Coronavirus has spread to over 50 Amazon facilities across the country. Amazon delivery lead Kathy Knight said "I'm worried that I have infected 1000 people in the last three days." She and her 22-year-old son, who is also an Amazon driver, are awaiting test results for COVID-19 after her son began showing symptoms. Amazon workers across the country have been organizing strikes and actions demanding safer working conditions and paid leave. Instead of protecting workers, Amazon fired one of the worker organizers, Christian Smalls, and planned to smear him with a racist PR campaign. Thousands of workers are packed together with few protective measures in Amazon facilities. Workers report that Amazon is refusing to shut down and properly sanitize warehouses, that Amazon is not providing gloves and masks, is not adhering to social distancing measures, and isn’t being honest about the risk of infections in its facilities. Jeff Bezos has already hired 80,000 new warehouse and delivery workers during this pandemic without doing enough to protect workers. Health experts say that if we are not successful at slowing the spread of COVID-19, as many as 1.5 million people may die in the U.S. alone. If Jeff Bezos continues to risk the safety of Amazon workers, their families, and neighbors, COVID-19 could spread even faster around the world. The Squad is pressuring Amazon and leading the way in Congress--but we need more congressional support to take federal action if we’re going to slow the spread of COVID-19 across all Amazon facilities. Jeff Bezos is riding this pandemic out in comfort while Amazon profits from coronavirus. We can’t wait for Jeff Bezos to prioritize the health of our communities. We urgently need your voice now. Tell Congress to investigate Amazon’s unsafe working conditions and shut down unsafe warehouses.

Major platforms including MoveOn agree: America's weak and inconsistent emergency response has let the Covid-19 pandemic kill thousands more people than necessary. And it's not over. Trump squandered precious weeks -- denying, delaying and lying about emergency preparedness and the severity of Covid-19. "A hoax," he said, "like impeachment." Let's give credit where credit is due: it's the Trump Virus. This is important for three reasons: 1) Naming is powerful. Trump named this pandemic the "Chinese Virus", prompting hatemongering and random assaults on Asian-Americans. It's time to flip the script. 2) Naming is framing. It frames public policy by telling folks what to think. Under Trump and the GOP, for instance, longtime protections in federal law become "job-killing regulations". 3) To drive out Trump in November, we need to tie him to this disaster in people's minds, welded like steel. It hasn't happened yet: polls reveal lots of folks still think he's doing a fine job. Bringing "Trump Virus" into common usage will help shift public perception, a crucial goal. Thanks for doing your part. Constantly tweet #TrumpVirus, talk Trump Virus, blog and comment about the Trump Virus. And please, urge news media and other public platforms to give credit where credit is due: it's the Trump Virus. For more, see https://TrumpVirus.cc. Thanks again.

With a blank check from the Senate’s sham impeachment trial in hand, Donald Trump is out for revenge. He’s continuing his rampage against anyone who put their loyalty to the country ahead of their loyalty to him. His latest target? Michael Atkinson, the former intelligence community Inspector General who faithfully upheld his oversight duties -- when he notified Congress of the anonymous whistleblower complaint that alleged Trump withheld security aid from Ukraine in exchange for dirt on Joe Biden. Atkinson did this country a great service. He felt, in his words, that he was doing what he was supposed to as “an independent and impartial inspector general.” Now, that honorable act has cost him his job, his career, and his privacy. Atkinson needs to know that Americans are thankful for his courage -- and that Trump's attacks can't change the important truth that he helped to uncover. And the White House must be met with a nationwide outcry -- thousands and thousands of us speaking out and condemning Trump's abhorrent decision to punish Atkinson for his patriotism.

New York is in crying out for help. But our federal government is failing us. We have socially distanced. We have stayed home--or risked our health to do essential work. We have lost income, put our lives on hold, shuttered businesses. We are homeschooling our kids, checking on our neighbors, and begging our parents to stay in. We are masking up. We are doing what we can. But the government is leaving us to die. This moment urgently calls us to exercise our collective power in spite of physical distance. Our communities, already ravaged by years of extraction and exploitation, now face a once in a 100 year crisis — the economic and political fallout of which will leave many of our people jobless, homeless, hungry or, even worse, dead. We need #Recovery4All, including immigrants! And in every crisis, the human spirit of solidarity, community and support also lives. We are asking you to open your window and bang on pots and pans at 2pm on Friday for 10 minutes to demand government action. We will do this in NYC every Friday until May Day. Then we will do it EVERYWHERE. We will keep banging until we are heard. In this moment, we can move beyond Zoom meetings and tele-town halls and elevate our struggles by directly confronting corporations, Wall Street, landlords, and the carceral state. May Day provides the perfect opportunity to link our struggles, lift our stories, confront those choosing to profit from our community's pain, and advance our urgent and long-term needs. We need a #Recovery4All On FRIDAY, APRIL 17TH FROM 2:00, let's take to our windows, our fire escapes, our roofs, our doors and our stoops, and make a racket loud enough to be heard in Washington. Let’s make noise and cry out for our state and federal elected officials to cancel rent, to house the homeless, to get a recovery for all people including the undocumented and hard hit Black and Brown communities, to get PPE to all healthcare and essential workers, to free our people from dangerous prisons and detention centers. We need a #Recovery4All! We need a #PeoplesBailout! We know that this is #TrumpsCOVIDFail We Demand: #CancelRent — Cancel rent and mortgage payments, establish a housing emergency fund, Freeze evictions, foreclosures, and utility shut-offs in all housing, Declare a moratorium on all work requirements for housing, house the houseless, $100 billion in rent assistance. #ReleaseThemAll - Decarcerate — Immigration and Justice Transformation. Release everyone currently in immigration detention, release particularly vulnerable populations from prisons and jails to relieve concentration of risk to coronavirus, close immigration courts and cancel check-ins and other immigration interviews, hold telephonic bond hearings, divest resources from wall construction and border enforcement to provide medical care and create cash-based disaster relief to out-of-work households regardless of status. CASA, MRPA, MRNJ, TOP, #EssentalWorker — UBI, UI, Green New Deal, Medicare For All, Childcare for All, Paid Sick, Hazard Pay, PPE, Paycheck guarantee #AmazonStrikes — Paid Leave, Hazard Pay, care subsidies, shutdown and clean facilities with workers paid, personal protective equipment, no discipline or raising safety concerns, end work practices such as production quotas. #ClimateStrike — The 50th anniversary of Earth Day is 4/22, which was planned as a day of mass action. #MedicareforAllCOVID Here's how it works: Wear something red, because it’s an emergency. Make a sign or banner saying something the government needs to do to protect us. Hold it or hang it out your window or off your roof. At 2 PM, make a racket for 10 minutes. Whistle, shout, sing, pray, bang on a pot, hoot, holler, drum, blast music and dance--it’s up to you. Just do it loud enough to wake up our leaders--and remind each other that our country is better, and stronger, than this. (Don't forget to follow social distancing.) Take pictures or videos and post with #PeoplesBailout #Recovery4All Send those photos to [email protected] Do it again next Friday Tell all of your friends to do it on MAY 1st!!! Huge national day of action Please sign this petition to pledge to participate if 1,000 other people commit as well. Then spread the word. [UPDATE 4.10. Good news!! Momentum is building. Several big NYC grassroots groups have decided to join, and asked to move the date back to give them time to spread the word. We have updated this to reflect the new date. Please keep sharing!] [UPDATE 4.16 - The date has been moved to Friday 4.17 AND the next two Fridays, building up to a huge push on May 1. Make The Road NY, the Working Families Party, NY Communities for Change, Center for Popular Democracy, and the Met Council on Housing are driving this — they represent the neighborhoods and communities that are being crushed by this crisis and they are demanding #Recovery4All and a #PeoplesBailout — please support their call.]

I have been personally affected by this pandemic. My daughter, an RN in Chicago, has been exposed to the virus and quarantined for 14 days. She is currently on her way back to work to face this virus all over again. Everyday that she goes into work she faces a war-zone environment. They have received no additional days off to recover from the effects and toll this pandemic is taking on them physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I believe the least we can do as a nation is to provide some type of compensation for their effort. Most of them are overwhelmed with student loan debt and now are burdened with the fact they could lose their own lives in the process of saving the lives of others.

This will help stop spreading the COVID-19 Virus, and help School Food Employee to remain safe.

We are very grateful for your proactive, consistent, and effective response to the Covid-19 crisis, and we know it will save many lives in our state. We are asking you to apply that same leadership to decisions affecting some of our most vulnerable residents: undocumented immigrants. As you know, the Coronavirus pandemic poses a serious threat to our communities, and as a result of this virus, people have been staying home, practicing social distancing, and taking measures to maintain good hygienic health. However, immigrant detainees have very little control over who they come in contact with or the cleanliness of their environment. Although some may believe that isolation from society prevents the threat of COVID-19 in detention centers, this is not accurate. The inadequate sanitary conditions in addition to the close proximity in which people are held means illness can spread like wildfire in detention centers. This is proven by many previous infectious disease outbreaks in detention centers, such as influenza and chickenpox. These outbreaks were very hard to control and caused the death of many men, women, and children. As one of the first governors to announce the closure of public schools, and as the chair of the National Governors Association, governors across the country are looking to you for moral leadership at this time. We are thankful for the steps you have taken to protect residents across the state, and we urge you to take bold action to protect Maryland’s immigrant community, as well.

COVID19 has left MILLIONS unemployed. The country could use these job-seekers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. The country needs these projects and the people need jobs. It’s a win-win.

Designating Election Day as a university holiday is important in increasing voter turnout and promoting civic engagement among students, faculty, and staff at Binghamton University. On-campus polling sites and early voting have both helped in this endeavor but fall short of allowing students the proper time to vote. 47% of college students cite being too busy as their primary reason for not voting. Having Election Day designated as a university holiday would free students of the time constraint of having to attend hours of classes on Election Day. In 2019, New York amended the Paid Voting Leave Law to allow voters to take up to three hours from work to cast their ballot on Election Day. Still, no provision exists allowing students time off from class to vote. The University of Montana is closed on Election Day in even-numbered years, and in New York, Columbia University treats Election Day as a university holiday with the cancelation of all classes. Making Election Day a state and national holiday is already a legislative priority at the state and federal levels for many lawmakers. Binghamton University could be at the forefront of this movement by designating Election Day as a university holiday. While the university already cancels classes for a number of holidays meant for observation, cancelling classes on Election Day would serve a practical purpose by allowing the Binghamton University community the opportunity to exercise their right to vote. Together, through this initiative, we can help uplift the underrepresented voice of today’s youth. Please join us in urging President Stenger to designate Election Day as a university holiday.

Our nation is in crisis on several fronts, foreign and domestic, economic and military, social and governmental. This is important for voters to be able to compare their stances in issues, their proposals for policy, and their attitudes and judgment that will affect the nation if one becomes President. Voters have heard little of these two in previous debates where many other voices were heard, limiting the responses from these two leading candidates.

The greatest urgency to obtain ventilators is currently in New York, New Jersey and Louisiana; however, in the coming weeks, rural communities will experience an overload of COVID-19 cases. A national ventilator lending system will help all communities in the United States and will save thousands of lives.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is meant to recognize individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” Our health care workers deserve the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their steadfast, critical, self-sacrificing service in the face of the current pandemic sweeping our nation and world. Join me in petitioning President Trump to bestow this honor on these heroic, deserving individuals.