Change.org - A&W

A&W is a global brand that operates restaurants around the world. But in many parts of the world, they rely on hens raised in deadly and cruel battery cages for eggs in their supply chain. These hens are stuffed into cages so tight they can’t move, suffering deformities and injuries. A&W stopped using battery cages in Canada, and now the group Sinergia Animal wants them to make this same commitment worldwide. Add your name and tell A&W to stop the use of battery cages for hens. A&W: Please stop sourcing eggs from outdated and cruel systems called battery cages 890 have signed Sinergia Animal’s petition. Let’s get to 1,000!

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(สำหรับภาษาไทย คลิกที่นี่) (Untuk Bahasa Indonesia, Klik disini) A&W is well-known in Thailand and Indonesia for its signature root beer, waffles, and kind-faced brown bear mascot. This multinational fast-food chain from the United States has been doing great in catering to Thais’ tastes and cultural preferences. And we know they can do better! We want A&W to be kinder to animals and fairer to Thai and Indonesian consumers! A&W uses eggs in a number of their products, such as their waffles. With the growing awareness towards animal welfare and food safety standards among Thai and Indonesian consumers, it would be great if A&W could assure their customers of animal welfare and food safety standards by announcing the commitment to stop sourcing eggs from farms that keep hens in battery cages. Battery cages are small cages commonly used in the Thailand and Indonesian egg industry. This system is harmful for humans and hens. Major studies conducted in the European Union reveal that the risk of salmonella contamination in cage farms is significantly higher than in cage-free farms. According to the World Health Organization, one of the most prevalent types of salmonella "is estimated to cause 93.8 million cases of acute gastroenteritis and 155,000 deaths globally each year, approximately 85% of which are estimated to be foodborne." Hens suffer immensely in battery cages. A hen who spends her life in a battery cage has to share the cell with 4–5 other hens, so she gets a space smaller than an A4 paper to live. She will spend her entire life standing on the wire cage floor with her bare feet, barely able to spread her wings, let alone walk around to exercise. Her body might get caught in the metal cage, leaving her with painful injuries and feather loss. She has to endure this life simply because she was born a hen, which is not something she chose. What has she done to deserve this? A&W already knows battery cages are outdated and cruel. This is why it has already announced its commitment to stop sourcing eggs from cage farms for the entire supply chain in Canada. We invite A&W to extend its commitment to the supply chain in Thailand and Indonesia as well. Can you help us help hens? Let’s ask A&W to be kinder to animals by announcing its commitment to stop sourcing eggs from farms that keep hens in cages. Sign this petition and share it on your social media accounts! Reference: Salmonella control in poultry flocks and its public health impact

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Change.org - Euthanizing healthy animals?

Content warning: The following contains references to animal abuse. The ask is simple: stop the daily euthanizing of young, healthy, and adoptable dogs at Riverside County Animal Shelters. But, according to petition starter Rhiannon, the director of these shelters— Julie Bank—has a resume that clearly illustrates her intention to continue allowing shelters to excessively euthanize their animals. Rhiannon believes all animals should be given a fair chance at life and of finding a loving home. Sign her petition if you agree. STOP euthanizing adoptable dogs at Riverside Animal Shelter! And TERMINATE Julie Bank! 747 have signed Rhiannon Taylor’s petition. Let’s get to 1,000!

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(1) STOP the DAILY euthanizing of young, healthy, and adoptable dogs at Riverside County Animal Services / Shelters. Many of the dogs at Riverside shelters are not given a fair chance to be seen before being euthanized. Dogs under 3 years of age with zero medical issues are being killed consistently at the shelter.  Dogs with medical issues and/or seniors have an even slimmer chance of making it out of this shelter alive. Riverside County Animal Shelter hours are limited to 1pm - 3:30pm Monday - Saturday (closed Sundays) : giving an extremely small window of time for adopters and rescuers to pick up the dogs.   RIVERSIDE COUNTY OUTCOME STATS (2021 Year to date): 2021 OUTCOME STATS RIVERSIDE COUNTY OUTCOME STATS (2020): 2020 OUTCOME STATS All stats can be found on Riverside County Animal Shelter website: https://rcdas.org/index.php/about-us/statistics RIVERSIDE COUNTY BUDGET: (pgs 247 - 253 Animal Services is under "Public Safety") FY 2020 - 2021 Animals Services accounts for 1.5% of the Public Safety Budget: $23,423,264 67% of budget is for Employee Salaries + Benefits: $15,764,047  which is with a 24% Staff Reduction (223 to 170) from previous FY 2019/20 budget for Services and Supplies: $9,164,267 All Riverside County budget info: https://rivco.org/about-county/budget-and-financial-information Riverside Animal shelter is overcrowded but there are always alternatives to euthanasia! Funding needs to be raised to help move these dogs from Riverside and re-located to the no-kill, empty shelters in other areas of the U.S. and Canada. Let’s use the pledge money for all euthanized dogs to start a fundraiser to help save current and future dogs at Riverside Animal Shelter!   (2) TERMINATE Julie Bank as Director Julie Bank has a long history and record of excessively euthanizing animals at all of the shelters she has been in charge of. PUBLIC RECORD (taken from a previous petition to get her terminated during her NY Director term in 2012): Director of Education ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) 1988 - 1998 For ten years, Bank worked for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for animals in New York City in shelter operations and adoptions. She served as their national director for their humane education programs. It might be useful to review the number of animals euthanized while under the care of the ASPCA. Director of Public Programs Arizona Humane Society 1998 - 2000 After two years at AHS, Bank took the position of Deputy Director for Maricopa County Animal Care and Control, also in Arizona (2002-2006). There she managed public programs and their development. She also directed MCACC’s fund raising, PR, marketing, education, and volunteer and public programs. Deputy Director Maricopa County Animal Care & Control 2000 - 2006 In 2006, Bank accepted the position of Executive Director at the North County Humane Society and SPCA in San Luis Obispo County, CA. During Bank’s tenure as NCHS Executive Director, the San Diego Humane Society assumed the control and management of the NCHS shelter, renaming it SDHS—North Campus. Bank was still there. Of greater interest is one crucial fact: The criteria SDHS used to rate an animal’s medical status is more harsh than the one NCHS had used. Under the new SDHS guidelines animals that NCHS would have rated as treatable and/or manageable would now be destroyed. Bank raised no objection. In his article, “ASPCA Chief’s Tenure Marked By Unconscionable Policies,” Nathan J. Winograd offers a number of startling revelations about what happened during Julie Bank’s tenure as Executive Director of NCHS. He reports that, “During the [Maricopa County Animal Control Director] Boks–Bank’s tenure, Maricopa County described itself as a national model for Animal Care & Control. Bank was not only part of executive team running the agency and making policy decisions, but she was responsible for selling it publicly, both locally and nationally, as its chief public information officer. Despite claiming to be “near No Kill,” the agency managed to reduce killing only about 10% over the Boks-Bank’s tenure together, declines exceeded by communities without a No Kill ambition. In the end, Maricopa still killed half of all animals, nearly 30,000 per year, never doing any better than the national average. But you wouldn’t know that from the public relations propaganda put out by Bank and her team at the time, which dishonestly claimed they were making tremendous progress and leading the agency toward a No Kill Maricopa County. Indeed, Maricopa County is nowhere near No Kill even today. “ “In addition,” Winograd reports that, Here’s what one article discussing Bank’s record at Maricopa has to say: “Under [Ed Bok’s, Director--] tenure, the Maricopa pound slaughtered tens of thousands of animals a year, opened up a $600,000 a year structural deficit, and forced the agency into receivership. Volunteers were forced to walk dogs with ropes because the agency was not allowed to buy leashes, even while Bank was telling anyone who would listen that they were the most progressive adoption agency in the nation and on the verge of achieving No Kill (they never did better than a 50% save rate, less than the national average).” Executive Director North County Humane Society and SPCA 2006 - Apr 2010 Executive Director Animal Care and Control of NYC Apr 2010 - Oct 2012 In April of 2010, Julie Bank was hired by the city of New York as Director of NYC Animal Care & Control. Since she took over the shelter operations, more dogs and cats were being killed then ever before. Between the 5 boroughs of Manhattan on a low average there are about 30 dogs killed nightly, and they are killed 7days a week, Thats at least a 210 dogs a week. Most of the dogs coming into the shelter system in New York are pit bulls. More then 60% of the dogs that come through the doors are adoptable.    Superintendant Animal Welfare Oklahoma City Animal Welfare Division Jan 2015 - Jul 20161 year 7 months President and CEO Pasadena Humane Society and SPCA Aug 2016 - Jan 2019 Pasadena Humane Society CEO Julie Bank on Friday resigned suddenly from the job she held for two years. Bank declined to discuss the reasons behind her quick exit when reached by phone. She’s being replaced on an interim basis by Ruthie Hughes, the vice president of administration.  Director Riverside County Animal Services Mar 2020 - Present1 year 7 months Riverside County, California, United States "Leader of animal care and control functions for the County of Riverside. Responsible for a team of 200. Oversee all administration, operations, communications, fundraising, and planning. Oversight of four facilities. Develop intensive, ambitious business strategies, short-term goals, and long-term objectives." - taken from LinkedIn  (3) NEXT STEPS would be to raise FUNDS to help transport these dogs to less crowded no-kill shelters. Will share a GoFund me once we can get this spread and determine a safe location to potentially send these dogs to. PLEASE SHARE!

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Tell Your Senator to Support the Freedom to Vote Act

This week, Senators Klobuchar, Kaine, King, Manchin, Merkley, Padilla, Tester, and Warnock introduced the Freedom to Vote Act (S.2747), a robust package of widely-supported democracy reforms. This legislation is a much-needed democracy reform package that ensures all Americans have their voices heard.   The Freedom to Vote Act is an important breakthrough towards laws that protect and strengthen our democracy. We are encouraged by its reforms, including provisions that ensure everyone can choose to vote early or vote by mail, that implement automatic voter registration, and that make Election Day a federal holiday.   Legislatures in nearly half of the states have passed laws that make it harder for eligible voters to cast a ballot. Congressional redistricting—and extreme gerrymandering—is already underway in states, shaping the political terrain for the next decade. The Freedom to Vote Act is one of the last chances we have to protect our democracy before the midterms.   This new bill incorporates the main pillars of the For the People Act, including protecting the right to vote, ending partisan gerrymandering, and decreasing the power of big moneyed special interests. It also includes protections against emerging tactics to undermine election results after ballots are cast. The Senate could vote on this new bill as early as next week!   Ask your Senators to support robust national standards for federal elections in the Freedom to Vote Act to ensure that we can safely and freely cast our ballots!   In 2008, in the policy, Lift Every Voice, the 218th Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly affirmed that "to deny anyone a fair vote is a sin." Denying equitable access to voting fundamentally goes against our Reformed Christian belief.  Every person deserves an equal voice in our democratic system. As people of faith, we have a responsibility to participate in politics out of a commitment to the common good. However, in states across the country, the right to vote is under attack.    It is more critical than ever that we take action to reclaim the values and promise of our electoral process.    Contact your Senator today and tell them to support the Freedom to Vote Act! Click the link below to log in and send your message: https://www.votervoice.net/BroadcastLinks/JWFFpNsCbR79iAln-m2qmA

We need your imaginative power!

We need your imaginative power! If you thought General Assembly was strange in 2020, it's going to be even stranger in 2022! This year's assembly with be a hybrid model. We're going to need even more creative imaginative power! If this excites you, we'd love for you to be part of the General Assembly Working Group. We will start to meet again soon. The same General Assembly Working Group email will be used, so if you didn't receive emails last year from Timothy, please send him an email to sign up: timothywotring@gmail.com. Five congregations will host a disarming event by end of year Our first Guns 2 Gardens Action Circle is under way and we have five churches in Utah, Baltimore, Ohio, Atlanta, and California committed to hosting disarming events by the end of the year! Move your congregation from passion and study to action by signing up for the fall action circle which will offer support and training for your community to host its first disarming event in early 2022. The Guns to Gardens action circles are three sessions which will help you to bring your congregation on board, guide you through logistical concerns, and prepare you to care for those who will bring firearms for disarming. Check out the video of an AR-15 being disarmed in Houston on September 4th at a local congregation. Sign up for the Fall Action Circle Justice missing from the peace process After visiting the ETCR's*, Rev. Joey Haynes writes, "At the moment, justice seems to be missing from the peace process. On our recent trip to Colombia, we have had the opportunity to hear many stories of the ways in which the Colombian government is not fulfilling the Peace Accord agreements. Without this support, especially regarding land access and ownership, is it possible for ex-combatants to be fully reincorporated into civil society and create sustainable lives for themselves? For the population who experienced violence from ex-combatants, what repair is needed for reconciliation?" Read Rev. Joey Haynes reflections. *ETCR: Territorial Spaces for Training and Reincorporation (Espacios Territoriales de Capacitación y Reincorporación) are locations where FARC members are living in community while they work to reintegrate into civil society.  Presbyterian Peace Fellowship 845-786-6743 | presbypeacefellowship.org Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship | 17 Cricketown Road, Stony Point, NY 10980

Change.org - Stop deporting Haitians

The nation of Haiti is in crisis. After political assassinations, earthquakes, and economic disasters, many have been forced to flee to seek asylum in the U.S. But the Biden administration refuses to take them in when they need it most. Instead, they are continuing Trump policies and inhumanely chasing down and deporting Haitians back to a country that is crumbling. Join the Black Voters Matter Fund and tell Biden that the voters who put him in office will not tolerate this kind of blatant racism from his administration. Tell Biden to end Title 42 and admit Haitian Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the U​.​S. 2,014 have signed Black Voters Matter Fund’s petition. Let’s get to 2,500!

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Black asylum-seekers have been seeking asylum in the U.S. by way of the U.S./Mexico border for over a decade. There was a dramatic increase in the number of Black asylum-seekers at the border – primarily Haitians – after the devastating earthquake in 2010. Thousands of Haitians fled their country and sought refuge in countries throughout the region, including Brazil, Venezuela, and Chile whose governments at that time were open to receiving them. Dire political and resultant economic changes in those countries have forced Haitians who had escaped there to move again. This time, they head toward the U.S. Once again, thousands of Haitians were on the move, traveling through ten countries and eleven borders to seek asylum in the U.S. By 2019, African asylum-seekers joined the movement of Haitian and indigenous asylum-seekers in making the treacherous journey through jungles, rivers, and along the way experiencing police violence, detention prisons, rape and robbery. Despite the desperate needs of Black asylum-seekers at the border, U.S. policy has systematically prevented Black asylum-seekers at the border from seeking asylum in the U.S., a violation of universally-embraced human rights practices, as well as U.S. and international asylum laws. Black asylum-seekers have been forced to wait several months to make their asylum claims because of an Obama administration policy called metering, which requires asylum-seekers to ‘take a number’ and wait until Customs and Border Patrol selects their assigned number. On September 3, 2021, a federal district judge ruled metering as unconstitutional. The Trump administration worsened conditions with its shutdown of the border to asylum-seekers under Title 42 – a program that has continued under the Biden administration. On September 16th, a federal judge ordered the Biden administration to stop using Title 42 to expel families who are seeking asylum. Instead of processing Black asylum-seekers, the Biden administration is deporting them in a betrayal of its promise to create fair and humane border policy.  Today’s Crisis: The Biden administration is forcibly returning to Haiti over 10,000 Haitians  Almost 10,000 migrants from Haiti and elsewhere are currently camped under a bridge that divides the U.S. and Mexico in Del Rio, Texas. Media is reporting that 20,000 more are expected in the coming days. The migrants are living in squalid conditions while Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) claim not to have the capacity to process asylum in a timely manner for these people in crisis. The Biden administration has decided to respond to the crisis with “mass deportations” of Haitians in Del Rio, Texas beginning Sunday, September 19th, in spite of the devastation and humanitarian crisis in Haiti. We call on the Biden administration and DHS to immediately halt expulsions to Haiti due to the ongoing political, climate, and public health crisis there.  Over the weekend, border patrol agents on horseback whipped and beat up Haitian asylum seekers forcing them away from crossing into the US border.    Call to Action  At this critical moment when the Biden administration is continuing the anti-Black border enforcement policies of the past two administrations, Black Voters Matter, BAJI, and other partners are calling on Biden to grant humanitarian parole to Black asylum-seekers at the U.S./Mexico border, and to stop all expulsions and deportations. We call for an end of Title 42 and the metering system, both of which disproportionately impact Black asylum-seekers and remain unconstitutional.   ACTION NEEDED FROM THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION Immediately Grant Humanitarian Parole to Black Asylum-Seekers at the U.S./Mexico Border President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas MUST grant immediate humanitarian parole to all Black asylum-seekers at the border, and allow them to process their asylum claims on the U.S. side of the border.   Immediately Stop Expelling and Deporting Haitian and Other Black Asylum-Seekers President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas MUST stop expelling and deporting Haitian and other Black asylum-seekers. Asylum-seekers have the human rights and the right under U.S. and international law to seek asylum in the U.S. The U.S. is violating those rights when it expels and deports asylum-seekers.  The expulsions and deportations are especially egregious because asylum-seekers are not granted a hearing before they are sent back to the terror and violence they fled.   Immediately Revoke Title 42 President Biden MUST reject and revoke the Title 42 order that prevents asylum-seekers from making their asylum claims. During the Trump administration, Democrats – including then-candidate Biden –  harshly criticized Title 42 as a racist ruse designed to keep Black and indigenous asylum-seekers from making their claims to asylum in the US. Yet, the Biden administration has not ended Title 42; it has renewed it and continues to appeal federal courts that have found Title 42 unconstitutional.   Immediately End the Metering System Used to Process Asylum-Seekers at the U.S./Mexico Border We urge President Biden to immediately end the use of a metering system to process asylum-seekers at the border. The metering system disproportionately impacts Black migrants and has resulted in Black asylum-seekers languishing at the border for several months and even years. Black asylum-seekers stuck in Mexico face anti-Blackness violence from Mexican police and other officials as well as civilians. Black asylum-seekers are denied housing, medical attention, employment, child education, and basic survival needs due to race discrimination. Black LGBTQ asylum-seekers are particularly targeted for violence and discrimination.   Biden MUST honor international law  The principle of non-refoulement under international human rights law forbids a country that is receiving asylum seekers, in this case the U.S., from sending people back to the country that they are fleeing. According to the United Nations: “Under international human rights law, the principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be re- turned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.”

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