In Ohio if you contribute to SERS (School Employee Retirement System) you are not eligible to collect social security. Ohio considers this double dipping, because if you worked for a school system you do not contribute to social security. Which is fine but there is one problem! What about the employee’s like my mother who worked 20 years before she became a teacher’s aide? She paid money into social security but because she decided to work for the school system she is forced to forfeit the 20 years she did contribute. This is simply not right. Would you want 20 years of saving for your retirement to disappear because you took another job? Ohio is the only state to have this Law.

Ordinary people need help participating in democracy.

Last weekend, Governor Rick Perry helped organize a massive, Christian-focused prayer rally called "The Response"—with taxpayers helping to pay the bill. Gov. Perry and the Texas Legislature should pay back any funds spent on "The Response" to Texas citizens, and they should not use state money to blatantly fund their own personal religious and political agendas.

The WPA program championed by FDR in the '30s put millions back to work building America. Virtually every community still enjoys the benefits of money well spent putting Americans back to work making this nation great. It's time for President Obama, members of Congress and the Senate to champion a WPA to Rebuild America, to champion our pride in American workers. SHARE WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW! SHARE IT AGAIN EVERY DAY! BE PART OF MAKING THIS GO VIRAL! ---------------------------------------

Being a Congressperson or Senator was never meant to be a career or lifetime position. No one should be supported by the citizens of the US for the rest of their lives for working as a congressperson for 5 years.

With only days remaining until the August 9 recall elections, right-wing groups are on overdrive trying to steal the election with shady and potentially illegal tactics. We have seen numerous accounts of voter suppression and confusion by groups such as Americans for Prosperity, We're Watching Wisconsin Elections and Right to Life.

As President, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, putting discrimination against lesbians and gay men into federal law. DOMA is terrible public policy. The Obama administration has decided the act is unconstitutional and will no longer defend it in federal court. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has introduced legislation in Congress to repeal DOMA. What better advocate for repeal of this highly discriminatory law than the man who put it into effect? Let's ask former President Clinton to actively join the effort to repeal DOMA.

Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board wants to close the children's ward, at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. This would force families to travel with sick children to hospitals in Glasgow, often with poor public transport access. The closure may also have a catastrophic domino effect on other services at the RAH.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett said that he wants to privatize Pennsylvania's state parks. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Corbett was asked what, besides the Liquor Control Board, might benefit from private-sector control. He replied: 'Prison health care and running state parks.' " We can't allow corporations to control state parks, using them to line the pockets of billionaires. Tell Gov. Corbett to stop selling PA to the highest bidder.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

US (the United States) needs jobs, at least 8 million of them to put ourselves back to work. We call upon the six major U.S. banks that were saved by the taxpayer-funded bailout to make the American economy whole by funding 1 million public service jobs and funding the Small Business Lending Fund, which is already in operation.

As concerned parents of the Conejo Valley Unified School District, we are writing to enlist your support in cultivating a healthier environment for our children. 72% of the US population is overweight or obese with one in three children overweight or obese. Obesity is the leading cause of death in America after smoking. Unless measures are taken to reduce obesity and improve the health of youth today many may live shorter lives than their parents for the first time ever. The Centers for Disease Control have stated: "Schools may have an ethical obligation to act in response to the precipitous increase in the incidence of obesity among children. Because children are required to spend half their waking hours in school and because they consume a substantial portion of their daily food there, school is a logical focus for efforts to encourage healthy dietary behaviors to prevent obesity and its consequent individual and collective costs...Opponents of school food regulation argue that people have the right to choose the foods they eat. However, we structure and regulate many student activities in the school setting and do not consider doing so an abridgment of children’s rights....For example, parents would rarely serve candy alongside vegetables on the dinner table and expect their children to choose the vegetables instead of the candy. Similarly, school authorities are responsible for offering foods from which the child can select but limiting choices to those that provide nutritional benefit rather than harm." Currently the majority of the food served in the CVUSD cafeterias is processed, re-heated meals which are high in sodium, preservatives, additives, and low in fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, freshly cooked meats, whole grains/pastas, etc. We want to have the staff of CVUSD kitchens to be trained in ‘scratch cooking’ and for fresh food to be purchased and prepared for school lunches (elementary, middle and high school). This approach has been successful at many local school districts (Oak Park USD, Ventura USD, Santa Barbara, and Carpentaria). We want our kids to eat healthy, freshly cooked meals instead of meals consisting of mostly processed food. While salad bars have been utilized in many Conejo Schools it does not undo the damage to our children being served a diet of mostly processed foods. Intervention is needed and we recognize the cost to staff training, which we parents will look to local donations to pay providing the district, cannot find funding for the project at this time. We want the district food service to agree that if training of staff can be funded, that they will in turn agree to fully support the scratch cooking project (buy fresh food, raw commodity foods, and assist and support staff in being adequately trained to produce more healthy meals). We would like outside, professional consultants to assist in menu development, training, and implementation of the new program that will meet the new recommendation put forth by the USDA School lunch program. Please see the other petitions involving healthy changes for CVUSD: http://www.parentsforhealthyschoollunch.com/sign_the_petitions_.html