Caught on tape: Jessica Anderson -- the head of Heritage Action for America -- laying out in detail the shadowy group’s plot to silence eligible voters across the country. First, they draft dangerous model bills that roll back voting options, discourage people from participating, and keep Black and Brown voters from having a voice in our democracy. Then, they launder those bills through GOP state lawmakers -- “so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe,” in their words. And once introduced, their lobbyists and disinformation peddlers do all they can to make those anti-voter bills law. That’s right: this group is shamelessly manipulating our legislative processes to shut vulnerable voters out of our democracy. And they’re using former president Trump’s “Big Lie” about the 2020 election to fuel their efforts. Worse yet, the video also reveals that Heritage Action for America plans to spend $24 million over the next two years in eight battleground states -- all to pass and defend laws that strip voters of their right to be heard. We knew that taking away our rights was a big part of the far-right’s plan after Trump left office. But the scale and callousness with which they are executing this plot to suppress millions of voters is nothing short of horrifying. Congress has an obligation to put a stop to it. That’s why we’re calling on every elected official to side with their constituents over dark money -- and support the For the People Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, two bills that will protect voters’ right to be heard and limit wealthy special interests’ influence over our democracy.

The characterizations by Knotts and the GOP are designed to shut down important dialogue and run counter to free speech principles. Education systems must welcome diverse opinions.

The Utah State Office of Education is cutting Adult Roles & Financial Literacy as of Fall 2022. We CANNOT, we WILL NOT let this happen! Adult Roles and Financial Lit. has long been the capstone class students take as they exit high school and begin their adult lives and careers. It has been THE course that prepares an individual with the personal, relationship, and financial skills to be successful in life and in ANY career. It IS personal and professional productivity. This course is a legacy in many high schools, and it is being taught to and empowering third and fourth generations in many families. When the Financial Literacy graduation requirement emerged in 2008, it was an unparalleled success. It is the one course where finance is embedded in relationships just as it is in life. Finance is behavioral. Research and data demonstrate that personal and family finance is more than crunching numbers. It is emotional and relational, and when taught in that context, efficacy skyrockets. It has been the shining star in Utah’s unique tradition of education. The Family and Consumer Science (FCS) teachers are uniquely educated and qualified to teach this content. FCS empowers individuals. FCS empowers families. ALL Utah students must continue to have access to this specialized and timely course. #saveadultroles (Sign, Comment & Share)

Palestinian people have the right to live in peace and with dignity. They have the right to control their land and natural resources. They have the inalienable right to be free. We, everyone committed to justice, must commit ourselves to freedom for all: "Freedom is indivisible...." June Jordan

Keep Cheyenne's students safe! Install a flashing, lighted, pedestrian crosswalk between East high school, Brimmer Park, and the City Bus stop. This stretch of roadway is extremely dangerous and students' lives are at risk in attempting to cross the road here. The location in question is just far enough from the Pershing Boulevard traffic light/cross walks where many motorists start to accelerate. Yesterday, I had to cross this section of road with 10 special education students from East high school, and I had a challenging time trying to get motorists to yield for us. As educators, we are teaching students to utilize city resources and how to navigate as young, independent adults. Both adult and student community members deserve safe and accessible access to and from this bus stop, East high school, and the city park. Tell Mayor Collins and Cheyenne City Council Members to officially support this proposal and commit to the prompt installation of a flashing light, pedestrian crosswalk as soon as possible. We have NO lives to spare and next year can be too late.

Devastating videos of Israeli forces attacking Muslim Palestinians praying in Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan began to proliferate on social media late last week. In one such video, Palestinian women in the mosque are seen screaming and running from stun grenades fired by Israeli soldiers. This is in one of the holiest places of worship in one of the holiest months for Muslims around the world. Israeli forces injured hundreds of Palestinians, including medics treating injuries nearby, and the Israeli government has used airstrikes, rockets, and rubberized steel bullets to inflict violence against any resistance from the Palestinians. These troubling videos followed the decision of the Israeli government to forcibly evict families from the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. Although the Israeli Supreme Court stepped in to pause the evictions, this is part of a larger decades-long pattern of forced evictions, home demolitions, and displacement of Palestinians. The violence that started in Jerusalem has continued and spread, leading to massive unrest in the region and the worst escalation of violence in seven years between Israel and Palestine. Potential increased military action will only exacerbate the current situation with daily air strikes by the Israeli military in Gaza, Hamas launching over a thousand rockets to Southern and Central Israel, and growing violence on the streets already plaguing communities across the region. Morally courageous American leaders, including a slew of members of Congress, have already come out in support of the Palestinian people and called for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the Israeli policies of occupation and displacement of Palestinian families. The Biden administration must immediately do the same by leveraging its longstanding relationship with the Israeli government to call for an immediate ceasefire. In contrast, Biden and top cabinet officials seemingly offered support to the Israeli government to continue its policies precipitating the current crisis. In a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden offered “unwavering support” for Israel’s “right to defend itself,” and made no mention of Netanyahu’s responsibility in inflaming and perpetuating violence as a political ploy to distract from his own diminishing power to govern. The United States even blocked the UN Security Council’s attempts to reduce tensions between Israel and Palestinians. With nearly $4 billion a year in U.S. military aid to Israel, the Biden administration has a responsibility to hold the Israeli government accountable. Before more violence ensues, the U.S. government must denounce the recent violence and call on the Israeli government to stop forced evictions, mass arrests, and other policies meant to harm and escalate tensions. We urge the Biden administration to forcefully advocate for an immediate ceasefire before many more civilians -- who will disproportionately be Palestinian --lose their lives.

We are tired of being continuously disrespected by the BOE when we get into negotiations each year. The BOE and their negotiation team seem determined to belittle us and ignore our very real concerns and well-reasoned solutions. We all know that the BOE could work with us on these issues, but instead, we are treated as an impediment to their plans. We could read through previous emails on negotiations or even clips from BOE meetings to show that we are not trusted to help guide our district to success, but more than their words, we can see it in their actions during negotiations. Why do we have to fight every year for steps and tracks? Shouldn't that be a given? Why are we not trusted to create lesson plans and manage our classrooms? We are highly certified and degreed professionals, right? Time and time again, the BOE shows through their actions that we are not worthy of respect. Therefore, we offer the following statements to clearly communicate to the BOE that it is time for a shift in how we are treated. Educator Voice WE wholeheartedly disagree with how the district treats us and we believe that if we come together, we can convince the BOE and the wider community that we should be helping to lead the way for our schools to succeed. TOGETHER, we can work for the good of our students, our schools, our communities, and even ourselves. TOGETHER, we can begin to make our voice heard. WE BELIEVE in an open, democratic process in providing an effective voice for the professionals working in our schools. WE BELIEVE that educators can contribute quality ideas to reduce the need for substitute teachers through positive incentives instead of punitive measures like the attendance matrix. Learning Environment WE BELIEVE in the ability of educators to be knowledgeable of their students' needs, capable of producing meaningful lessons, and critical to the success of every student in our district. As a result of this belief, we cannot support actions by the BOE to allow different schools the ability to impose various restrictions and conditions on our pedagogy. WE BELIEVE in our right to protect the learning environment for all our students, and we recognize the need for using effective supports and interventions to enable those students to return to the classroom as soon as they are ready for the learning environment, but we reject any proposal by the BOE that restricts our ability to use our professional judgment to temporarily remove a student when they are disrupting our learning environment. Compensation WE BELIEVE that we are not subject to a moral obligation to work for no compensation. To suggest otherwise, further exemplifies how the BOE does not respect us as individuals with needs and desires outside of our career. WE BELIEVE that educator compensation as reflected in the salary schedule should at least keep pace with inflation which it has not since 2010. WE BELIEVE UTW’s compensation proposal is fair and just.

So many people don’t have access to sufficient internet which disproportionately effects poor people, people of color, people in rural areas. Students have been meeting at fast food restaurants to do homework and attend classes, in parking lots of libraries and town halls. Anyone who is without good internet access is at a major disadvantage for so many things like access to information, education, health care, government services, essential goods.

Police brutality against African Americans in the United States of America has gone beyond reproof. It is beyond time for there to be sensible legislation that affords African Americans the same rights and privileges that American citizenship offers other Americans. We have witnessed: Little to no repercussions for police officers’ blatant murder of African Americans; Perjury in court and/or to grand jury, where officers grandstand on their “fear” of African American citizens they are called upon and paid with taxpayer dollars to protect and serve; A lack of de-escalation techniques employed when interacting with African Americans; No repercussions for individuals who fraudulently call police on African Americans that lead to the harassment and, in most instances, murder of our beloved people. This is highly unacceptable and intolerable. We believe that, in every instance, life should be preserved, which is in accordance with our right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as dictated in the Declaration of Independence and our 14th Amendment right to “due process under the law.” In cases regarding African Americans, we are rarely afforded that constitutional right. We believe that the colors of our skin should not be weaponized against us and should not come with an automatic guilty verdict. The legal right to “equal protection of the laws” is also a right that is afforded to us under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. However, in cases regarding African Americans, we are rarely afforded that constitutional right.

Unless the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service intervenes, decades of progress recovering wolves in the region will be lost. The state's wolf population will be reduced to the threshold triggering protection under the Endangered Species Act. Last year Idaho received more than $18 million in federal funding for wildlife-management projects. The promise of these funds incentivizes states to enact sound conservation policies that benefit all wildlife. And a state becomes ineligible for these funds if it passes legislation contrary to the conservation purposes of the Pittman Robertson Act and other federal laws. Please ask the agency to disqualify Idaho from receiving federal funding for wildlife management unless the state immediately repeals its wolf-extermination legislation.

Each year, $3,800,000,000 of our tax dollars are invested in Israel's oppression of Palestinians. The U.S. provides Israel with unconditional diplomatic support and military funding, and Israel uses U.S. backing to act with impunity: stealing Palestinian land, entrenching its apartheid regime, and prolonging its blockade on Gaza. Our tax dollars are funding Israel's crimes against humanity while here at home we are told there is not enough money for Medicare for All, minimum wage, or public infrastructure —all of which have a disproportionate impact on Black and Brown communities. Our demand is simple: stop bankrolling ethnic cleansing and apartheid, and start investing in health and safety for all. We should have a say in how our tax dollars are used. Let's heed the call of Palestinians demanding safety and freedom. Sign the petition to demand the following: - End U.S. military funding to Israel: The bombs are weapons Israel uses on Palestinians are funded by our taxpayer money. Demand that your Congressional representative supports H.R. 2590, which calls an end U.S. funding of Israel's oppression of Palestinians. - Hold Israel Accountable: Demand that Congress support sanctions on Israel until complies with international law and puts an end to its apartheid regime. - Uplift Palestinian Calls for Freedom: Demand that Congress center those most harmed by violence and oppression—the Palestinian people— and support their right to resist Israel's ethnic cleansing. Answer their demands for freedom, justice, and safety.

Some people would like to preserve Atco Raceway as a treasured landmark. To those people, I would say that it is a nostalgic idea for preserving a place that generations have enjoyed. To all people who get their drinking water from wells in the surrounding area, whether Atco Raceway is preserved as a landmark or not, we cannot and should not allow the asphalt to be pulled up and replaced with gravel. As reported in The Pine Barrens Tribune by Mr. Thomas J. Stalba, Jr., of Hammonton, NJ, "Now they (IAA) are trying to convince the board and the community that they are a 'used car establishment' that should be able to tear up paving and put 6,000 recently wrecked cars, and the fluids remaining in them, on a bed of gravel with a water table that is as little as 1.7 feet below the surface of the ground on top of the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer, right next to the Mullica River watershed, in the heart of the Pine Barrents." Carl Miller, as quoted in The Pine Barrens Tribune, who said he has participated in drag racing since the late 1960s, "called allowing cars in disrepair to be parked on gravel 'a terrible idea' that would allow chemicals to seep directly into groundwater with little possibility of containment." Car liquids, such as gasoline, antifreeze, brake fluid, and even oil do not have the chance to pool under a vehicle if there is gravel underneath. Do the residents of Atco, NJ know that they are responsible for their clean drinking water? Visit these two state sites: https://www.nj.gov/health/ceohs/documents/pw_faq.pdf https://www13.state.nj.us/DataMiner/Search/SearchByCategory?isExternal=y&getCategory=y&catName=Certified+Laboratories IAA states that they have millions of dollars in insurance should well water become contaminated. How would the homeowner know if his well water was contaminated? He would have to use a NJ state certified testing center that would cost thousands of dollars. Then do a second test just to be sure that the chemicals we are drinking now are "within allowable limits." Then it is our responsibility to make every effort to fix our own wells. The cost to do this would be thousands and thousands of dollars each year for each homeowner. When I moved to Atco almost 30 years ago, we were presented with giant carbon tanks placed inside the laundry room by the State of NJ. We were told that the blueberry field at the end of the road had sprayed pesticides on the plants and the pesticides made their way into the water table in "amounts that exceeded what was allowable." You see, we are still drinking water with contaminants already. We just cannot afford to test our well water annually, as the State of NJ recommends. Why then are we allowing the very obvious poisoning of our water table to occur? If you believe this is an injustice, if you want to keep your loved ones safe, if you want to stop what is so obviously wrong from occurring, you will sign this petition to stop this from happening immediately. Then tell your neighbors to sign as well. We all deserve clean drinking water. We certainly pay enough in our taxes for this "privilege." Thank you for listening.