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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

New Citizen Movement Launched in Wisconsin

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Wednesday, April 15, 2015   

ALTOONA, Wis. - Our goal is to make concern for the common good far less uncommon, according to the founder of a new Wisconsin citizen group called Blue Jean Nation. Mike McCabe, founder and president of the new group, says Blue Jean Nation will not be a third party.

"The goal is not to have three or more parties," says McCabe. "The goal is not to be to the left of the Democrats or to the right of the Republicans; the goal is to try and pull together voters of every political stripe and make them into a force strong enough to create at least one party that truly is doing the will of the people."

McCabe says with the political money floodgates opened by the Citizens United decision, the people are more disgusted than ever by both political parties, which he says respond to big money donors, not the people.

"What that says to me is that it's time for citizens to pull together and to create a force strong enough to make the parties change their ways and to force change on (the) political system," he says. "That's what Blue Jean Nation aims to do."

The new group's website is bluejeannation.com.

According to McCabe, to accomplish its aims, Blue Jean Nation will engage in community outreach, civic education, grassroots organizing, public policy advocacy, and social action. As to taking on the entrenched political parties, McCabe says history is on his side.

"Past generations were successful in compelling major parties to change their ways at similar times when lots of people were feeling politically homeless," says McCabe. "And when a lot of people were feeling their voices weren't being heard, that their votes didn't matter, that they weren't being represented."

McCabe says the political system has to work for everyone, not just a favored few who are well-connected politically.


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