Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 10/29

[SVPete]

Their Town Has No High School, but Vermont Won’t Fund Their Catholic Choice

https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2026/10/28/their-town-has-no-high-school-vermont-wont-fund-their-catholic-choice-n4958798

The Bishop family lives in a Vermont school district without a high school. Their daughter still needs an education, so they chose Mount St. Joseph Academy, a Catholic high school. Now they’re challenging the government’s refusal to help pay her tuition through a program designed for families whose districts lack a school.

The family filed a federal lawsuit on October 27 challenging its exclusion from Vermont’s Town Tuition and Dual Enrollment programs. Their attorneys also contend that their daughter qualified for a grandfather provision, but the district refused to honor it. Those allegations put a practical question before the court: What educational help can a family actually use?

From Alliance Defending Freedom:

The Bishop family, represented by ADF attorneys, lives in the Barstow Unified Union School District, which doesn’t have a high school, so they chose to send their daughter to a Catholic school, Mount St. Joseph Academy. Government officials, however, denied the family’s request for Town Tuition funding because Act 73 eliminates all religious schools from the Town Tuition Program. Plus, the Barstow Unified School District refused to grandfather the Bishops’ daughter into the tuition program even though she met the requirements of the law.

Additionally, Vermont’s Dual Enrollment Program allows high school students to take college courses at no cost to them, which the Bishops’ daughter wanted to participate in. Eligibility for the program, however, is contingent on Town Tuition—a student must either be enrolled in a public school or receive Town Tuition funding at a private school to be eligible. Since the government denied giving their daughter Town Tuition funding because she attends an ineligible school, she is also excluded from participating in the Dual Enrollment Program.

If this program provides funds to non-religious private schools, discriminating against religious private schools violates Equal Protection. ADF will probably be providing reams of precidential cases going back several decades ... because anti-religious bureaucrats and educrats keep pulling @#$% like this.

As for the ADF, here's yet another reason for DU-grade Progs to HATE them. They keep representing and winning cases for clients who do not "deserve" legal representation.

[SVPete]

Asian-Americans in Harvard’s Incoming Class More Than Double, to 43.2 Percent

https://freebeacon.com/campus/asian-americans-in-harvards-incoming-class-more-than-double-to-43-2-percent/

Newly released data on the Harvard College class of 2030 say the class is 43.2 percent Asian-American, a record high and more than double the level when Students for Fair Admissions first sued Harvard alleging racial discrimination in admissions.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that Harvard was unlawfully using race as a factor in admissions. Since then, the numbers of Hispanic and black students in the incoming Harvard classes have dipped, while the numbers of Asian-Americans have soared.

Even the 43.2 percent figure undercounts the number of Asians on campus. It only reflects "U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents who chose to report their race/ethnicity." Some additional Asians may not box-check, and others may be foreigners, among the 15 percent of the incoming class that Harvard categorizes as "international students."

The president of Students for Fair Admissions, Edward Blum, told the Washington Free Beacon, "In 2014, the year Students for Fair Admissions sued Harvard, Asian-American students accounted for approximately 19% of its entering freshman class. Today, following the Supreme Court's 2023 decision prohibiting race-based admissions, that figure has more than doubled to 43%. This is powerful evidence that Harvard used race as a primary factor in its admission decisions for decades."

Wow, just accept student WHO DID THE WORK, and look what happens.

[SVPete]

University of Chicago student files ethics complaint against Sen. Slotkin

https://www.thecollegefix.com/university-of-chicago-student-files-ethics-complaint-against-sen-slotkin/

A University of Chicago student has filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Elissa Slotkin for her recent suggestion that college graduates who work for the Trump administration might be prosecuted.

“Senator Slotkin, if you thought this was over, you’re wrong,” said student Michael Bicksel in a video he posted on X on Oct. 22 as he held up a copy of an ethics complaint he filed with the U.S. Senate.

“The complaint was submitted to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and argues that Slotkin proposed using congressional investigations and potential prosecutions to frighten young people away from serving in a Republican administration,” Fox News reported.

“The complaint asks the committee to determine whether Slotkin’s comments amounted to ‘improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate,’ a standard described in the Senate Ethics Manual as applying to conduct that may be unethical even if it does not violate a specific law or Senate rule,” the outlet reported.

Speaking Oct. 13 at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, the Michigan Democrat said potential legal problems should be a deterrent against working for Trump.

“I wanna look at these signature cases, and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him,” Slotkin said. “I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration? Like, that sounds like fun. I might get an opportunity.’”

“I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that,” she said. “I want that deterrent message.”

The chances of Slotkin getting a wrist-slap are between low and zero.

[enslaved1]

Legendary Star Trek actor Sir Patrick Stewart dies aged 86

Noooooooooo!

[SVPete]

Former NWSL player says league culture pressured athletes to support political messages they opposed

https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/former-nwsl-player-says-league-culture-pressured-athletes-support-political-messages-opposed

After spectators displaying a "Save Women’s Sports" banner were confronted by other fans and removed from Friday’s Portland Thorns game, former NWSL player Elizabeth Eddy is calling out a league culture she says pressures players to support political messages they do not necessarily believe.

Eddy, who retired earlier this year after an 11-year professional career, told OutKick that the confrontation left her "really, really disheartened" but "not surprised at all." Her concerns extend beyond the stands to team environments where, she says, supporting a cause could become a test of being a good teammate.

"Hey, everyone wear the shirt, be a good teammate, be a good ally," she recalled.

For the retired NWSL veteran, that message created a difficult choice: publicly support a position she did not share, cover it with a sweatshirt or explain herself to people she depended on to succeed on the field.

"There was a lot of times where that was like the situation where you either wear it, you wear a sweatshirt over it, or you just flat out say, ‘I’m not wearing this,’" Eddy said.

"And then the repercussions of saying you’re not going to wear it on different teams in different political or social causes have different, I would say, responses and none of them are great."

[DefiantSix]

Former NWSL player says league culture pressured athletes to support political messages they opposed

<--- This is my shocked face. 

Now do the labor unions.

...and the Looniversity Leftist Indoctrination Centers

...and the Deep State bureaucracies

[Ptarmigan]

RFK Goes Off On Muslims And The Media Is Outraged
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rfk-goes-muslims-and-media-outraged

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s remarks at a Republican campaign rally in Grand Rapids have caused a media firestorm, in large part because his Democrat background gives extra sting to his recent criticisms of Islamic culture. In liberal and independent western circles, this is simply not done. 

On Monday evening, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at a Republican get-out-the-vote (GOTV) rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where an existential political battle is taking place between GOP candidate Mike Rogers and Muslim Democrat pro-immigration candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

RFK noted that Islamic (or Arab) cultures do not produce much of value for humanity as a whole because of the rise of fundamentalist extremism.  He argued:

“There’s 500 million Arabs in the world. And yet they don’t produce science. They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.”

Leftists and Islamists are the same thing.

[Ptarmigan]

Woke California Bakery In Business For 50 Years Shuts Down
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/woke-california-bakery-business-50-years-shuts-down

If woke businesses can't survive in Berkeley, California, then they can't survive anywhere.  It's a lesson learned far too late for many companies over the past few years as American society continues to shift away from progressive ideology.  The tolerance for "inclusive capitalism" is stretched thin and revenues are drying up fast, even for businesses that have been openly left-wing for a long time.   

In most cases, such businesses refuse to admit their ideology contributed to their downfall (leftists rarely admit failure and they always double down).  However, in some cases the truth is just too obvious to deny.

After 50 years in operation, Nabolom Bakery & Pizzeria in Berkeley, California, is closing permanently. Co-owners Sabra Stepak and Julia Elliott (who took it over in 2016 after an earlier near-closure) publicly attributed the decision to a mix of factors, but openly admit their political activism was a primary reason for their downfall.

A woke bakery shut down in Berkeley of all places. Go woke, go broke.

[SVPete]

Businesses need to focus on their business. Make good pizza or grease-burgers or good widgets. Leave your activism at home.

Personally, I would give a business festooned with Truck Fump paraphernalia a very wide berth. Unsurprisingly. That said, I'm not sure how many businesses coating their walls with MAGA I'd be eager to enter. A grease-burger-and-beer place, maybe. A seemingly nice/good ______-food place, probably not. I would view the  former as focused on creating a pleasant experience for certain types of people. The latter, I would wonder whether they are distracted from the style(s) of food they are creating.