Housing, Community – Page 9 – The Tarbabys Blog

The ideas in Project 2025? Reagan tried them, and the nation suffered

Los Angeles Times – Opinion

Opinion: The ideas in Project 2025? Reagan tried them, and the nation suffered

Joel Edward Goza – August 25, 2024

FILE - In this March 30, 1981 file photo, President Ronald Reagan acknowledges applause before speaking to the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO at a Washington hotel. In 1981, Reagan signed an executive order that extended the power of U.S. intelligence agencies overseas, allowing broader surveillance of non-U.S. suspects. Recent reports that the National Security Agency secretly broke into communications on Yahoo and Google overseas have technology companies, privacy advocates and even national security proponents calling for a re-examination of Reagan's order and other intelligence laws. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File) — President Reagan, shown in 1981, based many of his policies on ideas from the Heritage Foundation publication “The Mandate for Leadership.” Project 2025 makes up a majority of the latest edition of this title and recommends many of the same extreme policies. (Ron Edmonds / Associated Press)More

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative playbook that would overhaul much of the federal government under a second Trump administration, has sparked fear and concern from voters despite the former president’s attempt to distance his campaign from the plan. But while Project 2025 might seem radical, most of it is not new. Instead, the now-famous document seeks to reanimate many of the worst racial, economic and political instincts of the Reagan Revolution.

Project 2025 begins with its authors (one of whom stepped down last month) boasting of the Heritage Foundation’s 1981 publication “The Mandate for Leadership,” which helped shape the Reagan administration’s policy framework. It hit its mark: Reagan wrote 60% of its recommendations into public policy in his first year in office, according to the Heritage Foundation. Yet the 900-plus-page Project 2025, itself a major component of a new edition of “The Mandate for Leadership,” does not contain any analysis of the economic and social price Americans paid for the revolution the Heritage Foundation and Reagan inspired.

If today’s economic inequality, racial unrest and environmental degradation represent some of our greatest political challenges, we would do well to remember that Reagan and the Heritage Foundation were the preeminent engineers of these catastrophes. Perhaps no day in Reagan’s presidency better embodied his policy transformations or the political ambitions of the Heritage Foundation than Aug. 13, 1981, when Reagan signed his first budget.

This budget dramatically transformed governmental priorities and hollowed out the nation’s 50-year pursuit of government for the common good that began during the New Deal. Once passed, it stripped 400,000 poor working families of their welfare benefits, while removing significant provisions from another 300,000. Radical cuts in education affected 26 million students. The number of poor Americans increased by 2.2 million, and the percentage of Black Americans living in poverty rose to a staggering 34.2%.

Of course, this was just the beginning of Reagan’s war on the poor, the environment and education. Following a Heritage Foundation plan, the Environmental Protection Agency’s operating budget would fall by 27%, and its science budget decreased by more than 50%. Funding for programs by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that provided housing assistance would be cut by 70%, according to Matthew Desmond’s “Poverty, By America.” Homelessness skyrocketed. And, as Project 2025 proposes, Reagan attempted to eliminate the Department of Education but settled for gutting its funding in a manner that set public education, in the words of author Jonathan Kozol, “back almost 100 years.” As funding for these issues nosedived under Reagan, financial support for the “war on drugs” skyrocketed and the prison population nearly doubled.

All the while, protections provided to the wealthy ballooned. Tax rates on personal income, corporate revenue and capital gains plummeted. For example, the highest income tax rate when Reagan took office was 70%. He would eventually lower it to 33%.

To ensure that wealth would be a long-lived family entitlement, Reagan instituted a 300% increase in inheritance tax protections through estate tax exemptions in his first budget. In 1980, the exemption stood at $161,000. By the time Reagan left office in 1989 it was $600,000. Today it is $13,610,000. This means that today nearly all wealthy children enjoy tax-free access to generational wealth.

And beginning during Reagan’s presidency, the number of millionaires and billionaires multiplied, increasing 225% and 400%, respectively, while the poverty of Americans across racial lines intensified. Even white males were more likely to be poor following Reagan’s presidency. Today poverty is the fourth-leading cause of death in the U.S., even though this is the wealthiest nation in the world.

If we feel like we live in a country that isn’t working for anyone who isn’t wealthy, these are some of the core reasons why. Looking back at the Reagan era and the Heritage Foundation’s original “Mandate for Leadership,” we must remember that our domestic wounds are largely self-inflicted, results of buying into racial, economic and environmental lies that continue to be sold. It is precisely the types of policies that devastated the nation during the Reagan administration that Project 2025 now seeks to resuscitate. Perhaps the only truly new thing Project 2025 suggests is using more authoritarian means to enact its agenda.

History has hinges, moments that change the trajectory of nations. The greatest progress in our country has almost always emerged during turbulent times. It is up to the United States’ most committed believers to close the door on terror and trauma and open one that leads to new democratic possibilities.

Our current moment represents more than an election. It is a turning point that has the potential to transform the United States for generations to come. We don’t need the version of the past that Project 2025 is trying to sell us. It didn’t work for most Americans then, and it won’t work for most of us now. But perhaps Project 2025 is the push the Democratic Party needed. While the Republican Party veers further into authoritarianism, Democrats must be equally determined to develop a truly equitable democracy and bind the wounds of a deeply divided nation.

Joel Edward Goza, a professor of ethics at Simmons College of Kentucky, is the author of the forthcoming book “Rebirth of a Nation: Reparations and Remaking America.”

A stark social divide: Adults without a college degree more likely to have no close friends, survey finds

NBC News

A stark social divide: Adults without a college degree more likely to have no close friends, survey finds

Aria Bendix – August 25, 2024

People swim at the Astoria Pool on the opening day (Spencer Platt / Getty Images) — For those without a college degree, there may be fewer opportunities to engage in social activities.

The Summary

In a survey, nearly a quarter of U.S. adults without a college degree said they had no close friends.
People without a college degree also reported less participation in social activities like going to parks or restaurants than college-educated adults.
The findings come amid a documented rise in loneliness and social isolation.

Nearly all U.S. adults used to have close friends.

In 1990, the share of the population that said they didn’t was low and roughly the same no matter one’s education level: just 2% for people with college degrees and 3% for those without.

But a recent survey suggests that share has risen overall, particularly among those who did not graduate college — creating a kind of class divide in people’s level of social engagement and connection. Nearly a quarter of U.S. adults with a high school diploma or lower education level said they had no close friends. The number was even higher for Black adults in that group: 35%.

Just 10% of those with a college degree said the same.

The findings come from a survey of around 6,600 adults conducted by the Survey Center on American Life, a nonprofit that researches how people’s lives are shaped by culture, politics and technology.

“Our social fabric seems to have two layers now,” said Daniel Cox, the center’s director and a co-author of a report published this week summarizing the findings. “It has one for college-educated folks that seems to be relatively intact, and then one for those without college degrees, which seems to be in tatters.”

The findings come amid a documented rise in social isolation nationwide. Around 30% of adults say they’ve felt lonely at least once per week over the past year, and 10% say they’re lonely every day, according to a January poll from the American Psychiatric Association.

The U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness an epidemic last year, citing its links to heart disease, stroke, dementia and premature death. San Mateo County, California, which includes part of Silicon Valley, subsequently declared a public health emergency over high rates of loneliness among residents.

“There’s been considerable decline and atrophy in American social connection,” said Cox, who is also a senior fellow of polling and public opinion at the conservative Washington think tank American Enterprise Institute, adding that although the pandemic helped bring the issue to light, “this decline had gone on for decades before.”

He offered a few ideas that might explain the trend. One is that being alone is less boring now, thanks to video games and streaming services, so people may be less likely to join social groups or spend time with friends or family. Another is that for those without a college degree, there are fewer opportunities to engage in social activities, perhaps because their access to free public spaces is more limited or they lack the time or money to frequent venues like bars and restaurants.

Cox’s survey found that college-educated adults were more likely to go to restaurants or coffee shops and to strike up conversations with neighbors, compared to people without a college degree. They were also more likely to be members of a neighborhood association, sports league or hobby group (like a book club or regular poker game).

“We put so much of the onus of creating and maintaining friends on individuals instead of institutions,” Cox said. “We’ve shifted all the work, all the effort, onto individuals who now have to coordinate, organize, schedule their social engagements, as opposed to having them occur organically out of the things that they’re already doing.”

People with a college degree were also more likely to be part of a labor union or to regularly attend church, the survey found — two venues that have historically given people with less formal education opportunities to socialize.

The survey even found an educational divide when it comes to free public venues like libraries and parks. Nearly 4 in 10 college-educated adults said they had visited a park or community garden at least once a month in the past year, compared to less than a quarter of those without a college education. And nearly half of college graduates said they had visited a library at least a few times in the past year, compared with a quarter of adults with a high school diploma or less.

“The places that are legitimately free — community centers and libraries — their hours of operation aren’t regular enough for a lot of folks,” Cox said. “Many of those places are closed in the evenings, and then there’s just not enough of them to meet the need.”

Part of the issue may have to do with geography: A 2022 study found that neighborhoods with higher poverty rates have fewer public gathering spaces. And many communities don’t have the money to invest in their public spaces, Cox said.

Limited free time and poor access to transportation likely play a role, as well, said Adam Roth, an assistant professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University, who wasn’t involved in the survey.

“If you live out in the suburbs and you have to change buses or trains or get in your car and do that however-long commute, that is going to be a prohibitive factor,” Roth said.

The story isn’t entirely bleak, though. A collection of surveys from 2022 and 2023 found that even though people in the U.S. desired to be closer to their friends, less than 3% reported having no friends at all. The surveys looked at both close friendships and casual acquaintances.

“Our data didn’t really spell doom and gloom,” said Amanda Holmstrom, a communication professor at Michigan State University who conducted that research. “People have friends — they feel like they don’t necessarily have the time to nurture those friends.”

Casual friendships still offer benefits, of course. Roth said that people report better psychological well-being on days when they have more interactions with a wider variety of people, including ones they barely know. Social interactions in general help reduce or stave off symptoms of anxiety and depression. Face-to-face interactions and engagement in community events have even been linked to lower levels of inflammation.

“The bottom line is, all types of social interactions and relationships matter, particularly for health and well-being,” Roth said. “But the probability of actually experiencing certain types of social interactions is at least partially dependent on the communities we live in.”

Fed’s Powell says ‘time has come’ for interest rate cuts

Yahoo! Finance

Fed’s Powell says ‘time has come’ for interest rate cuts

Myles Udland and Jennifer Schonberger – August 23, 2024

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell sent a straightforward message to markets in a key speech on Friday, saying “the time has come” for the central bank to begin lowering interest rates.

Speaking at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Powell said: “The time has come for policy to adjust.”

“The direction of travel is clear,” Powell added, “and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”

Powell’s speech comes just over three weeks out from the Fed’s Sept. 17-18 meeting, which should see the central bank announce its first interest rate cut since 2020.

Powell acknowledged recent softness in the labor market in his speech and said the Fed does not “seek or welcome further cooling in labor market conditions.”

The July jobs report rattled markets earlier this month, revealing that there were just 114,000 jobs added to the economy last month while the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, the highest since October 2021. Data earlier this week also showed that 818,000 fewer people were employed in the US economy as of March, suggesting reports have been overstating the strength of the job market over the last year.

“It seems unlikely that the labor market will be a source of elevated inflationary pressures anytime soon,” Powell said.

Ahead of Powell’s speech, investors had priced in nearly 100% odds the Fed would lower rates next month, with odds on a cut of 0.25% vs. 0.50% standing at roughly two to one.

“Four and a half years after COVID-19’s arrival, the worst of the pandemic-related economic distortions are fading,” Powell said.

“Inflation has declined significantly … Our objective has been to restore price stability while maintaining a strong labor market, avoiding the sharp increases in unemployment that characterized earlier disinflationary episodes when inflation expectations were less well anchored. While the task is not complete, we have made a good deal of progress toward that outcome.”

Powell’s remarks on Friday were reminiscent of those he delivered at Jackson Hole in 2022, in which the Fed chair offered a direct assessment of the economic outlook and, at the time, the need for additional rate increases.

FILE PHOTO: Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve walks in Teton National Park where financial leaders from around the world gathered for the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium outside Jackson, Wyoming, U.S., August 26, 2022. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart — Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, walks in Teton National Park, where financial leaders from around the world gathered for the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Aug. 26, 2022. (REUTERS/Jim Urquhart) (Reuters / Reuters)

“At this podium two years ago, I discussed the possibility that addressing inflation could bring some pain in the form of higher unemployment and slower growth,” Powell said.

“Some argued that getting inflation under control would require a recession and a lengthy period of high unemployment. I expressed our unconditional commitment to fully restoring price stability and to keeping at it until the job is done.”

Friday’s speech more or less suggests that the job is indeed done.

“All told, the healing from pandemic distortions, our efforts to moderate aggregate demand, and the anchoring of expectations have worked together to put inflation on what increasingly appears to be a sustainable path to our 2% objective,” Powell said.

Officials offer critical warning after US state confirms cases of rare but serious infection spread by animals: ‘It is transmitted by various rodents’

The Cool Down

Officials offer critical warning after US state confirms cases of rare but serious infection spread by animals: ‘It is transmitted by various rodents’

Doric Sam – August 19, 2024

Health officials in Arizona have grown concerned after seeing an increase in a rare virus spread by rodents that can cause serious health issues.

What’s happening?

As explained by Physician’s Weekly, the Arizona Department of Health Services announced in an alert that the state has seen an uptick in hantavirus infections, with seven confirmed cases and three deaths over the past six months.

“Hantavirus is a rare but important cause of serious, even fatal respiratory infection,” Dr. Aaron Glatt, chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in New York, told NBC News, per Physician’s Weekly. “It is transmitted by various rodents, especially the deer mouse, and can cause mild disease, but it does cause fatal illness in a significant percentage of people who acquire this illness.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most cases of hantavirus in the U.S. are reported in western and southwestern states, but Arizona is among the leaders in reported infections in the country. Health officials reported that there have been 11 hantavirus cases in Arizona between 2016 and 2022, per Physician’s Weekly.

Why is this important?

Hantavirus is spread when particles containing the virus get into the air from urine, saliva, or feces from deer mice. An infection can lead to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS).

Symptoms include fever, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Without treatment, the infection can spread to the lungs and cause shortness of breath, chest tightness and cough, according to the American Lung Association and summarized by Physician’s Weekly. Around 38% of those who experience lung symptoms may die from the infection.

Though it is a rare disease in the U.S., with the CDC reporting 850 cases between 1993 and 2021 (about 30 per year), the increase in hantavirus cases is an indication of a deeper problem.

According to Physician’s Weekly, experts theorized that “climate change, such as the extreme heat waves that have been sweeping across the county this summer, may also be partly to blame” for the rising number of infections.

Trish Lees, public information officer at Coconino County Health and Human Services in Arizona, told NBC News that cases are seen more frequently in the summer because of increased rodent activity and people coming into contact with rodents more often.

Dr. Camilo Mora, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, explained that rising temperatures cause rodents to seek shelter in similar ways that humans do.

“Many carrying-disease species get on the move with climate change — so while for any specific case it is difficult to conclude the role of climate change, climate change has all the attributes to cause outbreaks of vector-borne diseases,” Mora said, per Physician’s Weekly.

What’s being done about this?

Officials warned that the best way to protect yourself against hantavirus is to wear N95 masks, gloves, and protective clothing when entering an area that is dirty or riddled with rodents. Anyone who experiences symptoms should seek immediate medical attention.

“The best way to prevent infection with this illness is by carefully disinfecting and cleaning up any waste products from the rodents and by not coming into contact with them,” Glatt told NBC News.

Potential Tropical Cyclone Five expected to become tropical storm within next few days

WFLA

Potential Tropical Cyclone Five expected to become tropical storm within next few days

Sara Filips – August 11, 2024

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The National Hurricane Center issued its first advisory for Potential Tropical Cyclone Five on Sunday as it’s likely to develop into a tropical storm within the next few days.

The system has a 90% chance of development within the next seven days and has ramped up to an 80% chance within 48 hours, the NHC said in a 5 p.m. update.

Parrish resident says 6-foot flooding in backyard was from more than just rain

The wave, which is located about 1,530 miles east-southeast of Antigua, continues to show signs of organization.

The NHC said the system is moving toward the west-northwest at 21 mph with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph. It is expected to move across portions of the Leeward Islands on Tuesday and approach the U.S. and British Virgin Islands on Tuesday night.

“Some strengthening is forecast and the system is expected to become a tropical storm by late Monday,” the NHC said. Ernesto is the next storm name on the list.

“The good news is that it’s expected to turn to the north well to the east of the U.S. and Bahamas and may impact Bermuda later this week,” Max Defender 8 Meteorologist Eric Stone said. The system is not expected to impact Florida.

Watch Tracking the Tropics on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. CT.
Be prepared with the 2024 Hurricane Guide and stay ahead of tropical development with the Tracking the Tropics newsletter.

Why Japan issued its first-ever ‘megaquake advisory’ — and what that means

NBC News

Why Japan issued its first-ever ‘megaquake advisory’ — and what that means

Evan Bush – August 10, 2024

'Megaquake' explained: Japan issues warning after 7.1-magnitude earthquake

The Summary

Japan’s meteorological agency on Thursday issued its first-ever “megaquake advisory.”
The warning followed a 7.1-magnitude earthquake off the country’s southern coast.
That raises the risk of an even larger quake on the Nankai Trough, an underwater subduction zone that scientists believe is capable of producing temblors up to magnitude 9.1.

After a 7.1-magnitude earthquake shook southern islands in Japan on Thursday, the country’s meteorological agency sent out an ominous warning: Another, larger earthquake could be coming, and the risk will be especially high over the next week. In the first “megaquake advisory” it has ever issued, the agency said that the risk of strong shaking and a tsunami are greater than usual on the Nankai Trough, a subduction zone with the potential to produce magnitude 8 or 9 temblors. Area residents, it said, should prepare.

The message was not a prediction, but a forecast of enhanced risk — and it shows how far seismologists have come in understanding the dynamics of subduction zone earthquakes.

Here’s what to know about the situation.

A dangerous subduction zone

The Nankai Trough is an underwater subduction zone where the Eurasian Plate collides with the Philippine Sea Plate, forcing the latter under the former and into the Earth’s mantle.

Subduction zone faults build stress, and a so-called megathrust earthquake takes place when a locked fault slips and releases that stress. “Megaquake” is a shortened version of the name. These zones have produced the most powerful earthquakes in Earth’s history.

The Pacific “Ring of Fire” is a collection of subduction zones. In the U.S., the Cascadia subduction zone off the West Coast runs from Vancouver Island, Canada, to Cape Mendocino, California.

The Nankai Trough fault has several segments, but if the entire margin of the fault were to slip at once, Japanese scientists believe the trough is capable of producing an earthquake of up to magnitude 9.1.

Megaquake advisory in Japan (Kyodo via Reuters Connect) — A beach is closed in Nichinan in southwestern Japan on Friday, after the country’s issued its first warning about a possible megaquake.

If a megaquake were to happen near Japan, the Philippine Sea Plate would lurch, perhaps as much as 30 to 100 feet, near the country’s southeast coast, producing intense shaking. The vertical displacement of the seafloor would cause a tsunami and push waves toward the coast of Japan. Those waves could reach nearly 100 feet in height, according to estimates from Japanese scientists published in 2020.

A history of big quakes

The Nankai Trough has produced large earthquakes roughly every 100 to 150 years, a study indicated last year. Japan’s Earthquake Research Committee said in January 2022 said there was a 70% to 80% chance of a megathrust earthquake in the subsequent 30 years.

Large Nankai Trough earthquakes tend to come in pairs, with the second often rupturing in the subsequent two years. The most recent examples were “twin” earthquakes on the Nankai Trough in 1944 and 1946.

The phenomenon is due to the segmented nature of the fault; when one segment slips, it can stress another.

Thursday’s magnitude-7.1 earthquake took place on or near the subduction zone, according to the United States Geological Survey.

People stand outside after leaving a building following an earthquake (Kyodo News via AP) — People stand outside after leaving a building following an earthquake in Miyazaki on Thursday.

Harold Tobin, a University of Washington professor who has studied the Nankai Trough, said the magnitude-7.1 quake took place in a segment that shakes more frequently than others. Regular earthquakes can relieve stress, so the possibility that the segment itself produces a big earthquake is less of a concern. The worry is the earthquake’s proximity to a segment that’s been building stress since the 1940s. “It’s adjacent to the western Nankai region and that’s clearly locked up. That’s the reason for alert and concern,” Tobin said.

A forecast, not a prediction

Scientists can’t predict earthquakes, but they are developing the ability to forecast times of heightened risk, particularly in areas with frequent shaking and good monitoring equipment, like Japan.

Firefighters walk near a fallen building following earthquakes in Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP) — Firefighters walk near a fallen building in Wajima, in Japan’s Ishikawa prefecture, after a New Year’s Day earthquake.

Japanese authorities are asking residents to prepare, review evacuation routes and pay attention to potential future warnings. While the risk of a large quake is higher than usual, that doesn’t mean it will happen anytime soon. Japanese government warning guidelines suggest that the chance a large earthquake follows a magnitude-7 within a week is roughly “once per a few hundred times,” according to the study last year.

The most likely outcome is that the recent shaking won’t trigger anything, even though the probability of a large earthquake is higher.

“We might wait decades before Nankai has another earthquake,” Tobin said.

A known danger

In 2011, an area of the seafloor roughly the size of Connecticut lurched all at once, producing a magnitude-9.1 earthquake — the third biggest recorded worldwide since 1900. That megathrust earthquake caused a tsunami off Japan’s eastern coast. More than 18,000 people died in the tsunami and earthquake, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The following year, the Japanese government revised its natural disaster scenarios and found that some 323,000 people could die in a worst-case scenario earthquake on the Nankai Trough, mostly from tsunami effects.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone poses a similar risk for the U.S. West Coast, though megathrust earthquakes are expected there less often — every 300 to 500 years. This fault has the capability of producing a magnitude-9.1 earthquake and tsunami waves 80 feet in height. Researchers recently mapped the fault in detail and found it was divided into four segments.

5 ways Kamala Harris is attacking Trump

Yahoo! News

5 ways Kamala Harris is attacking Trump

Andrew Romano, Reporter – August 1, 2024

Ever since Vice President Kamala Harris took the baton last Sunday from her boss, President Biden, and instantly became the Democratic Party’s new de facto presidential nominee, she has enjoyed one of the most significant “honeymoons” in recent U.S. campaign history.

As a result, the latest polls show Harris closing the gap with Donald Trump in key swing states; pulling even nationally; and surpassing him in terms of favorability and enthusiasm.

Yet all honeymoons come to an end. If Harris hopes to win in November, she will have to differentiate herself from Biden — and convince a decisive number of voters to reject four more years of Trump.

In an attempt to do just that, Harris and her allies have been testing out five main lines of attack: that Trump is “weird”; that he is old; that he is scared to debate; that he is a felon; and that his “Project 2025” agenda is extreme.

Harris has been so committed to these themes that even when Trump questioned her race Wednesday — falsely claiming that she suddenly “made a turn” and “became a Black person” after “only promoting [her] Indian heritage” — she refused to get sucked into a culture war.

“The American people deserve better,” is all Harris said in response.

Meanwhile, Harris’s relentlessly on-message campaign used “Trump’s tirade” as an opportunity to ding his “harmful Project 2025 agenda” and challenge him to “actually show up for the debate on September 10.”

More on the strategic contrasts Harris is trying to draw:

Trump is ‘weird’

When Biden was running, he constantly called Trump a “threat to democracy.”

Harris hasn’t left that line of attack entirely behind. “Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate?” the vice president asked at a recent rally.

But for the most part, Harris and her allies have pivoted to a different anti-Trump message — one that comes across as a lot less alarmist and a lot more … dismissive.

“Some of what [Trump] and his running mate [JD Vance] are saying, it is just plain weird,” Harris said Saturday at her first fundraiser. “I mean that’s the box you put that in, right?”

The new term caught on after Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota — who has been using it for months — called Trump, Vance and their policies “weird” a few times last week.

“Listen to the guy,” Walz told CNN, referring to Trump. “He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter, and shocking sharks, and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind. And I thought we just give him way too much credit.”

Now other Harris surrogates are using it too, especially in reference to some of Vance’s recent remarks — and Walz has reportedly become one of Harris’s VP finalists.

So far, the “weird” attack has frustrated Republicans, “leading them to further amplify it through off-balance responses,” David Karpf, a strategic communication professor at George Washington University, told the Associated Press.

It “makes voters feel like Trump is out of touch,” added Brian Ott, a professor of communications at Missouri State University, in an interview with Newsweek. And “it’s hard to claim that it is in any way out of bounds politically, which makes any response to it seem like an overreaction and, well, weird.”

Trump is old

The first time the Harris campaign officially referred to Trump as “weird” was in a press release put out just days after the vice president announced her candidacy. But there was another, more familiar adjective alongside it.

“Trump is old and quite weird,” the statement said. “After watching Fox News this morning, we have only one question, is Donald Trump OK?”

As everyone knows, Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history; at 81, he was also on track to become the oldest presidential nominee in U.S. history until he ended his campaign last Sunday.

Now Trump, 78, has taken his place.

And so Harris, 59, has turned the tables and started describing the former president as someone who is “focused on the past” — while she, in contrast, is “focused on the future.”

For its part, the Harris campaign has been less euphemistic about the nearly two-decade age gap between the two candidates.

“Tonight, Donald Trump couldn’t pronounce words … went on and on and on, and generally sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant, let alone be president of the United States,” Harris spokesperson James Singer said after a recent Trump speech. “America can do better than [Trump’s] bitter, bizarre and backward-looking delusions.”

Trump is scared to debate

On Sept. 10, Trump and Biden were scheduled to debate for the second time this year. But after the president withdrew from the race — and Harris emerged as the new, de facto Democratic nominee — Trump started to backtrack.

“I haven’t agreed to anything,” Trump said on a press call last week. “I agreed to a debate with Joe Biden.” Around the same time, the former president suggested that ABC News should no longer host, calling the outlet “fake news.”

Harris immediately snapped back. “What happened to ‘any time, any place’?” she said in a post on X.

Since then, Trump has said “The answer is yes, I’ll probably end up debating” — while adding that he “can also make a case for not doing it.”

In response, Harris has seized on Trump’s waffling as evidence that “the momentum in this race is shifting” and that “Trump is feeling it,” as she put it Tuesday during a rally in Atlanta — effectively weaponizing the whole situation to question Trump’s confidence.

“Well, Donald,” Harris said in Atlanta, addressing Trump directly. “I do hope you’ll reconsider. Meet me on the debate stage … because as the saying goes, if you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.”

Trump is a felon

Harris debuted as a 2024 presidential candidate last Monday with an appearance at campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del. She spoke for about 20 minutes — but one passage in particular got the lion’s share of attention.

“As many of you know, before I was elected as vice president, before I was elected as United States senator, I was the elected attorney general, as I’ve mentioned, of California,” Harris said. “And before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor.”

“In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” the candidate continued, as laughing, applauding staffers began to realize what was coming next. “Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

Since then, Harris has used the same lines in every stump speech she’s delivered.

Biden, of course, would mention Trump’s civil and criminal cases on the campaign trail. But Harris’s résumé lends itself to a novel “prosecutor vs. felon” dynamic — one she could further emphasize by picking any of the former state attorneys general on her vice presidential shortlist when she reveals her running mate next week.

Trump’s Project 2025 agenda is extreme

For months, the Democratic Party has sought to tie Trump to Project 2025, a voluminous blueprint for a second Trump term that was created by the Heritage Foundation (a right-wing think tank) with input from at least 140 people who worked for Trump during his first term.

The reason is obvious. Democrats believe Project 2025 policies — deporting millions of immigrants, eliminating the Department of Education, installing loyalists throughout the federal bureaucracy, reversing federal approval of the abortion pill mifepristone — will be unpopular with the public.

Trump, meanwhile, seems to have come to the same conclusion. After Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts recently said America was “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Trump took to his Truth Social network to distance himself.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” the former president claimed. “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”

Earlier this week, the group announced that it was winding down its policy operations and letting go of its director amid pressure from the Trump campaign.

But Harris — who has called Project 2025 a “plan to return America to a dark past” — is not moving on.

“This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country,” Harris spokesperson Julie Chavez Rodriguez said Tuesday. “Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real — in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”

Spain, France, Germany: Heatwaves sweep across Europe with devastating consequences

Euro News

Spain, France, Germany: Heatwaves sweep across Europe with devastating consequences

Angela Symons – August 1, 2024

There’s no end in sight for Europe’s searingly hot summer, as heatwave warnings have been issued from Spain to Germany.

In Paris, too, Olympians have been forced to compete in searing heat – extremes that would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change, according to climatologist group World Weather Attribution (WWA).

Droughts and wildfires have broken out across the Mediterranean as a result of the hot weather, which looks set to continue throughout August and beyond in some parts.

Extreme heat currently claims more than 175,000 lives annually in Europe, with numbers set to soar, according to a report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) today.

Spain: Temperatures could surpass 43C

Yellow, orange and extreme red heatwave warnings have been issued by Spain’s Meteorological Agency (AEMET) as temperatures threaten to reach 43C in the southeast.

Sweltering highs are forecast across the country’s east coast, south and centre for the majority of August, reaching peak intensity on Thursday – with one in nine of AEMET’s weather stations reaching 40C or higher.

Baza in Grenada and northwest Murcia will be the hardest hit.

The temperature in Barcelona broke records on Tuesday, racing 40C – the hottest day the Catalan capital has seen in at least 110 years, when records began.

According to AEMET, temperatures are likely to be higher than normal until October across much of Spain.

Italy: Rome under maximum heat warning

Helicopters and fire engines tackled a large fire in north-west Rome on Wednesday as a heatwave gripped the Italian capital.

The city has been placed under a maximum heat warning, with temperatures in the high 30s expected on Thursday and Friday.

Florence, Bologna, Milan and Turin are among the other cities also under a red weather warning.

While the blaze on Monte Mario is now under control, Rome and the surrounding areas remain on high alert for wildfires.

The south of the country is facing persistent drought, with farmers in Sicily forced to slaughter or sell off livestock due to severe water shortages.

Germany: Heat warning issued as temperatures creep over 35C

It’s not only southern Europe facing the heat: German Weather Service DWD has issued a warning as parts of the country face 35C-plus temperatures.

Wednesday was expected to be the hottest day of the year – particularly southwest Germany, which will today be hit with thunderstorms and heavy rain as the warm air moves north.

Campaign groups have warned that the country is ill prepared for heatwaves, with Frankfurt’s Senckenberg Society for Nature Research urging the development of early warning systems as the threat of wildfires ramps up.

Environmental non-profit Deutsche Umwelthilfe, meanwhile, released a ‘heat check’ revealing that less than half of the 190 German cities analysed are adequately protecting their citizens against hot weather.

They say more unsealed surfaces and green spaces are needed in cities like Frankfurt and Stuttgart to make them liveable.

Olympic surfing kicks off in Tahiti: Why has Teahupo’o been a controversial choice of venue?

France: Extreme heat hits Paris Olympics

Temperatures in Paris reached 35C this week as the city continues to host the Olympic Games.

WWA has warned the high temperatures could impact athletes’ performance and lead to an increase in heat related illness.

Southeastern France is also facing extreme weather, with temperatures of up to 40C expected until at least 4 August. Orange heatwave warnings have been issued by weather service Météo-France in Corsica, Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes and the Occitanie region.

“Extreme heat events like July 2024 in the Mediterranean are no longer rare events,” says WWA. “Similar heatwaves affecting Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Morocco are now expected to occur on average about once every 10 years in today’s climate.”

Mediterranean heatwave ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change: scientists

AFP

Mediterranean heatwave ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change: scientists

AFP – July 31, 2024

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution group say the heatwave that hit countries around the Mediterranean in July would have been up to 3.3 degrees Celsius cooler in a world without climate change (FADEL SENNA)

The punishing heat experienced around the Mediterranean in July would have been “virtually impossible” in a world without global warming, a group of climate scientists said Wednesday.

A deadly heatwave brought temperatures well above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) to southern Europe and North Africa, where such extreme summer spells are becoming more frequent.

Scorching heat claimed more than 20 lives in a single day in Morocco, fanned wildfires in Greece and the Balkans, and strained athletes competing across France in the Summer Olympic Games.

World Weather Attribution, a network of scientists who have pioneered peer-reviewed methods for assessing the possible role of climate change in specific extreme events, said this case was clear.

“The extreme temperatures reached in July would have been virtually impossible if humans had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels,” according to the WWA report by five researchers.

The analysis looked at the average July temperature and focused on a region that included Morocco, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece.

Scientists used this and other climate data to assess how the heat in July compared to similar periods in a world before humanity began rapidly burning oil, coal and gas.

They concluded the heat recorded in Europe was up to 3.3C hotter because of climate change.

Beyond the Mediterranean, intense heat reached Paris this week where athletes competing in the Olympic Games withered as temperatures hit the mid-30s this week.

“Extremely hot July months are no longer rare events,” said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, a co-author of the study.

“In today’s climate… Julys with extreme heat can be expected about once a decade,” she said.

Scientists have long established that climate change is driving extreme weather and making heatwaves longer, hotter and more frequent.

This latest episode came in a month when global temperatures soared to their highest levels on record, with the four hottest days ever observed by scientists etched into the history books in July.

The past 13 months have been the warmest such period on record, exceeding a 1.5C limit that scientists say must be kept intact over the long term to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Wisconsin Republicans ask voters to take away governor’s power to spend federal money

Associated Press

Wisconsin Republicans ask voters to take away governor’s power to spend federal money

Scott Bauer – July 28, 2024

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers speaks before President Joe Biden at a campaign rally at Sherman Middle School in Madison, Wis., Friday, July 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

Wisconsin Republicans are asking voters to take away the governor’s power to unilaterally spend federal money, a reaction to the billions of dollars that flowed into the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers was free to spend most of that money as he pleased, directing most of it toward small businesses and economic development, angering Republicans who argued the Legislature should have oversight.

That’s what would happen under a pair of related constitutional amendments up for voter approval in the Aug. 13 primary election. The changes would apply to Evers and all future governors and cover any federal money to the state that comes without specific spending requirements, often in response to disasters or other emergencies.

Democrats and other opponents are mobilizing against the amendments, calling them a legislative power grab that would hamstring governors’ ability to quickly respond to a future natural disaster, economic crisis or health emergency.

If the amendments pass, Wisconsin’s government “will become even more dysfunctional,” said Julie Keown-Bomar, executive director of Wisconsin Farmers Union.

“Wisconsinites are so weary of riding the partisan crazy train, but it is crucial that we show up at the polls and vote ‘no’ on these changes as they will only make us go further off the rails,” she said in a statement.

But Republicans and other backers say it’s a necessary check on the governor’s current power, which they say is too broad.

The changes increase “accountability, efficiency, and transparency,” Republican state Sen. Howard Marklein, a co-sponsor of the initiative, said at a legislative hearing.

The two questions, which were proposed as a single amendment and then separated on the ballot, passed the GOP-controlled Legislature twice as required by law. Voter approval is needed before they would be added to the state constitution. The governor has no veto power over constitutional amendments.

Early, in-person absentee voting for the Aug. 13 election begins Tuesday across the state and goes through Aug. 11. Locations and times for early voting vary.

Wisconsin Republicans have increasingly turned to voters to approve constitutional amendments as a way to get around Evers’ vetoes. Midway through his second term, Evers has vetoed more bills than any governor in Wisconsin history.

In April, voters approved amendments to bar the use of private money to run elections and reaffirm that only election officials can work the polls. In November, an amendment on the ballot seeks to clarify that only U.S. citizens can vote in local elections.

Republicans put this question on the August primary ballot, the first time a constitutional amendment has been placed in that election where turnout is much lower than in November.

The effort to curb the governor’s spending power also comes amid ongoing fights between Republicans and Evers over the extent of legislative authority. Evers in July won a case in the Wisconsin Supreme Court that challenged the power the GOP-controlled Legislature’s budget committee had over conservation program spending.

Wisconsin governors were given the power to decide how to spend federal money by the Legislature in 1931, during the Great Depression, according to a report from the Legislative Reference Bureau.

“Times have changed and the influx of federal dollars calls for a different approach,” Republican Rep. Robert Wittke, who sponsored the amendment, said at a public hearing.

It was a power that was questioned during the Great Recession in 2008, another time when the state received a large influx of federal aid.

But calls for change intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic when the federal government handed Wisconsin $5.7 billion in aid between March 2020 and June 2022 in federal coronavirus relief. Only $1.1 billion came with restrictions on how it could be spent.

Most of the money was used for small business and local government recovery grants, buying emergency health supplies and paying health care providers to offset the costs of the pandemic.

Republicans pushed for more oversight, but Evers vetoed a GOP bill in 2021 that would have required the governor to submit a plan to the Legislature’s budget committee for approval.

Republican increased the pressure for change following the release of a nonpartisan audit in 2022 that found Evers wasn’t transparent about how he decided where to direct the money.

One amendment specifies the Legislature can’t delegate its power to decide how money is spent. The second prohibits the governor from spending federal money without legislative approval.

If approved, the Legislature could pass rules governing how federal money would be handled. That would give them the ability to change the rules based on who is serving as governor or the purpose of the federal money.

For example, the Legislature could allow governors to spend disaster relief money with no approval, but require that other money go before lawmakers first.

Opposing the measures are voting rights groups, the Wisconsin Democratic Party and a host of other liberal organizations, including those who fought to overturn Republican-drawn legislative maps, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobbying group, and the Badger Institute, a conservative think tank, were the only groups that registered in support in the Legislature.