Democrat North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s declaration of a “State of Emergency for Public Education” is nothing more than a “political stunt” demonstrating his allegiance to teachers unions, the Job Creators Network (JCN) said in a statement on Wednesday. Cooper made the “emergency” declaration on Monday in reaction to a spate of Republican-led legislation he deemed “extreme,” including an expansion of the state’s private school voucher program. Cooper claimed in a video address posted to social media that Republican lawmakers are “dropping an atomic bomb on public education” by expanding voucher eligibility to any K-12 student. The governor claimed the expansion will result in “steep funding cuts” for public schools. The GOP legislature is planning to choke the life out of public education, and you need to know what’s happening. Watch Gov. Cooper's special address on public education. pic.twitter.com/QVkXpLhDu2 — Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) May 22, 2023 … [Read more...] about JCN Slams NC Gov’s Public Ed State of Emergency: ‘Political Stunt’
Politics
Don’t Let Politics Cloud Your View of What’s Going On With Teens and Depression
Last year, a study came out showing that left-leaning adolescents were experiencing a greater increase in depression than their more conservative peers. Indeed, while girls are more likely to be depressed than boys, the study, by a group of epidemiologists at Columbia, showed that liberal boys had higher rates of depression than conservative girls. Because I wrote quite a bit about the dire psychological fallout of Donald Trump’s abusive presidency, I was immediately interested in the study, titled “The Politics of Depression.” It’s long been known that liberals tend to be more depressed than conservatives, which you can interpret as either a cause or an effect of their unhappiness with the status quo. But innate factors couldn’t explain why, among the 12th graders the study examined, the gap in depressive symptoms between liberals and conservatives appeared to be growing. Nor could those factors explain why, after several years in which liberal girls and liberal boys endured … [Read more...] about Don’t Let Politics Cloud Your View of What’s Going On With Teens and Depression
Why the ‘Rules’ of Politics Don’t Always Stymie Outsiders to the System
Over the years, I’ve noticed a recurring pattern in the emails I receive from readers about my columns on authoritarianism, far-right populism, democratic backsliding and related topics: a very similar type of shock at the news, and a very similar type of concern about what that might mean for the future. These messages tend to follow a rough structure: Shock at the news, but most prominently surprise because the event seems to clash with the apparent rules of political success that, as many people understood them, should have made such politicians unelectable. And then comes concern about the future: If those rules did not apply, the readers wondered, what other outcomes might then be possible? So, for instance, when Donald Trump won the 2016 election in the United States, many people emailed to express their shock that it was possible for a candidate to win an election after publicly referring to Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” or saying that a federal judge could not … [Read more...] about Why the ‘Rules’ of Politics Don’t Always Stymie Outsiders to the System
RFK Jr.: There’s a ‘Tsunami’ of Kennedys About to Hit American Politics
Photo: Jimi Celeste/patrickmcmullan.com Great news for Vanity Fair ! Last night at the Riverkeepers gala at Chelsea Pier 60, Bobby Kennedy Jr. told us we may soon face an inundation from his family in American politics. With the 2009 death of Ted Kennedy, and Caroline Kennedy’s abortive senatorial bid the same year, we have been living in an America that for the first time in 65 years or so is without a Kennedy in political office. When Intel asked RFK Jr. if he had any aspirations to enter the political fray, he claimed that would be unnecessary. “Know what?” he said. “There’s 85 cousins in the fourth generation. About half of them say they’re going to go into politics. So I think that there’s, like, a tsunami coming.” Speaking of geological events, has he seen the controversial mini-series about his family, The Kennedys ? “No, haven’t seen it. You know, I heard that there were, like, problems with it. But I never saw it. But then people, people who have called me … [Read more...] about RFK Jr.: There’s a ‘Tsunami’ of Kennedys About to Hit American Politics
Johnson Takes Aim at Next Big Political Threat: Soaring Prices in U.K.
LONDON — His job seemingly secure despite new revelations over lockdown parties in Downing Street, Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday moved to confront another big threat to his political future: the worst squeeze on British incomes in a generation. Adopting a policy championed by the opposition Labour Party, the government promised a new and more generous package of aid worth billions of pounds to help all British households, but especially those struggling the most to pay spiking bills for gas and electricity. The scale of the intervention underscored the headwinds still faced by Mr. Johnson as his Conservative Party trails in the opinion polls, inflation surges toward double figures and the British economy teeters on the brink of a recession. Critics accused Mr. Johnson of rushing out his new announcement to distract attention from the “Partygate” scandal that for months has threatened to end his career. That embarrassing saga reached its climax on Wednesday … [Read more...] about Johnson Takes Aim at Next Big Political Threat: Soaring Prices in U.K.
How Facebook’s P.R. Firm Brought Political Trickery to Tech
SAN FRANCISCO — When Tim Miller, a longtime Republican political operative, moved to the Bay Area last year to set up a public relations shop, he brought with him tradecraft more typical of Washington than Silicon Valley. He was well versed in opposition research — the pursuit of damaging intelligence about a political enemy. He had ties to online media provocateurs. And, above all, he understood the value of secrecy. Mr. Miller had arrived at the right moment with his company, Definers Public Affairs. With customers and lawmakers questioning the avowed good intentions and power of tech’s biggest companies, Facebook and others were on the defensive. Definers quickly found plenty of business, from start-ups like Lyft, Lime and Juul to giants like Facebook and Qualcomm, the influential chip company that was in a nasty legal fight with Apple over royalties, according to five people with direct knowledge of Mr. Miller’s work who declined to be named because of confidentiality … [Read more...] about How Facebook’s P.R. Firm Brought Political Trickery to Tech
