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Libertarians Go After So-Called ‘Vagina Voters’

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Freedom is great, as long as it doesn’t apply to women

By Lynn Stuart Parramore / Alternet

From polls, libertarians are known to be a fairly homogenous group that skews white, male, young, affluent (i.e. college-educated), and has a reputation for not being particularly gender-inclusive. Far more identify with the Republican party (43 percent) than the Democratic party (5 percent). Is it surprising that they get anxious on the subject of people with vaginas who vote for liberal/progressive candidates?   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: Why the Mountain?

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By Will Falk

I am preparing to leave for Hawai’i to offer myself in support of resistance to the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project that would place a large telescope and stadium-sized structure on the peak of native Hawaiians’ most sacred place – Mauna Kea.

The project, funded by a partnership including the University of California, the California Institute of Technology, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy among others, would also place a 5,000 gallon chemical waste container above the largest freshwater aquifer on Hawai’i Island.

I first heard about this struggle from the brilliant documentary film-maker Anne Keala Kelly when she spoke at the Earth at Risk conference in San Francisco organized by the Fertile Ground Environmental Institute last fall. I was beyond excited when a friend recently put me in touch with Keala explaining that the Mauna Kea protectors seek more support from the mainland.   [Read more…]

Protests on 4/15 Up the Ante in the Fight for $15 in San Diego

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By Doug Porter

It’s no longer about just fast food; the movement for a fifteen dollar an hour wage is expanding to embrace low-wage workers everywhere, along with the larger questions of inequality.

Everywhere includes San Diego, where organizers are planning a full day of actions. Fast food workers from McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s , Subway, Sonic, and Taco Bell will be taking a ‘day off.’ Security guards and janitors will participate in a mid-day downtown protest against an-as-yet-unnamed “bad employer.”

A community-based demonstration is planned for City Heights starting at 1:30 calling attention to the need to decriminalize the poor in addition to the pay demands. At 3pm a bus will leave from the Rosa Parks Park and Performance Annex headed for a city-wide convergence on the San Diego State University campus (map) starting at 4pm.

The rally at SDSU will include support for rolling back student fees and the start of a unionization drive of the 3000 low wage employees of the campus Aztec Shops. (More info)   [Read more…]

Indiana’s So-Called Religious Freedom Law: If It Walks Like a Duck…

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By Doug Porter

For a while there I thought Republicans of the sane persuasion (a vanishing species) might prevail on matters relating to the legal status of gay and transgender people. One state after another was giving up on fighting same-sex marriage. 

What with “New Republicans” like Carl DeMaio emerging and the Log Cabin GOP caucus gaining legitimacy, I figured the party brass would leave it the hardcore to draw inspiration from the Obama Derangement Syndrome for the next year or so.. 

Then along came Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, signing a bill shepherded by lobbyists representing anti-gay rights organizations conflating freedom of religion with the right to discriminate. Voila! Now the Guns and God wing of the party has an issue to rally behind.    [Read more…]

Marijuana Commission Report, Polling Point to Legalization in California

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By Doug Porter

California’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy is releasing an interim report today outlining issues needing to be addressed in any legalization measures going before voters in 2016.

The commission, led by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and including the ACLU, assorted academics, activists along with, law enforcement officials, will not officially take a position on legalization. Public forums in cities around the state will soon be announced as part of forming a policy road map towards legalization. Issues such as taxes, driving under the influence and a means for prohibiting access to minors are among those being considered.

The panel hopes to have its policy analysis completed by August.   [Read more…]

March GOP Madness Tournament Underway

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By Doug Porter

Having lost out on a Congressional attempt to derail President Obama’s executive orders on immigration and facing increasing grim news about the possibility of their Supreme Court challenge to Obamacare blowing up in their face, Republicans nationwide are amping up the crazy.

To help readers better understand this off-election year phenomena, I’ve organized the best of the worst stories from this past week’s reportage into four brackets, not unlike a certain annual basketball contest. Highlighting all 65 contenders in this contest of crazy would take more time and effort than it’s worth, so I’ve focused on a few efforts I think have the potential to make it to the April Fool’s Day championship.

The divisions are: You’re Not Worthy (Racism/Sexism), Not A Scientist (Science/Technology), BombBombBomb (Foreign Policy), ObamaScare (Everything Else)
  [Read more…]

5 Takeaways After Watching ‘The Hunting Ground,’ the New Documentary on Campus Sexual Violence

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By Sandra S. Park / ACLU Blog of Rights

Agonizing. Enraging. Inspiring. These are a few words that came to mind after watching “The Hunting Ground,” a new documentary on campus sexual violence that opened this past weekend.

Like “The Invisible War,” the Oscar-nominated documentary on military sexual violence also created by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, “The Hunting Ground” makes the case that there are systemic problems at colleges and universities to addressing sexual assault that must and can be confronted, right now.

As public debate continues on how we can best respond to campus sexual violence, the film makes an important contribution by highlighting the voices of survivors, their parents, and university staff in rallying together to become advocates.   [Read more…]

Eve on the Move

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The rising Feminine has something to offer our old fashioned religions

By Dr. Carol Carnes

The great American Man of Letters, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “be an opener of doors for such as come after thee and do not try to make the universe a blind alley.”

I interpret this to mean, contribute to the overall wisdom of the world. Do not perpetuate superstition and dogma. Challenge the isms that limit our experience of the greater good. Share your ideas with the young. Teach them to think critically. Show the power of Love by your own actions.

None of us lives in a private reality to the exclusion of the collective. We can go along with the tribes’ beliefs or we can be part of raising our shared version of reality. Those who speak out to challenge ideas that belonged in ancient times but do not serve us today, are making a great impression on the whole.   [Read more…]

Firing a Mom Because She’s Breastfeeding Is Sex Discrimination

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By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Blog of Rights

A few months ago, I posted about Angela Ames, the Nationwide Insurance worker who alleged that she was denied a place to pump breast milk when she returned to work from maternity leave. When she protested, Angela was coerced into resigning by her supervisor, who told her she should “just go home and be with your babies”.

In January, the Supreme Court sent her the same message – go home ­– rejecting her petition for a review of the dismissal of her case. The denial of her petition effectively means the end of the line for her case.   [Read more…]

Can Eve Get Elected?

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We do not need a gun-toting warrior with a vagina

By Dr. Carol Carnes 

You may know her as Hillary or Carly or Elizabeth but her real name is Eve. All women carry that label in the subjective realm of our collective unconscious.

The allegorical tale of Adam and Eve has been misinterpreted, misunderstood and accepted as an irrefutable condemnation of the Feminine, which has resulted in the subjugation of women in almost every culture on earth. The rights of women were not included in the founding documents of America because we were considered creatures, not full humans.

Eve represents the bitch, the temptress, the siren that caused the Fall of Man (men). She listens to the serpent (the devil). She makes it impossible for men to control their impulses. Therefore, at the risk of oversimplification, she is the cause of her own rape. Some cultures will stone her to death for it while in the west she is humiliated, not believed and portrayed as a whore or a careless twit.
  [Read more…]

‘Black Girls Matter’: Report Exposes System Oppression of Often-Ignored Groups

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Girls of color routinely punished by institutions and ignored by school-to-prison pipeline reformers, report finds

By Nadia Prupis /Common Dreams

Girls of color regularly face harsher school punishments than their white counterparts, while simultaneously being ignored by legislative and community efforts to close the school-to-prison pipeline, despite the proven negative impacts of zero-tolerance discipline which exposes minority girls to expulsion, violence, and arrest, a new study released Wednesday has found.

Punitive disciplinary policies “negatively impact Black girls and other girls of color. Yet much of the existing research literature excludes girls from the analysis, leading many stakeholders to infer that girls of color are not also at risk,” according to the report, titled Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected.   [Read more…]

2014 Wrap Up: The Tide Turns on Rape Culture, Climate Change and Same Sex Marriage

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By Doug Porter

The term rape culture became mainstream in 2014. Practices and behavior in society excusing or otherwise tolerating sexual violence were exposed. Activists around the country took to the streets to push back. Examples, ranging from the callousness of the San Diego City Attorney’s office accusing a sexual assault victim of trying to bribe a police officer with her underwear to investigations into the widespread accommodation of rape in college fraternities, were given wide media coverage.

The ecological crisis facing the planet was another subject getting increased attention this year. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in New York and other cities, including San Diego, in September demanding action on man made climate change. Despite evidence supporting the impending dangers accumulated throughout the year, dirty energy apologists leveraged their economic and political resources, hoping to block actions limiting greenhouse gas in 2015.

Finally, there was some terrific news for a supporters of marriage equality this past year, as court decisions and legislatures rolled back restrictions on same sex marriage. These victories were a testament to the validity of persistent long term activism on many fronts as an effective strategy.

Welcome to Day Three of the Starting Line’s summation of 2014’s top stories. On Wednesday the focus was on challenges not met in San Diego. Yesterday I wrote about issues of economic and radial justice rising to the forefront of the local and national consciousness.   [Read more…]

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