The GOP will stop at nothing to actively terrorize marginalized communities like the queer community and queer students. It is no mystery that the GOP will continue these vitriolic and baseless attacks against our most vulnerable communities; they have proven this to us throughout their history and they are still openly committed to that legacy. We are currently seeing the direct results of what can happen with low voter turnout. The GOP will not govern effectively, they will prioritize violent roll backs of any progress that we have made thus far to protect marginalized communities and they will build their platforms around doing so. If this makes you angry, turn your anger to action. A few districts have already spoken out against the ruling, but we need more. We need widespread outrage at this new proposed legislation to prevent it from going through. We need to take our anger, our fear, our passion and our love for one another and show the GOP that Virginia is for lovers, and beyond Virginia, our community will not be intimidated, oppressed or legislated out of the society we all live in. In a Youngkin state, we have to fight for one another because he has made it clear that he will not fight for the rights of all Virginians– only those that he and his party deem deserving of basic liberties and fundamental human rights. There is a 30 day comment period for public comments on this pivotal issue that begins on September 26 and ends on October 26. You don’t need to be from Virginia to speak out and support trans lives. You can submit public comments here: https://townhall.virginia.gov/L/GDocForum.cfm?GDocForumID=1953

Before Hurricane Fiona hit, Puerto Ricans were being subjected to nearly daily power outages that were burning out generators, leaving hospital patients at risk, and forcing children to do their homework under flashlights. For this state of misery under the LUMA Energy consortium, households and businesses were issued SEVEN rate hikes—in one year alone. This abuse is unconscionable. After more than 100 organizations sent letters to the Commonwealth and Federal governments, and to Congress, and after attempts by legislators in the Island to withhold funding from LUMA Energy were blocked by a Congressionally-imposed fiscal control board, Puerto Ricans en masse took to the streets. Their demand that went unheeded: Cancel the LUMA contract. Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, we echo the call of the people being harmed by this bad contract and incompetent service provider. Do right by the people by canceling this contract before Nov. 30th. Otherwise LUMA will be locked in for 15 years. In fact, all you have to do is not sign any renewal contract. To President Biden and Congress, we say Puerto Rico MUST have a sustainable and clean, renewable energy grid that is reliable, hurricane or not. The federal government should take immediate steps so that what should have been done after Hurricane Maria is accomplished. Federal reconstruction funding to rebuild the electricity grid should be required to be used for only sustainable and clean, renewable energy projects, not dirty, polluting fossil fuels. FEMA should reprogram the tens of billions already available in disaster funding to municipalities and NGOs. As energy experts advise, Congress should move to cancel all or a substantial portion of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s debt. FEMA officials recently testified that out of $13 billion available in US grid reconstruction funds, only $40 million had been disbursed, FIVE years after Hurricane Maria. Enough is enough! Please join the demands of the people of Puerto Rico: #CancelLUMA, #CleanGrid4PR #CommunityDrivenRecovery

Corporations love to make big sweeping public announcements about “going green” and then taking victory laps in the press without making real, concrete changes to address climate change. Take General Motors for example. Last year they unveiled their plan to become carbon neutral by 2040. Which sounds good on paper until you realize the process to make aluminum for cars generates about 1.1 billion tons of CO2 emissions.1 And with the rising adoption of electric vehicles, demand for aluminum is expected to explode in the coming decades.2 Tell General Motors CEO to walk the walk when it comes to climate change and commit to sourcing only carbon-free aluminum! Sign the petition! Right now China is the biggest aluminum producer and they use coal-powered electricity to drive the process. This generates a massive carbon footprint for a country that is already the world leader in greenhouse gas emissions.3 But it doesn’t have to be this way. Suppliers can make aluminum using renewable energy-powered electricity and stop relying on coal. They can also use recycled aluminum which generates only 5% of the carbon emissions.4 Not only are the current aluminum supply chains dirty from a climate perspective, they’re also dirty from a human rights perspective. Early this year, General Motors was found to have ties with Chinese aluminum suppliers in the Xinjang region, known to use forced labor from Uyghur muslims.5 Just as bad, the bauxite needed to make aluminum has created a strip mining industry that has devastated the health and livelihoods of Indigenous communities across Africa, Asia and Australia.6 General Motors is a world leader in the automotive industry. If they demand their suppliers to decarbonize, the industry will follow. And when it comes to climate, we can’t afford to wait for corporations to just decide to do the right thing. We have to push them. Tell General Motors CEO to walk the walk when it comes to climate change and commit to sourcing only carbon-free aluminum! Sign the petition! Sources: 1. Center for Strategic & International Studies, “Decarbonizing Aluminum: Rolling Out a More Sustainable Sector,” February 25, 2022. 2. Ibid. 3. BBC, “Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined,” May 7, 2021. 4. BloombergNEF, “Green Aluminum is Competitive Today. It’s Time to Start Transforming,” June 16, 2021. 5. Washington Post, “Automaker suppliers linked to controversial labor programs in Chinese aluminum industry, report says,” April 8, 2022. 6. Human Rights Watch, “Aluminum: The Car Industry’s Blind Spot,” July 22, 2021.

A Trump-era prosecutor who targeted Chinese academics without proof of a crime could be facing a big promotion in the US court system. Civil rights and Asian American groups are furious. We’re joining the call to stop his nomination. Casey Arrowood was the first prosecutor to use Trump’s racist “China Initiative” to target academics of Chinese origin. And he was relentless. The Biden administration ended the “China Initiative,” calling it “biased” and “flawed.” But now Casey Arrowood could be promoted for using it against the Chinese immigrant community. Unless we speak up to stop it. Sign the petition: Tell the Senate to oppose Casey Arrowood’s nomination! The “China Initiative” was created to root out economic espionage from China, but instead this policy was weaponized for overzealous prosecution against Asian academics. Casey Arrowood used the “China Initiative” to go after Dr. Anming Hu. With only a Chinese press release translated poorly via Google as evidence, Casey Arrowood accused Dr. Hu of being a spy. He then placed Dr. Hu and his teenage son under FBI surveillance for over a year. When the surveillance didn’t turn up any evidence of espionage Casey Arrowood tried to mount a wire fraud case against Dr. Hu that was so weak a federal judge had it tossed out. Casey Arrowood should not be allowed to practice law, let alone get promoted to the US Attorney’s office. Demand Progress has long led the fight against this exact kind of government surveillance abuse. Now we’re standing with civil rights groups, elected officials, and academics to demand that the Senate block Casey Arrowood’s nomination. Will you join us? Sign the petition: Tell the Senate to oppose Casey Arrowood’s nomination! Sources: 1. Tennessee Lookout, “Falsely accused University of Tennessee professor: Biden should rescind U.S. Attorney nomination,” August 11, 2022.

A Trump appointee – who somehow still has a job at Homeland Security – is refusing to cooperate with the January 6th Committee about the missing Secret Service text messages during the insurrection at the Capitol. Joseph Cuffari is the Inspector General at Homeland Security, which means he’s supposed to investigate any potential wrongdoing in the agency. Instead he’s blocking the investigation into Secret Service agents’ texts sent while Trump’s mob stormed the Capitol. If Joseph Cuffari refuses to do his job, then he shouldn’t have that job. Period. Sign the petition: Tell President Biden to remove Homeland Security IG Joseph Cuffari! Trump appointees should have been removed from their jobs on Day 1 of Biden’s Presidency. Instead Trump cronies like Joseph Cuffari and Louis DeJoy are abusing their positions of power. For Louis DeJoy that means trying his level best to dismantle the Post Office. For Joseph Cuffari that means standing in the way of finding out what really happened on January 6th. Joseph Cuffari isn’t just refusing to testify before the January 6th Committee, he’s also refusing to provide documents relating to the missing Secret Service text messages, and refusing to allow his employees to be interviewed.1 Simply put: he’s standing in the way, and he needs to be removed. The American people deserve to know the full truth of what happened on January 6th. We need to know who was involved in planning and who could have intervened to stop it, but didn’t. We need the full picture because our very democracy is at stake. Only one person has the power to remove Joseph Cuffari as Homeland Security IG, and it’s President Biden. Sign the petition: Tell President Biden to remove Homeland Security IG Joseph Cuffari! Sources: 1. NBC News, “Top Democrats say Trump-appointed inspector general is not helping with inquiry into missing Secret Service texts,” August 16, 2022.

The herbicide atrazine is making frogs croak — and not in a good way. Because it's so widely used across the United States for weed control on crops, concentrations of atrazine in many rivers, ponds and streams are so high they can kill amphibians. If we don't stop using this chemical, imperiled species including dusky gopher frogs and Illinois chorus frogs could be driven to extinction. Atrazine has to be banned, and you can help. This poison's so dangerous it's already illegal in 44 countries across the world. It chemically castrates male frogs at concentrations lower than what's allowed in our drinking water. And in people, exposure to it correlates with elevated cancer risks, irregular menstrual cycles, and low sperm counts. We must ban this toxic chemical once and for all.

Justice Thomas has failed to recuse himself from cases pertaining to the 2020 election before, with disastrous results. In January 2021, Clarence Thomas was the only justice who sided with Trump in a case determining whether the January 6th Committee could access Trump White House records. Just two months later, we learned the extent of his wife’s involvement in the Trump coup attempt. Ginni Thomas texted with Mark Meadows about the insurrection and pressured lawmakers at the state and federal levels to throw out the fairly-determined election results. Clarence Thomas’s shameless dissent in Trump’s favor shows there’s no way he could rule fairly on Moore v. Harper. He must recuse himself! Sign the petition: Justice Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from Moore v. Harper!

The PRESS Act passed the House with bipartisan unanimous support. And when the same legislation was introduced in previous years, it’s enjoyed support from Republicans — including Mike Pence. It’s obvious that if Senate Republicans oppose the legislation now, it won’t be because of policy concerns. It will be out of fear of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies — the same ones that put our press corps at risk. The Protect Reporters from Excessive State Suppression (PRESS) Act would shield journalists from being forced to give up sources and block government seizure of phone and email records. These rights are absolutely essential in any functioning democracy. With just days left in this session of Congress, the Senate must seize this opportunity to defend our democracy before it’s too late! Sign the petition: The Senate must pass the PRESS Act, legislation safeguarding a free and independent press!

Members of Congress may have profited off the pandemic using insider information. Since March 2020, momentum has been building to finally ban Members from trading individual stocks while in office — but time is running out. House Democrats have been promising a final proposal to ban Congressional stock trading all summer. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi must bring a strong proposal to the floor now, before the end of the Congressional session! Corruption in Congress has been an issue since long before the pandemic. But in March 2020, Members’ apparent profiteering got more brazen than ever. Senator Richard Burr sold hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stocks after receiving a briefing on the severity of COVID-19. He warned rich donors at a private luncheon of the oncoming COVID crisis — but failed to warn his constituents, or support legislative action that would remediate the crisis. We called for Burr to be investigated by the SEC and the Senate Ethics committee. To date, he has faced no consequences for his actions. Neither have three other senators who may have profited from insider information as the pandemic was unfolding. The current laws governing Congressional stock trading are too weak – and are rarely enforced. That’s why we need a ban on Members of Congress owning and trading all individual stocks while in office. Members have an incentive to make the policy as weak as possible — but they’re vulnerable to grassroots pressure. We must be clear: the Congressional stock trading ban must require Members, their spouses, and their top aides to divest ALL ownership of individual stocks while in office! Sign the petition: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi must bring legislation to ban Congressional stock trading and ownership to the floor immediately!

The Federal Reserve is reportedly set to hike interest rates yet again next week. Trump-nominated Fed Chair Jerome Powell is still claiming he can cut interest rates without driving a recession — but the Fed’s own research suggests the exact opposite. Jerome Powell knows tight monetary policy will hurt working people and cause a recession and he doesn’t care. We need to send him a message. In Powell’s own words, his plan to tackle inflation is “to get wages down and then get inflation down.”[2] Powell’s claim that working people must suffer in order to reduce inflation is patently false — and it was perfectly predictable that he’d mishandle the economy this way. Back in September 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren sounded the alarm about what might happen if Biden renominated Trump’s Fed Chair. Powell has “regularly voted to deregulate Wall Street,” Warren pointed out. Biden was making a “gamble” that Powell wouldn’t “drive this economy over a financial cliff again.” Now, Powell’s doing exactly that. Just as Jerome Powell was announcing the rate hike last week, the Fed came out with a study showing rate hikes hurt working people and the economy much more than is usually acknowledged. The Fed’s own study essentially says the Fed’s policies can drive up unemployment much faster than the Fed can respond. It’s clear the government should be looking for more reliable, and productive, responses to inflation. Research shows that Congress — not the Fed — can tackle inflation in ways that actually help working people, such as stopping corporate price gouging and protecting domestic workers’ rights. Powell knows he’s manufacturing a recession that will hurt working people, especially people of color. We need to send him a message: knock it off, and clear the way for Congress to productively address inflation!

DeSantis and Abbott both framed their actions as protests of President Biden’s immigration policy. The best way for Biden to respond to these fearmongering ‘own-the-libs’ tactics is to actually enact ethical immigration policies. President Biden promised to end Trump’s Title 42 immigration policy, which claimed that the government could block asylum seekers from coming into the country because of the pandemic. But this draconian measure still stands because of a Trump-appointed federal judge. Congress needs to throw all their weight behind actually ending this cruel policy. In the face of Republicans’ remarkably cruel treatment of immigrants, it’s time for Democrats in Congress to stand together, protect immigrant rights, and pass a law to end Title 42. Tell President Biden and Congress to denounce DeSantis’s and Abbott’s actions, and end Trump's border policies for good!

In a floor speech Thursday, Senator Bernie Sanders announced he plans to block the deal. Bernie is standing with 650 environmental and social justice groups against fossil fuel industry barons like Joe Manchin. Manchin’s goal is to clear the way for pipeline that would export fracked gas out of Manchin’s home state of West Virginia. He claims the Mountain Valley Pipeline would ease the transition away from fossil fuels and reduce global dependence on Russian oil — but a new report finds it’s a pack of lies. Joe Manchin is the top recipient of fossil fuel industry campaign contributions in Congress, and his personal ties to the fossil fuel industry are widely known. Chuck Schumer needs to listen to hundreds of activist groups and 40 House Democrats (and counting) who are telling him to stop pushing this dirty deal! Instead of cutting deals with the fossil fuel industry, Democrats should be laser-focused on “stand[ing] up for our kids, for our grandchildren, and for future generations," as Bernie put it. By stopping oil and gas drilling and investing heavily in renewable energy, the United States can back off the cliff of extreme weather events that are devastating communities and claiming lives. Declaring a national emergency will empower President Biden to do just that. Once Biden declares a national climate emergency, he'll be able to invoke the National Emergencies Act to halt crude oil exports, limit oil and gas drilling in federal waters, and direct federal agencies to boost renewable-energy sources — all crucial actions if we want to stem the deadly tide of climate change. Sign the petition: Tell President Biden and Congress to declare a climate emergency and oppose Joe Manchin’s fossil fuel deal!