VICTORY! Governor Brown has now signed SB 27, the bill to force Dark Money non-profits to reveal their secret funders in California elections! Senator Cannella ended up voting for the final version of SB 27, one of three Republican Senators to do so. His vote was crucial to its passage. Thank you, Senator Cannella! And thanks also to all of you who asked him to vote "Yes". As California Clean Money Campaign President Trent Lange said afterwards in the Sacramento Bee: “Governor Brown’s signature of SB 27 marks a turning point in the fight to reveal secret funders of political campaigns. It starts to shed light on dark money in California and serves as an example for the entire nation." Your petitions and calls worked! SB 27 became law after more than 40,000 people like you signed petitions. More than a thousand people applied extra pressure by calling their legislator. SB 27 was a great coalition effort in which the California Clean Money Action Fund worked with not only the bill author Senator Lou Correa, the sponsor FPPC, and our CA campaign finance friends at California Common Cause, California Forward, and the League of Women Voters of California; but also with national organizations like Public Citizen, CREDO Mobile, Courage Campaign, Progressives United, Represent.Us, causes.com, MoveOn.org, Money Out Voters In Coalition, MapLight, Label GMOs: California's Grassroots, Lutheran Office of Public Policy - California, Moms Across America, and others. Thanks to everybody who signed and helped us achieve this historic victory! PLEASE ADD YOUR NAME TO THE PETITION and we'll tell you how you can help pass other crucial bills to end the dominance of Big Money in politics, like SB 52, the California DISCLOSE Act and SB 1272, the Overturn Citizens United Act. -- Your friends at the California Clean Money Campaign (www.CAdisclose.org)

Since the disastrous Citizens United ruling, billionaires and other special interests are funneling record amounts of money through secretive non-profits, trying to buy our elections. Federal prosecutors even say that a foreign tycoon exploited loopholes to try to rig the outcome. This kind of dangerous secrecy must stop. S.B. 27 will make sure billionaires, foreign tycoons, and other special interests can't hide behind Dark Money non-profits. It requires any group spending $50,000 in California elections to reveal exactly who gave the money. It's a key step before passage of the California DISCLOSE Act (S.B. 52). Senator Anderson voted “No” on S.B. 27 the first time around. It's now been significantly amended --and received bipartisan support in the Assembly-- so urge him to vote “Yes” now! The vote could be any day.

After months of ignoring the concerns of UW students, Chancellor Rebecca Blank has said she will decide within days whether to take real steps to protect garment workers in Bangladesh who produce UW apparel. We know she’s under tremendous pressure from massive apparel conglomerates like VF Corporation and Walmart to let them get away with a weak corporate-dominated initiative known as “the Alliance” that would continue to endanger workers. Join us in asking Blank to take a real stand for workers by requiring UW licensees sign onto the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh instead. Let Blank know that UW needs to take a stand for garment workers who produce UW products, and we will not settle for empty corporate schemes. On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh killing 1,134 workers — the worst factory disaster in history. The Bangladeshi government has admitted that an estimated 90% of Bangladesh’s garment factories are not structurally sound. Just this past Thursday, March 6th, another fire broke out at a factory in Dhaka just 40 minutes after workers had left for the day. Currently, 21 companies that produce UW-Madison licensed products source out of Bangladesh. Since last September, students have been running a campaign to “End Deathtraps,” asking the university to require UW licensees to sign onto the Accord on Fire and Building Safety. Additionally, the university’s Labor Codes Licensing Compliance Committee has advised her to require brands to sign the Accord. The Accord is a binding agreement between unions and brands that allows workers to have a voice in health and safety issues and be directly involved in independent, certified factory inspections. It holds brands accountable for the factories from which they source, and requires them to pay for necessary renovations and repairs. Ten universities across the US have already required their licensees to sign onto the Accord, including Duke, Penn State, and NYU. However, UW Chancellor Blank has turned a blind eye to this urgent issue. Let her know that it would be a huge mistake to do anything other than require that our licensees sign onto the Accord.

We have a right to make healthy, responsible, and informed choices about the food we eat. Yet it’s usually impossible to know whether our food contains GMOs. GMOs aren't without risk -- many are designed for increased pesticide use, which has been linked to serious health and environmental effects. And they usually don't undergo independent safety testing before being brought to market. While Connecticut passed a GMO labeling law last year, it won't go into effect until four other states pass similar laws. But in the meantime some stores, like Whole Foods, have responded to the strong concern of customers by labeling their GMO products. Stop & Shop should take the lead here in Connecticut and start labeling its store-brand products that contain GMOs. Sign this petition to the head of Stop & Shop and ask him, as a customer, to label GMOs in their store-brand products.

On March 1 the New York Times ran a graphic accompanying its article on Venezuela that showed an “implied inflation rate” of more than 300 percent. This is a statistic that was manufactured by the Cato Institute. It is not a meaningful measure of inflation, and there are few economists who would accept it as such. (1) New York Times editors have refused to correct this error, despite being presented with explanations of why it is wrong. Inflation in Venezuela is currently running at 56 percent, which is high but is not hyperinflation. The Times, following Cato, is using a formula to calculate what inflation would be if people had to pay for all of their goods and services in dollars purchased on the black market. But as every Venezuelan consumer knows, this is not the case. For virtually all of the purchases that make up the basket of goods measured by the Consumer Price Index, Venezuelans use domestic currency. The Cato measure is measuring the change in the black market dollar exchange rate, which is not the same thing as inflation, even if the two variables may be related. The uselessness of this measure can be seen on the graph itself, where the “implied inflation rate” turns negative in 2008-09, at a time when actual inflation was running at 25-31 percent. The Times’ error violates standard economic reporting because it is standard to use official statistics, which come from government or international agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (which has not challenged or criticized Venezuela’s consumer price index). The only exceptions are when the official statistics are not considered by economists to be true, and there are reliable private estimates. An interested party should not be able to simply make up a new statistic for inflation, unemployment, poverty, etc. and expect that a reputable media outlet will report it along with the official statistic that is used by economists and international agencies. Urge the New York Times to correct the record by signing our petition. References: 1. "NYT Violates Standards of Basic Economics and Journalistic Procedures in Reporting on Venezuela Inflation," Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research, March 6, 2014, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/nyt-violates-standards-of-basic-economics-and-journalistic-procedures-in-reporting-on-venezuela-inflation

Facebook users are tired of being penalized for using the social networking tools that Facebook gives us.

North Carolina's citizens have been subjected to a monopoly in energy, and Duke has been at the center of it. In spite of having one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, the citizens were subjected to an unjustified 7% rate increase as bulled through by a political supermajority in our state capital. Not even a year after, Duke's own internal irresponsibility towards their customers and their environment was revealed--and we were asked to fit the bill. This is unethical, dishonest business--and our citizens and environment deserve better. Duke should pay for their own lack of maintenance and oversight, as any other business would be expected to.

In Maspeth, NY, two weeks ago, UPS fired a driver and longtime union activist without the fair hearing he was entitled to. Outraged and aware that violating one worker's rights threatened them all, other drivers walked off of their job to stand in solidarity with their fellow worker. In retaliation, UPS has now notified all 250 drivers who participated in the protest that they are on notice of termination. In other words, "You're fired." The well-being of these drivers and their families hangs in the balance because they spoke out against a company that violated workers' rights. UPS shouldn't ship pink slips to their drivers just for speaking out--what should have been a routine disciplinary matter became an attack on hundreds of working families. It's bad for their brand, their employees, and most importantly, their customers. Tell UPS that it's not okay to retaliate against their workers. The drivers are committed to negotiating a fair resolution--why can't UPS do the same and take back the notices of termination? What can brown do for you? Certainly not this.

McDonald’s acknowledged that worker strikes and social media campaigns (hey, that’s us!) “can adversely affect us,” and that increased focus on income inequality could mean they have to raise wages. Wow, how’s that for confirming our campaign is working? We can’t stop now. We won’t stop now. We have to keep the pressure on. If you think it’s high time McDonald’s raised their workers’ pay, add your name to our thank you letter and share it far and wide after you have.

Income Inequality affects us all, at all levels of society. I am starting this petition because I think this is something we can do in my city, New York City. My hope is that it will inspire other cities, state legislatures, then federal governments to do so. For more information, see: http://www.100to1.io/

Starting in April 2014, Microsoft will no longer provide support or internet updates for Windows XP. What this means in their words is that your XP computer can still be used on the internet, but chances are you will get viruses. Their solution: Upgrade to Windows 8.1, which they admit most of these older computers can't run, or go out and buy a new computer. Not all of us can afford to just run out and buy a new computer. Ask Microsoft to continue support for products they sold.

Kroger and Safeway, the two largest national grocery chains, have made commitments not to sell GMO salmon. The FDA has not yet given this product the scrutiny it deserves and may fail the public, wild salmon and fishing communities everywhere if it approves genetically engineered salmon. Worse, the FDA will probably not require it to be labeled. Because of pressure from consumers, 60 grocery chains representing over 9,000 stores nationwide have committed not to sell GMO Salmon. Now we are asking you to turn up the heat on Craig Jelinek – CEO of Costco – one of the largest retailers of seafood in the U.S. Tell him not to sell GE salmon.