Last year, Congress passed the so-called Monsanto Protection Act. The bill allowed Monsanto to plant genetically-engineered crops even if a court found they were approved illegally. It protected Monsanto from lawsuits even if those crops turned out to be unsafe, and kept the USDA from having any authority over its effect on the environment or the lives of local farmers. The bill has now expired, but will you sign our petition demanding Monsanto stop buying policy and policymakers and keep this from happening ever again? The only reason the bill passed is because Monsanto recently spent record amounts lobbying our representatives and corrupting our legislative process: More than $6.3 MILLION. The company continues to fight state-led efforts to label GMOs and even lobbied to prohibit such labeling at the federal level. We need your help to stop the madness! Act now to safeguard farmers and the environment from potentially hazardous genetically engineered crops. Our legislation needs to protect the people from corporations -- not the other way around. Don't let the latest biotech industry plot slip under the wire. Please sign our petition to Monsanto now.

A three-judge panel has stuck down “Net Neutrality” – the principle that no corporation or state authority can censor, slow down, block, or privilege certain content on the web. It's the basis for what has made the Internet a place for creativity, free speech, and innovation. Without Net Neutrality, the very startups that make the Internet a force of innovation will be throttled – unable to compete with incumbent businesses that can pay to provide their access faster than any startup could. Carriers can now charge content providers to make sure their content works well – something that privileges companies already dominating the market at the expense of the startups that have made the Internet great. Facebook or Google might be able to afford preferential treatment – but what about the startup that otherwise could replace them? It’s incredibly insidious, and it threatens to take away the level playing field that’s made the Internet such an incredible boon for society. The FCC, however, has the power to protect Net Neutrality – if they classify broadband as a communications service, something we all know it is with all the time we spend communicating with friends and loved ones via e-mail and social media, they’ll have the power to reinstate Net Neutrality rules.

New Jersey just became the third state to ban the innovative car company, Tesla. We can't think of a better example of how money is corrupting politics — and business — on a local level. The New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers (CAR PAC) spent more than $155,000 last year lobbying for a rule that will now make Tesla sales illegal. Why? Because Tesla's model of selling cars directly to consumers threatens the current structure of dealerships and middle-men. Rather than innovate, the CAR PAC has decided it's better off spending its money to influence government. We need to let New Jersey politicians know that a money-driven legislative process is unacceptable. This isn't about whether or not you buy a particular car; it's about special interests taking away the right for you to have that choice. The People should be steering our political process, not special interests. Tell New Jersey that this decision needs to be reversed and that money holds too much power over our democracy.Reverse the anti-competitive ban on Tesla Motors. Campaign contributions should not allow businesses to thwart competition in the state of New Jersey, and even more importantly, should not be the determining factor in how our democracy is run.

It has been reported that Verizon is defending its decision to provide hard-core porn titles with child and incest themes. The company was included in the 2014 Dirty Dozen List of pornography’s leading facilitators, compiled by Morality in Media (MIM), a national organization that opposes pornography. Verizon needs to show some corporate responsibility!

What does society find acceptable" Once again Verizon sinks to new depths in customer care.This needs stoped now!!! Broadband and telecommunications giant Verizon is under fire for defending its decision to provide hard-core porn titles with child and incest themes. The company was included in the 2014 Dirty Dozen List of pornography’s leading facilitators, compiled by Morality in Media (MIM), a national organization that opposes pornography. According to MIM, lewd titles like “I Banged My Stepdad,” “Mom, Daughter and Me,” and “Pigtail Teens Pounded” are just some of the many offerings featured on Verizon’s FIOS video on-demand service. In a letter to MIM, Verizon’s Associate Director for Advertising and Content Standards John P. Artney defended the company’s choice to provide the content, noting that “consumers today have extraordinary choice in and control over the content available to them across these networks.”

We must stop chemtrails in our skies. Our health is at risk and the consequences to the planet are unknown. More days than not, the sky where I live are sprayed. The spraying seems to be concentrated over particular areas such as an urban community struggling to achieve environmental and economic justice.

Extremely high electric bill. I cannot afford these bills. Please HELP!!!

Vera Scroggins is a 63-year-old community activist who has been exercising her constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment rights and speaking out about the hazards of fracking. In retaliation, the Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation sought, and a judge granted, an injunction so broad it prevents Vera from entering a total of 312.5 square miles of land in her home state of Pennsylvania -- including the homes of some of her friends, her neighborhood grocery store, her eye doctor, and even the nearby hospital! While fracking companies may not appreciate activists who take a stand, we simply cannot allow them to so egregiously violate the freedom of speech and freedom of movement to which every American is entitled by the Constitution of the United States. Take a stand against corporate retaliation. Defend the constitutional rights of all Americans. And let Vera know you've got her back.

Urban Partnership Bank owes us a high-quality redevelopment of their longtime home at 71st & Jeffery. The current proposal to build a strip mall would destroy the historic architecture, density, and transit orientation of our neighborhood crossroads to make a quick buck. Hold Urban Partnership Bank to a higher standard: demand a sensitive reuse of the buildings for economic development that maintains the future potential of 71st & Jeffery to be a vibrant, attractive commercial crossroads - think 53rd Street in Hyde Park or 95th Street in Beverly.

IF OUR HIGHER MONEY MANAGERS CAN GET A PASS AND RUIN OUR ECONOMY AND WE HELP LIFT IT BACK, LET'S ALL GET A BREAK AND INCREASING OUR SCORES TO AUTOMATICALLY TO 700,N OW WE CAN BREAK EVEN.

Since September 2013, eleven universities – Duke University, University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Temple University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Georgetown University, Brown University, Penn State University, University of Wisconsin and Syracuse University – have formally required their brands producing collegiate apparel in Bangladesh to sign the Accord, as a condition of producing university apparel. This is a broad group of universities, representing Big Ten sports schools, Ivy League schools, and public schools. These universities’ actions have shown that there is nothing preventing universities like ours from taking a stand for workers rights. The time is now for Emerson College to follow the lead of these other universities and require its brands to sign the Accord. The actions of these universities are already making an impact on the behavior of brands in the collegiate market. In response to this growing university pressure, eight college-logo apparel brands – Fruit of the Loom, Adidas, Knights Apparel, Top of the World, New Agenda, Cutter & Buck, Ahead LLC and Zephyr Headwear – have signed the Accord since our campaign began. Fruit of the Loom's signing of the Accord is significant not only because it is the first company affiliated with the corporate-controlled, non-binding Gap/Walmart "Alliance" to also join the Accord, but also because it is the tenth U.S. company to join the Accord. Nevertheless, at the date of writing, several major licensees in Bangladesh, including Columbia Sportswear and VF Corporation, have refused to sign the Accord. This indicates a dire need for more universities to issue a formal requirement for their brands to sign. We would also like to clarify that, as part of the university requiring its brands to sign the Accord, we expect the university to terminate its licensing relationship with Jansport and VF Imagewear, unless their parent company VF Corporation signs the Accord. As you know, the WRC officially recommended to its affiliates in October 2013 that “colleges and universities add, to their existing labor rights requirements for licensees, a requirement that licensees that sourced, produced or purchased collegiate apparel in Bangladesh as of January 1, 2013, or do so at any point thereafter, become signatories to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh." VF Corporation, parent company of Jansport, VF Imagewear, North Face, Timberland, and Vans, contracts with a factory called Optimum Fashions in Bangladesh to produce collegiate VF Imagewear apparel. In August, the Worker Rights Consortium conducted a safety assessment of Optimum Fashion. After VF attempted to prevent the WRC from accessing the factory, the WRC’s inspection uncovered a number of very serious safety hazards, all of which constitute violations of university code of conduct provisions requiring licensees to maintain safe workplaces and any of which could result in injury or death to workers. These violations “included inadequate means for workers to escape the factory in the event of a fire and structural flaws that would facilitate the rapid and widespread propagation of deadly smoke throughout the factory building.” (http://www.workersrights.org/Freports/WRC%20Fire%20Safety%20Assessment%20re%20Optimum%20Fashion%20Wear%20Ltd%20%28Bangladesh%29%2012.5.13.pdf) Given that VF Imagewear and Jansport both belong to the same parent company, and given that it is the decision of the parent company, not the subsidiary, to sign or not sign the Accord, the university should cut ties with all VF Corporation brands, including Jansport, unless VF Corporation signs the Accord. To not do so would be a logically and morally inconsistent position for the university to take. Please let us know as soon as possible if the university will be applying the requirement to sign the Accord to all VF Corporation subsidiaries, including Jansport.

Comcast, the biggest cable and Internet provider, is trying to take over its chief rival Time Warner. This would give Comcast a near-monopoly, and a presence in every major media market in the country. With almost no competition, a merged Comcast-Time Warner would have no reason to keep prices low, or offer consumers more choices, much less improve its infrastructure. Millions of rural customers who have been waiting for decades for broadband internet access would likely have to keep on waiting. We already deserve much better than we're getting from telecom giants. America lags far behind the rest of the developed world in Internet service, speed and affordability. The profit-greedy telecom industry has opposed infrastructure improvement at every opportunity. If two of the worst and most incompetent cable providers consolidate their power, America's digital divide will grow as we all fall farther and farther behind the rest of the world. Moreover, allowing only a handful of giant corporations to be the gatekeepers for almost all media and Internet services would be disastrous for privacy, freedom of speech, and what's left of an open Internet.