caucus99percent

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Two days after Thanksgiving, a gunman opened fire at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic killing three people and wounded nine others. This, after incendiary lies about Planned Parenthood were featured during the Republican Primary Debates, based on videos taken at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic that falsely portrayed the clinic selling fetal organs for profit.

Lest you be an ardent believer in American Exceptionalism one should take note that some countries are leaving the US in the dust when it comes to human rights advances.

Bolivian Justice Minister Virginia Velasco Condori on Wednesday announced new policy which will allow transgender people to register legal documents using their new identities.

The policy is not perfect.

People who want to alter their name and sex on official identity documents must apply to the Ministry of Justice where a "psychological examination will be held to approve the process.

--Velasquez Condori

But it is light years ahead of the US, which has no federal policy on transgender people whatsoever.

And as we went up into the mountains we met a blind man.
Where are you going, my friends? he asked.
Into the regions of the mysteries, I answered.

One Thanksgiving I spent in the jail.

I was then in the pharmaceutical trade. There were apparently laws governing my trade. And I had transgressed them.

Who knew?

As I understand it:

The Peoples Party* starts as a coalition of American voters and the Platform, below, is a required candidate pledge. All party machinery and experienced activists (Occupy) are currently in place. The Platform was written by Occupy and needs only a preamble. Platforms change over time; this first platform addresses the past wrongs and injustices that must be fixed to improve the lives of the People and give them a meaningful future.

To begin, the Peoples Party will not have candidates, but will grow a national coalition of voters registered to the Peoples Party. The larger the number of Registered Peoples Party voters, the more powerful the coalition. In order to gain votes, Republican or Democratic candidates must pledge to the platform of the Peoples Party. If they do not, votes and money will be withheld during that election. Businesses and industries can pledge to the Peoples Party PAC.

If a Presidential candidate does not pledge to the Peoples Party Coalition, Party members will be told to withhold all campaign contributions during that cycle. Direct contributions to the Party, and contributions from affiliated businesses and industries to the People's Party PAC, will be used to grow the size of the Party's registered voter base and groom future Peoples candidates. Businesses that do not affiliate with the Peoples Party will be designated as "enemies of labor, Democracy, and essential human rights" and will be subject to a organized, years-long, nation-wide boycotts.

Without votes from the Coalition of the members of the Peoples Party, US Federal elections will not receive total vote numbers that are plausible in a Democracy. The Peoples Party will spring into actions to make this known throughout the world. Thus, the US government will be declared by the world to be "rogue, illegal, and invalid." The power will return to the people. At this point, Peoples Party candidates will stand for elections throughout the nation.

PLEASE NOTE: What follows is obviously not directed at my friends at The 99. It is an essay excerpt written for a different place. I wanted my colleagues to see it, because parts of it are inspired by things I've learned here and by links I've followed that were posted here.
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Let us Synchronize our Moral Compass

We should be ever mindful of the fact that ISIS are a creation of US imperialist slaughter and mass displacement, along with secular liberal authoritarianism and suppression.

Any US meddling in the region should be opposed wholesale by the genuine left, if it does exist, for the horrors of US imperialism that it is

I am struggling to reconcile the logic of Europeans, Americans, or other foreign entities who heroically opposed the Iraq war with now supporting mass slaughter against sovereign nationals or so-called rebels in Syria, Iraq, or anywhere else in the Middle East. My position is this:   Oppose any bombing of Syria or any sovereign region by the US, France, Great Britain, Australia, Russia or any other murderous regime with a squadron of warplanes ready to inflict the terror of aerial bombardment.

Solidarity with those people being terrorized from the skies is the natural position of a truly sentient human being with an undamaged mind.

‘The True Story of “The Great Gift Of The Christian Faith To The Peoples Of This Continent, including woodblock prints, history, a relevant Pontifex quote, and a salient one from Marx.

Just in time for Thanksgiving the University of Delaware's Center for Political Communication has released a new study to support your holiday table debates.

The National survey on rights, protections for transgender people has found that 71% of people favor protection of transgender individuals in schools and 70% favor such protections in the workplace. Sixty-two percent of the public supports allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military.

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans r&b artist Smiley Lewis. Enjoy!

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans piano player Champion Jack Dupree. Enjoy!

I grew up just about two miles, as the crow flies, or as the child finds a path through what we called the Creek, from Lewis and Clark College. My older brother matriculated there, played basketball for them in the late 60s for awhile. One of my major life heroes, William Stafford, taught English there for many years while I was growing up.

So it has been a major blow to me to discover that this past weekend at least two hate crimes occurred on the campus in the span of a couple of hours.

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features doo-wop, r&b and rock n' roll group, The Coasters. Enjoy!

I first wrote about Samantha Hulsey back in January, when she was attacked with a friend on a Muni bus by a man who stabbed her twice with a steak knife while calling Hulsey and her friend "faggots".

On November 15 a San Francisco couple, Dewayne Edward Kemp, 36, and Rebecca Louise Westover, 42, were arrested near Eighth and Mission for allegedly assaulting transgender resident Samantha Hulsey.

In court Friday afternoon, Kemp and Westover pleaded not guilty to the charges, contending that they were acting in self-defense when Westover threw a cup of hot coffee an Hulsey and her girlfriend, Daira Hopwood and Kemp punched Hulsey four times in the face while uttering transphobic comments.

All over the world people are in universal agreement that the solution to the endless, horrible wars in the middle east is to escalate the levels of violence. All the Republican presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton, leaders from both political parties, foreign leaders such as Putin, Presidents Cameron and Hollande, news media pundits and former generals are speaking in one voice.

HUD Secretary Julián Castro has announced the agency has proposed a new rule to update the existing policy that bars discrimination against LGBT people seeking public housing or housing assistance from the federal government.

Under the new proposal HUD would provide access to housing and services based on a person's gender, not sex assigned at birth.