I have been reading how citizens have become frustrated with congress leaving on vacation and not settling issues before leaving. They should not be allowed payment, just like any other citizen that does not work. Also, they should not be allowed any type of retirement funding by the people, and should save as many Americans do when they retire. This also includes healthcare.

Higher education in the U.S. is being hijacked by vast amounts of cash flooding the campaign coffers of those who purport to represent us. Thanks to endless lobbying and limitless cash that has been showered upon members of Congress, including and especially House Speaker John Boehner, student loans have been stripped of all basic consumer protections. As long as our leaders in Washington continue to line their pockets with Sallie Mae's money, student loan borrowers will continue to get the shaft.

8th grade Social Studies: freeing the slaves. But what about those workers who are slaves in other countries because US business practices? Many fashion companies are producing overseas where people are treated like slaves. Computer Co. 14 hr. work days/6 day weeks Here, we pay high dollar for those items when workers should get better compensated.

We are all affected by the criminal activities of the banking industry. People are defrauded and they lose their retirement, their homes, and their hope for the future and faith in the entire system. When bankers act criminally they must be prosecuted for fraud, drug laundering and any other crime.

It's time to stop spending money to keep it illegal and tax it; Creating jobs and lowering national debt.

My petition is to make Puerto Rico the 51st state. Puerto Rico should become the 51st state because like Hawaii why not??

For Low-Income and Marginalized Entrepreneurs, getting financing via business loans is next to impossible. Few have the personal resources like savings to work from, and even fewer have the business connections to find private funding. What they DO HAVE are good business ideas, and lots of energy to make them work. If the Small Business Administration gave Government Grants to the poorest and most isolated of Entrepreneurs, we could CREATE JOBS WHERE THEY ARE MOST NEEDED. Grants would "even the playing field," and get jobs to the communities most in need.

Studies have proven THC kills tumors, reduces brain damage, protects the body from aging and more. Cannabis is a medicine safer than drinking beer and its time to stop hurting people. Despite the US government having a patent (US Patent 6630507 ) on cannabis as an anti-oxidant and neuroprotectant, openly admitting that it is a medicine, and despite a DEA ruling in the 80s that cannabis has tremendous potential as a medicine, their official policy has been to deny this and put people in jail for doing something better than the options out there which either do not work, or have such horrendous side-effects as to be hardly considered medicine in the first place. The reality is yes, addicts may need help, but happy people need freedom. The drug war is like racism, assuming all members of humanity that fall in a specific category are bad without exception and deserve punishment. Frankly, the war on drugs is just plain evil. Give people their medicine! There are cannabinoids present in breast milk, and those who have a deficiency of cannabinoids suffer from pain, mental illness, depression, hostility, and do not have a happy life. The endocannabinoid system is crucial to overcoming hundreds of diseases, all from one plant. Anyone who has lost a loved one due to medicine being illegal that they desperately need will tell you that to deny the hurt access to something proven to help them, something safer than anything on the market, is absurd. Cannabis is safer than beer. America constantly promotes the idea its "responsible" to relax with a mind-altering addictive drug, so why put people in prison for choosing a better option that helps them be good to their families and unwind from the stress of the day, let alone those needing it as the only medicine that not only works but often fully cures what is wrong!? If anything, cannabis makes ruling parties paranoid. It is time to leave the dark ages and treat compassion and reason as being more important than harming the innocent for the sake of appeasing pride.

We need a contests to name a CEO of the year. A company leader that does real good in the community or the Country and a prize in the form of a grant to be given to a favorite charity of that CEO. We need to make generosity and civic concern more popular. Greed is shameful and we need to make that more public as well.

Limit the Representives to only Two terms.

I am a mom of two elementary school-age children. I am also a special education teacher. In August of 2012, the North Carolina State Board of Education approved a motion to make mCLASS: Reading 3D the statewide reading assessment for grades K-3 beginning with the 2013-14 school year. The assessment is a web-based system; teachers use hand-held mobile devices to input student data, and each student’s detailed response data is uploaded to the mCLASS website. The system allows mCLASS to provide “historical profiles and reports of each student and classroom via the web,” (www.wirelessgeneration.com). mCLASS is owned and distributed by Wireless Generation, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation--the company that has been embroiled in scandal over its illegal and unethical methods of gathering and using confidential information, such as hacking into the phones of politicians, celebrities and murder victims. No parental consent will be required for mCLASS to collect and store our children’s information. New York state entered a $27 million no-bid contract with Wireless Generation after the company hired several of the state's top executives. Amid News Corporation’s phone hacking scandals, the contract was dropped over concerns about how the company would protect students’ privacy. Now North Carolina has entered into a contract with Wireless Generation. What will we get for our millions of dollars? What will we get from a partnership with a company headed by a man who views public education as a “monopoly” that should be “blown up” to make room for a competitive market in education? Rupert Murdoch believes in dismantling public education, replacing it with market forces and privatization. His for-profit company is entering contracts in multiple states to mine student performance "data" that can be compared to a standard set high enough to “prove” that public schools are “failing.” I don’t want my children’s assessment data to be in the hands of Wireless Generation, but my consent is not required. All I can do is ask the North Carolina Board of Education to follow the example set by New York and drop this contract.

Students that have graduated but can't get in their career should not have to pay back their student loans right away. It should be until they are in their careers, so that they have the money. I have been affected by fed loans and am unable to pay them because I work at a low wage job; nothing is open to work in my field that I got my degree in. I believe that us students should be forgiven until we make the money that we went to school for.