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Enabling Wall Street to privatize profits and socialize risk with credit swaps and other completely corrupt financial processes just as they did in 2006-2008 is wrong and should not pass an uncorrupted government of the people.

I have personally been affected by the illegal overreaching of the NSA. We have ALL been affected! Our privacy has been invaded. I am one voice in a growing chorus of outraged Americans.

We only seem to have wars on the poor: Detroit with water, 1/3 of our children live dependent on some kind of assistance for most of their meals, and now drug testing? Let's INVEST in our poor and/or sick, instead of taking away the little they already have. Governor Synder and MI legislature-do not put into law something that not only costs in the long run, not only is an invasion of privacy, but at the end of the day, helps no one-the poor to the elite alike.

Indiana has the lowest turnout in the Country - 28% of registered voters voted in 2014. Only 44 of a hundred seats were even contested and out of those only about 7 or 8 were truly competitive. Elections are a farce. When there's nothing at stake people don't vote. Without competition we're left with appointed bureaucrats who answer to no one.

The positive effects of the principles of Community Policing have proved a powerful principle in defusing potentially deadly encounters between police and citizens, and fostering positive relationships between police and citizens. More importantly the concept reminds us all of how the simplest and subtlest aspects of our behavior can have profound negative or positive effects. Oftentimes these are not easily measurable or teachable, but this should not deter us, or our town governments, from aggressively pursuing initiation of this training and adopting this policy as an overall guiding principle for all departments.

The White House released an action plan this week in response to the national outcry demanding justice for the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. While we applaud the Obama Administration for taking action, they failed to reach the root of that which causes instigation between minorities and those in authoritative roles…that root being implicit bias. Implicit (or unconscious) bias affects our understanding, judgments, and can ultimately impact our actions. While no one is immune to the subconscious biases we accumulate through the course of our lives, studies have found that biases can be reduced through training. The expectation is the courses will lead to fewer excessive force complaints, greater understanding, and a heightened feeling of connection between officers and those they are hired to serve. Law enforcement personnel and community leaders in Baltimore, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Durham, and Tampa have already undergone trainings to enhance fair and impartial policing and found that for the trainings to be most effective, they must include classes for academy instructors, recruits, patrol officers, supervisors, and top-ranking officials. Additionally, trainings should include examination of biases beyond race, such as: gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic status. How many more of our citizens must die at the hands of those sworn to protect them before we force a change? Make your voice heard and demand that Implicit Bias Training be mandatory for all law enforcement officials.

House Bill 5974 would rig Michigan elections at the expense of the people. The bill not only presents a grave danger to our democratic process, but threatens to make Michigan irrelevant in presidential elections, reducing our state’s influence on the national political stage and undermining our ability to attract attention to our state’s unique issues like the auto industry and the Great Lakes.

West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller is retiring. He has a unique opportunity to prevent torture and advance CIA accountability before he leaves office. News reports have indicated that the Senate Intelligence Committee’s CIA torture report details not only brutal abuse the CIA perpetrated on detainees, but also illegal deception CIA officials conducted on Congress and other executive branch officials about the program in order to evade democratic and legal accountability. But the CIA has been blocking the report from becoming public. According to the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, members of Congress have an absolute free-speech right on the floor or in committee—even if what they say includes classified information. So Senator Rockefeller can read the Senate’s CIA torture report into the Congressional Record, making it public information. Urge Senator Rockefeller to use this unique opportunity to defend the public interest and let the American people know about the CIA’s use of torture by signing our petition.

21 new ballots have suddenly appeared in the Maine Senate District 25 election. All of them are for the Republican candidate and have flipped the election in her favor. Only 171 voters were recorded casting ballots on Long Island, but with the mysterious appearance of these 21 votes, there are now 192 ballots from the town. So far, Republicans have shut down attempts to investigate this potential fraud. A committee of the Maine Senate, the Maine Secretary of State and various law enforcement agencies could all have a role in investigating this issue. They need to hear from us that the integrity of our elections must be upheld. More information here: http://bangordailynews.com/2014/11/25/politics/elections/questions-unanswered-after-untraceable-mystery-ballots-change-outcome-of-senate-election/

To avoid another situation like Ferguson where there is only conflicting eyewitness testimony and no video evidence.

In light of the most recent injustice dealt at the hands of the Ferguson Police Department and the ongoing legacy of abuse by police departments all over the country, it's time that the Federal Government be compelled to act on our behalf by making it mandatory that every police department be accredited by an exacting group of standards that include, but not limited to mandatory body cameras for each and every officer, mandatory diversity training in order to learn how to interact with people of color, mandatory mental evaluations in order to weed out potential threats to citizen safety, annual testing to insure that federal standards are being met, automatic dismissal for officers that break the law with no intervention from police unions accountability to civilian review boards with authority to influence policy on behalf of the community. Finally, if a department fails to meet these standards in total, that department goes on a probationary period with federal oversight at the local level. Should that department fail after the probationary period, it will be disbanded.