I am sick of the corruption that pervades our lives. We are always asked to vote for the lesser of two evils. If there is no profit, ever, the American people have a better chance of true representation. Keep politicians working for the people. No gifts or considerations at all from special interest groups, including but not limited to high-salary jobs or consultancies, from campaigning through public office and until the end of their working lives.

Shutting down the Carroll County Farm will result in a loss of services and revenue (jail inmate employment, hay and wood sales income, produce income and offsets to the cost of feeding nursing home population, income from county water customers served by the farm, maintenance performed such as mowing and plowing, etc.). The money saved on salaries will fall far short of cost of contracting for services lost, revenue lost -- to say nothing of the social benefits and the benefit to local agriculture.

Several speakers at the Republican National Convention have been reinforcing the falsehood that undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit crimes, playing to the GOP's xenophobic agenda to "build a wall." There is no data supporting their false claims. In reality, research has shown that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens. (1) If this misinformation goes unchecked, this kind of racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric can turn into immigration policies—like Trump's wall—that will hurt communities of undocumented immigrants, break up families, and fuel further division and distrust in our country. These speakers have a national stage, and leaders with the authority and platform to correct these mistruths must step up to do so. Tell Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper and other reporters covering the RNC to help counter the anti-immigration rhetoric that affects more than 11 million people in the United States with this simple truth: undocumented immigrants are LESS likely to commit crimes, including violent crimes, than native-born citizens. (1) "The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States," American Immigration Council, July 2015 http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/criminalization-immigration-united-states

Republican Congressman Steve King started the Republican National Convention by making a case for white supremacy. In the days after, the Republican leaders have continued to define the RNC with racist attacks and fearmongering. Iowa senator Joni Ernst insisted there is an ISIS presence in every state in the country. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, said in his speech that Syrian refugees are harboring militants. Even President Obama's religion was called into question. None of these claims are true. But the established theme of the GOP's message to "Make America Safe Again" is based on racist and false misinformation. The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of 40 Latino groups, called the party out for racist and offensive speeches happening throughout the convention. The coalition points out that American citizens are much more likely to commit violent crimes than undocumented immigrants. Not only that, the American members of the Soldiers of Odin, a national white supremacist organization, are in Cleveland celebrating Donald Trump's nomination. And while it's no surprise that Donald Trump has been silent about the rampant racism—including the anti-Semitic comments in the convention's livestream chat—happening in Cleveland this week, other Republican leaders should stand up and condemn these divisive attacks.

The Democratic Party is about to hold its national convention—and now is the time to end superdelegates once and for all. Without a massive change, these insiders could overrule the voices of voters. The party's "superdelegates" system means that insiders could have a voice as loud as the pledged delegates from the District of Columbia, 4 territories, and 24 states combined. That's why progressive organizations and voters are coming together to demand an end to the superdelegate system. Voters should decide. The system undermines representative democracy and means that the electorate is not necessarily decisive in determining who will be the Democratic nominees for president and vice president and dilutes the voters’ say over the party’s platform and the rules under which it operates. The system also undermines the Democratic Party's commitment to gender equity. While the party’s charter rightfully mandates that equal numbers of pledged delegates be male and female, a near super-majority of superdelegates are men. And while the Democratic Party prides itself on its commitment to racial justice and the racial diversity of its ranks, the superdegelates system appears to skew the party away from appropriate representation of communities of color: Proportionately, approximately 20% fewer of this year’s superdelegates hail from communities of color than was true of the 2008 and 2012 pledged delegate cohorts, or of the voters who supported President Obama in those years’ general elections. And the system failed to represent young voters. In recent years, America’s younger voters have overwhelmingly supported Democrats. The party’s own charter lays out broad, noble principles – including fair representation and gender equity. It's time for the delegate system to reflect those principals. We urge members of the Rules Committee to introduce, demand a vote on, and support language that reflects our shared values – and if needed, issue a minority report in support of such measures to be taken to the floor of the convention. We encourage all delegates who believe that the will of the electorate should reign supreme to support these efforts.

Shutting down the county farm will result in a loss of services and revenue (jail inmate employment, hay and wood sales income, produce income and offsets to the cost of feeding nursing home population, income from county water customers served by the farm, maintenance performed such as mowing and plowing, etc.). The money saved on salaries will fall far short of cost of contracting for services lost, revenue lost -- to say nothing of the social benefits and the benefit to local agriculture.

No matter how careful you are about what you eat, your food could be loaded with toxic chemicals called phthalates. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering a petition, filed by Earthjustice and several partner organizations, asking the agency to withdraw its approval of all 30 phthalates currently allowed as food additives. Please tell the FDA that phthalates don’t belong in our food. Phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) are a class of hormone-disrupting chemicals that have been linked to severe genital birth defects in baby boys and to other reproductive health problems. They’re also linked to deficits in child IQ, developmental delays, and other learning disabilities. It’s hard to avoid phthalates because they’re used in many of the materials that come into contact with our food—from the plastic gloves that food workers wear to plastic equipment used in processing food to the plastic packaging our food is sold in. Phthalates leach out of these materials and seep into our food, ending up in all of our bodies. Despite powerful scientific evidence of the harmful health effects of these chemicals, the FDA still allows the use of 30 different toxic phthalates as “food additives,” meaning that they can be used in food-handling equipment and food packaging. Please tell the FDA to keep toxic phthalates out of our food!

Press reports [1] indicate that Hillary Clinton's "shortlist" for Vice-President includes retired Navy admiral James Stavridis, who was the supreme allied commander of NATO. Stavridis was a vocal public opponent of the Iran nuclear agreement. [2] Urge Senate Democrats who supported the Iran nuclear deal to use their influence to support a candidate for Vice-President who publicly supported the Iran nuclear agreement by signing our petition. References: 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/us/politics/hillary-clinton-vice-president.html 2. http://www.jta.org/2016/07/13/news-opinion/politics/possible-clinton-vp-choice-an-ex-nato-chief-slammed-iran-deal-and-has-close-israel-ties

I am a parent of a child in after school care. I believe all children at all schools should have convenient, affordable and high quality after school care at the school. #BCSAdvocacy

Time to rein in the banks.

Our economy (along with those of the rest of the world) has suffered greatly from the absence of this law. Efforts to control the damage from the Great Recession STILL keep bank's depositor interest rates so low that many people are depleting their accounts' principal, since what passes for interest returns these days is really an insult.

To ensure the DNC does not waste it's opportunity to destroy Donald Trump on national television