The County Commissioners can facilitate a rebirth and revitalization of Taos County. They can act now and be part of building a new Taos County, which is entirely based on the old Taos County before all of these rules and regulations stifled innovation and ingenuity. This will enable reduce water and fossil fuel consumption, foster innovation and empower aspiring farmers, and most importantly, it will increase the quality of life for people in the community. If Taos County goes back to its roots and empowers owner builders to develop innovative solutions to the problems that plague our society, they will re-foster the innovation, courage and self-sufficiency for which the residents of Taos County are known. The county is full of innovative individuals who have embraced taking personal responsibility for the world. They have taken it upon themselves to live more in harmony with the earth and reduce their global footprint. Yet, instead of celebrating these innovations, the county is, at present, attempting to regulate them out of existence. Think about individuals making minimum wage who cannot afford a home. Think about the most disadvantaged members of this community. Keeping people off the streets helps everyone in the community. For a full problem and solution statement with citations and references, go to: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a1Htw7P8ulf9uKChr83bRMudsMR6vI5UBD3GLDcW_Z0/edit?usp=drivesdk

The real estate developers are a powerful force in NYC, but the people of Brooklyn don't back down in the face of a threat to our communities.

Congress is considering a package of corporate tax breaks, but they’ve failed to extend needed support for working families that helps folks pay the bills, fill their tanks, buy groceries, and afford child care. With rising inflation taking a bigger chunk out of paychecks, we must demand that Congress extend help for working families before more tax breaks for big corporations.

Ben & Jerry’s is in court protecting their decision to stop selling ice cream in occupied Palestinian territories, after a betrayal by their parent company, Unilever. To appease the Israeli government, Alan Jope, CEO at Unilever, authorized a backroom deal to sell the franchise to an Israeli company – essentially overriding Ben & Jerry’s decision. Sign the petition: tell Unilever to stop its betrayal of Ben & Jerry’s and Palestinian human rights. Ben & Jerry’s made the human rights-affirming decision in 2020 to stop doing business in occupied Palestine, following a decade of grassroots organizing and campaigning by Palestinians and allies across the globe. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s finally went public with their decision — after a particularly brutal Israeli military assault on Gaza which killed over 200 people — and during a huge surge of international support for Palestinian freedom. Now, a year after Ben & Jerry’s public announcement, their parent company, Unilever, has made a backroom deal to sell ice cream operations to the Israeli licensee rather than honor Ben & Jerry’s decision to respect Palestinian lives.

People should join this campaign for change because it presents a paradigm shift, environmentally, for the United States. Currently, our society channels water from every rainfall to be drained away. This causes dehydration of the land withheld water. Every hard surface produces rainwater run-off. These are places where rainfall could previously sink into the ground. We cannot remove every hard surface, like roofs and roads, so we must invest in managing that run-off more naturally to allow more water to soak into the aquifers. One more time, too often too much fresh water or storm water is directed into rivers and waterways before it can soak into the ground. Many of us have seen the pipes that discharge at incredible rates, and still don't seem to be enough to capture our ever-growing hard surface footprint. These pipes must be discharged before the natural environment and given spaces within the cities, towns, and farms to seep into the soils of the landscape. Every town and region will be different based upon rainfall and geologic boundaries. Securing fresh water resources for our environments will then increase the availability of fresh water for human use. Remember the power of the beaver, that is who and what we must encourage and replicate now.

On June 11th, 11 churches joined together to provide $25,000 in free gas in Prince George's County to provide direct aid to the community. Organizers were discouraged to learn that Sunoco Gas Station on Marlboro Pike increased the price per gallon by 10 cents during the event- and immediately lowered the price after. Currently, in Laurel, MD residents are receiving rent increases from $400.00 - $1600.00 as well as parking fees of varying amounts depending on rental seniority & Schweb Partners LLC based in Jackson, NJ claims this is market value for their units. Blatant exploitation and price gouging are unacceptable when our community is struggling to make ends meet, Maryland needs explicit anti-price gouging legislation to protect our citizens from industry greed.

This change lowers recidivism, decreases prison violence, reduces state spending, and increases public safety.

Please sign and pass along this petition so that New Orleans can “be in that number” of cities and states engaged in reparatory justice actions to address the glaring racial disparities in personal well-being between Black and white children and adults in the United States.

Over 6 million children in the US live with food insecurity. The expanded child tax credit, combined with the USDA program that provided free meals for all school children were a lifeline for hardworking families struggling to put food on the table. The double whammy of both these programs expiring, combined with rising grocery prices, puts America's children at further risk of hunger. No child should go to bed hungry. And we know that children can not learn if they are not fed. Universal free meals is the moral thing to do. It ensures our kids grow up healthy and well educated, which benefits us all.

Anybody who woke up in San Francisco under the orange sky on September 9, 2020 knows that climate change is undeniably upon us. But if we start now, there are still many things we can do to turn the tide and avoid the worst impacts. In our city that means rapidly switching our homes and vehicles off of fossil fuels and moving to cleaner, safer, electric alternatives powered by renewable energy; expanding transit; strengthening our ecosystems; and protecting and empowering the communities that will face the worst impacts. San Franciscans are ready to step up and do our part, but we need support and help from our city's leadership. The Department of the Environment (SFE) has outlined an $11 million budget over the next years to begin tackling the biggest sources of the city's carbon emissions, doing so in a way that focuses on justice and equity for the most vulnerable communities. Community groups are calling for additional funds for clean electrification pilots, incentives for eliminating fossil fuels in homes and transportation, and better clarity and protection from the hazards of sea level rise in Hunters Point and other contaminated areas. Additionally, planting trees to capture carbon and provide protection against extreme heat -- a key element of the CAP -- would be especially cost-effective in a city that lags most others in the extent of its tree canopy. Climate change won't wait for politics as usual to play itself out -- the longer we wait, the harder it gets to avoid the increasingly threatening consequences of a hotter planet. The Board of Supervisors will be reviewing the proposed budget in the month of June. We demand that they recognize the scale of the crisis by fully funding SFE's $11 million budget request and additional CAP priorities.

What does financial regulation have to do with the baby formula crisis? More than you might think. Just four companies sell almost all baby formula in the United States: Abbott, Reckitt Benckiser, Nestle, and Perrigo. This concentration in the industry leaves the supply chain vulnerable. Abbott Laboratories, a $35 billion conglomerate, is under fire for manufacturing baby formula in dirty facilities that caused two babies to die of a bacterial infection and made at least two others sick. Now, one of the biggest factories in the country is closed while regulators work to ensure it’s free of contamination, which means desperate parents are driving hours just to find formula. How did this crisis happen? One reason is that regulators let Abbott Laboratories buy back more than $5 billion of its own stock while it covered up unsanitary conditions in its factory. Instead of making sure their product was safe, Abbott’s executives lied to safety inspectors while spending corporate cash on pumping up its stock price. Before 1980, corporations were outlawed from buying back their own stock — and there’s no good reason regulators shouldn’t outlaw it again. This year, the biggest corporations are expected to spend a record $1 trillion on stock buybacks, shattering records and showering cash on shareholders — instead of investing it in product safety, innovation, or workers. The baby formula crisis should be the last straw. It’s sickening that Abbott would buy back stock instead of keeping babies safe. Chair Gary Gensler at the Securities and Exchange Commission has the authority to slam the brakes on corporate buybacks. Chair Gensler is doing good work to rein in financial wrongdoing, but needs to hear from us that this is important. Please help us send a message to Chair Gensler that corporate stock buybacks are bad for everyone but the CEOs and executives they enrich.

Anybody who woke up in San Francisco under the orange sky on September 9, 2020 knows that climate change is undeniably upon us. But if we start now, there are still many things we can do to turn the tide and avoid the worst impacts. In our city that means rapidly switching our homes and vehicles off of fossil fuels and moving to cleaner, safer, electric alternatives powered by renewable energy; expanding transit; strengthening our ecosystems; and protecting and empowering the communities that will face the worst impacts. San Franciscans are ready to step up and do our part, and we need support and help from our city's leadership. The Climate Action Plan lays out clear strategies and action points for reducing our carbon emissions. Now, we need the Mayor and other city leaders to commit the funding to implement it. Delay at this point is inexcusable -- the longer we wait, the harder it gets to avoid the increasingly threatening consequences of a hotter planet. San Francisco has a long history of innovation and a strong progressive tradition. We should be leading the country and the world into a healthier, safer, more resilient future. (Photo credit: "The Day The Sun Didn't Rise" taken on September 9, 2020 by Christopher Michel is licensed under CC 2.0.)