The use of blackface elicits the painful racism and historical entertainment in which performers darkened their skin to play characters that perpetuated African American racist stereotypes in the United States. While the practice is progressively infrequent in North America with several instances in which politicians and celebrities in the United States and Canada apologized for wearing blackface or dark makeup long after it was generally seen as derogatory and insulting, it still persists in parts of Europe and Russia. In the case of Yellowface on stage, it was intended to be a mocking of the people in the far east by basically guessing the dances in 1892. With the world being much more connected and multicultural in many countries where diversity and inclusiveness is a crucial priority, it is ignorant to keep these racial stereotypical biases in ballet. It is time to embrace the changing world and not resolute in keeping outdated traditions- to be a citizen of the world rather than a country. Traditions are not unassailable.

Right now your internet provider is based on what company has laid internet lines that go to your residence. AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and all of the rest of those internet companies have a gentleman's agreement to not invade each other's space so that they don't have to give customer service because they know that you can't shop internet providers. All the government has to do is declare internet a public utility and make it so that internet companies have to share the lines that run internet to your house, and you would have the ability to pit one internet provider against another, and they would actually have to do their jobs to a satisfactory level in order to retain you as a client. This would improve internet speeds and the cost of Internet. We live in a capitalist society, and these companies should be competing with the best speed, the best customer service, and the best prices in order to retain you as a customer. As it stands, they can charge you what they want, and they can jerk you around for hours, days, weeks and weeks on end without providing a resolution because they know you have no options. This must end.

ALEC is ramping up its plans to hijack our democracy like never before. It’s time to expose and demand action from every corporation that’s funding these cynical efforts. ALEC has formed a new secret working group focused on “redistricting, ballot measures, and election law.” This task force holds lectures by architects of some of the most notorious gerrymanders and voter suppression schemes of the last decade -- with one main goal: teaching corporate-friendly GOP politicians how to abuse our systems to stay in power. How to rig the census and the redistricting process to keep Republican seats safe. How to stonewall fixes for the broken Electoral College. ALEC and its member corporations know just how unpopular and unethical these efforts are -- which is why there is no mention of the working group on its website. This task force comes on the heels of ALEC’s infamous redistricting workshop, held at its annual meeting last year. Conservative lawmakers, thinkers, donors, and activists were invited -- and were told by panelists to treat redistricting as “political adult blood sport,” trash evidence of wrongdoing before it can be discovered through litigation, and buy off individual Black and Latinx legislators to guarantee them reelection in exchange for overall whiter and more conservative maps. Make no mistake: THAT is what companies like UPS, Pfizer, Anheuser-Busch are endorsing with their financial support for ALEC. And they’re hoping that we don’t notice -- they don’t want to be publicly associated with ALEC’s extreme agenda. But if they hear from thousands of outraged Americans, they may cancel their ALEC membership -- just like we convinced companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon to do. Add your name now to become a part of the nationwide outcry.

This move by the USCIS under Donald Trump is the latest attempt to target and restrict people who are fleeing their home countries. The vary nature of asylum is humanitarian, that is, seeking and being granted asylum in the world’s most powerful country should be done with ease. One asylum officer, interviewed by Buzzfeed News, has said anonymously, “ The larger problem is that humanitarian applications by their nature should be free. The idea of charging people who are fleeing — and not helping if they don't pay up — is disgusting.” Additionally, it is noted by USCIS that the implementation of this charge is going to be used to cover their own costs, and are necessary. However, USCIS has also upped charges for those seeking to apply for citizenship- a change from $640 to $1,170. The organization is very obviously stable financially, and this attempt to endanger millions of people must be stopped.

This is important because we are in a global pandemic and this is what people of all ages are doing to keep themselves busy and happy. By deleting this app, there will be more people going outside and attracting the virus, depression rates would possibly rise, and because it could also be used for education purposes since schools are no longer in session for the year, due to Covid-19.

New Fortress Energy and subsidiary Delaware River Partners are planning to build a port terminal to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) and natural gas liquids (NGLs) on the Delaware River in Gibbstown, NJ. This is about 15 minutes south of Philadelphia, 2.7 miles from Chester, PA and adjoins the back yards of people in Gibbstown, NJ. Trains and trucks would carry dangerous and potentially explosive LNG over 200 miles from Wyalusing, PA, where New Fortress is building a LNG processing plant from regional fracked gas to Gibbstown through communities who don’t even know about it. LNG would be transferred from trucks and rail cars directly to enormous ships 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. The ships would travel down the river, past Wilmington and other Delaware and New Jersey bay communities, overseas to Puerto Rico, Ireland and other foreign ports where New Fortress hopes to make their fortune. We want to send the strongest message we can to the Commissioners! Please strengthen our message with your signature!

The last person you want making decisions for your children is Betsy DeVos. As Trump’s Education Secretary, DeVos has been a disaster from Day 1. But during the pandemic she’s only gotten worse. Secretary DeVos wants to hold federal school funding hostage to pressure schools to reopen in a couple of weeks, despite the nation still seeing spikes in COVID-19 cases.[1] Sign the petition: Tell Congress to block DeVos from using federal funds to pressure schools to reopen! Our nation’s schools are already massively underfunded. In a dangerous public health nightmare scenario like the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government should be funding schools to do whatever is necessary to protect students, teachers and staff, and slow the spread of the virus. Instead, if DeVos has her way, schools will have to reopen if they want federal funding that most districts desperately need. In short, DeVos wants to force cities and states to "re-open" - and doesn't seem to care if children, teachers, and school staff get sick or even die in the process. It’s worth remembering that DeVos has never once taught in a classroom, holds no degrees in education, and until Trump appointed her as Secretary of Education, had no government experience. DeVos is a right-wing billionaire donor whose pet project has been dismantling public education. Every year Trump has been in office, DeVos proposed massive budget cuts to the Department of Education. Now she’s only willing to put funds into schools if students, teachers, and school staff risk their health and their lives in the middle of an out-of-control pandemic. There’s not much time left to act before schools start in the fall. That’s why you need to tell Congress to stop DeVos immediately. Sign the petition: Tell Congress to block DeVos from using federal funds to pressure schools to reopen! [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/politics/trump-schools-reopening.html

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a rogue and secretive federal agency that systematically violates the legal and human rights of immigrants and asylum-seekers. Now, they are secretly detaining children, families, and asylum-seekers at hotels across the U.S. without a paper trail or any due process before disappearing them from the country. Without a paper trail, there is no way for anyone to ensure the safety and rights of the people DHS is secretly detaining.

On March 29, 2020, the state of Ohio shut down. The US Government passed the CARES act to ensure that US Citizens had a necessary financial lifeline to pay their bills in the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The state of Ohio's unemployment system was grossly outdated and lacked the necessary infrastructure to facilitate the federal CARES act to supply Pandemic Unemployment Assistance to millions of Ohioans. As a result, there was a massive delay in providing assistance to those individuals and families who needed it the most. The tip waged, the contract employed, the freelance, gig-workers and the self-employed. These are some of Ohio's lowest paid workforce. The Ohio PUA system did not go live until May 12th, over a month after the shut down, a time when many fell egregiously behind on their bills and struggled to provide. They were assured that back pay would be given. On July 15, the ODJFS erroneously and maliciously flagged over 226,000 Ohioan's PUA claims as fraud, most of which are erroneous flags as these individuals did provide their proof of income, proof of identity and banking information upon filing and these claims were not approved until they did so. The Ohio Unemployment system was already exhaustively overwhelmed by the sheer number of claims which they are responsible to process. Now hundreds of thousands of workers and their families have had their only source of income taken from them without notice, without cause, and without explanation. Calls to the PUA hotline went unanswered as did calls to the adjudication centers. Individuals who did manage to reach a representative were given a plethora of flimsy excuses and outright lies as to what was going on. The reality is, they didn't know either and could offer no help whatsoever. The amount of misinformation provided by the agency was staggering. Calls and letters to the governor, the state representatives, and the news media went ignored for over a week. According to a recent interview with the news media, Kimberly Hall of the ODJFS finally addressed the situation and claimed that these 226,000 individuals are legitimate cases of fraud. She employed this excuse to justify not paying benefits to already struggling Ohio families in the midst of a global pandemic. There is no logical or conscionable reasoning for Ms. Hall's handling of this matter. There is no logical or conscionable reasoning for withholding benefits to individuals who have already submitted their information upon applying for assistance. Above all else, there is no logical or conscionable reasoning for the director of the ODJFS to be so concerned with fraud in the middle of a global pandemic as to go so far as to erroneously deny benefits to hundreds of thousands of Ohioans who are the most at risk for homelessness due to this crisis. With the abundance of resources available, to say that there was no other way to detect and address fraud in this system is not only irresponsible, but an immense dereliction of her duty to the people of Ohio to whom she is responsible for assisting. The reasons Ms. Hall has cited do not hold up. Her reasons were that individuals were having their personal bank accounts compromised, particularly online banking institutions and prepaid card systems. It is the responsibility of the individual and their financial institution to investigate fraudulent transactions to their personal bank accounts. It is the agency's duty to ensure those individuals are paid on time. Stopping the payments injures innocent citizens and does nothing to punish the criminals. Other reasons cited were failure to prove identity or income, to which each application could not be approved without, and if so, that responsibility falls on those who approved the claims without verifying the information from the start. The excuses are invalid, there is no justification in the world that the state of Ohio or the ODJFS can provide which can justify the course of action that they used to address this matter and their own incompetence. The already overburdened unemployment system cannot support the abundance of claims it currently has. We've spent 81 million on this failed system and now will require many more millions of dollars to adequately train and employ enough workers to facilitate the correction of Ms. Hall's incompetence. In the meantime, 226,000+ Ohioans are at risk of being homeless by next week when their rent or mortgages are unable to be paid. Children will go hungry as the lifeline providing for them has been unceremoniously cut without remorse or resolution. The freeze on evictions and foreclosures has been lifted and the food banks are empty. Ohio has failed it's most at risk populations by the choices and political motivations of one individual. This issue requires IMMEDIATE resolution to those affected. If Ms. Hall and the ODJFS is incapable of fulfilling that resolution, then further action by the State of Ohio to ensure that IMMEDIATE action is taken to prevent homelessness, hunger and poverty to those impacted by this crisis. The people of Ohio deserve answers. They deserve to be paid. They deserve a state that is aimed to see them succeed in the midst of this crisis. In the midst of a pandemic, there is a responsibility to ensure the livelihoods of ALL Ohioans, this was the very PURPOSE of the federal CARES act and the PUA. Ms. Hall has utilized this opportunity to facilitate an unnecessary fraud investigation against the people of Ohio with regard to their financial institutions. It is the responsibility of the individual and their financial institution to determine fraud, and is a gross overreach of the ODJFS Director. The State of Ohio has ignored its citizens for too long in this matter and immediate resolution is now sought.

Free and fair elections are the bedrock of American democracy. Trump’s call to delay them indefinitely - after months of spreading lies and misinformation about mail-in ballots - is authoritarianism plain and simple! With less than 100 days until the general election, Trump is doubling down on his attempts to reject election results he doesn’t like. And unless we call him out - and hold Democratic leadership, and every single elected official across the US who still cares about democracy to account, there's no telling what he and his enablers will do come election day. We need millions calling on Congress and every elected member of the GOP to shut down this blatantly dangerous, authoritarian, and anti-American move. Ring the Alarm: don’t let Trump get away with wrecking our democracy even more than he already has.

Donald Trump has suggested delaying the November election "until people can properly, securely, and safely vote". But we CAN vote safely, and we will. Fortunately, Donald Trump does not have the power to set the election day -- only Congress can do that. Members of Congress: Donald Trump's assault on our democracy has gone far enough. You cannot allow him to undercut the most fundamental check on his power, the popular vote. You must forcefully and unequivocally reject any suggestion from Trump to delay his judgement day at the ballot box, November 3, 2020.

CSAM is a global crisis that exists in every corner of the internet. Increasingly, these horrific images feature very young children --infants and toddlers -- and are growing more violent and extreme. The coronavirus pandemic has created an explosion of CSAM, with reports increasing 400% over the past few months. Last year tech companies made 17 million reports of CSAM. Of those 17 million, Amazon made 8. Other big companies made hundreds of thousands to millions of reports, but Amazon, with the third of the internet they control, only made 8 reports. By failing to find and report CSAM, Amazon is hurting kids and creating a safe space for child predators to buy, sell, store, and share these illegal images. Amazon's refusal to report CSAM is part of a growing trend of big tech companies pushing the full responsibility of keeping kids safe online onto parents -- many of whom are now in the impossible position of working, parenting, teaching, and policing technology all at the same time. Tech companies like Amazon are making billions off families, and they must share the responsibility to keep kids safe. By proactively searching for and reporting CSAM photos and videos, Amazon could save thousands of children from abuse and revictimization. Parents across the country are demanding Amazon do their part to keep kids safe online by finding and reporting CSAM.