Congress is about to pass a government funding bill chock full of ideological riders and special interest favors that makes it even easier for wealthy donors to dominate our democracy. It’s the result of backroom negotiations between lobbyists and lawmakers, using the upcoming must-pass budget bill as a political football, with the American people cut out of the equation. We have until December 11 -- when the federal government’s current funding expires -- to get these riders out of the current budget bill and stop any more last-minute shenanigans. Tell Congress to pass a clean bill to fund the government -- without riders that pay back donors or weaken our campaign finance rules.

Rahm Emanuel has lost the confidence of the people over the cover-up of the Laquan McDonald murder. At this point Emanuel makes claims to media that are widely considered not credible. Toni Preckwinkle, Chuy Garcia & Kim Foxx have the confidence of the people signing this petition. Rahm Emanuel & Anita Alvarez do not.

The bill for medical marijuana should be passed to help with the many medical conditions including Cancer and AIDs. Medical marijuana is needed to help with the pain of these conditions. Also, it helps with neuropathic pain associated with nerve damage and would be beneficial. Another advantage to passing the bill is that it will help lower marijuana crime rates.

I want to run for the office of Senator in Oregon State. I have resided here in Oregon for 37 years. I have seen things in the last 2-3 years that have horrified me, especially about the justice system. It badly needs fixing. Our education system, has no money, because Oregon puts more money into prisons then education. We need more police presence. We need to protect or gun rights. There is so much more that could be done to make Oregon great once again.

How could our representatives allow corporate tribunals to determine the price we owe investors when our health and safety regulations interfere with their profits? Do they really support a global corporate court system staffed by corporate lawyers with no ethical requirements of neutrality and no way to be reviewed, appealed or challenged in existing domestic court systems? How could our representatives support an agreement with laughable enforcement measures for environmental issues when compared with the rights of corporations to profits? 13 leading environmental organizations [Sierra Club, NRDC & more ] have reviewed the TPP, and stand opposed. This agreement only talks the talk, doesn't require walking the walk. Why would our representatives support an expansion of the number of American jobs going overseas? Or an expansion of the race to the bottom by allowing the importing of labor from other countries to the US without our laws and labor rights prevailing. How could our elected representatives believe that an expansion of protection for patent medicines and biologics (and a resultant decrease in the availability of generics) is good for the public and for public health??? We, the voters, will know by your vote on this issue just whom you are representing, the people or the corporations.

In the United States Constitution, it states that only a natural-born citizen or a citizen of the United States at the time of adoption of the constitution may assume the office of President. This law was created in order to prevent a British colonialist from becoming President and making the newly formed America a British colony again. Today, this is no longer a threat and the American people know better than to elect a candidate who does not have America’s best interest at heart, consequently making the law redundant. The law prevents over five percent of otherwise legible U.S. Citizens from having the right to become President. We do not believe it is right, that someone should be denied the right to be elected to public office, simply because of their place of birth. Many immigrants have served in the U.S. military, made scientific and medical advances for the United States, brought money to the U.S. in the form of businesses, and even served America in other forms of public office. Many immigrants are just as patriotic, if not more so, than many natural-born citizens, and we believe that denying them the right to candidacy to the Presidency is morally unjust, and decreases the number of able candidates, potentially denying America a better leader. Many able politicians who would have been strong Presidential candidates have not had the opportunity to run, and consequently the people have not had the right to elect them, simply because of the country they were born in. We believe that country of birth is irrelevant, and that what matters is the country you have allegiance to. It is foolish to believe that someone born in the United States, but who has lived abroad all their life, has more allegiance to the United States, and more right to become President, than someone who was born abroad, but has chosen to leave their home and past behind them and make a new life in the country they have always dreamed of living in. We believe that the foundations of democracy are that the people have the right to elect the leader they wish to be led by, and that they should be able to vote for whoever they wish provided that person wishes to be President. We believe that the people should have the right to choose their leader, whether the candidate was born in the United States or not. Consequently, we ask that an amendment to the Constitution is proposed to repeal the natural born citizen clause, and allow foreign-born citizens to assume the role of President provided they fit the remaining criteria and have been a citizen for at least twenty years; and so we propose the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment that: “Section 1: A person who is a citizen of the United States, who has been for 20 years a citizen of the United States, and who is otherwise eligible to the Office of President, is not ineligible to that Office by reason of not being a native born citizen of the United States. Section 2: This article shall not take effect unless it has been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States not later than 7 years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.” Consequently, we urge Congress to propose and pass this amendment, so that there truly are equal opportunities for all Americans to govern the United States, and the President, truly is the person considered by the people to be the best person for the job. For more information visit the Equal Opportunity to Govern Campaign's website at www.eotg.org

The next U.S. President will be faced with unprecedented and extremely difficult issues, both here at home and around the globe. We need someone we can trust, a candidate that speaks the truth and will offer concrete solutions that they firmly believe in and plan on implementing. Which U.S. Presidential candidate has the courage, confidence and integrity to face a lie detector test? More importantly, which ones don't?

My piece speaks for itself. No, it's not a petition. It's a fervent desire.

Tom Byrne, Jr., the son of a former New Jersey governor, chairs the NJ State Investment Council and is charged with managing pension fund investments for public workers, teachers, firefighters, police officers and other dedicated workers that make New Jersey great. For years Tom Byrne and the State Investment Council funneled investments into politically connected hedge funds, private equity firms and other Wall Street entities. As the State’s pension crisis grew, so did scrutiny on these investments. In fact, NJ Hedge Clippers - a coalition of progressive organizations and community activists – released a report in July which found hedge fund investments cost New Jersey’s public workers more than $1 billion in fees and bonuses since 2007. Since then, NJ Hedge Clippers, public worker unions, pension boards, elected leaders, community organizations and academics have been pressing Tom Byrne and the State Investment Council to do a full audit of the fees being charged by politically connected Wall Street firms. But Mr. Byrne dug in his heels – like a true Wall Street apologist – and refused to authorize an audit of the fees and bonuses being taken from the retirements of public workers in New Jersey. Under pressure from all sides, Mr. Byrne claimed that it was an attack on the State Investment Council by people who simply don’t like Wall Street. Then he claimed that hedge fund and private equity managers “work really hard” and deserve to rake in millions of dollars of fees and bonuses. Finally, he relented – kind of – and agreed to issue a report on Wall Street fees and bonuses going back five years, all while continuing his defense of this outrageous Wall Street grab. By signing this petition you can send Tom Byrne a clear message: Protect Pensions from Wall Street Greed! Simply issuing a report isn’t enough. The taxpayers of New Jersey and the public workers who earn every penny of their pension deserve a FULL FORENSIC AUDIT of these Wall Street fees and bonuses going all the way back to 2007. It doesn’t matter if his critics like Wall Street or not. And it certainly doesn’t matter that he thinks wealthy hedge fund managers work hard. The real hard work is done by dedicated public workers who spend their days teaching and caring for our children, protecting us from danger, and responding to life & death emergencies. Public workers are the definition of “hard work” – and it’s time for Tom Byrne to honor the hard work of teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public workers who entrust their retirement security to the NJ State Investment Council.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency. OSC's primary mission is to safeguard the merit system by protecting federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices, especially reprisal for whistleblowing. In July 2013, a federal employee (disabled veteran) went to OSC and disclosed what she believed to be White House vetting improprieties and contract fraud by senior officials at the National Council on Disability (NCD). In March 2013, the White House appointed Jeffrey Rosen, a former NCD employee as the Chairperson of the agency. Shortly thereafter the whistleblower discovered that Rosen had a background of DUI and was previously found guilty of criminal misconduct in the agency, which led to his resignation prior to his punishment in 2007. In 1994, Rosen was stopped in Montgomery County, Maryland for erratic driving. He failed a field sobriety test and, after signing a consent form, failed a breath test. Rosen was then arrested and taken to the station house, where he signed a form that explained his rights and gave consent to a chemical test. The test registered a reading indicating blood-alcohol content above the legal limit. Rosen was given probation before judgment, fined, and ordered to attend six alcoholics’ anonymous meetings as a condition of having his conviction expunged. The question looms “did Rosen complete his meetings” because it appears that his record was not expunged and is public record online. The White House employee involved in Rosen’s vetting was hired within 30-days of Rosen’s appointment as Chairperson and was awarded a $59K pay increase despite not having any relevant position or managerial experience. Managerial experience possessed by this employee was retail experience working in Victoria Secrets. Her lack of experience caused great harm to the agency. Rosen and this employee were also involved in the contract fraud reported by the whistleblower, whereas these individuals were improperly awarding contracts without competition, extending expired contracts and using expired government funds to pay for these contracts. With knowledge of Rosen’s past misconduct, it’s hard to understand how Special Counsel Lerner entrusted him to be honest. Nonetheless, she referred these matters back to Rosen for investigation, which allowed Rosen and other responsible parties to investigate themselves. Special Counsel Lerner purposely omitted pertinent details of the facts prior to referring the matters to Rosen for investigation. And despite having an abundance of evidence to substantiate the whistleblower’s claims of audit and contract fraud, Special Counsel Lerner and her staff lied to the President and Congress in her official report. In fact, Special Counsel Lerner's three (3) page report failed to address many factual and documented issues the whistleblower raised in her comments and the use of expired government funds. Special Counsel Lerner started out lying in her report by stating that “members of Rosen’s in-house investigative team were not implicated in any way in the wrongdoings and could conduct a fair and impartial investigation." She even made defenses for the agency that the agency did not mention in it's report and made false statements against the whistleblower in order to strategically conceal the whistleblower’s official comments to the agency investigative report from the general public by not posting them to OSC’s website. Special Council Lerner had in her possession evidence from agency employees corroborating the whistleblowers claims. In an email to the whistleblower, NCD Council Member Gary Blumenthal, who was named in the wrongdoings and who was a member of Rosen’s in-house investigative team writes “I agree with you that a substantial amount of observations you have made about contracts are clearly accurate.” He goes on to say “you inherited a very problematic set of issues when you joined NCD. Federal procedures, contractual rules and internal controls were minimally respected at best.” Despite Blumenthal’s admission to contract violations, he and other members of Rosen’s in-house investigative team erroneously found no violations during their investigation. In another email, the Legislative Affairs Director “expressed her concerns and the concerns of others flagged over the last couple of years regarding the agency’s IT contract being inadequate. She stated “it was during the course of that review and contrast against solid contracts for the same services that I came to more fully appreciate the concerns the whistleblower’s been raising and how vulnerable NCD is as a result of a less than adequate original contract.” Despite having an abundance of incriminating evidence in her possession, in her report to the President and the Congress, Special Counsel Lerner states “she did not find any violations of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).” And although the Senate Help Committee was given a “sneak preview” of the reports by OSC staff, the committee was encouraged not to take action by Special Counsel Lerner. Special Counsel Lerner stalled releasing investigative findings allowing Rosen time to complete his term as Chairperson without any actions being taken against him. Rosen left office around September 18, 2015 and soon thereafter Special Counsel Lerner conveniently released her findings to the President on September 30, 2015; over two (2) years after the issues were originally reported to her office by the whistleblower. What’s more alarming is in December 2013, the whistleblower disclosed to OSC what she believed to be improprieties with the agency’s 2013 audit. The whistleblower also disclosed that agency employees were destroying incriminating contracting files. However, Special Counsel Lerner’s office took no action, not even to open an inquiry. According to Rosen “Ms. Lerner sent a letter to auditors at the com...

In today's Family Court environment, judges often make decisions contrary to the best interest of children; at times depriving parents of their due process and reaching decisions based on personal bias. This behavior will continue as long as these public servants' power go unchecked and they continue to hide behind their judicial immunity with no oversight and no accountability.

Donald Trump is expressing views at a high level of politic that flies in the face of what America stands for. He has to be removed from government and the country.