caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Whoa! Did you have any doubt that Bernie is in it to win it? You won't after watching his press conference today on C-Span. Bernie is on fire (literally berning) You have to hear the press conference for yourself. Bernie is trying to dispel the media narrative that has been pushed since the losses in the Acela primaries.

I believe his supporters should also not buy into that defeatist narrative as it kills activism.

When Summer Luk was a student at Biola University , she was forced to sign a contract promising not to drink, party, or have sex...and of course, definitely not to be transgender. The Hong Kong native has now transferred to NYU, has been able to come out to her professors as who she is, has interned for GLAAD, and the music major has written and recorded an original song, now made into a video directed by Laura Camarena and featuring a diverse group of transgender people.

The lyric video explores the performative nature of gender, the difficulties of navigating the legal system and finding a place where transgender people are protected as citizens against prejudice, discrimination and hate-motivated violence. By including transgender people who are of different races, ages, faiths, and stages in their transition this video showcases the huge spectrum that exists within the community.

--Summer Luk

Monday May 1, 1916
New York City - Locked Out Garment Workers to March up Fifth Avenue

Garment Workers of New York City
``````````

I've been warning for some time that Baghdad's government wouldn't last much longer without a drastic change (see here and here), but the political crisis took a dramatic turn for the worse this week.

“...the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Oh how I would love to believe that's true. I'm not saying I disbelieve it, but the past 50 years has called it into question.

It's hard to say. Maybe justice is just a dream. I will always hope not.

Good people are drifting in -- let's bring the memberlist to 10,000 soon!

Between five and ten migrant children have been killed since February after the United States deported them back to Honduras, a morgue director told the Los Angeles Times. Lawmakers have yet to come up with best practices to deal with the waves of unaccompanied children apprehended by Border Patrol agents, but some politicians refute claims that children are fleeing violence and are opting instead to fund legislation that would fast-track their deportations.

If you don't vote Hillary you get Trump!

No progressive would allow Trump to win!

A crowd of about 150 people opposed to Initiative 1515 gathered in Renton, WA on Thursday. I-1515, which will need 246,000 valid signatures by July 8 to be on the November ballot,

would amend the Law Against Discrimination to state that, with exceptions, covered public and private entities may restrict access to "private facilities" to "biologically" male or female individuals regardless of their gender identity and limit state and local regulations governing gender-identity discrimination. It requires that public-school bathrooms and locker rooms open to multiple people. be sex segregated, and authorizes lawsuits against schools that grant students access to those facilities based on gender identity.

--Ballot Measure Summary

Literally the other day, I walked into my favorite coffee house, where everyone knows my name (hey, I always tip - that helps), only to learn that one of the baristas who had been on unpaid sick leave for a knee replacement her insurance company finally approved (or maybe she borrowed money from family and friends, I don't really know), had suffered a devastating loss. Her husband died unexpectedly this week after suffering a heart attack in his sleep.