CAMPAIGN
Sanders has highest favorability among possible 2024 contenders: poll
BY ZACH SCHONFELD
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) clocked in with the highest favorability rating among a list of 23 potential 2024 presidential contenders, according to a new USA Today-Ipsos poll.
Forty-six percent of respondents said they had at least a somewhat favorable view toward Sanders, while 41 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion.
President Biden had the second-highest favorability rating at 43 percent, although his unfavorability rating was notably higher than Sanders’s, with 52 percent of those surveyed saying they had an unfavorable opinion of the president.
Former President Trump clocked in with the same ratings as Biden.
The three political figures were followed in the poll by other well-known potential candidates, while possible contenders with a smaller national profile were seen as unfamiliar by most voters.
Vice President Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence both received favorable ratings from at least 40 percent of respondents, earning the third- and fourth-highest figures among the candidates, respectively.
It got close to 40 “hits,” small stuff on the big web, but not bad for a “local” news item.
The book.
The post concerned a new book that will be out next month, by NC Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, a very conservative Republican who is preparing a likely run for governor in 2024.
In the book, We Are the Majority, Robinson declares that, as part of his efforts to clean up public education in the state, he would drop studies of science and social studies from curricula through fifth grade:
“In those grades,” Robinson wrote, “we don’t need to be teaching social studies. We don’t need to be teaching science. We surely don’t need to talk about equity and social justice.”
There’s more, much more, in the text and the post (as a local paper said, Robinson “has a reputation for making incendiary and controversial comments.”)
But that particular declaration seemed to raise eyebrows and hackles. Less than 24 hours after our post was up, and a longer report was on WRAL TV, — well, Robinson was singing something of a different tune.
NC’s Mark Robinson backs off his call to stop teaching science in elementary school
BY LUCIANA PEREZ URIBE GUINASSI UPDATED AUGUST 24, 2022
When North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson spoke on education at a round-table event Tuesday night in downtown Durham, he didn’t publicly broach a topic likely to have been on many attendees’ minds: a call in his upcoming book for eliminating science and history from the first through fifth-grade curriculum and shuttering the State Board of Education.
Duke’s clinical Research Institute, Durham NC. There’s no skimping on science here.
In the book, set to be published on Sept. 13, Robinson writes that schools should “demand proficiency in reading, writing, and math in grades one through five. In those grades, we don’t need to be teaching social studies. We don’t need to be teaching science. We surely don’t need to talk about equity and social justice.”
Following the public panel, The News & Observer asked him about that stance.
Robinson said he didn’t want to discuss the book at the event and that he or his representatives would talk separately.
Science March, Raleigh 2017.
But shortly afterward, in comments to CBS-17 at the event, he appeared to backtrack from at least one statement in the book. He told the station he was not saying that science, at least, should be eliminated from the curriculum, but instead that proficiency in reading and mathematics should be the priority.
“We’re not talking about not teaching science to elementary school children,” he said Tuesday. “What we’re talking about is putting reading, writing and arithmetic – making that paramount in elementary school.”
Robinson, who is the top Republican in North Carolina’s executive branch, has a reputation for making incendiary and controversial comments. A viral 2018 speech on gun rights started his political career, and just two years later he was elected by voters as the state’s first Black lieutenant governor.
RTP’s bird logo, symbolizing the flocks of thousands of scientific researchers gathered there every day.
It’s apt that Robinson, er, adjusted his statement in Durham. He was speaking just a stone’s throw from science-intensive Research Triangle Park, which modestly claims to be “the largest research park in the U.S.,” and only a block or two from the mammoth high-rise Duke Clinical Research Institute; to mention only a couple the city’s science-related landmarks. One could also mention that “social studies” are the focus of several other local institutions, such as the art museum with its striking civil rights mural.
For that matter, in Raleigh, the town Robinson hopes to take over in the 2024 election, science also seems to be, you know, a thing. In 2017, when science, especially government science, was under assault from a know-nothing White House occupant, Raleigh hosted a stunning and inventive pro-science march.
It begins to look as if Robinson might be making some last-minute revisions to his book text; lucky for him, sciencehas made it possible to do such things even as the presses are getting ready to roll.
So science in Carolina may save Robinson’s bacon this time. And science in Carolina is something the next governor better not ignore or slight, from kindergarten up. I’m pretty sure some would-be candidates already understand that.
Andrew Chamings — Aug. 24, 2022
A billboard located at the intersection of Folsom and 7th St. in San Francisco appears to warn Bay Area residents from moving to Texas, in light of the Uvalde shooting.
A mysterious and controversial billboard warning people against moving from California to Texas looms over passersby in LA and San Francisco this week.
“The Texas miracle died in Uvalde. Don’t move to Texas,” the billboard reads, alongside the sinister image of a hooded figure and a crossed-out “Don’t mess with Texas” slogan. The San Francisco billboard, leased to advertisers by FoxPoint Media, is currently up near the corner of Folsom and 7th Street.
“The Texas miracle” references a term championed by then-Governor Rick Perry in 2011 to highlight the Lone Star State’s resilient economy that managed to escape the Great Recession relatively unscathed. “Don’t mess with Texas” has long become the definitive call of swagger and pride from the state, though it started as an anti-littering campaign in the 1980s.
Images of the billboards have been posted across LA, San Francisco and Texas subreddits over the last week, causing some anger and debate.
The biggest question? Who is behind the ad, and what is their intent. The billboards show no party affiliation or sponsor. One theory states that the ad may have come from right-leaning Texans eager to keep liberal Californians away from their voting booths. Others thought that the message may have come from Californians in an attempt to slow an “exodus” to Texas.
Census data shows that over recent years there has indeed been an increase in residents leaving California for Texas. In 2018 and 2019, the net migration was between 45,000 and 50,000 people per year, roughly double that of previous years. Several large tech companies also relocated their headquarters to Texas in recent years, including Tesla, Oracle and HP Enterprise.
Others redditors were angered by the tastelessness of using a tragedy which took 22 lives, including 19 children, to message an interstate rivalry. One user described it as “the most disgusting use of political propaganda” on the Los Angeles subreddit. Another called it “pretty f—king evil.”
The rivalry and culture wars between the two states has rarely been so fierce, with California Governor Gavin Newsom and Texas Governor Greg Abbott battling in the media over guns and abortion, among other issues.
SFGATE reached out to FoxPoint Media to gain information on who bought the ad, and what content restrictions they may have, but did not hear back at time of publication.
Vice President Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence both received favorable ratings from at least 40 percent of respondents, earning the third- and fourth-highest figures among the candidates, respectively.
