My voice will be heard. I do have people who belive in me.

It's hard to believe – Sen. Ted Cruz just introduced a bill this week to ABOLISH the successful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau! That's the agency that brought Elizabeth Warren to prominence when she first proposed it in 2007. Sign the petition to tell Ted Cruz: Withdraw your reckless plan to abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Ted Cruz is running for president, and the Wall Street executives funding his campaign *love* this scheme. Wall Street can't stand having an agency dedicated solely to protecting everyday people from getting ripped off by big banks, payday loan sharks, and credit card companies. In just under 4 years since being founded, the CFPB has: • Forced big banks to return more than $10 billion to consumers they had cheated. • Investigated for-profit colleges with deceptive advertising that has thrown hundreds of thousands of students deep into debt. • Just this week, CFPB forced Citigroup to return $770 million to consumers after pushing consumers into taking bad credit cards using deceptive practices. Ted Cruz calls abolishing the consumer protection agency “a step in the right direction.” The only direction it would take us is back to the ‘Wild West’ days of Wall Street bankers running wild and ripping off consumers. Sign the petition to tell Ted Cruz: Stop your attempts to undermine the consumer protection agency!

It's hard to believe – Sen. Ted Cruz just introduced a bill this week to ABOLISH the successful consumer protection agency! That’s the agency that brought Elizabeth Warren to prominence when she first proposed it in 2007. Sign the petition to tell Ted Cruz: Withdraw your reckless plan to abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Ted Cruz is running for president, and the Wall Street executives funding his campaign *love* this scheme. Wall Street can't stand having an agency dedicated solely to protecting everyday people from getting ripped off by big banks, payday loan sharks, and credit card companies. In just under 4 years since being founded, the CFPB has: • Forced big banks to return more than $10 billion to consumers they had cheated. • Investigated for-profit colleges with deceptive advertising that has thrown hundreds of thousands of students deep into debt. • Just this week, CFPB forced Citigroup to return $770 million to consumers after pushing consumers into taking bad credit cards using deceptive practices. Ted Cruz calls abolishing the consumer protection agency “a step in the right direction.” The only direction it would take us is back to the ‘Wild West’ days of Wall Street bankers running wild and ripping off consumers. Tell Ted Cruz: Stop your attempts to undermine the consumer protection agency!

As members and friends of Community Peace Builders of Oberlin, we have been working for more than a decade to avoid a war with Iran and establish better relations. We have studied this agreement, and we are convinced that it accomplishes the goal of creating greater stability in the Middle East by preventing Iran from building an atomic weapon.

Anyone who wants to be president needs a plan to protect every voter’s right to be heard – and that plan should start with restoring the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. The 50th anniversary of that historic law is August 6th, 2015 -- and it's also the day of the first 2016 presidential debate, hosted by Fox News. They should do their jobs as journalists and get every candidate on the record about this critical issue: do they support restoring the Voting Rights Act and ensuring every American can be heard in our democracy?

Most offenders get a slap on the wrist for beating their partner, daughter in-law, etc. Most women are terrified to call the police out of fear that nothing will be done, or their abuser will be released the next day. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence; my ex father in-law hit me twice in the head with a steel skillet, causing a large bruise on my brain and a hair-line fracture in my skull. I now live with chronic vertigo and severe anxiety, among other things. My attacker received 37 days in jail as a repeat offender. Please stiffen the punishments on these people so their victims can sleep peacefully knowing their abuser can never hurt them again.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently ended the investigation of possible illegal activity between Scott Walker's 2011-2012 recall campaign and outside special interest groups. Now Wisconsinites and the rest of the American people will never know if Scott Walker and his campaign engaged in illegal activity during 2011-2012! Four of the justices of the court (Michael Gableman, David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler) were the beneficiaries of dark money spent in their behalf — and dark money was at the heart of this case. These judges should have recused themselves and did not. In Wisconsin, it is up to the court itself to adopt recusal rules, which they voted against doing not long ago. Demand that they adopt strong rules and abide by them to ensure our courts are fair and impartial.

Ted Cruz just chaired a hearing in the Senate about his idea to subject Supreme Court justices to retention elections, saying it'd curtail "judicial activism." But one look at the states that elect their Supreme Court justices shows the dangers of Cruz's proposal. Forcing judges to run for re-election puts them at the mercy of outside groups and special interest donors. It invites corporate front groups to flood the elections with money to stack the benches with judges who'll see cases their way -- regardless of what's right. Our founders intended for courts to be truly independent, able to make politically unpopular decisions -- like those that desegregated our schools, guaranteed a woman's right to choose and provided marriage equality -- and to operate outside of traditional electoral politics. Ted Cruz should abandon his extreme proposal and focus on proven reforms, like judicial codes of ethics and merit selection, to build a fair, impartial judiciary.

Water is a basic human right. The United Nations General Assembly recognizes that access to safe drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realization of all human rights. The water in Flint, MI is not safe. In 2014, Flint's emergency manager disconnected residents from the clean, safe drinking water that they had been buying from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) and began providing them with water from the Flint River. Residents across the city have toxic water flowing from their taps. People have reported water with high levels of copper, lead and THMs (chemicals that result when chlorine mixes with organic matter). As a result, Flint residents are suffering from hair loss, lead poisoning and other health problems related to the chemicals in their drinking water. Water is a basic human right, and all people deserve access to safe, affordable drinking water and sanitation. In Flint, the solution is as simple as pushing a button and reconnecting to DWSD.

Being in recovery we have experienced firsthand the negative impacts on recovering addicts when not provided a sufficient amount of time in an inpatient treatment facility.

Sonoma County Libraries have been closed Mondays for more than four years, and there is no end in sight to the largest library funding crisis and hours cutback in history. Last month, as reported in The Sonoma Independent, the Campaign to Restore Library Hours delivered a petition with 1,271 names on it to the Board of Supervisors’ annual budget meeting. The Supervisors refused to allocate our requested funding from the County's surplus to reopen libraries on Mondays. But in an unusual public response, three of the County’s five Supervisors spoke of supporting a financing effort to restore Monday hours, provided that it came from the County’s Library Commission, and that local cities join with the County in co-funding the solution. Both the County and most local cities have sufficient contingency funds should they choose to do this, starting in the New Year. On July 6, the Sonoma Independent submitted to the Library Commission a $1.5 million interim funding proposal to be split between the County and seven cities, that would restore Monday and evening hours starting January 1, 2016. The County would contribute $600,000 annually, seven cities would share the other $600,000 (with Santa Rosa paying $200,000), and the Library budget would add $300,000 more. The Library Commission plans to explore the proposal in its Revenue Committee, and decide whether or not to move forward with a plan to restore hours in the next few months. We urge the Library Commissioners, Supervisors, and City Councils, to commit to resolving this funding crisis this year.

It's hard to believe – Sen. Ted Cruz just introduced a bill this week to ABOLISH the successful consumer protection agency! That’s the agency that brought Elizabeth Warren to prominence when she first proposed it in 2007. Sign the petition to tell Ted Cruz: Withdraw your reckless plan to abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Ted Cruz is running for president, and the Wall Street executives funding his campaign *love* this scheme. Wall Street can't stand having an agency dedicated solely to protecting everyday people from getting ripped off by big banks, payday loan sharks, and credit card companies. In just under 4 years since being founded, the CFPB has: • Forced big banks to return more than $10 billion to consumers they had cheated. • Investigated for-profit colleges with deceptive advertising that has thrown hundreds of thousands of students deep into debt. • Just this week, CFPB forced Citigroup to return $770 million to consumers after pushing consumers into taking bad credit cards using deceptive practices. Ted Cruz calls abolishing the consumer protection agency “a step in the right direction.” The only direction it would take us is back to the ‘Wild West’ days of Wall Street bankers running wild and ripping off consumers. Sign the petition to tell Ted Cruz: Stop your attempts to undermine the consumer protection agency!