The Department of Education changes size and focus

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the story from Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:

That political change includes plans to scale-down the U.S. Department of Education. Not truly to “eliminate” it, which would require an act of Congress, but to eliminate the leftist-NGO funding and woke education mandates, and to send most of its functions back to the states. I wondered aloud in recent posts what would become of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) through which we [Legal Insurrection’s Equal Protection Project] have filed so many complaints.

Although Trump’s executive order regarding the Department of Education does refer to closing it, it actually – according to Professor Jacobson – is “more like putting the [DoEd] on a crash diet.”

So DoEd will retain some spending and assistance program funding, as much of its current burden cannot be fully eliminated or offloaded Significantly, the remaining spending must be monitored to make sure that “any program or activity receiving Federal assistance” elimiates DEI discrimination and simlar agendas.

Will this hold up? Once again, time will tell.

Federal judges on the left are determined to stop Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

These judges apparently consider themselves the firewall against Trump and the troglodytes who elected him:

More nationwide injunctions and restraining orders have been issued against Trump in the past month that were issued against the Biden administration in four years. On Wednesday alone, four different federal judges ordered Elon Musk to reinstate USAID workers (something he and DOGE have no authority to do), ordered President Trump to disclose sensitive operational details about the deportation flights of alleged terrorists, ordered the Department of Defense to admit individuals suffering from gender dysphoria to the military, and ordered the Department of Education to issue $600 million in DEI grants to schools.

On one level, what all this amounts to is an attempted takeover of the Executive Branch by the Judicial Branch — a judicial coup d’état. These judges are usurping President Trump’s valid exercise of his Executive Branch powers through sheer judicial fiat — a raw assertion of power by one branch of the federal government against another.

But on another, deeper level, this is an attempt by the judiciary to prevent the duly elected president from reclaiming control of the Executive Branch from the federal bureaucracy — the deep state, which has long functioned as an unelected and unaccountable fourth branch of the government. This unconstitutional fourth branch has always been controlled by Democrats and leftist ideologues who, under the guise of being nonpartisan experts neutrally administering the functions of government, have effectively supplanted the political branches. Unfortunately, to large extent the political branches have acquiesced in the usurpation of their authority.

So it’s The Left Strikes Back. Problems at the ballot box? Send in the judiciary. What failed to be accomplished through the kangaroo court lawfare to which Trump was subjected prior to his election – the goal being to prevent him from being elected to a second term at all – could possibly be accomplished by tying his hands whenever he tries to do much of anything as president. These are not unbiased decisions for the most part, but these judges consider it their duty to stop the right from changing things in any big way.

It’s somewhat similar to Russiagate during Trump’s first term, which was an attempt by the intelligence community and the FBI, DOJ, and press to hamstring Trump and if possible remove him from office. That didn’t work, either. Will this? It really depends on SCOTUS, and many people are worried about how Roberts will see his role and that of the Supreme Court.

It also reminds me very much of what’s been going on for quite some time in Israel regarding Netanyahu. There’s been a huge conflict between Israel’s extremely powerful Supreme Court (much more powerful, actually, than our own) which is controlled by the left, and Netanyahu. In Israel, the judiciary works like this:

Though Israel is in a state of war on several fronts, the judges presiding in that trial are forcing him to testify three days a week, every week, because, they have argued, it is “in the public interest” to bring the trial to a speedy conclusion. So, determining the exact number of cigars that Mr. Netanyahu received as gifts from friends has come to take precedence over his running of the war.

The judges know, of course, that they will pay no price for their risible definition of “the public interest,” which the public itself would undoubtedly have rejected. Because Israel’s deep state has achieved the dream of bureaucrats since the dawn of bureaucracy: the complete divorce of authority from accountability. The judges know that if their lopsided priorities hinder the war effort, it will be the prime minister, not those who coerced him, who will pay the political price.

At this late stage in the game, one may speculate that this is exactly the point of their whole exercise. Because the Netanyahu trial is not a real criminal procedure. It is a means for doing what elections could not: removing him from power. It is an arena of the struggle for supremacy between democracy on the one hand and the administrative state on the other. …

Under a heavy cloud of judicial-sounding terms, Israel’s Supreme Court judges have removed sovereignty itself—that is, the power of final decision over the whole realm of law and politics—from the elected branches of government and transferred it to themselves.

The Supreme Court completed this move in the course of the war, when it exercised a new power it invented for itself: judicial review over what we have for a constitution. It is now in the position to prescribe the rules of the political game, not just its concrete results.

Much much more at the link.

The JFK files and the conspiracy theories

The New Neo Posted on by

No, I haven’t read the newly-released files. That would be quite a task. But as I already indicated, I am nearly certain that they will reveal little of note, and yet that people wedded to the various and sundry conspiracy theories of the JFK assassination will find all sorts of ways to turn them into something that lends credence to the idea that the killing was the result of a vast conspiracy.

So I find this from the Babylon Bee humorous (hat tip: commenter “AesopFan”):

According to sources, the final unredacted release of the CIA’s JFK Files contains no incriminating information, definitively proving that the CIA destroyed all their incriminating JFK Files.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” JFK assassination research enthusiast Edward Dunbar posted on X. “We finally get the files after all these years and there’s nothing in them. That can only mean they destroyed that one file that said ‘We did it’ years ago!”

Where there’s a will, there’s a way – and there has always been a will to make JFK’s assassin into something much bigger than the unimpressive lone Communist gunman Lee Harvey Oswald.

One thing about Oswald that made a deep impression on me is that, when the assassination occurred and I first saw a photo of him, I thought he was at least 35 or so. I was young and he didn’t look like a 24-year-old to me, but that’s indeed what he was. And you know what? He still looks to me like a man in his mid-thirties. This is basically meaningless, but it strikes me when I see photos of him.

Another thing that’s clear is that he was trouble – and troubled – for nearly his entire short life:

[Oswald’s father] 5][6] Robert died of a heart attack two months before Lee was born. …

As a child, Oswald was described as withdrawn and temperamental by several people who knew him. When Oswald was 12 in August 1952, his mother took him to New York City where they lived for a short time with Oswald’s half-brother, John. Oswald and his mother were later asked to leave after an argument in which Oswald allegedly struck his mother and threatened John’s wife with a pocket knife.

Oswald attended seventh grade in the Bronx, New York, but was often truant, which led to a psychiatric assessment at a juvenile reformatory. The reformatory psychiatrist, Dr. Renatus Hartogs, described Oswald as immersed in a “vivid fantasy life, turning around the topics of omnipotence and power, through which [Oswald] tries to compensate for his present shortcomings and frustrations”. Hartogs concluded:

“Lee has to be diagnosed as “personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features and passive-aggressive tendencies”. Lee has to be seen as an emotionally, quite disturbed youngster who suffers under the impact of really existing emotional isolation and deprivation, lack of affection, absence of family life and rejection by a self involved and conflicted mother.”

… Evelyn D. Siegel, a social worker who interviewed both Lee and Marguerite Oswald at Youth Hou”>heese, while describing “a rather pleasant, appealing quality about this emotionally starved, affectionless youngster which grows as one speaks to him”, found that he had detached himself from the world around him because “no one in it ever met any of his needs for love”. Hartogs and Siegel indicated that Marguerite gave him very little affection, with Siegel concluding that Lee “just felt that his mother never gave a damn for him. He always felt like a burden that she simply just had to tolerate.” … Hartogs reported that she did not understand that Lee’s withdrawal was a form of “violent but silent protest against his neglect by her and represents his reaction to a complete absence of any real family life”.

A great deal is known about Oswald; you can find a ton of it in the book I keep recommending for anyone who wishes to learn an enormous amount about both Oswald, the assassination as a whole, and every single conspiracy theory about it and why they don’t hold water: that book is Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History, which can be found online here.

I also recommend this previous post of mine, as well as the comments there. I’ve written quite a few other posts on the assassination, but if you read just one I’d suggest it be that one.

March wind

The New Neo Posted on by

As a child I recall learning an old rhyme that went something like this: “March wind, April showers, make room for the sweet May flowers.” And doing a search just now, I see that’s pretty close to the lyrics of this 1935 song. I don’t recall ever hearing it before, but someone obviously had quoted it to me:

Why am I writing about this? Well, it’s March, and the month is living up to its name. I’m still in New York and doing a lot of walking, and the wind has been chill and pretty fierce much of the time even though the temperature isn’t all that cold.

So what’s up with this “March wind” thing? I hadn’t a clue, but when I looked it up I discovered this:

… March is a transition month — obviously. We are heading out of the cold short days of winter into the longer and much warmer days of spring and summer. Cold air is situated north while warm air is trying to approach from the south.

Temperatures during the month of March are more extreme over shorter distances PLUS we have the heat of the sun finally at an angle that can actually warm up the surface quicker.

With the sun heating up the Earth’s surface, pockets of warm air form. These pockets of warm air start moving towards the cold dense air that is still hanging out, leftover from the winter months. The difference in the air mass temperatures (between the warm air and cold air) create differing pressures, which in turn create winds.

The greater the difference in the high and low pressures, the stronger the force of the winds. Also, the distance between an area of high pressure and an area of low pressure will also determine the speed of the moving air.

Question asked; question answered.

NOTE: When I was really little – and I mean maybe three or four years old – I thought that wind was generated by the moving trees. After all, I’d noticed that trees and leaves moved a lot on windy days, so it made perfect sense to me.

Tim Walz – one of many dodged bullets in the 2024 election

The New Neo Posted on by

The selection of Tim Walz for her VP pick was one of Harris’ biggest mistakes in her presidential run – and that’s saying something, because she made a lot of big mistakes. But anyone who had ever paid attention to Walz previously knew he had a terrible record during the Minneapolis riots and has no real appeal on a gut level as a politician.

For me, one of his most cringe-worthy poses was his attempt to project a macho “regular guy” vibe. And he’s still trying:

Since faceplanting as Kamala Harris’ running mate, the Minnesota governor has been holding rallies and making the media rounds in a desperate attempt to boost his stock for a 2028 presidential run.

Here’s Tim:

How can a person be that tone deaf? Someone should tell him that what works in Minnesota doesn’t necessarily work on a national level.

Kamala Harris may be running for the governorship of California. One of her problems has been that what works in California doesn’t necessarily work on a national level. So maybe retreating to the state level is a good idea for her. I doubt she’ll run, though, unless pretty much assured she’ll win the Democratic primary, which is tantamount to winning the election in California.

Rubio updated

The New Neo Posted on by

Now that he’s Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has been giving a lot of interviews. A few examples can be found here and on many blogs. I’ve noticed a pattern in the comments – which usually seem to be from people on the right – a great many of which say something like, “He’s so much better than I thought he’d be.”

I think Rubio got a bad reputation on the right for a number of reasons, the first (but only among people old enough to remember) being his participation as a new senator in the 2013 “Gang of Eight” attempt to deal with illegal immigration in a bipartisan manner including a path to citizenship for illegal aliens already in the country. A second reason for his problematic reputation was twofold, and occurred during his 2016 run for president: Trump’s “Little Marco” nickname for him (Rubio isn’t tall; he’s officially listed as 5’9″ or so, but having actually stood next to him once during the 2016 campaign, I’d say he’s at least an inch shorter), and Chris Christie’s mocking tactics concerning Rubio’s repeating himself during a Republican primary debate in February of 2016. I did a lengthy analysis of the latter; you can find it here, and I think it shows that Rubio was nowhere near as bad as Christie’s attack made him out to be.

Trump’s “Little Marco” nickname for Rubio drew blood not only because Rubio is relatively short, but because he also has a baby face and looks younger than he is. Plus, he is fairly young even now – 53 – and at the time of that debate he was 44. When he became a senator he was forty, by my calculations. Pretty darn young.

But I’ve always been impressed by Rubio, who is one of the most articulate politicians in stating a case without being pedantic or obscure or affected. That’s what people are responding to now in those YouTube videos featuring him. I was surprised and pleased when Trump chose him for the SOS position, and so far so good.

NOTE: Rubio’s birth name is Marco Antonio Rubio – Mark Antony?

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) There’s a fight on for control of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court. In a special election in 2023, the left won control 4-3. Now there’s a chance to get it back, because one of the judges on the left is retiring and there’s a special election looming. Needless to say, tons of money are being spent on the race, which pollsters say is tied.

This race is vitally important for the following reason:

Although Republicans have multiple reasons for prioritizing this race, the most immediate is Crawford’s [the Democratic candidate] stated intention to redraw the state’s congressional maps. If elected, she will ensure the maps are redrawn in a way that favors Democratic candidates in next year’s critical midterm elections.

If Democrats regain control of the House, they will seize every opportunity to block President Donald Trump’s agenda—and will almost certainly impeach him at least once.

Who cares about impeachment? It’s meaningless at this point. But the 2026 election is why Trump is in such a hurry to seize the moment.

(2) The JFK files have been released, and AP’s headline is this: “JFK assassination files released, sending history buffs hunting for new clues.” My prediction is that it is JFK assassination conspiracy buffs who will be reading every word in order to further their pet theories or come up with new ones, and that none of it will hold water although people will continue to believe all sorts of things. No doubt quite a few people here disagree with me. I’ve written tons on this blog about the assassination and why I very strongly believe the Warren Commission got it right and the conspiracy theorists get it wrong. I’m not especially keen on going down that rabbit hole again, but you can always take a look at what I’ve written on the subject previously.

(3) The untimely death of University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki in the Dominican Republic is extremely sad, and we may never know what really happened although her parents believe she drowned accidentally:

“Both sides of the authorities have shown us how high the ocean waves were at the time of the incident, and both sides of the authorities have clarified the person of interest was not a suspect from the beginning,” Subbarayudu Konanki, the missing co-ed’s father, said from the family home in Virginia.

“It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that we are coming to terms with the fact our daughter has drowned,” he said. “This is incredibly difficult for us to process.”

RIP.

(4) Gas prices have been dropping, and some say that it’s only because the economy is bad. You be the judge.

(5) Trump and Putin have a chat:

A call between President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin ended with a limited agreement for Russia and Ukraine to cease attacks on energy infrastructure but stopped short of a U.S. proposal for a temporary truce.

The United States said Russia had agreed to an energy and infrastructure ceasefire. After Moscow and Kyiv agree to stop hitting each other’s power plants and electric grids, negotiators would move on to a potential halt in fighting on the Black Sea ? and then to a full ceasefire and peace agreement in the 3-year-old Ukraine war, a White House statement said.

Will this end up being something good? Time will tell.

How can you hate a guy who rescues stranded astronauts?

The New Neo Posted on by

What a triumph:

The US astronauts stranded on the International Space Station joyfully emerged from their rescue capsule following a dramatic but smooth return to Earth Tuesday — months after their days-long jaunt in orbit turned into a headline-grabbing space odyssey.

Butch Wilmore, 62, and 59-year-old Suni Williams splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Fla., aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule just before 6 p.m. EST Tuesday, concluding a nine-month stint in space that was supposed to last just eight days when it launched in June 2024.

“Butch, Suni, on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home,” a mission-control dispatcher radioed the crew moments after the capsule Dragon Freedom splashed down.

Less than an hour later, the duo — along with American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov — were extracted from the capsule onboard a recovery vessel, and each was filmed beaming, waving and pumping their fists as they were helped to their feet and whisked away on wheelchairs. …

Long stretches living in space can result in muscle atrophy and vision impairment upon returning to gravity, each of which and other problems they’ll be monitored for before being cleared to return to their families.

Musk contended that Biden had turned down his offer to rescue them back in September, fearing a disaster prior to the election.

Musk used to be a hero to the left, and Teslas were the virtue-signaling wave of the future. Once he threw in his lot with Trump, he became an enemy.

NPR covers the story by adding the following:

Shortly after taking office in January, President Trump said he asked his close political adviser and SpaceX founder Elon Musk to “go get” Williams and Wilmore, whom Trump said had been “virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration.”

In fact, the astronauts’ ride back to Earth had been docked on the ISS since September. The SpaceX Dragon capsule that flew the pair home on Tuesday arrived at the space station in the fall with two empty seats for the duo’s return trip.

NASA said it had decided to integrate Williams and Wilmore into the space station crew for technical and budgetary reasons, and during their time on the station the pair has been conducting experiments and spacewalks.

Musk said in February that he had made an offer to the Biden administration “months ago” for SpaceX to bring the astronauts home early, but that the administration “refused” and delayed the pair’s return for “political reasons.”

Two former NASA officials under the Biden administration, including former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, said they were unaware of any such offer.

The implication is that Musk and Trump aren’t telling the truth, and that NASA wanted to leave the astronauts up there for almost half a year longer, and that politics had nothing to do with it. To me, the story told by Trump/Musk is more plausible.

Anyway, welcome home.

NOTE: See also this:

TERROR: Democrat activists have taken the attacks on Tesla to an entirely new level publishing a hit list for activists to target the homes of owners, stores, and charging stations. To get removed from the list Tesla owners must prove they sold their cars. It is time for the FBI and DOJ to investigate who is behind these coordinated attacks. In this case multiple laws are likely being violated:

– 18 U.S.C. § 119 – Publishing Restricted Personal Information (Trump could extend this to Tesla owners)
– 18 U.S.C. § 2261A – Interstate Stalking
– 18 U.S.C. § 875 – Interstate Threats
– 18 U.S.C. § 1030 – Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)
– Doxxing Laws (TX, FL, and CA)
– Incitement to Riot (or Public Disorder)
– Stalking & Harassment Laws
– Trespassing & Criminal Mischief (as Accomplice Liability)

The enormous value of lies as propaganda

The New Neo Posted on by

The other day I was speaking to an old friend who is what I would call a political moderate for the most part. But her hatred for Trump and his supporters – a crowd she lumps together as a large amorphous mass of stupid, selfish, crass, dangerous people (present company excluded?) – means that she hasn’t voted for Republicans in quite a while.

We hadn’t spoken of politics in a long time, and it’s a topic I generally avoid. But during our friendly discussion it came up, and I asked her what is one of the things she dislikes most about Trump. She cited his white supremacism. I asked her on what she based the belief that he’s a white supremacist, and she cited the Charlottesville “good people on both sides” incident.

That’s both fascinating and depressing. This person isn’t ill-informed and she’s quite intelligent, but somehow that original lie, repeated over and over again, has become unassailable truth in her mind. That lie not only got halfway around the world before the truth had a chance to get its boots on, but it burrowed deep into many many minds and then was driven deeper by all the repetition. Correcting it requires a rather lengthy explanatory conversation, supporting documents and videos, and the will on the part of the listener to entertain the idea that such a deeply-entrenched, long-held, and multiply-sourced belief is incorrect. Not only that, but the belief fits in with so many other beliefs about Trump that have been repeated over the years, plus beliefs about Republicans and especially MAGA voters, that the task of getting the revised story across is nearly insurmountable.

This is just another musing of mine on the theme that got me started on blogging: how do minds change? It’s like the lightbulb joke: they have to want to change. Or, they have to have an experience or come across some knowledge that just happens to strike a deep chord that is the start of a mental (and sometimes emotional) journey from which there is usually no turning back.