Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=6801"><span class="small">Eve Ensler, Guardian UK</span></a>
Thursday, 20 August 2015 13:31
Ensler writes: "Eleven years ago, I went up into the California mountains with a group of women who were producing and acting in the first all-transgender production of my play The Vagina Monologues. Many of the women were coming out as trans. Many had suffered terrible violence and trauma."
Eve Ensler. (photo: Martin Argles/Guardian)
Trans People Have Been Caricatures for Too Long
By Eve Ensler, Guardian UK
20 August 15
Transparent, Orange Is the New Black and Sense8 have brought transgender characters to wider TV audiences. But where are all the trans love stories? The author of The Vagina Monologues unveils the sexy new web series Her Story
leven years ago, I went up into the California mountains with a group of women who were producing and acting in the first all-transgender production of my play The Vagina Monologues. Many of the women were coming out as trans. Many had suffered terrible violence and trauma.
During those days in the mountains, I learned about the prejudices and stigma that force transgender people into stealth existences. I learned of painful childhoods, where those determined as male or female struggle against bullying and mind control to feel right in their bodies. I learned how the assignment of sex is random, and can be catastrophic. I learned how patriarchy attempts to annihilate anyone assigned a male identity who knows they are female and attempts to make the transition. I learned about the gruelling processes – physical, emotional and spiritual – trans people go through to match their bodies with their beings.
In the years since, I’ve watched as dialogue about transgender life has grown and representation in the media has exploded. But there is one thing I haven’t seen: those deep truths I learned over a decade ago told by trans people themselves. That’s why I’m so honoured to be executive producer of a new web TV series, Her Story, that looks inside the love lives of trans and queer women. This series is so real, specific and intense – and, I hope, a model for future television programmes – because it is the first show made by a collective of trans and queer writers, actors, directors, producers, camera people and musicians, who created it independently and funded it on a shoestring.
“For most of my life,” says Jen Richards, the show’s co-writer and co-producer, “I was able to identify with the hero of almost every cultural product: the young, straight, white man stretching for greatness. But with transition came a heightened understanding of how society treats women, as well as new relationships with all kinds of marginalised people.”
Jen, who plays an engaging character called Vi in the show, adds: “All I’ve wanted to do since is share our stories. I lived with a trans woman called Angelica for two years, and watched her struggle with dating, even though she was one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. I was struggling with if and how I fit into queer-women circles. It’s astonishing that such rich territory hasn’t been explored already.”
Did she find it a challenge to involve trans people in the process? “If there isn’t a trans person in every area of production, in the places where decisions are made, something is going to go awry. There simply isn’t enough familiarity with our experiences for people not to have blind spots.”
Her Story is gritty, sexy and real. The episodes revolve around two women: Vi, a mysterious newcomer to Los Angeles who is beginning to break free from self-imposed isolation. And then there’s Paige, a driven lawyer based on Angelica, who has given up on love and now masks her vulnerability with ambition.
In one tense scene, we watch the range of emotions Paige goes through as she tries to work out when to tell her handsome date she is trans. Before drinks? Before dinner? Or not at all? We see the mad calculations she is forced to go through in order to be herself. And we see the conflicts and minefields a lesbian character, Allie, faces when she finds herself falling for Vi, and has to defend her relationship with Vi to her lesbian friends.
Her Story comes at a time when transgender characters and stories are appearing on television, from Jeffrey Tambor’s touching character in the dark comedy Transparent, to the fierce yet tender portrayal of a trans woman in prison by Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black; from Caitlyn Jenner’s reality show I Am Cait, to the traumatised Nomi and her profoundly lovable girlfriend, Amanita, in Sense8.
The media is finally showing what it is to live as a trans person today – in family, in prison, within gay culture, within black culture, within straight culture, at work, in Hollywood. These shows are challenging gender constructs, breaking taboos and bringing us into the hearts and souls of trans people who have been made invisible – or caricatures – for too long. What’s triggered the change?
“It’s partly exploitative: the media is always looking for new stories and causes – and the fight for gay rights is largely won,” says Jen. “Here is another movement full of people who have been steadily working in relative obscurity for years. Social media has made a community among trans people possible. And, of course, it’s also sheer happenstance. Jill Soloway, the creator of Transparent, was an established showrunner when her father came out as trans; Laverne Cox was ready, after years and years of acting, for a major role just as Netflix started breaking all the rules of TV casting; and Caitlyn Jenner came out when her family, the Kardashians, were the most visible family in the world.”
Her Story could be the new rad-fem soap opera. The characters all work against cliche, exploitation and political correctness. Angelica Ross, who plays the fierce and sexy Paige, says: “Jen and I would see depictions of trans people in shows and could predict the entire storyline of a character based on stereotypes.
“But in Her Story, we don’t get the go-to black transsexual prostitute, the late-transitioning white trans woman. Instead, the show points out that there are, say, white sex workers as well as successful black trans women. And, no matter what their particular privileges, they still face a myriad of challenges. Paige is a successful lawyer, but that doesn’t mean her life has always been easy. Not long ago, Jen and I were sitting in our apartment in Chicago telling each other these stories. If love is a battlefield, the two of us are dating warriors. Our experiences are like Sex and the City on steroids! Now we get to tell them to the world.”
What is most moving about Her Story is that it is about love: the hunger for love, the obstacles to love, the triumphs of love, the confusion of love, the possibility of love. “Like so many trans women,” says Angelica, “I am dying to be loved, literally. Too many trans women of colour have died at the hands of men who we wish would just love us, if only for one night. Shows like Her Story can expose the root of the violence, help remove stigma and show it’s OK to find trans people sexually desirable. It’s OK to fall in love with them.”
Trans women, the show’s director Sydney Freeland points out, “have a tendency to be heavily sexualised and fetishised, which was exactly the opposite of what we were aiming for.
“At its heart,” she says, “Her Story is about two people getting to know each other. I love that. It feels fresh, yet familiar. It was like, ‘Wow! I didn’t know I wanted this – but now I want to be a part of it.’ I get to work on a show that rings true to my experience. It’s not often I get to say that. And anyway, who doesn’t love a good love story?”
New Trial for NOPD Officers Convicted in Danziger Bridge Shootings
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
Thursday, 20 August 2015 13:29
Pierce writes: "?There should be a special circle of derision reserved exclusively for prosecutors who botch important cases in very stupid ways."
Lance Madison is arrested Sept. 4, 2005, by New Orleans police officers at the Danziger Bridge. Accused of shooting at police officers, he was cleared of wrongdoing by a state grand jury. (photo: Alex Brandon/New Orleans Times-Picayune)
New Trial for NOPD Officers Convicted in Danziger Bridge Shootings
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
20 August 15
The five New Orleans police officers convicted in the shooting of unarmed pedestrians days after Hurricane Katrina on Danziger bridge, which involved a coverup and left two civilians dead, have been granted a new trial by a federal appeals court.
here should be a special circle of derision reserved exclusively for prosecutors who botch important cases in very stupid ways. "The people," as the old Law and Order intro used to say, "are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders." And when the first important group screws up in murderous ways, it is up to the second, equally important group to make it right for the rest of us. After all, this is very much something that is at the heart of the current debate over lethal police tactics, which certainly includes the activists of the #blacklivesmatter movement. So when the second group screws up in spectacular fashion, the first group gets emboldened, which is not what anybody wants.
The Danziger shootings were among several incidents involving fatal misconduct by NOPD officers in the chaotic days aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the convictions of the five officers who stood trial ultimately unraveled amid a scandal involving federal prosectuors.In a scathing, 128-page order, Englehardt in 2013 ruled that top deputies of U.S. Attorney Jim Letten compromised the outcome of the month-long trial with their online comments, then lied during a subsequent probe of misconduct allegations. Jan Maselli Mann and Sal Perricone, veteran prosecutors who were Letten's top two lieutenants, resigned from the office, and Letten from his post retired soon after.
The Danziger Bridge shootings were one of the most egregious examples of extralegal police violence anywhere in the past 10 years. One thing that Hurricane Katrina and its immediate aftermath taught us was that, almost 10 years ago, with New Orleans in chaos, black lives were the last thing that mattered.
The New Orleans police arrive. Officers sprang from a Budget rental truck with two AK-47s, an M4 assault rifle, a .40 caliber Glock 22 semiautomatic pistol and a Mossberg shotgun. They killed JJ. They shot Jose. They shot Jose's aunt, Susan Bartholomew. They shot her husband, "Big" Leonard Bartholomew III. They shot Jose's cousin, Lesha Bartholomew, and they shot at (but missed) his cousin, "Little" Leonard Bartholomew IV. One officer chased down a bloody Ronald Madison on the other side of the bridge and killed him, too. After all that unprovoked bloodshed, the police arrested Jose and Lance Madison and accused them of trying to kill eight police officers.
So, the federal prosecutors bust their asses to convict four hoodlum cops – and a fifth one, for helping them cover up what they did – and this was bound to be a tough push up a dirt road even in the best of circumstances. Every bit of the government's case had to be airtight and copper-riveted. So what happens? Like every teenager in America, the prosecutors can't shut up and stay off the Internet.
Collery insisted that an online-commenting scandal involving Letten's top deputies and other misdeeds outlined in Englehardt's scathing 2012 order did not merit reversing the guilty verdicts against the officers. Appeals Court Judge Edith Brown Clement sharply disagreed, citing a lengthy pattern of stonewalling about the commenting scandal by the U.S. Attorney's office, as well as intimidation of defense witnesses and of officers who testified for the government under plea deals. "You say (Englehardt) was punishing the government, I think he was protecting the integrity of the jury verdict," Clement said. "There was clearly a pattern of misconduct, right up to the end."
Columnist Jarvis DeBerry of the New Orleans Times-Picayune points out that a retrial is going to be an even harder job, since a vital police witness has served his time and, thus, the government has no leverage to make him testify again. Also, read some of the comments under the Times-Picayune stories. Good luck, folks.
FOCUS: Daniel Ellsberg Arrested at Lawrence Livermore Lab on 70th Anniversary of Nuclear Bombing of Hiroshima
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=17136"><span class="small">Jane Ayers, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Thursday, 20 August 2015 11:06
Ayers writes: "Vietnam War-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, 84, known for releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971, has once again been arrested for protesting U.S. nuclear weapon arsenals, this time at Lawrence Livermore Labs on Thursday, August 7, the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan."
Daniel Ellsberg is arrested during a demonstration to protest nuclear weapons outside the gates of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015. (photo: Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)
Daniel Ellsberg Arrested at Lawrence Livermore Lab on 70th Anniversary of Nuclear Bombing of Hiroshima
By Jane Ayers, Reader Supported News
20 August 15
ietnam War-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, 84, known for releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971, has once again been arrested for protesting U.S. nuclear weapon arsenals, this time at Lawrence Livermore Labs on Thursday, August 7, the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Ellsberg was arrested with fifty other protestors from the Bay Area, while 250 more joined in support to draw attention to the 2016 funding of Lawrence Livermore Labs: $1 billion for nuclear weapons, designing new long-range warheads, and upgrading existing nuclear arsenals.
According to a video of the protest, Ellsberg, a former Defense Department analyst, addressed the protestors outside the fence of Lawrence Livermore Lab, stating, “The killing at Hiroshima was mass murder.… In the target plans that I worked on, and ones I worked on in Russia, the smoke will go into the stratosphere as it did in Hiroshima by higher firestorm. But simultaneously, thousands of cities, with pillars of smoke, will join around the globe blotting out the sunlight sufficiently to kill harvests around the world, and condemn nearly the entire population of the world to death. It’s the Doomsday Machine, The End. We’ve known that, not at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but for the last twenty-five years, and yet these threats go on; the threats go on. They are threats of ending nearly all life. It’s never a good day to die, but it is a good day to get arrested.”
Japanese elder Takashi Tanemori also spoke to the rally. He was only 8 years old when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and he lost his whole family and became blind from the atomic blast. He spoke of the importance of forgiveness, but for all to keep trying to eradicate all nuclear threats in the world.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, after speaking to the rally of supporters from the Livermore Conversion Project and the Tri-Valley CARES (Citizens Against a Radioactive Environment), Ellsberg and the fifty other protestors lay on the ground (in chalk lines drawn around their bodies to symbolize the victims of atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) blocking the West Gate of the facility. Reports state that members of the Lawrence Livermore Lab police force showed up in riot gear with batons, and after demands by the Alameda County Sheriffs to disperse, Ellsberg and others were nonviolently arrested, cited for trespassing, and immediately released.
Within hours after Ellsberg was released, he appeared on the Scott Horton Radio Show, where he further explained, “The possibility of human extinction as a result of American or Russian, and/or together, nuclear weapons that are on alert facing each other right now still exists, and still reflects American policy under our current president, as well as his predecessors.”
To understand the authenticity of the knowledge of Daniel Ellsberg, look to his bio: In the early 1960s, Ellsberg, a former Rand employee, was a consultant to the Departments of Defense and State, and to the White House, where he specialized in resolving problems of the command & control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making. He drafted the Secretary of Defense Guidance to the Joint Chiefs of Staff concerning operational plans for conducting a general nuclear war.
He has been arrested in nonviolent civil disobedience actions close to one hundred times, with 50+ geared to protesting nuclear weapons, e.g. at Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapon Production Facility, the Nevada Test Site, Livermore Nuclear Weapons Design Facility, the vicinity of Ground Zero at the Nevada Test Site, and at the Vandenberg Missile Test Site. Over the past few years, he has been arrested at Vandenberg Air Force Base to protest the testing of dummy ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) to show the danger of having land-based missiles.
In addition, Ellsberg protested nuclear policies during the Carter and Reagan administrations, questioning President Carter’s idea of using neutron bombs and President Reagan’s promotion of Cruise and Pershing missiles. In the 1980s, Ellsberg also traveled with a Greenpeace voyage to Leningrad, protesting Russian nuclear testing, and was expelled from the Soviet Union at the time.
In 1995, Ellsberg launched an Abolition Fast, in which he and the Rev. William Sloan Coffin fasted on water for twenty-six days during the Non-Proliferation Treaty Renewal Conference held at the United Nations. The fast also included nuclear activists pledging to fast one or more days during the U.N. conference.
A documentary movie of his life work, “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” is highly recommended to grasp the nuclear policies he has dedicated his life to raising to higher standards, and to highlight the global need for nuclear disarmament.
Yes, it’s a good day when Daniel Ellsberg gets arrested.
Breaking News: On August 19, 2015, just two weeks after Ellsberg’s recent arrest on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. plans to once again launch a dummy Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) from Vandenberg Air Force Base (in California). It will target the Kawajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). This test comes also in the midst of the major lawsuits filed by the Marshall Islands, called the Nuclear Zero lawsuits, which are attempting to hold the nine nuclear nations accountable for not adhering to the provisions in the Non-Proliferation Treaty to disarm. The lawsuit has been appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (SF). David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and consultant to the Marshall Islands in the Nuclear Zero lawsuits, stated today, “While the U.S. continues to develop and test launch its nuclear-capable missiles, the Marshall Islands is seeking a judgment against the U.S. and other nuclear-armed nations for failure to fulfill their nuclear disarmament obligations under international law.” Krieger previously was arrested with Ellsberg at Vandenberg Air Force Base in protest of other test launches of ICBMs.
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=15102"><span class="small">Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Thursday, 20 August 2015 10:07
Sanders writes: "Wall Street's greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior drove this country into the worst recession since the Great Depression. For too long, this billionaire class has corrupted our political system. We must act decisively to make our economy fair again."
Senator Bernie Sanders. (photo: berniesanders.com)
I Will Break Up the Big Banks
By Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
20 August 15
all Street's greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior drove this country into the worst recession since the Great Depression. For too long, this billionaire class has corrupted our political system. We must act decisively to make our economy fair again.
Wall Street's dangerous manipulation of our economy has helped divert most of all new income to the top one percent, contributing to the most unequal level of wealth and income distribution of any major country on earth.
Today, we live in the richest country in the history of the world, but that reality means little because much of that wealth is controlled by a tiny handful of individuals. The skyrocketing level of income and wealth inequality is not only grotesque and immoral, it is economically unsustainable.
The reality is that for the past 40 years, Wall Street and the billionaire class have rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and income to the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country. As a result, Wall Street exists as an island unto itself, benefiting only the extremely wealthy while using our money to get rich.
Tax Wall Street Speculation to Make College Tuition Free
Too many firms on Wall Street using high-speed trading to try to make a quick buck. But it's risky and unproductive. Banks can execute thousands of stock trades a second thanks to sophisticated computer algorithms.
Wall Street can keep doing this if it wants—but they'll have to pay a tax on every one of those trades. And this tax on Wall Street speculation would be enough to pay for my plan to make tuition free at every public college or university.
Break Up Banks that are Too Big to Fail
In the midst of all of this grotesque inequality in our country sits a handful of financial institutions that are still so large, the failure of any one would cause catastrophic risk to millions of Americans and send the world economy into crisis.
Most of the major Wall Street financial institutions that we bailed out because they were "too big to fail" are now bigger than they used to be. The six largest financial institutions now have assets equivalent to nearly 60% of our GDP, issue 35% of the mortgages, and oversee 65% of credit cards.
My view: If it's too big to fail, it's too big to exist. That's the bottom line. As president, I will break up the big banks and restore some sanity to our banking system.
Make Banking Boring: Reign in the Recklessness
Banking should be boring. It shouldn't be about making as much profit as possible by gambling on esoteric financial products. The goal of banking should be to provide affordable loans to small and medium-sized businesses in the productive economy, and to Americans who need to purchase homes and cars.
That is not what these huge financial institutions are doing. They're instead creating an economy which is not sustainable from a moral, economic, or political perspective. It's a rigged economy that must be changed in fundamental ways.
We need banks that invest in the job-creating productive economy. We do not need more speculation with the American economy hanging in the balance.
Unrig the Tax System
Our tax system is wildly unfair — rigged to benefit the very rich. Major corporations that earn billions in profits stash their money in tax havens and pay nothing in federal income taxes, while billionaire hedge fund managers pay a lower effective tax rate than nurses or teachers.
In order to reverse the massive transfer of wealth and income from the middle class to the very rich that we have seen in recent years, we need real tax reform which makes the wealthy and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. It is fiscally irresponsible that the U.S. Treasury loses about $100 billion a year because corporations and the rich stash their profits in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and other tax havens.
We need a tax system which is fair and progressive. Children should not go hungry in this country while profitable corporations and the wealthy avoid their tax responsibilities.
We Can Do This
The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time.
I can understand how this might feel daunting. We are up against a billionaire class that has bought our political system to enrich itself, and is now faced with the breakup of their oligarchy.
Know this: when people come together to organize, we can beat any amount of money thrown around by the Koch Brothers, Goldman Sachs executives, or anyone else.
Our political revolution is underway, and when it is built, we will win not just against Wall Street, but we will win the White House.
Reich writes: "Corporate welfare is often camouflaged in taxes that seem neutral on their face but give windfalls to big entrenched corporations at the expense of average people and small businesses."
Robert Reich. (photo: Richard Morgenstein)
Corporate Welfare in California
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
20 August 15
orporate welfare is often camouflaged in taxes that seem neutral on their face but give windfalls to big entrenched corporations at the expense of average people and small businesses.
Take a look at commercial property taxes in California, for example.
In 1978 California voters passed Proposition 13 – which began to assess property for tax purposes at its price when it was bought, rather than its current market price.
This has protected homeowners and renters. But it’s also given a quiet windfall to entrenched corporate owners of commercial property.
Corporations don’t need this protection. They’re in the real economy. They’re supposed to compete on a level playing field with new companies whose property taxes are based on current market prices.
This corporate windfall has caused three big problems.
First, it’s shifted more of the property tax on to California homeowners.
Back in 1978, corporations paid 44 percent of all property taxes and homeowners paid 56 percent. Now, after exploiting this loophole for years, corporations pay only 28 percent of property taxes, while homeowners pick up 72 percent of the tab.
Second, it’s robbed California of billions of dollars to support schools and local services. If all corporations were paying the property taxes they should be paying, schools and local services would have $9 billion dollars more in revenues this year.
Third, it penalizes new and expanding businesses that don’t get this windfall because their commercial property is assessed at the current market price – but they compete for customers with companies whose property is assessed at the price they purchased it years ago.
That’s unfair and it’s bad for the economy because California needs new and expanding businesses.
Today, almost half of all commercial properties in California pay their fair share of property taxes, but they’re hobbled by those that don’t.
This loophole must be closed. All corporations should be paying commercial property taxes based on current market prices.
The giant corporations that are currently exploiting the loophole for their own profits obviously don’t want it closed, so they’re trying to scare people by saying closing it will cause businesses to leave California.
That’s baloney. Leveling the playing field for all businesses will make the California economy more efficient, and help new and expanding businesses.
Besides, California’s property taxes are already much lower than the national average. So even if corporations pay their full share, they’re still getting a great deal.
Right now, a grassroots movement is growing of Californians determined to reform this broken commercial property tax system, and who know California needs more stable funding for its schools, libraries, roads, and communities.
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leven years ago, I went up into the California mountains with a group of women who were producing and acting in the first all-transgender production of my play 
here should be a special circle of derision reserved exclusively for prosecutors who botch important cases in very stupid ways. "The people," as the old Law and Order intro used to say, "are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders." And when the first important group screws up in murderous ways, it is up to the second, equally important group to make it right for the rest of us. After all, this is very much something that is at the heart of the current debate over lethal police tactics, which certainly includes the activists of the #blacklivesmatter movement. So 
ietnam War-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, 84, known for releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971, has once again been arrested for protesting U.S. nuclear weapon arsenals, this time at Lawrence Livermore Labs on Thursday, August 7, the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Ellsberg was arrested with fifty other protestors from the Bay Area, while 250 more joined in support to draw attention to the 2016 funding of Lawrence Livermore Labs: $1 billion for nuclear weapons, designing new long-range warheads, and upgrading existing nuclear arsenals.
all Street's greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior drove this country into the worst recession since the Great Depression. For too long, this billionaire class has corrupted our political system. We must act decisively to make our economy fair again.
orporate welfare is often camouflaged in taxes that seem neutral on their face but give windfalls to big entrenched corporations at the expense of average people and small businesses.
