Bullying makes no sense. It doesn’t help anybody.

Caitlin Sievers, in an article for Arizona Mirror posted on Daily Kos, reported:

Voters in November will be able to decide whether to amend the Arizona Constitution to guarantee the right to abortion, state election officials said Monday. The Arizona Abortion Access Act collected around 578,000 valid signatures, significantly more than the nearly 384,000 it needed to qualify for the ballot.

Yeah, Republicans found a meaningless discrepancy and filed suit, then appealed to the state supremes. The more I hear about this guy the more I like him. Marcus Baram, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, reported that Tim Walz, now the Democratic Vice President candidate is a mighty climate advocate. He signed a law to generate all of Minnesota’s electricity from renewables by 2040 – faster than what’s mandated by California. He has a climate change subcabinet in his administration. Two weeks ago he welcomed a $200 million grant from the EPA to reduce climate pollution. The state has a strong record of holding polluters accountable. And he’s pretty good at communicating his policies. Climate organizations, such as Sierra Club, are praising him. J. Patrick Coolican, in an article for Minnesota Reformer posted on Kos, covered much of Walz’ history. High school geography teacher and assistant football coach in Mankato. In the National Guard for 24 years (most are out by 20 years) with the highest rank possible. Representative to Congress for a dozen years. In his second term as governor. Republicans don’t like him (always a recommendation). His daughter and son were born with the help of IVF.

“Tim Walz is a great pick because in addition to his blue collar background and his cultural fit with the blue wall states, as governor his accomplishments are mostly about improving the lives of middle class and working families,” said Jeff Blodgett, who was chief strategist for Sens. Paul Wellstone and Al Franken. “This ticket can now powerfully argue that they are the team that is squarely on the side of America’s working families.”

Kos of Kos explained that military service. Kos was in the military and his son is serving now. So he is a good one to tackle those trying to stain Walz’ service. They claim that Walz dropped out after he heard his unit was being deployed to Iraq in 2005. Kos explained that a step in their timeline they are using as proof is intentionally vague. What actually happened is that Walz filed paperwork to run for congress before his unit was notified of potential deployment. And before then he had served for 24 years. Also, “Republicans pretend to honor military service, but it’s all an act.” An Associated Press article posted on Kos asked Walz’ teaching colleagues and students what they thought of him. It’s all positive, and this in particular: Student Jacob Reitan told Gwen Walz, also a teacher, that he is gay. He told her before he told his parents. He felt comfortable around her because she had said her classroom is a safe space for gay students. Reitan then approached Walz that he wanted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school. Walz, the football coach and soldier – both bastions of masculinity that’s frequently toxic, volunteered to be the group’s faculty advisor. Reitan said that Walz could talk about bullying to the bullied and the bully, saying “bullying makes no sense. It doesn’t help anybody. And it made the school safer for me.” That story prompted Moms for Liberty to declare Walz “the most anti-parent candidate.” Which to me is another good sign. Thankfully, Mankato High School backed up Reitan and Walz. Also:

Adam Segar said Walz found a spot for him on the football team despite problems he had adding weight and muscle. Segar said that approach was commonplace with Walz—trying to make sure students and athletes who might not fit a traditional mold found a place.

I’ve accumulated a bunch of pundit roundups on Kos. One by Greg Dworkin quoted the blog mainly macro discussing British news:

An essential part of democracy is that voters should be able to receive information (news) that is not slanted to fit a particular political viewpoint. When this doesn’t happen then voters receive propaganda, and all the evidence suggests that propaganda can be very effective at influencing how people think and how they vote. When the propaganda involves right wing populism, it isn’t manufacturing consent but rather manufacturing discontent. Misinformation about immigration and asylum seekers is pervasive among right wing politicians and the media. Islamophobia has become endemic on the political right and its press, and feeds the racism so evident among the gangs creating havoc in our cities.

Media outlets promoted Brexit, though they knew the economic costs. Those costs have now occurred. “This shows us that impartiality is a very weak defence against propaganda.” Propaganda must be negated. A roundup by Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman of the New York Times discussing the politics of free school lunches. Krugman pointed out that students with adequate nutrition are more healthy and more productive as adults, which is helpful to all of society. Also, trying to find out which students can and can’t afford the free lunch is more expensive and cumbersome than feeding them all. In another roundup by Dworkin he quoted Jamelle Bouie of NYT talking about Walz deftly describing Republicans as “weird.”

Through all of this, Republicans still insist that they’re the party of normalcy. This is why they can’t quite deal with the charge that they’re weird. There’s a reason for this. For years, in the American political imagination, Republicans were the normal party and Democrats were the party of weirdness. This was one of the major themes of the 1972 presidential election, when the Republican Party of Richard Nixon framed itself as the party of normalcy and of faith in America as it is.

Way down in the comments is a cartoon my David Hayward, the naked pastor. It shows a psychiatrist saying to a patient: “Have you ever considered the possibility that they sold you the belief that you are a worthless sinner so you would open the door for them to abuse you the way they did?” Yet another roundup by Dworkin quotes Frank Bruni of NYT:

Poor Trump. Always forced to compete on an uneven playing field. Of all his feats of projection, which is psychology’s term for seeing your own methods and motivations in someone else, none fascinates me more than his incessant insistence that every one of his adversaries — that everyone, period — is the beneficiary of some scheme or scam that puts him at a disadvantage. If he triumphs nonetheless? It’s a testament to his peerless might. If he doesn’t? It was never a fair fight.

A last roundup, this one by Kev, quotes Sandra Haake of Salon. My summary: The nasty guy may be disavowing Project 2025, but the Supreme Court, in its recent decisions, has begun to implement some of its key objectives. “Project 2025’s deference to a strong (and crooked) chief executive” is given a boost in a redefinition of bribery. Declaring that “requiring web designers to serve same-sex couples was ‘coercing’ them to make ‘statements’ with which their Christian religion disagreed” advances Christian Nationalism.