caucus99percent

Those dudes in the white sheets in Saudi Arabia, the ones ruling that country pretending to be king and princes and all that utter nonsense, are really pissing me off.

Today I was awakened by my iPhone chirping a new message from my news app:

Trump hearings launch Kamala Harris

Oops!

It seems like just yesterday that I published a diary about three retired generals (all women) counseled Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to push forward against conservative attempts to end all transgender military service.

Oh, wait...it was!

To quote Chad and Jeremy, that was yesterday, and yesterday's gone.

Today, as is my wont, I was wandering around the Way of the Bern subreddit, and I came across a thread about recent trolling of that site by Clinton/DNC supporters. One comment struck me as heartbreaking. A woman spoke about how she had been cut off by many of her wealthy "limousine liberal" friends, because she refused to sing the praises of Hillary Clinton.

Obviously things didn't go the way the Tories, the pundits, and the news media thought they would.
At the same time, the Tories increased their percentage of the vote to it's highest level since 1983, and will remain in power. So it's debatable to say that the Tories are The Big Losers.

Three retired generals have spoken up in favor of the acceptance of transgender recruits into the military.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, Army Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, and Army Brig. Gen. Clara Adams-Ender have written a statement:

It's been relatively mild where I live, but unfortunately for people in places like Turkbat, Pakistan, the last two weeks have been a time to break their thermometers, or at least fry eggs on their sidewalks.

One of the more notorious quotes expressing the neoliberal philosophy is British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in an interview with Women's Own magazine, October 31, 1987, declaring "there is no such thing as society."

“And if human rights laws stop us from doing it, we will change those laws so we can do it.”
Teresa May, British Prime Minister June 2017

Thereby unequivocally admitting the terrorists have won.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”
Benjamin Franklin, 1755

The Lebanese group Hezbollah, the same group that defeated Israel in the 2006 war, threatened to attack U.S. forces if we keep attacking the Assad regime.

One of the really upsetting things about police and news media misgendering transgender murder victims is that we often miss the news entirely.

Two surprising things happened yesterday.
The first was Nevada's legislature passed a Medicaid For All bill.

There are two different ways you can respond to terrorism, and both of those ways were on display this week in Britain.
Prime Minister Theresa May reacted in the Conservative way today.

We returned to bombing Iranian-backed militias in Syria today.

US-led forces at Al Tanf say they carried out fresh intentional strikes on pro-Syrian forces June 6th. Unclear how many of 60 troops killed pic.twitter.com/UravHhI9RB

The American College Health Association met in Austin, TX at the end of last week for their annual meeting. On Friday the campus health professionals discussed how to effect change on their campuses to make them more inclusive for transgender students.

New Jersey is holding their Democratic primary for Governor today, and a "progressive" is leading in the polls.

After posting posting about the leaked NSA document published by The Intercept last night, I woke up this morning to discover that the person who likely leaked this five page document has been arrested by the FBI.

Simply stated at whatisnetneutrality.org: "Net Neutrality is the principle that the company that connects you to the internet does not get to control what you do on the internet."

That principle protects one's freedom to communicate and to choose information sources, without being throttled or blocked by one's internet service provider (ISP). In this information age, that freedom becomes more-and-more widely recognized as a right. And it becomes more-and-more crucial for citizens of a constitutional democracy in keeping informed and active.

What happens when the banks literally own everything?
No, I'm not asking this as a theoretical exercise. Nor am I being excessively pessimistic.
I'm speaking of a scenario that will happen if current trends continues.

The Intercept has obtained a "Top Secret" document from an anonymous NSA source that claims the Russian Military Intelligence (a/k/a GRU) hacked into a US company, VR Systems, that sells "electronic voting services and equipment whose products are used in eight states."

The Michigan Appeals Court has ruled 3-0 that Yvette Cormier has no claim against Planet Fitness over its transgender-inclusive policies.

Back in 2015 Cormier encountered a transgender woman in a locker room. She decided that she needed to repeatedly warn all other women in the establishment. Planet Fitness responded by revoking her membership.

I know this question has been asked by bloggers before, but now even Vanity Fair is asking if the Dems want to lose in 2020.

This is only a prologue because I wish to set the stage without encumbering you with a torrent of links, which I have already. The situation is complex and becoming more complex daily--in fact almost hourly. It is becoming extremely difficult to keep up and I am afraid that I am not. But here goes.

Let's get this out of the way up front. I have nothing to sell.

Normally when I write for online publication, it's socio-political in nature. This is more in the way of a public service announcement, based on recent personal experience.

In a spate of recent rulings, district and circuit courts have held that anti-discrimination laws in education and employment extend protections to transgender people.