I used to work at a local humane society. The organization would raise funds for free spay and neuter vouchers, but the money that was raised did not come close to meeting the demand. The coffers were almost always empty. Most people I spoke with stated that the only reason that they did not spay or neuter was the cost of the service (generally $75-$100). If the cost of spaying and neutering was 100% tax deductible, I believe it would benefit shelters that are overwhelmed by the number of animals in need and it would also make communities safer.

I love Chicago. I grew up here, and I'll always fight for what's right for our city. Ms. Kramer made a number of offensive posts to Twitter that were laced with racism and homophobia. I don't think there should be a seat in our City Council for a candidate who is unwilling to recognize that those posts offend the very people they're seeking to represent. I think that if Ms. Kramer considers herself a viable candidate she should apologize immediately.

WE DESPERATELY NEED PEOPLE WITH REAL CHARACTER IN POWER IN OUR GOVERNMENT TO RESTORE LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL AMERICANS !

Elephants are one of the most incredible creatures. They, like humans, remember the deaths of their family members and are extremely traumatized by it. We must stop this atrocity from occurring each day! We must save the African Elephants from inevitable extinction! As citizens of humanity, it is our job to carry out our function on earth: to be humane. Not only this, but the money earned from selling ivory goes to support terrorist organizations. Basically, the State of California is helping terrorism by standing by and doing nothing to enforce the already existing ban on ivory. So, we must bring attention to this issue, and pressure the governor of California to enforce the law! Once California strictly prohibits the selling of ivory, then the poachers won't earn as much money for ivory because there isn't a market for it. Once this occurs, elephant deaths will hopefully decrease! Support this effort to help African elephants by signing my petition.

Over 75% of monarch butterflies essential to pollinate our food supply have disappeared, along with the milkweed they need for their own survival, due to the widespread use of toxic agricultural chemicals. Nobody seems to have put forward the idea that state highway departments, at little extra cost, could plant milkweed instead of grasses, providing the little beasties with nourishment along their entire incredible migration route. It's not rocket science, folks. --- I am a member of the Conservation Commission for the City of East Providence, Rhode Island and we are looking into doing just that on some public properties along our waterfront, and I am sure that in addition to state highways there are many cities, towns, and counties that could replace weeds and grasses on a variety of public properties with milkweed and an admixture of native plants

This law is a travesty and will only undermine Michigan's progress.

To abolish the death penalty, since it is inhumane and does not represent our country in a very good light. The death penalty isn't helping anyone and only hurts our country and our people.

Rodney Reed was set to be executed on March 5, 2015, but he was given a stay. Now the state is trying to execute him on November 20, 2019. This is unacceptable. New evidence has been found and new witnesses have come forward since this petition was created in 2015. A new witness described a confession by Stacey Stite's fiance, Jimmy Fennel. The witness describes Jimmy saying to his cellmate that he murdered Stacey because she was secretly dating a Black man, Rodney Reed. Rodney Reed has been on Texas’ death row since 1998. He was convicted of the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, a white woman, in the small town of Bastrop, Texas. Stacey’s brutal murder struck at the very heart of the community, not only for its brutality, but for the sinister chain of events it would set into motion. Rodney’s case is a troubling mixture of prosecutorial misconduct, police corruption, poor defense, and deep institutional racism

The fossil fuel industry's campaign to promote climate denial, led by the Koch brothers, has corrupted Harvard University and the Smithsonian, two of the most trusted scientific institutions in the world. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a joint program of the Smithsonian Institution and Harvard University, is harboring a polluter-funded climate denier. Documents uncovered by Greenpeace reveal that Dr. Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon has taken money from the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, coal giant Southern Company, and others to produce "deliverables" that push the long-debunked claim that solar activity, not fossil fuel pollution, drives global warming. The New York Times reports: "He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work." Coal giant Southern Company was one of Soon's biggest funders: "The newly disclosed documents, plus additional documents compiled by Greenpeace over the last four years, show that at least $409,000 of Dr. Soon’s funding in the past decade came from Southern Company Services, a subsidiary of the Southern Company, based in Atlanta. Southern is one of the largest utility holding companies in the country, with huge investments in coal-burning power plants." Smithsonian-Harvard's contract with Southern Company forbade disclosure of Willie Soon's funding, a clear violation of scientific integrity and ethics. The Guardian reports: "ExxonMobil gave $335,000 but stopped funding Soon in 2010, according to the documents. The astrophysicist reportedly received $274,000 from the main oil lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, and $230,000 from the Charles G Koch Foundation. He received an additional $324,000 in anonymous donations through a trust used by the Kochs and other conservative donors, the documents showed." Some of the Exxon Mobil money was used to directly fund Harvard-Smithsonian general expenses. Harvard-Smithsonian has no funding-disclosure requirements, nor does it have a conflict-of-interest policy that prevents funding from fossil-fuel companies of climate science research. Is Harvard-Smithsonian a scientific institution or a fossil-fuel climate-denial public-relations firm? To restore public trust in the institution, Harvard-Smithsonian director Charles Alcock must: 1) sever his institution's ties with Dr. Wei-Hock Soon 2) end all financial relationships with the fossil fuel industry 3) establish strong financial public disclosure rules for all institute scientists that prevent anonymous or secret funding of research Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution are two of the most prominent and trusted scientific institutions in the world. They are taking money from Koch and Exxon to promote climate denial. This must end today. Sources: "Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher," The New York Times, February 21, 2015 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html "Work of prominent climate change denier was funded by energy industry", The Guardian, February 21, 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/21/climate-change-denier-willie-soon-funded-energy-industry "Documents Reveal Fossil Fuel Fingerprints on Contrarian Climate Research", Inside Climate News, February 21, 2015 http://insideclimatenews.org/news/21022015/documents-reveal-fossil-fuel-fingerprints-contrarian-climate-research-willie-soon-harvard-smithsonian-koch-exxon-southern-company

My friend Micki Fine lives in this building!

The Utter Folly of the Keystone XL Pipeline Project and Tar Sand Petroleum Production By John M. Bachar, Jr. Emeritus Professor of Mathematics California State University Long Beach [email protected] The Congress, the Media, and an overwhelming majority of the US population are abysmally ignorant of Facts 1 and 2 just below (estimate: 99% do not know them). If these two Facts were known by these bodies, it would easily lead to killing the Keystone project forever. Fact 1. The Energy Information Agency (EIA) published a table that shows the U.S. daily petroleum consumption (in millions of barrels of petroleum per day – MBD) by sectors from 1950-2013. The three sectors covered are: Residential/Industrial, Electric and Transportation. In 2013, the Transportation sector consumed 13.2 MBD (= 4,818 million barrels per year), and all three sectors consumed 18.9 MBD.(= 6,898.5 million barrels per year). If the Keystone XL Pipeline is built and 830,000 barrels of Tar Sands crude (the dirtiest oil on Earth) flows daily from Alberta to the Texas refineries on the Gulf Coast, it will take 15.9 YEARS to accumulate enough fuel to fulfill the US Transportation sector needs for JUST ONE DAY! To meet the ONE DAY needs of all three US Sectors it will take 22.8 YEARS! Fact 2. In 2013, there were over 253 million vehicles on US roads, and they consumed 134 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel. Thus, the average annual consumption per vehicle was 530 gallons. When a 42 gallon barrel of crude is refined, 19 gallons of fuel is produced. Thus, if the Keystone XL pipeline is ever completed, then the 830,000 barrels daily would produce 365 x 19/42 x 830,000 = 137.049 million gallons of fuel per year. This is only 1.02% of the annual requirement of 134 BILLION gallons that is needed! Thus, the Keystone supply would only meet the annual needs of one vehicle out of every thousand vehicles! Total US benefit to US petroleum needs: ZILCH! Over a period of over six years, a vast number of scientifically based articles have been written by experts about Tar Sand Oil and its production, the effect on all of society, the horrendous record of the rapacious destruction and toxic poisoning of gigantic regions of pristine wilderness and land (by 2030, the area of the disemboweled Boreal forests will equal the area of Florida and exceed the area of England as well as the Amazon Basin), the huge infestation of pollutants into the atmosphere, the massively damaging effects on the environment and climate change, and the deleterious health effects on human, animal and biological life. All of this dictates that the project should be squelched immediately. The project is utter folly. If passed, the engorged, rapacious Big Oil vultures will accelerate the disembowelment of our pristine environment. Allowing Keystone to be completed is akin to aiding and abetting vicious criminals. For much, much more, click on: http://www.absentlinks.com/-environmental-disembowelment-tar-sands-and-keystone-pipeline.html

Jean Claude Harry a été victime de meurtre, pendu sur une place publique en République Dominicaine; référence directe au Ku Klux Klan. Les conclusions de l'enquête ont été très hâtive et le dossier traité avec légèreté. Le gouvernement Dominicain se doit de rectifier les problèmes de leur système judiciaire et assurer la sécurité de toutes personnes se trouvant sur leur territoire. Jean Claude Harry was murdered, hung in a public plaza in the Dominican Republic; direct reference to the Ku Klux Klan. The findings of the investigation were very hasty and the issue treated lightly. The Dominican government must rectify the issues lying within their justice system and insure the safety of all within their territory. Jean Claude Harry, víctima de asesinato, fue ahorcado en una plaza pública en la República Dominicana; referencia directa al Ku Klux Klan. Los resultados de la encuesta fueron muy temprano y el tema tratado a la ligera. El gobierno Dominicano debe corregir los problemas de su sistema judicial y garantizar la seguridad de todas las personas dentro de su territorio.