Trump's shocking attitude toward the use of nuclear weapons and the climate crisis could bring irreversible global disaster. If Stein gets just 2-3% of the vote, that could put Donald Trump in the White House. Dr. Stein, you could indeed be our Savior, but only by getting out of the race.

Representatives of the International Indigenous Youth Council of Standing Rock and Oceti Sakowin Youth encampment have requested that Senator John Barrasso (R- WY) hold a Senate committee hearing on Indian Affairs in response to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. As the 114th Congressional session is coming to an end, the window of opportunity is closing to give notice to other Senators, as required by procedural rule 4.a for the Indian Affairs committee. Barrasso's legislative director, Stewart, told the Youth Council representatives that Senator Barrasso, “has other priorities than Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline.” This dismissal comes at a time when nearly 300 Native tribes have rallied in support with the Standing Rock Sioux, and this issue has garnered national and international attention, including “solidarity protests” in 40 states and worldwide, and coverage by the mainstream print and tv media. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and Native and non-Native allies, have raised particular concern about desecration of historical sacred sites and burial grounds. Meanwhile, construction resumes in North Dakota, continuing to disturb and destroy sacred sites and burial grounds, sacrilege in Treaty terms. Protect the sacred, respect treaty law, and hold an Indian Affairs Senate committee hearing on the Dakota Access Pipeline.

All children need and deserve two loving parents in their lives, even if the parents are no longer living together. The starting point of a child custody proceeding should be equal protection for each parental relationship. The Family Protection Act will create a presumption at the beginning of an action that equal time with each parent is in the children's best interest. Cooperative parents can make their own agreements, and the presumption can be overcome if there is evidence that equal time is not best for the children, but equality is where we should start.

Last year, due to the massive earthquake and the numerous aftershocks in Nepal, the death toll exceeded 9,000 and over eight million people were affected. According to recent news reports, tens of thousands of Nepalis are still living in tents. Recent floods due to heavy monsoon rains have exacerbated the problems, destabilizing the already troubled recovery efforts further, while creating new need for relief.

City of Chicago Municipal Code Zoning ordinance requires Salons/ Spas to be at least 1,000 feet away from each other. Currently, FIVE salon/spas operate between 1700-1850 W. Lawrence (within 3 blocks). An appeal has been filed with the city by Dalisa G. Arellano and a public notice put up to open yet another salon/spa at 1716 W. Lawrence Avenue. They do not meet the 1,000 feet restriction and neighbors in the area want more business diversity to patronize, NOT another spa/salon. Please join other local businesses and Lincoln Square/ Ravenswood neighbors to tell Alderman Ameya Pawar that another spa on Lawrence Ave is not in the best interest of the community.

Trump says it is none of our business. Trump Jr. says it would be a distraction. We say NO.......It is an expectation. All 38 years. Stop the coverage until he complies.

Scientology avoids specifying a stance on homosexuality through the tightly constructed loopholes and semantics of its late founder L. Ron Hubbard. Throughout my involvement in the church from age ten to the end of college, I was told by multiple staff members this is because it is not legal for Scientology to claim it addresses or seeks to alter any specific trait. I knew repeated accounts of Scientologists saying “Don’t you ever want to learn the real reason behind why you’re gay?” when recruiting openly gay people. To anyone who has been indoctrinated in the Church, it is very clear that Scientology is inextricably homophobic and negates homosexuality at the core. One of Scientology’s explicit, urgent goals is to bring everyone on the planet up to a state of spiritual existence referred to as “Clear”, achieved primarily through the practice of Scientology auditing. Auditing is Scientology’s signature (pseudoscientific) therapeutic practice of recalling traumatic events until the emotional weight is dissipated, meant to raise a persons level on the “Emotional Tone Scale” or “Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation”.  Scientology’s fundamental criterion for human behavior, “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation”, irrefutably characterizes the sexual behavior of a “Clear” as heterosexual, and classifies homosexual behavior as the byproduct of aberration, or a lower undesirable spiritual state on the chart. You can find “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” pictured and explained on Scientology’s website and the internet, or in books like “Self-Analysis”, available at such retail stores as Barnes and Noble. Every row in "The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation" corresponds to numbered ascending and descending levels of spiritual existence or “tone levels”. Every column describes a different category of behavior, such as “Emotion” and “Sexual Behavior”. In Scientology each "tone level" is usually referred to by its number and/ or emotion, (Content is 3.0, Anger is 1.5, etc.) since Scientology teaches that you can most easily spot a persons position on the “tone scale”/“Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” by observing their emotional state. The "tone level" associated with homosexuality, “1.1, Covert Hostility” is characterized in the sexual behavior column by the term “Irregular Practices”. It is widely known in Scientology that "Irregular Practices"  is basically synonymous with “homosexuality”.  To confirm for someone unfamiliar with "The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation" that "1.1" is without argument how Scientology categorizes homosexuality, here are some excerpts from the writings of late Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard:  “Homosexuals don't practice love; 1.1s can’t."    and  “Such people should be taken from the society as rapidly as possible and uniformly institutionalized; for here is the level of the contagion of immorality, and the destruction of ethics; here is the fodder which secret police organizations use for their filthy operations. One of the most effective measures of security that a nation threatened by war could take would be rounding up and placing in a cantonment, away from society, any 1.1 individual who might be connected with government, the military, or essential industry…” (1) Scientology and all of L. Ron Hubbard’s writings on which Scientology is based functions as a model of infallibility; a source of applicable, unfaltering technology. There is not room for dissent or interpretation in Scientology. Dissent or interpretation in Scientology are at best considered mistakes to be corrected and at worst justify vicious organized attack from the church. There are no “Versions” of Scientology that validate homosexual behavior. Scientology only allows for one version of Scientology, and it is one in which homosexuality is defined as a byproduct of “aberration” that Scientology auditing explicitly aims to restore. As a child, I poured over “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” starting at age twelve or thirteen, through signing up for “The Volunteer Ministers Course”. Substantial auditing was beyond my family’s price range, but in my case indoctrination with “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” was enough to shape my thinking as a kid. “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evalution” additionally posits that though everybody has a chronic “tone level” with corresponding columns generally predicting each aspect of behavior, "tone level" acutely fluctuates throughout the day or over time, since each “tone level” corresponds with a different emotion and people experience varying emotions in different situations. According to Scientology, whatever emotional tone you acutely experience, your will accordingly exhibit the corresponding behaviors. Recognizing same sex attraction in myself as a seventh or eighth grader, I asked the course supervisor “So, according to a persons mood, you could feel same sex attraction without being chronically 1.1?” The course supervisor thought for a second and said “Does it make sense according to the chart”? And by the screwed up logic of “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation”, it does.  "The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” erases the concept of homosexuality as anything more than a changeable byproduct of existing in a lower spiritual state. For a developing queer child attempting to modify their behaviors in accordance to Scientology’s “Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation”, or simply trying to exist in a religious context that erases the validity of their instincts, the detriment is clear.  Despite being a rigid system of highly engineered totalitarian indoctrination that readily qualifies as a cult, Scientology manages to steamroll its way into the definition of a religion. It is nevertheless important to protect the right to individual religious beliefs.  Scientology auditing, however, is not a belief, but a practice. Auditing is a practice that is taught and executed with deliberate precision and uniformity, and for which the...

The Ocean's Keeper is a start-up organization that is dedicated to raising awareness about the conservation of our oceans. We want to ban the bag in Myrtle Beach to not only keep it clean for locals and tourists to enjoy, but to also keep that garbage out of the oceans. Help us by signing our petition to end plastic bag usage in Myrtle Beach, SC!

Too many people are being arrested, prosecuted, and criminalized by using and possessing cannabis. Marijuana laws need to change in Pennsylvania. We have four of our main regions of Pennsylvania currently trudging ahead on their own recourse to try and blaze the way for statewide legislation. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, State College, and Harrisburg have all decriminalized locally. Each very different. Isn't it time we take this across the board? We have a heroin epidemic statewide we should be focused on. And in most cases, Cannabis; although a schedule 1 drug along with heroin: is far less harmful and can actually aid in opiate addiction withdraw. For more information please check out our website. www.pasafeaccess.com

After being cleared of wrongdoing and getting the charges dismissed, AZ DPS is now retaliating against Leslie Merritt Jr and his family by visiting them at their homes and jobs threatening and harassing them to give in to their demands to admit wrongdoing that was never done by them!! This is wrong and needs to stop and the State of AZ and DPS need to be held accountable!!

TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR EDWARD SNOWDEN. Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing revealed the NSA’s massive, secret – and unconstitutional – surveillance programs. He took a huge personal risk to bring these programs to light. And his actions launched a vital national debate on whether the NSA should be spying on innocent Americans. But three years later, Snowden is still being forced to live in exile and threatened with likely spending the rest of his life in prison if he ever comes back to the country he loves. We have less than 125 days to push President Obama to officially pardon this important American whistleblower. Presidential pardons are about justice. They are for when the legal system has failed, or the laws are unjust or when our consciences demand it. Snowden made his sacrifice not for personal gain, but because he knew it was the only real way to expose the unconstitutional spying programs he witnessed. So when the White House tries to claim Snowden “is not a whistleblower” because he didn’t follow the "proper" whistleblower process, they’re just playing cynical word games. Intelligence contractors, like Edward Snowden, are NOT protected by the Intelligence Community’s whistleblower protections. The Intelligence Community’s own lawyer, even admits it. Even had Edward Snowden followed the “proper” process, his whistleblowing wouldn’t have been protected. Presidential pardons exist for exactly this kind of extraordinary situation. It’s time that President Obama uses that power to recognize Snowden’s public service. Snowden acted out of desperation and patriotism to inform Americans of the unconstitutional mass surveillance the NSA was conducting. Even former Attorney General Eric Holder agrees: “I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made.” Snowden stood up for our rights. Now it’s time we stand up for his. Sign the petition: Stand up for Edward Snowden and tell President Obama that three years is enough. Pardon Snowden and bring him home!

As parents, students, teachers and members of the community we are alarmed to learn that a supposedly "final" decision to radically change the Wenatchee High School schedule was undertaken behind closed doors and with zero input from parents and students. This is more than a "schedule change." It is a decision to condense year-long classes into one semester, resulting in 37 fewer instructional hours per class. It's a decision to create potential gaps of 8-12 months between classes in subjects like math and foreign language. It's a decision to disrupt and possibly threaten the viability of year-long programs like Band, Mariachi, AVID, Choir, Orchestra, DECA, Sports Medicine and The Apple Leaf. A decision of this magnitude should not be undertaken by a committee of only teachers and administrators. Such a significant change in the delivery and content of curriculum should instead be implemented only after careful planning and the recommended 1-2 years of staff and curriculum development. The Wenatchee High School should convene a new, well-rounded committee that will represent a broad range of students, parents and teachers and engage in a transparent process to arrive at a solution that is best for our high school.