J.D. Vance goes crazier

J.D. Vance Tells Tucker Carlson The Quiet Part Out Loud: He Wants A ‘Healthy Ruling Class’

Controversial right-wing Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance bashed Democrats as miserable “childless cat ladies” who don’t serve a “healthy ruling class,” he told Tucker Carlson on Fox News.

The Republican candidate — a venture capitalist and author of “Hillbilly Elegy” — attacked Democrats who don’t have children because, he claimed, “they don’t have a stake” in the system, he explained to Carlson on Thursday night. Vance, 36, who has been married seven years, has two children.

“If we want a healthy ruling class in this country, we should invest more, we should vote more, we should support more people who actually have kids,” Vance told Carlson.

He singled out Vice President Kamala Harris (who has two stepchildren), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Both Ocasio-Cortez, 31, and Buttigieg, 39, rather famously have dogs, not cats, and Buttigieg isn’t a lady. Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten Buttigieg, on Monday slammed Vance’s earlier comments attacking the “childless left” for being heartless and pointed out that the men are currently seeking to adopt a child.
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Republican star Lauren Boebert spins fables about her childhood -- but the real story is better

This is a fascinating story...

The strange saga of the gun-toting GOP congresswoman, her single mom, the pro wrestler and the corrupt phlebotomist
By ZACHARY PETRIZZO, Salon, PUBLISHED JULY 31, 2021 6:00AM (EDT)

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a right-wing Republican and prominent member of the "Sedition Caucus," frequently speaks about her upbringing in a family struggling with poverty, describing herself as a "welfare child." Boebert has even blamed the liberal ideals held by her mother as the reason why her family was poor and required government assistance during her childhood.

But both in Washington circles and in speaking to voters in her Colorado district, Boebert has not discussed in detail exactly what circumstances landed the future right-wing firebrand and her mother in this disadvantaged situation. An investigation by Salon suggests that it had less to do with liberal ideology and more to do with her mother's failure to obtain the child support payments to which she was rightfully entitled.

Boebert's mother, Shawn Roberts Bentz, tried valiantly for years to receive child support. — and it appears likely that she and her daughter fell victim to a corrupt phlebotomist, a professional wrestler turned deadbeat dad and a negligent North Carolina child support system that allowed Bentz's case to slide through the cracks.

Boebert has occasionally been asked what role her biological father played in her family's struggles, and has repeatedly declined to answer. Exactly who her father was, in fact, remains officially uncertain: No father's name was listed on her 1986 Florida birth certificate, nor in the local newspaper's birth announcement.
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Covid is more mysterious than we often admit.

Interesting article that may change some of our notions about COVID. From The Morning by David Leonhardt, published July 30, 2021.
This article can be found by searching for "The Morning" on the NYTimes website.

Not in control

Consider these Covid-19 mysteries:
• In India — where the Delta variant was first identified and caused a huge outbreak — cases have plunged over the past two months. A similar drop may now be underway in Britain. There is no clear explanation for these declines.
• In the U.S., cases started falling rapidly in early January. The decline began before vaccination was widespread and did not follow any evident changes in Americans’ Covid attitudes.
• In March and April, the Alpha variant helped cause a sharp rise in cases in the upper Midwest and Canada. That outbreak seemed poised to spread to the rest of North America — but did not.
• This spring, caseloads were not consistently higher in parts of the U.S. that had relaxed masking and social distancing measures (like Florida and Texas) than in regions that remained vigilant.
• Large parts of Africa and Asia still have not experienced outbreaks as big as those in Europe, North America and South America.

How do we solve these mysteries? Michael Osterholm, who runs an infectious disease research center at the University of Minnesota, suggests that people keep in mind one overriding idea: humility.

“We’ve ascribed far too much human authority over the virus,” he told me.

‘Much, much milder’
Over the course of this pandemic, I have found one of my early assumptions especially hard to shake. It’s one that many other people seem to share — namely, that a virus always keeps spreading, eventually infecting almost the entire population, unless human beings take actions to stop it. And this idea does have crucial aspects of truth. Social distancing and especially vaccination can save lives.

But much of the ebb and flow of a pandemic cannot be explained by changes in human behavior. That was true with influenza a century ago, and it is true with Covid now. An outbreak often fizzles mysteriously, like a forest fire that fails to jump from one patch of trees to another.
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This is what happens when states cut public funding of family planning

Iowa abortions climbed 14% in 2020, after jumping 25% the previous year, new state data show
Tony Leys, Des Moines Register

The number of abortions performed in Iowa climbed nearly 14% in 2020, after jumping 25% the previous year, new state data show.

Iowa had seen years of steady declines in abortions before 2019. But that trendline has changed.

The state saw 4,058 abortions performed in 2020, up from 3,566 in 2019 and 2,849 in 2018, the new numbers show.

The new data were shared with legislative staff Thursday by the Iowa Department of Public Health.

The turnaround in abortion numbers came in the wake of Iowa’s 2017 decision to withdraw from a federally funded family planning program, which helped thousands of Iowans gain birth control supplies and information on how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The program was replaced with a state-run version, which barred Planned Parenthood's participation and has served fewer Iowans.

It also comes amid a series of laws the Legislature and governor approved that attempt to limit abortion in Iowa.

Advocates differ sharply on reasons for the trend

State Sen. Janet Petersen, a Des Moines Democrat, said in an interview that she wasn't surprised to see the abortion rate rise for a second year.

"I once again think that when they take family planning services away from Iowans and expect abortion numbers to drop, they're just kidding themselves," said Petersen, who forwarded the information to the Des Moines Register. The information was included in an email from an Iowa Department of Health legislative liaison, titled "Induced Termination Raw Data."

Petersen is a supporter of abortion rights, and an opponent of state policies that she contends restrict birth control options.

Stuck at Prom: Duck Tape Masterpieces

I was never this creative as a teen. I wish they could all win the main prize. See all the finalists at https://www.duckbrand.com/stuck-at-prom

15 rolls of tape and 80 hours of work: Iowa teen makes duct tape tuxedo

A senior at Jesup High School made an Iowa-themed tuxedo entirely out of duct tape — and has the chance to win a $10,000 scholarship for the work.

Casey Alferink, 18, had a lot of free time during study halls as a spring semester senior, he said, and was looking for scholarships to apply to when he stumbled across the duct tape "Stuck at Prom" competition.

"I love art and creating things — especially 3-D things," Alferink said. "I was super excited to learn about this scholarship because I got to use my more creative side and show off my creativity — something different than an essay."

Casey Alferink, a senior at Jesup High School, created a tuxedo entirely out of duct tape as a part of the "Stuck at Prom" scholarship competition.

Each year, Duck Brand hosts the competition and asks graduating seniors to submit their homemade tuxedos and dresses, all made entirely out of the tape. The winners in the dress and tux categories each get a $10,000 scholarship; runners-up win a $500 cash scholarship and a Duck Brand Prize Pack worth $100. . .

source: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/life/2021/07/01/jesup-high-school-senior-makes-iowa-themed-tuxedo-out-duct-tape-duck-brand-stuck-at-prom/7829056002/