Almost all gas-producing states impose a severance tax of some kind on natural gas drilling, because once the resource is gone, it's gone--and hydrofracturing can leave behind serious damage just as the coal industry did. A "frack tax" will make sure that Pennsylvania has the resources to respond to these challenges.

Our democracy is dysfunctional. Wealthy interests underwrite the campaigns of their favorite candidates, then these elected officials become their servants rather than servants of the common good. How else could a few Americans have oppressed the rest of us with credit default swaps, health insurers able to rescind sick patients, and economic policy tilted towards the few wealthiest citizens? A single legislative initiative will restore a vital democratic process in America. We need a constitutional amendment making all House, Senate, and Presidential campaigns entirely publicly financed.

Despite denouncing a doctored and discredited video aired by Andrew Breitbart, the University of Missouri St Louis pressured Adjunct Professor Don Giljum to resign, refusing him both due process and support defending his rights automatically accorded tenured faculty. Professor Giljum's treatment is representative of the contingent academic labor system. Reintstating him with an apology is not only right and fair but would send a message to higher education about unfair and inherently immoral labor practices.

Take a look at this and tell me it won't fix Congress. It will! One thing that is abundantly clear is that Washington DC, and Congress in particular, is very messed up. This legislation will create a substantially different atmosphere for our elected ones, and they had better be there to SERVE US AND NOT THEMSELVES!

The decolonization of Puerto Rico should be carried out according to the United Nation's Resolution 1514(XV) of the General Assembly of 1960. Such resolution is considered the Magna Charta of decolonization. Independence is an inalienable right. Further all Puerto Rican political prisoners should be freed.

It is noted that the vast majority of the hatred for America where found tends to be due to and related to the support America gives to the existence and expansion of the Israeli state -- not to the reality of any American "freedoms." The foreign aid and national expenditures towards those ends, including conducting wars of proxy for Israel at American cost and lives, need to draw to a dramatic halt in the absence of a proper existence of both states. Israel needs to withdraw to its 1949 borders and make peace with the Palestinian peoples in return for a pledge to democracy by both states, receive secure guaranteed borders, and guarantees of access to fresh water. The United States must forewarn Israel, and to an appropriate extent the Palestinians, that it intends to decrease real support where counterproductive to America's true interests, although not necessarily denying moral support, at the rate of 10% per year for the region to the extent it does not find a way to legitimate, lasting peace -- with the possibility the end could result in zero financial and military support both directly and by proxy. This approach also is a partial way to stop otherwise unrelated regional entities from using the Palestinian-Israeli problem as a means of pursuing a dream of imposing an otherwise inappropriate intellectual, regional caliphate, except that it be arrived at by legitimate democracy thru those affected, and aside from Israel. In this view, Israel would be treated by the United States as an equal foreign partner and ally, for example, as Great Britain and France.

Currently, the USA has no requirement to require Monstanto and their ilk to tell us when they're using genetically modified (GMO) agricultural products in things we eat or things that animals that we eat, eat. The EU and most civilized countries have this requirement, and further, don't allow imports of GMO agricultural products. The US consumer has the right to know that what they're eating may have been genetically modified. Let us make our own minds up on this: GMOs are an ongoing experiment on the population of our country and a heart-wrenching manifestation of corporate power run amok.

After 9/11, congressional leaders fought for increased benefits for our military veterans. But with President Obama's signing of the Veterans Educational Assistance Act, living allowances will now be cut for all student veterans attending school, leaving 270,000 soldiers-turned-students and their families without money needed for rent, food and clothing during every school break--including Christmas. Join with Student Veterans of America, Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Susan Davis (D-CA) in support of the Post 9/11 GI Bill Payment Restoration Act to prevent this cutoff from taking effect on Aug. 1. Send a clear message to Congress and the White House: don't leave our nation's heroes out in the cold.

I think it's time to make the Bush Administration face the penalty for the Catastrophe they are responsible for. The deaths of almost 1.5 million people, the invasion of a sovereign Nation based on lies, and the authorization of torture. I also feel we should impeach George W Bush, and Richard Cheney for their crimes, as well as Condoleeza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld

Close the base in Saudi Arabia that is so close to Mecca that some Muslims feel the need to defend. Create an international Gaza Strip that belongs to everyone perhaps it could be a United Nations duty free zone and the US could help with the military policing so we are still in the region. Small steps World Peace...

The so-called Secure Communities program is an immigration enforcement tool between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and New York State. It requires police to fingerprint all persons processed and to send the prints to ICE. This leads to an increase in the deportation of non-criminal immigrants and tears families apart. It undermines trust in the police and makes us less safe. Gov. Cuomo should rescind the agreement.

In order for America to survive, we must get the private Federal Reserve Bank out of the equation in all Federal government spending. We need to print our money ourselves, spend it directly into our economy for highways, bridge repair, railroad upgrades etc. rather than issue bonds which the Federal Reserve buys with Federal Reserve Notes (look at the money in your pocket) that they print out of thin air (counterfeit) and then charge the U.S. Government (that's us) interest on the bonds in addition to the face value of the bond all of which is our debt. Without this change, it is mathematically impossible for America to survive.