Dear Friend; Enough of the partisan dysfunction! I'm tired of the games of chicken and of the costs of political war. Relationship building and collaborative problem solving are needed for us to address the big challenges that we face today and in the future. MoveOn does remarkable work enabling us to stand up together to oppose wars, environmental threats, and to stop further harm to our already sketchy social safety net. And when our elected leaders do not reflect our values, we work to elect leaders that do. But not all the country is Progressive and Congress is a place where many viewpoints are represented. Can MoveOn members also work to address the deep polarization in politics that undermines our ability to work for our common good? Will you join me in signing the following? "I pledge to help our leaders and our communities to engage in respectful dialogue and to look for ways to solve problems cooperatively. Doing this, we can create better answers to all the challenges we face." Sign this pledge and tell two friends you've signed. We will provide everyone that signs this pledge with opportunities to contribute to creating a more civil political culture. I'm a co-founder of MoveOn. In January of this year I co-hosted a Living Room Conversation about crony capitalism with a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. The conversation was fun and enlightening! We learned that all of us agreed that the war on drugs is a failure, that we all think there are too many people in prison, and that none of us think banks should be able to gamble with our money, enjoy the profits when they win, and be insured for their losses. There were so many things we agreed about! My Tea Party friend and his friends are smart caring people. That said, we don't agree on everything. For example, we can't talk about fracking because the facts my conservative friends believe about fracking are quite different than what I believe. In fact if I believed what they believe, I'd think fracking was great too. Not having shared facts and a shared narrative is disastrous for democracy. Shall we reweave our communities and demonstrate to our leaders and media we can "Heal the Heart of Democracy" to quote the title of Parker J. Palmer's book on the subject? Please join me in exploring how we might help create new dynamics in D.C., in the media, and in our communities that are respectful, and in so doing, realize our hopes and dreams. Joan Blades Co-founder MoveOn.org, MomsRising.org and LivingRoomConversations.org 1. Parker J. Palmer, "Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit" http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Heart-Democracy-Courage-Politics/dp/0470590807 How do we remain "open hearted" so that we can engage constructively with citizens that hold different views of the challenges we face? 2. http://www.livingroomconversations.org/2013/01/moveon-founder-tea-party-figure-meet-sf-chronicle-article/ 3. Living Room Conversations were developed with the goal of sparking civic culture change by fostering the respectful engagement of people with diverse viewpoints. They are an unfacilitated structured conversation form. Intended to enable people that would not typically talk to get to know each other while having a conversation about an issue where they hope to find common ground or even an issue that might otherwise feel dangerous to discuss. All the conversation requires is two friends with differing views to agree to co-host a conversation about an agreed upon subject. Each co-host then invites two friends to join the conversation- friends and friends of friends. Everyone must agree to abide by 6 simple ground rules that ensure respectful listening. The first conversation follows a conversation format that enables hosts and guests to get to know each other. Typically they discover that they share many key values and like each other. Once this connection is established they hear each other in a much more caring way.

Transient lodging services in non-hotels endanger their users and harm New York City. Unlike hotels, these services offer no effective recourse for property damage or personal injury and promote accommodations that lack basic fire safety and security systems. Using so-called shared economy websites results in breaking New York State law. These services encourage landlords to create illegal, ad hoc “hotels” in residential buildings where an influx of visitors may decrease building and tenant safety, and may violate: • Zoning laws • Condominium, co-op board and rental management rules • Fire safety codes and noise restrictions New York City tourism is a $55BN industry generating $3BN in city tax revenue and employing over 356,000 New Yorkers. So-called shared economy websites siphon city tax revenue and encourage: • Landlords to withhold available rental properties • Disruption of residential neighborhoods • Absentee apartment ownership • Illegal rental of “rent controlled” properties Despite their popularity, short-term lodging services do not protect their users nor benefit the communities they claim to support. Stop illegal room rentals now.

For too long, Congress has made important decisions behind closed doors. On such an important issue as the budget, Americans have the right to see and hear all discussions regarding the role of government and the positions of each member on what programs they want to fund. Will Republicans hold to their position of no new taxes for the wealthy and corporations? Will Democrats stand strong against cuts to Social Security and Medicare or will they cave to the President's plan for chained CPI and let the Republicans blame Dems while claiming to protect Social Security? Who will fund jobs creation, repairs to infrastructure, more funding for education? Nine of the Republican members voted NO on the bill to end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling. Will they do it again? We have a right to know!

I asked the governor to come have dinner with me -- because he needs to know what it's like to be a retiree trying to get by in Detroit. He needs to see my face, to know I'm here and that I'm a human being -- and that I'm not the only one. I worked for the city of Detroit for 29 years. I showed up for work every day. I poured my heart into serving my community. I just feel like an old jacket. You use me up and then throw me away. In my condition no one's going to hire me. I'm 68 years old...but I gave the city the best year's of my life. Some Detroit retirees don't even get social security -- and we can barely scrape by on the $19,000/year that most pensions are after a lifetime of work. I am starting this petition because I think it is more than unconstitutional to take away the pensions of those who worked their entire lives for a city they love. It is wrong. I was told when I started with the city, "If you worked hard and did honest things, you would have a pension." Our pensions should be protected, and long before Governor Snyder pays back his wealthy Wall Street banker friends. That's why I asked the governor to come have dinner with me -- he needs to know what it's like to be a retiree trying to get by in Detroit. In fact, a local TV news crew came to my apartment the other day to hear me invite the governor to dinner. You can watch the clip here: http://www.upworthy.com/what-theyre-trying-to-do-to-this-man-is-rough-but-what-he-says-at-the-end-is-devastating

Brian Rickard (aka Yoteslaya) was one of the first YouTube personalities that I ever started watching. I have enjoyed all of his videos and am truly devastated at his passing away. I'm creating this petition to show Gearbox Software (creators of Borderlands 2 video game) that they have just lost a very prominent member of their community and, if at all possible, to somehow immortalize him into the game he loved and put so much time into sharing with his fans. RIP Brian, you will be missed.

In mid-October at New York Comic Con, Mike Babchik and his friends snuck in with SiriusXM credentials (where Babchik is producer and on-air personality on the Mad Dog Sports Radio show) to racially and sexually harass other attendees. Claiming to lead a film crew for a television show, Babchik approached women with “interview” techniques that included making statements like, “I want to buy an umbrella [that comes] with an Asian girl.” And, “... In my experience, girls who stand next to me longer than 20 seconds get a cream pie.” It was shocking, abusive, and disgusting. It would be bad enough if Babchik was just a regular conference-goer behaving badly, but the fact that he presented himself as a SiriusXM employee is beyond the pale. No company -- especially Sirius, which touts lineups of progressive musicians and media icons like Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Springsteen -- should tolerate this kind of behavior from its staff. Making matters worse, all efforts from subscribers and members of the public to get a response from SiriusXM about Babchik have been met with silence. Emails, phone calls, tweets, and Facebook posts continue to remain unanswered. In fact, several people have posted to SiriusXM’s Facebook page only to discover later that their comments have been hidden or deleted. We demand that SiriusXM stop ignoring us and take immediate action and fire Babchik. The minute Babchik used his Sirius credentials to allow him to harass people, he acted on behalf of the company. Firing him sends a powerful message that no one can act so horribly and still expect to have a job the next day.

We want to start this petition becasue we thnk it was a very good idea to honor the famous boy band. We think this would put a huge smile on their fans faces because we know that the members really do care about their fans and we want to show our honest appreciation.

Coach Warren was not given a contract this year after thirty years of blood, sweat, and tears building the program to what it is today. Hundreds of Barton Baseball Alumni are coming together to call this out to the Barton County Athletic Director and the Great Bend community. This is a petition to grant Coach Mike Warren a Head Baseball Coaching contract as he has done every year for the past thirty years.

Because animals are defenseless against unscrupulous humans who respond to an irrational belief in "unknown demons".

The Beaverdam Road community does not agree with this future dog park. It not only will be built on a dangerous road, but will be sitting on a flood plain. This could be very hazardous to residents living along side the creek, and even to Beaver Lake. The dog park is not only putting others at risk, but is also trying to push a family living near the site into a "fish bowl" living space. There is no reason to put this dog park in the Beaverdam Road community. It's not the smartest location. For more details visit rasheville.blogspot.com

As an artist I believe in the importance of promoting peace internationally. Artists from around the world can create sculptures based on peace and exhibit them on the White House lawn. The Peace Sculpture Garden will be a symbol of the United States commitment to a peaceful world.

I love New York Comic Con, I'm sure everyone who attends loves it too but I don't think it's fair that tickets go on sale way before the panels and guest details get announced. Before tickets go on sale we should know what panels will happen on what day and what guest are available for photo ops or autographs. I think this is possible for NYCC2014. -Thanks for your support!