Thousands of residents work from home (regardless of Covid). Our children are learning from home. Elderly, impaired, and infants are home all day trying to rest. It has become impossible to concentrate on any given day of the week as leaf blowers are used every day at all hours of the day! We have also ceased to hear birds for much of the day, animals run in fear, kids cease playing outside, you can't even walk your dog any longer without being blasted with NOISE & POLLUTION!

[We are no longer seeking signers for this petition based on the Biden Administration's announcement that it will implement most of the requested policies.] Protests in Cuba on July 11th and subsequent trials dramatized the cost of President Biden and Vice President Harris failure to fulfill their campaign pledge to "promptly reverse the failed Trump policies that have inflicted harm on the Cuban people". Substantial majorities of Americans support repairing the Trump Administration's symbolic and substantive damage to our freedom as well as to our national political and economic interest. Sadly the Biden-Harris Administration has allowed the shadow of Trump to dominate US policy on Cuba more than one year after replacing him. It is unconscionable to continue to deny Cuban Americans the ability to provide desperately needed remittances to their families and to ignore the Constitutional right of all Americans to travel. Prompt action is essential so independent visitors and specialized travel agencies can create trips that renew support for Cuba's private sector in the winter of 2022. Cruise lines, tour operators, airlines, universities, cultural exchanges, agricultural producers and businesses require confirmed policy change in order to resume jobs providing engagement in the 2022 season. Organizer: Fund for Reconciliation and Development, Cuba/US People to People Partnership [Every time we add another 1,000 signers, we update a published list organized by zip code. It can be seen here https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2021/12/signers-of-cuba-petition.html For an update on the situation after the July 11 and failed November 15 protests, visit https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2021/08/evolving-personal-thoughts-about-cubas.html For ideas of additional personal action, go here https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2021/01/biden-harris-petition-follow-up.html ]

A 16-year-old girl working on palm oil plantations in Indonesia told the Associated Press that her boss took her to a remote part of the estate and suddenly grabbed her arm and started pawing her breasts, throwing her to the jungle floor. Then he held the ax to her throat, spit on her, and raped her. “He threatened to kill me,” she said softly. “He threatened to kill my whole family.” This story is just one of many -- women working on palm oil plantations are enduring horrific working conditions: From free labor to exposure to toxic pesticides to rape. And Procter & Gamble, like many other beauty brands, have blood on their hands as they source from producers that operate like modern-day slavery. Rainforest Action Network (RAN) investigations found that labor abuses regularly occur even on plantations that supply mills bearing the green palm stamp for sustainable palm oil. Procter & Gamble is one of the world’s biggest palm oil users, and despite year after year of its palm oil suppliers being exposed for labor abuses, it has failed to ensure palm oil workers are protected. We ask P&G to: 1) Enforce and monitor the worker protection standards for all its palm oil suppliers 2) Apply full transparency and proof that workers rights are being respected instead of relying on inadequate; certification schemes and allowing offenders to hide from public scrutiny If we expose a global giant like Procter & Gamble and make them shift big time, it will send ripple effects through the industry and all the others might follow suit.

Is very important because these are hard working dedicated employees putting lives on the line every day.

Rahm Emanuel‘s decisions and policies as mayor had a disproportionate and racist impact on Black communities, and his agenda aided corporations and the wealthy at the expense of working Chicagoans. To aid his re-election campaign in 2015, he suppressed video footage of the 2014 murder of a 17-year-old Black child, Laquan McDonald, by Chicago police. He made history by closing 50 public schools across Chicago, primarily in the majority-Black South and West Side communities of the city—the most school closures at one time in any school districts in the nation. During his first year in office, his administration shut down half of the public mental health clinics across Chicago. Soon after taking office, he eliminated the city’s Department of Environment, and as a result, environmental regulation dropped considerably. Communities of color throughout Chicago have borne the brunt of this decision, and thousands of people (primarily Black families) have been exposed to chemical hazards and irritants as a result. And while his administration was consistently slashing public services and utilities, the city funded the construction of a brand-new, $95-million police academy on Chicago’s West Side. The Department of Transportation has unions representing over 38,000 employees at the federal and national level. As mayor of Chicago, in addition to closing 50 schools, Emanuel repeatedly attacked public unions by supporting legislation that would make it harder for teachers to strike, laid off hundreds of school staff, and threatened to lay off hundreds of city employees in order to privatize some city services. Emanuel served big business and corporate interests throughout his time as mayor, and his decisions disproportionately harmed working families and communities of color. We have no reason to believe that he’d act any differently as a member of President-elect Biden’s Cabinet. President-elect Biden is taking office during a time of deep, overlapping crises. His administration will need to be bold, ambitious, and transformative and will need to speak to the needs of everyday people, and he needs to stand up for Black communities, as he said he would last month. His appointees must reflect that vision. Rahm Emanuel's track record is an affront to everything we voted for—especially to Black Americans—and he should have no place in the new administration.

President-Elect Biden's inauguration is just over a month away. And while Biden's inaugural committee has rightly rejected money from fossil fuel corporations, they're still planning to accept up to $1 million from individual corporations -- even though Barack Obama rejected corporate contributions for his inauguration in 2009. This inauguration will be different due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Instead of gala inaugural balls and parties happening in person, most of it will happen online. That should mean it's even less important than ever before to raise money from corporate interests to fund it. If the Biden-Harris administration is serious about “building back better” in a way that remedies the longstanding ills of the country, Joe Biden should not let corporate interests have this kind of unnecessary influence. Rejecting their contributions to the inauguration fund is a key step this administration can take to signal where their allegiances lie.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been named Ambassador to Japan, but he hasn't yet been confirmed for the position. Emanuel had an absolutely disastrous record as mayor between 2011 and 2019. His decisions and policies had a disproportionate and racist impact on Black communities, and his agenda aided corporations and the wealthy at the expense of working Chicagoans. To aid his re-election campaign in 2015, he suppressed video footage of the 2014 murder of a 17-year-old Black child, Laquan McDonald, by Chicago police. He made history by closing 50 public schools across Chicago, primarily in the majority-Black South Side and West Side communities of the city—the most school closures at one time in any school districts in the nation. During his first year in office, his administration shut down half of the public mental health clinics across Chicago. Soon after taking office, he eliminated the city’s Department of Environment, and as a result, environmental regulation dropped considerably. Communities of color throughout Chicago have borne the brunt of this decision, and thousands of people (primarily Black and Latinx families) have been exposed to chemical hazards and irritants as a result. And while his administration was consistently slashing public services and utilities, the city funded the construction of a brand-new, $95-million police academy on Chicago’s West Side. As mayor of Chicago, in addition to closing 50 schools, Emanuel repeatedly attacked public unions by supporting legislation that would make it harder for teachers to strike, laid off hundreds of school staff, and threatened to lay off hundreds of city employees in order to privatize some city services. Emanuel served big business and corporate interests throughout his time as mayor, and his decisions disproportionately harmed working families and communities of color. There's no reason why he should be rewarded with a public office, especially one in which he is representing the United States on a global stage. We are asking that President Biden withdraws Emanuel's nomination—and we're also calling on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote to oppose it.

This is very important because our loved ones are possibly going to get sick and not make it home to their families, wife’s and children by the prison spreading the virus and treating them as if they are not human.

This is a company very dear to my heart. My grandfather left Bulgaria to pursue a better life in America for our family and this was his first real job here. It changed everything for us! My mother is a long time employee in this location and has dedicated her life to this company. So many lives will be changed if this location closes. We are in the middle of a pandemic and many families are dependent on this income. Our economy will be affected, our local businesses. We need to rally together and make sure the jobs stay here!

To protect our precious environment, especially since the lame duck Trump administration just moved to sell oil rights in the Arctic Refuge on November 16, 2020, with sales to go through right before Inauguration Day 2021 when Biden becomes President.

The Climate Justice Committee calls on Biden to turn back Trump's Executive Orders that exacerbate climate change and environmental damage to the world. We call on Biden to sign Executive Orders overturning the damage done by Trump. These are by no means the only Executive Orders that need to go, but this would be a good start for Biden to show the climate justice movement that he takes climate change seriously. To do so requires nothing more than the signing of his pen, which is all it took for Trump to enact them in the first place. We know that is a drop in the bucket for what needs to be done to fight climate change and environmental destruction, so we hope you join the Climate Justice Committee in demanding these Executive Orders are rolled back, and also for real and meaningful action to save our planet. If you would like to co-sponsor this, please do so here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1qk0h4W7FWcu9H_HUFMCLVAaLQRDncWxCXbNpmxMOmyY/edit

Right now, Trump is trying to ram through a massive last minute sale of $23.37 BILLION in weapons to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — the same bombs that they and Saudi Arabia use to murder Yemeni civilians and exacerbate a humanitarian crisis — and the time for us STOP the sale is already running out. Trump is still in the White House until January 20, 2021. And between now and Inauguration Day, untold damage can be unleashed, including weapons sales like this one. But we have a CRITICAL, narrow window to stop this sale: by law, Congress has 30 days to intervene and block the sale. The clock is ticking, but luckily, we’ve done this before, and there’s no doubt that together, we can get loud enough so that (once again) Congress listens. Sign now to tell Congress: End U.S. complicity in Yemen, stop Trump’s arm sale to the UAE.