The license fee added to the property tax bills in Portsmouth, VA was adopted in place of city stickers which were placed on vehicles and trailers operated on the street. All-terrain vehicles, also known as ATVs, cannot be operated on the streets. They are utility equipment that should be treated like lawn mowers. Charging a license fee for something that cannot be licensed in a city already overburdened with taxes is wrong. I request the license fee be rescinded.

LATEST UPDATE (June 18): The Senate recently introduced its version of the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act (S. 2444). Thanks to your efforts, it does NOT take critical food-aid dollars away from hungry people to subsidize the world’s largest shipping companies. The bill now faces a vote by the Senate Commerce Committee. If it passes, the full Senate will vote on it and it will have to be reconciled with the House version of the bill, which provides for increased subsidies to shipping companies using food-aid funds. But the fight is far from over. Amendments could still be introduced when the full Senate deliberates on the Coast Guard bill. Changes could also happen in the conference committee of Congress when both versions of the bill are reconciled. Continue to tell your senators not to use food aid to increase subsidies to the world’s largest shipping companies, leaving 2 million more people hungry every year. * * * Dear advocates, I am outraged. The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would keep 2 million people from receiving lifesaving food aid. This bill takes critical food-aid dollars away from hungry people to pay for the increased cost of transporting food. This subsidy to the world’s largest shipping companies was quietly inserted as a provision in the Coast Guard Reauthorization Bill for fiscal year 2015. This provision has nothing to do with the U.S. Coast Guard and is a blatant attempt by special interests to line their own pockets while more people overseas go hungry. The lives of millions of people should not be sacrificed to subsidize shipping companies. These companies already take up to six months to deliver emergency food aid to countries that need it. Increasing the shipping companies’ subsidies will not make them deliver U.S. food aid faster. Frankly, it’s a waste of our taxpayer dollars. A Senate committee is now debating the Coast Guard reauthorization bill. Tell your senators and the Senate’s leaders: Don’t use food aid to increase subsidies to the world’s largest shipping companies and leave 2 million more people hungry every year. For more information on ways we can make our country’s food-aid programs better – without increasing their cost – see www.bread.org/ol. Ryan Quinn, Senior Policy Analyst Bread for the World

To prevent seafood fraud and provide more consumer knowledge about the seafood we eat.

We all suffer. I know first hand how blind spots in our awareness contribute to our individual and collective suffering. No matter what side of the political line you fall on, more insight, awareness, and inner peace is the only way we get out of the struggles we find ourselves in. Let's go in together.

We're having Fall fire season in the Spring this year. This is unprecedented for modern California. While driving north on interstate 5 from SanDiego, I saw several motorists driving with their lit smokes out the window, while Camp Pendleton burned a few hundred yards away. This is ignorant and crazy. We need a statewide awareness campaign. Where's that Smoky the Bear when we need him?!

Aloha! Hawaii’s First Congressional District—urban Honolulu— is one of the most Democratic districts in the country. It gave Barack Obama 70% of the vote in both 2008 and 2012. The district was long represented by a member of the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus, Neil Abercrombie, who is now Governor. For the last two terms, the district has been represented by a member of the conservative New Democrat Coalition, Colleen Hanabusa. She’s leaving the seat, which provides a good opportunity to again install a progressive. In a crowded race, there is only one candidate who has pledged to join the Congressional Progressive Caucus—Honolulu City Councilmember Stanley Chang. Chang is a former student of Elizabeth Warren at Harvard Law School and says he wants to go to Congress to work with her on a progressive, populist future for America. He will protect the right to choose, fight climate change, seek to label GMO food and protect civil liberties. Stanley is a great candidate. But he hasn’t been in office long, and he’s currently losing to veteran politician Donna Kim, a Democrat who’s much more conservative than Hanabusa and out of touch with the district. Kim opposes LGBT equality and has a mixed record on ethics, labor and the environment. This district deserves much better. This isn't Louisiana or Utah; we don't have to settle for a conservative Democrat in this seat. It’s time for local and national progressive groups to rally behind Stanley before the Aug. 9 primary. We the undersigned urge everyone in Hawaii and the rest of the United States who considers themselves a progressive to join us in endorsing Stanley Chang for Congress! Mahalo!

I have done several petitions through MoveOn.org. I have learned that getting an email out to past signers is invaluable and that sending one on a weekend seems to work best. That's why I composed an email over 24 hours ago. It was in response to Governor Corbett's Friday afternoon announcement that he is opening more of our state forest land and, for the first time, our state park land to fracking. We need lots of signatures and need them right away. The email has still not been approved. References in it are now out of date. I can't edit it and can't find out when it will be approved. I'm losing valuable time. So what appears in my inbox today? An email from MoveOn suggesting that I email past signers. It's ridiculous. I'm asking MoveOn to 1) let me revise my email to update it, 2) approve the revised email promptly, and 3) take the extra step of sending it to their list to help me make up for lost time.

He worked hard and he should be rewarded.

As a parent and registered voter whose children currently attend local public schools, it is critically important to me that students are supported to the fullest extent and that the question, "What is in the best interest of the student?" is asked as decisions impacting students are made. Our local school board policy (BP 5127, AR 5127) grants principals the authority to make an exception and allow a student to participate in a graduation ceremony when there is an unusual circumstance (missing the CAHSEE passing score by one point) and there has been "an occurrence beyond the control of the student." Brenda Mendez has spent all of her K-12 school years in PUSD schools that have been deemed under-performing (based on API scores, though progress has been made, no school that she has attended has achieved an API score of 800 or better) and that are largely segregated (all three schools that Brenda has attended lack diversity - both socioeconomic and racial). These are two things that are largely, if not completely, "beyond the control of the student" and could have led to a deficiency in how she performed on the CAHSEE exam (read more about how here -- http://blogs.kcrw.com/pressplay/2014/05/fault-lines-segregation-in-los-angeles-schools/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fault-lines-segregation-in-los-angeles-schools). Through her recent advocacy efforts and based on her future educational plans, Brenda has demonstrated that she is committed to earning her high school diploma by achieving a passing score on the CAHSEE exam. Please make an exception for her and allow her to participate in the Muir HS graduation ceremony to take place on Friday, May 30, 2014 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

My petition is about bullying, I haven't been bullied before but I know some people that has been bullied growing up, and sometimes bullying can lead to death and I don't want that to happen.

Our beloved military hero Colonel retired Alan Smith, of the US Corp of Engineers, is presently kept a prisoner and isolated from being visited by his loved ones and friends. This deviant guardian for profit, of West Palm Beach, Florida, does not care that his "ward" Alan is emotionally affected and deeply suffering by not being able to know why his loved ones cannot visit him. In his emotional plight of not being able to see his wife nor his loved ones, Alan stopped eating and is now force fed tubing, and is severely and highly drugged, unable to even open his eyes, in a horrible possibly deadly stupor! From neglect in this nursing home, Alan has suffered many serious illnesses and injuries, and has now developed a severe inflammation of his gums and lips, due to neglect by no one treating his lips with a saline solution to soothe his cracked lips and gums. This retired military Colonel, who is a Johns Hopkins university graduate, has all his savings, insurances and provisions in his accounts, to cover for the best of treatments, and best aides to care for him, but is prevented by the abuser "guardian" from receiving correct medical treatment , as he, and all our disabled elders so rightly deserve! Col Smith is a dedicated military hero, an Electrical Engineer, who supervised the Electrification project at the US military base in Vietnam, and he also saved over 30 men lives with his platoon, from dying in a mine that had collapsed in Pennsylvania in the 1970's. Col. Smith has dedicated thirty years to serve his country, was injured in the war in Vietnam, and he deserves dignity and respect, yet Alan is receiving only pain, suffering and havoc in his life, by this fraudulent deviant "guardian" and his cohort attorney, while they have helped themselves to hundreds of thousands of dollars from Col. Smith's finances. Please help us bring Colonel retired Alan Smith back to his home with his wife, where he was happy and healthy, before being, by fraud to the Court, thrown into this second rate nursing home by this "guardian" so he could easily exploit the victim's finances. At this nursing home, the doctor and administrators are being so manipulated by this "guardian" criminal, that they are not providing the special required medical treatment the patient direly needs. Due to this abuse, Col Smith had no necessary continued Physical nor Speech therapies, and has become paralyzed and practically unable to speak. Doctors nor nurses ever respond to any call from Alan's wife, nor from his friends. Visitors who attempted to visit Alan have been asked to leave by the Staff, as they say, "that the abusive "guardian" has instructed them to do!" Col. Smith may die very shortly if this is horrible abuse is not stopped, yet the Palm Beach County Court Judge knows all of this, but refuses to do anything to help save Col Smith's life! Help us stop this abuse, emotional and physical pain and suffering from our elders and disabled citizens, by these deviant predatory guardians!

Like many people during the Great Recession, I started up a small handmade business and followed the advice to get a Facebook Business Page for online marketing . It was free. And the best way to let people know about my new business offerings. But in the last year Facebook changed the rules. Now my posts are not seen by the people who Like my Page unless I pay to "boost" a post at a minimum of $5 per boost. Having followed the advice to post at least 10 times a week, that means using this service will now cost me at least $2600/year and that's not counting what I have to pay to get more Likes! I don't mind the idea of paying for a service but this is too much of a leap!