NO one should ever be treated the way people are treated when sent to Plymouth on a section . They are NOT inmates that are people who need help with substance abuse . Guards have no right to treat them any less . We need to help them instead of knocking them down further and major changes need to happen before more kids die. We must demand change, and Plymouth needs to be investigated .

I was born in Puerto Rico, home to 3.4 million American citizens. My parents are still on the island in Bayamon, a town near the capitol city of San Juan. As a New York state senator from the Bronx, many of my constituents are Puerto Rican--so what's happening is personal for me. And I need it to be personal for you, as well. Hurricanes Irma and Maria have laid waste to my home. Nearly half of the country has no access to clean water. The majority of Puerto Rico still has no electricity. No access to medical care. No way to communicate. But thus far the responses from Congress and FEMA have not come close to addressing the tragic destruction and human suffering on the island. Numerous credible sources report that basic relief functions are in shameful chaos. And as time passes, this is only going to get worse. Here’s what’s needed right now from Congress: 1. Demand FEMA adequately address this tragedy by devoting the immediate people-power and resources that Puerto Ricans need and deserve. 2. Cancel Puerto Rico’s $73 billion predatory debt. 3. Pass a significant relief and recovery package, that includes a permanent end to the Jones Act, so that Puerto Rico has the resources both for this acute crisis and for the longer rebuilding process. Puerto Rico must rebuild, but the same vultures who caused this crisis are going to try and make money off of Puerto Rico’s rebuilding and we cannot let that happen. Look, I have been able to speak to my parents twice and they are OK so far. They had enough food and water for a week—but time is running out. And I’m lucky that I’ve been able to reach them. Constituents are coming into my office who can’t reach their families. One man can’t reach his mother, doesn’t know if she has access to medicine, and is worried about her survival. We’re doing what we can in our office to support our constituents—but we need Congress and FEMA to do more. MUCH more. And do it now.

As a naturalized citizen, I'm horrified that the Department of Homeland Security could even muster the thought of proposing such a far-reaching piece of crap (legislation, sorry). To include millions under DHS watch is simply unthinkable and negates the personal liberties Americans value and hold dear. This simply can. not. stand.

Because all grandparents should have rights to their grandbabies.

It's electric. All over the country, NFL players are taking a knee and linking arms. They're kneeling in opposition to police brutality. They're linking arms because Black Lives Matter. They're joining together in defiance of Donald Trump, who attacks People of Color but says white supremacists are “very fine people.” Trump has tried to turn the players and teams against each other, but his divisive, racist rhetoric isn't working. It's only strengthening their bonds, and unifying people against the politics of hate. Professional athletes courageously confronted Trump's bullying and bigotry yesterday, despite the fact that he has called on their employers to fire them, and even suggested a boycott of their league. Now, as a veteran, I'm joining them, along with thousands of veterans and military families. The NFL needs to know that Americans--all of us--support patriots like Colin Kaepernick, and all the other athletes who are peacefully protesting for racial justice. This isn’t about the flag, which I have personally taken an oath to defend. It’s about our basic values, like believing in the right to speak out, demand equality, and fight for justice. We need to live our values today--like these NFL teams are--by taking a knee and linking arms. When I was 19, I stood up and raised my right hand to enlist in the US Army, because I believe in our basic values of equality, justice, and free speech. The right to kneel and express oneself is exactly what I swore an oath to protect. And all of us at Common Defense--the organization of veterans and military families I co-founded--will continue our fight to uphold that. Will you join me and send a message to the NFL that we're with them?

Police are out of control in St. Louis, and the Mayor has done nothing to stop them. Over the weekend of protests following the not-guilty verdict absolving Jason Stockley of accountability in the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith, police have taunted protesters saying chants like "Whose streets? Our streets?" and even trampled over an old woman and pepper-sprayed the people who tried to help her. It's history repeating itself again and again since the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement. When Black people gather to demand an end to state violence, the state doubles down on the violence people were there to protest in the first place. Using tear gas and riot gear, the police in St. Louis have arrested over 80 people since Friday and exerted full force in an attempt to show us who has the power. Mayor Lyda Krewson still has not condemned the rampant excessive force police are using to suppress the peaceful protesters she claims to support. After the verdict came down, Krewson was quick to express her disappointment and also made a statement in support of peaceful protesters. But now, it's time for Krewson to take action to protect protesters. That's why we're calling on her to widely condemn any use of excessive force against protesters and call a commission to investigate the actions of police during this time. And she won't have a choice if enough of us join together in making the demand.

Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, has thrown the fate of Harriet Tubman's place on the U.S. $20 bill into question. Born enslaved and renowned for her tireless work to abolish slavery and win women the right to vote, Tubman was chosen during the Obama administration, to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. For his part, Jackson is largely remembered as the impetus behind the forced removal of Native Americans from their lands east of the Mississippi River, sending them on a march west now known as the Trail of Tears. Lew understood that the fate of Tubman on the $20 rested with his successor. When asked if he worried about whether his decision would be overturned, he's reported to have replied, "I don’t think somebody’s going to probably want to do that--to take the image of Harriet Tubman off of our money? To take the image of the suffragists off?” But then, Lew couldn't have imagined the toxic duo of Trump and Mnuchin. Symbols, like a powerful Black woman on our nation's $20 bill, matter. Especially today in the wake of so much Trump-fueled racist horror. That's why it's important that Mnuchin experience a quick and barbed rebuke from Americans across our nation--taxpayers who both pay for an use our nation's currency. And the message couldn't be clearer: Tubman stays.

We do not need dissent between the people of this country and our American values are not represented by white supremacy groups or Nazis. This country was built on the strengths of a diversified nation.

There is no room for hate in our country. And while freedom of speech is important, there is no reason that GoDaddy, the world's top hosting site, should be promoting white power nationalists whose platform is based on religious and ethnic intolerance.

Muslim women are being harassed, laughed at, put down, and in some cases denied the right to wear the hijab. Make a special day to celebrate the religious freedom we all have and stop the hate and fear.

Having met with negative results on numerous attempts to have this bust removed, we the undersigned are again requesting. It is today as it has always been offensive, oppressive and a constant reminder to Pueblo people of color and Natives of the genocide it represents.

At this point in time, these Confederate statues in our city of Richmond and in the state of Virginia as a whole, are only serving as locations for violent fringe groups (KKK, Neo-Nazi groups, Confederate groups, White Supremacist groups) to gather and express their hate for unity and inclusion among our citizens. Their rallies are meant to terrorize our communities and divide us in our efforts to establish equality for every citizen, and more importantly, provide safe communities for every citizen to dwell. We did not need statues to educate about the Holocaust, nor do we need statues to educate about the Civil War - this war was about perpetuating the institution of slavery for economic gain in the southern states - it was about violating the most basic human rights of Africans in viewing them as property. A timeline of the genesis of the Confederate sites shows two notable spikes. One comes around the turn of the 20th century, just after Plessy v. Ferguson, and just as many Southern states were establishing repressive race laws; lynchings and the KKK terrorism were peaking. The second runs from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s—the peak of the civil-rights movement. In other words, the erection of Confederate monuments has been a way to perform cultural resistance to black equality. The time is long overdue that we address the problem of these domestic terrorist groups that have been in this country for decade upon decade. One of the easiest things to do is to take away their places of congregating - these Confederate statues. Remove these statues and either put them in museums, auction them off and use the funds for our city, or destroy them. Do not give these domestic terrorist groups any more locations to assemble and terrorize our communities.