This petition is to support of Georgia House Bill 843 sponsored by Representative Demetrius Douglas outlining a plan to provide 30 minutes of recess to Georgia elementary school children. Currently Georgia does not have a formal requirement to provide recess to grades K-5. In March 2019 during the Georgia legislative session, a similar House Bill (#83) was approved by both the Senate and House (237 in "yay", only 15 "nay", so 96% in favor). In May 2019, Governor Kemp vetoed the bill preferring local control of recess policies. Representative Douglas is rightly passionate about this issue and is bringing recess back for consideration in 2020. Given the overwhelmingly positive response of both the House and Senate in 2019, we want to show our support as a community through this petition. Currently Georgia ranks #8 in childhood obesity. More and more children are being diagnosed with health related illnesses. Children need unstructured play time, fresh air and sunlight incorporated into their school day. House Bill 843 provides for 30 minutes of recess for all Georgia children consistently. It gives children the right to play, supporting healthy development -- physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and academically. Thank you for your support!

We believe this is an essential move to protect our national public schools.

If the candidate with the most delegates does not get to run as the Democratic nominee for President, and Superdelegates give it to a less popular candidate , it will fracture the Democratic Party. This will likely keep Trump in office for four more years, and we cannot let this happen!

This guarantees that our workers in our communities are not being treated differently from workers in New York and New Jersey, and can peacefully form their union. As Mayflower continues to be successful, the workers should also see the result of their hard work reflected in their wages, benefits, protections, and working conditions.

It is often difficult to see when stopped on Thurston at Nevada because of cars parked along the road. I have personally narrowly avoided accidents at this intersection because I thought it was clear, but there was a car coming down Nevada that I could not see. A 4-way stop would make this intersection much safer and less stressful to cross.

The current pay schedule is not competitive with the current job market in and outside of the education field. Furthermore, it does not account for the cost of living in the metropolitan Nashville area. As a result, our children are losing talented teachers to other counties and other industries. Also, without enough substitute teachers and support staff, educators bear an unfair and heavy workload that ultimately creates an unhealthy education experience for both children and teachers alike. The injustice our children experience when high-quality teachers are lost due to a system that underpays and undervalues them is unconscionable.

In October and November of 2019, Maine’s first and fourth largest cities made history. Portland and South Portland became the first places in Maine to declare a climate emergency. Brunswick and Bar Harbor declared an emergency shortly after, with more on the way or in the process. A similar resolution has now been presented to the Lewiston School Committee. It is only fitting that a school, a place where children learn about the world, listen to the youth activists. Climate change is often seen as a scary and abstract concept. How would understanding around the crisis change if students’ schools recognized it for the emergency it is? How many more environmental leaders would we have growing up today? This is why we urge Lewiston Public Schools to declare climate emergency.

With flu season still in full swing—and an estimated 10,000 deaths in the U.S. so far this season (seriously, get your flu shot)—news of the new coronavirus outbreak is also causing concern. Reports indicating a possibility of a future pandemic make it clear that we need a strong response from our elected officials. The National Institutes of Health—which is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—have already invested nearly $700 million of taxpayer money in coronavirus vaccine research. Public, taxpayer dollars have led the way in developing treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus, but President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Azar are considering giving pharmaceutical corporations monopolies to sell them at whatever price maximizes profits. Research and investment in treatments and vaccines funded with public dollars should not be handed over to private corporations with no guardrails, so they can price gouge patients and rake in profits.

Right now, Trump thinks he’s unstoppable -- but he’s wrong. Trump has been asking Congress to rubber-stamp a renewal of the Patriot Act that will let his administration continue to spy on Americans without a warrant. With your help, we can stop him! Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Senator Steve Daines introduced a bill called the Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act that will keep Trump from using invasive, warrantless spying on Americans. Because it has bipartisan support, this can pass. What will really help right now is telling your members of Congress -- right now -- to vote for it before the March 15 deadline.

Our democracy is more important than Facebook’s profits. This year’s US presidential elections are in jeopardy—in part because global tech giant Facebook refuses to take responsibility for the lies, hate, and disinformation that are being spread using its platform. Facebook refuses to take down advertisements by US politicians that feature even the most blatant falsehoods. It freely allows microtargeting that directs disinformation at vulnerable communities that is hidden from everyone else. And its efforts to stop the spread of toxic lies and hate are too little, too late. Please join us to say enough is enough! Facebook must immediately prevent its platform from being used to spread disinformation and divisiveness that could disrupt our elections. We’re urging Facebook to: STOP THE LIES IN POLITICAL ADS Facebook should fact check advertisements placed by politicians and political campaigns. In other words, it should hold these political ads to the same standards it applies to advertisements that are not placed by politicians. As Facebook employees said in an open letter to company leadership, “Misinformation shared by political advertisers has an outsized detrimental impact on our community.” If you or I lied in an advertisement on Facebook, it would immediately be taken down. PROHIBIT POLITICAL AD MICROTARGETING Right now political campaigns can target their ads so precisely that they can pinpoint them to reach specific voters. The problem with this, according to former Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub, is that “false and misleading messages may be disseminated in a way that does not allow people with conflicting information to counter those messages, because they won't see them.” Facebook already restricts targeting for industries with a history of discrimination, like housing. They should do the same with political ads. REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE TRYING TO DISRUPT THE 2020 ELECTION All businesses can refuse service to a person who violates their policies. Restaurants usually require patrons wear shoes and shirts. Facebook should require that users refrain from using the platform to disrupt the 2020 election. They can do this by implementing terms of service or acceptable usage policies that require users to follow certain rules about how Facebook can be used. AND MORE ... We need to reform Facebook to protect our democracy and our civil society. Facebook’s own employees have put forward an excellent set of recommendations that include spending caps for politicians and observing silence periods free from political advertisements before elections. Another strong set of recommendations was put forward by Change the Terms, which focuses on how the platform can enforce an acceptable use policy to prevent Facebook from being used to incite hate, fear and abusive behavior. Finally, a number of organizations make the case that the Federal Trade Commission should break up Facebook, which now has unprecedented power to decide what news and information billions of people around the world see every day. For more information, go to www.protestfacebook.org.

Fair and free elections are a hallmark of American democracy. The American people’s confidence in the value of their vote is principally reliant on their confidence in the security and resilience of the infrastructure that makes the Nation’s elections possible. Shelby Pierson Senior Elections Security Intelligence met with Congress last week. It has been disclosed that Putin is actively interfering in our elections and he prefers Trump. More urgent than just their disinformation campaign, is the urgency to prevent Russia from hacking voting machines and manipulating votes. It has been reported last year that Florida was hacked prior to elections and that all 50 states were compromised in 2016. The Republicans have refused to pass 3 election security bills Congress sent to Senate. Americans are outraged. Trump just fired McGuire and replaced him with a temporary DNI Director who will do whatever Trump wants, including keeping secret anything related to Russian interference. Trump can’t be trusted. The new DNI Director can’t be trusted. Unless all 50 states are required to go to Paper Ballots Americans right to a free and fair elections is violated! We can’t allow Trump to cheat again. This is a National Emergency.

Our representative democracy has always experienced a peaceful transfer of power. According to reports from our U.S. intelligence community, there are current efforts to undermine our election by a foreign state. If we allow Election Day to come and pass, the very integrity of our elections may come into question. If it does, the foreign state may have accomplished their mission to divide us and advance their own interests with "elected" officials of the U.S. government in the future. Furthermore, policies that will affect our daily lives will come to pass and may affect, our education, health, economy, and our national security.