I have noticed that people that are being found guilty of drug charges are being sentenced to extremely heavy prison terms, especially with the federal government cases. It seems as if persons with drug charges are being more heavily punished then persons found guilty of murder, raped and other violent crimes. It appears that the government is more focused on drug dealers than missing people, domestic violent, homeless individuals, the economy, rising minimum wage, cold case files, and many more serious problems happening in our country. Stand up and put a stop to over punishing what is not as important over things that are much more important.

There have been too many accidents at this intersection, many of them involving young drivers. A new bike path has recently been completed, which only adds to the complexity of this intersection. We must slow down or stop traffic at this intersection as a matter of public safety.

I was deeply disturbed by this column in the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fairfax-should-force-police-to-come-clean-over-shooting-of-unarmed-john-geer/2014/10/15/7be2d804-54b2-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html?hpid=z2

On July 16th 2014, 22 yr old mother Natasha Adams rode her bicycle to work, Natasha had just dropped her 3 yr old son off at his daycare moments before,unfortunately Natasha never made it to work, Natasha was hit and killed by a distracted driver. The consequence for the driver who caused the death of a precious life was much too easy, receiving only 2 traffic citations. There is no laws in South Dakota with harsher penalties and consequences for Drivers who are sober and kill pedestrian/bicyclists while distracted or negligent. If you are driving distracted and you should take a life you should be held accountable to the same extent as an individual under the influence receiving jail time as well as losing your Operators license. Support Natasha’s Law to bring change to South Dakota and Make our Streets and Hiway’s safer. Maybe the next life that is spared will be yours.

The great majority of Americans believe that "the playing field is rigged" in favor of the wealthy and well-connected. The Cut Tax Loopholes Act, introduced by Sen. Carl Levin in February 2013, and which inexplicably has only one co-sponsor to date, R.I. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, seeks to address one part of our unfair "playing field" - tax loopholes. Amongst these is the "carried interest" loophole that allows hedge fund and private equity managers to have the bulk of their income, earned from managing their respective funds, taxed at a much lower capital gains rate rather than at ordinary income tax rates. The top hedge fund manager in 2013 reportedly made $3.5 billion, which based on a 40-hour workweek and 50- week work-year was over $29,000 per minute! Permitting this loophole and the others addressed by the Cut Tax Loopholes Act is an affront to every hard working American who believes in the American dream based on “working hard and playing by the same rules.”

“If you don’t have insurance, you need to get out of here.” That’s not something you’d ever want to hear from your hospital, but according to legal testimony, it's what Prem Reddy, CEO of Prime Healthcare, said to the former chief emergency room nurse at Desert Valley Hospital. And now Prime healthcare wants to buy the Daughters of Charity hospital system where I work--six hospitals with over a hundred years of service to California’s neediest patients. Daughters of Charity hospitals have operated in low-income communities as a safety-net healthcare service, with the stated mission of serving the sick and the poor, regardless of their ability to pay. Meanwhile, Prime Healthcare has admitted to being under investigation for allegedly overfilling Medicare, and they have a track record of ignoring community needs, eliminating health services, and laying off dedicated caregivers in order to maximize profits. Luckily, we still have a chance to stop this sale in its tracks. California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who has fought on behalf of low-income and vulnerable communities, has to approve the sale. If we can show her how a sale of Daughters’ hospitals to Prime would hurt these hospitals’ mission of service to the poor, we can convince her to stop the sale! We know that Prime is the wrong buyer for these hospitals. They are wrong for the patients, wrong for the communities, and wrong for the healthcare workers like me who have given our lives to service. Twenty-nine state legislators, 14 community organizations, and four county supervisors across California have already urged Harris to block the sale to Prime Healthcare. Now we need to add our voices.

I lost my son when I was 38 weeks pregnant because with factor V you can not carry a baby past 38 weeks. If i was given a simple blood test my son would still be here today. Women who have this factor V can not be on birth control pills or they could die. Why not save lives by just allowing one blood test to be done on every woman? And much more than this. This should be passed in all states.

Get this: Jimmy John’s makes ALL of their employees sign an extreme non-compete agreement that’s not only far outside of the norm for the industry, it’s completely CRAZY. Workers who leave Jimmy John’s for any reason – even if they’re fired – are barred for TWO years from getting jobs at any restaurant that sells sandwiches within 3 miles of ANY Jimmy John’s location. That means a sandwich maker or a delivery driver will have an even tougher time finding a job after she leaves Jimmy John’s. It’s time for Jimmy John’s to get rid of this oppressive and totally insane policy – not to mention pay their workers enough to support their families.

Factory farms house thousands of animals and can generate as much waste as a small city — waste that too often ends up in our rivers, lakes, and streams.

Right now, we're calling on Gov. Pat Quinn to step up and protect Illinois from this dirty gas drilling. But if state officials will not protect us from fracking, then we need Congress to close the loopholes exempting fracking from our nation’s bedrock environmental and public health laws, and we need to convince federal officials to keep Shawnee National Forest — and all of our treasured places — off limits to dirty drilling.

We must stand together and demand action!

Adopting the APS staff proposal to create a 1,300 seat neighborhood middle school at the Wilson School will address increased middle school crowding projected over the next five years. It will provide urgently needed capacity as rapidly and cost-effectively as possible, while avoiding moving additional students and programs, subjecting students and staff to construction, and sacrificing much-needed recreational space.