Tag: conservatism

The Story:  Congressman Denver Riggleman, a freshman in the House who represents Virginia's 5th district, will not be returning for a second term in January....

Parents in Connecticut have filed a lawsuit against Cheshire Academy in Connecticut alleging that their son was expelled from the school because of his conservative views. The school has denied that the student, Michael Mancini, was punished because of his political views. “As some of you may be aware, earlier this week, following a fair process, a student was expelled. This student was given a number of chances to adhere to our expectations, and the rules and code of conduct of Cheshire Academy. Contrary to what you may have read, our decision was not based on an opposition to political dialogue," Julie Anderson, head of schools at the academy, wrote in a letter to parents from the school, according to myrecordjournal.com. Mancini's parents have claimed he was expelled for saying that people who are transgender have "legitimate hormonal or mental disorder" and are "just looking for attention," according to myrecordjournal.com. The parents also alleged that classmates began "verbally attacking" Mancini over his opinions. The family's attorney, James Sullivan, told the New York Post that it is "a precious thing to have competing ideas." “We should have a healthy fear of an autocratic, monolithic government or school," Sullivan said. Anderson, the head of schools, said in the letter to parents that the school generally does not publicly discuss cases involving student discipline.

Vox's Ezra Klein would do better to examine his own party’s many phobias. When Klein talks about “change,” he is thinking of demography. In fact, Klein and his party are all about fear. It fears money spent by corporations in political campaigns and that millions of Americans are about to lose their health insurance. It fears nuclear energy and school shootings and Chick-fil-A and anti-vaxxers. Vox’s motto might as well be, “All the stuff that young adults fear.” Even the smugprogs whom Klein singles out as examples of fearless politicians are avatars of fear. He said of climate change, “Our economy is on the line. Lives are on the line. So let’s call this what it is, climate security, a life-and-death issue for our generation.” He advised fear of just about everyone: “Your neighbor can make you unfree. I didn’t use the word “hysteria.” I merely said that progressives are afraid of a lot of stuff.

President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to promote free speech on college campuses by threatening colleges with the loss of federal research funding if they do not protect those rights. "We’re here to take historic action to defend American students and American values," Trump said, surrounded by conservative student activists at the signing ceremony. A senior administration official said the order directs 12 grant-making agencies to use their authority in coordination with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ensure institutions that receive federal research or education grants promote free speech and free inquiry. White House officials have said it will apply to more than $35 billion in grants. "Even as universities have received billions and billions of dollars from taxpayers, many have become increasingly hostile to free speech and the First Amendment," Trump said. Trump had announced that such an order was forthcoming at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, where he said the directive would require colleges and universities to support free speech in exchange for federal research dollars. He brought on stage Hayden Williams, a conservative activist who was attacked while working a recruitment table on campus at the University of California-Berkeley. The video quickly went viral, with conservatives citing it as further evidence of the stifling and sometimes-violent atmosphere that conservatives face on campus. He’s going to be a wealthy young man.” “If they want our dollars, and we give it to them by the billions, they’ve got to allow people like Hayden and many other great young people and old people to speak,” Trump said. “Free speech.

Tagg, 69, sold his San Jose home and moved his family to Arizona in 2014. “I’m a good old Republican,” Tagg said. “I just saw the writing on the wall.” The Bay Area has become one of the most popular places in the country to leave in recent years. One-party domination in Sacramento and constant chafing with neighbors has driven conservative Bay Area refugees to communities in Texas, Idaho, Colorado and Florida. Former residents say their views on immigration and taxes put them on the margins of a region they once embraced. San Jose State political scientist Larry Gerston said the region’s rising taxes have pinched many high-income residents, while low-income residents are burdened by the high cost of living. DeStefano, 72, and his wife bought a home and moved into a gated retirement community in Fort Meyers, Florida, in late 2017. “California will become the next Venezuela in five years,” DeStefano said. Politics was “99 percent” of the reason for a move, he said. But the Bay Area, he said, “is really not worth it.”

The party has had a dramatic effect on both the major parties with talk of further defections to come. LONDON — The Independent Group (TIG) of 11 former Labour and Conservative MPs has already had a dramatic impact on British politics. In just a few short weeks, it has snatched 11 MPs from the two major parties, surged in the opinion polls, and arguably helped force a major shift in the Labour party's Brexit policy. one TIG MP said this week, reflecting on the two weeks since the group's dramatic launch. TIG targets new MPs REUTERS/Henry Nicholls The group does not yet have an official leader, and doesn't plan to elect one until it is a party, but this week appointed former Labour MP Chuka Umunna as its chief spokesperson and main figurehead. One former Labour shadow minister told BI on Friday that they planned to join TIG as soon as the Umunna-fronted group unveiled its first batch of policies. Julian Dunkerton — the co-founder of clothing range Superdry who donated one million pounds to the People's Vote campaign in August— is also weighing up becoming a financial backer, sources in to the anti-Brexit campaign said. A TIG MP said on Friday there would be "no pacts, no alliances" with the Lib Dems amid suggestions from people including Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable that the two could work together in certain seats at the next election. They added that Lib Dem MPs and supporters have already signaled that they could quit to join TIG. Comments by members of the group that they would refuse to back a vote of no confidence in the current government have only fueled those charges.

Kim Raff for The New York Times NEPHI, Utah — In the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Representative Ben McAdams, a freshman, was grilled by constituents about the “socialism” and “anti-Semitism” that they saw coming out of the new Democratic House. In Michigan, Representative Haley Stevens was asked about her ability to counter what one voter deemed the bigotry of some of her freshman colleagues — a concern fueled partly by remarks from her counterpart in nearby Detroit, Rashida Tlaib — and “the negative attitude they bring to Democrats.” And on a rainy Saturday in Spotsylvania County, Va., one woman stood up in a town hall to remind Representative Abigail Spanberger that while she was the first Democrat to hold that seat in nearly 50 years, the majority of the rural enclave had voted Republican. “Since the Democrats are now the party of death and taxes,” the woman said, as Democratic supporters scoffed and grumbled, “just how do you propose to effectively represent the taxpayers of Spotsylvania?” It was Democrats like Mr. McAdams, Ms. Stevens and Ms. Spanberger who secured the party’s House majority, political moderates who won districts often long represented by Republicans. Their talking points appear to be resonating with some voters the Democrats will need next year if they are to keep their majority — and the voters determined to flip the districts back. Richard Hansen, a Republican county commissioner and one of the two dozen constituents who attended the town hall in Nephi, a mountain town of 6,000, shared a wish with the Utah Democrat: “I hope they don’t corrupt you.” “They won’t,” Mr. McAdams pledged. I don’t know where the Democratic Party will go, but I tell you what, I will stay in the center. They also accuse Republicans of hypocrisy in their accusations of anti-Semitism in the Democratic ranks, set off by Twitter comments by Ms. Omar, who implied that American support for Israel was fueled by money from a pro-Israel lobbying group. “It didn’t come as a shock at all,” Ms. Stevens said in an interview after a town hall in Milford, Mich., a General Motors town, referring to the questioner who asked about anti-Semitic remarks. “We will see,” she added as she left. People can tell you anything.”

As the Labour and Conservative parties splinter, the professional political journalist part of me certainly wonders if I should have been back in Westminster for the excitement. We chose our time to be away carefully: half-term is when MPs were also due to take a week's break. So far eight Labour MPs and three Conservatives, all pro-Europeans, have quit their parties to join The Independent Group, now known as TIG for short. TIG has not yet become a new political party but this is still a massive development. Both are also becoming increasingly undemocratic in the full sense of the word. So far it is fair to say that its members were all on the likely list and still only make up 11 out of 650 MPs. It will depend on what happens with Brexit over the next five weeks. If so, will there be a majority for the second referendum which all the TIG group members want? Will Labour facilitate Brexit under Mrs May's deal, probably driving many more pro-European MPs to quit in disgust? If Mrs May presides over that happening, I can't see how either the Conservative Party or Labour will hold together.

New research from Europe has found that culturally liberal politicians use more complex language than their socially conservative counterparts. The findings have been published in the open-access scientific journal PLOS One. “Many have ridiculed Donald Trump for his use of simple language with low levels of linguistic complexity. They found that culturally liberal politicians tended to use more complex language in their speeches. “We find that speakers from culturally liberal parties use more complex language than speakers from culturally conservative parties. We find this evidence by analyzing 381,609 speeches given by politicians from five parliaments, by twelve European prime ministers, as well as speeches from party congresses over time and across countries (United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden). “For instance, our scores show that former culturally liberal British Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered speeches that were markedly more complex than his successor, the culturally conservative David Cameron.” “We saw the same thing in Spain, where the language used by liberal Prime Minister José Zapatero was much more complex than that of his successor, the conservative Mariano Rajoy,” Schoonvelde explained. First, it would be interesting to study the differences in language complexity by politicians of the same political party. Or do they do this because their language use actually reflects differences in the personality of these politicians,” Bakker said. The study, “Liberals lecture, conservatives communicate: Analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 political speeches”, was authored by Martijn Schoonvelde, Anna Brosius, Gijs Schumacher, Bert N. Bakker.