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.

The Rush Springs Aquifer has already suffered depletion, and with the future use and withdrawals from increased activity of the oil and gas industry, and the future use by frac sand mines, the possibility of future droughts, it is imperative that we protect the Rush Springs Aquifer NOW!!!!!!

Spending more DNC money and political capital than we raise from for-profit corporate interests defending our receipt of for-profit corporate checks is a bad business proposition. Rather, we should welcome individual participation believing that each of us are equal at the ballot box and at the DNC. The DNC has the chance to make a powerful structural change in that direction at its February 13-16, 2019 meeting in Washington, DC. Already, over twenty DNC members have signed on to a resolution, authored by DNC Member Christine Pelosi, to do so. The full text of the Resolution is below, along with the names of the co-sponsors. We need to tell the DNC: Save our democracy! Uphold people over PACs! Reject for-profit corporate PAC donations! Pass the Resolution! RESOLUTION TO EMPOWER GRASSROOTS DEMOCRATS WITH A CORPORATE PAC-FREE DNC SUBMITTED BY Christine Pelosi, California Alexandra Chalupa, At Large Larry Cohen, At Large James Zogby, At Large Becca Doten, California Michael Kapp, California Sandra Lowe, California Melahat Rafiei, California Susie Shannon, California Jeri Shepard, Colorado Terry Tucker, Colorado Chris Reeves, Kansas Michelle Deatrick, Michigan Winston Apple, Missouri Persephone Dakopolos, Missouri Megan Green, Missouri Ron Kaminski, Nebraska Jane Kleeb, Nebraska Frank LaMere, Nebraska Patty Zieg, Nebraska Senator Nina Turner, Ohio Valdez Bravo, Oregon Travis Nelson, Oregon Tanya Shively, Oregon Kat Hoang, Texas Daisy Thomas, Utah Terje Anderson, Vermont Yasmine Taeb, Virginia Khary Penebaker, Wisconsin Andrew Werthmann, Wisconsin Jessica Chambers, Wyoming WHEREAS, millions of Americans voted in a "blue wave" of Democrats ready to work for the people and restore integrity in government - including dozens of candidates elected to party and public office from sea to shining sea who ran on a platform to End Citizens United, take no corporate PAC money, and empower individuals over corporate interests; and WHEREAS, as President Barack Obama said in his farewell address, "When trust in our institutions is low, we should reduce the corrosive influence of money in our politics, and insist on the principles of transparency and ethics in public service;" and WHEREAS, many of our most engaged activists believe that a pledge to take no for-profit corporate PAC money will gain the trust and support of millions of grassroots donors and revive our national party during the critical 2020 presidential election; THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Democratic National Committee acts to revive trust in our Party by reaffirming President Obama's BAN on for-profit corporate PAC donations to the DNC, placing us in line with the sentiments of our diverse grassroots Democrats so that more people's voices can be heard at the DNC and across the country; and, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chair or his designee report on a quarterly basis to the public and this body on our party's compliance with this resolution.

For 4 years I have been trying to get a behavior coach to attend school with my two adopted children, who come from a background of severe neglect that led to them being removed from their home. For 4 years I have been trying to get them help in the school. The school does not have the tools to deal with my children's behaviors. This is obvious by the constant calls and emails from their teachers and principal. This could be an incredible help to the school (as mentioned by the principal and their teachers) and to me, as I could be working outside of the home without the calls while at work. I had to quit last year because of the needs of my children. I just started working again and have had to remind myself why I stopped working in the first place. Please help this family out!

This is a petition to encourage lawmakers to make voting day a national holiday. It is important that everyone gets a chance to make it to the polls. No more: taking off work, getting up extra early, juggling daycare or having to pick up the kids at school. It just makes sense! And oh so patriotic!

Russell Sage College should remain true to its original mission of developing the skills of women in a single-sex environment. Women's colleges are STILL highly relevant and needed in today's society, as the battle for women's rights is NOT finished. Studies have shown the benefits to women who attend women's colleges, and the numbers of existing women's colleges in the US is already dwindling. I refuse to financially support the decision to turn Russell Sage College coeducational.

So many people have decided to throw their hat in the ring to be POTUS in 2020, but none of them have the skill, vision, or courage to confront the challenges like Stacey Abrams.

A man has been Wrongfully incarcerated for 43 years. Its a injustice to this nation every second this man is not free!

Due to the closure of The Josh Gibson Center, VITA will need to find another location in May 2019. We will need another Free Space in order to continue helping our community with FREE VITA Tax Preparation & Audit Assistance. We have provided this Free service for 11 years, we have averaged bringing back over 1.5 million dollars per year to our local area. Please sign the petition to show both our City and County Commissioners just how important this program is and how we desperately need to preserve it, especially since our entire staff consists of all volunteers who donate their time to help our fellow community members. Thank You for your support and patronage.

We want to start this petition because we think it is unfair that we wear outerwear especially because white is a part of our logo. I see no reason why we can't wear white.