Americans consume almost 3 billion pounds of chocolate each year. We enjoy our favorite chocolate brands, like Hershey's, Snickers, Milky Way, and Twix, but most people do not know about the exploitative origin of these products. Shockingly, most of the chocolate products consumed in America are made using child slave labor. For too long, multinational chocolate producers have relied on child slave labor to harvest the millions of tons of cocoa beans needed for chocolate. In West Africa, tens of thousands of children are enslaved on cocoa plantations and forced to harvest cocoa beans in unsafe, exploitative working conditions, with little respite, and meager pay. We demand that this injustice must change. We cannot allow companies like Mars and Nestle to claim they value black lives when their supply chains are riddled with human rights violations and slave labor in West Africa. We need to join together and make our voices heard to stop this outrageous humans rights violation. Sign our petition to demand that companies like Mars and Nestle stop using child slave labor in their chocolate products! Image credit: Washington Post, "Cocoa's Child Laborers." June 5, 2019. Whoriskey, Peter and Siegel, Rachel. Photos by Salwan Georges.

At the end of September 2020 in Chicago 3,210 people have been shot and 551 have lost their lives to gun violence and we don't want to lose one more person but especially our children. Please use your voice to let city council that they need to prioritize saving lives and investing in healing. We can't wait for another 3 years before substantive change happens. The time to act is now and we have to pass the Peace Book ordinance. The Peace Book is the opposite of the Gang Book. The Peace Book is a regularly-published book (as well as a website and an app) that provides a resource directory identifying wraparound services and job opportunities with the purpose of reducing youth incarceration. The Peace Book suggests diversion programs and ways to further implement restorative justice practices inside schools, courts, and juvenile detention centers. It documents the inequality that contributes to intergenerational poverty and trauma and proposes solutions. It describes models and instructions regarding how to curate neighborhood-based peace treaties. It identifies Peace Keepers in each ward who have the experience and relationships required to conduct peace negotiation and violence interruption. And it proposes remedies to gun violence, including but not limited to free drug treatment centers, trauma centers, trauma-informed schools, mental health care clinics, standby psychiatrists or therapists, restorative justice, community centers, transformative justice, fair housing, food justice and economic justice.

Columbus Day glorifies the colonization and genocide of indigenous people. Christopher Columbus is credited as the "discoverer" of the Americas even though he had mistakenly discovered them. On his expeditions to the Caribbean and South America he had enslaved the native people and even had some killed. Instead of being known for his mistreatment of the indigenous people, Columbus was given a holiday.

This is alarming: senior Pentagon officials are reportedly unsure of what they’ll do if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act and sends active-duty troops to our cities and towns in the face of political unrest following the election. The military takes a vow to the Constitution, not to the president — but the president IS the Commander in Chief. And the violence that could be unleashed in our communities after the election has our staff BEYOND worried. The good news is Congress gave a President this authority, and that means they can revoke it. And legislation that does just that — the CIVIL Act — was introduced in Congress earlier this summer. Now it’s up to us to raise the alarm and the political pressure to get this legislation the attention it needs right now — and make using the Insurrection Act so toxic that even Trump thinks twice before touching it. Urge your members of Congress to limit Trump’s ability to wage war in our communities by cosponsoring the CIVIL Act.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that someone has to serve time in jail for something they never did. It’s not fair someone has to be punished for their own brothers death ! This is important because they do this to us all the time charging the innocent ! Now is our time to fight back now; Now is the time we let them hear us! HELP US FREE TEZ NOW !

FAIRNESS, INCLUSION, and EQUALITY. The Supreme Court lowered the bar passage score for the California bar exam 2 months after the February 2020 bar results were made public. If the passing score on the Feb. 2020 exam had been reduced to 1390, five percent more white test takers would have passed the exam, but eight percent more Latinos, seven percent more Asians and 13 percent more Blacks would also have passed. The percentage of woman applicants have not been disclosed by the committee. Please support recent eligible applicants who have passed previous bar exams with the new cut score of 1390 to 1439 but are unable to retake the exam due to the high fees and costs associated with taking the exam, wildfires, and the numerous issues caused by the pandemic from unemployment, school closures, and the novel Corona virus. Make California attorneys more representative of the state and provide greater access to justice for low- and middle-income Californians in need of legal assistance. The State Bar of California does not want to make the exam retroactive because they will lose money. The State Bar of California will not make admissions retroactive without guidance from the Supreme Court. Please sign this petition, share with friends and family, and support our future generation of legal minds during these times of social injustice. DID YOU KNOW- The State Bar of California will receive $317,080 in test fees from the 376 repeater applicants that have to retake the online October 2020 exam to receive the same score the received in February 2020. Bar Exam fee: $677; Laptop fee: $153; Total to retake online OCT bar exam $830. Bar preparation courses range from $2,500-$10,000. Law school graduates are required to take the California bar exam after graduating from law school and passing moral character and an ethics exam if they want to practice law in the State of California. Support this petition so this new generation of legal advocates can make an impact in the legal field.

This is a frankly terrifying moment. But there is a path forward. Senate Democrats have the power and the leverage to prevent Trump and McConnell from deciding who will succeed Justice Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. The Senate runs on unanimous consent. If a single Senator objects to anything, even routine procedure, everything grinds to a halt. That is what Senate Democrats must do: block unanimous consent on every single thing for the rest of the year. It may be our best chance to stop Trump and McConnell. Senate Democrats can block every motion, force every bill to be read in full, and use a wide range of parliamentary tactics to shut down the Senate between now and January, when new Senators and the president are inaugurated. Will you help?

The Washington Post reports that Pentagon has funneled almost $700 million of COVID-19 relief funds intended to build up *medical equipment supplies* to massive defense contractors for things like jet engine parts and body armor.  This is corruption, pure and simple — and all of us ARE already paying the price of the Pentagon’s waste. These funds could’ve shored up the severe shortage of N95 masks at numerous U.S. hospitals. Or supported desperately needed vaccine distribution infrastructure. Instead, they were funneled to defense contractors and spent on things like jet engine parts and body armor. There is only one solution: the Pentagon needs to pay this money back. Urge your member of Congress to demand that the Pentagon pay back the nearly billion dollars in COVID funding it misspent.

DPI must be instilled within DEI project plans to offer a sustainable approach to retaining diverse ANISHINAABEK, Native American, First Nations, Black Native, Pacific Island, Mesoamerican, South American, Caribbean Indigenous and global Indigenous students and their epistemologies. DPI at The University will give way to mass decolonization of academia throughout Turtle Island. Decolonization must BEGIN with Michigan! THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TREATY OF FORT MEIGS ON BEHALF OF DIVERSE ANISHINAABEK AND GLOBAL INDIGENOUS ONTOLOGIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION. Times up Michigan, your Treaty obligation is overdue. We DEMAND decolonial pedagogy.

The climate crisis is at our doorstep, and presidential candidates must speak to how they will stop and decrease the impacts of climate change going forward. Chris Wallace included two question on the climate in the first presidential debate, and believe all debates going forward must include a similar segment. Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 hurricane, ripped apart the coastline near Lake Charles, LA, barely missing major metropolitan areas like Houston, TX, and New Orleans, LA. Massive, powerful, and destructive hurricanes are becoming the norm—and we haven’t yet reached the end of the 2020 hurricane season. Wildfires are currently burning across the entire West Coast, from California to Oregon and Washington. Entire communities are being displaced or destroyed, people are dying, and millions had to experience apocalyptic orange skies from the smoke and soot. The air quality in cities like Portland, OR, has been abysmal. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, any level above 300 on the air quality index is hazardous, and anything above 500 is off the charts. Portland has faced days where the air quality index reached 516. Firefighters—including crews of state prison inmates, who earn as little as $6 a day—are working in extreme temperatures and perilous conditions to battle the fires. And so many of these repercussions from the climate crisis happen during a global pandemic that has killed close to 200,000 people in the U.S. The impact of climate change on coronavirus transmission is still being explored, but researchers already believe that people are more likely to die from COVID-19 when exposed to poor air quality. We are seeing the tragic reality of the climate crisis of our generation. The climate crisis is disproportionately hurting communities of color and low-income communities. We are already seeing this with frontline communities breathing in toxic air, including in Philadelphia, PA, and consuming toxic water, in communities that include Flint, MI. We are seeing this with the farmworkers in California breathing in toxic air as they supply food for American families. Not only that, but the federal government, states, and localities are facing the economic consequences of climate change. Entire cities and communities are being threatened and damaged. Hurricane Laura is estimated to have caused $25-30 million in damage, and the financial impact of the West Coast wildfires is predicted to be close to $20 billion. The financial, human, and wildlife cost of climate change is incalculable. Climate change, racial justice, and economic justice are all inextricably tied. So we must act now. The climate crisis is here, and we, our politicians—and our future president—have to take action in order to mitigate its impact. That is why it is essential that candidates for president speak to this urgent issue. In 2016, the national presidential debates did not include any questions on the climate crisis. The Democratic candidates were eventually asked about climate, thanks in part to petitions like this one. Omitting a conversation on the climate crisis from the presidential debates absolutely cannot happen again this year, when a historic election is underway. Let’s collect as many signatures as we can on this petition and make sure our voices are heard. We are asking Chris Wallace, Steve Scully, and Kristen Welker, the moderator for the presidential debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and major news media networks to include a substantial segment on climate justice. Both presidential candidates must directly address what they plan to do in order to decrease the impact of climate change on this country and the world.

The ASU Rainbow Coalition and Barrett LGBTQ+ Club are formally reaching out to the ASU administration to request an action plan to reform gender inclusive student housing at ASU. Student leaders from individual RainCo-affiliated organizations have been in contact with USG since the Spring semester and earlier in an attempt to address these issues, but despite many assurances that housing reform is underway, no real progress has been made and it is clear to us that our concerns are being continually ignored. For transgender and queer students, housing with students of the same gender assigned at birth can put our health and safety at risk. For this reason, ASU has provided the option for students to apply for “Gender Inclusive Housing” which gives students more options. However, Gender Inclusive Housing (GIH) is not a legitimate option for students because of unacceptable issues with the application process that render it almost completely dysfunctional––issues we have brought up repeatedly with the administration but have not been taken seriously.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent her life protecting women's rights and advancing justice for those disenfranchised by the political establishment. She was well-known for the work she did before taking the bench, when she served as an advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union and became the architect of a legal strategy to bring cases to the courts that would ensure that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection applied to gender. Justice Ginsburg dedicated her life to ensuring fairness and equality for all Americans. There's no woman in the United States whose life, career and security was not bolstered by the work of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We are all in her debt, young and old, Democrat or Republican. We should keep that in mind as we consider her dying wish. As the end of her life approached, Ginsburg dictated to her granddaughter a message that we must fight to achieve in her honor: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed." PLEASE SHARE THIS PETITION WITH EVERYONE WHO CARES ABOUT OUR COUNTRY'S FUTURE. They do not have to be a member of Nasty Women for Biden to support this initiative.