Make sure AF2 is deep cleaned because Lord only knows what @KamalaHarris and her team have done on there. The smell alone on that plane must be crazy. https://t.co/0Kr0K3QXYR
So I did this thing called journalism (Megyn should give it try) where I did interviews, research. Turns out MN's new law does NOT mandate menstrual products in boys' bathrooms. Talked to school admin association & MN's largest school district. #TamponTimhttps://t.co/wCGSJJRoNlhttps://t.co/dj9AZSSqqQ
The Star Tribune editorial board cleared up a lot of misinformation on the right's "Tampon Tim" attacks, including that he's forcing menstrual products in boys' bathrooms.
As a girl dad, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped feminine hygiene products off at school because they were needed unexpectedly and not provided. Calling him Tampon Tim should be a badge of honor. pic.twitter.com/cbsphTQzcS
Walz is an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders
Decades later they get into positions of power,are portrayed as “experts” by the media & push for policies that allow China to steal our jobs & factories & flood America with drugs https://t.co/wTSua22DKa
“It’s different because while Joe Biden was incompetent by senility, Kamala Harris is incompetent by stupidity. She has supported 100% of Joe Biden’s disastrous policies. And that’s why our strategy will not change. Overall, we will continue to hammer away on the message that you just heard President Trump share for more than an hour at that press conference, taking questions on all types of issues and calling out Kamala Harris for her failure.” – Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline “Cow-Toe” Leavitt, this afternoon on Fox News.
Moments after Trump concludes a rambling rally where he claimed he had larger crowds than MLK's March on Washington at the January 6th insurrection rally, Trump national press secretary Karoline Leavitt claims the Trump campaign is "disciplined." pic.twitter.com/y0QreoaH6x
— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) August 8, 2024
More Putinism on the march. Prominent US cultists are already hailing the move on X. Photo: Bulgarian PM Dimitar Glavchev. Bulgaria is a member of the EU and NATO.
Read the full article. Peters is accused, among other things, of giving a staffer’s security badge to a conspiracy theorist that she allowed to access county voting equipment. Her trial is now in its eighth day.
🚨 ⚖️ #TinaPetersTrial VERDICT BREAKDOWN 🚨 Now, Attorneys are asking for PSI (Pre Sentence Investigative Report) prepared by probation department. Each side needs an hour to present. Judge explains its to know how to sentence Tina Peters. pic.twitter.com/mwAfAaPwhn
An 8-year legal saga over censorship by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over a Bill of Rights display in the state capitol building has finally ended. We won the lawsuit last year (it started in 2016) but we only got our attorney fees and costs this week! 🎉https://t.co/yT38YUwpqd
Elagabalus3 days ago “The law…forbids teachers from raising gender identity and sexual orientation issues with younger students.” Excuse me, but every time a straight teacher mentions his or her heterosexually-married husband, wife, or kids, the issue of sexual orientation gets raised, because as we all know, whenever straight people mention their spouse everyone immediately goes straight to thinking about the two of them having sex and that makes everyone else feel uncomfortable, and we can’t have that. Oh, wait…no, that’s only the way it works for gay people.
zhera The goal is to shove kids so far into the closet they will never find their way out.
BREAKING: Kamala Harris’ rally in Las Vegas is packed and entirely sold out. Trump is seething because he could never pull a crowd like this. That’s why he’s cancelled nearly all of his events. Retweet so all Americans see this energy and excitement.https://t.co/lU6weSWhav
Longtime JMG readers may recall Cleta Mitchell for her work with the anti-LGBTQ hate group NOM. In 2011, she caused infighting within the now-defunct homocon group GOProud when she spearheaded a movement to boycott CPAC over GOProud’s attendance. GOProud founder Chris Barron called her a “bigot,” prompting now-Fox News host Tammy Bruce to resign from the group. Barron then apologized. Of note, Mitchell appears to have a particular hatred for gay men because her first husband left her for another man. In 1992, Mitchell’s second husband was convicted on five felony counts of banking fraud.
‘A different level than 2020’: Trump’s plan to steal election is taking shape https://t.co/wmhUwXZ597
Here is why the right / republicans are panicking. It is an attack on trans boys. This who line of they are putting them in the boy’s bathroom is really a way to say Walz supports trans kids. The truth is the bill doesn’t require the products be in any bathroom, just they be available to menstruating students and that includes trans boys. Ron and I off the top of our head thought of dozens of places in a school that they could be put instead of the bathrooms. Just a few, nurses stations, main offices, teachers could keep them in their rooms, a storage closet open to students, dispensers on doors or in hallways, student activity rooms, the rooms used for the gay straight clubs, so on. But even if they were in the boy’s bathrooms, what is the problem with that, other than the made up issue the right has with trans boys? That boys will see tampons and pads. Do these boys not have mothers or sisters? Have they never been in a store? Do they help unpack grocery bags? If boys do not know what these items are for, then they should be taught. It need not be a deep mystery and a shame for girls and women. It won’t turn them gay or trans, it won’t cause their spines to break. Below I post the important quote then the article. Hugs. Scottie
That might mean making these products available for free in various locations for all who need them, such as unisex bathrooms, girls’ bathrooms, the school nurse or the front office, but not necessarily in boys’ bathrooms. Henton, in an interview, lauded the “local control” the law provides for implementation, and said she’s fielded no concerns about its rollout.
At Anoka-Hennepin, the state’s largest school district, the free products are not found in traditional male-only bathrooms, a spokesman said. But they are provided for free to all in “nongendered bathrooms,” girls’ bathrooms or from health staffers.
A smart, compassionate new state law is spurring misinformed attacks on Minnesota’s latest vice presidential contender: Gov. Tim Walz.
Kristy Wesson and Margie Solomon of the National Council of Jewish Women Minnesota and student Elif Ozturk delivered menstrual products to Hopkins High School in 2022. Ozturk and community advocates were pushing for a bill, subsequently made law, to require public schools to provide such products.
Opinion editor’s note:Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
•••
On Tuesday, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. By Wednesday, the opposition had mobilized with lightning speed for its one of its first political attacks, dubbing Walz “Tampon Tim” in reference to a new state law providing free menstrual products to school students.
The nickname was trending nationally this week on Twitter, an indicator of its political currency. Chaya Raichik, whose scurrilous “Libs of TikTok” account on X (formerly Twitter) has more than 3 million followers, was one of the first to amplify it. Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly added to the momentum, endorsing the nickname via tweet. Former First Lady Hillary Clinton weighed in from a different angle, with a tweet supporting the Minnesota measure.
Social-media users swiftly took sides as well, and as usual, facts and context were missing, especially from those who see the new law as evidence of a radical Minnesota under Walz’s leadership. But a closer, more informed look at the issue should yield a different conclusion. This is good and necessary policy. Providing free menstrual products is a practical, compassionate remedy to address an under-the-radar reason for student absenteeism. Some families can’t afford menstrual products, and when that happens students stay home instead of going to class, falling behind as they do.
There’s a lot of talk about closing educational achievement gaps in Minnesota and elsewhere, particularly for low-income students. The new state law, which has a price tag of about $2 million a year, is an actual solution to help address this, one that’s relatively low-cost. And there’s real-world data to back it up. New York City schools reported a 2.4% increase in attendance after a state law went into effect requiring free period products for students, according to the advocacy group Alliance for Period Supplies.
Minnesota is far from alone in providing this type of assistance. More than half of the nation’s 50 states have taken steps to help students who struggle to afford tampons and pads. Ohio, led by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, now requires period products in schools and has provided $5 million in funding for this, the Alliance for Period Supplies reports. Alabama and Georgia provide grants for schools to make free products available.
Other states, such as Washington, Nevada, Illinois and Utah, require schools to provide these products, though they didn’t fund them. To Minnesota’s legislators’ credit, the new law provides dollars to schools and is not an unfunded mandate.
Other background information is also useful as the dubious online debate continues.
The new law went into effect in January and applies to students in grades four through 12. The legislation itself was passed during the 2023 session as part of a broader educational bill, which Walz then signed. Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, was the bill’s chief author in the Minnesota House. Sen. Steve Cwodzinski, a retired teacher and DFLer from Eden Prairie, championed the measure in Minnesota Senate.
But the most powerful advocates for it came from outside the State Capitol. Young Minnesotans reached out to Feist about this issue. After Feist introduced it, these students testified on its behalf as the legislation made its way through various committees. Among them was Elif Ozturk of Golden Valley, who is now 18 and will attend Columbia University this fall.
In an interview, Ozturk told an editorial writer she got involved after seeing other students struggle to afford these products in junior high. She spoke to counselors and was told that some students had to leave class or couldn’t attend because they lacked pads or tampons. Ozturk dug into the issue and discovered that other states had taken steps to help students’ access these products. She thought Minnesota should do the same.
“If we don’t talk about it, it’ll never be fixed. These people who are in power, predominantly old men, have no clue what young girls go through every single day,“ Ozturk said.
Other advocates for the law’s passage: school nurses, who testified movingly about how students struggle to afford these products and the educational and emotional consequences when they can’t.
A specific but ill-informed attack on the new Minnesota law is in dire need of a reality check. Critics contend, wrongly, that it mandates menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms. This has unfortunately been used to stoke ongoing culture wars over transgender individuals.
That might mean making these products available for free in various locations for all who need them, such as unisex bathrooms, girls’ bathrooms, the school nurse or the front office, but not necessarily in boys’ bathrooms. Henton, in an interview, lauded the “local control” the law provides for implementation, and said she’s fielded no concerns about its rollout.
At Anoka-Hennepin, the state’s largest school district, the free products are not found in traditional male-only bathrooms, a spokesman said. But they are provided for free to all in “nongendered bathrooms,” girls’ bathrooms or from health staffers.
There’s nothing radical about Minnesota’s new law. Instead it’s a smart, low-cost measure to address educational achievement gaps, one that many states are embracing. Weaponizing this measure is laughably out of touch and likely to backfire not only with women, but all who care about them.
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.
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.
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.
Scottie's Playtime 