Another day, another distortion of what Trump said

The New Neo Posted on by

I think that about 95% of what Democrat voters think Trump has done or said is based on a lie about him:

Seattle would rather have racial “equity” than serve its gifted and talented students

The New Neo Posted on by

So sad:

[Seattle] began phasing out its Highly Capable Cohort schools and classrooms for advanced students in the 2021-22 school year because they found it had too many racial inequities. School bosses said black and Hispanic students were underrepresented at the schools.

According to Seattle Public School data, of the highly capable students in the 2022-23 school year, 52 percent were white, 16 percent were Asian and 3.4 percent were black.

During a January 22, 2020, school board meeting, parents of black students in the Highly Capable Cohort asked the board to consider finding ways to incorporate students of color into the gifted program rather than shut it down.

Then school board vice president Chandra Hampson slammed those parents saying, ‘this is a pretty masterful job at tokenizing a really small community of color within the existing cohort.’

Chandra Hampson is white, by the way.

More about the phaseout [emphasis mine]:

Three elementary schools, five middle schools and three high schools are currently highly capable cohort schools – all of which will be phased out by the 2027-28 school year.

The gifted and talented program has been replaced with the Highly Capable Neighborhood School Model which requires teachers to come up with individualized learning programs for all of their students.

According to Seattle Public Schools, the new model will be ‘be more inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive.’ …

Some teachers said they felt they don’t have the time and resources to make learning plans for every student in a classroom of 20 to 30 students.

News station KOMO reported that anonymous teachers said the district is not providing them with extra resources.

‘No extra time, no aid in the classroom, no curriculum help, and no extra compensation to come up with these additional lesson plans for every level of learning in a single classroom,’ said the report.

But the aim isn’t to serve children. The aim is to check the right boxes and get those statistics in line with wokeness.

The slide down the euthanasia slippery slope continues: The Netherlands

The New Neo Posted on by

The Netherlands has been a leader in this particular trend. Here’s the latest:

This young woman is not dying of anything, nor is she in intractable physical pain. Apparently her psychiatrist told her that her depression was incurable and there was no hope for her, which is when she decided she would ask for assisted suicide. Needless to say, no psychiatrist should ever tell a patient such a thing; it is extreme malpractice, IMHO.

Assisted suicide seems to have actually become trendy among a certain set:

… [P]eople like Zoraya ter Beek … critics argue, have been tacitly encouraged to kill themselves by laws that destigmatize suicide, a social media culture that glamorizes it, and radical right-to-die activists who insist we should be free to kill ourselves whenever our lives are “complete.”

They have fallen victim, in critics’ eyes, to a kind of suicide contagion.

Statistics suggest these critics have a point.

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to make euthanasia legal. Since then, the number of people who increasingly choose to die is startling.

You can find a chart here showing the trend. I am unable to embed it, but if you click on the link it is readily apparent that the growth is in a relatively steady line upward.

I would also bet that, just as with the trans epidemic, a disproportionate number of people who don’t have a terminal illness and yet ask for assisted suicide have a diagnosis that puts them somewhere on the autism spectrum.

Young men’s and women’s opinions differ all over the developed world

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s not just in the US that young women lean more to the left than young men. It’s pretty much a worldwide phenomenon in developed countries, as well as a relatively new one:

The Economist analysed polling data from 20 rich countries, using the European Social Survey, America’s General Social Survey and the Korean Social Survey. Two decades ago there was little difference between men and women aged 18-29 on a self-reported scale of 1-10 from very liberal to very conservative. However, our analysis found that by 2020 the gap was 0.75. For context, this is roughly twice the size of the gap in opinion between people with and without a degree in the same year.

Put another way, in 2020 young men were only slightly more likely to describe themselves as liberal than conservative, with a gap of just two percentage points. Young women, however, were much more likely to lean to the left than the right, with a gap of a massive 27 percentage points.

In all the large countries we examined, young men were more conservative than young women. In Poland, the gap was 1.1 points on a scale of 1-10. It was a hefty 1.4 in America, 1 in France, 0.75 in Italy, 0.71 in Britain and 0.74 in South Korea. Men and women have always seen the world differently. What is striking, though, is that a gulf in political opinions has opened up, as younger women are becoming sharply more liberal while their male peers are not.

The phenomenon resides in the young – and if memory serves, I believe that in the US it is the young and unmarried, for the most part. Issues such as abortion are obviously a big part of this, at least in the US, but also perceived continuing injustices such as non-equal pay (which is a misunderstanding; the inequality has to do with women’s work patterns rather than discrimination, but widespread feminist propaganda says otherwise).

More:

One poll found that 72% of young American women who voted in House elections in 2022 backed the Democratic candidate; some 54% of young men did. In 2008 there was barely any gap. In Europe, where many elections offer a wide array of parties, young women are more likely to support the most left-wing ones, whereas young men are more likely to favour the right or even the radical right.

Remember that red wave that didn’t happen in 2022?

Also:

Although the men at the top are doing fine, many of the rest are struggling. In rich countries, 28% of boys but only 18% of girls fail to reach the minimum level of reading proficiency as defined by PISA, which tests high-school students. And women have overtaken men at university. In the EU, the share of men aged 25 to 34 with tertiary degrees rose from 21% to 35% between 2002 and 2020. For women it rose faster, from 25% to 46%. In America, the gap is about the same: ten percentage points more young women than men earn a bachelor’s degree.

So young women are more exposed than men to the leftist propaganda that dominates universities. My guess is that as a group they also tend to be more susceptible than men to propaganda that appeals to feelings, as leftist messages ordinarily do. And the disparity in education is probably contributing to a drop in marriage and childbirth rates, although there are certainly other factors as well:

In America, Daniel Cox, Kelsey Hammond and Kyle Gray of the Survey Centre on American Life find that Generation Z (typically defined as those born between the late 1990s and early 2000s) have their first romantic relationship years later than did Millennials (born between 1980 and the late 1990s) or Generation X (born in the decade or so to 1980), and are more likely to feel lonely. Also, Gen Z women, unlike older women, are dramatically more likely than their male peers to describe themselves as LGBT (31% to 16%). It remains to be seen whether this mismatch will last, and if so, how it will affect the formation of families in the future.

There’s much more at the link, none of it particularly encouraging.

On writing April Fools’ posts

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been writing April Fools’ posts for nearly twenty years now. Some are better than others; I think my finest hour was in 2010. That one also went viral, and tons of people came to read it due to many links, not perceiving it was a prank. Many of the newcomers (and even some regular readers) took me seriously and berated me for what they saw as defending the indefensible and/or publishing misinformation (although that term wasn’t used back then). There was so much furor about that post that I had to issue a disclaimer and explanation.

The best April Fools’ posts are built on a foundation of truth, as was that one. This year’s post also was built on a true story but was less clever and elaborate than the 2010 one. Nevertheless it still fit the bill by fooling some of the people some of the time, despite the fact that towards the end I even acknowledged the date as April 1 and despite the fact that many commenters realized it was a spoof and said so.

The thing about April Fool’s and blog posts is that people aren’t necessarily expecting a joke and people don’t necessarily read all the comments, some of which would have let them in on it.

Each year, though, I think it gets a little more difficult to surpass the foolishness of most of the actual news and actual happenings. That’s another reason it’s hard to tell the difference between truth and fiction.

Trump pays the bond in the NY fraud case

The New Neo Posted on by

Now that the amount of the bond Trump was required to post in the NY fraud case was reduced from utterly impossible to merely extremely difficult (and I believe unprecedented for an individual; correct me if I’m wrong on that), he’s paid it:

On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump obtained a bond to cover the $175 million bond in his New York fraud case. The Knight Specialty Insurance Company will hold the bond. The company is owned by California’s “King of Subprime Auto Loans” Don Hankey. While Hankey is a Trump supporter and donor, he said Tuesday in an interview with the Daily Mail that he has not met Trump personally.

This is kind of interesting, as well. According to Hankey:

‘[Trump] first gave us a list of bonds and we approved the bonds as collateral along with some cash. When the collateral was finally posted it appears to be all cash. We have a screen shot of it and it was all cash.’

Asked why Trump didn’t simply pay the award himself, he said the transaction allows Trump to collect interest if the $175 million is invested in a money market or other allowable investment vehicle while being held in a trust account pending appeal.

What’s the interest on $175 million? Not bad.

An appeal to a higher court should be happening in the not-too-distant future. If Trump manages to delay or evade all the lawfare charges against him, this could enhance his popularity with voters still further – a sort of Road Runner thing.

Israel ends military operation in al Shifa hospital

The New Neo Posted on by

The 2-week long battle of al Shifa hospital is ended – for now. It really has been a successful operation:

I think it bears repeating: zero civilians killed. That is simply extraordinary. But of course, the MSM would much rather highlight the extremely unfortunate Israeli airstrike that unintentionally killed seven foreign aid workers. The fact that such errors and/or collateral damage are absolutely inevitable in urban warfare doesn’t matter; Israel is not allowed any errors.

More about the al Shira findings [emphasis mine]:

Following the IDF withdrawal, scenes of widespread devastation were revealed at the hospital, where many of the gunmen trapped had refused to surrender and engaged in fierce battles with Israeli troops. (…)

The army on Sunday released footage it said showed a cache of weapons seized by the Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit in Shifa Hospital’s maternity ward.

“No hospital in the world looks like this. This is what a house of terrorists looks like,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a Sunday news conference.

The weapons, including mortars, explosive devices, sniper rifles, assault rifles, handguns, and other military equipment, were found hidden inside patient pillows and beds, and in the drop ceilings and walls of the building, according to the IDF.

Hamas hopes that civilians will be killed. It wants civilians to be killed, the better to stir up hatred of Israel and Jews, and the better to spread the blood libel and charges of genocide and war crimes. The enemy – Israel – is engaged in trying not to oblige Hamas and tries to spare civilians, at great cost to its own forces.

It is an astounding and Orwellian reversal of the usual aims of war, and that isn’t just because this is urban warfare. It is because for Hamas it is a propaganda war, and propaganda is their field of expertise. The propaganda war is the only one they feel they have to win. In terms of actual Palestinian deaths, Hamas figures the more the better.

First they came for Joe Lieberman: Caroline Glick on how and why the Democrats turned on Israel (plus, Glick interviews Patricia Heaton, actress who started a pro-Israel activist movement)

The New Neo Posted on by

As usual, Caroline Glick is well worth listening to:

I am highly impressed by Patricia Heaton. A brave woman and a very articulate advocate for Israel who has spearheaded a pro-Israel movement pitched to non-Jews, both Christian and others:

And while we’re at it, here’s a bonus. It contains information about the new Palestinian Authority prime minister (appointed, not elected, because the PA doesn’t do elections anymore), and the knavery-plus-foolery of the Biden administration. I’ve cued up the most relevant portion:

The state of the unions

The New Neo Posted on by

Most people are of the opinion that the Democrats would dearly love to replace Joe Biden as a candidate for 2024. But there are various stumbling blocks and it might not be possible. One of those stumbling blocks is: what to do about Kamala?

Harris isn’t a stronger candidate than Biden and therefore can’t take his place; in fact, she’s probably an even weaker one than he is. Plus, if she’s kicked off the ticket, quite a few people are going to be angry. That may be especially true of women voters and black voters, two of the Democrats’ core constituencies.

One of the things the Democrats need is an excuse to get rid of Kamala. So far it’s been difficult to find one. But there are rumors and rumblings that one might be emerging from an unlikely source.

You may recall that, back in early February of 2023 on the evening of Biden’s State of the Union speech to Congress and the nation, there was a startling encounter between Jill Biden and Kamala Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff. In case you missed it at the time, here it is, with contemporaneous commentary:

Very odd indeed, but people explained it away. Although the presidential and vice presidential couple don’t ordinarily travel on the same plane for security reasons, it’s not as though Jill Biden and Douglas Emhoff are strangers, either. Au contraire. For example, see this article from the summer before the 2020 election, when the campaign was ongoing:

“Dr. Jill Biden & Kamala Harris’ Husband Doug Already ‘Have a Real Bond'”: “I think that their bond is about that they can genuinely like each other and have that friendship and can do it together,” Harris told PEOPLE.

Maybe the only people who know what it’s like to be on the presidential campaign trail, other than the candidates themselves, are their spouses — which helps explain how Joe Biden’s wife and Kamala Harris’ husband “already were buddies” even before joining the Democratic ticket.

“They have a real bond and that’s also very special,” Harris told PEOPLE recently, in her first joint interview with Biden since being named his running mate.

In that conversation, via Zoom only days after the former vice president chose the California senator, the pair discussed the shared values that bond them and how they’ll work together in the Oval Office even when they may disagree.

The day after the Aug. 11 Zoom call where Biden offered her a history-making spot on the ticket, Harris and Emhoff drove up to Wilmington, Delaware.

“One of the first stops was to visit with the vice president and Jill at their home, and we just hung out [with] homemade chocolate-chip cookies and just caught up,” Harris said. (Family photos were pulled out, she says, adding: “Then Joe called my in-laws, Barb and Mike, and we surprised them.”)

Speaking with PEOPLE, Biden and Harris also talked about the quick ways in which the new foursome — Biden and wife Dr. Jill Biden, a community-college professor and the former second lady; and Harris and attorney Doug Emhoff, whom she married in 2014 after being set up by her best friend — had already clicked.

… Dr. Biden and Emhoff have also been trading supportive social media messages — the de rigueur show of easy camaraderie.

…Harris said. “They were on the trail together. So what ends up happening is that the candidate spouses, they take to the road on their own and go to various places that we can’t be. So Doug and Jill did the gay pride parade together in Las Vegas. They’ve done presentations together, and they sit next to each other at debates.”

There’s more in that vein at the link. One can only imagine that the bond may have gotten stronger since then, and another part of the bond is that – because Joe Biden had been Obama’s VP for eight years – Jill could appreciate what Emhoff fells like as the spouse of a veep.

But now rumors are circulating that there’s something more going on between the two, and that their respective spouses aren’t happy about it. I think these rumors are false, but my guess is that the goal is to use this as an excuse to dump Kamala from the ticket. Emhoff will be made the bad guy, of course, rather than Jill.

It’s not the greatest of solutions to this knotty problem. But it’s rather late in the game, and there aren’t many alternative approaches in sight. It’s already April 1, after all, and there are only seven more months till the 2024 election.