If Portland acts now, lives and homes can be saved, our forests and wildlife can be spared disaster, and we can avoid the dangerous air quality we experienced during the wildfires of 2020.

A group of Democratic women in Congress are working to ensure that the infrastructure bill Congress is debating includes funding for childcare. The proposal from the Democratic Women’s Caucus includes $700 billion in funding for high-quality childcare over the next 10 years. It’s a great idea that will help so many families and make it possible for more parents to work. But conservatives in both Parties are working on a “compromise” plan – and it doesn’t include any support or funding for childcare. Roads and bridges are important -- but without childcare, many parents still can’t make it to work, creating financial instability for families and holding our entire economy back. Negotiations are happening right now in Washington, so we need to act fast to make sure members of Congress know that parents expect them to look out for families and kids in the infrastructure bill.

In communities across the country, the lines at food pantries are stretching longer and longer, and there's no clear end in sight. But now, with economic instability, new estimates point to some of the worst rates of food insecurity in the United States in years. It's a crisis that's testing families, communities and the social safety net in ways that may have seemed unthinkable before the pandemic began (NPR, 2020).

During the pandemic, one thing became entirely clear: in our 21st-century democracy, We the People must have access to affordable Internet and phone services. But as we move toward the second half of 2021, the FCC remains deadlocked with two Democrat commissioners and two Republican commissioners. With no nomination for the fifth and final commissioner -- the FCC is below full capacity, meaning the agency isn’t able to deliver open and reliable high-speed broadband to every home. Frankly, this is unacceptable -- without a fifth commissioner, former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s legacy of decision-making that put profits over people and industry interest over the public interest remains in place. We can’t afford inaction and compromises when we are so heavily dependent on affordable, reliable Internet access. Plus, this is all the more urgent given the fact low-income families and people of color are disproportionately disconnected from high-speed internet access, compounding grave inequalities that were only made worse during the pandemic. Given the Senate’s legislative calendar and the diminishing number of days left for hearings and confirmation votes, we have reached a critical point to guarantee the FCC can do meaningful work during the Biden administration. If we are to reach the goal of having a country where everyone -- no matter their address or size of their bank account -- has affordable access to high-speed internet, we need a fully functional FCC as soon as possible. Please add your name to demand that the White House take action now.

Every day during the heights of the pandemic, people clapped and gave thanks to essentials workers. I think a financial compensation would be more important and make the most impact to essential workers, especially those who worked minimum wage.

The very act of forcing a person to pay exorbitant sums of money just to live to see another day is nothing short of a Crime Against Humanity, as without life, the purpose of Capital becomes moot and such an act deliberately dehumanized those in need of life-saving drugs, treating them as nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet. The only way to preserve and protect life, as is the charge of the US Government to begin with, is to guarantee Healthcare as a human right by having it funded solely through tax dollars, including Big Pharma. By allowing the Pharmaceutical industry to coerce the public into paying astronomical amounts of money that they don't have (since employers refuse to pay workers living wages and prices of everything else is increasing), the US Government is complicit in what is effectively a combination of Highway Robbery and Negligent Genocide of both its own people and the greater population of the world. US Pharma companies also bring their predatory ways to the shores of other countries, which forces those countries' taxpayers to fork over more than they need to in order to satisfy the greed of Big Pharma shareholders. This puts unnecessary and inexcusable pressure on our peer nations and their citizens by holding all of their lives hostage for the sake of Corporate profits. Again, this is why such a practice is a Crime Against Humanity. By nationalizing Big Pharma, we are not only saving the lives of millions of Americans, we are also saving the lives of as many people as possible the world over, as there would no longer be the presence of shareholders to price gouge the public at large, reducing Healthcare costs in every single country - including the US. These sharks have gotten away with their brand of Sacrificial Genocide for too long already and it's time to take away this avenue of profiteering and make it part of the common good, guaranteeing Healthcare and the life-saving drugs included in it to all who require them. All people need Healthcare to live. The pursuit of profits is meaningless if people can't afford to live.

Did you know that tens of millions of kids breathe polluted air every day on their way to school? It’s true – and it’s because their school buses run highly-polluting diesel fuel. And we know air pollution can cause major health problems for children! Now, a new bill has been introduced in Congress that would replace these dirty diesel buses with clean electric buses. If passed, it would help protect kids from air pollution AND help fight climate change. The Clean School Bus Act would make major investments in replacing the nation’s fleet of diesel school buses with zero-emission electric buses. Even better, it would prioritize low-income school districts for funding.

Black girls are suspended from school SIX TIMES more often than white girls. It’s deeply unfair. Now, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is fighting back with a new bill that seeks to end the disproportionate punishment of girls of color in schools. Rep. Pressley’s Ending PUSHOUT Act would provide extra funding to schools that ban unfair and discriminatory school discipline practices, and create a task force to study the problem. It’s a huge step toward ensuring that our schools are safe and fair learning environments for ALL kids. As Rep. Pressley said when she introduced the bill, “our schools should be spaces for learning and growth, but for far too many Black and brown girls, interactions with racist dress code policies and law enforcement in our schools define their experience.”

Indiana remains one of only 4 states in the United States who have directly targeted legislation against women being topless in public spaces, allowing police to arrest and charge women with class C misdemeanors for being comfortable on a hot day. This is discrimination on the basis of gender and cultivates a culture of shame around the bodies of women. This law fetishizes people, it minimizes the value of their bodies, it takes away ownership of their bodies, and it tells female identifying humans across the state that their body is a shameful object to be hidden. We can change this and make our state not one of the last strongholds of sexist law in the United States.

Since the Black Lives Matter protests erupted last summer, we’ve been in the midst of a national moment of reckoning around our painful history of racial exclusion. This has been driven in paet by brave young people asking tough questions and speaking out for justice. But in Republican-led states across the country, Legislatures have been responding by trying to ban teachers and students from even having the conversation. New laws, and bills under consideration in states like Idaho, Texas and Oklahoma would ban teachers from teaching about current events like Black Lives Matter, or even talking about systemic racism. Kids should be learning to think critically in school - and to understand the full history of our country, even the painful parts. And our politicians should be focused on helping students and teachers who are still struggling with fallout from COVID--rather than punishing teachers for speaking the truth.

Billionaires like Bezos have made even more billions during the pandemic while most people were suffering to make ends meet. Until he starts paying his fair share in taxes he can afford to be extremely charitable and make much needed public investments to address the crises caused or highlighted by the pandemic.

Baltimore is a city in crisis brought on by bad leadership exacerbated by the ineffectual policy during a time of crisis.