Meet Jay Jones, the charming Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia

The New Neo Posted on by

What a guy:

Jay Jones, Virginia’s Democratic nominee for attorney general, sent a series of disturbing text messages to a former colleague in 2022, where he suggested the state’s then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R) deserved to be shot in the head.

“Three people, two bullets,” read a text from Jones, obtained by The Post from a source.

“Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot,” the former member of the Virginia House of Delegates continued, presenting the recipient of his text with a dark hypothetical.

“Gilbert gets two bullets to the head,” Jones wrote, adding, “Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.”

This was not some youthful teenage indiscretion. This was three years ago, when Jones was 33 years old, hardly an impulsive child. He was a law school graduate and member of the Virginia House of Delegates.

And Jones didn’t stop there. A Democrat named Joe Johnson had died a few days earlier, and several Republican state legislators praised him. One would think that would sit well with Jones. But apparently not:

“If those guys die before me,” Jones said of the Republicans praising Johnson Jr., “I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves.”

Charming, no? But that’s not the worst. Here’s the worst:

Jones called Coyner during their text exchange and reportedly doubled down, suggesting that he wished Gilbert’s wife could watch her children die, to perhaps change the former House speaker’s political views, according to National Review, citing a source.

“You weren’t trying to understand,” Coyner texted Jones after she reportedly hung up on him. “You were talking about hopping [sic] jennifer Gilbert’s children would die.”

The Democratic AG candidate responded: “Yes, I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”

“I mean do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil? And that they’re breeding little fascists? Yes,” Jones continued.

This is evil.

But you know what? This is also terrible [emphasis mine]:

Meanwhile, Jones did not apologize for the texts and accused his GOP opponent, incumbent Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, of “dropping smears,” in his initial statement addressing the controversy.

“Like all people, I’ve sent text messages that I regret and I believe that violent rhetoric has no place in our politics,” Jones said in a statement to the Virginia Scope.

“Let’s be clear about what is happening in the Attorney General race right now: Jason Miyares is dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations to assault my character and rescue his desperate campaign,” he added. “This is a strategy that ensures Jason Miyares will continue to be accountable to Donald Trump, not the people of Virginia.”

It’s hard to know where to begin with that sort of response from Jones. It reads like satire, but unfortunately it’s not.

Actually, all people have not sent texts that they regret. I can’t recall any of that sort that I’ve sent, for starters. Or received. But yes, it’s pretty common. But what’s not common is the content of the texts Jones sent – except among sociopaths. Or perhaps Democrats who have decided Republicans are literally Nazis.

And forgive me if I can’t quite believe that Jones actually thinks that “violent rhetoric has no place in our politics.” It is such a ridiculous, ludicrous, mind-bogglingly and obviously false sentiment from someone who sent the texts he did for the reason he said he did. It’s not just the Big Lie, it’s the Giant Lie.

And then he plays the victim card. Of course he does. It’s his opponent who’s at fault, who is “dropping smears” – in other words, telling the truth about the vile things Jones said. And it’s being done in “Trump-controlled media organizations” – that is, the National Review, which broke the story. That this is a “Trump-controlled” organization is actually a humorous characterization of that outlet to anyone on the right who’s the least bit familiar with it. But Jones isn’t addressing anyone on the right – he’s addressing Democrats.

And there we get to a sad reality: many, probably most, of them will vote for him nevertheless. Apparently he initially thought this was a nothingburger, a perfectly ordinary way for a prospective attorney general to speak: to want to kill a fellow legislator of the opposing party, and to kill that person’s children.

And I suppose at this point it has become rather ordinary. That’s the atmosphere in which these assassination attempts and assassinations are taking place.

I think I can safely say that only in recent years could a person say something like this and not have to drop out of the race at the insistence of his own party. It’s a measure of the degradation of our society that this hasn’t happened yet to Jones. But I guess Jones did get some flak from his party (or at least fell in the polls), because after that first statement he suddenly seemed contrite and issued an actual apology:

“I take full responsibility for my actions, and I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family. Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed and sorry,” Jones wrote.

“I have reached out to Speaker Gilbert to apologize directly to him, his wife Jennifer and their children. I cannot take back what I said; I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology,” he added.

My guess is that what he’s really sorry about is that the texts were exposed. Those extremely vicious sentiments didn’t come out of nowhere.

Oh, and this:

On Wednesday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Jones was busted for reckless driving in 2022 – when he was caught driving 116 mph down a Virginia interstate – but avoided jail time by completing 500 hours of community service with his own political action committee.

His own PAC. That’s novel.

You cannot, cannot, cannot, make this stuff up.

NOTE: From the comments at the article, this is well put:

Since when to adults do this? Just what kind of people live this way, talk this way, and pretend that this is somehow normal? When did this become acceptable to the point where people actually text this stuff? …

This is not a man I would vote for regardless of his political affiliation. And no, an apology would not do. Good men simply do not think this way.

Hamas’response to Trump’s plan

The New Neo Posted on by

Make of this what you will:

Hamas said that it would release all of the hostages in an effort to re-enter negotiations, in a Friday statement. Hamas officials later told international media that it would likely take longer than the 72 hours outlined in the US proposal to release them. …

Hamas gave mediators its response to US President Donald Trump’s plan for ending the Gaza war earlier Friday evening and promised that it would approve transferring the power of the Gaza Strip over to a Palestinian governing body that would be elected “based on Palestinian national consensus and with Arab and Islamic support.”

Marzouk promised the handover of power would come with the transfer of weapons from Hamas to the future Palestinian rulers.

My reaction is this: saying they will release the hostages is a way to encourage the Israeli left to blame Netanyahu for not wanting to release the hostages, if and when the deal falls through. “See, Hamas was willing, and Netanyahu wouldn’t agree!” would be the left’s cry.

Completing any actual deal would depend on the rest of the story; the hostages would just be the beginning. What would this “Palestinian governing body” be? Same old same old, under a different name? It’s not as though the Palestinians are eager to elect some “live and let live” Israel-tolerant group.

Time will tell. But Hamas’ statement is also a delaying tactic, because Trump had given them a Sunday deadline.

Ian Andre Roberts: Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus

The New Neo Posted on by

I assume you’ve followed at least some of the story of Ian Andre Roberts, the Des Moines school superintendent who turns out to have been an illegal alien wanted for gun violations. The initial question was, why didn’t the people who hired him do enough of a background check to discover that he was not only an illegal alien, but he was on deportation orders due to the gun violations?

It turns out that’s not all they didn’t discover:

More universities have denied claims from Des Moines Public Schools’ former superintendent about his education and accomplishments, raising questions about how thoroughly Iowa’s largest school district vetted his application.

For years, former Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts, 54, had claimed he completed programs and was honored at several universities, including Morgan State University and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Roberts had long stated that he received a doctorate in urban educational leadership from Morgan State University in July 2007.

Morgan State confirmed to the Des Moines Register, part of the USA TODAY Network, on Sept. 30 that Roberts did not obtain a degree from the school, despite attending from the fall of 2002 through the spring of 2007. An MIT spokesperson later told the Register that the school does not have records of Roberts attending.

Did the school district do any vetting of this guy at all, even the most basic? Perhaps his demographics checked too many boxes. He turns out to have been the great pretender.

His Wiki seems to have been updated:

Ian Andre Roberts is an educator who was Des Moines Independent Community School District system superintendent from 2023 until 2025 and an athlete who ran in the 2000 Olympics for Guyana.

In September 2025, Roberts was detained by ICE, who stated that they acted on an order of removal issued in May 2024. The Department of Homeland Security further termed him a “criminal alien” and a public safety threat. His detention spurred a protest outside the Des Moines federal courthouse, and subsequently garnered both national and international media attention.

Here’s an article that goes into his credentials – both fake and real – in some detail.

There’s also this:

Roberts spent over 20 years bouncing around the nation’s education system, holding top posts from coast to coast, but also proved controversial.

“He ruined our district for three years,” a former colleague in the state told The Post. “He was very smooth, affable, but the overarching feeling you got from him was smoke and mirrors, mystique.” …

He is also rumored to have been caught having sex with a female co-worker on school property in his previous role as a superintendent in rural Pennsylvania, a post he held from 2020 to 2023.

Former colleagues claimed to The Post that Roberts was a sketchy figure and pathological liar. They said they felt he was hired because of his diversity, equity and inclusion bona fides — and claimed that once on the job, he did little work.

“He was a player. He liked the women,” a source who knew Roberts, who asked not to be named, told The Post.

Another source expressed concern to the school board in Pennsylvania that Roberts might not be a legal resident based on casual comments he had made — but their concern was ignored, they said.

Hindsight is 20/20. But I assume the existence of such complaints would be on record.

There’s also this:

Roberts was superintendent of Millcreek Township schools near Erie, Pa., for three years.

During that time, the school district was inundated by lawsuits — and forced to pay out over $400,000 in sex discrimination settlements — claiming Roberts promoted less qualified women over more deserving men.

Town gossip claimed Roberts hightailed it out of Millcreek after he was caught having sex with a female co-worker on school property — although this could not be verified by The Post. …

Even so, while Roberts publicly claims to have a wife, his former co-worker told The Post they had never met or seen her and wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t exist. Another person who knew Roberts said Roberts didn’t hide the fact he was actively on the wife hunt for immigration reasons. …

More shockingly, it was revealed this week that Roberts has an active Democratic voter registration in Maryland, prompting congressional Republicans to demand answers from the Maryland Board of Elections about “gaping holes” in the state’s election integrity systems, according to Fox News.

Before moving to small-town Pennsylvania, Roberts held a cushy, high-power job as chief schools officer for Aspire Public Schools in Oakland, Calif., was a superintendent for public schools in St. Louis, Mo., and was a principal at high schools in Washington, DC, and Baltimore.

Nice. So there’s some sort of voter fraud, too?

One thing that seems true in Roberts’ resume, however – at least, according to a photo at the link – is that he really was a runner for Guyana in the 2000 Olympics.

The title of this post is a legal maxim that means, “False in one thing, false in all things.” The saying isn’t literally true in Roberts’ case – a certain amount of his story pans out. But the maxim is way too close to being correct. Roberts clearly had certain skills that allowed him to fool many people, when combined with his stellar DEI bona fides.

More on the Manchester synagogue killings

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Guess what? The aptly named perp Jihad Al-Shamie was no stranger to the criminal justice system in Manchester. He was out on bail for rape:

It is not clear when the rape took place, but it was being investigated by Greater Manchester Police — one of a number of crimes he is thought to have committed, a source said.

A number of crimes. What’s the number?

Investigators are also looking into whether Al-Shamie is behind menacing emails sent to conservative politician John Howell in 2012 after he defended Israel’s right to protect itself.

One of the emails the politician received came from a “Jihad Alshamie” who told him: “It is people like you who deserve to die,” the Telegraph reported.

The acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree:

His father previously posted support for Hamas terrorists who slaughtered Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.

(2) Some more details on the father – who is a surgeon:

Jihad Al Shamie’s surgeon dad, Faraj Al Shamie, posted a slew of posts on Facebook in support of the deadly 2023 attacks on the Jewish state, the Telegraph revealed — including one in which he described the atrocities as a “miracle by all standards.”

The posts emerged just hours after the dad fired off a statement distancing himself from the carnage his son — whom he had named Jihad — inflicted Thursday as the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester celebrated Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. …

In one post penned the day of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, Al Shamie’s father said the Hamas terrorists who carried out the onslaught “prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israel will not remain.”

“Men like these prove they are God’s men on earth, and regardless of who leads them, this is the true compass for men confident of their victory even if their means are limited,” he wrote, according to translations shared by the Telegraph.

“May God protect Palestine and its heroic people. God bless you and may He bless you with true men from the lineage of true men.”

“The lineage of true men” – sadistic and barbaric murderers, whom the father is praising. And yet he’d like to distance himself from his son’s crimes. Profound skepticism is certainly in order.

(3) Here’s a completely out-of-touch thing Keir Starmer had to say:

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged people attending pro-Palestine protests this weekend to “respect the grief of British Jews”.

Starmer added the protests, planned for both Manchester and London, could cause further pain to mourners.

Earth to Starmer: “causing further pain to mourners” is a feature, not a bug, for the protesters. What Britain does he think he’s living in? 1950?

(4) Starmer also said this, which at least isn’t mealy-mouthed pap – although it is “mere words”:

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer denounced the “vile” assailant who “attacked Jews because they are Jews.”

He also promised protection for the Jewish community, but why would they believe him? He and the other British leaders have placated, appeased, rewarded, and empowered their own Jew-hating Moslems, who are numerous – and of course, as in the US, the Jew-haters also consist of many leftists, university students, and even people on the far right.

(5) One terrible thing that’s been revealed is that police shot one of the dead Jewish men (and wounded one other Jewish man), caught in gunfire meant for the perp Mr. Jihad himself. This is tragic and probably a result of some combination of poor police work/training and a chaotic crowd scene. The perp was thought to be wearing a suicide vest (although it turned out to be a dud) and was trying to enter the synagogue:

The police said they believed the two victims were huddled behind a door in the synagogue in the northern English city, trying to prevent the attacker from entering, when they were shot.

(6) This opinion piece makes it clear that no one should be surprised:

Antisemitism is surging in the United States, where I now live, and in Britain, where I was born and raised.

The fear that an attack might occur somewhere during Yom Kippur was not merely paranoia; it was the rational expectation of a community that has seen too much. …

Hours after the Heaton Park carnage, cars drove past the crime scene waving Palestinian flags. It was a grotesque celebration of Jewish death in the heart of Britain.

This pattern is not new. In recent years, Jewish blood has been spilled on Jewish holidays with sickening consistency.

The article goes on to list many such attacks.

[ADDENDUM: More on the victims; one of those killed was a security guard at the synagogue.]

[ADDENDUM II: And now I see that some people are saying that the bullet that killed the perp may have gone through him and the door and also hit one of the men behind the door.

The 5.56mm [that police used] is a high velocity weapon that can put a round through a half inch steel plate at 100m.]

Manchester synagogue attacker named

The New Neo Posted on by

Aptly named, I might add: Jihad Al-Shamie.

More:

Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, a British citizen of Syrian descent, was shot dead by armed officers minutes after he targeted Heaton Park Synagogue on Thursday morning.

It is understood he entered the United Kingdom as a young child, before being granted British citizenship in 2006.

Two men aged in their 30s and a woman in her 60s have been arrested on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack, police added.

And is this unintentionally funny, in a bleak sort of way?:

Police said officers were ‘working to understand the motivation behind the attack’.

Book “bans” in schools

The New Neo Posted on by

The left loves to distort language in order to mislead the public. You might say it’s one of their favorite tactics, and it’s very effective.

One good example is the morphing of the term “illegal aliens” to “illegal immigrants” to “undocumented workers” and then to “migrants. And have you heard of the word “unhoused” to refer to homeless street people?

Another example has to do with “book bans.” The phrase conjures up Nazi book burnings and dystopic films like Fahrenheit 451, and it’s meant to do so.

But the current “bans” aren’t actual bans at all. They are about school libraries as well as what books to teach in classrooms. Students are completely free to read whatever books they wish (or whatever books their parents let them read, if parents still have control).

Removing a book from a school library or failing to put it there in the first place, or deciding it will not be part of the curriculum, amounts to not recommending it, and/or not facilitating exposure to it. This is a very different thing from banning something. But the left would like you to confuse the two. The linked article does mention schools, but the word “ban” nearly overrides it and is not only misleading but is almost certainly intended to cause an emotional reaction and a connection with Nazis and the like.

From the article:

A new report on book bans in U.S. schools finds Stephen King as the author most likely to be censored and the country divided between states actively restricting works and those attempting to limit or eliminate bans.

PEN America’s “Banned in the USA,” released Wednesday, tracks more than 6,800 instances of books being temporarily or permanently pulled for the 2024-2025 school year. The new number is down from more than 10,000 in 2023-24, but still far above the levels of a few years ago, when PEN didn’t even see the need to compile a report.

Perhaps they didn’t feel the need because a little while ago there were fewer “bans” because school libraries didn’t feel the need to stock books for children promoting homosexuality or trans topics, or to have Stephen King books in primary schools.

I don’t recall any controversial books in my school library, which was pretty small anyway. Nor were they in the children’s room of my local municipal library, which didn’t allow children into the adult section (not “adult” as in sex books, just adult as in grownups) until high school. And even then, the adult section was pretty tame as well.

[NOTE: Stephen King got into some recent trouble on “X,” with a lie he told about Charlie Kirk and which King ultimately retracted.]

Fatal attack on synagogue in Manchester, England

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s Yom Kippur, which is probably the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, and so a tempting target for any Jew-hater. And Jew-haters are legion, including murderous Jew-haters. Therefore we get this:

A car was driven into a crowd and a man stabbed at 9.31am on Yom Kippur – the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

Laurence Taylor, the head of counter-terrorism policing, said … police had made two further arrests and knew the attacker’s identity, but would not release the information at this stage.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said four other victims are in a serious condition after the attack outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall.

The force has now confirmed the suspect is also dead, after previously being unable to approach his body due to ‘suspicious items on his person’.

A picture of the alleged attacker showed a man with a beard and dark clothing standing outside the synagogue with unidentified objects strapped to his waist.

He can also be seen holding something in his hand. …

Earlier, hero rabbi Daniel Walker barricaded worshippers inside the building after the suspect crashed into the gate and began stabbing ‘anyone and everyone’.

One witness described him moving from victim to victim in a ‘robotic’ manner ‘like he had a job to do’ – targeting ‘anyone’ wearing a kippah [religious skullcap worn by observant male Jews].

He then tried to force his way inside before being shot dead by armed police at 9.38am.

Several things stand out here. One is that the attack occurred outside the synagogue, although the killer wanted to get inside as well. Another is that the carnage was inflicted by a vehicle and a knife. Still another is that two other men were arrested; this could mean that the perp was a “known wolf” affiliated with others.

When that article was written, the authorities hadn’t released the suspect’s identity but had declared the attack to be terrorism, as well as adding:

We believe we know their identity, but for safety reasons at the scene, we’re unable to confirm at this stage.

So they’re afraid someone will react – rioting? attacking police? attacking some other group? – if they learn who the killer was.

As far as I know, there still has been no official word on the killer’s identity. However, a subsequent article says this:

A knifeman who went on a ‘barbaric’ rampage slaughtering two people at a synagogue is an Islamist terrorist, it can now be revealed.

No explanation as to what the source of that information might be. But it’s certainly a good bet it’s true.

Starmer and other politicians have mouthed the usual platitudes. But they have let the situation come to this and even encouraged it by their own lies about Israel. They need the votes of the British Muslims; they don’t need the votes of British Jews, whose numbers are much smaller and who in the last twenty-five years have tended to vote conservative anyway (however, in 2024 they – like most of the population in general – swung to Labour in disgust with the Tories, but their swing was smaller than that of the British population in general).

The shutdown through Democrat eyes

The New Neo Posted on by

Or at least – through the eyes of a goodly number of Democrats I know.

I had a meal yesterday with about eight friends and acquaintances. All of them are Democrats, although I wouldn’t call any of them intensely political. Often politics doesn’t even come up at our gatherings, but it did yesterday, briefly. I usually stay quiet at those times because I’ve learned from experience that in this particular group my disagreeing would be an utterly futile gesture that usually just draws blank stares at best. They already know I’m on the right, by the way.

So ordinarily I just listen, and that’s what I did yesterday when the topic of the shutdown came up. The discussion lasted barely a minute, just enough time to make it clear that there was complete consensus on the subject, and it went like this: Trump especially, and the Republicans generally, are the awful culprits. Nope, it’s not Schumer’s shutdown to them. Not at all. Au contraire.

There was no mention of the role of Democrats. There was not a word of attention paid to all the previous times the government had shut down with the roles reversed, and why it might have been okay to blame the minority party back when it was the GOP and why – now that Republicans are the majority party trying to vote for funding – somehow they’re still to blame. There was no acknowledgement that some Democrats had voted with the Republicans this time. And there was nothing about the actual issues between the two parties on the funding.

After that brief minute the subject was changed, and we went on as before.

This kneejerk type of consensus opinion with very little content no longer surprises me at all. I am convinced that the majority of people who vote Democrat are not paying any more attention or giving it more thought than that. Nor do I think that a huge percentage of Republicans give it all that much more thought, either; it’s just that they come out on a different side and it’s one with which I tend to agree. The percentage of people who obsessively follow politics is high on many blogs, but it isn’t otherwise all that large on either side, at least not in my opinion.

You may say that a lower percentage of women than men follow politics closely, and that after all this group was composed of women. But, at least in my experience, about the same is true of men, for the most part, although it might be slightly more common among men than women to be very interested in politics.

Your mileage may differ.

NOTE: As an antidote, you might enjoy watching some of this:

Jane Goodall has died at 91

The New Neo Posted on by

Goodall was sui generis. Even as a young woman, she radiated a quiet calm that was both soothing and unusual. She had patience galore, which is probably why famed anthropologist Louis Leakey decided she would be well-suited to an intensive study of chimpanzees. It became her life’s work. Somehow she managed to have two marriages and a child, as well.

Goodall had a look of timelessness no matter her age, slender youngster or wrinkled elder. She died in the saddle, as it were, while on a speaking tour. She studied animals in a way no one before her had done, and she made remarkable observations: that chimpanzees used sticks as tools, for example.

It was after many years of studying chimpanzees that she made a truly horrific discovery, which was that they could be extremely violent with each other. This must have been profoundly difficult for her to learn, but she reported it nevertheless and didn’t flinch from its implications.

Goodall was a remarkable woman and a remarkable person. RIP.