Wards 7 and 8 residents deserve better than this. United Medical Center is the only Hospital East of River and removing any funds from the Hospital will lead to fatal outcomes for residents in Wards 7 and 8. The DC Council must act immediately to restore the $40 million to UMC to avoid removing access to healthcare for Ward 7 and 8 residents.

Arrest Statistics In 1990 there were 8,314 arrests for marijuana possession or sales by all of the local, county and state law enforcement agencies in the state of Georgia combined. By 2013 that number ballooned to over 35,000, with nearly 85% of those arrests being for possession only. Georgia ranks sixth in the nation in the number of people arrested for marijuana. “Marijuana prohibition is taking a toll on the entire country, but Georgia is among the states paying the biggest price,” said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project. “Law enforcement resources would be better spent addressing serious crimes instead of arresting adults for using a substance objectively less harmful than alcohol.” Racial disparities in marijuana arrests No group understands the war on the cannabis plant better than Georgia’s African American community. In 2010 Georgia law enforcement officers arrested 389 out of every 100,000 citizens for marijuana, and African Americans accounted for 64% of those arrests In fact and a 2013 ACLU study entitled “The War on Marijuana in Black and White concluded that African Americans in Georgia were 3.7 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites.

I believe that every school should have equal funding

Last month, the same lawless white nationalist and white supremacist groups that stoked violence in Charlottesville attended rallies organized by Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). Chicago's police union has found common cause with racist groups including the Proud Boys, American Identity Movement, and the American Guard. They are all stoking anger and division by using District Attorney Kim Foxx's handling of the Jussie Smollett case. For the Fraternal Order of Police, it's an opportunity to attack one of their most strident critics and weaken her agenda of criminal justice reform. For the white supremacist groups, the FOP's rallies and over-the-top rhetoric provided the perfect backdrop for them to win new recruits over to their twisted, hateful ideology. The FOP protest offered sanctuary to extremist organizations, allowing members to emerge from the shadows of the Internet and establish the legitimacy and public visibility required to grow their ranks of domestic terrorists. By welcoming white nationalist leaders into their assembled fold, the police union signaled its tacit approval of their dangerous agenda of hatred and violence. But despite widespread reporting on extremist groups' participation in the recent police union rally, FOP head Kevin Graham has refused to publicly denounce the organizations and the viewpoints they espouse. So long as the FOP refuses to denounce the white nationalist groups they gave aid and comfort to, the City of Chicago must not deal with them like a legitimate organization. The FOP is attempting to negotiate a new contract with the city of Chicago. Please join us in calling on Lori Lightfoot, Chicago's newly elected mayor, to not negotiate any new contract with the Fraternal Order of Police until they have publicly denounced the Proud Boys and the other "alt-white" groups benefiting from the FOP's anti-reform stance. And any new contract must include key reforms that make police officers more accountable to the public when they abuse their power.

The issue is simple. Currently in Massachusetts transgender and non-binary residents cannot identify themselves for who they truly are. By the state not allowing for an a gender neutral marker, "X", our government makes transgender and non-binary resident invisible. They literally cannot identify as themselves in the eyes of the state, there is no mechanism. This lack of a gender neutral identification option is discriminatory - demonstrating a fundamental lack of acceptance and respect for our friends, relatives and neighbors. Currently, Mass Drivers Licenses/IDs and birth certificates only allow for male/female designation. If a trans/non-binary resident wants to have their voter registration reflect their gender identity rather than the default M/F, they must petition the Secretary of the Commonwealth! This binary requirement, allowing only male or female, is likely pervasive across all agencies in the Commonwealth. While bathroom access is important, being recognized for who you are is essential. For national context, Massachusetts would be among approximately 10 states and DC who have already allowed gender neutral markers for drivers licenses and among 4 states that have allowed gender neutral IDs for birth certificates. WHERE THINGS STAND IN MASS. LEGISLATURE: In April, gender neutral ID legislation passed overwhelmingly in the state Senate, 39-1. Unfortunately, despite this strong support, it appears to be stuck in the House. The House version of the bill, H3664, was originally filed in the House by Rep. Mindy Domb of Amherst and Rep. Decker of Cambridge. This bill is stuck in the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight; there is no hearing scheduled. Unless this bill is voted favorably out of committee so the full House can vote on it, it will die. Getting this done soon is important to keep momentum before legislators break in July for the summer. This petition seeks to get a hearing set by the Committee and then asks that the Committee vote to approve the bill for consideration by the entire Mass. House. In addition to signing petition, consider a call or email to Committee and ask them for hearing for H3664 Chair Danielle W. Gregoire [email protected] (617) 722-2140 Vice Chair Sean Garballey [email protected] (617) 722-2090 Thank you!

We women should not be banned from our bodies! We are pro-choice; NOT their choice. I'm a woman and believe I should never have to ask for permission for my body.

I am a teen that lives in a small town in Virginia. I personally vaccinated but wish to help fellow VA minors become vaccinated themselves if they have parents that do not allow them to do so.

The government's increased control and politicization of women's bodies is unacceptable. Families in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and communities across the nation are under attack, and Governor Kay Ivey has just days to make a decision to veto a dangerous bill being sent to her desk. She should veto the bill. Every person has the non-negotiable human right to determine whether, when, and how to create a family. In Alabama, pregnant people face many barriers impeding their ability to access the general and reproductive healthcare they need. People espousing "pro-life" politics frequently talk about how much they love pregnant people and babies. However, their political agenda does not extend to ensuring that pregnancy and birth are safe for pregnant people or that parents, children, and families can access the healthcare they need to live healthy lives. The state of Alabama's refusal to expand Medicaid access has caused a decrease in the number of local hospitals and healthcare providers in urban and rural areas. This means that a large number of pregnant people are going without the prenatal, birth, and postnatal care needed to ensure healthy pregnancies and birth outcomes. Maternal and infant mortality rates remain high in Alabama, but those shouting about the need to "protect babies" from abortion are hostile or indifferent to initiatives like Medicaid expansion that would make a tangible, positive impact on the health of Alabamians. In solidarity with the thousands of Alabamians who need abortion access every year and the millions of Alabamians who have had and benefited from abortion access, we demand that the Governor veto the extreme abortion restriction bill.

This petition is about creating business consequences for Alabama, whose legislature just passed the most restrictive and punitive anti abortion law in the U.S.

House Bill 182 states that ectopic pregnancy are to be reimplant into the uterus, a procedure which does not exist. This could put many of women’s lives at risk. It will limit coverage in birth control a medication often used for hormone regulation not just as a prevention of pregnancy. This bill will also limit insurance coverage for abortions for mothers lives who are not endanger.

Cannot believe they passed a law banning Abortion in this day and age. Women have struggled for decades to make progress towards equal rights, in one fell swoop the State of Alabama has returned them to the Civil War era

To: International Hydropower Association members, to be delivered during May 2019's World Hydropower Congress in Paris Just days ago, the UN released a report warning of looming mass extinctions that will undermine humanity's existence unless we act. This is in addition to the mere 12 years that the UN has given us to avert the climate crisis. You, the global hydropower industry, worsen and accelerate these crises. You profit while your immense dams emit dangerous greenhouse gases and devastate biodiverse ecosystems, threatening half a billion people's survival. While scientists warn about what's happening, you've successfully deceived the public and major institutions with false claims that large-scale hydropower is renewable. This week's World Hydropower Congress (WHC) in Paris is purportedly about “delivering on the Paris Agreement and the UN sustainable development goals,” despite the fact that you continually undermine them. One major sign of your greenwashing? Your hypocritical partnership with UNESCO on this year's WHC, despite the threats that dams and other water infrastructure pose to nearly 25% of UNESCO World Heritage sites. For example, dam construction will soon flood and destroy a precious 12,000-year-old Mesopotamian village in Turkey. And UNESCO's World Heritage Committee has already recognized the danger posed by Ethiopia's Gibe 3 Dam because it has cut off the main water source for World Heritage site Lake Turkana, which supports a rich, diverse ecosystem -- including half a million indigenous people. Your projects drive aquatic species' extinction and devastate downstream species, including endangered orangutans and chimpanzees. And dam construction often opens up sensitive areas to environmentally destructive mining, agriculture, logging, and poaching. What's worse, emissions from dam-created reservoirs rival the dirtiest fossil fuel: coal. Hydropower reservoirs are the leading source of human-induced methane, a greenhouse gas up to 200 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Not to mention the widespread deforestation that dams cause, jeopardizing some of the world's most important carbon sinks. By flooding areas and ruining food and livelihoods, your projects have already displaced at least 80 million people and plunged nearly 500 million more people into poverty -- many of whom are indigenous and haven't received any reparations. Your large-scale dams are often approved in secret, through processes rife with corruption and kickbacks. These processes often violate human rights -- including the right to food and clean water, as well as indigenous people's right to free, prior, and informed consultation and consent, as mandated by the UN. When social movements oppose your projects, they often face intimidation, cooptation, and even murder. Given the catastrophic impacts that you have caused, you must fundamentally reconsider the types of projects you are involved in. We urge you to adopt and implement the highest global standards to ensure the protection of the environment and rights of communities. And as you co-sponsor this week's World Hydropower Congress with UNESCO, you must commit to halt or avoid any dam project that would impact our World Heritage sites. This is among the asks of a coalition organizing a parallel conference in Paris. Unlike the Hydropower Congress, this conference will raise up voices of indigenous people and dam-affected communities, who are often excluded from decision-making processes about hydroelectric dams. The coalition will protest during the first day of the Congress, and then deliver a joint statement from hundreds of civil society groups, along with this petition. The public is paying attention.