Sen. Murkowski has yet to co-sponsor Sen. Joint Res. 19, and she MUST for Alaskans!

Our Story On Thursday August 27th 2009, my brother (Troy) had taken his children (Troy and Nakaiyah Tate) to CHOP in Philadelphia PA. While he was in the waiting room, DHS showed up and proceeded to remove his children from his care. The complaint against him was that he and the children’s mother were not following up on previous doctor appointments for Troy Michael Tate Jr. who has Glaucoma. Due to this, the hospital had to make the call to child services. Monday August 31, 2009 just a few days after, myself (Cassandra) as well as my mother (Denise) showed up to court after making numerous attempts to contact the social worker at the time (Ms. Briggs) to tell them that we were ready, willing and very able to take the children. At this court date, it was requested by the child advocate attorney that our home be "Approved" for safety before placement of the children. It was also requested that we go through a background check/child abuse clearance as well. By the following week, all of these tasks were completed by the social worker and the following day after she approved our home, we were to show up in court to confirm this approval so the children can be released to us. Myself, my mother, brother and the children’s mother (Jessica) all showed up to court that day but the social worker that was supposed to give confirmation to the judge did not show up. She also allegedly did not inform the person representing her that day in court that our home had been approved to release the children. This resulted in the child advocate attorney requesting that the children remain in foster care. This was heart breaking, stressful and very painful as things continued to go downhill from there. DHS switched caseworkers on us about 3 times after this incident. Each switch came with a demand that they approve our home each time (something a couple of them informed us was not normal) which then delayed the process of us getting the children. They then made a big deal out of our home not being a "Medically approved home" because of my nephew (Troy Jr.) having to have eye drops put in his eyes. I pleaded with them, explaining to them that I myself was in the medical/nursing field, not the mention my mother’s history of raising her own child (the father) with this exact diagnosis, even more severe than my nephews. When that was no longer an excuse at court hearings, they demanded that my mother and I go get finger printed and become certified foster parents in order to get the children. We had one issue with this, we did not want to be a part of their program and wanted nothing to do with their funding. We felt as though this was our family and we can take care of them without state funds or their program. We just wanted the children back with us as they belonged. Child advocates repeatedly made comments stating that we "Needed" the money although we both had our own source of income. My mother has been working with children for the school district for over 20 years and counting while I was attending school and had a hair styling business on the side. After numerous court dates being canceled, numerous excuses of why we could not get them although we were 
indeed approved to have them, we finally had no other choice but to agree to the stipend and eventually they allowed us to get them under their conditions. That was February of 2010. The entire time that my mother and I were fighting DHS to get the children, the children’s mother (Jessica) was there helping. She told the judge, case workers and everyone else that she wanted the children to be with my mother and I. She knows that we love them, she knows that we would take great care of them and she knows that I personally treated those children as they were my own and spoiled them with so much love and attention which is why she also agreed to name my niece Nakaiyah Cassandra, after me. Unfortunately, after she and my brother fell off on bad terms and stopped seeing each other, she began to not show up and see the children as much. They LOVED and ADORED their mother and my nephew (Troy) would talk about her soooooo much it made me sad at times because I could not make her come visit them. They were happy when she was around though, and although we were a bit disappointed in her for not showing up, we never denied her access, we treated her the same as we always had and was happy that they were excited when she came around. After continuously not showing up to see them, we figured something was wrong. She ended up telling us that she was pregnant and although she was unsure about whose baby it was, she was more confident that the baby was her new boyfriends child. She then started to make arrangements to see the children downtown where visitation was usually held 
instead of in our home. She then went on to ask for unsupervised visits 
at her new place with the children. During these visits, to our surprise, she started taking photos of the children’s arms, legs, faces etc in an effort to build
 a case for her own personal gain. The children (mainly Nakaiyah) had numerous “Hyperpigmentation” marks on her body due to “Mosquito bites” that Jessica tried to present to DHS as abuse marks from us abusing the children. Those claims were false and documented to be exactly what they were from both DHS and the children’s PCP. She knows in her heart and in her mind that we would NEVER do anything like that to them, or anyone for that matter. She lived with us prior to my niece being born and she seen first hand the love we have for each other and those children. She figured in her mind that if she took those pictures and showed them to DHS, she would be able to take her children from us and have them for herself. Although we love the children and wanted them more than anything, we never had intentions on keeping them from her at all. I personally believe that children need their mother and I would have been more than happy for her to get them bac...

I want my civil rights protected and the cover up by the GOVT and why I am being blackballed, the truth about the GOVT, company and union abuse I have been going through, exposed.

I am a citizen journalist who has reported from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the West Bank. I am writing a book about my experiences and blogging at www.LivingLargeInLimbo.com. I am appalled that the President is moving toward military reengagement without a full, public airing of the non-military options. While I applaud the humanitarian aid the U.S. has provided for Syrian and Iraqi refugees, I’m not convinced more troops in Iraq, more weapons to Syria’s rebels, and more air strikes will wipe out ISIS or avoid increased military intervention. I’ve met the people whose lives and families are shattered by my country’s rush to war. Let’s prevent more casualties on America’s conscience!

With President Obama delaying action on immigration until after the November mid-term election, it's up to us to help Pedro. Pedro is a law-abiding family man and the primary caretaker of his eldest son who has severe cerebral palsy. Pedro has four US citizen children and his wife is a US citizen, too. He's exactly the kind of immigrant America should be embracing, not expelling! Pedro meets multiple criteria that qualify him for relief from deportation, yet the ICE Detroit Field Office has inexplicably denied his request. President Obama is treating Pedro and his family like political collateral damage. Pedro is exactly the kind of person that would have received relief from deportation if President Obama kept his word and announced executive action this summer. But now he could be deported at any moment. President Obama promised to act in the face of Congress' inaction, and Pedro and his family are depending on him to keep them together.

We support keeping the New Orleans, LA mail processing plant open and maintaining the strongest public post office in Louisiana.

Now is the time for Senator Ted Cruz to represent his constituents and not mega-rich out of state donors. If he is serious about combating corruption, he should co-sponsor and help win support for a constitutional amendment in this session. A strong vote in the U.S. Senate will help grow and build the movement to overturn the disastrous Citizens United and McCutcheon rulings, take democracy off the auction block, and preserve constitutional rights for people — not corporations.

I am a medieval historian (PhD in Medieval Studies). I have studied at length the blood libel leveled against Jews during the Middle Ages. The blood libel alleged--with absolutely no basis in fact--that Jews were responsible for (among other things) murdering Christian children and using their blood for ritual purposes such as unleavened bread, and that Jews were solely to blame for the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. The claims of the blood libel have been used from the Middle Ages and on into today's world to perpetuate the notion that it is acceptable to perpetrate horrific acts of discrimination, violence, and slaughter upon Jews and Jewish communities. Any Facebook page that describes these false practices of ritual murder is implicitly encouraging similar activities even if it never says so outright. Many of my colleagues and I have already contacted Facebook, reporting the page as encouraging discrimination and violence against Jews through the promulgation of a myth that has been repeatedly proven utterly false. Though the page was taken down, 24 hours later it was restored and messages were sent to us saying that the site is NOT seen as discriminatory or encouraging hate speech . If Facebook is to be the social force that it pretends to be in its mission statement, it must live up to its own codes of what constitutes "hate speech". We, the undersigned, demand therefore that the website "Jewish Ritual Murder (https://www.facebook.com/truthaboutjews)" be permanently removed and that Facebook reassess its policies concerning what constitutes "hate speech".

To help defeat Citizen's United and their influence on government.

We are writing to urge you to implement strong and unambiguous net neutrality rules that protect the Internet from discrimination and other practices that will impede its ability to serve our democracy, empower consumers, and fuel economic growth. Erecting toll booths or designating fast lanes on the information superhighway would stifle free speech, limit consumer choice, and thwart innovation. The FCC must act in a clear and decisive way to ensure the Internet does not become the bastion of powerful incumbents and carriers, but rather remains a place where all speakers, creators, and innovators can harness its power now and in the future. The Internet is a staple of our lives and our economy. The FCC should protect access to the Internet under a Title II framework, with appropriate forbearance, thereby ensuring greater regulatory and market certainty for users and broadband providers. To ensure that the Internet fulfills its promise of being a powerful, open platform for social, political, and economic life, the FCC must adopt a rule against blocking, a bright-line rule against application-specific discrimination, and a rule banning access fees. These principles of fairness and openness should not only apply to the so-called last-mile network, but also at points of interconnection to the broadband access provider’s network. Likewise, strong net neutrality rules must apply regardless of whether users access the Internet on fixed or mobile connections. The FCC’s proposed rules would be a significant departure from how the Internet currently works, limiting the economic and expressive opportunity it provides. Investors, entrepreneurs, and employees have invested in businesses based on the certainty of a level playing field and equal-opportunity marketplace. The proposal would threaten those investments and undermine the necessary certainty that businesses and investors need going forward. The current proposed rules, albeit well-meaning, would be far-reaching. Erecting new barriers to entry would result in fewer innovative startups, fewer micro-entrepreneurs, and fewer diverse voices in the public quare. The FCC should abandon its current proposal and adopt a simple rule that reflects the essential values of our free markets, our participatory democracy, and our communications laws. When the history of the Internet is written, 2014 will be remembered as a defining moment. This FCC will be remembered either for handing the Internet over to the highest bidders or for ensuring that the conditions of Internet openness remain for the next generation of American entrepreneurs and citizens. We urge you to take bold and unequivocal action that will protect the open Internet and the opportunity it affords for innovation, economic development, communication, and democracy itself.

It is about the devastation, without any regulation to hang onto, on my road, Crooked Run Rd. in Alum Bridge, WV, in Alum Bridge, WV, in the state of WV., in the country of the U.S., in the world. It is ecocide - it ruins the water, the air, the earth and the quality of life of anyone near it. Please sign the petitiion.

Black Hills Power increased rates in 2008, 2012 and last year in September 2013. Now they are requesting to increase another 650 kWh per day this year. If approved, this increase will take place this October. It is unfair to the customer to increase rates for their personal expansion.