a woman of integrity

 

In 2018, I wrote two articles about men with integrity:

 

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-man-of-integrity.html

 

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2018/02/another-man-of-integrity.html

 

Frequently overlooked, however, is that fact that women also have integrity.

 

The most recent example, of course, is Liz Cheney, who served on the January 6 panel, and also recently went to Ripon,Wisconsin to appear in public with Kamala Harris.

Earlier this year, I read her latest book, “Oath and Honor”, which is worth reading.

If you went back in time about 50 years, you may remember that Jane Fonda was vilified for traveling to Vietnam during the Vietnam was.

https://time.com/5116479/jane-fonda-hanoi-jane-nickname/

Amid what was widely perceived as a lack of progress in the war, its continuation prompted widespread protests in the U.S. It was around that time that Fonda focused her political activism solely on the antiwar movement. By that point, she was a prominent movie star, renowned for her performances in critically acclaimed films like Klute, Barefoot in the Park, Barbarella and They Shoot Horses Don’t They? 

Having worked on behalf of Native Americans and the Black Panthers in the 1960s, Fonda dove into protesting the Vietnam War, first with the formation of the “Free Army Tour” (FTA) with actor Donald Sutherland in 1970. FTA was an anti-war show designed to contrast Bob Hope’s USO tour, touring military bases on the West Coast and talking to soldiers before they were deployed to Vietnam.

In 1972, Fonda went on to tour North Vietnam in a controversial trip would come to be the most famous — or infamous — part of her activist career, and led to her the nickname “Hanoi Jane.”

 While in Vietnam, Fonda appeared on 10 radio programs to speak out against the U.S. military’s policy in Vietnam and beg pilots to cease bombing non-military targets. It was during that trip that a photograph was taken of her seated on an anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi, making it look like she would shoot down American planes.

 At the time, Fonda’s public criticisms of U.S. leadership caused massive outrage among American officials and war veterans. According to the Washington Post, some lawmakers saw her protests as treasonous, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars called for Fonda to be tried as a traitor. At one point, the Maryland state legislature considered banning her and her films from the state.

On the other hand, the antiwar feeling Fonda came to embody was relatively widespread among the American population at the time, and, as filmmaker Lynn Novick put it in discussing recent documentary series The Vietnam War, some veterans “think she was courageous for going to Hanoi and taking a stand even though they didn’t agree with everything she had to say.” More recent scholarship has also emphasized the ways in which the idea of “Hanoi Jane” has grown far beyond Fonda’s actual actions during that tumultuous period.

  Since then, Fonda has apologized repeatedly for the “Hanoi Jane” photo, and clarified that actions during the Vietnam War were in protest of the U.S. government and not against soldiers. he addressed the photo in her 2005 memoir My Life So Far:

 Here is my best, honest recollection of what took place. Someone (I don’t remember who) leads me toward the gun, and I sit down, still laughing, still applauding. It all has nothing to do with where I am sitting. I hardly even think about where I am sitting. The cameras flash. I get up, and as I start to walk back to the car with the translator, the implication of what has just happened hits me.

Oh, my God. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down U.S. planes! I plead with him, “You have to be sure those photographs are not published. Please, you can’t let them be published.” I am assured it will be taken care of. I don’t know what else to do. It is possible that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. If they did, can I really blame them? The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake, and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it.

 Nearly a half-century later, some veterans still aren’t pleased with Fonda’s actions in 1972. In 2015, about 50 veterans protested her appearance at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Md., holding signs that said, “Forgive? Maybe. Forget? Never.”

 Fonda told the crowd she tries to maintain open conversations with veterans, according to the Frederick News-Post.

 “Whenever possible I try to sit down with vets and talk with them, because I understand and it makes me said,” she said. “It hurts me and it will to my grave that I made a huge, huge mistake that made a lot of people think I was against the soldiers.

 

Kris Kristofferson passed away on September 28 of this year. Often overlooked is the fact that he was a Rhodes scholar, in addition to being a great actor. He was also a source of comfort to a young female singer at a concert in 1992.

The singer was named Sinead O’Connor.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/arts/music/kris-kristofferson-sinead-oconnor.html

 

On Oct. 16, 1992, Columbia Records threw its longtime artist Bob Dylan an event at Madison Square Garden to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his first album with the label. The concert, available on pay-per-view, featured performances by Dylan along with some of the biggest stars of his era, among them Stevie Wonder, George Harrison, Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton.

But it was the performance by the comparative newcomer Sinead O’Connor and the assist lent her by the country veteran Kris Kristofferson, who died Saturday at 88, that proved most memorable.

O’Connor, then just 25, was at the center of a firestorm. Just two weeks earlier, the Irish singer was the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” when, at the conclusion of her second and final performance of the evening, she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II and exhorted, “Fight the real enemy,” a defiant act of protest against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (and also, she later revealed, a deeply personal statement — the photograph had belonged to her mother, who had physically abused her). The incident drew widespread outrage and turned O’Connor into a cultural pariah.

Now, in the wake of that polarizing moment, it was Kristofferson who was tasked with bringing O’Connor to the stage.

I’m real proud to introduce this next artist, whose name’s become synonymous with courage and integrity,” Kristofferson said, in obvious reference to the “S.N.L.” incident. (As he would later sing of O’Connor, “She told them her truth just as hard as she could/Her message profoundly was misunderstood.”)

O’Connor took the stage to a cascade of applause and boos, which did not let up as O’Connor stood silently at the microphone with her hands behind her back. A minute passed, and Kristofferson re-emerged from stage left, put his arm around O’Connor and whispered something in her ear.

As the pianist played the opening of O’Connor’s scheduled song, the Dylan track “I Believe in You,” O’Connor motioned the band to stop and proceeded to perform an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s “War” — the same song from that fateful “S.N.L.” performance, a confrontational track with lyrics primarily drawn from a speech the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I had delivered at the United Nations.

O’Connor ended the song and defiantly regarded the audience as the jeering persisted, and began to exit the stage — but not before Kristofferson again approached her, embraced her and walked off with her.

 The general public was not aware of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church until the release of the movie “Spotlight” in 2015, but O’Connor was already discussing it 23 years earlier, although the Boston Globe’s editorial staff had published an expose in 2002, for which they won a Pulitzer Prize.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_%28film%29

To date, the Catholic church in America has spent $4 billion to settle sexual abuse cases, and numerous archdioceses have filed for bankruptcy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sex_abuse_cases_in_the_United_States

Sinead O’Connor died on July 26, 2003. She was 54 years old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

life goes on

 

 

Last week, one of Sharon’s cousins died. He was roughly her age.

A few months aga, the wife of one of our cards- playing friends died at the age of 68.

Over the last 5 years, I have lost a number of cousins (Frank, Tom and Mary) and none of us are getting any younger.

This spring, we went to a seminar at a local restaurant that focused on end-of-life planning, and in June, a representative came to our house to discuss our end-of-life decisions, like cremation, death certificates, and other details.

One of the best obituaries I have ever read was the one written by the late Mike Royko in November of 1979, shortly after his wife died.

Here it is:

Editor's note:  The Chicago Sun-Times published this column November 22, 1979.  Royko wrote it several months after the death of his wife, Carol.  In 1985, he married Judy Arndt. Mike and Judy Royko bought a vacation place together, on the water in Florida. The two of them first started spending weekends at the small, quiet Wisconsin lake almost 25 years ago. Some of her relatives let them use a tiny cottage in a wooded hollow a mile or so from the water. He worked odd hours, so sometimes they wouldn't get there until after midnight on a Friday. But if the mosquitoes weren't out, they'd go to the empty public beach for a moonlight swim, then sit with their backs against a tree and drink wine and talk about their future. They were young and had little money, and they came from working class families. So to them the cottage was a luxury, although it wasn't any bigger than the boat garages on Lake Geneva, where the rich people played. The cottage had a screened porch where they sat at night, him playing a guitar and her singing folk songs in a sweet, clear voice. An old man who lived alone in a cottage beyond the next clump of woods would applaud and call out requests. One summer the young man bought an old motorboat for a couple of hundred dollars. The motor didn't start easily. Some weekends it didn't start at all, and she'd sit and laugh and row while he pulled the rope and swore. But sometimes it started, and they'd ride slowly along the shoreline, looking at the houses and wondering what it would be like to have a place that was actually on the water. He'd just shake his head because even on a lake without social status, houses on the water cost a lot more than he'd ever be able to afford. The years passed, they had kids, and after a while they didn't go to the little cottage in the hollow as often. Something was always coming up. He worked on weekends, or they had someplace else to go. Finally the relatives sold the cottage. Then he got lucky in his work. He made more money than he had ever dreamed they'd have. They remembered how good those weekends had been and they went looking at lakes in Wisconsin to see if they could afford something on the water. They looked at one lake, then another. Then another. Cottages they could afford, they didn't like. Those they liked were overpriced. Or the lake had too many taverns and not enough solitude.  So they went back to that little lake. They hadn't been there for years. They were surprised to find that it was still quiet. That it still had no taverns and one grocery store. And they saw a For Sale sign in front of a cedar house on the water. They parked and walked around. It was surrounded by big old trees. The land sloped gently down to the shore. On the other side of the road was nothing but woods. Beyond the woods were farms. On the lake side, the house was all glass sliding doors. It had a large balcony. From the outside it was perfect. A real estate salesman let them in. The interior was stunning -- like something out of a homes magazine. They knew it had to be out of their reach. But when the salesman told them the price, it was close enough to what they could afford that they had the checkbook out before they saw the second fireplace upstairs.  They hadn't known summers could be that good. In the mornings, he'd go fishing before it was light. She'd sleep until the birds woke her. Then he'd make breakfast and they'd eat omelets on the wooden deck in the shade of the trees. They got to know the chipmunks, the squirrels, and a woodpecker who took over their biggest tree. They got to know the grocer, the old German butcher who smoked his own bacon, the little farmer who sold them vine-ripened tomatoes and sweet corn. They were a little selfish about it. They seldom invited friends for weekends. But they didn't feel guilty. It was their own, quiet place. The best part of their day was dusk. They had a west view and she loved sunsets. Whatever they were doing, they'd always stop to sit on the pier or deck and silently watch the sun go down, changing the color of the lake from blue to purple to silver and black. One evening he made up a small poem: The sun rolls down like a golden tear Another day, Another day gone. She told him it was sad, but that she liked it.  What she didn't like was October, even with the beautiful colors and the evenings in front of the fireplace. She was a summer person. The cold wind wasn't her friend. And she saw November as her enemy. Sometime in November would be the day they would take up the pier, store the boat, bring in the deck chairs, take down the hammock, pour antifreeze in the plumbing, turn down the heat, lock everything tight and drive back to the city. She'd always sigh as they pulled onto the road. He'd try to cheer her up by stopping at a German restaurant that had good food and a corny band, and he'd tell her how quickly the winter would pass, and how soon they'd be there again. And the snow would finally melt. Spring would come, and one day, when they knew the ice on the lake was gone, they would be back. She'd throw open all the doors and windows and let the fresh air in. Then she'd go out and greet the chipmunks and the woodpeckers.  And she'd plant more flowers. Every summer, there were more and more flowers. And every summer seemed better than the last. The sunsets seemed to become more spectacular. And more precious. This past weekend, he closed the place down for the winter. He went alone. He worked quickly, trying not to let himself think that this particular chair had been her favorite chair, that the hammock had been her Christmas gift to him, that the lovely house on the lake had been his gift to her. He didn't work quickly enough. He was still there at sunset. It was a great burst of orange, the kind of sunset she loved best. He tried, but he couldn't watch it alone. Not through tears. So he turned his back on it, went inside, drew the draperies, locked the door and drove away without looking back. It was the last time he would ever see that lovely place. Next spring there will be a For Sale sign in front and an impersonal real estate man will show people through. Maybe a couple who love to quietly watch sunsets together will like it. He hopes so.

---

 

https://michaelsherwood.com/RoykoNovember.html

The irony of Royko’s column is that it was published precisely 6 days after our daughter was born.

My dad died on October 31 of 1994 – the exact same day that her cousin Tim welcome a new daughter into his family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Royko

Mike Royko lived roughly 18 years longer after his wife Carol died.  Long enough, in fact, that he married again 7 years later.

 

None of us know when our time on this planet is going to end. For that reason, it’s important to savor the good times when they occur, and to shrug off the times when things go bad.

 

 

and baby makes three

 

It’s no secret that Tucson is more liberal than many other cities in the state. Pima county, where Tucson is located (district 7), has a Cook Partisan voting index of D+15, which means that it leans strongly to the Democrats. In contrast, district 9, which is represented by Paul Gosar, is the most conservative district in the state, with a rating of R+16, which is why he always gets at least 60% of the vote in the final elections.

The most conservative large city in the county is Mesa, Arizona. However, Mayor John Giles just endorsed Kamala Harris at the DNC convention, so Donald Trump is going to find it very difficult to win in Arizona on election day.

https://www.cookpolitical.com/cook-pvi/2022-partisan-voting-index/district-map-and-list

I work as a substitute teacher for TUSD (Tucson Unified School District) , which just announced paid parentally leave.

 

https://tucson.com/news/local/education/precollegiate/tusd-teachers-staff-could-soon-qualify-for-paid-parental-leave/article_c7ea9d98-6593-11ef-b008-e791d6bf90cc.html#tracking-source=home-the-latest

Some Tucson Unified School District employees could soon be eligible for 12 weeks of paid parental leave under a new policy being considered by the governing board.

“As a recently new father, who about a year and a half ago was constantly logging on to see how many personal days I was burning on my paternity, this is going to be a really good thing for employees in their parenthood journey,” TUSD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Trujillo said Tuesday at the governing board meeting just before the first reading of the proposed policy.

The policy is the result of an agreement reached between TUSD and the Tucson Education Association that started in the spring, Karla Escamilla, a TUSD spokeswoman, said in an email.

If adopted, TUSD would be the first school district in Arizona to offer 12 weeks of paid parental leave to public school teachers and staff, the teacher’s union said in a news release.

The policy states employees’ eligibility for paid parental leave in the life events of “birth, surrogacy, adoption, miscarriage, stillbirth.”

The board unanimously approved moving forward with the policy.

“This policy is the product of union educators using their voices and practicing their power to bring public schools into the modern era by providing compassionate and evidence-based paid parental leave,” said TEA President Jim Byrne in the news release.

“Not only is this policy the right thing to do for TUSD families, but this policy will help TUSD recruit and retain the highly qualified educators our students deserve on every campus and in every classroom.”

The origin of the policy began at the end of 2023 and early 2024 when educators across TUSD discussed the difficulties of navigating parenthood due to the lack of paid parental leave, said Carmen Smith-Estrada, one of the organizers pushing for the policy and a teacher at Davis Bilingual Elementary Magnet School.

The conversation included educators who had to leave the district after having babies, educators who had stayed on after giving birth, as well as educators who didn’t have children since they didn’t think they could financially support them with no paid time off, said Smith-Estrada.

“A lot of people have been forced to leave the district, forced to leave teaching because they haven’t felt supported,” said Smith-Estrada, stressing the importance of TEA and what educators can achieve.

The policy mandates that employees asking for the 12-week paid parental leave need to be at TUSD for at least a year and includes a “payback provision” in case the employee doesn’t return to work at the end of the time-off period. Exceptions to this would be if the employee’s inability to return is due to the “onset, recurrence or continuation of a serious health condition of the eligible employee or the child,” the policy reads.

The tentative agreement between the TEA and TUSD also included $1,500-$2,500 raises for classroom teachers and certified staff, 1% raises for education support professionals with an additional stipend for those who qualify and a sick leave sell-back policy, the TEA release reads.

         

The policy’s full adoption is expected to take place in about four weeks.

On a federal level, only 11 states offer paid maternity leave.

https://www.newsweek.com/which-states-offer-maternity-leave-us-1929135#:~:text=Only%2011%20states%20currently%20offer%20paid%20maternity%20leave%2C,most%20of%20these%20concentrated%20on%20the%20East%20Coast.

According to the state's Employment and Development Department, Californians are entitled to up to eight weeks of partial wage replacement to bond with a new child, and this paid family leave is fully funded by employers.

In Oregon, employees may take up to 12 weeks paid leave and receive 100% of their weekly wages equal to or less than 65% of the state average, according to the Center for American Progress. All wages above this threshold are deducted 50%.

According to a 2021 report by The Century Foundation, Oregon received the highest rating for its family care policies.

In addition, Washington also offers paid parental leave, as so 8 other states, all of which are on the East Coast. The remainder of the states guarantee unpaid leave to take care of a newborn, or no leave at all.

The remainder of the states guarantee unpaid leave to take care of a newborn, or no leave at all.

 

Vicki Shabo, a senior fellow at the think tank New America, and a paid leave policy expert, spoke to Newsweek about the unique state of parental support in the U.S.

According to Shabo, of the 38 OECD states, The U.S. is the only country that "that fails to guarantee paid maternity leave to new mothers and one of a handful that does not guarantee paid parental leave to new fathers."

When asked why the U.S. was so unique in its family care practices, Shabo said this was due to the country's "very individualistic, pull-yourself-up-by-your bootstraps mentality," which is compounded by "business lobby efforts to stop government regulation and keep taxes low."

"All of this has stymied federal paid family and medical leave policy efforts," Shabo added.

While certain employees may be entitled to up to 12-week of unpaid leave under the 1993 U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act, Shabo said that this only covered those who work for an employer with over 50 employees in a 75-mile radius, and who meet "both tenure and hours-worked requirements."

"Just 56% of U.S. workers are eligible for these job protections," Shabo said. "Some states offer greater protections, both for unpaid leave and paid leave, but tens of millions of workers are without any protections at all."

"Notably, not a single state that has banned or substantially restricted abortion provides a paid parental leave guarantee and many actively restrict localities within their states from offering paid leave," Shabo said. "Whereas many of the states that have protected the right to abortion also offer paid leave and other supports to facilitate families' economic security and health."

However, Shabo said that calls for change are growing louder, and that "a broad and large coalition has been working with members of Congress since 2013 to pass the FAMILY Act (Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act)."

This would create a national paid family and medical leave program, "guaranteeing workers up to 12 weeks of paid leave each year to care for a new child, a seriously ill or injured loved one, a workers' own serious health issue and care for a military service member."

Shabo noted that Kamala Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for the November election, has long supported the FAMILY Act and, in her 2020 presidential campaign, proposed a plan for six-months of government-paid family and medical leave.

 My wife and I are long past the age where we could have children. We DO have two grandchildren, but there will not be any more, so why is the action of TUSD important to me?

 For one thing, it means that there will be fewer unfilled teacher positions, which will lead to smaller class sizes.  I’ve been in a few classrooms with more than 30 students, and it is not fun.

 In addition, the TUSD policy highlights which political party is actually the one with “family values”- and that will have a strong effect on the November election, even if some of the voters are childless cat ladies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the "n' word

 

I know what you are thinking.

The “n” word is a word that you can no longer say in public because it could get you fired or harshly criticized.

However, this article is not about THAT “n’ word.

It’s about THIS one:

Neurodivergent - and it’s a word that none of us were familiar with until this past week.

We watched nearly all of the DNC convention this past week, and were amazed at how uplifting it was. In addition to the numerous entertainers, we also heard some of the best political speeches that we have heard for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_National_Convention

 In contrast, the RNC convention was the polar opposite. It was so bad, in fact, that I could not watch it after Tuesday night, since I nearly threw my shoe at the TV after listening to Kari Lake.

The “entertainers” were Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan, who tore off his shirt.

Kamala Harris has been a successful prosecutor, a competent senator, and a highly credible vice president. Tim Walz took a 0 and 27 football team to a state championship. In addition to that, he served 24 years in the National Guard, and also served many years as a public education teacher.

The top of the ticket on the other side is a convicted felon and con man who never grew up (hence, all the name calling) and an inexperienced young politician who claims to have had sex with a couch.

Lost in the shuffle was a moment that utterly defines what the Democratic party is, a party that is committed to building up, and not tearing down. It’s a party that proudly wears “compassionate” on its sleeve, and one brief moment provided visual proof of that.

Tim and Gwen Walz struggled with fertility issues.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/20/politics/gwen-walz-fertility-struggles/index.html

Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz clarified in a statement to CNN that she did not use in vitro fertilization to conceive, sharing new details about her and Gov. Tim Walz’s fertility struggles as the governor has highlighted their experience with infertility on the campaign trail.

In her statement, Gwen Walz said they used a different fertility treatment, intrauterine insemination.

In campaign speeches since joining the Democratic ticket as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Walz has often characterized the issue of access to IVF treatment as “personal” to him and his family while sharing the story of his and his wife’s journey to conceiving their two children.

“This one’s personal for me about IVF and reproductive care,” Walz told supporters at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, earlier this month. “When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatment.”

And in an MSNBC interview in July, he continued attacking Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance for his opposition to a bill that would have guaranteed access to IVF nationwide, while appearing to link the treatment to the birth of his two children.

“Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children,” he said.

In a statement to CNN, Gwen Walz said that they tried intrauterine insemination, a process she described as “an incredibly personal and difficult experience.”

“Like so many who have experienced these challenges, we kept it largely to ourselves at the time – not even sharing the details with our wonderful and close family. The only person who knew in detail what we were going through was our next-door neighbor,” she said in the statement.

“She was a nurse and helped me with the shots I needed as part of the IUI process. I’d rush home from school and she would give me the shots to ensure we stayed on track,” she continued.

 Their first child was a daughter, who they named Hope. Their second child was a boy, who they named Gus. Although their daughter was normal in every respect, their son, who they named Gus, was not.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/23/opinion/tim-walz-son-gus.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

 

Gus Walz has, according to his parents, a nonverbal learning disorder, A.D.H.D. and an anxiety disorder, all of which they regard not as a setback but as his “secret power,” that makes him “brilliant” and “hyperaware.”

The sight at the Democratic convention on Wednesday night of Tim Walz’s 17-year-old son leaping to his feet, with streaming eyes, a hand to his chest with a cry of “That’s my dad” was heart piercing.

There’s something of a trend at the moment for certain businesses to say they encourage the hiring of people who are neurodivergent. Sadly, it can be just virtue signaling. Employers like to think that a person who is neurodivergent is some secretly brilliant introvert who writes code in his apartment all day, not the more likely candidate: an awkward kid with a gentle smile who takes time to get the hang of things and talks too much about the same subjects.

 

The most painful thing for a parent is to pick up on the scorn of strangers that her child often doesn’t notice; the whispered insults or titter at the next table. Remember Donald Trump Jr.’s sneer at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference? Referring to Senator John Fetterman’s struggles to recover after his stroke, Mr. Trump said that Pennsylvania had “managed to elect a vegetable.”

“I’d love for John Fetterman to have, like, good gainful employment,” he continued. “Maybe he could be, like, a bag guy at a grocery store.”

Is it possible to go any lower than that?

Trump, of course, has a long history of mocking just about everyone, as exemplified ty the childless nicknames that he has used.

The low point, of course, was in 2016, when he mocked the New York Times reporter,

Trump has denied that he meant to mock the reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition affecting the joints.

His initial offense, in Trump's eyes, was denying the candidate's description of Kovaleski's reporting on unsubstantiated allegations that Muslims in New Jersey celebrated on 9/11.

As recently as July 29, Trump insisted, “I didn’t know what he looked like. I didn’t know he was disabled."

He has maintained that his physical affect in imitation of Kovaleski was because "He was groveling, grovel, grovel, grovel. That was the end of it. All of a sudden, I get reports that I was imitating a reporter who was handicapped. I would never do that."

The Washington Post’s factchecker responded, “Much of what Trump says is Four-Pinocchios false.”

Among other falsehoods described by the Post, including the fact that the "groveling" charge makes no sense in context, and Kovaleski, who now works for the New York Times, has said, "Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years."

The poll was conducted before Trump sparked furor with a comment about "Second Amendment people" that was interpreted by many as a veiled suggestion of violence against Clinton.

Still, given the lasting stigma around people with disabilities and the easiness with which pop culture has mocked them over the years, the outraged reaction from the public is striking.

"People are starting to see people with disabilities for their abilities,” said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, president of the advocacy group RespectAbility, citing Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who has Attention Deficit Disorder, and Nyle DiMarco, winner of America’s Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars, who is deaf.

“But one thing they don’t want to see about people with disabilities is for us to be bullied,” she added.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-s-worst-offense-mocking-disabled-reporter-poll-finds-n627736

But how could Don Jr. be any different from his father? The elder Donald Trump has never missed the chance to denigrate people with disabilities, and already the MAGA crowd is mocking Gus Walz’s emotional embrace with his dad. “Talk about weird …” the conservative media ghoul Ann Coulter posted (and later deleted).

If the Harris-Walz ticket wins, will parents of people who struggle with being different at last find a powerful advocate in the White House? This voiceless community is in desperate need of a new, mighty champion.

 

Coach Walz, you who have been such an inspiring role model to kids all your life, and were caring enough to offer your own credibility to the role of faculty adviser of a new high school gay-straight alliance, please make this your cause.