In other countries, Jews, Polish, etc are paid reparations for life and generations thereafter for the holocaust, death camps and harsh treatment endured during the earlier wars. African-Americans in the US whose ancestors built this country via slavery and then thereafter forced into the European culture to then survive have been given NOTHING monetary or physical. Have you heard of or do you remember the statement, "40 acres and a mule?" Still waiting on the latter...Throughout history, there have been developed communities, banks, grocery stores, schools, parks, hospitals, farms, etc by African-Americans but have been burnt down because of the racism and greed. In the US, there is institutional racism by the government to automatically deter the African-American individual from progressing in life from BIRTH. There are numerous cases, daily experiences and mental issues developed from this treatment generation after generation. Just recently there was a documentary released on an African-American youth, Kalief Browder who committed suicide after enduring the injustices of institutional racism. This is just one example of millions. Racism is real, it exists, it affects African-Americans EVERYDAY and NO ONE cares. We have been at the forefront for everyone else's problems but when it comes to us and our well being, no one cares and everyone steals what we have done. We are the #1 consumer in the US but get treated the WORSE. Enough is enough, WE ARE OWED land and money and we want it NOW! Do the HUMANE thing and support this cause by signing the petition. You are appreciated.

As a Texas citizen, I am concerned with the xenophobic policies exposed by our governor!

Efforts to get Members of Congress to invoke their war powers to push back against Trump's threatened escalation of the Saudi war in Yemen - and particularly the threat of attacking the Yemeni port of Hodeida, which would cut off food to millions of people - are drawing increasing attention in the media. On May 2, the Washington Post reported: "Alarm grows in Washington as Saudi coalition attack on Yemen port appears imminent." The article noted that Reps. Mark Pocan [D-WI] and Justin Amash [R-MI] had threatened to introduce legislation that would seek to "prohibit U.S. involvement in any such assault." [1] On May 8, James Carden reported: "Congress Is Drawing a ‘Red Line’ Over Trump’s Support for the Saudi War on Yemen." Rep. Pocan told Carden: "In moments like this, it’s essential that Congress assert its constitutional authority to oversee, debate, and declare war before the US becomes involved in a catastrophic military action overseas." Citing the horrific nature of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, Pocan said he could "hardly think of anything worse than the US military participating alongside the Saudi military in destroying the lifeline to food for 7 million people already on the brink of starvation." [2] Carden also reported: several staffers are in the process of "preparing language with legislative counsel to use the War Powers Act of 1973 in order to introduce a privileged resolution to withdraw US forces from the Saudi-led war in Yemen, with Hodeida as a Congressional 'red line.'" On May 9, John Nichols reported: "There Is Growing Bipartisan Opposition to Trump’s Unauthorized Military Actions." Nichols noted: "Not all Republicans are willing to accept the Trump’s administration’s shredding of the Constitution… Congressman Justin Amash, R-Michigan, has joined Congressman Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, in leading a congressional effort to warn the administration that it must consult Congress before lending US support to what members describe as 'a potentially catastrophic' military action by Saudi Arabia in Yemen." Nichols also reported the Members' threat: “Should the administration remain unresponsive to our repeated inquiries into the nature of US engagement in a potentially catastrophic Saudi attack on Hodeida, we will pursue legislation to explicitly prohibit US involvement in any such an assault.” Many thought it a foregone conclusion that the Trump Administration would green-light a Saudi-UAE attack on the Yemeni port of Hodeida. But that assault still hasn't happened. Members of Congress can take this threatened attack "off the table" by asserting their war powers. Urge House Members to demand a vote before Hodeida is attacked by signing our petition. References: 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/02/alarm-grows-in-washington-as-saudi-coalition-attack-on-yemen-port-appears-imminent/ 2. https://www.thenation.com/article/congress-is-drawing-a-red-line-over-trumps-support-for-the-saudi-war-on-yemen/ 3. https://www.thenation.com/article/there-is-bipartisan-opposition-in-congress-to-trumps-unauthorized-military-action/

**UPDATE: A lot of news has broken since I launched this petition to suspend Jared Kushner's interim security clearance many months ago. But the biggest news on Kushner broke just recently, when a memo was reportedly sent downgrading the presidential son-in-law and adviser and other White House aides who had been working on interim clearances.** Former House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz confirmed that Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, may have committed a felony by not properly disclosing payments from Russia when applying for his security clearance. And Flynn's not the only member of Trump's inner circle who has been dishonest about his dealings with Russia. Earlier this month, Donald Trump's son-in-law and White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, failed to report dozens of meetings with foreign agents, including meetings with Russian government agents as recently as December 2016, while completing a similar questionnaire as Flynn that is required for top-secret security clearance. This appears to be another attempt to conceal the meetings the Trump transition team had with Russian foreign agents. The American people need to make it clear to this administration that we will continue to compel them to be honest and transparent about their ties to Russia. Until such time as Jared Kushner fully discloses all relevant meetings he had with foreign agents, his interim top-secret security clearance needs to be suspended.

It is about the improper precedent of rewarding those who have created a predatory environment at Fox News. Such behavior should not be rewarded with contract payouts or by making settlements to keep those who have been victimized silent.

Donald Trump just fired FBI Director James Comey, compromising the only semi-credible and somewhat-resourced investigation into Trump and his administration's ties to Russia. Trump fired Comey on the advice of Jeff Sessions, who was forced to recuse himself from Russia-focused investigations because he lied under oath about his own conversations with Russian officials. We now face a constitutional crisis. The security and integrity of our democracy is at stake. Comey's record at the FBI isn't flawless—plenty of people take issue with the way he handled investigating Hillary Clinton's emails in the days before the election, and the news reports today about him mischaracterizing backing up emails as forwarding them don't help. But the argument that Trump would fire Comey for being overly critical of Clinton, when Trump personally led chants of "lock her up," is absurd. This isn't about good governance. It's about BAD government and the kind of cronyist cabal that fires someone who a week ago testified that he was made nauseous by the thought of helping Trump win office. Comey's firing comes just one day after former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates told senators that she had warned the Trump administration that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was vulnerable to being blackmailed by Russia. As Yates astutely said: "To state the obvious: You don't want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians." Since Trump's inauguration, House Democrats have repeatedly exposed Republicans' hypocrisy by introducing measures (15 and counting) in the House that have forced Republicans to address, on the record, Trump's taxes, Russian entanglements, and more.4 But when faced with demands for action, Republicans have acted nearly universally to hide the truth about Trump and his associates, and House members such as Representative Devin Nunes have gone so far as to undermine investigations. It's now well beyond time for Republicans to take action to expose the truth.

The Mayor has personally offended many people by clearly stating that if only they had more faith in God, they would be wealthy. We know that there are many reasons why people live in poverty, but lack of faith/no faith is not a determining factor. Taylor later tries to explain away her derogatory comment, instead of just apologizing for the demeaning religious judgement, saying that her statement in the livestream video was "intentionally edited to mislead viewers". However, NOWcastSA's livestream has no obvious signs of editing. Watch the video clip here: https://youtu.be/zkphKBfzyG0

A school is strengthened by the partnership and collaboration that is created between a school counselor, teachers, staff, students, and families. I would like to see this relationship continue within our school district to ensure our children are safe, happy, healthy and prepared to grow into well-adjusted adults.

President Donald J. Trump March 20, 2017 The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, DC. 20500 Dear Mr. President, My name is Suzanne Stewart and I urgently need your attention please, Mr. President. I’m writing on behalf of 100 million Chronic Pain patients. There are many Americans who live with daily chronic pain illnesses and we need your help. The CDC, DEA and “Big Brother” Pharma companies are trying to “hurt” the American chronic pain community. We need you and Tom Price, HHS, to help us keep the pain medications that we need in order to have some semblance of life with somewhat controlled pain. We seem to be losing our medications because we are being “lumped together” with Heroin addicts. Every time a celebrity dies from an overdose, they blame it on the Opioids and not the misuse and abuse of pain medications along with recreational street drugs. Physicians shouldn’t be afraid to prescribe Opioid pain medications to their chronic pain patients due to repercussions from government agencies. Physicians are leaving in droves because of the propaganda surrounding an “Opioid epidemic”. Mr. President, we are not addicts, nor are we “addicted” to our medications. We only take them for pain relief. If you ask true chronic pain patients, we’ll tell you that we hate taking these medications and wish we did not depend on them. This is the key word, sir, “dependent”! We are not addicted to our medications, we do not get cravings nor do we get “high” from them. An addict seeks out their drugs at any cost and looks forward to taking them because of the “high” they feel. As pain patients who take our medications responsibly, we get some kind of relief from the daily chronic pain that we live with. Imagine the normal daily routines such as showering, brushing your teeth and getting dressed. These routines raise our pain and we are so fatigued afterward, that often we cannot schedule anything else that day! We are “dependent” yes, but NOT “addicted” to our medications. We need the Physician / patient relationship to choose what is necessary and best for our pain control. The P.R.O.P. Dr.’s and others like them, who are against the use of Opioids, are just misinformed. While other groups wish to make money off of us because they own addiction treatment centers. They can get rich from chronic pain patients who are treated as “addicts”. Many chronic pain patients are feeling hopeless, while our Dr’s are afraid and leaving in droves. They aren’t able to prescribe Opioids anymore for their established patients living daily with horrific chronic pain conditions. Mr. President, please help the American chronic pain community? We are fearful that the life that we have known with a little bit of pain control for many years, is going to be (or is being) stolen from us? People are being told that they will have to go to their Dr or pharmacy every 3-5 days in order to get a prescription for pain medications. Nobody would ask a Diabetic or a heart patient to do that! People are being taken off of their Opioid pain medication abruptly, during one visit to the Dr’s office. Often it’s a Dr. that they’ve gone to for years and where they are established patients. This is happening to the pain community because of misinformation and fear! I am an Ambassador for the U.S. Pain Foundation, sir; and I’m a patient health advocate. I do public speaking, write for the National Pain Report, Health Magazine, and I am a patient leader for WEGO Health. I am disabled and depending on the day, I use a wheelchair, walker, motorized scooter or a cane. My pain is much lessened due to the medication that I take. I have been living with several high chronic pain illnesses, including systemic CRPS, since 2002. I’ve tried several medications and different treatment modalities. I also have an Immune deficiency illness that prevents me from being a candidate for a Spinal cord stimulator or an Intrathecal pain pump. I don’t think anyone should be FORCED to have an invasive surgery; when a pill with little side effects could help them. Do you know that NSAID’s cause 16,500 deaths in the USA annually? That is only counting the patients with Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis. If deaths from the gastrointestinal toxic effects from NSAIDs were added separately, then it’d be the 15th most common cause of death in the U.S.! Mr. President, I am imploring you to help me and the 100 million other chronic pain patients in the USA, who are diligent and who take the medications responsibly. Please help us to be allowed to continue our pain medication regiment. These proposed strict rules will only turn chronic pain patients to the streets and then many more will die from getting the wrong kind of pain medications mixed with “who knows what”? The good pain patients who are left with no other choice; I feel, will be desperate. I’m begging you, sir, please read my letter and please talk to me if you’d like. I’ll do anything to help my fellow pain warriors and myself. We need your help to make others understand that we are “chronic pain patients” and not “addicts”! We don’t crave the medications. We don’t get any kind of “high”. But Opioids do give us some relief from our daily chronic pain. We are just real people with diagnosed high pain illnesses. Please have Mr. Price to talk to pain patients like me and listen to the U.S. Pain Foundation’s ideas. I/we understand that something needs to be done. If they make medications that cannot be crushed, melted or changed; that would help to keep the drug addicts from melting, chewing or altering the medications in order to get high. But please see the difference between pain patients and drug addicts. Help us, the true chronic pain patients, to not lose our medications that give us some semblance of a life with our families. Sincerely, Suzanne Stewart Ambassador, MI- U.S. Pain Foundation Author/Blogger, Patient Mentor RSDSA Patient Leader WEGO Health CC: Tom Price, Health and Human...

Since January 1, 2014, Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been available to all the states. However, Virginia legislators have repeatedly failed to act on implementing this program that makes health insurance available to as many as 400,000 Virginians, mostly working poor Virginians. Coverage under the Medicaid expansion provisions has already been federally funded by money that was set aside by the Affordable Care Act -- 100% federal dollars through 2016, 95% in 2017, and a gradual reduction to 90% in 2020 and after. We have already paid the taxes to fund this program, yet the medical coverage has never been made available to Virginians!

Attorneys General from across the country have joined together to oppose Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy Devos’ scheme to repeal consumer protections for student loan borrowers. But Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette failed to sign on to the letter, choosing to side with DeVos - who has contributed over $100,000 to his campaigns since 2009 - over student borrowers nationwide. Tell him to do the right thing and oppose DeVos' anti-student measures today!

Refusing refugees denies them one of the most foundational human rights - the right to life - as their lives are deeply in jeopardy in the tumultuous countries from which they are fleeing. California has always been an influential state and not only will set an incredible example by retaining its status but will save lives in the process.