As we continue to grapple with a pandemic, we must not forget our ongoing gun violence epidemic — and we must treat it like the national security priority it is. With so many factors fueling it, we know it’s not going to be solved overnight. BUT Congress could act NOW to mitigate the extent of mass shooting injuries and deaths. One place to start is by finally passing a federal ban on all assault weapons. With your help, we can make sure Congress hears us loud and clear when we say weapons of war do not belong in our streets. Together, we can push Congress to do their job — that means representing AND and protecting us with legislation that will ban assault weapons from our streets.

Despite being elected to move away from Trump policies of the past, despite a clear reckoning on our priorities in the wake of COVID, and despite the fact that budgets are moral documents, President Biden is likely to propose a $740 BILLION budget that would keep Pentagon spending at Trump-era levels. Disappointed doesn’t begin to cut it. We’re furious. A growing chorus in Congress is too. But while Congress, not the White House, is ultimately in control of the purse strings, progressive champions can’t stop this budget on their own. That’s why we need to turn the pressure up even higher, and remind everyone in Congress and the White House: We want our priorities put back in order and that means cutting the Pentagon budget.

Right now, concrete is being dumped into sacred lands of the Okinawan people for the construction of a new U.S. military base. With over 800 military bases around the world already, the construction of another base is not only harming the Okinawan people but ramping up the threat of war. 2021 has to be the year we finally close the new base in Okinawa and begin a pathway towards peace in the Pacific — and we do that by closing down our foreign military bases and building up diplomacy. We’re in a unique, but narrow opportunity with President Biden in office to raise the alarms on this, and other, disastrous bases. That means we’ve got to jump into action and urge Defense Secretary Austin to stop the construction NOW — and we need your help in getting LOUD.

The media and many irresponsible politicians are completely failing to meet this moment in history by focusing on a symptom of a global economic and health crisis -- families and unaccompanied minors at the U.S./Mexico border -- rather than its root causes. Recently asked by President Biden to lead "the administration’s efforts to deter migration to the southwestern border by working to improve conditions in Central America," Vice President Kamala Harris can help turn things around by -- among other things -- prioritizing COVID-19 vaccine access for Central America and other countries immigrants are currently fleeing from in this time of a global health and economic crisis. No matter how many oversimplified anecdotes journalists collect, or public officials that say it, pretending that people risk their lives and leave everything they know just because a President in a different country is a "nice guy" has to be one of the most ridiculous stories our pandemic has produced yet. To suggest that either talking tough, more enforcement, or the further criminalization of immigrants is a solution to this crisis is not just irresponsible (we now have decades of data that prove the opposite) -- it is also dangerous. This is dangerous not just for immigrants and their countries of origin, who bear the brunt of this harmful thinking, but really for all of us in the U.S. and around the world when our best shot at a better future right now is directing every spare resource we have towards stamping out COVID-19. With VP Kamala Harris leading these latest efforts, she has a real opportunity to help send this message, to save lives, and to economically assist Central America and the world by prioritizing vaccine access for all. If enough of us sign-on and share this, we'll help give her the support she needs to do so. With dueling health, economic, and climate crises -- vaccine access isn't the only thing Central America and immigrants need right now -- but it could be the beginning of the spark needed to start moving towards a world where people migrate out of want, and not out of need. That's our only chance at ever stopping the negative effects associated with immigration. Until then, we need to take this moment in history as another reminder that we can't wall off our problems. Viruses know no borders. We either liberate ourselves together or not at all. Any journalist or public official that thinks otherwise is failing all of us.

Recently: - A Delaware State trooper arrested a third-grader over the theft of $1 - A 5-year-old with ADHD was charged with “battery on a police officer” in California - A Florida officer arrested a 6-year-old girl and zip-tied her hands The National Juvenile Justice Network recommends 14 as the minimum age for prosecution. But in most states -- 30 total -- there is no minimum age for at all prosecution. That means little kids who can’t read, write, or understand the concept of a crime can be prosecuted. And these ridiculous prosecutions disproportionately impact Black kids. In North Carolina, for example, nearly half of complaints are against Black children despite them being 22% of the population. This creates a school-to-prison pipeline that starts before kids even know what a “prison” is. We must end the school-to-prison pipeline and stop arresting and prosecuting little kids!

In this era when congressmembers and state legislators war with each other over the quality and fairness in the administration of elections, one statement on which all sides can agree is that all elections should be free, equal and open. In fact, 30 state constitutions, including North Carolina, California, and South Carolina mandate that all elections should be free, with 18 of these states also stating that elections should be “equal” or “open” and 15 of these states mandating that no "civil or military power shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage". Sadly, despite being the birthplace and resting place of civil rights advocates past and present, from Martin Luther King Jr. to John Lewis, and despite having the youngest state constitution as of 1983, Georgia's state constitution does not yet provide for such a basic expectation that our right to free suffrage shall be free and shall not be intimidated or suppressed by civil or military force. We need an amendment to the Georgia State Constitution mandating free, equal and open elections so that voters have a constitutional standard by which we can judge the integrity of elections administration, redistricting and other aspects of elections law in the State of Georgia. References: https://www.ncsl.org/research/redistricting/free-equal-election-clauses-in-state-constitutions.aspx https://www.commoncause.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/FreeEqualOnePager-9.4.19.pdf http://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr/free-and-equal-elections-a-new-state-constitutionalism-for-partisan-gerrymandering/

My daughter Amaya could not easily sit down to take a biology quiz like her White classmates because proctoring software would not “recognize” her as a person. She took the test at noon with sunlight streaming through her window, and turned on all the lights in her room. It still didn’t work. She tried 10 times. She literally had to shine an LED flashlight in her face before the software would allow her to take the quiz. This type of bias piles additional stress and anxiety onto kids of color who are already dealing with the challenges of remote learning, and it tells them they don’t belong. During remote learning, thousands of schools have paid billions for proctoring software that will watch kids via their computers to ensure that they aren’t cheating. However, this type of facial recognition software is notorious for not working well on people with dark skin because the companies that develop the product mostly test it on white people. The consequences for children of color can be devastating -- higher stress, unfounded accusations of cheating, and a clear message from their school that they aren’t welcome. And it's not just students of color. Students with facial tics or differences, neurodivergent students, and students with anxiety have all been discriminated against by online proctoring software. As a special educator who has worked in elementary education for years, I know the harm this will do to kids. Please join me in urging Secretary Cardona to support equity in education and reject the use of invasive, racially biased online proctoring software in K-12 schools.

Dear Sen. Mitt Romney, Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. Burgess Owens, Rep. John Curtis, Rep. Blake Moore, and Rep. Chris Stewart, An email was send out to Utah residents by the Division of Services for People with Disabilities earlier this month, that said NO NEW STATE FUNDING was allocated this year to help people get off of the wait-list for the Medicaid Waiver. Last year, the same thing happened because of the pandemic. This is devastating because almost 5,000 disabled Utahns are on this list and in desperate need of services. It is a huge blow to the Autism Community because many of us have been on the wait-list for 5+ years. Early intervention for the Autism Community will save our state money in the long run. Our kids are missing milestones while neglected parents try to "figure it out" all alone. This is counterproductive and we need a change now. This will also create thousands of jobs in Utah! The HCBS Access Act will address the Autism Community's biggest issue head on. But, we are in desperate need of adequate services for all disabled people in Utah. To those of us on the waiting list, we know that this neglecting people with disabilities is Utah's biggest shame. Not meeting the needs of people with disabilities seems to go against the core values of the majority of Utah citizens. According to an article titled "Waiting Lists May Be Eliminated For Disability Services Provided By Medicaid" in Disability Scoop, "A draft bill unveiled this month known as the HCBS Access Act would require Medicaid to provide home- and community-based services to EVERYONE who is eligible and establish a minimum set of services that states must offer. The bill is also designed to help states create a network of providers and workers to deliver such supports." WE NEED THIS! The decision earlier this year to put zero funds toward getting disabled people off of the waiting list has broken the hearts of your constituents and we need you to step up to the plate and bring this bill home. We deserve to live our best lives and we need your help to do that. Disabilities are non-partisan and this bill should be, too. Please join U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., along with Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio in drafting and voting for this bill. We are counting on you! Sincerely, Utah Citizens Advocating for Autism *Rep. Chris Stewart is not going to be sent this petition since his email address is not available to the public. To send him your thoughts and feelings, contact him through his website at https://stewart.house.gov/contact/

"Thank God these weren't around when I was 13 but also... how are teens supposed to learn to accept themselves with this sh*t?". - Demi Lovato, apologizing to her TikTok fans for using unrealistic beauty filters. Demi is right. TikTok -- immensely popular with teen girls -- has multiple types of beauty filters that let young people change their skin tone, jaw structure, facial features, body shape and more. The result is images that are more computer-generated than real -- doe-eyes, poreless skin, chiseled jawlines, and emaciated stomachs. These filters create an impossible standard for young girls forming opinions of themselves and send girls an unmistakable message that they are “not enough.” TikTok should immediately disable all beauty filters for teen accounts to support healthy and realistic standards for teen girls. It’s clear these filters fuel depression, disordered eating….TikTok knows exactly what it is doing.

Amazon controls the majority of America’s book distribution but fails to do what every other major publisher does: sell e-books and audiobooks to public libraries where kids can access them for free on apps. Amazon doesn’t just sell books, it publishes them -- including thousands of books for kids and teens and many award-winning titles. However, Amazon has refused to sell any of their e-books or audiobooks to public libraries. Shame on Amazon for undermining libraries in order to sell more books. Amazon has raked in hundreds of billions during the pandemic, with CEO Jeff Bezos 80% richer than he was a year ago! To put it mildly, the pandemic has been a windfall for this company and its CEO. Children, on the other hand, have had school and their entire lives shut down. They need access to books more than ever. Tell Amazon to stop stonewalling America’s libraries and give kids access to books

The rule change is a huge benefit for self-employed people. They can now use their gross income from their Schedule C to determine the final loan amount in the 2nd round of PPP funding. However, not allowing for the rule change to be retroactive to those who already received their 2nd round money is absolutely unfair. This decision is affecting tens of thousands of self-employed people whose only mistake was to apply and receive their 2nd round of PPP money before the rule change. A CNBC article: "How just a few days cost some small businesses thousands on their PPP forgivable loans explains the issue thoroughly.

Nuestros hijos disfrutan jugando y compartiendo todos los días en los parques de la Urbanización, y los consideramos una de las cosas que más nos gusta de nuestra comunidad. Los parques se han convertido en un punto de encuentro para nosotros, un lugar donde nuestros hijos crean nuevas amistades y muchísimas memorias. Ahora durante la pandemia, las breves salidas al parque son quizás el único entretenimiento que podemos ofrecerle a nuestros hijos. Queremos un lugar donde nuestros hijos estén seguros y disfruten.