With Republican-controlled states in a highly competitive race to the bottom in looking for ways to take away rights, strip supports from struggling families, and gut public education, wouldn’t it be nice if states controlled by Democrats would bring a fraction of that urgency to improving government and helping people?
Welcome back! Every week here on Nuts & Bolts I take time to look at issues surrounding big and small campaigns, and with the help of campaign staff, candidates, and organizations nationally I try to come up with a picture of what goes into a successful campaign, what we learn from the most recent elections, and the trends we think are emerging in the way we communicate our message to voters.
From Kate McKinnon’s first sketch on Saturday Night Live in 2012, it was evident she’d be a star. Appearing in a Pantene commercial as Penélope Cruz, alongside then-host Sofía Vergara, McKinnon delivered Cruz’s Castilian Spanish accent with a winking twist.
Despite high inflation, the U.S. is “moving from the strongest economic recovery in modern history to what can be a period of more stable and resilient growth,” Brian Deese said.
Ashish Jha said he doesn’t expect monkeypox will become a particularly big threat.
The poet Mary Oliver was a legendary observer of nature. She chronicled scuttling hermit crabs and mossy hollows, “freshets of wind” and the “wild, clawed light” of the sun.Her reverence for the natural world was clear—not just because she described it so frequently, but because of her exquisite detail. Oliver wrote with the kind of precision that came from the heightened attention of deep love.
The findings come as a Louisiana judge issued a preliminary injunction on Friday blocking the administration from ending the order on Monday.
Margaret Atwood came to fiction by way of poetry, as did Michael Ondaatje and Wole Soyinka. In their novels, as in those of the Japanese writer Mieko Kawakami, who wrote songs and poems before turning to fiction, the attention to sensory experience is particularly keen, concise, and meaningful. Kawakami doesn’t just assemble a tactile detail and park it in a scene. Sensation itself drives her scenes, the way the senses can steer a poem.
In the weeks after the 2020 election, one particular Michigan woman was trumpeting claims of fraud as loudly as she could. Kristina Karamo, a community-college professor who’d previously accused Democrats of having a “satanic agenda,” went on Fox News again and again to describe how illegal ballots supposedly had been tallied for Joe Biden at the TCF Center in Detroit, where she worked as a poll watcher.
Starting in the spring of 2020, school boards and superintendents across the country faced a dreadful choice: Keep classrooms open and risk more COVID-19 deaths, or close schools and sacrifice children’s learning. In the name of safety, many districts shut down for long periods. But researchers are now learning that the closures came at a stiff price—a large decline in children’s achievement overall and a historic widening in achievement gaps by race and economic status.
Telemedicine groups are looking to bolster privacy protections ahead of Roe decision.
It could all come down to … Joe Manchin.
The committee found that the vaccine has largely been safe for that population of children, with incidents of myocarditis and other rare adverse events lower compared to older kids.
Experts point to the many reasons behind the state’s crisis.
“He is fully vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19, and is experiencing mild symptoms,” a spokesperson said.
On a month-to-month basis, prices rose 0.3% from March to April, a still-elevated rate but the smallest increase in eight months.
Rates this year could reach their highest levels since before the 2008 Wall Street crash if surging prices continue.
The government said gross domestic product shrank at a 1.4 percent annualized rate in the first quarter.
The steady spending suggested the economy could keep expanding this year even though the Federal Reserve plans to raise rates aggressively to fight the inflation surge.
The war in Ukraine will “severely” set back the global recovery from Covid-19, according to the IMF.
During a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Democratic Congressmember Lucy McBath of Georgia shared her personal story about accessing reproductive care after experiencing a stillbirth. In doing so, she pointed out how anti-abortion politicians and legislators fail to see the medical necessity of abortion in instances such as hers. “We can be the nation that rolls back the clock, that rolls back the rights of women, and that strips them of their very liberty.
After a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion revealed the intention to overturn Roe v. Wade, abortion has increasingly become a state issue, with conservative states criminalizing the procedure. Oklahoma approved a bill on Thursday that outlaws almost all abortions beginning at fertilization. The measure is modeled after a Texas ban that encourages private citizens to sue abortion providers and people who assist in abortions.
As Buffalo, New York, mourns the loss of the 10 people killed Saturday in a racist rampage at a local grocery store in the heart of the city’s African American community, we get an update from longtime community activist and former mayoral candidate India Walton about the lack of attention to the structural issues that made the Black community vulnerable and the ineffectiveness of police.
The Buffalo shooter wrote racist screeds online before targeting and killing people in a majority-Black neighborhood. We look at the incident’s similarities to other white supremacist killings, particularly the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Amy Spitalnick is the executive director of Integrity First for America, a nonprofit organization that successfully sued the white supremacist organizers of Unite the Right.
Yesterday, we discussed the hyperventilation over Russia’s Popasna advance, the one place on the entire Texas-sized country of Ukraine in which they’ve had some recent success. Today? “There have been no notable changes to control since the last update.
Lower vaccination rates were critical to the death-rate difference, say researchers.
Over the last few days, we’ve had some diaries about religion and the impact of religion on the world and on politics. I understand the frustration with religious leaders who offer viewpoints that are damaging, not based in science, and harmful to the rights of others. Graphics, comments, quotes—they can all add up to a set of conclusions in novapsyche’s diary. Comments showed others putting forward their own thoughts, and I find everyone’s experiences meaningful.
As usual, War Mapper has the best visualizations of daily battlefield changes:
Updates: 🇷🇺 captured Novoselivka, Northwest of Lyman. 🇷🇺 continued its advances in the vicinity of Popasna, taking control of the villages of Viktorivka and Vyskryva. pic.twitter.
Wells Fargo is once again making headlines for being a terrible, unethical company even by the poor standards of the financial industry. Just over two years after the bank paid a $3 billion fine for opening millions of fake accounts in the names of actual customers, current and former employees are alleging that they were told to conduct fake interviews to fulfill Wells Fargo’s diversity policies.
Former President Donald Trump has been uncharacteristically quiet about the expected decision on Roe.