The vast majority of corporations --- banks, drug companies, hospital corporations, etc. -- settle federal and state fraud lawsuits --- by paying fines and penalties. This punishment has proven to be impotent in deterring these crimes. The massive penalties are passed on to consumers and taxpayers. Unless and until executives are threatened with imprisonment, egregious practices of this nature will continue. To these corporations, fines and legal expenses are just another cost of doing business.

Congress should be required to disclose who is financially supporting them. We ought to find out who is contributing to their elections from outside their districts

Corporations have been given citizenship by the supreme court in two rulings in the past 40 years...the most recent of which was Citizens United which gave corporations an unfettered ability to influence our political system. The other is a little known ruling Buckley v. Valeo (1976) upheld limits on campaign contributions, but held that spending money to influence elections is protected speech as in the first amendment. These two have created the current legislative environment we find ourselves in and its time for the 28th Amendment: Corporations are not citizens and DO NOT have the same rights as someone BORN a Citizen. It is Illegal for any Corporation, trade union, or other registered Organization to donate to candidates or otherwise attempt to influence elections or the legislative process.

Reports are circulating that a settlement of the robo-signing case between the big Wall Street banks and the 50 state attorneys general will be announced as soon as NEXT WEEK. Early indications are that the settlement will amount to yet another UNCONSCIONABLE GIVEAWAY TO THE BANKS. The settlement will provide too little money to home owners, will require only trivial financial penalties for the banks, will not have sufficient enforcement mechanisms to ensure that the money banks ARE supposed to pay actually gets paid, and will distribute huge amounts of money to home owners who were NOT fraudulently foreclosed on, while falling far short of compensating victims for the actual losses they wrongly sustained. Worst, early reports indicate that the settlement will grant civil and/or criminal IMMUNITY to the Wall Street banks and their executives.

Inter-island travel is essential for keeping Hawaii families connected. Hawaiian Air doubled the price of inter-island tickets since Aloha Airlines and the ferry was forced out of business. There are no longer discounted kama'aina, senior, or youth rates, and no more coupon books for frequent travelers, so it is prohibitive for people to visit their children, grandchildren and family. We are calling on our government to take action.

In a sane and civil response to the Occupy Movement, Albany County (NY) District Attorney P. David Soares is refusing to prosecute Occupy Albany participants for their peaceful exercise of their First Amendment rights. In response to orders from NY Governor Andrew Cuomo and Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings, Soares saw the wisdom of a peaceful law enforcement response, saying: “The protesters have been fine. We’ve been maintaining a great dialogue with the organizers and for the most part a lot of credit should go to the organizers for maintaining a wonderful protest.”

In a sane and civil response to the Occupy Movement, Albany County (NY) District Attorney P. David Soares is refusing to prosecute Occupy Albany participants for their peaceful exercise of their First Amendment rights. In response to orders from NY Governor Andrew Cuomo and Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings, Soares saw the wisdom of a peaceful law enforcement response, saying: “The protesters have been fine. We’ve been maintaining a great dialogue with the organizers and for the most part a lot of credit should go to the organizers for maintaining a wonderful protest.”

To limit the rights of Corporations. Chief among those undeserved rights is to be recognized as a legal person. Additionally, we seek to reverse the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that guarantees Corporations rights over and above US citizens.

Minnesota policy makers appear determined to allow the mining industry to have free reign in exploiting precious metals across a wide swath of our state's most valued wild places. The Superior National Forest is under assault from multiple international mining concerns who want our minerals in exchange for short term jobs and very real long-term environmental harm to water and wildlife quality. The byproducts of these activities WILL degrade recreational watersheds, drinking water, wildlife, personal property values and long-term economic viability of the adjacent communities. We are calling on our elected officials to protect our backyards and put the brakes on destructive sulfide mining in Minnesota. To learn more about this very real threat to our state's precious resources visit: http://www.facebook.com/MNMiningWatch

Citizens United means corporation are people and therefore can vote. Corporations are a group of lobbyists and should not be able to vote. They can back their vote up with millions of dollars, the average person cannot back their vote with millions of dollars. They are stealing our democracy.

Our stock market is being manipulated by traders who run millions of trades a day on computers, which is why the market will not stabilize. This is profitable for them because a stet tax is no longer in place to make is a less profitable venture. We are asking Congress to bring back the stet tax in order to stop this backroom trading and manipulating, and bring back a market that is more reflective of real trades.

Corporations are not people, and they never were. The erroneous granting of the commonly held rights of people to corporations has done much to undermine the well-being of our nation. It has lead to a national agenda that serves not its citizens, but primarily the profits of large corporations. Profit, we acknowledge, is not bad in an of itself, it is profit at the expense of everything else that is inadmissible. It is time that our elected officials correct this error and put an end to corporate personhood and all corporate influence in politics.