Restrooms, Biggest Trans Mutilation ‘Clinic’ Shuts Its Doors Thanks To Trump’s Common-Sense Executive Order, 9th Circuit Rules Oregon Law Forcing Adoptive Parents Into Gender Ideology Violates First Amendment, and Rogue ERLC Bands With Soros-Tied Group To Push Amnesty Bill
Mark Steyn: The Insurrectionists

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Return of the Pro Se Pipsqueak: Disney and Hulu Get Sued by Brett Kimberlin!

Posted on | July 25, 2025 | Comments Off on Return of the Pro Se Pipsqueak: Disney and Hulu Get Sued by Brett Kimberlin!

In 1978, four teenagers who worked at a Burger Chef fast-food restaurant in the Indianapolis suburb of Speedway, Indiana, were kidnapped and murdered. The local police badly bungled the investigation, and no one was ever convicted for what was at the time a very notorious local crime. The popularity of “true crime” podcasts has renewed attention to this case, and last year a documentary film, The Speedway Murders, was released. It’s now streaming on Hulu and — because it mentions a certain convicted bomber — it has become the target of a lawsuit.

[ snip ]

In reporting that Brett Kimberlin’s lawsuit has been removed to federal court from its original Maryland venue, Eugene Volokh says, “The allegations are complex, and I don’t have the time to summarize them. I’m flagging the case chiefly because some of our longtime readers might be interested in Brett Kimberlin from his various appearances on the blog, chiefly stemming from brushes with early bloggers.”

Yes, we all remember that. One of the things you must remember is that I’ve been a journalist since 1986, and spent decades with a copy of the AP Stylebook and Libel Manual on my desk. The secret to avoiding libel is simple: (a) stick to the facts and (b) always attribute accusations. It is not me, the reporter, who is accusing the suspect of a crime; rather, I am merely reporting what “police say” the suspect has done.

“Sue Me Again, You Evil Liar” was the headline on my post reporting how Brett Kimberlin’s defamation lawsuit against me, Aaron Walker, John Hoge and Ali Akbar was laughed out of court by a Maryland judge in 2014. Among the sources I cited in my blogging about Kimberlin was Mark Singer’s definitive book Citizen K, as well as contemporary reporting by Joe Gelarden in the Indianapolis Star.

Brett Kimberlin’s convictions as the Speedway Bomber are a matter of public record. The pro se pipsqueak recently tried to have his convictions overturned, but lost at every step of the way, getting brutally curb-stomped by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which declared flatly, “Kimberlin’s arguments . . . are meritless.” Undeterred, Kimberlin appealed to the Supreme Court and, when they denied certiorari for the case Kimberlin v. United States in January 2023, I wrote:

Because you can’t argue pro se before the Supreme Court, the pipsqueak perjurer enlisted the legal assistance of well-connected Democrat lawyer Neal Katyal’s firm, but Kimberlin’s case was so preposterously weak that not even a big-dollar law firm could salvage it. So, if you’re keeping score at home, the final tally:

United States ………… 1
Brett Kimberlin …….. 0

Despite all that, however, I cannot presume to know whether the producers of The Speedway Murders might have somehow defamed Kimberlin. As I’ve explained, my reliance on such sources as Singer’s book and Gelarden’s reporting protected me against any finding of libel — it was not me making these accusations, see? I never claimed to have any more knowledge about what happened in Indiana circa 1978 than had previously been reported by others, or established as matters of fact in legal proceedings. Possibly, the makers of this documentary movie about the Burger Chef murders were not as careful about such things, and defeating Kimberlin’s litigation might not be such a slam-dunk for them as it was for me and my co-defendants. However . . .

If Kimberlin is contesting whether he was suspected of involvement in the murder of Julia Scyphers — making the filmmaker’s reference to that suspicion the basis of his defamation claim — he is likely to fail once again. Although the Scyphers murder has never been officially solved, certain facts about the case have been previously reported:

While no motive [for the 1978 bombings] was established at trial, prosecutors and police believe Kimberlin went on the bombing spree to deflect attention away from an ongoing investigation of the murder of 65-year-old Julia Scyphers. Scyphers “violently disapproved” of her daughter Sandra Barton’s relationship with Kimberlin as well as the “strange affection” Kimberlin paid to Barton’s pre-teen daughter, who had accompanied Kimberlin on several long unsupervised out-of-state trips. On July 29, 1978, Scyphers was shot to death just outside her home. Her husband Fred Scyphers, who briefly saw the shooter, identified William Bowman as the gunman. Bowman was a close associate of Kimberlin in the drug trade but Fred, the prosecution’s only witness, died shortly after the murder and Bowman was never charged. Scyphers’ murder still remains unsolved.

So said Wikipedia last time I checked.

Joe Gelarden referred to Barton’s daughter (Julia Scypher’s granddaughter) as “Debbie,” but when it came time for Singer to publish his 1996 book about Kimberlin, he used the pseudonym “Jessica.”

“For three consecutive summers, 1974 through 1976, they took vacations of a week or longer in Disney World, Mexico, and Hawaii. Sandi couldn’t get time off from work, so on these summer trips it was just the two of them — Brett and Jessica.
“Eyebrows levitated. A drug-dealing colleague had memories of conversations with Kimberlin that struck him as odd: ‘We’d see a girl, who was pubescent or prepubescent, and Brett would get this smile and say, “Hey, what do you think? Isn’t she great?” It made me very uncomfortable.’ Another recalled Kimberlin introducing Jessica as ‘my girlfriend,’ and if irony was intended, it was too subtle to register. To a coworker . . . Sandi confided that Kimberlin was ‘grooming Jessica to be his wife.’ To another, Sandi explained that although Kimberlin’s relationship with Jessica was chaste, he intended ‘to wait for her and would marry her.’”
— Mark Singer, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin, Page 78

“Debbie”/“Jessica” was only 10 years old in 1974, and thus would have been 14 when her grandmother was murdered in 1978.

Obviously, suspicion is not synonymous with proof, but one does not commit libel merely by expressing suspicion, especially when that same suspicion was shared by law enforcement officials. Which is to say, if you add 1 + 1 and decide the answer is 2, your arithmetic is not a tort.

Just for the record, by the way, I am informed by people who have looked into the Burger Chef murders that Kimberlin almost certainly was not involved with that particular crime which was likely committed by someone personally connected to one of those teenage victims.

We shall see what becomes of Kimberlin’s latest lawsuit, but I wish the attorneys for the defendants in the Kimberlin v. Hulu case would get in touch with me. I could offer them some excellent advice — for a price.

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Category: Crime, The Kimberlin Files