I am asking you to Repeal of Section 115 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 prohibited Sates from providing Food Stamps (now the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) to convicted drug felons unless the State passes legislation to extend benefits to these individuals. This Act denies benefits disproportionately to one group of people with convictions and not others. I want a change to the laws and offer equal rights for Formerly Incarcerated Persons that have served all of their time so that they can contribute to society, work, find housing and not be a continued burden on their families. People can steal millions from banks and are eligible for benefits if needed, they can steal from this agency and are only banned for a period of time. People can murder and be eligible for assistance, but they could have not ever received benefits if they have a drug offense and are ineligible for these benefits if they need it during their lifetime. Who are the people that are targets of this discrimination? **Drug charges and convictions disproportionately affect African American and Hispanics. All people with prior convictions should be made whole citizens after they have served their time, they should have the opportunity as any other citizen with rights afforded by the Constitution of the United States to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We believe that is being denied to them.

we need our post office strong and working

Due to the sequester, the armed forces have decided to eliminate educational benefits for active duty personnel. This benefits those that are serving and provides a platform for employment upon discharge.

I would like to see caller I.D. restored to all of our wireless phones. Our friend's calls look like telemarketers when we see things like "Unknown, Out of Area, California, Nevada call, etc". These odd names show even when it's from the V.A. hospital calling to make an appointment with my husband. Many times I do not answer these calls. We're paying for the caller I.D. service and the wireless companies are making a "mint" off of us. Let's get caller ID back with real names of real people. Let telemarketers state who they are so we have a choice as to what call we want to answer.

Repeal the FEMA Disaster Reservist Program implementations and assosciated FEMA Qualification System. Currently, through Implementation of the above two programs, FEMA is losing an average of seven employees per day -- a number that will severely hamper future response efforts to national disasters.

In 2011, the Michigan Legislature cut the state earned income tax credit (EITC) from 20% of the federal EITC to 6%. That reduction is taking effect for the first time this tax season, and taxpayers across the state are getting a big surprise. The average eligible family saw its taxes increase by more than $300 with the reduction of the state EITC, and the reduction is estimated to plunge 9,000 Michigan children into poverty. The Michigan EITC helps reduce poverty, provides an economic stimulus in low-income communities, and helps veterans return to civilian life. Please join us in calling on the Michigan Legislature to support HB 4266 and SB 128, which would restore the Michigan EITC to 20%. You can learn more at SaveOurEITC.com

Industrial agribusinesses that operate factory farms throughout Missouri are lobbying our Senate for a constitutional amendment that would place them beyond the reach of the law. If SJR 22 passes, we could see a future in which we, as citizens, couldn’t use the courts to make sure that industrial farms don’t pollute our water, to keep multinational corporations from bullying family farmers out of business, or to stop a 20,000 hog factory farm from being built in our community or our back yard. Missouri’s lawmakers are hearing from plenty of industry lobbyists, and they need to hear from Missourians like you and I that we don’t want them to pass SJR 22.

In 1999, the California Legislature signed into existence the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers and Mountains Conservancy. Then, the battle began for state tax money, Bond monies and the power to manipulate the public and the "open handed" Bond laws, and slack oversight cost that State of California millions, perhaps billions, of dollars. One director stepped down in 2011 after an audit by the California Attorney General found monies transferred from one Joint Powers Authorities to another that had the same Director for all ad hoc groups. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has been audited but, its back room - not for public - meetings has been the "joke" of the state; "California is such an environmentally concerned state." Voters are constantly asked to vote to tax themselves for "heart pulling" issues like, the condition of the Sacramento Delta levees. After Katrina in New Orleans, the Bond Measures 1-E and Prop 84 were passed in 2006 yet the levees are still not fixed and much of the $9.4 Billion is gone.

The Millennium Hollywood Project is currently moving through the city's approval process. Please sign up to show your opposition to this project. The project is out-of-scale and out-of-character with the recently approved Hollywood Community Plan and will cause excessive cumulative negative impact on the health, safety, traffic and infrastructure of Hollywood and the neighboring hillside communities. We request that prior to the City Planning Commission, Planning Department or their advisory agencies issuing any approvals or recommendation of approvals regarding the Millennium Project (and its proposed Tract Map adjustments and zoning variances) that the Planning Department reconsider the proposed Project’s impacts to the surrounding Hollywood area and adjacent hillside communities in relation to CEQA and Community Redevelopment Agency guidelines.

Every year since the passage of SB1070, I have volunteered to register, educate and mobilize voters in Arizona so that we can make a real, lasting change. We've turned out hundreds of thousands of voters and last year we reached record numbers of new voters! This massive voter participation exposed the inadequate election administration system in my state. Thousands were turned away from the polls or never got their vote-by-mail ballots. Rachel Maddow exposed the hundreds of thousands of votes not even counted until after Thanksgiving! So what do our politicians do? They are trying to fix the problem by making it harder to vote, rather than overhauling the broken system. First, they are voting on a bill this week that kicks you off the vote-by-mail list if you miss just one electoral cycle. But that’s not all! They’ve got another measure that would make it a felony for volunteers to help these voters by turning-in their vote-by-mail ballots at polling places once it’s too late to mail them in. They are actually trying to criminalize helping people participate in our democracy! Please join me to stand up for the right to vote in Arizona by signing this petition now!

As if having the University of Kentucky's basketbal coach named by the Lexington Herald-Leader to be Lexington, Kentucky's most influential person wasn't insulting enough (the readers at least acknowledged the school's president, Eli Capilouto, as the 5th most influential), it was appalling to read Joe Craft (the #10 person on the list) apparently having citizens fooled into believing he is "a giver." It would be interesting to know how Mr. Craft considers obliterating mountains, ruining land, polluting air and water, and ignoring climate change to be forms of giving. Exploiting natural resources and jeopardizing public health in exchange for his name being plastered all over buildings on the UK campus places him much more so in the categories of a taker and an aggrandizer.

How many times a government employee is terminated or retaliated against for reporting fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayers dollars or violations of public policies and unlawful activities by our public officials. We might find it necessary to report wrongdoing, but we should proceed with caution before blowing the whistle. My review of state-level lawsuits suggests that being entitled to protection under a state whistle-blower statute and receiving that protection can be two different matters. Lawsuits filed by whistle-blowers shows that it’s difficult to receive protection under many of the state laws. The current Whistleblower statutes (State and Federal) need to be strengthened; it is not sufficient and fails to provide enough of a deterrent to those who would use government for their own personal gain or to satisfy their own personal desires. In an article I read the statistic showed that seventy-four percent of the whistle-blowers were terminated. Another 6 percent were suspended and 5 percent were transferred against their wishes. The remaining 15 percent were given poor evaluations, demoted or harassed. http://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294968656 Only when we, the taxpayers, are finally fed up with our government being the playground for the vices and whims of individual managers and supervisors will things really start to change. Contact your U.S. Representative and your Senator to ask for real Whistleblower Protection today by supporting SB 121/HB 207. Contracts irregularities and mismanagement of our taxpayer’s dollars are costing Texas millions of dollars that could be used to support our school system, highways/road projects and health benefits for women and the mentally ill.