The War on Drugs is an unjust conflict that illegally targets the poor and marginalized citizens of the United States. We ask the courts to award monetary compensation in the number of 1 Trillion dollars to the victims of this Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization.

We need community input and leadership centering the basic needs of most marginalized in our community that will be the most impacted by this closing. City leaders, council members, and Hyvee need to extend the closing date and provide an opportunity for open & democratic community commentary before making this closure.

Dear Governor Cuomo: I cannot begin to express my disappointment with many of the initiatives in your 2013-2014 NYS Budget and have to question many of your motives in regards to job creation, the $350 tax credit, and your education reform. In a time when the economy is leveling out at the national level, your proposals for the said above initiatives serve only a small amount of the middle class and negatively target the majority of the middle class. As a home-owner and taxpayer, my first question is why only families with children can receive this $350 tax credit? I have many relatives in retirement age who are on a fixed income. I would venture to guess that they are in more of a need for a tax relief than a working family who already receives a tax credit each year on their taxes for claiming their children. Likewise, there are many other individuals and couples who struggle regularly that could benefit from the $350 tax credit. To isolate these citizens from a tax credit is, in my opinion, a disregard for the “entire” middle class. To be completely honest, a better choice would actually be to take that tax credit and put it towards the schools for more efficient funding, as funding has continually declined each year over the past five years! These $350 rebate checks will cost $1.2 billion over the next three years. Why not fund schools instead?? I addition, I would like to know why the $181 million “Hiring Tax Credit” is limited to youth workers? I know plenty of adults who are in the lower and middle class that would benefit from being employed, rather than being on unemployment. It would seem that these jobs your tax credit is focusing on minimum wage jobs curtailed to teenagers, rather than individuals trying to support themselves. Likewise, it would also seem that those individuals who are not a military veteran are being left out, as the permanent tax credit for businesses are for those that hire veterans. Additionally, the “Investing in the Economy of Tomorrow” initiative, with all the good intentions to promote higher education groups, should not be isolated to private-sector only jobs. There are thousands of individuals in the public sector as well that are being ignored through this initiative. On a third matter of your 2013-2014 budget, I feel your education reform is very short-sighted, as you have tied the entire $75 million of the said funding initiatives as conditional, rather than guaranteed funding that schools need! For starters, the $25 million funding to Pre-K, while generous, is for a program that is not offered by every school district, such as grades K-12. There are school districts in my area, as well as across the state that are threatening to cut Kindergarten, which is essential! With that in mind, funding for Pre-K seems irrelevant when Kindergarten is being threatened. Your Community in Schools initiative is one that I cannot quite wrap my head around. When I read that you are for “transforming schools into community hubs” the first thing that comes to mind is “regional schools.” Are you aware that NYS has always been ahead in education because we have maintained school districts in a smaller locale, compared to those that have regional schools, such as the schools in the southern states? The $15 million that is being put towards community hubs would be better utilized by funding the poorer school districts you speak of. School districts across the state are going into insolvency because you are choosing to cut funding to them and tying it into prerequisites. Is this your goal; to bankrupt schools and create regional schools that are charter-run? Charter schools, Mr. Governor, are for-profit. Do you want to make a profit off of our children? If you are in support of our children’s education, then you will see it fit to fund our schools properly! I also have to question your motives for rewarding high-performing teachers. Contrary to your belief, the teachers that educate our children go above-and-beyond for their students. I am well-aware of the new teacher evaluation system that you forced upon the teachers’ union. I am well aware of the criticism of tenure and your slighted view that teachers don’t deserve the respectable pay and benefits they have rightfully worked hard to earn. There is no question that teachers who maintain excellence SHOULD be in the classroom and HAVE earned their positions as educators. Why tie school funding into teacher evaluations when the funding is necessary so our children can HAVE those teachers that provide the essential programs our children need to succeed in the 21st Century? Pitting teachers against each other to obtain the $11 million funding lowers the quality of education by circumventing actual teaching skills for teaching-to-the-test. This $11 million funding would be better served to sustain programs that are being destroyed due to the lack of funding that you have created. It is without...

It’s rare for the death of an animal to make the news, but wolf 832F was a bona fide celebrity — one of Yellowstone’s most visible and popular wolves — and her death led to a public outpouring of grief. Making her death even more tragic was the fact that she had been wearing an expensive GPS tracking collar, which allowed scientists to follow her every move and gain crucial insight into the lives of gray wolves. In recent years, there has been much pontificating about how modern communications technologies are changing the way that we relate to other people. Less discussed is the way these advances are reshaping our relationships with other species. By using satellite and cellular tags to track free-ranging animals, biologists are providing us with intimate access to the daily lives of other species, drawing us closer to the world’s wild things and making us more invested in their welfare. Over the past several decades, the use of wildlife tags has proliferated as the devices have become smaller and more powerful. Today’s tags are capable of collecting months’ or years’ worth of data on an animal’s location at a given moment, and can be used to track everything from tiny tropical orchid bees to blubbery, deep-diving elephant seals. The devices provide crucial information about populations — helping scientists uncover the migratory pathways of Arctic terns or the ocean currents that loggerhead sea turtles like to surf — as well as individuals. Is this particular predator a pack leader or a lone wolf? A dedicated hunter or a mooch? How much time does it spend with its pups? Who are its associates, rivals and mates? Learning about the personalities and life histories of individual animals can prompt affection for these creatures, even if we never meet them. Thousands of people followed wolf 832F’s escapades online; park visitors posted photos and discussed her on message boards. After she died, Yellowstone officials even received outraged phone calls. (There was nothing the park could have done — Wyoming’s gray wolves were removed from the endangered species list late last summer, opening the door for legal hunting. Sadly, wolf 832F was the eighth wolf with a tracking collar to be killed by ranchers over the course of this hunting season.) Some scientists are beginning to provide the public with direct access to tracking data. For instance, the leaders of the Tagging of Pacific Predators project, a 10-year tracking study of 23 different marine species, created a Web site broadcasting the movements of their subjects in real time (or close to it). While the project lasted, anyone with an Internet connection could follow the wanderings of Monty, the mako shark, Genevieve, the leatherback turtle, or Jon Sealwart and Stelephant Colbert, both northern elephant seals. The scientists supplemented the data with photos and profiles of some of the animals, as well as online trading cards and Facebook profiles. Bird lovers can follow the migrations of bald eagles through EagleTrak, run by the Center for Conservation Biology. The group provides detailed updates on the journeys of two eagles, Camellia and Azalea, and people can “adopt” the birds with a donation of $25 or more. Each bird has around a hundred “adoptive parents,” proving how attached we can get to a wild creature when we have a name and a life story to assign to it. This technology is still evolving, and we’ve only just scratched the surface of what’s possible. In the years to come, perhaps wildlife biologists will take a page from the creators of Teat Tweet, a yearlong project featuring 12 tagged dairy cows and an automatic milking machine. Each cow was given her very own Twitter account, and a program broadcast her milking stats to all her followers. On July 14, 2011, for instance, a cow named Goldwyn Windy tweeted, “I just squirted 18.9 kgs of milk out of my teats in 7:10 minutes. What did you do today?” Of course, tweeting cows are pretty silly, and we don’t need technology to get to know an animal. Many of those who came to care about wolf 832F simply visited the park and watched her in her natural habitat. But sadly, too few of us have the chance to experience that, and while virtual encounters can’t replace the real-life kind, they may be the next best thing. What’s more, tracking projects may be our best hope for getting the public to invest in conservation. We may be able to ignore a nameless, faceless mass of threatened creatures, but fill in their personalities and back stories, and it becomes harder to look the other way as their habitats disappear or they are hunted to extinction. A famous animal can become an ambassador for its species, inspiring efforts to conserve the entire population. Indeed, after wolf 832F’s death, the National Wolfwatcher Coalition started a fund-raising campaign in her honor, donating the proceeds to wolf research and education programs. If her death raises awareness about our wolves’ struggles and leads to mo...

Dear Respected Board of Education Members: We are parents of middle schoolers, mostly eighth graders, in Edison school district. We want to bring to your attention certain concerns that parents and students have relating to the current placement criteria for incoming 9th graders at J.P. Stevens High School. We understand that according to the current placement criteria, being placed in Honors level in a given subject is dependent on being in Honors level in a completely different subject. However, we do not believe that this linking of subjects is beneficial to the students' academic progress or emotional well-being. For example, placement into 9th grade Social Studies Honors is based on a student's English placement. And if a non-Honors student wants to move up to Social Studies AP level in 10th grade, it is again linked to their English grade. Similarly, for a student to be eligible for Science (Bio) Honors in 9th grade, the student must also be eligible for Math Honors as well as English Honors. And there is no possibility for a non-Honors student to move up to Science Honors in 10th and 11th grades, regardless of their score in 9th grade. As you may appreciate, under these criteria, a student who is proficient at the highest level in a given subject will not be able to pursue it at the highest level simply because the student is not equally proficient at the highest level in one or more different subjects. While all subjects are important and have some relation to one another, the considerations in the practical world are very different. For example, a Social Studies major does not necessarily need English proficiency at the highest level. Likewise, for a Science student who may end up becoming an engineer or a doctor or a scientist, English is not necessarily needed at the highest proficiency level. Similarly, for a Science student who may end up becoming a doctor, Math is not necessarily needed at the highest proficiency level. Thus, the current criteria appear to be aimed at randomly reducing the Honors class size by preventing deserving students from pursuing the very subject that they are good at in more depth. Other existing criteria, such as the steep-step assessment points calculation for PSAT/Writing and over-used teacher recommendations, only reinforce this. Under the current system, students who did not do well in 7th or 8th grade English and Math are permanently blocked from taking the entire science honors track in high school. This will not only be a disservice to the students' talents and punishing them for something irrelevant but will also adversely affect the students' emotional health. In the real world, a lot of students in 7th and 8th grade are still not mature enough to know the need to study. And preventing them from making it back to the honors track if they miss the boat in middle school will impact their self-confidence. Their motivation to advance - a critical skill to develop for success in high school and beyond - may also be lost. As one of the leading school districts in the state, we are sure that the Board would like to avoid such unintended consequences. We hope that the high school motivates every kid to excel and provides opportunities to truly develop their talents, wherever those talents may lie. We respectfully request the Board to revisit these placement criteria. Below are some suggestions we hope the Board will consider: 1. Social Studies placement should only depend on Social Studies grades and not be linked to another subject. 2. Science placement should only depend on Science grades and not be linked to other subjects. 3. Reduce the weight given to PSAT as the cut-off is too restrictive and tapping the cream of the cream. The students in our school district should not be penalized because we have such an overwhelming majority of high-achievers. Besides, the PSAT was administered for the first time this year with virtually no notice. 4. Use a continuous and proportional scale rather than a steep step one for assessment points. Currently, a score of 600 on PSAT gets 25 points in the final rubric while a score of 590 gets only 20 points. Similarly, a score of 93 on Writing Assessment provides 25 points while a score of 92 provides only 20 points. So, a student scoring merely 2 points lower in PSAT and Writing Assessment ends up losing 10 points and likely not making the honors class. This tiny difference is magnified 5 times across all 5 subjects. 5. Use teacher recommendations only to promote students. E.g., eliminate the 10-point recommendations from the rubric, and only put it back to boost the students who just miss the cut-off. Currently, more than 50% of the points (assessments and grades) already come from the teachers. Teacher recommendations are subjective and vary widely across schools and across teachers. A recommendation should not serve to demote any student. 6. Give equal weight to 7th-grade final grade as to the first 3 mark...

28th Amendment 1. Congress shall pass no law nor receive any privilege for its members (except for salary) unless all US Citizens receive the same benefit or privilege. a) The Supreme Court members shall also receive no special privilege or benefit (except for salary) as mentioned above. b) Congress shall not receive an increase in pay unless either: The National Budget is balanced OR the National Minimum wage is increased. 2. Congress Shall be limited to 2 (two) terms total. a) The President Shall be elected by popular vote (eliminating the Electoral College). 3. All Elections for Congress and the Office of President: a) Campaigns shall be no longer than 12 weeks before Election Day. b) Shall spend no more than $2 million per seat, by the candidate, the party, the cause or any person or entity on behalf of said candidate or cause. Presidential candidates are limited as above to $2 million per state. * c) Political & Election contributions shall be limited to one per election per person of no more than $100.* *Congress may change these amounts every Census, to an amount equal or less than the cost of living increases for Social Security. d) Persons shall be defined as Human Beings. e) Corporations are not people, therefore do not get civil liberties, also corporations cannot donate to political campaigns and shall be regulated by State and Federal laws. 4. All members of Congress, The President and all of the staffs, representatives of the elected official shall when meeting with Lobbyists, representatives, or any persons concerning government shall be recorded for public viewing. A) All elected officials, their staff & representatives shall not be allowed to work for a period of 10 years (after employment, service or term) for any lobbyist, company, consultants, or any firm, which the Government or Elected Official (or staff) has also had any Business or legislative mingling. B) Eminent Domain shall only be exercised by Government.

Warren Buffet, in a interview with CNBC, Offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling: "I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," He toldCNBC. "you just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. 1. The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971 - before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year or less to become the law of the land - all because of public pressure. Congressional Reform Act of 2012 1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office. 2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose. 3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. 4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

Congressional Reform Act of 2012 1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. 2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose. 3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. 4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/01/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. 8. Term limits. Each Senator or member of the House of Representatives shall serve only TWO terms. 9. No person who has served in the U.S. Congress will EVER be permitted to be employed as a lobbyist after that time. Lawyers will not be permitted to represent clients that wish to establish a relationship with the Federal Government. 10. All campaigns for election to any position in the U.S. Government shall be twelve weeks in length. 11. All candidates shall receive the exact same amount of money from the Federal Government for the purposes of paying for an election campaign. No private fundraising shall be permitted, and no organization shall be permitted to buy advertising or promotional space for the purpose of supporting (or defaming) a candidate.

Opting Out of High-Stakes Testing September 16th, 2011 By Donald Bartalo ([email protected]) A petition to be delivered to: Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York State Senate and Assembly, and the citizens of the State of New York. We the undersigned parents/guardians, exercise our Free Speech Right as found in Article 1, Section 8 of the New York State Constitution: “Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects.” The subject that we have chosen to speak out against is standardized testing. The State of New York, along with many states across the United States, has a complex system of standardized tests that are given to all public school students in grades 3-12. The scores from these standardized tests are used for everything from measuring student achievement, determining grade retention and high school graduation, comparing school districts on a statewide report card, and evaluating teachers and principals. To quote from the New York State Education Law (Article 7-A, 340-4): “A test subject means an individual to whom a test is administered.” These test subjects are our children. There has never been a time in the history of the State of New York when so many standardized tests are being administered to so many test subjects who attend New York State public schools. There is every reason to believe that the New York State Education Department and the Board of Regents will continue to be enthusiastic about the use of high-stakes standardized testing. We believe, however, just the opposite. We believe that the overuse of standardized testing has become so harmful to our children, teachers, and principals that we need to opt our children out of standardized testing. This is a drastic step, but the time has come for drastic measures. We, the undersigned citizens, support parents/guardians in their beliefs about standardized testing and their effort to opt their public school-aged children out of standardized testing.

 Over the past few weeks, repeated power outages have struck buildings in Ballston and Virginia Square, Virginia,  cutting power to thousands of residents for up to 12 hours straight!  What’s the problem? Dominion Energy has failed to communicate with residents and building management every step of the way:  • Dominion failed to notify rate payers about planned outages;  • Dominion misinformed rate payers about when planned outages would occur; • Dominion provided contradictory information about whether outages were planned or unplanned;  • Dominion provided incorrect information about when the issues might be fully resolved, promising that each planned outage would be the last.  Dominion Energy refuses to compensate affected rate payers for the ongoing inconvenience, uncertainty, and health risks resulting from these repeated, hours long outages during Northern Virginia’s hottest summer on record. Only now, after weeks and many complaints, has Dominion started accepting that these outages are their responsibility, and that they must compensate affected rate payers for expenses such as hotels and spoiled groceries. But they still refuse to compensate rate payers for outages if the rate payer can’t document specific damages through Dominion’s complicated claims process.  What do we need? We need information, we deserve compensation, and we deserve an explanation:  • Dominion must keep us informed about ongoing work with timely and accurate updates on both unplanned and planned outages, as well as steps being taken to fully resolve ongoing equipment issues.  • Dominion must compensate affected rate payers for these outages, which Dominion has acknowledged are due to their own equipment failing!  • Dominion must explain how it will prevent strings of outages like this from occurring in the future, and Dominion must provide a full explanation of the reason for the outages that have already happened. Dominion has given us too much contradictory information, and needs to rebuild trust with its rate payers!