Elected officials should not make commitments or promises to lobbyists or other politically motivated entities that obligate them to compromise thier duties to their constituents or to the nation. Many elected officials have done just that by signing the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" which obligates them to oppose all efforts to raise taxes or eliminate deductions not matched by further tax reductions regardless of the needs of the nation. By signing this pledge we, as the electorate, tell them that abdicating their responsibilities is unacceptable.

Verizon Wireless, the country's largest cellphone company, said Thursday that it will start charging $2 for every payment subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit cards. The company said this "convenience fee" will be introduced Jan. 15. The fee won't apply to electronic check payments or to automatic credit card payments set up through Verizon's AutoPay system. Paying by credit card in a Verizon store will also be free, as will mailing a check.

Verizon Wireless, the country’s largest cellphone company, said Thursday that it will start charging $2 for every payment subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit cards. Verizon said this “convenience fee’’ will be introduced Jan. 15. This is a blatant show of greed on Verizon's part. As consumers we are fed up and will not pay an added fee just to pay our bill.

Verizon will add a $2 fee for one-time telephone and online bill payments.The planned change, to take effect on January 15, was greeted by a storm of criticism.

Range voting (sometimes called “score” voting or other names) is basically a method whereby the voter provides a rating for each and every candidate for a given office, which expresses the voter’s strength of approval for each candidate (e.g., on a scale range of 1 indicating no support to 10, maximum approval). It's very difficult for a major third party to emerge in our country because of the voting system we currently use. But with range voting, you could, for example, freely vote strong approval for an unusual third party candidate you like while at the same time provide secondary, moderate backup approval to one of the candidates of the other two major parties as a "fall back" second choice in case your first preference does not win. You wouldn't have to feel inhibited about casting your one and only vote for the candidate you really like the most, for fear that you might "waste" your vote on a candidate not likely to win and possibly "split the vote" and help allow another very undesirable candidate to win with a plurality. Even if your favorite candidate does not win, your support for that candidate is still made known without the danger of your having contributed to spoiler outcomes. This recommendation is nonpartisan -- range voting could have potential benefits, depending on the situation, for conservatives, liberals, moderates or anyone else. Range voting or other similar alternative voting methods have been recommended in the past by Senator John McCain, President Obama, Ralph Nader and other political leaders. You can learn more about range voting via the internet.

This is about VERIZON choosing to add on a $2.00 convenience fee for using your cell phone or internet to make a payment. GREAT way to anger a client base by using less human power and charging your clients additional charges. DROP the Convenience FEES they are ONLY convenient for VERIZON.

As of January 2012, the state of Nevada will require a certificate of registration before one can fire perform, be it fire breathing, poi, or something else. This is a call to allow such performances during and at the Burning Man event without having to obtain a certificate.

This petition is to recall GA Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson from the U.S Senate. They were voted into office and sent to Washington to serve the interests of Georgia\'s legal citizens. They have betrayed that trust by selling us out in the current in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Both senators have betrayed public trust and violated the positions in office by a complete failure to perform duties prescribed by law; they have willfully misused, converted, or misappropriated, without authority, public property or public funds entrusted to or associated with the elective office to which the official has been elected or appointed. Discretionary performance of a lawful act or a prescribed duty shall not constitute a ground for recall of an elected public official. (Ga. Code §21-4-3(7) and 21-4-4(c)). Both senators have voted to do away with this Nation's Bill of Rights and more specifically our rights to due process under law.

A recent report by the American Bar Association [ABA] found that Kentucky's death penalty system is so broken and unfair that the state should declare a moratorium on executions. But a moratorium isn't enough. It is time to end the death penalty in Kentucky altogether. The 500-page ABA assessment found no uniform standards on eyewitness identifications and police interrogations, and a high error rate in death sentences, with more than 60 percent overturned on appeal. The study also found that Kentucky lacks safeguards to ensure that defendants with mental disabilities are not put to death. American Bar Association President Wm. (Bill) Robinson, along with former Kentucky Supreme Court Justices James E. Keller and Martin E. Johnstone, all of whom participated in the ABA assessment of Kentucky's death penalty system, recently wrote in the Courier-Journal, "The list of problematic cases is staggering, and review of the system is deeply troubling. Fairness, impartiality and effectiveness of counsel have been undermined by serious flaws that reveal systemic problems in administration of the death penalty in the commonwealth…" Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center and author of The Death Penalty in 2011: Year End Report, notes that the nation as a whole is backing away from the death penalty. “This year, the use of the death penalty continued to decline by almost every measure,” Dieter said . “Executions, death sentences, public support, the number of states with the death penalty all dropped from previous years. Whether it’s concerns about unfairness, executing the innocent, the high costs of the death penalty, or the general feeling that the government just can’t get it right, Americans moved further away from capital punishment in 2011.” "To make the leap that murder victim families are united in wanting a death penalty continues the critical oversimplification of “paying a price commensurate with their crimes” and the pathetic use of a grieving family at a parole hearing to justify another murder. I belong to two different organizations of murder victim families (thousands of us) that feel victim survivors are victimized yet again when murderers are given the gallows. My brother was murdered in 1986 and his murderer was poisoned to death in 1997 by the state of Missouri. That is why I work as a board member of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Don’t lay the need to continue executions down at victims’ feet. (You don’t know the voices of all of us.)" - Ben Griffith, in a letter-to-the-editor recently published by the Frankfort State-Journal. The death penalty is costly. The death penalty is out of step with modern thinking. The death penalty is risky. The death penalty is unfair, broken, and arbitrary. The death penalty is unnecessary. Victims' families deserve better. Kentucky’s death penalty is too broken to fix. It needs to be abolished.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a set up just waiting for abuse and erodes the foundation of our Constitution.

Have you been denied a claim by GEICO. Have you been accused of fraud by GEICO. If you have had any problems with GEICO this petition is for you.

Dear MoveOn Members: This morning's news: Mitt Romney now proposes to that organizations like National Public Radio (NPR), PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities be funded through paid advertisements and through private support from charities, exclusively. The facts are: 1) paid advertising goes completely against the intent and spirit of NPR and PBS and is the principal reason that programming on NPR and PBS remains relatively free from corporate influence. It can be argued that such influence would cause many worthwhile programs to evaporate due to corporate influence; 2) the nation's charities already give generously to NPR and PBS, while federal funds support the NEA and NEH. To ask our nation's already stressed charities to additionally fund work that, in many instances, they are ALREADY funding, is outrageous; and 3) the combined budgets of all FOUR of these organizations is a very, very small portion of the federal budget. Before we talk about cuts to these organizations, Gov. Romney, let's talk about cuts to the military and the many, many questionable subsidies and tax breaks given to any number of industries in this country.