Texans deserve to have their freedom to choose how to pay for the use of Toll roads. This right should not be violated by the State's leaders. Forcing Texans to have to maintain billable accounts with the toll road service is forced revenue collection.

Credit reports were originally developed to assist financial creditors in considering the degree of risk involved in lending assets to would-be borrowers. Over time, however, employers began using personal credit histories as a means to assess job worthiness and character. Today nearly half of all employers conduct credit checks as a condition of employment, including for a number of non-financial jobs such as home aide services, maintenance, and telephone technical support. Job candidates and employees have limited legal recourse to object to this practice. No definitive body of research correlates the usage of employment credit checks, and poor credit histories specifically, to any real or perceived measure of job performance. Poor credit most significantly reflects one or a combination of three challenges: unemployment, a lack of health insurance, and medical debt. Employment credit checks benefit no one. They do not separate productive versus unproductive workers. They do not speak to employee competence. They cannot predict illegal behaviors while on the job, nor can they assess individual responsibility away from it. The material effects of employment credit checks are nothing for anyone to be proud of. Individual privacy is invaded. Poor and/or minority candidates are disproportionately discriminated against. As a result, able-bodied workers remain excluded from the workforce, which keeps them from earning the very income that they need in order to improve upon the credit histories that impair their job prospects. Employment in America should not operate in this manner. No American should live in fear of being passed over for gainful employment due to circumstances that stand beyond their control and are largely unrelated to their potential job performance. Senator Elizabeth Warren seeks to put an end to the practice of employment credit checks, through the Equal Employment for All Act. Stand in support of this cause by signing this petition today!

Congress is filled with wealthy folks who can more than afford a cut in their generous pay and pension plans. That's not the case for the military personnel whose pension is on the table for cutting in this budget cycle. This is the worst kind of bad-faith action against the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our country. Tell congress that their pay and pensions should be on the table for cuts before any other government personnel.

The BBC, AP, and AFP have reported that the Greek government's forecast of a return to economic growth in 2014 has been disputed by the OECD. But these media outlets have not acknowledged that the Greek government's forecast is supported by the International Monetary Fund. This faulty economic reporting could hurt the Greek economy by discouraging investment. References can be found here: Media: Play Fair With Economic Reporting on Greece http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/media-play-fair-with-econ_b_4451650.html

1.3 million Americans stand to lose unemployment checks by year's end. Congress must pass legislation approving an extension before they going on their taxpayer funded vacations.

Younger military retirees, including me, are about to get robbed by Congress (story at http://bit.ly/1cETdlU). Like our fellow Americans, we are trying to support our families in a tough economy. It's not fair to change the rules after we've served a full career, have been deployed to combat zones multiple times, uprooted our families every few years, and made other sacrifices for the benefit of our nation. Our representatives in Congress are keeping their retirement benefits; tell them to let our vets keep theirs, too!

Unless Congress acts, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program ends between Christmas and New Years for 1.3 million jobless Americans. Unemployment benefits will be cut from as much as 73 weeks to 26 weeks after December 28. EUC should continue until the economy picks up and jobs are available again (There are still 3 jobless for every job in the US). It's not only the 1.3 million that will loose benefits come December 28th but also the people that are set to run out of state benefits by the beginning of the year. The state of NJ has a unemployment rate of 8.4% one of the highest in the country.

Despite the modest "budget deal" that was struck between Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray, 1.3 million people stand to lose unemployment insurance benefits three days after Christmas. This is needlessly Grinch-like. If Speaker Boehner were to bring a resolution to extend benefits to the House floor, it would almost certainly pass, and also sail through the Senate, plus easily obtain the President's signature. This needs to happen.

I am affected by the discontinuation of benefits for people who have been unemployed for more than the basic 26 weeks of unemployment coverage. I am over age 50 and encountering the age barriers to getting new employment and find that there is not social safety net available for people between ages 50 and 62 who are not caring for young children.

[NORTH CAROLINA SIGNERS ONLY] Art Pope, owner of the Roses and Maxway stores and Gov. Pat McCrory’s Budget Director, is the poster child of what one extremely wealthy individual can do to twist an entire state’s public policy in a racially divisive, ultra-conservative direction. African-American and low-income shoppers supply the largest share of his income, which he then uses to promote policies that keep them too poor to shop elsewhere. In reality, he’s a poverty creator more than a job creator. See: http://democracy-nc.org/downloads/PopeRosesFlowPage.pdf Many of his workers are also trapped – they’re paid less than a living wage and wind up relying on public assistance to support their families. In reality, Pope’s business is heavily subsidized by government funds, yet he uses his profits to promote a selfish, anti-social agenda – against voting rights, public education, fair taxes, campaign reform, healthcare for the poor. In this holiday season, please sign Democracy North Carolina’s petition to urge Art Pope to consider his Scrooge-like impact.

Twenty-year old Morium Begum lost her baby in her seventh month because of the unsafe working conditions she was forced into by Next Collections, a company that gives 70 percent of its output to Gap and Old Navy. Begum was forced to work over 100 hours a week, even while pregnant and ill. Her wage? Twenty-four cents an hour or less. The horror stories about the Next Collections factory are too numerous to count. According to a report released on 10/3/13 by the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, physical punishment -- including beatings -- are standard practice, as is illegal firing. Workers are paid in cash so that they can be cheated out of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Women are denied maternity leave. By the third week in a month, most workers do not have any money left to pay for food. Gap has allowed these abuses to continue, even though they are in violation of its official code of conduct. But Gap depends on our business to be successful. As a Gap customer, you have the power to stop this abuse. Tell Gap that you will boycott their stores until they adopt safe and fair labor practices. If enough people stop giving Gap business, the company will be forced to re-evaluate. It’s time the public stopped accepting sweatshop labor. We cannot in good conscience buy cheap clothes at the expense of human lives. Please join me in boycotting Gap until they end the abuses and beatings at the Next Collections factory. To learn more about Gap’s human rights abuses, please visit: http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports?id=0658 http://www.greenamerica.org/programs/responsibleshopper/company.cfm?id=229 https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/04-2

On December 5th, workers at the 181st Street Domino’s in New York City’s Washington Heights participated in a nationwide walkout to support underpaid fast-food employees. Management’s response was to have delivery workers—who only make $6/hour and must rely on tips—staff the store instead, but refused to pay them minimum wage for their time. After bringing this issue to management’s attention, the 20 delivery workers were fired. Sign our petition, urging Domino’s Pizza to immediately reinstate these workers.