I have watched and been in charge of research on Bork when he was nominated. Many organizations pointed out his flaws in personal beliefs and character. Both Republicans and Democrats pressured the Senate to chose another option. Luckily for our country, we were able to provide enough pressure to nominate someone equally qualified but more suited to serve.

The Workers’ Protection Coalition is fighting for a fair and just Workers’ Compensation System for all injured workers. We must stop the proposed cuts and slashing of worker protections. Here's what's at stake: 1. Disabled workers deserve full settlements. The Budget would eliminate the Aggregate Trust Fund, in turn slashing settlements for workers who are permanently disabled, widows and dependents of workers who died on the job. It would be a second reduction for the permanently partially disabled workers whose compensation was decimated by the 2007 caps, and would do enormous damage to those who are permanently totally disabled or who are beneficiaries in death cases. 2. New Yorkers who work two jobs or are paid by the hour should not be treated as second class citizens. The Budget would unfairly change the way a worker’s salary is calculated, reduce benefits for hourly workers in all types of employment, and prevent those who work two jobs from being compensated for all of their lost wages. Workers deserve fair compensation for their lost wages. The law shouldn’t be changed to deflate their average weekly wages and in turn, provide substandard compensation. 3. Workers must be able to choose their own doctors and manage their own health care. The Budget would allow for workers’ employers to choose their doctors, while giving the Workers’ Compensation Board unchecked and undemocratic authority to regulate doctors and remove them from the system. Workers are entitled to manage their own health care, and doctors should be regulated by qualified medical professionals, not the Workers’ Compensation Board. 4. Injured workers deserve a fair hearing. The Budget would remove the right of workers and employers to have their cases decided by the same judge who heard their case. Instead, the Workers’ Compensation Board would be allowed to assign any case at any time to any judge in the state for any reason, when making a final decision. This would deny workers their fundamental right to a fair hearing and an impartial, reasoned decision. 5. Injured workers deserve a democratic process and the chance to appeal. The Budget would eliminate the right of workers and employers to have appeals decided by a panel of three Commissioners appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Legislature. Instead, it would allow most appeals to be decided by any lawyer employed by the Board; and end all meaningful Legislative participation in the workers’ compensation system. 6. Doctors should be regulated by doctors, not bureaucrats. The Budget would eliminate the role of the Medical Societies in qualifying doctors to treat injured workers. Instead, the Workers’ Compensation Board would be given broad power to require doctors to sign “authorization agreements,” and to bar them from the system if it chooses to do so, limiting the medical treatment available to injured workers.

Reasonable Americans should band together and make a collective visual statement to voice our disapproval and disavowment of Donald Trump's candidacy for President. It doesn't matter what party you belong to--Trump should not be legitimized.

President Obama has issued a signing statement opposing Congressional efforts in the Customs Act to erase the Green Line and put Congress on record defending Israeli settlements in the West Bank. President Obama wrote: "Certain provisions of this Act, by conflating Israel and 'Israeli-controlled territories,' are contrary to longstanding bipartisan United States policy, including with regard to the treatment of settlements." [1] President Obama reaffirmed his intention to ignore Congressional demands that the U.S. try to interfere with European moves to enforce European policies distinguishing the settlements from Israel. But a year from now, Barack Obama will not be President. These laws passed by Congress will still be on the books, and the next President could try to carry them out. Rubio or Cruz would surely do so; what a President Trump might do is anybody's guess. While Bernie Sanders has called for ending Israeli settlement building on Palestinian land [2], Hillary Clinton has yet to clarify where she stands on efforts in Congress to legitimize Israeli settlements in the West Bank. [3] That's why it's important that we push Members of Congress now to stand with President Obama and longstanding U.S. policy that settlements are not Israel. Urge Congress to stand with President Obama in affirming that Israeli-settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank are not Israel by signing our petition. References: 1. http://www.jta.org/2016/02/25/news-opinion/united-states/battle-over-defining-bds-makes-it-into-presidential-signing-statement-but-that-wont-end-it 2. https://berniesanders.com/issues/war-and-peace/ 3. http://prospect.org/article/note-hillary-boycotts-and-settlements

Article II, Section 2 lays out the Senate's role in providing advice and consent to the President regarding his nominee to the Supreme Court. In the past 60 years, every nominee has had a hearing before Congress. This year should be no different. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans, including our own North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, have already said they will not consider any nominee to the Supreme Court whom President Obama delivers to them. By refusing to consider any nominee before any are even put forward, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are clearly violating their constitutional duty to the American people. Next week arguments will be heard in the Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstadt case. The verdict in the case may impact whether opponents of abortion will continue to pursue their strategy of attacking providers as a way to stop access to legal abortion, and will have far-reaching consequences right here in North Carolina. Playing politics with women's health isn't just wrong, it's dangerous.

Every American is affected by this issue because many judiciary positions have been vacant for years, the President's budget is not being addressed, a climate agreement is languishing. It's a disgrace!

This petition will go to all of the U.S. Senators who are in the last year of their six-year term and who have said they will not allow a vote to fill the Supreme Court vacancy because President Obama is in the last year of his term. From the Huffington Post: President Barack Obama is in the last year of his second term, Republican senators argue, so he should no longer have a say in something so important as who sits on the Supreme Court. Let's wait for the voters to weigh in this fall, they say. But Obama isn't the only elected official in the last year of his term who has a key role in choosing the next justice, whose party may or may not hold onto his power post, and who generally makes consequential decisions. The GOP logic seems to be that voters may have changed their minds about what sorts of leaders they want over the past three years, so rather than let Obama function for his full four-year term, the Senate should stall him. Beyond the Supreme Court vacancy, Republicans have also refused to hold hearings on Obama's budget, and one senator had himself recorded throwing Obama's final proposal to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison base into the trash. If after a mere three years, however, Obama has lost his mandate, what about those other elected officials who haven't gone before the voters in five years? There are 34 senators serving the final years of their six-year terms. Ten of them are Democrats, and 24 are Republicans, including at least seven facing difficult re-election fights. One of those going before the voters this fall is Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which in theory holds hearings on Supreme Court nominees. The logic that says a president shouldn't be allowed to make a consequential appointment in his final year would seem to indicate those "lame duck" senators shouldn't be allowed to cast consequential votes. One might even suggest that argument is stronger against senators, who are one among one hundred, than against the singular president.

We are in the midst of an historic election, a battle of two different visions of America just like we were in the last two elections where the American voters overwhelmingly voted for President Barack Obama. In this nomination you can help shine a light on what is at stake again, from acting as good stewards of Mother Earth protecting future generations from Climate Change, to the corruption of our representative form of democracy through the disastrously wrong ruling of Citizens United, to securing humane immigration policies, to protecting reproductive freedoms, defending the right to collectively bargain for workers rights, to restoring the now gutted Voting Rights Act and protecting Marriage Equality and the next generations struggles as yet unseen struggles for equality and freedom! Now is the time Mr. President to use your eloquent voice to rouse the American electorate once more to go to the ballots and choose hope instead of fear, to choose love for our neighbors as the wisdom of the ages said, "love thy neighbor as thyself" as our Golden Rule and reject the idea that he or she with all the gold makes the rules. Please Mr. President we the American people beseech you to nominate someone who will fight for the vulnerable among us! "Promoting active liberty does not mean allowing the majority to run roughshod over minorities. It calls for taking special care that all groups have a chance to fully participate in society and the political process. -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg" We put our faith in not just our system of government but in the deep yearning for a just society that the people we elect to lead us like yourself Mr. President! Please nominate someone to inspire us all. Thank you!

The headline in Politico says it all: "Shuster lounges poolside with airline lobbyists as he pursues FAA bill "It's the latest example of the Transportation Committee chairman's coziness with the airline industry." (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/bill-shuster-faa-bill-airline-lobbyists-219666#ixzz41BxPY6Ls) On Feb. 10, Nick Calio, head of the nation’s top airline trade group, Airlines for America, testified before Rep. Bill Shuster’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The topic was a top priority for both men: A bill to overhaul the Federal Aviation Administration, most controversially by putting air traffic control in the hands of an entity favorable to the airlines. Two days later, Shuster’s committee approved the measure. And the week after that, he and Calio escaped to Miami Beach, Florida, with Shelley Rubino, an Airlines for America vice president who is Shuster’s girlfriend. The three lounged by the pool and dined together during festivities tied to Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart’s (R-Fla.) annual weekend fundraising trip. Attendees said it they looked as if they were traveling in a pack. It’s the most recent example of Shuster’s cozy relationship with the powerful airline association. His panel has jurisdiction over the $160 billion U.S. airline industry. The FAA bill is critical to the Pennsylvania Republican’s legacy, and to Airlines for America’s members, which include every major airline and cargo carrier in the country except Delta Air Lines. Calio testified that modernizing the air-traffic control system would provide an “immense benefit” to the airlines and their customers. The bill would spin off the nation’s air-traffic control apparatus into a nonprofit company. The airline industry would have more representation than any other industry on the entity’s board. Pilots would also get a seat, handing the airlines effective control of the air-traffic control system. Regional airlines, which operate roughly half of the nation’s flights, would have no representation on the board.

I am a Nevadan. The recent Nevada caucus allowed the public to see to the lack of democracy and equality in our state. Anyone who was working during the time of the caucus was unable to participate. The voices of working people were not heard during the caucus. This is unacceptable. The purpose of this petition is to let our leaders know that we are dissatisfied with the caucus process. We want to return to becoming a primary election state.

Donald Trump consistently uses his rallies and public appearances to threaten violence against individuals who challenge his candidacy. His out of control, childish and brutish behavior is unbecoming a Presidential candidate and has the potential to cause physical harm to people exercising their First Amendment Rights. Americans should not have to foot the bill for Trump's Secret Service protection when he purposely endangers them. The Justice Department is charged with protecting the rights of Americans. It's time the Justice Department requires Donald Trump to stop endangering the safety of those who oppose him.

We need a fully functioning Supreme Court and a fully functioning President for the next 11 months. If a missile lands on Iowa tomorrow - shall we leave it to the next president to respond? It is critical that the Supreme Court is brought back to full strength as quickly as possible so that all cases will be resolved rather than tabled or to allow lower court decisions to stand.