I am 26 years old and I live in East New York. I am a single mother of two daughters—Melissa, 4 and Aalisha, 6 years old. I work as a terminal cleaner for Airway Cleaners, a contractor for American Airlines in Terminal 8 at JFK Airport. I make $7.90 an hour with no benefits. My pay does not begin to cover my bills or food for me and my daughters. I was previously on public assistance and the job center sent me to an agency for airport jobs. It takes two of my paychecks to cover just the electric bill. By the time I pay daycare for my daughters, pay for transportation to work, I have nothing left over. Which means I am juggling the bills for the other expenses, seeing what bill I could afford not to pay until the next month. One night, after carrying one of those garbage bags, my back was in so much pain. They said it was back spasms. I was incapacitated for the rest of the night. It’s been a nightmare trying to recover from that, especially with no health care benefits. There are many, many workers at New York area’s three airports who are in the same boat as I am. This is no way to live. We deserve human dignity. We deserve respect. Please support us. Contractors hired by airlines and terminal operators at New York area airports pay passenger service workers at the airports, poverty wages. My coworkers and I get little or no health care. Most of us don’t get paid holidays, vacation time and sick days. For over a year we have been saying they cannot support their families under these conditions but their complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Like they do every year, my coworkers will work this holiday season to make sure the flying public is safe and cared for, but our issues must be addressed. January 20, 2014 is Martin Luther King Day. Dr. King died supporting Memphis sanitation workers who were working under deplorable conditions and making what would be $11.41 per hour today. 46 years after Dr, King’s death, most airport passenger service workers work under deplorable conditions and earn just $8 per hour with little or no benefits. We demand and declare that MLK Day 2014 will be a paid holiday for all airport workers. Therefore, join me and pledge to stand with the airport workers to make MLK Day 2014 a paid holiday. I will stand with them until they are treated with RESPECT. The Port Authority must take action on their issues.

It is important to me that if our government is going to give tax breaks to "job creators" that they actually are job creators.

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). The state of Rhode Island has the second highest unemployment rate in the country. Rhode Islanders deserve to have this help.

In 1987, I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and started to work for IBM. In that time I have seen the divide between the digital haves and have nots grow wider and wider. Much of this division is a result of government policies for the benefit of large corporations. Over the last twenty years, the Fortune 500 has been responsible for a net loss in jobs. And according to Peter Denning of the Naval Postgraduate School, the overall success rate of innovation initiatives in American business is around 4%. Up to now, instead of ensuring that everyone in America can compete in a global economy, instead of narrowing the divide between rich and poor, instead of supporting competitive free markets for American inventions that use information—instead, that is, of ensuring that America will lead the world in the information age—U.S. politicians have chosen to keep AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and its fellow giants happy. Let's begin to change the status quo, free up the unlicensed spectrum and get Americans working again.

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.