Adjusted for inflation, the current minimum wage is 30% less than it was in 1968. Yet last year, Representative Heck and his fellow House Republicans voted unanimously against raising the nation’s minimum wage. Increasing the minimum wage would help Nevada's workers pay their bills and feed their families. Rep. Heck should do the right thing and side with working people over big corporations.

Members of my community are working harder and making less!

Our pollinators are facing a bleak future without some intervention in present practices. They have lost both sanctuary areas and food sources as every acre of private land is now tilled and planted with commodity crops. The pesticides and herbicides used in modern farming are threatening that very industry as the numbers of pollinators have dropped drastically over the last few decades. I don't advocate legislation that takes away anyone's right to utilize their privately owned land as they see fit, but I believe that the state should not contribute to this coming calamity on ground it owns or controls. We have farmed for thousands of years without chemicals and close cutting vegetation in areas not used for crops, but we have never farmed without pollinators.

HB 4588 passed the West Virginia House on Tuesday, February 25, 2014. We must do everything we can to stop it in the Senate before the legislative session ends on March 9, 2014.

Because there are too many Americans who look for jobs everyday yet there does not seem to be one on the horizon...With every week that goes by with resumes unanswered or interviews that lead nowhere it is clear that 26 weeks in this economy is not going to enough to bridge that gap between the last job and the next job...Further if our government can bail out corporations and hedge fund managers and be readily available for the call from expensive lobbyists and former members who have become such then they can damn well address the needs of those who are have worked and who want to work but cannot find a job and for whom 8.00 an hour is not a life line but instead a direct line to poverty.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted says he’s cutting early voting on Sundays and weekday evenings—the times most popular for African-American early voters. In 2012, when Ohio Republicans first tried to cut back on early weekend voting, one local Republican official explained the GOP effort to end weekend voting as follows: "I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read African-American—voter turnout machine." The cuts to weekend and weekday evening early voting coincide with two new bills signed into law by Republican Gov. John Kasich—One to shorten the early voting period by six full days and another that eliminates same-day voter registration entirely. Ohio Republicans also recently passed a law reducing the number of voting machines in the state, which will increase wait time for voters at the polls. This has got to stop. Sign the petition to Jon Husted: No cuts to early voting hours or times. Absolutely no cuts to voter access at all.

I grew up in this town and love it dearly. But living within city limits has made clear there is a heavy inclination towards fining citizens for ridiculous non-offenses and relying on a skewed justice system to meter out justice. Unfortunately, the citizens are the ones being unjustly treated and small issues like this is just the tip of the iceberg. Help us turn this town around and put it back on the path to serving its residents rather than using them as an endless source of unjust revenue.

It is sad that the family has to relive the tragic event that happened on January 2013. Why must it take over a year to get Leonardo Cordoza to trial for the killing of Desiree Lynn Bragg? Her young son was six months old at the time. Desiree's mother, aunt, family and friends are trying hard to make sure this man gets charged with murder and nothing less. Please read the story that appeared in the Nevada Appeal to see the lies and inconsistencies being told by Cordoza's lawyer, http://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/10345710-113/cardoza-castro-bragg-vehicle. Please sign this petition to help bring justice for this family.

In a February 20, 2014 report, the Committee to Protect Journalists claimed that "Nearly all TV stations in Venezuela are either controlled or allied with the government of Nicolás Maduro and have ignored the nationwide protests." [1] Evidence demonstrating that this claim is false is a matter of public record. Indeed, public pressure just compelled the New York Times to correct a claim similar to the CPJ claim. [2] The Committee to Protect Journalists should correct its false report. Urge the Committee to Protect Journalists to correct its false report by signing our petition. On February 24, CEPR Co-director Mark Weisbrot of CEPR noted that [3] data published by the Carter Center [4] for television coverage during the campaign for the presidential election last year indicated that the two candidates were fairly evenly represented. Weisbrot also noted that in the recent coverage of Venevisión, the biggest broadcast television station, we can find plenty of programming where “voices critical of the government” … are “regularly broadcast,” citing an interview [5] on Venevisión news with Tomás Guanipa, leader of the opposition Primero Justicia (Justice First) party and a representative in the National Assembly, who defended the protests. Weisbrot also noted that Globovisión recently broadcast a long interview with opposition leader María Corina Machado, in which she argued that the opposition has the right to overthrow the democratically elected government. [6] In the current situation in Venezuela, falsely claiming that mass media are closed to critics of the government is a dangerous mistake, similar to reporting that "we know that Iran is building a nuclear weapon." This false claim about Venezuela emboldens the faction of the opposition, and its supporters abroad, which is advocating the use of violence to oppose the government. Urge the Committee to Protect Journalists to fulfill its responsibility to publish a correction to its false report. References: 1. " Journalists under fire covering protests in Venezuela," Committee to Protect Journalists, February 20, 2014, http://www.cpj.org/2014/02/journalists-attacked-detained-covering-protests-in-1.php 2. “NYT Corrects Venezuela TV Falsehood,” Peter Hart, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, February 27, 2014, http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/02/27/nyt-corrects-venezuela-tv-falsehood/ 3. "Does Venezuelan Television Provide Coverage That Opposes the Government?" Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research, February 24, 2014, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/does-venezuelan-television-provide-coverage-that-opposes-the-government 4. "Carter Center Issues Report on Venezuela Election," July 3, 2013 http://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/venezuela-070313.html 5. “Entrevista Venevisión: Tomás Guanipa, secretario general de Primero Justicia,” Venevisión, February 20, 2014, http://www.noticierovenevision.net/politica/2014/febrero/20/89967=entrevista-venevision-tomas-guanipa,-secretario-general-de-primero-justicia 6. “María Corina Machado: El pueblo ha salido a la calle a expresar su derecho a la justicia,” Globovisión, February 17, 2014, http://globovision.com/articulo/maria-corina-machado-ofrecera-detalles-sobre-convocatoria-para-este-martes

I've been personally affected, starting at age 19, when I had my first panic attack, and my boyfriend took me to Kaiser Permanente (where I had insurance), allegedly just to talk to a counselor about my family problems. Instead, they packed me in an ambulance that took me to a psych ward several miles away, where I was abused and nearly killed, and quite possibly raped. I was literally drugged, dressed in only a backless sheath, shackled to a gurney, and left hidden behind a partition, surrounded by six or seven derelict men, and when I awoke, my struggling shrugged the sheath off, and left me there naked, a tiny girl, under the lustful gaze of bedraggled lsd-addled men. What was most terrifying was the knowledge that the nurses did this to me ON PURPOSE, and the young male intern who kept coming over to check on me, every minute, did NOTHING to help me. He just kept saying he was my lover, Davit, and I should get the name straight. Absolutely horrifying insanity, what these so-called professional caregivers did to me that night. I was left that way, naked, for a half-hour before a female doctor marched off the elevator headed straight for me with an angry look on her face, as I'd obviously interrupted her romantic dinner. She wore a crimson silk dress that clung to her body, she was a beautiful Asian woman, but there was nothing beautiful about her as she jabbed me with a needle and filled me with drugs so toxic they left me paralyzed with anaphylactic shock and on the verge of death for the rest of the night. Then in the morning, when I miraculously awoke, the nurses laughed at me when I couldn't move a single muscle and had to scream for help through clenched teeth. They laughed again when they gave me only a tiny dixie cup of water, when they knew damned well that I was literally dying of thirst. The sick games psychiatric staff play with their patients. They're truly the sickest people I've ever met. I know some of you will think this is very funny, and it's the way to go, the way to treat Americans who get out-of-hand politically. The Rebels and protestors, anyone who doesn't hup-to your agenda. But it comes back to bite you in the arse sooner or later. One way or another. Especially today, when everybody knows somebody who's been abused by the system. The peasants will revolt. And there's more of them than there are of you, and I don't care what fancy high-tech weapons you have, that can all be turned against you. Robotize humanity and mind control us, and you'll be creating your own worst nightmare, as those mind controlled robotized people... come after you, and robots don't care about dying or suffering. If they're programmed to kill, they will just want to kill. Another world is possible: we pull together to meet the challenges of the future. The Congress stops trying to cull us by spraying us like bugs and poison us like the Borgias, and stop sterilizing us like Rockefeller eugenics doktors. Though you've successfully dumbed-down the masses, there are still plenty of well-educated and creative people to help create solutions to our country's problems, and we will do it, whether your lot are with us or against us. Even if we have to fight you every step of the way, we will solve our own problems, and we'll do it way better than you ever could.

Even if you go to an emergency room for a hospital that is in your health-insurance network, you may be held personally responsible to pay bills from subcontracted doctors. These doctors have no obligation to accept the payment terms stipulated under the hospital's group contract with your insurer. They can bill you for balances that exceed the reasonable and customary charges paid to them by your insurer -- and the sky is the limit as to how much these doctors decide you owe!

House Democrats need 218 House members to sign their discharge petition to bring "The Fair Minimum Wage Act" [HR1010} to the House floor for a vote by the full House. Because the Democrats by themselves only have 199 House members and no longer control the House they will need 19 Republicans to support their discharge petition to reach the magic number of 218 for a majority of members. The discharge petition is a popular but rarely used tactic to force a House vote when the majority leader doesn't want one. If the Democrats are successful, they expect to win the full House vote which will gradually raise the minimum wage from its current rate of $7.25/hour to $10.10/hour. Raising the minimum wage is extremely important. According to the CBO raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would bring about 900,000 people out of poverty. And it will increase wages for about 16.5 million people. It will also help reduce inequality. And it will reduce the taxpayer burden of subsidizing food stamps, rent subsidies, health insurance subsidies, and other welfare benefits low wage workers often receive because their minimum wage job isn't enough to cover even minimal basic living expenses.