This past Wednesday New York's state Division of Human Rights adopted regulations proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in October that add transgender status to the list of factors protected by the state Human Rights Law, which was first adopted in 1945.

The Human Rights Law prohibits employers, businesses or housing providers from discriminating against someone based on a wide variety of factors, including age, race, creed and color.

Today we are sending the message loud and clear that New York will not stand for discrimination against transgender people. It is intolerable to allow harassment or discrimination against anyone, and the transgender community has been subjected to a second-class status for far too long.

The regulations make clear that the word “sex” refers not only to gender, but also “gender identity and the status of being transgender. Since the Human Rights Law prohibits discrimination based on sex or disability, the regulations make clear those protections apply to transgender individuals and those with gender dysphoria, too.

--Gov. Cuomo

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Saturday January 22, 1916
Indianapolis, Indiana - Mother Jones Speaks at United Mine Workers Convention

Yesterdays Hellraisers featured reporting on the "storming" of the stage at the Mine Workers' Convention, now ongoing in Indianapolis, by the "Old Mother Jones" whereby she put an end to a bitter dispute between the international officers and Delegates McDonald and Germer of Illinois.

The acrimonious debate was over troubling financial matters which no doubt stem from the difficult struggles of the past four years, for example: long and hard fought strikes in West Virginia and Colorado. Expenses continue to mount in Colorado due to legal cases involving more than 400 union men (John R. Lawson included) who are yet entangled in the courts of that state.

Mother put an end to that debate and, in the end, handshakes were exchanged all around.

Today we are pleased to present the actual speech delivered on January 20th by Mother Jones at the convention. We begin with part one of the speech and will conclude tomorrow with part two.

It's easy to forget sometimes just how cut off from reality that the super-rich can be.
Nowhere is this more true than at a meeting of the wealthy elite.

There has been a lot of brewhaha about a British court finding that Vladimir Putin may have poisoned a former citizen of Russia for creating propaganda that rankled the Russian state. While there is a lot of talk about how awful Putin is for (allegedly) assassinating people, there seems to be little mention of the fact that President Barack Obama maintains a "Kill List" of intended targets for assassinations. It should also be noted that Obama has assassinated one American citizen (out of the four us citizens he's admitted murdering) on the rationale that he was creating propaganda that rankled the American state. Then, two weeks after murdering the propagandist, Obama murdered a sixteen year old kid for the crime of having the wrong parents. This is not to overlook the thousands of civilians that Mr. Obama and his predecessor have murdered.

So far no court has seen fit to examine Mr. Obama's many war crimes.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, however, makes Putin look like a piker in terms of malevolent dictators.

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Texas blues guitarist and singer Roy Gaines. Enjoy!

Deluxe Financial Services, Inc. is a check printing company. Britney Austin used to work at their Phoenix call center. Then she informed her supervisors that she would be transitioning from male to female. Her managers and co-workers proceeded to shower her with harassment and offensive slurs. The company refused to let her use the women's restroom and refused to change her name and sex on employment records, saying she would have to complete gender confirmation surgery first.

Then Austin's attempts to utilize the company health plan for medically necessary health care were denied even though the company claimed it was a requirement before they would change the documents.

When the company laid off employees at that location, which has since closed, Austin argued, the company denied her severance pay and COBRA benefits.

Austin sued the company in federal court in Minnesota.

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Friday January 21, 1916
Indianapolis, Indiana - Mother Jones Puts an End to Bitter Debate at Miners' Convention

Newspapers across the nation are describing the dramatic confrontation at the United Mine Workers Convention when Mother Jones arrived to find the delegates embroiled in a bitter debate and hurling bricks at one another. The Tacoma Times declared:

OLD MOTHER JONES STORMS CONVENTION

INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 20,-Mother Jones stampeded the convention of the United Mine workers today with an address of unpolished oratory.

She raised 1,500 delegates to a fury of enthusiasm and forced Duncan McDonald to the platform to shake hands with President White, ending a bitter struggle between the two which threatened to disrupt the organization for years.

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