They like some children, just not yours

Republicans have hated Head Start since Lyndon Johnson signed it into law in 1965, and for good reason: it gives those people's children a fighting chance to keep up with their wealthier, whiter peers. Since we can't have that, the OAFPOTUS's droogs have proposed quietly dismantling the program by eliminating most of the regulations that make it work. In other words, since they can't actually kill Head Start without a noisy Congressional debate, they're just going to make it impossible to function, like getting rid of recess by simply removing the fences from the playground and waiting for the parents to complain about missing children. (As long as it's not they're children, of course.)

In other news of things that could have been avoided:

• Abdul El-Sayed squeaked out a victory in the Democratic Party primary election for US Senate in Michigan last night, but his narrow win demonstrated how very, very wrong the polls were, only 90 days before the 2026 general election. Jeff Maurer has a similar but more frustrated view.
• Meanwhile, the geriatric Democratic leadership handed the Republicans a gift that pushes the current budget's expiration past the election, in the interest of working "across the aisle" with Republicans who admit they won't do anything to rein in the OAFPOTUS even though that's their job. (I swear, we live in the supidest timeline.)
• The Secretary of Heath and Human Services is completely batshit crazy, in case anyone was wondering.
• Paul Krugman advises Democrats to hit Republicans hard for getting snugglier with oligarchs, and maybe take the billionaires' 50-point net-disapproval out for a spin? Robert Reich agrees.
• Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D) signed HB 4592 into law yesterday. Among other things, the law mandates employers continue to pay employees out on jury service, requires a noise study of O'Hare every 5 years, and requires businesses keep $500 in cash on hand to accept cash payments.
• Wildfires that mostly destroyed the seaside Bordeaux village of Le Porge, France, also set off 100 shells and other munitions left buried after WWII, leading to the discovery of several hundred more unexploded bombs in the area.
• After all of this, and à propos of a conversation I had with a friend yesterday, Steve Inskeep asks, "should we embrace interesting times?"

Finally, Chicago's Divvy bike-share program has hit new ridership records, prompting the Chicago Department of Transportation to install a bunch of new racks along the lakefront. The DOT reports that Divvy hit an all-time record of 47,000 trips in one day on July 11th. I live less than 200 meters from one of the bigger racks in the area, so whenever I have to go somewhere that's a little too far to walk, I just grab one. I'm very happy the system is doing so well.