Politics
This school’s response to school shootings should upset parents everywhere
The day after police say a 14-year-old was arrested Georgia’s Apalachee High Schoola radio report about that murderous attack began to play as I drove my 7th grader to school. She wanted to know if anybody had died. I said, “I think so,” deliberately avoiding giving her the details that two students and two teachers were dead. She had just recently participated in her school’s “See Something, Say Something” campaign and had recently had a lockdown drill, and I felt sick with the realization of how much she’s been forced to think about threats at school and what she’d do if one arose.
It was upsetting to hear what a Catholic school in Virginia Beach did when an 11-year-old told officials there that a classmate had brought a bullet to school.
That’s one of the reasons it was so upsetting to hear about what a Catholic school in Virginia Beach did when an 11-year-old 6th grader told officials there that a classmate had brought a bullet to school. He should have been effusively thanked for reporting what he saw. But in a move that epitomizes the trend in American schools of making innocent actors outlaws, the principal, who reportedly commended the boy, at the same time, punished him with a suspension. His waiting two hours for the opportunity to make the report anonymously, they said, was unacceptable and warranted punishment.
It filled me with a rage to think that our daughter, or anybody’s child, would be made to feel bad in such a situation.
Worse still, the boy who reported that his classmate had brought a bullet to school was given the same punishment — a 1-1/2 day suspension — as the boy who brought the contraband. To punish the boy who alerted school officials to a possible danger is by itself indefensible, but to give the other boy the same punishment renders their actions equivalent. It beggars belief that officials at St. John the Apostle Catholic School are acting as if they are.
But school officials and leaders of The Catholic Diocese of Richmond are defending their actions. “Failure to report a safety concern affects the safety of everyone in the school,” Leslie Winneberger, a lawyer for the diocesewrote in a letter obtained by The Washington Post. “… The school cannot, and will not, take chances when it comes to student safety, especially true in light of the school shooting in Georgia this past week.”
But thanking the boy who reported what he saw and using his delay as an opportunity to emphasize the importance of acting with urgency would not have represented the school taking chances. It would have been humane and gracious and in keeping with the school’s mission to provide a “Christ-centered learning environment” with a focus on students’ “moral development.”
What Christ-centered message is St. John the Apostle communicating here: that rain falls on the just and the unjust?
All schools have a role to play in students’ moral development. They should all foster — and at a minimum not impede — students’ discernment of good and bad and right and wrong.
All schools, not just religious ones, have a role to play in students’ moral development. They should all foster — and at a minimum not impede — students’ discernment of good and bad and right and wrong. But whether it’s pre-kindergarteners getting suspended for hugging or elementary students getting sent home for playfully shaping their fingers into a gunwe’ve witnessed a trend over the last couple of decades of school officials letting their fear of being sued justify their punishing undeserving students.
When you add those decisions to policies that criminalize certain hair stylesand demand that students eat lunch without talking to one another and remain just as quiet while walking the halls in perfectly straight linesthere seems at times to be a concerted effort in our country’s schools to stamp out any and every sign of young people’s humanity. And to replace their human-centered sense of right and wrong with the latest download from the school’s risk-management team.
Not only is punishing a boy who alerted school officials to his classmate’s bullet likely to give the entire student body a warped sense of ethics, as an attorney hired by his mother rightly points out, it sends students the message that they’d be “better off not saying anything,” as reported by the Post.
The last thing school officials should want is students who are fearful that reporting something suspicious will get them in trouble from school officials who say they took too long. For many students, the fear of getting in trouble — especially suspended — may be a the worst thing they can imagine. I was such a child, and I don’t think our daughter is much different. And while we may hope that a student who senses a threat rightly prioritizes school safety over fear of getting in trouble, the best way to encourage them to make that a priority is to remove from them the fear of getting in trouble.
Ironically, the boy waited till the end of a standardized test — which the educational establishment has succeeded in convincing students are all important — before he said anything.
For many students, the fear of getting in trouble may be the worst thing they can imagine.
The mother of the boy who told school officials what he knew says he wanted to make the report about the bullet quietly, “because one of the things he didn’t want was to be bullied and didn’t want to be labeled a ‘snitch,’” but because he and the other kid disappeared from their classroom at the same time and they served their suspensions simultaneously, his peers quickly figured it out.
Speaking of a warped sense of right and wrong, a North Carolina man was arrested after officials say he emailed a bomb threat to St. John the Apostle and caused officials to shut down school for two days. It should go without saying that nothing justifies threatening a school, and school officials are right to be angry at the threat.
But that arrest does nothing to address the anger from the mother of the boy who was wrongly suspended or ease the fears of parents who may fear that their school will adopt a policy just as wrongheaded as St. John the Apostle. We all want our children to be safe. But we don’t want them to be made out as villains if they try to keep their school safe but don’t do it quickly enough according to some ridiculously arbitrary standard.
Some top congressional Republicans have privately concluded that it is likely impossible for them to keep control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and they are now focused on limiting the scale of the defeat and salvaging the party’s Senate majority.
Five senior Republican lawmakers, all granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s dire position, told Blue Light News the House had all but slipped away.
One senior House Republican said the GOP’s goal at this point was to “save as many Republican seats as we can.” The president, this person said, was not helping.
“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” the lawmaker said. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”
A second Republican member of Congress said the movement of campaign advertising made plain which side was in control of the midterms. This lawmaker predicted Democrats would pick up about 10 seats, more than enough to take control of the chamber.
Even in newly redistricted red states like Florida and Texas, this person said, Republican candidates were “hanging on with their fingernails.”
Republicans have already fallen back from several contested House districts that they feel are no longer winnable, including those held by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey. Trump carried their districts just two years ago. The party last week gave up on an Omaha-based district held by retiring Rep. Don Bacon.
Trump officials and other top GOP operatives say more candidates may be cut off in the coming days, in order to shift advertising money to races where it can make more of a difference. Republican groups have already given up on multiple races where they once hoped to unseat Democratic lawmakers.
The Republican Party is under extreme pressure across the Midwest, where it is now spending heavily to defend Senate seats in once-reliably MAGA states like Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.
Bacon, a maverick often at odds with the White House, said there was no mystery in his party’s political tribulations.
“I’ve talked to some who are making these decisions: The biggest problem is the president’s polling numbers and unfavorables,” Bacon said.
White House officials insist they’re not giving up on either chamber of Congress. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said Trump remained “committed to maintaining Republican majorities in both the House and Senate.”
As he departed on Tuesday to campaign in Alaska for embattled GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, Trump professed optimism about the midterms but acknowledged that sitting presidents typically see their party lose seats in the off year.
“But I’m doing a tour right now and I’m doing rallies,” Trump added. “The level of enthusiasm for the Republican Party is way up.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson went even further, flatly declaring during a campaign stop in deep-red Texas that “the polling is wrong” in showing his party on the brink of a broad defeat.
Yet at a tactical level, the Republican Party’s moves to shift money away from defending the House and toward saving the Senate are clear enough. In recent days, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top super PAC for House Republicans, canceled advertising for key House candidates in Nebraska and Iowa and allowed the Senate Leadership Fund – a Republican group focused on the upper chamber – to swoop in and claim the airtime to support Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts and Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for Senate in Iowa.
“These are not the moves of a party that’s going to keep the House,” a third Republican lawmaker said.
In statements to Blue Light News, both CLF and the National Republican Congressional Committee said they had no intention of giving up on the fight for control of the House.
NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said districts are won “one by one,” and that the GOP has “the financial firepower and ground game needed to win.”
Chris Winkelman, president of CLF, said his group would keep moving money around to maximize the impact nationally.
The goal, he said, was to “keep the pressure on the most vulnerable Democrats and preserve a path to 218 seats.”
Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who lost his swing seat in Trump’s first midterm election eight years ago, said his former colleagues were clear-eyed about where the election seemed to be headed.
“The environment is about as tough as one could expect,” Curbelo said. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House — not in recent weeks, anyway.”
Megan Messerly, Lauren Fedor, Lisa Kashinsky and Myah Ward contributed to this report.
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff said Tuesday he will not run for president in 2028 and committed to serving a full six-year Senate term if reelected.
“I have zero interest in running for president. I’m not running for president. I’m running for reelection to the Senate,” Ossoff said during a Georgia Senate debate against Republican Rep. Mike Collins.
Asked by Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whether he would serve his full term if he wins in November, Ossoff replied: “Yes, I will.”
The remarks are Ossoff’s most forceful rejection yet of a potential 2028 presidential bid even as his name has repeatedly surfaced in national Democrats’ conversations about possible contenders for the party’s nomination. His public commitment to a full Senate term on Tuesday is the latest of his campaign’s many efforts to tamp down that speculation.
Ossoff gained national attention this year given his strong fundraising numbers, his consistent lead in public polling against Collins and his ability to generate viral moments on the campaign trail, particularly through his attacks on President Donald Trump. Democrats are bullish about Ossoff’s ability to hold onto his Senate seat — so much so that the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC said Tuesday it was removing its ad spending in Georgia for the week.
He’s also taken steps to boost the state Democratic party in Georgia, a perennial battleground that has been and will be key to winning the presidency. If November brings historic wins up and down the ballot, Ossoff will get some of the credit — and he’ll have confirmed his status as a leader in the swing state.
Democrats may be discovering the political power of calling something rigged.
They’re leaning hard into anti-corruption messaging in the final weeks of the campaign as new research suggests that linking corruption to Americans’ economic struggles can boost Democrats into the home stretch.
Messaging from Democrats that tied corruption to housing, health care and the cost of living increased voter support for Democratic congressional candidates by about 3 percentage points, according to a national survey last month conducted by Blue Rose Research and Democratic-aligned Winning Jobs Narrative Action, which was obtained by POLITICO.
The findings align with a shift in how Democrats are talking about corruption — and help explain why that message has exploded on the campaign trail. From Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia to James Talarico in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Democrats have zeroed in on a common argument: Washington is rigged to benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyday Americans.
“We have a corruption crisis in this country, and it is leading to an affordability crisis,” Iowa Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek said during his Senate debate against Rep. Ashley Hinson last week.
It’s a message that is reverberating across campaigns. In a recent presentation delivered to Democratic groups on Capitol Hill, longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson offered a succinct playbook: “Corruption is why your costs are high,” according to the presentation viewed by Blue Light News.
His presentation also encouraged Democrats to lead with the acknowledgement that costs are high and then go into corruption, acknowledge that it happens across parties and avoid making President Donald Trump the sole focus of their attacks. “Trump works as an example of corruption that raises costs, not as the whole case,” the presentation said.
Since April, Democratic candidates and outside groups in House and Senate races have spent roughly $104 million on advertising mentioning corruption, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. Republicans, meanwhile, have spent $36 million across House and Senate campaigns over the same period.
“It’s not just like, ‘oh, look at what’s happening with the ballroom,’ or ‘boy, Donald Trump’s made a lot of money on crypto,’” Democratic strategist Chris Meagher said. “You have to be able to tie it to the impact on people’s lives.”
“The narrative works best when it’s an outsider candidate who is linking a rigged economy to a rigged political system,” longtime Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said of the anti-corruption messaging.
Running against corruption is not new. But as Democrats looked for a way out of the political wilderness after 2024, they began turning a familiar attack — anti-corruption — into a broader message tied to voters’ economic pain. What once was an attack largely focused on Trump has become a more expansive argument for candidates trying to connect it to why Americans are struggling financially, potentially providing a blueprint for the party beyond November.
“Democrats used to talk about corruption as a crime. Now corruption is the explanation for costs,” Ferguson, the Democratic strategist, said.
The issue — and messaging around it — is also coming to the fore in a cycle when anger over the suppression of Epstein files hit a fever pitch and public pressure to ban Congress from trading stocks continues to mount.
And it’s not just the research by Blue Rose that shows the potential potency of that message.
In another recent survey from the Democratic group Navigator Research, obtained by Blue Light News, the vast majority of Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — say corruption is driving up their costs. That same survey of registered voters, conducted in August, found majorities, including roughly a quarter of Republicans, say Trump is bringing more corruption to Washington than fixing it.
And new results from the nonpartisan Center Square’s Voter Voice Poll, conducted this month by Noble Predictive Insights and shared first with Blue Light News, show 10% of voters ranking government corruption as the second most important issue facing Americans, tied with the economy and jobs, and only behind inflation and price increases.
In some instances, Democrats have wrested the word “rigged” away from Trump who has used it in the context of unproven election fraud and turned it into a mobilizing political talking point. That’s a departure from March 2024 when Democrats criticized then Rep. Katie Porter for accusing special interests of spending money to “rig” the California Senate race after she lost in the state’s primary. But now some Democrats are embracing that language as a way to rail against what they see as a corrupt system.
“They’re rigging the rules to benefit their wealthy donors and corporate special interests,” former Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown said in a message to supporters announcing the launch of his campaign to return to office.
But the corruption resonates across parties. Republicans who spoke with Blue Light News said Democrats do not own the issue — voters everywhere are animated by it. While polling shows that voters in both major parties believe the government is corrupt, Republicans accuse Democrats of lacking credibility on the issue.
“Americans have been disgusted by the level of self-serving corruption that spread like herpes through the slimy politicians who run the Democrat Party, and now they’re suddenly changing their tune because it’s an election year,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement. “Voters see through the facade, and they know Republicans are cleaning up the rot left behind by Democrat leaders.”
On the Senate side, National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Bernadette Breslin pointed Blue Light News to a poll in Minnesota — a rare offensive opportunity for Senate Republicans this cycle — that shows there are just about as many voters who blame Democratic Gov. Tim Walz for widespread fraud of federally-funded government programs in the state as there are who blame the criminals. Walz’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, is running for Senate against Republican Michele Tafoya, and corruption under Democratic rule is a key theme for Republicans in the race.
“The overwhelming majority of Minnesotans blame the Walz-Flanagan administration — and the criminals it aided and abetted — for plundering their hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” Breslin said. “They’ll vote for Michele Tafoya to right the ship this November.”
Steve Pierce, executive director at Winning Jobs Narrative Action, said one of the biggest shifts for Democrats this cycle on corruption has been a move away from a message largely rooted in concerns over democratic norms, which have struggled to break through in a way that moves voters in past cycles.
“You’ve seen Democrats, rather than connecting corruption to democracy, connecting it to affordability, connecting it to the top concern that voters have,” said Pierce. “It’s connecting it in a way that’s meaningful to voters around the things that they are thinking about every day.”
The anti-corruption message has played out across the country, and as an explanation for frustration against different economic pain points, including rising electric bills and local data center projects.
A recent memo on data centers from House Majority PAC, the main super PAC working to elect House Democrats, noted the “message environment in the 2026 election cycle has been dominated by costs, with an important secondary theme around corruption that began to emerge last year.” The group’s spokesperson, CJ Warnke, told Blue Light News that “every single poll and every single focus group shows affordability to be voters’ number one issue, and they specifically point to corrupt politicians as being responsible for driving up prices.”
Next month’s midterms will offer the clearest test yet of whether Democrats can turn this message into votes. But Democratic operatives increasingly see anti-corruption messaging as more than just a short-term political weapon — as long as they try to do something about it if they win control next year.
“I think the thing for Democrats, if they do want to keep it on the radar heading into 2028, and I think they should because I think it is a really potent issue for them, they are going to have to also deliver on it,” said Pierce.
“They have to be able to show up to get caught trying,” he said.
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