Think back to when you were 18, 19, even 21, did you have need for a automatic rifle? Or even a handgun? So, why would we sell guns to 18 year olds? With no training, little background info, and zero questioning, we let a child buy weapons that kill. Are you comfortable with this? Please help raise this ridiculous legal age limit to something other than 18.

Please help by signing this petition. We want to ensure that our unhoused citizens maintain their right to employment and resources essential for their survival and path to recovery. This petition will be presented to the Wausau City Council. By agreeing on the basic human rights of our unhoused, we can begin to work together to help.

Healthcare workers were deemed heroes throughout the pandemic and now they’re losing their jobs and livelihoods over an employer mandated medical procedure that violates their religious beliefs.

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.

If we do not start to stand up against this type of behavior, it will continue the culture that we live in an area that breeds hate. If you look at comments on the many local articles, you will see a common trend that people outside our area think of our town as racist and bigoted. We are fully aware that we are far from it, and the words of one do not reflect the ideology of the majority of us.

If we are to be a country of religious freedom, then we need to be a country free from religious influence in our laws and government. For no one who lives under laws created by religious influence and zealotry has freedom of religion, only freedom to be subjugated under a singular religion.

Earlier this week, a leaked draft opinion suggested that the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade. My senator, Susan Collins (R), claims to support abortion rights, even stating she “supports the right to an abortion and believes that the protections in the Roe and Casey decisions should be passed into law” (nbcnews.com, Dec. 2021) but at every single turn, has voted for people that could ultimately contribute to the downfall of Roe v. Wade. During his 2017 confirmation under then President Donald Trump, Justice Gorsuch referred to Roe as precedent, “worthy of treatment as precedent, like any other.” In 2018, Collins supported Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh’s controversial nomination because she believed that he would uphold Roe v. Wade as the law of the land and legal precedent. When we reached out to her about our concerns she not only ignored our voices but accused us of being paid lobbyists from out of state. She refused to listen to her own constituents. Now, despite hearing about this leaked draft and what it could mean for millions of people, Susan Collins is refusing to support the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA). Can my Senator continue to call herself pro-choice if all of her actions indicate otherwise?

Justice Gorsuch should hold no influential office in the Colonial Williamsburg organization as long as he pursues overturning Roe and Casey. His actions are egregiously uncompassionate, harmful, and inconsistent with the values and mission of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. As the organization stands to have "the future learn from the past", it must acknowledge that this decision is legally, intellectually, and socially regressive and would be desultory for the health, safety, and well being for a large portion of the American public. Colonial Williamsburg should stand against such behavior and expel Justice Gorsuch from its ranks.

Health care is a human right. Abortion is health care, and abortion needs to remain LEGAL. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and now abortion access is dictated by states, which means that abortion access across the country for millions of people is essentially nonexistent. Now is the time for urgency and education on what resources are available for people if they need to safely self-manage an abortion at home. For more than 20 years, medical advances have come forward to revolutionize how people experience abortion. We’re aggressive proponents of people being able to have an abortion on their own terms—without interference from the government, whether they seek that care from a provider at a clinic or self-manage at home. Right now, anti-abortion politicians are impeding progress by trying to prevent anyone from being able to have a safe, effective, and affordable abortion. But we cannot let people in power continue to ban abortions and criminalize people who exercise their right to choose.

 Abortion by mail can significantly reduce the harm done by right-wing, anti-choice legislation, but people need to know about this avenue. Acquiring and using pills may carry legal risk, especially for marginalized people; you can check if it's legal in your state here: https://abortiononourownterms.org/self-managed-abortion/. The Biden administration has recently taken steps to make it easier to acquire abortion medication from retail pharmacies and for the Postal Service to deliver pills nationwide. We need to build on this progress and ensure that anyone who chooses this option to end their pregnancy can do so safely, effectively, and privately—on their own terms. It’s crucial that we create a world where every person is free from stigma and shame, and protect access to safe abortion for all.

I implore all Americans to stand up, be heard & do something to help better your life & the lives of all those around you! If we don’t speak up NOW, there will never be change… We have the power to change the world, right the wrongs, unlock the chains of injustice & demand a better quality of life! Change starts with you! Your voice matters! You CAN make a difference! Stand with me in pleading… no, DEMANDING more from our government! We demand more assistance to climb our way out of poverty! We demand our government to respect & hear the people! We demand a better quality of life for our children! And lastly, we demand action from our government! If change doesn’t happen NOW, I fear those people who feel frustrated & unheard will begin to revolt. We do NOT need a revolution, we need a resolution… When parents go hungry so their children do not, you know there is something inherently wrong with the system. When the people are scared to seek medical help because of the outrageously high costs, there is something inherently wrong with the system. When a parent has to choose between working just to pay daycare or staying home to raise their children and not being able to pay rent, there is something inherently wrong with the system. We are not asking for a handout, we are asking for a leg up! I implore you to take these words seriously. For if you don’t, the people may rise up to seek justice themselves. We will no longer stand by and go unheard and unseen. We will shout from the rooftops until change happens! I will stand up for what is right, even if I have to stand alone…

Health care is a human right. Republicans have been increasingly supporting radical positions on eliminating abortion to gain support across the nation, but this shouldn’t be an issue of red vs. blue—this is an issue of restricting access to health care for millions. Accessible and affordable health care is already limited in our country, and losing access to vital reproductive healthcare is just going to put more individuals and communities in danger. These bans impact marginalized communities the most, and we need public health officials to step in and take action to protect and expand access to abortion and broader reproductive health now. In 2021, the Department of Health and Human services took action and announced new resources to protect abortion patients and providers in Texas after the tragic passing of SB8. Unfortunately, at the same time, other states have been inspired by Texas’s limitations to abortion and by bans increasing across the country. Right-wing justices on the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade, which is why it’s crucial that President Biden and HHS take action to prepare for the worst—and protect access to safe abortion for all. Sources: 1. "What’s Happening With Abortion Legislation in States Across the Country," The New York Times, April 14, 2022 https://www.nytimes.com/article/abortion-laws-us.html 2. "Minority women most affected if abortion is banned, limited," Associated Press, February 1, 2022 https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-business-health-race-and-ethnicity-3fff455cce7ef0d8694f5371f805ea18 3. "The negative health implications of restricting abortion access," Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, December 13, 2021 https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/abortion-restrictions-health-implications/ 4. "HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra Announces Actions to Protect Patients and Providers in Response to Texas’ SB 8," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, September 17, 2021 https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/09/17/hhs-secretary-xavier-becerra-announces-actions-protect-patients-and-providers-response-texas-sb.html 5. "Roe v. Wade's future is in doubt after historic arguments at Supreme Court," NPR, December 1, 2021 https://www.npr.org/2021/12/01/1060508566/roe-v-wade-arguments-abortion-supreme-court-case-mississippi-law

Right now is a time that calls for bold action. And President Biden can step up to protect abortion, too—starting by declaring a public health and national emergency around abortion and by hiring federal abortion providers and dispatching them across the country. All of us must come together now, in solidarity with everyone who seeks abortions, especially our siblings in the nearly two dozen states that have and will ban and further restrict their bodily autonomy and access to abortion. This will impact so many of us. This will harm and criminalize people who get abortions: women, trans people, and nonbinary people. And it will disproportionately impact Black people, Indigenous people, brown people, poor people, immigrants, disabled people, and young people who have historically been marginalized and faced with structural barriers, even when abortion was legal. That’s why, as a community, we have to stick together as we continue to fight for bodily autonomy and universal health care for all. Republicans, who have won the presidential popular vote only once in the last 34 years, have engaged in a concerted effort to pack the Supreme Court with right-wing extremist judges, who have stripped us of our rights over and over again. And it’s not just the Supreme Court. The GOP’s latest all-out attacks, from reproductive freedom, to bans on trans athletes, to bans on abortion at fertilization, to bans on gender-affirming care, are all about bodily autonomy–and are fundamentally connected. And Republicans have no intention of slowing down these attacks, so we have to lean into collectivism and fight back together. This is why we must demand that President Biden use all of his power by declaring a public health and national emergency around abortion and hiring federal abortion providers and dispatching them across the country. Now is the time to make sure that our elected officials receive our message loud and clear: We won’t go back.