Seventy-five percent of my calls are recordings to sell something. I don't know of one person who has not been affected. Everyone is complaining, but is anything being done?

People in prison also have basic human rights. No one should be forced to go without heat in this freezing weather! It's up to us to make sure Metropolitan Detention Center turns on the electricity and heat immediately. We can't be silent. Take action now.

Enslaved Africans during the European Slave Trade in Ghana, West Africa were brutally housed in the bowels of the castles; Castles was NOT their collective experience; for they languished in the dark, dirty and rodent infested "Dungeons" of the Castles, being raped, tortured and inhumanly treated, before being brutally shipped to the Americas and the Caribbean to be sold into slavery.

Five family members survived the Camp Fire having lost everything but the clothes they wore. My son Keith now lives in his own trailer on our property in Paradise CA. FEMA is bullying the town and county by threatening to withhold 1.7 billion dollars in disaster relief if they do not force all residents living in their own trailers on their own land to leave immediately. FEMA must stop this cruel action and ask residents to leave only for the time debris clean up is occurring on or near their property.

Lake Casitas is going dry due to the Casitas municipal water district being hamstrung by restrictions from diverting water from the Ventura river due to steelhead protections. There hasn't been a sighting of one since 2007. 12 years is long enough! Remove the restrictions and allow the lake to fill. The future of the Ojai valley depends on it.

There is no place in public life for a bigot, let alone a governor of a historically important commonwealth. We should all be deeply offended. UPDATE: Northam, taking the route that most cowards take, and after apologizing for the horrible yearbook image, now says the offensive photo on HIS yearbook page was NOT HIM??? Of course! All of the pictures on the two pages EXCEPT THAT ONE in the content of HIS Yearbook pages that were about him, Ralph Northam, AKA “COONMAN” !!! Sure.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) yearbook page featured racist imagery: blackface and KKK garb. He has already admitted to being one of the men featured. I am outraged that he didn't disclose this during the election and made it this far without us knowing. This clearly shows how the system is set up to protect racism and uphold white supremacy. The only possible action left at this moment is for him to resign immediately. That's the first step toward making amends.

Note, this is a revised petition with a necessarily expanded list of recipients. If you signed the first petition with only Clyde Roberson as a recipient, please sign this one again. The first petition is no longer valid because of the necessary changes to the recipient list. Sorry for the inconvenience. On January 4, 2019, Dave Potter was appointed to the Water Board by a 3-2 margin under very suspect circumstances. We demand a revote with all six mayors present and 4 votes majority required. If 4 votes cannot be obtained, then weighted voting shall determine the appointment. With the successful passage of Measure J in November 2018, the Water Management District has been tasked with conducting a feasibility study to consider acquiring Cal Am's assets, so that Monterey Peninsula residents can have a public agency deliver water and eliminate corporate profit and CPUC oversight that has led us to the highest water bills in the nation. Dave Potter has a decades-long political history on the Peninsula, which has tainted his reputation and caused a large block of voters to view him with abject distrust. Add that background to the suspect circumstances by which he was appointed to the seat: Del Rey Oaks City Manager met with its new mayor, Alison Kerr and whether intentional or not, delayed her arrival to the Monterey County Mayors Association by a mere 15 minutes. The other 5 mayors of the MPWRA had already voted by a 3-2 margin to seat Mr. Potter. The appearance of a "set-up", whether actual or not, is undeniable and will destroy the public trust in the Water Board's feasibility process. If Mr. Potter can win the appointment with all 6 mayor's present in a legitimate vote, the residents will accept their decision. If the decision stands as currently conducted, we will relentlessly protest his appointment. We request a do-over, to legitimize the process and restore the public faith.

Sex traffickers use Instagram accounts to advertise and pedal vulnerable children for sexual purposes. As a high school administrator, I have struggled to help a young person get an exploitative Instagram account deactivated. Upon receiving a report regarding a minor, Instagram should immediately suspend the account and conduct an investigation, even when the child is unable to provide Instagram with the required government-issued ID.

There has been a sharp increase in coverage and photos of trophy hunters in Africa and their slaughter of baby elephants, giraffes, water buffalo, and even several species of primates, like baboons. Most of the meat is thrown away and left to rot. Safari companies charge outrageous sums to their sadistic clients, and very little of the money goes back into the communities in these African nations. This must be more recognized by activists and animal rights sympathizers before the coming CITES conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at the end of May 2019. Only by letting these two heads of state (to start with!) of our displeasure and our outrage at the increasing slaughter of wildlife in their nations can we hope to make a different kind of real progress, based on kindness to animals.

One in four transgender people will experience assault in their lives because they are transgender. LB504 is just one step to protect transgender people and end the violence. There are many factors as to why transgender people face this violence. For example, in many states including Nebraska, it is difficult to impossible for transgender people to update the gender marker listed on their driver's license or birth certificate. Without identification matching their gender, transgender people frequently are "outed" as transgender in everyday interactions at bars, movie theaters, hospitals, or with police. These interactions can lead to harassment and violence. A ProPublica report documented, being known as transgender leads to pervasive job discrimination. Without laws protecting transgender people from discrimination face housing and food insecurity, homelessness and criminalization. Thus, it is vital that the Nebraska Unicameral pass LB504 to add gender identity to the Hate Crimes law. This violence against the transgender community has steadily risen in recent years. Last year 26 transgender people were fatally shot or killed by other violent means. In 2017, 29 transgender people were killed, and in 2016 the number was 23. Let's pass LB504 in remembrance of those transgender lives lost in 2018: - Crista Leigh Steele-Knudslien, 42 - Vicky Gutierrez, 33 - Celine Walker, 36 - Tanya Harvey, 35 - Zakaria Fry, 28 - Phylicia Mitchell, 45 - Amia Tyrae Berryman, 28 - Sasha Wall, 29 - Karla Patricia Flores, 26 - Nino Fortson, 36 - Gigi Pierce, 28 - Roxana Hernandez, 33 - Antash'a English, 38 - Diamond Stephens, 39 - Cathalina Christina James, 24 - Keisha Wells, 54 - Sasha Garden, 27 - Vontashia Bell, 18 - Dejanay Stanton, 24 - Shantee Tucker, 30 - Londonn Moore, 20 - Nikki Enriquez, 28 - Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier, 31 - Regina Denise Brown, 53 - Tydi Dansbury, 37 - Keanna Mattel, 35 *All information was from the ACLU and HRC*

Howard Schultz came from nothing and built an empire. He tried to align the practices of Starbucks with more civic mindedness than most. He's made it the firm’s mission to hire veterans and refugees. He offered sick leave and college assistance and health plans when so many other American giants exploited economic dislocation and cultural decay to grind their people into the ground. If he wants to run for president, he has every right, and he has a case to make. But there is only one place to make that case, and it’s in the Democratic primaries. The alternative would destroy his legacy as an accomplished executive, divide the country, tilt the presidential election toward Trump, and turn his name into a permanent joke, or worse. Let’s dive in. A year before the first votes are cast in Iowa, Howard Schultz is assuming that the outcome of that process will be unacceptable. He must believe that a) there are tens of millions of people in America who are clamoring for his politics but b) he couldn’t persuade them to vote for you in a Democratic primary. It’s a real pickle. So what are his politics? In a 60 Minutes interview, Scott Pelley peppered Schultz with policy questions, and on one after another he described a mainstream Democratic position. On immigration, on climate change, on tax policy, he stake out completely ordinary liberal critiques of Trump. Nothing special, nothing new. So what is this great divergence that suggests that Schultz, a lifelong Democrat, has no choice but to run as an independent? It’s that even though everyone deserves health care, Democratic proposals are too expensive—Medicare for All is a partisan fantasy, our version of Trump’s wall. It fits with what he's said previously—that neither party cares enough about fiscal responsibility. Earlier this year he told CNBC that “the greatest threat domestically to the country is this $21 trillion debt hanging over… future generations.” This is the substance of his centrism, the appeal he believes will draw the independents he views as his natural constituency—the socially liberal, fiscally conservative political homeless American voter. But I have bad news: while there are many voters like this who nod their heads in Aspen and Davos, and who form the base of the Democratic donor class and the consultants who share their politics—cosmopolitan, tolerant, capitalist, constitutionally moderate and rarely touched by poverty and grinding inequality—those nodding heads do not represent a coalition. In fact, it’s the opposite. What we have learned in recent years—and why you see a move toward more left policies in Democratic circles —is that the politically homeless voter is opposite to what Schultz describes: fiscally liberal and socially moderate. There's more to say, including about the shallowness of the identifier “independent” and the 40 percent of voters who use it, the actual source of partisan rancor in Washington, the fact that even on the substance of fiscal responsibility, it’s Democrats who have actually carried that mantle for a generation. And, by the way, on health care, we’re about to have a huge debate about universal coverage and how to pay for it. The debate will take place in the primary Schultz is planning to skip. Look, I know I’m a partisan Democrat, the kind of person whose views Schultz is training himself to ignore. But in my experience, there’s no one a billionaire trusts more than a fellow billionaire. Listen to Mike Bloomberg who said, “In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the President.” He faced the same choice as Schultz. The only difference is he had people around him who cared more about telling him the truth than taking his money. The effort to remove Donald Trump from office—by impeachment, resignation, or electoral defeat—is among the most important political fights in American history. The stakes are total. If he is on the ballot in 2020 he will be defeated by Democratic voters, with the help of independents, first-time voters, and some Republicans—or he will be re-elected. A huge percentage of those voters are about to engage in a great contest, state by state, to choose the person we want to face off against Trump. Millions of our fellow citizens will take it seriously, they will knock on doors and persuade their friends, they will argue and think and worry about who they should support. For Howard Schultz to evade that process, for him to introduce so profound an uncertainty into this election, for him to leapfrog the primaries, avoid any debate, insert himself into that decision, simply because he has the money to do it and the foolishness to believe the consultants he's paid to get to yes, is reprehensible. I believe Schultz loves this country. I believe he believes in a noble conception of his motivations. So my hope is that the criticisms reach him, that he talks to smart people he does not pay, that he does not show the same kind of hubris and selfishness and ego that led Trump to believe he alone could fix it. Howard Schultz, if you want to help your country help us defeat the propaganda machine that enables Trump and the worst elements of the Republican Party. Help us push back against corporate interests arrayed against action on climate change. Fund local journalism. Fund scholarships. Fund voter registration and protection. And, if you believe in the case you’d make as an independent candidate, join the Democratic primary and make that case before the voters you’d need to win.