Wake School Suspensions, and Cambridge Analytica [2018/03/21]
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Greetings, gentlepersons, and welcome to the first full day of [checks notes] spring, which has greeted us with a wave of cold rain and snow that has forced Orange and Granville schools to open a few hours late [WRAL]. It just started snowing at my house. Be safe out there. You know how we do in anything resembling winter weather. Also, some breaking news: The suspected Austin bomber blew himself up this morning as police closed in [CNN]. More on that in a minute. If you haven’t had a chance, time’s running out to vote for this year’s Best of the Triangle nominees. As always, you can check out the web-browser version of this newsletter here.
1. WAKE SCHOOLS SAY THEY COULD SUSPEND FEWER KIDS IF THEY HAD MORE MONEY.
THE GIST: Last year, Wake schools suspended nearly twenty-four hundred kids, a slight increase over 2015–16, and a significant increase over 2014–15. But while the rate of the increase of suspensions is slowing, that rate is still increasing, which has school board members upset.
From the N&O: “‘I personally do not support suspension as a disciplinary tool, period,’ said Jim Martin. ‘Suspensions take students out of a learning environment.’”
A little over half of the suspensions stem from fighting. And, though the number of black students being suspended has declined, black students still make up a disproportionate amount of suspensions — 61 percent of elementary suspensions, for instance, despite accounting for less than a quarter of the student population.
The solution, school board members say, is money — specifically, the money they requested from the county last year to fund additional school counselors and psychologists. “Board member Bill Fletcher pointed to a 2013 recommendation from the district's School Security Task Force. That group said each Wake school should have a full-time staff of counselors, social workers, psychologists and nurses. ‘The school board's proposed budget last year requested $10 million to hire these professionals and implement more aggressive support for challenged students,’ Fletcher said. ‘The county did not fund the request.’”
WHAT IT MEANS: And, it seems, we’re back to the budget wars. Much of last year, you’ll recall, was consumed by a tiff between the school board and the county commission [INDY]. While the county increased the school board’s funding significantly, by $21 million, it did not fund the system’s full $56 million request, including the $10 million for school counselors. The county maintains that there’s only so much it can do; it can only raise property taxes so high. The problem, county officials will tell you, is that the legislature criminally underfunds education, and counties have to make up the difference. But expect the school board, armed with this new report on school suspensions, to be back before the county commission this spring, arguing for money for school counselors.
2. OTHER LOCAL HEADLINES.
For the first time in a couple weeks, embattled state Representative Duane Hall gave an interview yesterday — to me, right before we went to press, for a story about his now-competitive state House race. [INDY]
Oh, look, Cary’s getting another grocery store. [N&O]
Some of North Carolina’s toughest prisons are facing dangerous staff shortages. [Charlotte Observer via N&O]
As North Carolina slashes funding for mental health care, a local pilot program seeks to keep people with mental health issues out of the ER. [INDY]
A pit bull got loose in a Charlotte elementary school and bit seven kids (the injuries were minor) after the children freaked out in its presence. [Charlotte Observer via N&O]
A bomb threat caused a lockdown of three Wake County schools in Wake Forest. [N&O]
How cozy will Durham County be with Immigration and Customs Enforcement? That could depend on who wins the May 8 sheriff’s primary. [INDY]
Rain and snow and gross today, with a high of 42. Happy spring! [WRAL]
3. SO WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THIS CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA STUFF ANYWAY?
THE GIST: Like everyone else, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this Cambridge Analytica mess, and whether I should delete my Facebook account (actually, I would if I didn’t need it for work), and whether right-wing moneybags managed to hack their way to Trump’s electoral victory two years ago. Here’s what we know:
From WaPo: “Conservative strategist Stephen K. Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica’s early efforts to collect troves of Facebook data as part of an ambitious program to build detailed profiles of millions of American voters, a former employee of the data-science firm said Tuesday. The 2014 effort was part of a high-tech form of voter persuasion touted by the company, which under Bannon identified and tested the power of anti-establishment messages that later would emerge as central themes in President Trump’s campaign speeches, according to Chris Wylie, who left the company at the end of that year. Among the messages tested were ‘drain the swamp’ and ‘deep state,’ he said. Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign, is now facing questions about alleged unethical practices, including charges that the firm improperly handled the data of tens of millions of Facebook users.”
Yesterday, the firm suspended its CEO, Alexander Nix, after undercover British reporters caught him being extraordinary shady. From NBC: “On hidden camera, the reporters recorded Alexander Nix, chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, discussing the idea of hypothetically entrapping an opposition leader. He described how the company could record a person accepting a bribe, ‘an offer he can't refuse’ or ‘send some girls around to the candidate’s house.’ Nix also floated the idea of spreading misinformation about politicians. ‘It doesn't have to be true,’ Nix said. ‘It just has to be believed.’”
The CEO also boasted that they got Trump elected. From The Daily Beast: “British political consultants that worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said they secretly used proxy organizations and super PACs to spread ads in the U.S. that could not be traced back to the Trump campaign. Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, was secretly recorded by undercover reporters from Channel 4 in Britain who were posing as prospective ‘There’s no evidence, there’s no paper trail, there’s nothing,’ said Nix, reassuring them that his company’s dirty tricks for his clients would never be detected. Nix said Cambridge Analytica used encrypted emails that were timed to self-destruct and boasted that U.S. politicians on the congressional committees weren’t smart enough to catch him out. … Nix claimed they had overseen much of the Trump presidential campaign, we ‘ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy.’ He said he had met Trump ‘many times.’”
CNN adds: “Alex Tayler, labeled as the chief data officer for Cambridge Analytica, is recorded separately as saying the firm's analysis was responsible for Trump's Electoral College performance. ‘When you think about the fact that Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million votes, but won the Electoral College, that's down to the data and the research,’ Tayler said. ‘That's how he won the election.’”
The firm is largely funded by board member and Republican megadonor Rebekah Mercer. Bannon, Trump’s former campaign manager, was another former investor and board member, who helped found the firm with the Mercer family, which cut ties with Bannon earlier this year after he said mean things about Trump. Bannon served as secretary and VP for Cambridge up until he became Trump’s campaign manager.
WHAT IT MEANS: So you have this shadowy outfit, funded by right-wing, free-market zillionaires, founded by a white nationalist, that boasts openly to prospective clients about bribing politicians with hookers and cash, and that scraped the Facebook data of fifty million American users to build highly detailed voting profiles that its execs credit with winning Trump the Electoral College. Add to it that Nix told a third party that he had contacted Wikileaks in 2016 about helping to release Hillary Clinton’s emails (Wikileaks says it rejected that request), that Cambridge’s parent company has had dealings with a sanctioned Russian oil company, and that the British researcher who harvested Facebook data on Cambridge’s behalf has Russian ties, and well, it adds up to something, though I’m not sure what [The Hill].
On the one hand, it’s hard to tell how much of what appeared in those undercover recordings is mere posturing, the kind of stuff people say to impress prospective clients and get them to sign on the bottom line. But Robert Mueller has requested Cambridge’s docs as part of his Russia investigation, so maybe we’ll find out soon enough.
Related: There’s a local angle, too — of course there is — which I mentioned yesterday but warrants a bit more exploration. Senator Thom Tillis and the NCGOP paid Cambridge Analytica $345,000 to help with Tillis’s 2014 operation, and Cambridge helped Tillis devise a strategy to attack incumbent Kay Hagan for his absences from votes on the Senate Armed Services Committee [N&O]. As The Charlotte Observer’s editorial board noted: “The company made no secret of its work in North Carolina, boasting about it on its website. The problem for Cambridge Analytica is that it apparently has obtained at least some data illegally. There's no indication, however, that Tillis knew the company used stolen Facebook information in profiling voters. In fact, it's unlikely the company would expose itself by telling a client that sort of thing — especially when that client is running for U.S. Senate. Also, given that Cambridge Analytica didn't purchase the data trove until 2014 — well into the U.S. Senate race — it's questionable that the data was even used to help Tillis.”
4. EIGHT POLITICAL HEADLINES.
In briefing materials, Trump staffers warned him in all caps “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” Vladimir Putin on his sham reelection. President Trump did it anyway. “Trump also chose not to heed talking points from aides instructing him to condemn the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain with a powerful nerve agent, a case that both the British and U.S. governments have blamed on Moscow.” [WaPo]
Russia secretly helped Venezuela undercut U.S. sanctions by launching a cryptocurrency. [Time]
Trump is involved in lawsuits from a Playmate, a porn star, and a reality TV contestant. The first two are suing to be released from NDAs/catch-and-kill deals related to their alleged affairs with Trump. The third, who says he forcibly kissed and groped her, is suing him for defamation. [WaPo]
HUD Secretary Ben Carson says the $31,000 dining room table set he bought on the taxpayer dime was his wife’s fault. [NYT]
A Fox News analyst who once said Barack Obama had been “date-raped” by Vladimir Putin and was briefly suspended in 2015 for calling Obama a “total pussy” on air, says that the network is a “propaganda machine” while announcing his departure. “I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.” [Buzzfeed]
Centrist, anti-abortion Dem Dan Lipinsky has apparently held on to his Chicago-area congressional seat against a progressive challenger. He’ll face Republican Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier and actual Nazi, in November. [CNN/NYT]
In the Illinois governor’s race, incumbent Republican Bruce Rauner barely fended off a challenge from his right, while billionaire philanthropist J.B. Pritzker cruised to victory in the Democratic primary. [NYT]
Breitbart.com’s traffic is down by about half from October. [Politico]
Austin police say the suspected bomber who has been terrorizing the city in recent weeks is a twenty-four-year-old white man. In the last thirty-six hours, they received information directing them to him. As SWAT approached his vehicle, he apparently detonated a bomb, killing himself. The cops don’t know where he’s been for the twenty-four hours before his death, so there may be more bombs out there. [CNN]
More than seventy million people in the Northeast are bracing for the same nor’easter that’s going to give us a dusting. [CNN]
The suburbs are facing their own affordable housing crisis. [Slate]
A male birth control could finally, finally be coming — but, you know, not that soon. [CBS]
The president of Ohio Wesleyan University wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Times that LGBTQ people should be condemned like ISIS, which, funny enough, sounds pretty ISIS-y to me. [ThinkProgress]
The NFL will alter its hated catch-rule and replay process. [Bleacher Report]
Buffalo Bills wide receiver Zay Jones was arrested Monday night in Los Angeles after a naked, bloody argument with his brother, Vikings receiver Cayleb Jones. [NBC Phila.]
Justice League — which I finally saw last night; it was perfectly meh — closed out its theatrical run as the lowest-grossing DCEU movie ever. [AV Club]
