Our children should not be used as pawns in this game of teacher evaluations based on test scores. The " incentive pay" seems more like a bribe to get teachers to accept and embrace the Common Core and high stakes testing. Too many government officials are not taking into account the effect, this pressure box of teaching to the test, is having on the children.

We are ALL affected by this tragedy! This soldier made a sacrifice for her country to protect our civil liberties and our way of life! If her life and her honor means nothing to them, we mean nothing to them! Its up to US to show them that she matters to US! THAT WE MATTER US! Let's HONOR her!

We at MoveOn Seattle would like to share this letter that we received from a local Seattle fast food worker. “I am a Seattle fast food worker, but I can’t support myself on my current wage of $9.32 an hour. I have to pay rent, electricity, phone and all the rest on minimum wage pay, $9.32 an hour - less than $20,000 a year even if I was scheduled for 40 hours a week. I had to move out of the city after I got my job because the pay was too low. I commute two hours a day on the bus to get to my fast food job and I still can’t even afford to live in the city. It’s time that changed! Lots of elected officials have said that they are supportive of a $15 an hour minimum wage. In fact, Mayor Murray formed an income inequality committee here in the city to address raising the minimum wage, and even signed an executive order raising the wage to $15 an hour for all city employees. We need to hold them to their promises. We can keep the pressure on and make sure they know that we aren’t going away. We will keep fighting for $15! These fast food and other big corporations are making billions in profits - they can afford to pay us better. We can’t just sit around and hope that they do the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts, though. We have to make them. If I get a pay raise to $15 an hour it would literally change my life. I would be able to rent my own place. I’d be able to start planning for my future and maybe, just maybe I’d buy some stuff I’ve needed for a long time but couldn’t afford. It wouldn’t just be good for workers like me, but it would be good for everybody. We all would put that money right back into the local stores and business around us. We’re not going to store it away in some out of state corporate headquarters. We are going to spend right here in the city. They are doing it in SeaTac and we can do it in Seattle. Who knows where it will go next. Together, let’s help the Mayor and the Seattle City Council do the right thing for all employees and pass a $15 minimum wage in Seattle.” Thanks! –MoveOn Seattle

Inmate Arthur Sobey was sentenced to 25-30 years for the systematic, manipulative prolonged sexual assault of a child under the age of 10. A 404 hearing during trial heard many but not all of the voices of children he had systematically abused prior. His next parole date is scheduled for February 2014. Even if he is not paroled the criminal justice system is mandated to release him in May of 2015 after only 15 years. Children are not safe as long as he is allowed to roam. If released he will have enormous resources since the military chose not to take away his pension even though law allowed it. Keep your children safe from this predator. Speak out against parole for Arthur Sobey.

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My name is Kevin Brown and I've been working at Snarf's sandwich shop for two and a half years. My co-workers and I were all fired three days before Christmas via email, without any notice. Many of us had requested to take some time off during the holidays to be with our families, but were told we could not because we were scheduled to work. In the end we were not able to spend time with our families and left without a job! We worked hard every single day to make Snarf's a thriving business and yet we were unjustly fired in the most unprofessional manner. The CEO promised an additional week of wages for the way things were handled, but he has now broken that promise. Stand with me and my co-workers as we protest this unfair termination and demand that Snarf's immediately reinstates its employees with furlough payment!

Because the Americans (US Citizens residing in Puerto Rico have been desinfranchised from their Right to vote for their President (U.S.); the Con gress has never sponsored a decolonizing plebiscite for the People in Puerto Rico since 1898. That is political slavery, where the sovereignity of the People relies on Congress, not on their own People.

Over 300,000 West Virginians’ water was poisoned with chemicals from the coal industry -- and now hundreds of people are sick. Water isn’t only being poisoned by these chemicals; there is a long history of water in West Virginia being poisoned by the coal industry; mountaintop removal has destroyed thousands of pristine streams, and there are dozens of toxic slurry dams across the state. West Virginia’s DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) has been captured by the coal industry, and can’t be trusted to ensure safe, clean, drinking water. We need OSM to step-in, terminate West Virginia’s ineffective mining enforcement program, and set-up a program that protects our water. Water in West Virginia is being poisoned every day, and another tragic spill like this could happen at any moment. The CARE Campaign, founded by concerned West Virginians, is petitioning the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to terminate West Virginia’s mining enforcement program and implement a program that is accountable to the people of West Virginia. Demand President Obama’s OSM step-in and stand with West Virginians. "Exposure to the slurry of water and other chemicals formed after coal is washed would be more dangerous to human health than exposure to MCMH—and there have been numerous coal slurry floods and spills in West Virginia and U.S. history. That slurry is made far more toxic by the heavy metals and other dangerous elements leached from the coal itself. " - Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-dangerous-is-the-chemical-spilled-in-west-virginia&page=2)

Fast track Legislation to approve the TPP has been introduced in Congress. This bill is officially called "The Bipartisan Trade Priorities Act of 2014". If we are to maintain any semblance of Sovereignty and Democracy in America it is imperative that we defeat this legislation. The TPP is a massive trade agreement that has been characterized as being a corporate coup. In essence it places the rights of international corporations above the rights of the American people. Under our Constitution the states legislate state laws and Congress legislates Federal Law, which takes precedence over State Law. With the TPP Federal Law will now be subservient to rules promulgated by the TPP and interpreted not by American courts but by International tribunals controlled by corporations. No longer will be be able to say what our labor laws, environmental laws, health regulations, financial regulations, copyright laws, consumer laws and Agricultural regulations are, they will determined by this trade pack and adjudicated by these foreign, corporate controlled, tribunals. The Obama administration along with Major corporations that control hugh piles of money will be pushing hard for this fast track legislation. Elections are coming up this year, as normal citizens we only have our vote to counter the flood of corporate cash. Make your vote count by taking the pledge. For more information you can check out the following articles. https://www.citizen.org/TPP http://www.salon.com/2014/01/13/chomsky_tpp_is_a_neoliberal_assault/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-cohen/tpp-fast-track_b_4588459.html

Citizens United was a disaster. It opened the floodgates for corporations to write big checks to fund right-wing special interest attacks, helping them pour $719 million into the 2012 elections. The question is, what are we going to do about it? How are we going to stuff this "corporations are people, elections are auctions, democracy is for sale" mess into the Dumpster of Bad Ideas? Here's how: A constitutional amendment that puts power back in the hands of the people. The actual, human people. Sign the petition to join me in calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

The consideration of a satanic monument at the State capital is a Disgrace to America and such a peposal is taking a monument such as GODS ten commanments out of Context. This peposal greatly affects not only me as a Citizen but the undersigned as a whole nation.

Not all religions are accepted or tolerated in Lisle Senior High School. The religious headgear of the Pastafarian religion has been deemed disruptive and not appropriate in the school. The fact that a student is forbidden to go to his/her classes with the official headgear of the Pastafarian faith is intolerable and ignorant. This intolerance needs to be removed from the school and the religious must be allowed to be worn during the school day.