An endorsement of a large group necessitates an election by its members! The American Federation of Teachers  (AFT) supports Joe Biden for president, says spokesperson Randi Weingarten. But, we professional educators were not asked our opinion and we should have been! The undersigned AFT teachers support Bernie Sanders for President and we think the AFT should do the same because Bernie's platform is the best for our students, from the young child through the college-bound student. There is no question or doubt that Bernie's platform for education from the start is superior and calls on us to make the playing field equitable and education attainable for all. Here is why: Bernie's platform for elementary and secondary school education: • Provide equitable funding for public schools • Give teachers a much-deserved raise by setting a starting salary for teachers at no less than $60,000, expanding collective bargaining rights and teacher tenure, and funding out-of-pocket expenses for classroom materials. • Strengthens the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by ensuring that the federal government provides at least 50 percent of the funding for special education and giving special education teachers the support they need. • Provide year-round, free universal school meals, and incentivizes locally sourced food. • Make schools safe and inclusive by protecting the rights of all students from harassment, discrimination, and violence and enacting comprehensive gun violence prevention laws. • Rebuild, modernize, and green our nation’s schools. • Combat racial discrimination and school segregation • End the unaccountable profit-motive of charter schools Bernie's platform for higher education:  • Guarantee tuition and debt-free public colleges, universities, HBCUs, Minority Serving Institutions and trade-schools to all. • Cancel all student loan debt for the some 45 million Americans who owe about $1.6 trillion and place a cap on student loan interest rates going forward at 1.88 percent. • Invest $1.3 billion every year in private, non-profit historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions • End equity gaps in higher education attainment. And ensure students are able to cover non-tuition costs of attending school by: expanding Pell Grants to cover non-tuition and fee costs, tripling funding for the Work-Study Program, and more. We do not support the AFT's decision to support Joe Biden without full participation. We, respectfully, request that the AFT support Bernie Sanders because he is the best pro-education candidate in this race for the presidency.

Las Vegas has approximately 150,000 hotels with a homeless population of approximately 5,286, as reported by their survey in 2019. There is more than enough room among those hotels to house those who are suffering from homelessness. These people being forced to stay in the streets and in parking lots are human beings. They deserve to have a safe place to stay at all times, but especially in the middle of a global pandemic. Show Las Vegas and the rest of the country that this treatment of those suffering is unacceptable. Demand they open up their hotels for those without homes.

IT BREAKS MY HEART TO HEAR SOMEONE BEG FOR FOOD CHILDREN ARE STARVING & I JUST CAN'T SIT BACK AND DO NOTHING

Banning of Partners/Significant Others/Family Members/Visitors in Hospital Labor and Delivery Units in the Tri-State Area Protect our mothers and our newborns. Protect our front-line healthcare workers, doctors and nurses. Ban all visitors now! 784, 716 infected worldwide, 163,807 cases in the United States, 67,384 confirmed in New York and 16,636 confirmed in New Jersey, 37,639 fatalities worldwide - we need to flatten the curve now! This past week, New Jersey ordered its citizens to stay home and closed all non-essential businesses in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. New York has mandated the policy of “stay home, stop the spread, save lives.” But our nurses and doctors face that spread every day, and we must do what we can to protect them. New Jersey and New York must prohibit visitors, including partners and family members, on all maternity units in the state. According to CNN, half of infections originate in pre-symptomatic carriers – every person allowed into a hospital increases the risk of spreading COVID-19 to patients and newborns as well as the medical staff caring for them. Two of New York’s largest hospital systems, New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Health System, had barred all visitors from their maternity wards. This ruling was recently reversed. Inconsistent policies are creating confusion in the public, causing people to “hospital shop,” even crossing state lines to deliver their babies with partners present. With the influx of out-of-state patients, New Jersey and New York obstetrics doctors and nurses are faced with unfamiliar patients with unknown medical history. During this COVID-19 pandemic, Labor and Delivery wards’ primary focus must be on the safety of the mother, newborn baby, and staff. As nurses, we understand the pain a partner feels missing the birth of their child, but that pain doesn’t compare to the risk posed to our patients and our medical staff. Having a partner absent at birth creates a more stressful delivery for mothers and staff alike, but it is necessary. Every person in America is making sacrifices in social distancing in order to ensure the future safety and health of our nation. As health care providers, we are at the front line ensuring this safety. Doctors and nurses are at high risk of contracting COVID-19 and must be quarantined if exposed. Therefore we demand that our health and safety, as well as the health and safety of our patients, is taken into consideration. Until testing is available for everyone, we must reduce this risk as much as possible; banning partners in labor and delivery will flatten the curve and save lives. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html Please refer to this hyperlink to show how many people have been infected with unknown origin, how the death toll has risen and how the increase in contact per patient per partner would thus increase exposure risk to all of the people involved. How many people are asymptomatic infected people? Spreading the disease? The USA death total has doubled since Thursday, surpassing 2,500, with NY 1,218 deaths - an increase of 965 since Sunday morning. *Actual numbers provided in opening of petition are from the John Hopkins University Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering as of 22:30 on March 30, 2020. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

On March 30, at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, 58-year-old Juan Mosquero died in isolation after exhibiting serious COVID-19-related symptoms. Across the country families are under extreme stress over the fate of incarcerated loved ones, including Cassandra in Virginia, who says, “My husband is currently incarcerated here in a Virginia prison. He currently has health concerns that worry me. Making him subcetable and at higher risk of the Corona virus [sic].” We are in a crisis on multiple fronts right now, and one such crisis at a breaking point with COVID-19 is our mass incarceration rate — the highest in the world — and crowded detention facilities in which we have totally inadequate health protections. This is no small crisis. There are 2.3 million people behind bars. On any given day, 600,000 people are held pretrial in jails mostly because they don’t have enough money to be home with their families. Moreover, 38,000 people are currently being held in ICE detention centers. The spread of COVID-19 is a national emergency that threatens potentially millions of lives. While everyone is at risk, we have a moral obligation to ensure that our most vulnerable—the elderly, the sick, those without medical care, and those unable to protect themselves from the virus—get the help that they need. Tell your governor to take action now!

These lands were taken illegally from the Cherokee people and must be returned! We are just simply asking for the return of what belonged to us. This will cost the Federal Government nothing! The federal government took the land for public use and that land has never been used! You can view all information at http://attorneyetal.com/petition/ We need "YOU", no matter who you are, to now sign, then share, and be part of our effort! We have very little time. We need to save these lands for the next generations! This will help all our people! Stuart Anglin

44 million hardworking Americans currently owe a total of $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. This is a financial crisis that, if not addressed, will be a driver of economic catastrophe for millions who are increasingly unable to pay down their student loan debt due to high interest loans. Student loan forgiveness is sorely needed, but in today’s politically divisive climate it is not likely to be passed. Americans struggling to pay off their student loan debt need some form of relief now, not later. What this proposal does is allow, at the very least, those who are repaying their student loans to have those payments deducted from their tax liability, 100%. This would provide much needed tax relief for millions of Americans who are struggling to pay down their student debt. Furthermore, this would also allow Americans with student loan debt to pay down their loans faster. The United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate should pass this measure immediately to provide economic relief to millions of Americans currently bogged down with student debt in the form of fair taxation.

Recently, the Health Care Authority has temporarily allowed interpreters who cover Medicaid interpreting appointments to work from home while being compensated at their current rate of pay during this COVID-19 situation. On the other hand, L&I has chosen to require medical and vocational providers to only use pre-approved vendors in the Department of Enterprise Services (DES) contract when needing interpreters over the phone. This includes companies like Language Link, and Lionbridge. This is causing extreme hardship to independent interpreters who cover face to face L&I appointments, being obligated to remain at home without any means to support their families. If the HCA was able to quickly find a solution for their interpreters, why can't Labor & industries? As this COVID-19 situation develops, we need to do whatever it takes to help our economy. Please join us and ask the Department of Labor and Industries to do what's right for the majority of workers which are independent interpreters, not just a few companies. While we are at home and staying healthy, we shouldn't be worried that L&I will give our jobs to out of state companies.

I have student loans and a car loan with Nissan Financial and I was told they will push back my auto loan but add on extra interests. I think if we are out of work for a month or two instead of charging extra interest and pushing out our loan out several months that those months be counted as paid and we are given time to settle our lives after everything gets back to normal.

It is the obligation of every Latino elected official or candidate for office to assume leadership to mobilize to create this special fund, and to prioritize it above all other matters. There are many looking for the well-being of all of us, but not many who take on the responsibility to look after our vulnerable undocumented population. Please take the initiative to move this matter, and include me in your efforts.

Governor Baker needs to use his vote to elect a president who is going to be the best for Massachusetts. Governor Baker is the most popular governor in the country. He is a member of the same party as the President and he left the presidential ballot blank in 2016. The citizens of the Commonwealth want Governor Baker to vote for a president who will help the residents of our state, not tell us to do it ourselves and then outbid us.

People are dying! Trump is not doing his job. Someone needs to! Michael Bloomberg is well-positioned and ideally suited (capital, connections, executive skills) to serve the country in this way.