Featured Editorials

Putin may have poisoned someone; Rick Snyder has poisoned 100,000 people.

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.

Another victory for transgender employment

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.

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Storms Stage at United Mine Workers Convention, Ends Bitter Debate

My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want...
We must be together; our masters are joined together
and we must do the same thing.
- Mother Jones

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

Mother_Jones__Boston_Globe__Jan_30__1915.png

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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A thank you and a welcome

I've said before, on numerous occasions, that I am not particularly religious. But I belong to a community which does not experience wide-ranging acceptance. We are excluded more often than not.

So it should not be a surprise when I highlight any call for us to be welcomed into any community.

Bishop Gene Robinson, who is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, has written and published Transgender Welcome: A Bishop Makes the Case for Affirmation. According to the CAP reuse policy, I may publish Bishop Robinson's document in its entirety if I follow a few rules.

Thisdocument was published by the Center for American Progress

This document is a love letter to the transgender community, both a “thank you” and a “welcome” to transgender people. It comes out of my experience of learning so much—about sexuality, gender, and myself—from transgender people. It springs from my belief that God is enriching the lives of us all by bringing transgender people and their insights into our experience and understandings. This resource is an attempt to recognize transgender people as the gift they are to our understanding of God and God’s love.

God is up to something, as God often is! And this time, it’s personal.

Hellraisers Journal: The Outlook on the Youngstown Strike, Private Detectives & Immigrant Workers

You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Thursday January 20, 1916
From The Outlook: Speculations on Causes of Youngstown Strike & Riot

From The Outlook of January 19th:

YOUNGSTOWN: THE STRIKE
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Youngstown Steel Strike of 1915-16, Ohio National Guard patrols ruins after Jan 7, 1916.png
Ohio National Guard on duty in ruins of East Youngstown.
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If it is true, and we have not seen it contradicted, that the battle in Youngstown, Ohio, in which several men were shot dead and many others wounded was one between detectives hired by employers, and strikers, and was on the public street, then that fight and those deaths were a disgrace to town, county, and State. Private detectives, hired by one party to a quarrel, are not the guardians of public order; they correspond rather to the paid bravos of mediaeval private war.

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