House Democrats have broken Speaker John Boehner's deadlock and introduced an immigration bill with a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million without papers. So far, over 180 House Democrats have signed on as cosponsors! But in order to get this bill past the finish line, we're going to need Republican support. The good news is that it's there. Your district's representative in the House, Congressman Sean Duffy, is one of the 29 House Republicans who support immigration reform with a path to citizenship. His support for this new bill could be the tipping point for our movement. If he becomes a part of the growing group of Republicans who have already cosponsored this bill, we know more of his colleagues in his party will build up the courage to follow. We know Rep. Duffy is ready to listen to you and our movement. In fact, this past summer, Rep. Duffy said that he thinks "a fair system is this: allow those who have come without documentation a legal status. If they do want those rights [of citizens], they can apply, like any other person around the world, but that means they get to the back of the line.” But it’s just not enough. We already have a good bill waiting in the House, and we just need to get Rep. Duffy to stand by his words and come to our side. He needs to join the more than 180 House members and cosponsor this new immigration bill! We need you and other advocates in your district to pressure Rep. Duffy into supporting this bill. If we get Rep. Duffy on board, your district could make all the difference for the millions without papers across the nation. The momentum is on our side because enough votes exist in the House to pass reform today. But instead Speaker Boehner hides behind excuses, delays, and flat-out refuses to give us a vote. We've come too far to stop now. Tell Rep. Duffy to stand up for his district by cosponsoring this new immigration bill in the House and passing the path to citizenship for the 11 million!

House Democrats have broken Speaker John Boehner's deadlock and introduced an immigration bill with a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million without papers. So far, over 180 House Democrats have signed on as cosponsors! But in order to get this bill past the finish line, we're going to need Republican support. The good news is that it's there. Your district's representative in the House, Congressman Dave Reichert, is one of the 29 House Republicans who support immigration reform with a path to citizenship. His support for this new bill could be the tipping point for our movement. If he becomes a part of the growing group of Republicans who have already cosponsored this bill, we know more of his colleagues in his party will build up the courage to follow. We know Rep. Reichert is ready to listen to you and our movement. In fact, this past summer, Rep. Reichert agreed that immigrants should be able to "get citizenship and pay taxes.” But it’s just not enough. We already have a good bill waiting in the House, and we just need to get Rep. Reichert to stand by his words and come to our side. He needs to join the more than 180 House members and cosponsor this new immigration bill! We need you and other advocates in your district to pressure Rep. Reichert into supporting this bill. If we get Rep. Reichert on board, your district could make all the difference for the millions without papers across the nation. The momentum is on our side because enough votes exist in the House to pass reform today. But instead Speaker Boehner hides behind excuses, delays, and flat-out refuses to give us a vote. We've come too far to stop now. Tell Rep. Reichert to stand up for his district by cosponsoring this new immigration bill in the House and passing the path to citizenship for the 11 million!

House Democrats have broken Speaker John Boehner's deadlock and introduced an immigration bill with a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million without papers. So far, over 180 House Democrats have signed on as cosponsors! But in order to get this bill past the finish line, we're going to need Republican support. The good news is that it's there. Your district's representative in the House, Congressman Chris Stewart, is one of the 29 House Republicans who support immigration reform with a path to citizenship. His support for this new bill could be the tipping point for our movement. If he becomes a part of the growing group of Republicans who have already cosponsored this bill, we know more of his colleagues in his party will build up the courage to follow. We know Rep. Stewart is ready to listen to you and our movement. In fact, when questioned earlier this fall if he agreed that there should be a path to citizenship, he replied, “I think that’s exactly right.” But it’s just not enough. We already have a good bill waiting in the House, and we just need to get Rep. Stewart to stand by his words and come to our side. He needs to join the more than 180 House members and cosponsor this new immigration bill! We need you and other advocates in your district to pressure Rep. Stewart into supporting this bill. If we get Rep. Stewart on board, your district could make all the difference for the millions without papers across the nation. The momentum is on our side because enough votes exist in the House to pass reform today. But instead Speaker Boehner hides behind excuses, delays, and flat-out refuses to give us a vote. We've come too far to stop now. Tell Rep. Stewart to stand up for his district by cosponsoring this new immigration bill in the House and passing the path to citizenship for the 11 million!

The Problem: In New York State it is legal practice to withhold information pertinent to criminal cases from a defendant and his defense attorney until the very moment of trial. This is not because the information is unavailable; it is because the prosecution does not have to turn over such information earlier. For example, prosecutors are not required by law to hand over police reports, prior testimony, and any other evidence to the defendant until trial begins, and in some cases, not until the first witness takes the stand. A prosecutor does not even have to turn over evidence that might help a defendant or cast doubt on his guilt unless the prosecutor thinks it is important. This practice costs both taxpayers and the judicial system a great deal of time and money. The Solution: We request that New York State Senate Bill Number: S4089-2013 gets voted out of the Senate Standing Committee on Codes as new Criminal Procedure Law Article 245, thereby repealing CPL 240. As a result, CPL Article 245 would require that both the prosecutor and defense attorney provide the opposing party with extensive discovery early in a criminal case. In addition, CPL Article 245 would include a mechanism for prosecutors with legitimate concerns about the safety of their witnesses or with on-going investigations to withhold or redact any evidence or information covered by the statute and to move for a protective order.

Michigan is considering a bill requiring front license plates on cars and we Michiganders oppose this.

The Leahy-Sensenbrenner NSA reform bill has been endorsed by the ACLU. The Guardian reported: “The legislation introduced today by Senator Leahy and Representative Sensenbrenner is a true reform bill that rejects the false and dangerous notion that privacy and our fundamental freedoms are incompatible with security,” said Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s surveillance lobbyist. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/29/nsa-surveillance-review-intelligence-chiefs-testify Sen. Patrick Leahy & Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner wrote in Politico: "...the dragnet collection of millions of Americans’ phone records every day - whether they have any connection at all to terrorism - goes far beyond what Congress envisioned or intended to authorize...it must stop." "...Since the revelation that the National Security Agency is collecting the details of Americans’ phone calls on an unprecedented scale, it has come out that the government searches the content of huge troves of emails, collects in bulk the address books from email accounts and social networking sites, at least temporarily collected geolocation data from our cellphones, committed thousands of privacy violations and made substantial misrepresentations to courts and Congress." "[Our legislation] will put an end to the National Security Agency’s indiscriminate collection of personal information. Our proposal, the USA FREEDOM Act, provides stronger privacy safeguards with respect to a range of government surveillance programs." "The intelligence community has failed to justify its expansive use of these laws. It is simply not accurate to say that the bulk collection of phone records has prevented dozens of terrorist plots. The most senior NSA officials have acknowledged as much in congressional testimony. We also know that the FISA court has admonished the government for making a series of substantial misrepresentations to the court regarding these programs." "We hope other lawmakers will join us in our legislative efforts to ensure that such abuses are never repeated and that no false trade-off between freedom and security is allowed to be decided secretly, behind closed doors, ever again." - "The case for NSA reform" http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/leahy-sensenbrenner-nsa-reform-98953.html

For family and friends to be heard.

The Canadian nonprofit organization Lawyers Against the War argued in a letter dated Sunday that Canadian officials have a duty to arrest Cheney "as a person suspected on reasonable grounds of authorizing, counseling, aiding, abetting and failing to prevent torture.”

Hydraulic Fracturing is an inherently dangerous, federally exempted oil/gas extraction process. It violates our intrinsic values with unforgiving, known to be hazardous, toxic chemicals that infect the air we breathe and the water we drink. It defaces and mutilates our natural environment causing irreparable harm to ancient underground rock formations, aquifers and precious groundwater. Such reckless disregard for our future and the future of our planet is intolerable. Fracturing and acidizing do not contribute a single benefit to our environmental well being. We deserve better. We can do better. We, the undersigned, do hereby call on the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors and the Governor for the State of California to Ban Hydraulic Fracturing now and in so doing provide the leadership that insures prosperity, health and safety for our future and future generations. Thank you.

88% of Americans want global warming reduced - AP poll, Dec 2012 - and 92% of Americans want food labeled - NYTimes poll, July 2013. THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE MUST PREVAIL. This petition demands a FEDERAL BUDGET that requires military spending be cut by $200 BL - less than one third - to be diverted to this initiative, developing a CLIMATE INFRASTRUCTURE, due to the national security risks of our climate change threat, as recognized by military leaders. This would fulfill Lester Brown's PLAN B, as described in his book, Plan B, 4.0, focusing on the restoration of US soil, forests and fisheries, encouraging population stabilization worldwide, adding in the new concern of ocean acidification. This CLIMATE INFRASTRUCTURE would also require the implementation of all 50 of the 100% Renewable Energy blueprints, state by state, starting with the one published in the Energy Policy Journal, in March 2013 for the state of NY, by Jacobson et al. The lead author of this series of blueprints is Stanford environmental engineer, Professor Mark Z. Jacobson. These 50 blueprints are now available at www.theSolutionsProject.org . This CLIMATE INFRASTRUCTURE further requires parallel action legislatively, with the passage of climate bills S329 and S332, putting a price on carbon and eliminating subsidies to Fossil Fuel, making the market fair to accelerate renewables into the market to reach 80% renewable energy by 2030, and headed towards 100% by 2050. This CLIMATE INFRASTRUCTURE would also require the passage of an updated Farm Bill, ensuring America is headed to being a 100% organic agricultural nation by 2050, making our food sources humanely and locally grown, with biodiversity, and to appropriate scale. This ensures our agricultural soil is nutritionally sound, and can reabsorb atmospheric carbon, currently at an atmospheric carbon level of 400 parts per million, drawing that level down to 350 parts per million, as determined necessary by climate and earth scientists globally, to stabilize planet Earth, making it habitable long-term, for all living forms. This CLIMATE INFRASTRUCTURE, to be reflected in our FEDERAL BUDGET, would determine for we Americans, the necessary balance of human activity with the natural world, for a sustainable and healthy future, showing global leadership, on this increasingly dangerous and growing threat to our long-term well-being.

San Francisco citizens have taken part in years of planning for how to improve safety for all street users as our city grows. Wider sidewalks and bulbouts make walking more pleasant and crossing the street safer, especially for seniors and people with disabilities. Preservation of city-subsidized free parking shouldn't take precedence over pedestrian safety and a more walkable city. Details of plans for a better Potrero Avenue available at http://sfdpw.org/index.aspx?page=1673.

I would like to propose that our junior high start a soccer team for our boys and girls. This is a co-ed sport played in the spring. I believe that soccer can strive in our town and we can be the leaders in bringing it to other neighboring towns. Please sign this petition to help bring soccer to our community. Please only sign this petition if you are a resident of Brimfield or you have a child that goes to Brimfield.