by: Spencer Humphrey/KFOR Posted: Aug 8, 2024 / 10:00 PM CDT, Updated: Aug 9, 2024 / 06:06 PM CDT
(I sent this to me to post a couple of days ago; I lost it in the Inbox. But it’s been updated, anyway, so here it is. I suppose this is another thing, like the taxpayer-funded trips, that Walters, et al. were doing while everyone was looking at the Bibles in the classroom thing. In addition, most of the links included here go to yet more stories about Walters and his crew.)
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — The Oklahoma State Department of Education is attempting to take away certain funds the state legislature allotted school districts to make security enhancements after the Uvalde shooting, even though OSDE’s website said districts would be able to keep the money—until lawmakers began asking questions.
Now, numerous Republican lawmakers are calling for State Superintendent Ryan Walters to be held accountable, with at least one of them calling for Walters to be impeached for the first time.
In 2023, Oklahoma legislators overwhelmingly passed House Bill 2904. The bill provided Oklahoma schools with $150 million to make security enhancements to campuses and hire school resource officers in the wake of the 2022 shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which left 21 people dead.
HB2904 created a three year revolving fund, in which every school district in the state would receive approximately $96,000 per year for three years to make the improvements.
Several superintendents from mostly rural districts across Oklahoma told News 4 it was their understanding that they would be allowed to roll over any unused funds from one year to the next.
They told News 4 they planned to let their ‘Year One’ funds roll over to the following years until they saved enough to pay for improvements that would cost more than $96,000.
But now, those superintendents—who spoke to News 4 anonymously—say the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) denied them access to leftover ‘Year One’ funds they had not yet spent.
The superintendents say, without the leftover Year One funds available, they will have to cut the security improvements they planned to make, including additional school resource officers, secure entry vestibules, bulletproof windows, and more.
OSDE’s lawyers are now telling lawmakers they believe HB2904 did not allow for funds to rollover each year.
This bill’s authors say that is not, and never was the case.
Several republican lawmakers spoke out to News 4 about the issue, and how they feel about Walters’ role in it all.
“It gets me upset,” State Rep. Eddy Dempsey (R-Valliant) said.
Ceasefire is a diplomatic gimmick, They cease only to hit back harder. Demilitarization is what we need, We got no use for one more ceasefire.
Ceasefire only postpones war, disarmament instills peace. Armistice empowers armament, demilitarization plants peace.
Tyrants don’t call truce to allow aid, but only to rearm themselves, so they can call in more ammunition, from their apely imperialist friends.
One more ceasefire we could do without, World is wailing for the final ceasefire. Disown every statesman who prides military, Builders of military are merchants of murder.” ― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets
I don’t care if there was an entire army hold up there, there are rules to war that Israel has violated each one. They are willing and wantonly killing civilians. Plus they are trying to sabotage the peace plans. I am very glad Biden is not running because he is allowing Israel to get away with this. Hugs. Scottie
Hi everyone. Thanks to Ali for correcting my post to include the link. Ali you really are grand. The total is not up to 100 dead. Hugs. Scottie
Israeli airstrike on a Gaza school used as a shelter kills at least 80, Palestinian officials say
At the link about there are pictures and videos of the devatation and the shock of the people including the kids. Hugs. Scottie
BY WAFAA SHURAFA AND SAMY MAGDY
Updated 6:13 PM EDT, August 10, 2024
An Israeli airstrike hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza early Saturday, killing at least 80 people and wounding nearly 50 others, Palestinian health authorities said, in one of the deadliest attacks of the 10-month Israel-Hamas war. A witness said it struck during prayers at a mosque in the building.
It was the latest of what the U.N. human rights office called “systematic attacks on schools” by Israel, with at least 21 since July 4 leaving hundreds dead, including women and children.
“For many, schools are the last resort to find some shelter,” it said after Saturday’s attack.
The Israeli military acknowledged it targeted the Tabeen school in central Gaza City, saying it hit a Hamas command center in a mosque in its compound and killed 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. Izzat al-Rishq, a top Hamas official, denied there were militants in the school.
Israel’s military also disputed the toll, saying the “precise munitions” used “cannot cause the amount of damage that is being reported” by the Hamas-run government. It said the steps it took to limit the risk to civilians included the use of a “small warhead,” aerial surveillance and intelligence information.
Walls were blown out on the ground level of the large building. Concrete chunks and twisted metal lay on the blood-soaked floor. Bodies, some in bloodstained shrouds, were placed shoulder to shoulder in makeshift graves, making room for more.
Fadel Naeem, director of the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, told The Associated Press that it received 70 bodies along with the body parts of at least 10 others. Gaza’s Health Ministry said that another 47 people were wounded.
“We received some of the most serious injuries we encountered during the war,” he said, with many wounded having limbs amputated and some with severe burns.
The strike hit without warning before sunrise as people prayed, according to witness Abu Anas.
“There were people praying, there were people washing and there were people upstairs sleeping, including children, women and old people,” he said, prayer beads in hand. “The missile fell on them without warning. The first missile, and the second. We recovered them as body parts.”
Three missiles ripped through the two-story building — the first floor housed the mosque, and the second level had a school — where about 6,000 displaced people were taking shelter, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense first responders, who operate under the Hamas-run government.
Many of the casualties were women and children, he said.
A camera operator working for the AP said a missile appeared to have penetrated the floor of the classrooms to the mosque below and exploded.
The U.N. previously said that as of July 6, 477 out of 564 schools in Gaza had been directly hit or damaged in the war, adding that Israel has a duty under international law to provide safe shelter for the displaced.
“There’s no justification for these massacres,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement posted on X, referring to strikes on schools. U.K. Foreign Minister David Lammy said that he was “appalled.” France’s foreign ministry called the recent number of civilian victims in Israeli strikes on schools “intolerable.”
The U.S. said it was deeply concerned about reports of civilians killed.
“Far too many civilians continue to be killed and wounded,” U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said in a statement.
Israel has blamed civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, saying the group endangers people by using schools and residential neighborhoods as bases for operations. The U.N. human rights office acknowledged that colocating combatants with civilians is a violation of international humanitarian law, but that Israel must also comply with the law’s principles of precaution and proportionality.
Egypt, which borders Gaza, said that the strike on the school showed that Israel had no intention of reaching a cease-fire deal. Neighboring Jordan condemned the attack as a “blatant violation” of international law. Qatar demanded an international investigation, calling it a “heinous crime” against civilians.
Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking to reporters traveling with her in Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday, said of the Israeli strike in Gaza: “Yet again, far too many civilians have been killed.”
“Israel has a right to go after the terrorists that are Hamas,” she said. “But as I have said many, many times they also have, I believe, an important responsibility to avoid civilian casualties.”
Pressed on the fact that such comments have done little to lower the numbers of civilians in Gaza killed in recent months, Harris said, “First and foremost — and the president and I have been working on this around the clock — we need to get the hostages out.”
“We need a hostage deal and we need a cease-fire,” she said. “And I can’t stress that strongly enough. It needs get to done. The deal needs to get done and it needs to get done now.”
Late on Friday, two separate airstrikes in central Gaza killed at least 13 people, including three children and seven women, hospital authorities said. An AP journalist counted the bodies at the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah.
One strike hit a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing seven people, all but one of them women, hospital officials said. Another hit a house in Deir al-Balah, killing six, including a woman and her three children, the hospital said.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,790 Palestinians and wounded more than 92,000 others, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its tally. The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants from Gaza stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250 others.
Families of hostages demonstrated again Saturday night in Tel Aviv seeking a cease-fire deal to bring loved ones home.
More than 1.9 million of Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, fleeing repeatedly across the territory to escape offensives. Most are crowded into tent camps in an area of about 50 square kilometers (19 square miles) on the Gaza coast with few basic services or supplies.
In the occupied West Bank, dozens of people gathered in Ramallah to protest the latest Israeli strike on a school.
“The message that must be sent to the world, a numb world, a world that is not moving, is ‘how long will the war continue?’” asked one, Muin Barghouti.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Washington contributed.
Donald Trump’s Very Good, Very Normal Press Conference Split Screen: Joy and Freedom vs. Whatever the Hell That Was (No photo on the page.)
Donald Trump took a break from taking a break to put on some pants and host a p̶r̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶f̶e̶r̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ public meltdown. We have a lot to say about it. Here are some initial thoughts – with more to come.
He hasn’t campaigned all week. He isn’t going to a single swing state this week. But he sure is mad Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are getting big crowds across the battlegrounds.The facts were hard to track and harder to find in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago meltdown this afternoon. He lied. He attacked the media. He made excuses for why he’s off the campaign trail. We’re here to help because his staff clearly isn’t.
But first, an important reminder on the question Donald didn’t answer: how he will vote on the Florida abortion referendum. (He has been ducking this question since April.) We worked to pin down reality so Donald Trump, bless his heart, doesn’t have to. Here are the facts:
People have spoken to bigger crowds than Donald Trump. (Obama, Clinton, literally anyone at Lollapalooza, Coachella, the World Cup…)
January 6th was decidedly nothing like MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. And Trump did not get a bigger crowd than Martin Luther King Jr. on that historic day.
There was famously not a “peaceful transfer” of power after the 2020 election, which Donald Trump fought to overturn. (Famously.) Five police officers died because of January 6th.
Donald Trump said he was off the trail this week because of the Democratic convention. (That convention is not happening this week.)
Trump said they have commercials at a level no one else does. (He is being drastically outspent on the airwaves.)
Abortion is not “less of an issue” for voters. It is not “subdued.” It is not a “small issue” for voters, despite how much Donald Trump wants it to be. Donald Trump did not answer the abortion question “very well in the debate.”
Everybody did not want Roe v. Wade overturned. The American people do not support states banning abortion.
The subject of South African pass laws makes me think of the GOP’s Agenda 47, and Project 2025…
August 9, 1943 Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector who reported for induction but refused to serve in the army of the Third Reich, was executed by guillotine at Brandenburg-Gorden prison. An American, Gordon Zahn, wrote about Jägerstätter while researching the subject of German Roman Catholics’ response to Hitler. Zahn’s book, In Solitary Witness, influenced Daniel Ellsberg’s decision to stand against the Vietnam War by bringing the previously secret Pentagon Papers to public attention.Against the Stream by Erna Putz, the story of the courage of Franz Jägerstätter: https://www.c3.hu/~bocs/jager-a.htm August 9, 1945 The second atomic bomb, “Fatman,” was dropped on the arms-manufacturing and key port city of Nagasaki. The plan to drop a second bomb was to test a different design rather than one of military necessity. The Hiroshima weapon was a gun type, the Nagasaki weapon an implosion type, and the War Department wanted to know which was the more effective design.Responsibility for the timing of the second bombing had been delegated by President Harry Truman before the Hiroshima attack to Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, the commander of the 509th Composite Group on Tinian, one of the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific. Scheduled for August 11 against Kokura, the raid was moved forward to avoid a five-day period of bad weather forecast to begin on August 10. English translation of leaflet air-dropped over Japan after the first bomb [excerpt]:“We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate.”Of the 195,000 population of the city (many of its children had been evacuated due to bombing in the days just prior), 39,000 died and 25,000 were injured, and 40% of all residences were damaged or destroyed.“What on earth has happened?” said my mother, holding her baby tightly in her arms. “Is it the end of the world?” Sachiko Yamaguchi (nine years old at the time of the bombing).Hear an eyewitness account of this terrrible eventPhotographic exhibit of the aftermath August 9, 1956 20,000 women demonstrated against the pass laws in Pretoria, South Africa. Pass laws required that Africans carry identity documents with them at all times. These books had to contain stamps providing official proof the person in question had permission to be in a particular town at a given time. Initially, only men were forced to carry these books, but soon the law also compelled women to carry the documents. August 9, 1966 Two hundred people sat in at the New York City offices of Dow Chemical Company to protest the widespread use in Vietnam of Dow’s flammable defoliant Napalm. Napalm in use in Vietnam Read more about Dow Chemical and the use of napalm: https://thevietnamwar.info/napalm-vietnam-war/
August 9, 1987 Hundreds were arrested in an all-day blockade of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Golden, Colorado. Protests at Rocky Flats had been going on for some years.
JD Vance said that “we have to go to war” against the idea that women can decide not to have children, suggesting that someone who focuses on building their career instead of making babies will be “a sad, lonely, pathetic person.” https://t.co/LxQtdWKhOQpic.twitter.com/CsYe0e1Qd4
In the days leading up to the announcement of Kamala Harris’ VP pick, progressives argued that the sitting veep needed to choose a running mate who would excite the Democrats’ more liberal voters, rather than chasing centrists. Others insisted that picking a vice presidential candidate is merely a game of electoral math, and that Harris should choose an inoffensive candidate who can also help the ticket win a key swing state — the same logic behind the selection of former Virginia governor Tim Kaine as Hillary Clinton’s potential VP in 2016.
On Tuesday, all sides got their wish granted.
By now, you are likely already aware that Harris has chosen Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who was once viewed as a longshot in the veepstakes behind buzzier picks like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. But many of those selections, while better known to the general public, would have brought with them specific liabilities.
Choosing Kelly, a former astronaut, would have permitted Republicans to call a special election to fill his Senate seat, thus imperiling the Democrats’ control of the Senate. While Shapiro could have helped Democrats secure Pennsylvania, his office has been rocked by several scandals in the past week, including the unearthing of an op-ed he penned in college in which he said Palestinians were “too battle-minded” for self-governance. As Attorney General in 2018, when his office was tasked with reviewing the controversial decision to rule the 2011 death of Philadelphia resident Ellen Greenberg a suicide rather than a homicide, Shapiro’s office declined to change the ruling. Beshear, hailing from a red state that Republicans won by 25 points in 2020, brings little electoral map benefit.
Walz, although previously unknown to most Americans, brings several advantages to the ticket. Polls have indicated throughout the year that Minnesota is a potential surprise swing state pickup for the GOP in November, despite having gone blue since 1972: Although President Joe Biden won the state by seven points in 2020, challenger Donald Trump had been within spitting distance in Minnesota polling throughout the year. An April survey showed Biden up just two points, and four in June, likely just outside the poll’s margin of error. While Biden is no longer the nominee, a major part of Harris’ task early in the race has been rebuilding her predecessor’s pallid polling, especially in the Midwest and the Sun Belt, which are considered key for victory in November.
But the selection of Walz is not merely a defensive move: He also brings with him a solid record on LGBTQ+ equality. Walz was one of the earliest governors to sign a bill making his state a sanctuary for gender-affirming care. Authored by state Rep. Leigh Finke (D), the legislation orders courts not to comply with out-of-state prosecutions against individuals who flee to Minnesota to access treatments like puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, or surgery. Even before Finke’s bill passed the legislature, Walz issued an executive order in May 2023 to strengthen protections for trans health care in his state, saying in a statement that all Minnesotans should “grow up feeling safe, valued, protected, celebrated, and free to exist as their authentic versions of themselves.”
With neighboring states like Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota all restricting trans youth health care, Minnesota’s refuge law has made the state a hub for trans health care. Dozens of individuals and families have reportedly moved to Minnesota permanently to escape anti-LGBTQ+ policies in their previous states, and that number will likely increase as more state-level restrictions are enacted. To date, 26 states limit doctors from providing some or all gender-affirming treatments to minors, most recently New Hampshire.
But Walz is actually a longtime ally to the LGBTQ+ community on several key issues, dating back to even before his tenure as governor. As a U.S. House representative, he joined a coalition of veterans in 2012 to speak out in opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment that would define marriage equality exclusively as a union of one man and one woman. “At this point it’s become very clear that limiting the rights of a subsect of the population, whether they are veterans or not, is simply unconstitutional,” he said at the time. “I think we can do better.” His years as a member of the armed forces also motivated his opposition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the now-defunct policy barring gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members from being open about their identities. “Always the issue for me was if you met the standards and did your job, your personal business was your personal business,” he remarked after DADT’s 2013 repeal.
Walz was ahead of the curve on several key LGBTQ+ rights issues, including the federal codification of the freedom to marry. He announced his support for the Respect for Marriage Act, which effectively declares marriage equality the law of the land, back in 2011 — more than a decade before Biden would have the opportunity to sign the contemporary iteration of that legislation. He was a key vote in favor of a law recognizing sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under federal hate crime legalization and backed early versions of the Equality Act, an inclusive LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination bill that has yet to meet approval in the U.S. Senate despite passing the House twice.
Outside of his political career, Walz was the advisor of Mankato West High School’s first ever Gay-Straight Alliance. As a football coach and geography teacher at the greater Minneapolis district, having his support was actually instrumental in getting the club greenlit. “It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married,” Walz told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2018.
As governor of Minnesota, Walz has signed legislation making the state a refuge for trans youth.
Many of the other veep contenders have also proven themselves allies to the LGBTQ+community, including Beshear, who last year vetoed one of the nation’s worst laws targeting trans youth. (Republicans enacted the omnibus legislation, however, over his veto.) In opposing the regulations, Beshear said that “all children are children of God.” “I heard from children that believe this bill is picking on them, and asking — in many ways — why?” he remarked at the time. “I told them that I was going to show them that there is at least one person in Frankfort that cares for all of our children in the commonwealth, no matter what.”
With 90 days left to go until the presidential election, Harris’ veep pick was an opportunity to indicate what her priorities would be in the White House and contrast herself with the extreme policies being pushed by her Republican opponents. If elected, Trump has vowed to gut federal protections for LGBTQ+ students and ban the federal government from supporting the “concept of sex and gender transition at any age.” His running mate, J.D. Vance, has authored legislation to jail doctors who treat trans youth. With Walz on the ticket, the difference is especially stark.
As many here may know by now, I have PTSD and Intrusive Thoughts. An intrusive thought is an unwelcome, involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that may become an obsession, is upsetting or distressing, and can feel difficult to manage or eliminate. Everyone here has been very supportive as I have been having a surge in memories and issues with it. Memories of humiliations, rapes, forced oral sex, and horrific punishments for a kid of 3 to nearly 8 years old. Things like rubbing alcohol poured into my stretched wide butt cheeks as I was held down nude, to let it flow over my anus to my tiny balls and dick. Things like being tied to the stair banister with something that kept him head yanked up, blindfolded, hands either tied to the railings or through them so I couldn’t use them to help myself. In that position the hell spawn would leave me to randomly come by to hit me, stick something in my butt, pinch me, put painfully cold objects or painfully hot ones on my sensitive areas including submerging my tiny genitals in them. Anything to torture me and see me cry for hours. The memories cause the bombardment of thoughts. Suze here recommended a cortisol level check as that will make it harder to stop the thoughts. She said there is medication to lower the level.
I told Ron about her recommendation and Ron also agreed. But unknown to me Ron was looking up a medication he takes, Sertraline. Sertraline, sold under the brand name Zoloft among others, is an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor class. The effectiveness of sertraline for depression is similar to that of other antidepressants, and the differences are mostly confined to side effects.
I went to bed about 7 pm. I couldn’t sleep. When he came to bed at 9:30 pm, I told him I couldn’t sleep, that my mind wouldn’t slow down, the thoughts were feeling like constant bombs going off in my head. As we lay there he was reading his tablet and I was trying hard to sleep. I was occasionally spitting out a word here or there that I couldn’t stop and did not realize I did it until after it came out, I was involuntarily waving my hands like I was trying to push something away from me. Again not knowing I was doing it until I did it. That is when he said he had looked it up and it was also used to treat PTSD and intrusive thoughts. He takes a very small dose of 50 mg he said. I reminded him what happened when they tried to put me on those mood stabilizing / mind numbing drugs. He said that he thought it was time for me to see someone again and start treatment before it get worse. He had hoped it would pass and wain like it normally does, ramp up, spike, then drop down to manageable. Now he was worried. I told him I did not want the costs of a therapist right now, and I did not want to see one. He wanted me to call or message my primary care with the issue and see if they could handle the issue as his handles his anxieties.
That is a big step. Ron has not pushed me to see a therapist in a very long time. Over a decade or so. But I have this last year been telling him in detail the different things I remember and the abuse I suffered and from whom. Before it was always the generalized, not specifics. He doesn’t want me to return to a state where I am hyper vigilant, started in to flight or fight at every sound. Unable to sleep and when I do, then screaming out in my sleep or begging not to be hurt. He is worried I will get back to the point that if I am sleeping and he walks into the room I wake in fear ready to fight to defend myself, not yet aware of where I am. So in the next few days I will do as he asks, and check in with primary care. Hugs. Scottie
Scottie's Playtime 