My name is Judith and I live in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with my husband and 3 children Hannia, Ashley and Lupita who are American citizens. Alabama has been our home for the last 13 years. We lived through horrific times when thousands of immigrant families fled Alabama and thousands more lived in constant fear because Governor Bentley signed into law HB 56 the harshest anti-immigrant law in the nation. My husband and I could fix our immigration status under the administrative relief on immigration announced by President Obama and for the first time we would be able to live without the constant fear of being deported and torn apart from our 3 girls. However Alabama Governor Robert Bentley and Attorney General Luther Strange have signed onto the Texas lawsuit against the President’s administrative relief, blocking us from applying for this basic protection. Once again, our families are being scapegoated because politicians can’t come up with real solutions to fixing our state’s economic problems. There are around 25 thousand undocumented immigrants like us living in Alabama who could also have a chance to come forward, apply, pay taxes and fees, and eventually obtain temporary permits to work legally, drive safer, and live without the daily fear of being separated from their family. With Congress failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform, President Obama took a first step towards fixing our broken immigration system by offering a temporary protection from deportation to certain parents of American citizens and legal permanent residents and youth who were brought to America when they were children. Alabama already spent taxpayer dollars defending its unconstitutional anti-immigrant law HB 56 and as a result, lost millions in court costs and tax revenues. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley keeps wasting needed money from our state’s general fund by once again attacking and scapegoating our immigrant communities. Most legal experts agree that this lawsuit is a political stunt and has no legal merit. In contrast enabling immigrants who qualify for administrative relief to register with the government and apply for a temporary work permit could increase Alabama’s tax revenues by $38.6 million, over five years, and lead to a cascade of economic benefits. Tell Gov. Robert Bentley to withdraw Alabama’s name from the Texas vs. United States lawsuit and stop attacking our families.

According to Oklahoma government records, the current rate of earthquakes is 600 times the historical average. The Oklahoma Geological Survey has concluded the phenomenon has been caused by waste water wells associated with drilling for oil and gas. Current legislation protects the industry and endangers the people of Oklahoma, our water, and our land.

This petition is to stop fracking--and end the resulting earthquakes- in Oklahoma. I have experienced one such earthquake and it was no fun. It caused cracks throughout the walls in my home. The earthquakes can be stopped simply by halting fracking, and the legislature should lead the way.

Fracking has already caused serious damage to our public lands, particularly in the areas that serve to buffer America’s most precious national parks and monuments. By the end of 2014, oil and gas companies had leases on over 34 million acres of public land, and over 200 million more acres are currently being targeted for drilling.

 No amount of regulation will protect us or our public lands from the impacts of fracking. Regulated fracking still results in harm to people's health, accidental spills of toxic waste, air pollution, earthquakes, drinking water contamination, habitat destruction and worsening climate change. The only way to protect ourselves and our land from the risks of fracking is to ban it altogether. Preventing fracking on federal lands is essential to safeguarding our drinking water and public and environmental health, as well as iconic places in American history and culture. It is also essential in any serious proposal to address global warming.

 Representative Mark Pocan (WI-2) recently re-introduced his legislation to ban fracking on all public lands — and it remains the strongest piece of federal legislation against fracking to date. Please ask your members of Congress to support and co-sponsor the bill to ban fracking on public lands.

We are having daily earthquakes in Oklahoma caused by fracking. This must stop.

VF Corporation, the largest maker of branded apparel in the world, is the parent company of popular brands including the North Face, Vans, JanSport, Timberland, and 32 others. In Bangladesh, VF Corporation sources from 90 factories, employing over 190,000 garment workers, and VF refuses to listen to its Bangladeshi workers and sign a legally-binding agreement for fire and building safety in the factories. Following the Rana Plaza factory disaster, and with immense public pressure, brands took action by signing onto a legally binding contract called the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Currently the Accord has over 190 brands signatories from 21 countries all around the world, including over 18 American brands. Although 190 brands including Adidas, H&M, Calvin Klein, and Tommy Hilfiger have made a legally binding commitment to improve safety for the workers producing in Bangladesh, VF has refused to make the same legally-binding commitment and improvements for their workers. University and college students, as part of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), have spent the last 18 months running a national campaign to demand VF sign onto the Accord. Disappointingly, VF has instead partnered with Walmart to create an alternative, corporate-controlled program called the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Since its formation, the Alliance has been extensively criticized for its lack of real worker representation, binding commitments to implement changes called for by independent inspectors, and legal accountability. JanSport/VF’s violations in Bangladesh are the most egregious cases in the maelstrom of other sweatshop abuses at its supplier factories, including stolen severance pay in Honduras, poverty wages in Cambodia that have led to massive worker strikes, and violence against union activists. In the last year, 17 universities have ended 21 contracts with JanSport/VF over the systemic presence of sweatshop conditions throughout the company’s supply chain, as well as VF’s refusal to address urgent threats to worker safety by signing the Bangladesh Safety Accord. All universities should follow suit! VF’s Global Track Record The abuses within VF’s supply chain, both in Bangladesh and globally, are innumerable. Below is a sampling of cases that demonstrate VF’s involvement in worker exploitation and injustice. In December 2010, four Bangladeshi garment workers died and 100 were injured in clashes with police outside a factory owned by the Korean-based YoungOne group, a major producer of North Face and owner of the rights to North Face in Korea. At issue was failure of the YoungOne factory to implement a new minimum wage increase. In 2010, VF was producing at That’s It Sportswear factory in Bangladesh (owned by Hameem Group), which burned, killing 29 workers and injuring more than a hundred. The factory had illegal construction, no proper fire exits, shoddy wiring, and locked exit doors. Workers were trapped on the top floors of the factory. Many jumped to their deaths. VF had repeatedly inspected the factory and yet had completely failed to address the safety hazards. In October of 2012, another VF factory, Eurotex, which was disclosed as a producer of collegiate apparel, burned in Dhaka. This was a major fire, though it did not completely destroy the factory. No one was killed in the fire, because the factory was closed for a holiday – if the fire had occurred during the workday, many could have died. When contacted about this fire, VF claimed that their own disclosure data was wrong and they had stopped using the factory. In August of 2013, the Worker Rights Consortium conducted a safety assessment of Optimum Fashion, a long-time VF contract factory producing collegiate apparel. After VF attempted to prevent the WRC from accessing the factory, the WRC’s inspection uncovered a number of very serious safety hazards, all of which constitute violations of university code of conduct provisions requiring licensees to maintain safe workplaces and any of which could result in injury or death to workers. These violations “included inadequate means for workers to escape the factory in the event of a fire and structural flaws that would facilitate the rapid and widespread propagation of deadly smoke throughout the factory building.” In January of 2014, a 20 year old YoungOne worker was shot and killed by police during a strike over stolen wages despite promises by YoungOne group to change its practices after the aforementioned 2010 murders. YoungOne produces up to 40% of all of The North Face’s apparel. On April 2, 2014, over 48,000 workers walked off the job at the Yue Yuen factory, a supplier for Timberland (a VF brand), in China’s largest strike in recent memory. The Yue Yuen workers had been robbed of years of legally owed social insurance payments and it was only after a massive strike in which several workers were beaten and kidnapped that the factory agreed to begin paying full social insurance and higher wages. On June 20, 2014 in Bangladesh, the Medlar Apparels factory caught fire, a factory that has supplied VF apparel as far back as 2007. This fire occurred despite the fact that VF claimed to have “completed 100% of inspections at Bangladeshi factories where VF product is sourced.” The factory was initially successfully evacuated, but workers were instructed to reenter the burning building to fight the fire and presumably save equipment like sewing machines, thus resulting in several workers being injured. VF later applauded their own dangerous training program that teaches workers to fight factory fires. In 2014, a potentially fatal inspection procedure was exposed at a VF factory in Bangladesh called Sinha Knitting. In July, the Accord audited Sinha and concluded that the factory’s concrete columns were severely over-stressed, enough so that the Accord recommended immediate closure due to the danger it posed to workers. However prior to this...

yes i need my democratic membership card and green card

Preserve Rhode Island is the statewide advocate for Rhode Island's historic places. We champion public policy that ensures a future for historic buildings and will energize our state's economy. Currently, 32 projects have been approved for Historic Tax Credits and are either under contract or have contracts pending. These projects will pump more than $215 million into Rhode Island's economy. This leaves 27 additional projects on a wait list to nowhere, as the funding does not exist.

Its time for a change. We are tired of people with old ideology still representing the people in the House of Representatives and Senate. They are not in turn with the times. It’s time to get fresh people with new ideas. My petition is that we need to constitutionally change their term limit. These older people don't represent the young up-coming people.

Our organization works with families who are under stress and living in poverty. We strive to help them become the best parents they can be so the next generation can be contributing members of society. Unfortunately, positive parenting is difficult to embrace when basic needs aren't being met, many of which are mental health needs and/or untreated chronic physical illness. If these parents do receive treatment, it plunges them into inescapable debt, which perpetuates poverty and stress. Help has been offered as part of the Affordable Care Act. All we have to do is accept it.

Our 2009 Community Master Plan recommends public art as a tool for neighborhood improvement. "River of Words" has been embraced by our community and has brought us favorable international press. In addition to being public art, River of Words is speech protected by the First Amendment. Those of us in the Mexican War Streets Historic District wish to keep our words permanently affixed to our homes. The HRC should allow our Words to remain without further hearings until they publish agreed-upon guidelines and procedures on public art.

Democracy means that people vote and participate. Registration can be easily facilitated by providing online registration to Floridians. When I received my driver's license I was able to register to vote. Online registration is equally simple and will increase voter participation.