not all of these ideas will work or are good. this is an evolving list that is not ordered by importance. corporate money out of our elections, ending the drug war and private prisons, a green infrasucture deal, universal healthcare, and tuition-free college are the most important, in that order.

Wars

end interventionist regime-change wars. wars is the last resort, not the first.
get out of Iraq. After a 15 year, 2 trillion dollar war, it's worse than when we went there under false pretenses, and 200,000 innocent Iraqis have died. With that money we could have funded tuition-free college in the US for 20 years.
get out of Afghanistan. after a 16-year war, al-Queda arguably controls more territory than when we went in.
getting public funding of elections will vastly reduce the influence of greedy, opportunistic military contractors on our politicians, and therefore our foreign policy.
honor the Iran nuclear deal for as long as they honor it.
Put sanctions on Saudi Arabia for their human rights abuses
and stop funding Saudi Arabia with money and weapons they use to hurt innocent Yemenese people.

Income Inequality

every employee of any business should get stock options after working for a year or two.
tie executive pay to worker satisfaction
tie executive pay to max of 44x lowest paid employee, like isreal has done.
tie congressional wage increases to the minimum wage? (not sure this is a good idea, because then they could just selfishly keep raising the minimum wage to benefit themselves, and crash the economy due to hyperinflation or something, in other words, they then might raise the minimum wage TOO often and too much.)
"Profit-proportional wages". A company's minimum wage or bonuses must be tied to its recent profit reports. it should be proportional in some way, and as a company's profits go up, so do its minimum wage and all other wages proportionally. I guess then, they must also go down, but not below the federal minimum wage, if a company does less well. it only makes sense that ALL your workers should benefit from the profits they help you get.

Taxes and Corporations

if you relocate your business outside of the US to avoid paying taxes, you have giant tariffs placed on your products when you bring them back in. Either you area US company, or you are not. You don't get to be foreign just during tax season.

Gun Reform

if you want to buy a gun you have to take a drug test. when you apply, and wen you pick it up.
of course, mental health and instant background checks, and waiting periods.
If you want to buy a gun, you have to have a gun safety class certification (license).

Fines to Citizens and Corporations

Fines should ALWAYS be based on income. Let's say, check how much the fines hurt poor people, as a ratio of their income, then make that percentage of daily income the fine for the rich. "if a poor person is fined 100 dollars, it's a serious hardship. if a rich is, he doesn't notice it. no incentive to stop, and PAIN and DAMAGE to the poor. that isn't fairness, and that isn't justice.
A corporation that pollutes a community has no CAP on the fine that can be levied. they must pay cleanup costs AND at least 1 average day's worth of profits to the taxpayers.

Campaign Finance Reform

overturn buckley V. valeo and citizen's united.
the big problems are the power of money, and the power of prestige. there are other non-government-related problems, but without fixing money in politics, our leaders have no incentive to be responsive to the people.
establish public funding of elections, no corporate donations, and personal donations capped at 10-20 hours of minimum wage. (or a voucher system.)
through constitutional amendment for security, - wolf-pac.com
and anti-corruption acts passed at the state level.

Caucus Reform

Switch from Caucus to Direct Primary voting in all states.
why caucuses are bad: peer pressure. counting hands waiving in the air. coin tosses.
why they are good: voter education

Voter Education

Set up computers outside election centers with "i side with", etc. set up to learn about who has your positions. Apps ftw. also set them up in local precincts and town halls, as plentiful as atms are and payphones once were. make it print out your choice and where to vote for that voice, and that choice's web site.
political debates broadcasts cannot be copyrighted and are a public service that can be redistributed, even unaltered or unclipped, infinitely and indefinitely.
Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, an FCC rule to require media time for opposing views.

Election Reform

paid leave to vote. new yorkers have the right to 2 hours paid leave. everyone should.
any political debate broadcast nationally must allow onstage all numerically viable candidates.
require that all federal elections are open primaries or open caucuses. also, get rid of caucuses.
all local, state, and federal elections should be open primaries. not closed primaries, and not caucuses.
all people 18 years old or older, or who will be 18 by the time of the relevant election, should automatically be registered, with no party specified.
party affiliations should not be specified at ALL on voter registrations. that is your business and the business of your vote, not any elected official's business.
early voting registration should be cut off no sooner than 1 week before the vote. and you should be able to have day-of registration everywhere.
if your voting machine doesn't work or is "down" the people in charge of that place, and the people who manufactured and installed the machine, must be sued and audited.
Election Day and Primary Day are paid national holidays with fuel reimbursement (state and federal level)
all primaries for local, state, and federal office MUST be open primaries
Both election days have runoff elections
ban political ads from television (like in another country)
remove all political party labels from all voting ballots in general elections
funds toward auto cars to shuttle people to and from election places.
set a fine at $20 for people who do not vote. (like in Australia)
automatic voter registration when you turn 18, and able to vote and caucus in primaries if you WILL be 18 by the general election date.
extend early voting day lengths, number of days, and weeks.
ex convicts should have the right to vote restored upon release, or if they WILL be released by the time of the election, in the case of primaries and caucuses, a tele caucus should include them in that case.
end unfair congressional gerrymandering; congressional districts should always be redrawn by an independently verifiable, super public, computer program/commission that takes into account the concerns of minorities, like grouping them together by "interests/concerns" in cities (the only logical reason to appear to gerrymander; to GROUP people by representation, rather than to DIVIDE them by representation). OR, do not group people according to their interests, so ideas more represented have more sway, but so that districts require a compromise among constituents.
instant runoff elections, also called ranked choice voting or single-transferable vote,
restore the voting rights act,
public funding of elections with a ban on corporate, union, and lobbyist organization money and super pacs

Party Reform

any private or publicly traded business, corporation, or entity that has substantial power over the lives of Americans, must be regulated with a strong bias against private profits and control and toward the general welfare. This means that when a "big tent" party like the DNC changes their rules to rig their elections, that should be against federal election laws. Especially for any federal elections, including primaries. For the same reason that it must be illegal for a giant corporation like Wal-Mart to refuse service to black people, it must also be made illegal for giant organizations to skirt the law and fairness under the guise of "hey, it's a private organization, not a public/taxpayer-funded one, so they get to screw over their constituents however they please." This was an issue with the Nevada Caucuses in 2016, when the DNC clearly rigged and changed rules to favor their darling establishment candidate, against the will of the grassroots, and yet, nothing could legally be done to prevent this since they are a "private organization." It is damaging to have a "private organization" with the power to rig the rules against fairness in a massive public context that affects millions of people. This must stop. The only challenge is asking, when is an organization big enough that these laws apply? We should apply the same principles as anti-trust and merger laws, whereby the government has a responsibility to ensure fairness and that the system is not being rigged against the general welfare to serve the elite.

National Convention Delegate Expense Reform

All delegates to a national party convention should have their transit, hotel, and reasonable food costs subsidized by the federal government for the duration of the week of the convention. It is silly that people should HAVE to find $5,000 just to participate in our political process, should they become a national delegate. The current system attempts to ensure that the working and middle class do NOT have a say in their party's platform at the convention, by excluding them financially. To the rich, $5,000 is nothing, but to everyone else, that can be a serious barrier that ensures the process continues to be dominated by the wealthy. Nothing about voting should cost individual voters money, and this should include paying any expenses reasonably incurred during the exercise of that right. We must remember that ensuring that that right is protected from financial barriers is a fundamental role of government.

Public Ballot Oversight

voting always on paper ballots
precint ballot counting twitch streams, front view, papers only, and counter view, archived at ballotarchive.gov web site.
New rule: all voting machines must be electronic, must print a paper receipt with the time, location, and the names of everyone voted for, and that information should be available publicly, instantly, online. Still a secret ballot, but not so secret that votes can be changed without us knowing.

Additional Oversight of Congress

tie congressional wages to an hourly wage based on hours worked.
require presence in congress, and if you are absent a certain proportion of times, you have to post it on your next campaign's ads. "a D absentee/not voting rating."
congressmen cannot take a job at a company they wrote a bill affecting for 7 years after leaving office.
set congressional term limits to 2 or 3 terms.
ban all lobbyists from washington? NO NEED FOR THIS IF OTHER REFORMS ARE MADE.
ban sufficiently polluting companies from lobbying at the white house or in congress.

Criminal Justice Reform

settlements for police brutality cases should at least in part come from the pensions of the officers responsible, not just from taxpayer funds.
end the private prison industry.
end mandatory minimums.
legalize, regulate, and tax weed.
end the war on drugs.
14 years before 2016 portugal decriminalized all drugs. and shifted spending to treatment. then addiction fell, overdoes fell, injecting drug use down by 50%, and nobody wants to go back. we should do that here.
Legalize and protect sex workers (prostitutes), and provide health services, and cleanliness/safety ratings the way we do masseurs.
stop treating drug addiction like a crime and start treating it like an illness.
make police brutality settlements come from police retirement funds or pension plans.
make police brutality cases federal investigations rather than state or local ones.
untether property taxes from school funding
require body cams on officers
retrain police nationally like how Sweden does (or one of those)
shift from a punitive prison system to a rehabilitative one (like Sweden or one of those)

A List of "Reverse" Miranda Rights

a list of YOUR rights you can recite and require response from officers, a list of the pre-emptive rights we have over the police that are so often forgotten. ie:
No, I don't have to show you my ID in this state,
No, I don't have to put out my cigarette (Sandra Bland),
You understand I have a right NOT to comply with your requests that are unlawful.
You understand if I request a second officer, you MUST provide one.
You understand if I request your badge number you HAVE to provide it.
ideas taken from "Recent Police Reforms: Too Little Too Late" on The Young Turks Youtube channel.

Reproductive/Gay/Trans Rights

Affirmation of women's reproductive rights.
affirmation of the rights of gay and trans people to be treated equally under the law.
Affirmation of the rights of gay and trans people to marry the adult humans they love, regardless of birth sex.
Affirmation of the rights of gay and trans people to adopt children.
affirmation of the rights of gay and trans people to serve in the military.
add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Equal Opportunity statutes.

Economic Stability

break up the big banks (too big to fail is too big to exist)
re-instate glass-steagall so bankers can't gamble with investors' life savings
cap credit card interest rates at 15%
allow post offices to do basic banking things.
re-separate social security from the general fund (Reagan brought it in, and George W. Bush used social security to fund his illegal wars)
re-institute an uptick on short selling
put a tax on wall street speculation to fund education and other things.

Social Health

tuition-free 4-year public college, just like high school is free (free at the point of delivery).
national single-payer medicare-for-all healthcare system.
create housing for all homeless people like Salt Lake City, Utah did.
3 months paid maternity and paternity leave

Powell Memo

investigate powell memo of 1971.

Freedom of Speech/Press

Re-instate the Fairness Doctrine to require big media companies to give time to opposing viewpoints.

Religion

eliminate taxpayer-funded chaplains in the military and congress.
eliminate the tax exempt status of churches.
Per our constitution, "state-approved churches" should not be a category that has legal effects. Churches should not receive tax exempt status. If a church is doing good for their community and/or the world, they should have to open their books and PROVE that, the same way ANY non-profit organization would. This would eliminate most of the scam churches, force churches to operate with oversight (so they can't, for instance, shuffle child molester priests around to help them avoid prosecution as the catholic church has done), and reduce corruption. a good church should not need to cower away from accountability, honesty, and responsibility.

Automation Tariffs

Automation of manufacturing is going to happen regardless of whether we bow to corporations or not. When you say we should keep wages low to prevent automation, you are basically saying “humans have to complete with machinery” which is a completely different problem that we will someday have to deal with, too. wouldn’t you rather TRY to address this problem rather than simply starting a race to the bottom? Eventually all jobs will be automated. We can live in a world where the owners of those robots have to split profits with the community via “automation tariffs”, or we can live in a world where the owners own all wealth, and all humans are jobless. I would not even be against “automation tariffs” against companies that automate rather than emploiying people. WE use (or should use) tariffs against products from other nations, so why not this?

Climate Change Reform/Green New Deal

ban fracking in the US
green infrastructure bill
update roads, bridges, and water pipes across the US, ESPECIALLY in poor neighborhoods where the need is greatest.
end corporate oil subsidies
subsidize solar and wind and citizens who want to make their homes self-sustaining.
retraining fossil fuel workers for renewable production, installation, and maintenance.

Income Inequality: Tether CEO Pay

limit ceo pay to 44 times the pay of their lowest-paid worker. on march 31 2016, ish, isreal voted unanimously to do this.
this should apply to ALL businesses., highest paid employee limited to times the pay of lowest paid employee

Worldwide Living Wages

universal inflation-tethered living wages in all countries would level the playing field for all workers.

Voting Booth

When you vote, you should get a receipt with the vote number and who it was cast for and on what machine, on what day, at what time and in what location, on PAPER. The data for primaries AND general elections should be publicly available online at like vote.gov. Doesn't need to be linked to your identity. This way, votes COULD NOT be changed after the fact without getting caught. This would fix a serious risk in our democracy. This would be amazing. All we have to do is NOT bomb the middle east for a few days, and we could afford these new machines, which should go EVERYWHERE in the US.

Campaign Finance Reform and Conflicts of Interest

if you own a media organization, you cannot contribute to candidate political campaigns. issues based pacs and ads, sure, but not 'Named Candidates" campaigns.

Voter Apathy

The reason Republican governors can keep getting elected is NOT because they represent the majority of their constituents, and NOT because people don't care, but because these guys have millions of dollars in corporate money drenching their states in their names. Name recognition is king, and candidates with the most money win 97% of the time. We fix this by getting public funding of elections, and by banning TV and radio ads promoting individual politicians, just like other countries have.
" In the EU, many countries do not permit paid-for TV or radio advertising for fear that wealthy groups will gain control of airtime making fair play impossible and distort the political debate in the process."

Video Game Addiction

laws against manipulative/skinner box video game mechanics and advertising, and against "gambling-like mechanics" transactions of real money, especially in mobile apps. within reason.
laws requiring that "lifetime total spending of this account" be shown in REAL currency on any game screen that allows microtransactions.

Education Reform

Untether public school funding from property taxes. The current system ensures poor communities get low-quality schools. That should end.
Abolish private schools so the rich and powerful have a vested interested in ensuring public schools are of the highest quality.
maybe stop cutting education funding just to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires?

Other Positions

Protect/Restore Net Neutrality and the Internet Privacy Trump sold to corporate interests.
Sensible immigration reform with a path to citizenship.
Sensible gun reform with universal instant background checks,
waiting periods
end the gun show loophole in all states
required training and licensing to purchase guns
preventing ex-convicts convicted of violent crimes from purchasing guns
preventing mentally-ill people from purchasing guns.
end the patriot act's invasion of privacy problems.
SCOTUS term limits - 18 year terms with 2 year offsets. So each presidential term gets to select exactly 2 new justices. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMi2GOfm8kc

+ consider other policies supported by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, basically every youtube video of Last Week Tonight, and Justice Democrats.

justicedemocrats.com are working toward many of these goals. also check out brandnewcongress.

A Progressive Agenda

rough, evolving list of policies I support, increase awareness & conversation about, & fight for.