Extreme heat is making schools hotter — and learning harder

Rising temperatures mean dehydrated, exhausted kids, and teachers who have to focus on heat safety instead of instruction.

Originally published by The 19th (Republished with their republish link)

Angela Girol has been teaching fourth grade in Pittsburgh for over two decades. Over the years she’s noticed a change at her school: It’s getting hotter.

Some days temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit in her classroom which, like many on the East Coast, isn’t air-conditioned. When it’s hot, she said, kids don’t eat, or drink enough water. “They end up in the nurse’s office because they’re dizzy, they have a headache, their stomach hurts — all because of heat and dehydration,” she said.

To cope with the heat, her students are now allowed to keep water on their desks, but that presents its own challenges. “They’re constantly filling up water bottles, so I have to give them breaks during the day for that. And then everyone has to go to the bathroom all the time,” she said. “I’m losing instruction time.”

The effect extreme heat is having on schools and child care is starting to get the attention of policymakers and researchers. Last week, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, published a report on the issue. In April, so did the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit policy organization.

“The average school building in the U.S. was built nearly 50 years ago,” said policy analyst Allie Schneider, co-author of the Center for American Progress report. “Schools and child care centers were built in areas that maybe 30 or 15 years ago didn’t require access to air-conditioning, or at least for a good portion of the year. Now we’re seeing that becoming a more pressing concern.” Students are also on campus during the hottest parts of the day. “It’s something that is really important not just to their physical health, but their learning outcomes,” she said.

Last April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its own report detailing some of the effects heat has on kids. It notes that children have a harder time thermo-regulating and take longer to produce sweat, making them more vulnerable than adults to heat exhaustion and heat illness.

Kids don’t necessarily listen to their body’s cues about heat, and might need an adult to remind them to drink water or not play outside. Kevin Toolan, a sixth-grade teacher in Long Island, New York, said having to constantly monitor heat safety distracts him from being able to teach. “The mindset is shifting to safety rather than instruction,” he said. “Those children don’t know how to handle it.”

To keep the classroom cool, he’ll turn the lights off, but kids fall asleep. “They are lethargic,” he said.

To protect kids, schools have canceled classes because temperatures have gotten too high. Warmer temperatures also lead to more kids being absent from school, especially low-income students. And heat makes it harder to learn. One study from 2020 tracked the scores of students from schools without air-conditioning who took the PSAT exam at least twice. It found that increases in the average outdoor temperature corresponded with students making smaller gains on their retakes.

Both Toolan and Girol said that cooling options like keeping doors and windows open to promote cross ventilation are gone, thanks to the clampdowns in school security after 9/11 — and worsened by the threat of school shootings. Students and teachers are trapped in their overheating classrooms. “Teachers report leaving with migraines or signs of heat exhaustion,” said Toolan. “At 100 degrees, it is very uncomfortable. Your clothes are stuck to you.”

The Center for American Progress report joins a call by other advocacy groups to create federal guidance that schools and child care centers could adopt “to ensure that children are not forced to learn, play and exercise in dangerously hot conditions,” Schneider said. Some states already have standards in place, but they vary. In California, child care facilities are required to keep temperatures between 68 and 85 degrees. In Maryland, the recommendation is between 74 and 82 degrees. A few states, like Florida, require schools to reduce outdoor activity on high-heat days. Schneider says federal guidance would help all school districts use the latest scientific evidence to set protective standards.

In June, 23 health and education advocacy organizations signed a letter making a similar request of the Department of Education, asking for better guidance and coordination to protect kids. Some of their recommendations included publishing a plan that schools could adopt for dealing with high temperatures; encouraging states to direct more resources to providing air-conditioning in schools; and providing school districts with information on heat hazards.

“We know that school infrastructure is being overwhelmed by extreme heat, and that without a better system to advise schools on the types of practices they should be implementing, it’s going to be a little bit of the Wild West of actions being taken,” said Grace Wickerson, health equity policy manager at the Federation of American Scientists.

A longer term solution is upgrading school infrastructure but the need for air conditioning is overwhelming. According to the Center for American Progress report, 36,000 schools nationwide don’t have adequate HVAC systems. By 2025, it estimates that installing or upgrading HVAC or other cooling systems will cost around $4.4 billion.

Some state or local governments are trying to address the heat issue. In June, the New York State Legislature passed a bill now awaiting the governor’s signature that would require school staff to take measures like closing blinds or turning off lights when temperatures reach 82 degrees inside a classroom. At 88 degrees, classes would be canceled. A bill introduced last year and currently before California’s state assembly would require schools to create extreme heat action plans that could include mandating hydration and rest breaks or moving recess to cooler parts of the day.

Some teachers have been galvanized to take action, too. As president of the Patchogue-Medford Congress of Teachers, Toolan was part of an effort to secure $80 million for infrastructure upgrades through a bond vote. Over half will go to HVAC systems for some 500 schools in his district.

And Girol is running for a state representative seat in Pennsylvania, where a main plank in her platform is to fully fund public schools in order to pay for things like air-conditioning. She was recently endorsed by the Climate Cabinet, a federal political action committee. “Part of the reason climate is so important to me is because of this issue,” she said. “I see how it’s negatively affecting my students.”

How America’s Sex Education—and Oversexed Culture—Continues to Fail Women

Natalie Lampert on Moving the Conversation About Controlling Women’s Bodies Beyond Abortion

By Natalie Lampert

July 19, 2024

How America’s Sex Education—and Oversexed Culture—Continues to Fail Women

Nice Time: Jimmy Carter Lives To Defeat The Guinea Worm!

He may have eradicated only the second disease since smallpox!

MARCIE JONES JUL 27, 2024

Good news!

Read on Substack

Snippet:

TRIGGER WARNING: Contains disgusting descriptions of the nasty-ass Guinea Worm, though no photos. Do not Google the photos.

…

So this is very nice, former President Jimmy Carter — who is still alive and 99 years young, though in hospice — has succeeded in his decades-long goal to get Guinea Worm Disease cases down to zero before he dies. (Warning, the picture at that link is disgusting.) There have now been zero cases of Guinea Worm disease in the past three months, and there were only 14 last year. Extremely promising signs that maybe they are truly gone forever! If no more Guinea Worms burst through anybody’s flesh within the next nine months, then it’ll officially be the second disease eradicated by humanity after smallpox.

When the Carter Center started trying to take down big Guinea Worm back in 1988, more than 3.5 million people in Africa and India were suffering from it. And BOY WERE THEY SUFFERING, because while the worm won’t directly kill you, it is agonizing and SO RETCHINGLY GROSS. First, nasty-ass fucking worm larva gets into your guts through dirty drinking water. Then it grows in your stomach for a fucking year. And THEN, a fucking THREE-FOOT WORM POPS OUT OF YOUR SKIN which hurts like fucking hell, obviously. And there is no vaccine or cure, the only solution is to pull this FUCKING DISGUSTING WORM out of your fucking skin by winding it around a fucking STICK.

So it is not the glamorous kind of affliction that makes a good poster for a benefit concert or bake sale, or plays well on an ad with Sarah McLachlan playing in the background. But one fixed relatively simply, with clean drinking water. And so that is what sweet peanut-farming Jimmy worked at. His Carter Center partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and has been quietly toiling to eradicate many other un-glamorous diseases that no one in the year of our Lord 2024 should have to suffer from, including: poliomyelitis (a virus that paralyzes mostly children), mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis (aka elephantiasis, a roundworm transmitted by mosquitoes), cysticercosis (tapeworm infection), measles, river blindness, and yaws (a nasty spirochete bacteria that causes bursting lesions). (snip-More)

-yours Ukrainian.

This is linked in a Substack I read. In and on its own merit, I’m bringing it here for people to take a look. I think it’ll be worthwhile. I wish that people in Yemen and refugees from Gaza and people in all troubled places had this opportunity, but there it is; we have this. Anyway, take a look, subscribe if you like, or pass it along, and send a good thought into the universe on behalf of parents and children and stopping war.

Becoming a mother amid war in Ukraine by Anastasiia Lapatina

Two days after the birth of my daughter, Russia launched one of its largest air attacks on Kyiv. It was terrifying, but also entirely expected, and that’s the worst part. Read on Substack

How Brazilian Women Challenged Slavery and Patriarchy Through Food

Hope I’m not pushing the feminism too hard. But seriously! Feminism, food, successful resistance, with food, what’s not to love? Enjoy the article.

BEATRIZ MIRANDA AND ÍRIA BORGES

LAST UPDATED JULY 24, 2024, 9:18 AM

n the quaint district of Milho Verde, it’s impossible to go without hearing about Geralda Francisca dos Santos and her biscoito de polvilho (a cassava flour and cheese puff). At 81, Dona Geralda is one of the region’s traditional cooks of quitanda, pastries typical of Brazil’s food culture, especially in the state of Minas Gerais.

Ahead of festivities like the Three Kings’ Day and the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, her daughters and granddaughters — even those living in other districts — join her in the kitchen, surrounding the termite mound, clay, and tile shard oven that Dona Geralda built. They aim to help the matriarch meet the extraordinary demand, but these gatherings always mean something else.

“When my mother and I cook around her oven, she tells me stories of Milho Verde and our family that I didn’t know about,” Silvana Aparecida Santos, 38, who learned the quitanda alchemy from a very young age by watching and listening to her mother, tells Refinery29 Somos. “When we cook quitanda together, we shorten distances between us.”

“Quitanda goes beyond the kitchen. Before the dish became a local culinary symbol, it helped fuel a resistance movement.”

BEATRIZ MIRANDA

For many women like Aparecida Santos and Dona Geralda, quitanda goes beyond the kitchen. Before the dish became a local culinary symbol, it helped fuel a resistance movement. The tradition of cooking these pastries has crossed generations of women workers (predominantly in Minas Gerais), with the food continuing to represent the means to a better living. Quitanda is the technology through which artisanal cooks build their self-esteem, identity, community belonging, financial autonomy, and female networks of mutual support.

According to scholar Juliana Bonomo, quitanda originated in the 18th century when lords sent women enslaved workers to the nearest urban centers to generate complementary income. The word “quitanda” derives from the Kimbundu language, alluding to the tray where one sells food. But back in those days, it referred, as Bonomo explains, “to everything from haberdashery items to snacks.”

PHOTO: NEREU JR.

To this day, despite industrialization, most quintandeiras use no artificial ingredients. These snacks blended local ingredients (such as coconut, corn, peanuts, and cassava) with Portuguese recipes (cakes, biscuits, and pastries) and African techniques, rites, and beliefs. “Quitanda is a multicultural food,” Bonomo adds. “Pastry would often be prepared in silence. One couldn’t hit the pan with the spoon because it would bring bad luck.”

But it’s this move from the private to the public sphere that transformed this slave lord-run business into something revolutionary.

“As these women left their lords’ houses to work on the streets, they started learning and sharing ideas about freedom with other quitandeiras and their own customers — many of them also enslaved workers,” the researcher says, pointing to Luiza Mahin, a quitandeira from Bahia State who played a pivotal role in the Revolta dos Malês (1835), the biggest uprising of enslaved workers in Brazil. Once authorities perceived them as a threat to the slavery system, the first quitandeiras faced persecution.

JULIANA BONOMO

However, quitandas ultimately emancipated many women. “By finding a way to sell quitanda, they were able to buy manumission for themselves and their relatives,” Bonomo says. The food ensured dignity for women in the 18th and 19th centuries, something that resonates in the lives of quitandeiras even today.

“The selling of quitanda helped me raise my 10 children,” says Dona Geralda, who grew up in the Ausente quilombo, a community that descends from enslaved workers who fought the system. Even though Aparecida Santos runs a bar in Milho Verde, she cites quitanda as a major source of income.

PHOTO: MARCELO RAMOS.

In the historical village of Congonhas (home to Minas Gerais’s biggest quitanda festival), Raquel Ramalho tenderly recalls her first memories with the pastries. “When I close my eyes, I can visualize my grandmother making biscoito de polvilho for us in the wood-burning stove before we went to school,” she says.

While quitanda has always been intrinsic to her identity, Ramalho’s life changed 15 years ago when she established herself as a professional quitandeira. “I used to be a housewife and felt excluded from social life. As I started working with quitanda, I started traveling to promote my work in other places, meeting new people, and conquering my own space,” she says. “It raised my self-esteem and gave me autonomy.” The 47-year-old now has a dedicated YouTube channel to share her quitanda knowledge with the world.“

“By finding a way to sell quitanda, they were able to buy manumission for themselves and their relatives.”

JULIANA BONOMO

Quitanda is also a protagonist in the life of 60-year-old Angela Resende, who wakes up every day at 4 a.m. to cook. In the last 20 years, she has spent many of her mornings preparing quitanda in the Minas Gerais city of Paracatu, where she serves customers a homemade breakfast in her yard. In spite of the hard work, Resende asserts she wouldn’t choose any other profession.

“People used to think that we were quitandeiras because we had no option because we didn’t go to university,” she says. “There used to be this prejudice.”

For Bonomo, this misunderstanding of quitandeiras stems from the patriarchal work division that prevails in society. “Professions that have historically been connected to domestic work (like cooking) are still seen as not real work,” she says, pointing out how empowering the role is. “[With her income], the quitandeira is responsible for buying her son’s school uniform, for example, or helping pay the family’s food expenses.”

PHOTO: MARCELO RAMOS.

Being a quitandeira can also be a lifeline. “When my grandfather became physically disabled, my grandmother became the breadwinner,” says Mariana Gontijo, 40, a culinary school professor born in Moema. “By selling quitanda and washing and ironing clothes, she provided for a family of seven people.”

After years of working as a lawyer, Gontijo returned to her roots. “My first source of research was my mother’s cookbook, where I reconnected to recipes that have accompanied me through my whole life,” Gontijo says. An advocate of local traditional cooking, she now runs O Tacho, a food consultancy company, and Roça Grande, a restaurant in the capital of Minas Gerais that celebrates the food of her land.

For Gontijo, quitanda is a tradition that has long represented a means of survival and emancipation for many women. Or simply put, “quitanda is an act of resistance.”

“Quitanda is an act of resistance.”

MARIANA GONTIJO

It also requires a profound knowledge of nature and themselves. “By using corn flour, banana tree leaves, and even their own arms to measure the temperature of the wood-burning stove, they ensure the food preparation is on point,” she says. “These are purely empirical and poetic techniques that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Gontijo continues: “Before we look to international cuisine, we need to understand, respect, and value what we have here — like the quitanda culture. If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where to go.”

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/black-women-resistence-brazil-quitanda

Elon Musk’s trans daughter Vivian Wilson slams his anti-LGBTQ+ comments as ‘ketamine-fueled haze’

(I ran across this on currentstatus.io . Also, Mr. Musk is a bigger ass yet than I already thought he was. Vivian Wilson, on the other hand, seems well adjusted.)

vivllainous threads Vivian Jenna Wilson transgender daughter elon musk

THREADS @VIVLLAINOUS; CRISTIANO BARNI/SHUTTERSTOCK

“I look pretty good for a dead bitch,” Wilson, a transgender woman, said of her biological father’s claims that gender-affirming care “killed” her.

RYAN ADAMCZESKI

JULY 25 2024 1:00 PM EST

Vivian Wilson is fact-checking own father after billionaire Elon Musk made bigoted comments about her gender.

The billionaire recently attacked gender-affirming care in an interview with conspiracy theorist Jordan Peterson for conservative platform the Daily Wire, claiming that the life-saving treatment “killed” his daughter while repeatedly misgendering her.

Musk said that when his daughter wanted to begin transitioning, he “was essentially tricked into signing documents” before he “had really any understanding of what was going on.” He said that doctors told him his daughter “might commit suicide” if she was prevented from receiving care.

“I lost my son. They call it ‘deadnaming’ for a reason,” Musk said. “The reason it’s called ‘deadnaming’ is because, your son is dead. So my son is dead, killed by the woke mind virus.”

Wilson has since responded to Musk’s assertions on Threads, the rival to his platform Twitter/X, saying that her biological father’s claims are so blatantly false that she’s “just started to find it funny at this point.” “

“Calling me dead on a podcast with JORDAN PETERSON of all people while basically admitting you have zero reading comprehension by saying you were “tricked” into signing documents that you read over multiple times is basically a parody of itself,” she wrote. “Like it’s honestly camp-“

“I look pretty good for a dead bitch,” she added.

Wilson then debunked some of Musk’s other assertions about her, among them several homophobic stereotypes about her youth, including that she was a fan of musical theatre (she wasn’t) and picking out clothes for Musk to wear (she didn’t). Musk also claimed that Wilson was “born slightly autistic.”

“This entire thing is completely made up and there’s a reason for this. He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there, and in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness,” Wilson wrote. “Obviously he can’t say that, so I’ve been reduced to a happy little stereotype f*g-ing along to use at his discretion. I think that says a lot about how he views queer people and children in general.”https://www.threads.net/@vivllainous/post/C91xDGJSUX_/embed/

Wilson, 20, is one of six children (five living) Musk had with his first wife, model Justine Wilson. She filed a petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court in April, 2022 to legally change her name and gender, citing the reason as “Gender identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”

Wilson then shot back at her father’s claims that she is “not a girl,” telling Musk to “go touch some fucking grass.”

“As for if I’m not a woman… sure, Jan. Whatever you say. I’m legally recognized as a woman in the state of California and I don’t concern myself with the opinions of those who are below me,” she wrote. “Obviously Elon can’t say the same because in a ketamine-fueled haze, he’s desperate for attention and validation from an army of degenerate red-pilled incels and pick-mes who are quick to give it to him.”

https://www.advocate.com/elon-musk-trans-daughter-vivian-wilson

Stuff I saw on AP today

A few headlines of interest here, with snippets and links.

I got a great giggle when I saw this story last night. Imagine Republicans telling other Republicans they’re being too racist…

https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-attacks-johnson-hudson-76f8e90d24004e49449087787ac031a5

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders are warning party members against using overtly racist and sexist attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris, as they and former President Donald Trump’s campaign scramble to adjust to the reality of a new Democratic rival less than four months before Election Day.

At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., urged lawmakers to stick to criticizing Harris for her role in Biden-Harris administration policies. (snip-more)

=====

Monthly headlines are turning into daily headlines:

https://apnews.com/article/hottest-day-ever-climate-change-weather-heat-extreme-global-warming-8e2b0b7fa0360ecb931ca333a832c694

Monday was recorded as the hottest day ever globally, beating a record set the day before, as countries around the world from Japan to Bolivia to the United States continue to feel the heat, according to the European climate change service.

Provisional satellite data published by Copernicus on Wednesday showed that Monday broke the previous day’s record by 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.1 degree Fahrenheit).

Climate scientists say it’s plausible that this is the warmest it has been in 120,000 years because of human-caused climate change. While scientists cannot be certain that Monday was the very hottest day throughout that period, average temperatures have not been this high since long before humans developed agriculture. (snip-more)

=====

Cuteness overload!

https://apnews.com/video/kangaroos-animals-new-york-bronx-wildlife-conservation-society-11cbd816bd71411fb4ecb980b986361e

VIDEO

A 7-month-old tree kangaroo peeked out of its mom’s pouch at the Bronx Zoo and here is the video

The second baby of a tree-dwelling kangaroo made its public debut this week in New York, poking its pink head head out of its mom’s furry white pouch. (snip-click the Video hyperlink just above the title)

Letters from an American

Heather Cox Richardson’s history Substack is just a treasure of information and connections between history and current times. Here’s a copy today, because there are fine talking points in favor of the Dem candidate for US President.

July 23, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 24, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris continues her momentum toward the 2024 presidential election since President Joe Biden’s surprise announcement on Sunday that he would not accept the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.

Today more than 350 national security leaders endorsed Harris for president, noting that if elected president, “she would enter that office with more significant national security experience than the four Presidents prior to President Biden.” As vice president, she “has met with more than 150 world leaders and traveled to 21 countries,” the authors wrote, and they called out her work across the globe from her work strengthening partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region to her historic trip to Africa and her efforts to expand U.S. relationships with nations in the Caribbean and North Central America. In contrast to Harris, the letter said, “Trump is a threat to America’s national security.”

Those signing the letter included former Central Intelligence Agency director Michael Hayden, former director of national intelligence James Clapper, national security advisors Susan Rice and Thomas Donilon, former secretaries of defense Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta, and former secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.

In a New York Times op-ed today, former secretary of state Clinton praised Biden for his “decision to end his campaign,” which she called “as pure an act of patriotism as I have seen in my lifetime.” She went on to say that Vice President Harris “represents a fresh start for American politics,” offering a vision of an America with its best days ahead of it and, rather than “old grievances,” “new solutions.”

Clinton noted that her own political campaigns had seen her burned in effigy, but said, “It is a trap to believe that progress is impossible” and that Americans cannot overcome sexism and racism. After all, she pointed out, voters elected Black American Barack Obama in 2008, and she herself won the popular vote in 2016. “[A]bortion bans and attacks on democracy are galvanizing women voters like never before,” Clinton wrote, and “[w]ith Ms. Harris at the top of the ticket leading the way, this movement may become an unstoppable wave.”

Today, Harris held her first campaign rally, speaking to supporters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Republicans held their national convention just last week. The energy from the 3000 people packed into the gym where she walked out to Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” was palpable.

She began by thanking Biden and touting his record, then turned to noting that in her past as a prosecutor, California attorney general, U.S. senator from California, and vice president, she “took on perpetrators of all kinds—predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So,” she said, “hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.” She went on to remind the audience that Trump ran a for-profit college that scammed students, was found liable for committing sexual abuse, and “was just found guilty of fraud on 34 counts.”

While Trump is relying on “billionaires and big corporations,” she said, “we are running a people-powered campaign” and “will be a people-first presidency.” The Democrats, she said, “believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by but to get ahead; a future where no child has to grow up in poverty; where every worker has the freedom to join a union; where every person has affordable health care, affordable childcare, and paid family leave. We believe in a future where every senior can retire with dignity.”

“[A]ll of this is to say,” she continued, “Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. Because…when our middle class is strong, America is strong.”

In contrast, she said, Trump wants to take the country backward. She warned that he and his Project 2025 will “weaken the middle class,” cutting Social Security and Medicare and giving “tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations,” while “working families foot the bill.” “They intend to end the Affordable Care Act,” she said, “and take us back…to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions…. Remember what that was like? Children with asthma, women who survived breast cancer, grandparents with diabetes. America has tried these failed economic policies before, but we are not going back. We’re not going back.”

“[O]urs is a fight for the future,” she said “And it is a fight for freedom…. Generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom. And now…the baton is in our hands.”

Meanwhile, MAGA Republicans are still scrambling for a plan of attack against Harris. One of their first angles has been the sexism and racism Clinton predicted, calling her “a DEI hire.” House Republican leaders have told fellow lawmakers to dial back the sexist and racist attacks.

MAGA Republican representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) has taken a different angle: he introduced an impeachment resolution against Harris, while others are demanding that the House should investigate Harris and demand the Cabinet remove President Biden under the 25th Amendment. The Republican National Committee has decided to make fun of Harris’s laugh.

But concern in the Trump camp showed today when Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio shared with reporters a “confidential memorandum” trying to get ahead of polls he says will show Harris leading Trump. He said he expects to see a “Harris Honeymoon” that will end quickly.

Trump has continued to post angrily on his social media feed but is otherwise sticking close to home. His lack of visibility highlights that the Republicans are now on the receiving end of the same age and coherence concerns they had used against Biden, and there might be more attention paid to Trump’s lapses now that Biden has stepped aside. CNN’s Kate Sullivan noted today, for example, that “Trump said he’d consider Jamie Dimon for Treasury secretary, but now says he doesn’t know who said that.”

As Tim Alberta noted Sunday in The Atlantic, the Trump campaign tapped J.D. Vance in an attempt to harden the Republican base, only to find now that he cannot bring to the ticket any of the new supporters they suddenly need.

According to Harry Enten of CNN, Vance is the first vice presidential pick since 1980 who has entered the race with a negative favorability rating: in his case, –6 points. Since 2000, the usual average is +19 points. Vance won his Senate seat in 2022 by +6 points in an election Republican governor Mike DeWine won by +25 points. Vance “was the worst performing Republican candidate in 2022 up and down the ballot in the state of Ohio,” Enten said. “The J.D. Vance pick makes no sense from a statistical polling perspective.”

Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, who specializes in focus groups, noted that swing voters groups “simply do not like” Vance. “Both his flip flopping on Trump and his extreme abortion position are what breaks through,” she wrote.

The 2024 election is not consuming all of the political oxygen, even in this astonishing week. Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that eight large companies must turn over information about the data they collect about consumers, product sales, and how the surveillance the companies used affected consumer prices.

“Firms that harvest Americans’ personal data can put people’s privacy at risk. Now firms could be exploiting this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices,” FTC chair Lina M. Khan said. “Americans deserve to know whether businesses are using detailed consumer data to deploy surveillance pricing, and the FTC’s inquiry will shed light on this shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen.”

The eight companies are: Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture, and McKinsey & Co.

In the House, Republicans have been unable to pass the appropriations bills necessary to fund the 2025 U.S. budget, laced as they are with culture-wars poison pills the extremists demand. Today House members debated the appropriations bill for the Interior Department and the Environment which, among other things, bans the use of funds “to promote or advance critical race theory” or to require Covid-19 masks or vaccine mandates.

According to the European climate service Copernicus, last Sunday was the hottest day in recorded history. The MAGA Republicans’ appropriations bill for Interior and the Environment calls for more oil drilling, fewer regulations on pollutants, no new regulations on vehicles, rejecting Biden’s climate change executive orders, and reducing the funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by 20%.

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/07/23/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-at-a-political-event-10/

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/23/politics/kfile-jd-vance-believed-donald-trump-sexual-assault-allegations-2016/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/23/politics/video/jd-vance-data-ebof-digvid-enten

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/23/gop-race-comments-harris-00170735

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/07/23/kamala-harris-foreign-policy-endorsement/

Tennessee Republican files articles of impeachment against Harris

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/republican-leaders-urge-colleagues-steer-clear-racist-sexist-112216267

Click to access 7-23-24-harris-honeymoon.pdf

Trump pollster predicts ‘Harris honeymoon’ in upcoming polls

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/07/ftc-issues-orders-eight-companies-seeking-information-surveillance-pricing

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/23/ftc-launches-probe-into-surveillance-pricing.html

https://apnews.com/article/hottest-day-climate-change-heat-wave-warming-71e3e9d1fbfdc8503ef36eabec9390bd

https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-approves-fy25-interior-environment-and-related-agencies

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/kamala-harris-biden-trump-election-07-23-24

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-campaign-biden-dropping-out/679183/

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https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/july-23-2024?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Miss Kansas reveals more about stunning statement that her abuser was in the audience

By Scottie Andrew, CNN 2 minute read Updated 9:22 PM EDT, Mon July 22, 2024

(There was a time when this would not have been allowed to be spoken of within the pageant, even after VAWA passed. I’m glad we’ve managed to raise a few generations with more confidence than we had at their ages.)

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/22/us/miss-kansas-abuser-domestic-violence-cec/index.html

Alexis Smith was crowned Miss Kansas last month. She wowed audiences when she told them that her abuser was in the audience, reinforcing her platform of ending domestic violence. Miss America/AP/FileCNN —

Being a pageant winner takes more than beauty and talent. The newly crowned Miss Kansas Alexis Smith showed that winning the title sometimes requires bravery, too.

Smith stunned the judges during her final interview at the Miss Kansas competition last month when she said that her abuser was in the audience.

It only reinforced the importance of her platform — “to eliminate unhealthy and abusive relationships.”

When asked about her vision for her tenure as Miss Kansas, Smith maintained her composure in a sparkly azure dress.

“Some of you out in this audience saw me very emotional, because my abuser is here today,” she said.

“But that’s not going to stop me from being on this Miss Kansas stage and from representing as the next Miss Kansas,” she continued to applause and cheers. “Because I and my community deserve healthy relationships.”

She provided more context in an Instagram post the month after her win. On the night of the pageant, she said, “someone I have been healing from tried to disrupt my peace.”

“Instead of falling into silence, I chose to live out my vision for a better world,” she wrote. “I took back my power — not just for myself, but for my dreams and everyone watching and listening.”

She added, “I’m ready to use my story, tools, and resources to end unhealthy relationships in all forms.”

I’ve recommended reading this author

to Scottie, a few times. It’s Jenny Lawson, the author and bookstore owner. She has an art Substack, too, to which I subscribe on the free plan. Again, Jenny Lawson is hilarious, but also sensitive, and sharing in a good way. Maybe some of you have caught her books. Anyway, I just read her recent blog post, referring to this Substack entry. So here’s the Substack, because there is a Share button there. Enjoy!

It’s okay to rest by Jenny Lawson (thebloggess)

Read on Substack

It’s okay to rest

JENNY LAWSON (THEBLOGGESS) JUL 22, 2024

This week I was more exhausted than normal. I fell asleep on the couch at 6pm. I couldn’t drag myself to see an author I love that I’d been looking forward to for weeks. It felt like it took an extraordinary amount of energy just to breathe, and the time that I normally devote to drawing while watching 90-Day-Fiance ended up with me curled up in a little ball wondering if this was illness or depression or both.

By this weekend I was feeling much better but I didn’t have enough time to draw the more complicated doodle that I’d sketched out with a pencil but never started to ink, so instead I did a simple portrait of my son, Hunter S. Thomcat, who was having his seventh restorative nap of the day and not feeling guilty about it at all. And it’s messy and imperfect and probably one of my favorite doodles because it was fun and ridiculous and reminded me that art is can be all of those things.

We can all take a lesson from cats sometimes.

It’s okay to rest, my friend. It’s okay to not always be productive. It’s okay to just be.

You’re further along than you think.

Hugs,

Jenny

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Another note from me (not Jenny Lawson): Jenny Lawson also blogs on WP, and is hilarious also there, but there is no reblog button; so check it out: https://thebloggess.com/ . I’m not trying to drive readers away from Scottie’s, but I bet we have time to read another article now and then! She’s great.