Jim Hood has a proven track record of protecting consumers, homeowners, business owners, and survivors of disaster from predatory big banks, credit ratings agencies, oil companies, pharmaceutical giants, and insurance firms. He isn't beholden to corporate special interests, and has stepped up to the plate every time citizens unable to compete with the immense legal resources of large conglomerates have been wronged by greedy practices. As Mississippi's Attorney General since 2003, Hood helped secure federal intervention when BP wasn't paying out claims to victims of the 2010 oil spill in the gulf of Mexico, sued 6 major banking institutions in 2012 when they slammed consumers with unexplained monthly fees, gained an $18 million settlement from pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly for their deceptive marketing of the drug Zyprexa, and stood up for victims of Hurricane Katrina in court when insurance companies wrongfully denied their claims. We need a U.S. attorney general that isn't afraid to stand up to big money and who has a track record of bringing results. Jim Hood is the truest example of what our nation's top lawyer should be.

Background: In 2011, the Swedish government under prime minister Fredrik Reinfelt decided to participate in the Nato-led attack on Libya, which has led to chaos in Libya and caused many Libyans to flee their country. It is obvious that Sweden's involvement was much motivated by the desire to use the Swedish warplane Gripen in war, in order to help the manufacturer SAAB in the promotion of further sales of the plane. In August 2014, prime minister Fredrik Reinfelt appealed to the Swedish people to open their hearts to refugees. It would be a terrible hypocrisy if he does not also apologize to the people, who have become refugees in part because of his government's decision regarding Libya. Image: "Gripen ag2". Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0-fr via Wikimedia Commons

It’s important because there is so much misinformation and disinformation in the media that we are careening towards a new cold war with Russia over this. Initial Signatories for petition: (Organizations for Identification Only) Hon. Douglas Roche, OC, Canada David Swanson, co-founder, World Beyond War Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space Alice Slater, JD, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NY Professor Francis A. Boyle, University of Illinois College of Law Natasha Mayers, Union of Maine Visual Artists David Hartsough, co-founder, World Beyond War Larry Dansinger, Resources for Organizing and Social Change Ellen Judd, Project Peacemakers Coleen Rowley, Women Against Military Madness Medea Benjamin, Code Pink Brian Noyes Pulling, M. Div. Anni Cooper, Peaceworks Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Leah Bolger, CDR, USN (Ret), Veterans for Peace Raymond McGovern, former CIA analyst, VA Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance Gloria McMillan, Tucson Balkan Peace Support Group Ellen E. Barfield, Veterans for Peace Cecile Pineda, author. Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step Jill McManus Steve Leeper, Visiting professor, Hiroshima Jogakuin University,Nagasaki University Kyoto University of Art and Design William H. Slavick, Pax Christi Maine Helen Caldicott, Helen Caldicott Foundation David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Brigadier Vijai K Nair, VSM [Retd] Ph.D. , Magoo Strategic Infotech Pvt Ltd Kevin Martin, Peace Action Carol Reilly Urner, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Ann E. Ruthsdottir Kay Cumbow Steven Starr, Senior Scientist, Physicians for Social Responsibility Tiffany Tool, Peaceworkers Sukla Sen, Committee for Communal Amnity, Mumbai India Joan Russow, PhD, Coordinator, Global Compliance Research Project Rob Mulford, Veterans for Peace, North Star Chapter, Alaska Jacqueline Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, United for Peace and Justice Ingeborg Breines, Co-president International Peace Bureau Judith LeBlanc, Peace Action Felicity Ruby Jerry Stein, The Peace Farm, Amarillo , Texas Michael Andregg, professor, St. Paul, Minnesota Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council, ret.: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Washington Robert Shetterly, artist, “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” Maine Katharine Gun, United Kingdom Dave Webb, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK Amber Garland, St. Paul, Minnesota John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus Beverly Bailey, Richfield, Minnesota Joseph Gerson, Convener, Working Group for Peace & Demiitarization in Asia and the Pacific Stephen McKeown, Richfield, Minnesota Dominique Lalanne, France Bill Rood, Rochester, Minnesota Tom Klammer, radio host, Kansas City, Missouri Barbara Vaile, Minneapolis, Minnesota Mali Lightfoot, Helen Caldicott Foundation Tony Henderson, spokesperson for universal humanism, Hong Kong Darlene M. Coffman, Rochester, Minnesota Sister Gladys Schmitz, Mankato, Minnesota Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.) J. Kirk Wiebe, NSA Senior Analyst (ret.), MD William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.) Jill Stein, Green Party 2012 Presidential nominee Cheri Honkala, Green Shadow Cabinet Ed Asner Norman Solomon, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Agneta Norberg, Sweden Rick Rosoff, Stop NATO Kathleen Sullivan, Hibakusha Stories Michael Eisenscher, US Labor Against the War Clare Coss, playwright Jean-Marie Matagne, President, Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire (France) Carolyn Rusti Eisenberg, United for Peace and Justice Ben Manski, president, Liberty Tree Foundation

Florida advertises itself as the Sunshine State; but, power company executives and regulators have worked successfully to keep most Floridians from using that sunshine to generate their own power. Typical business models, like leasing, plus tax rebates, have made solar systems affordable for millions of homeowners around the country. These practices are largely illegal in Florida. Agencies like JEA have a monopoly on electricity and are gouging rate-payers. Please sign the petition and urge the governor to introduce legislation that would make leasing solar panels legal in Florida and allow residents to sell back any excess power the systems generate on their homes any other properties.

The militarized lockdown and attack on Ferguson's Black community is not an anomaly. Police repression is growing across the US and globally through coordinated efforts to militarize policing tactics and weapons. Local police departments are now directly funded by the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense. From September 4th-8th, one such DHS-backed program, Urban Shield, will be hosted by Oakland's Marriott Hotel Convention Center through a contract with the City of Oakland. This event - hosting SWAT training, national and transnational police networking, and weaponry sales - is coordinated by the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI.) UASI is an initiative in which the St. Louis area police actively participate. The military tanks, tear-gas, rubber bullets and SWAT armor attacking the people of Ferguson are there because of these programs. People across communities are rising up to resist policing. We cannot allow this engine of state repression to continue. Take a stand with War Resisters League and our partners in Oakland to oppose Marriott's profiteering from the militarized repression of our communities. Build pressure against Urban Shield and the Marriott Hotel - sign and share this petition as a nonviolent demonstration of people power!

In a 5–1 ruling Monday, the California Supreme Court struck down Proposition 49, the "Overturn Citizens United Act" -- a California ballot measure seeking public input on whether the US Congress should pass an amendment to allow regulation of campaign spending and ending corporate personhood. This effectively robs citizens of California of the opportunity to have our voices heard regarding the corporate ownership of our government and the lavish amounts of money spent in electoral campaigns. Any effort on the part of the people to rein in the twisting of our democracy and laws in favor of corporate interest will be met with the same resistance. It’s up to us to make sure that our elected officials make THE PEOPLE the priority. The Pledge to Amend campaign, organized by the national Move to Amend Coalition, mobilizes citizen activists to engage and hold accountable political candidates through a public commitment to ending corporate personhood and money as speech. Please sign the petition stating your commitment to ONLY SUPPORT candidates who make ending corporate Constitutional rights and money as speech a priority.

Eden Foods Inc., the company that produces Eden Organics, sued the Obama Administration because it doesn’t want to provide health insurance coverage for birth control for its employees because birth control violates the religious beliefs of the CEO of the company. That lawsuit failed last year, but now the United States Supreme Court has ruled that family-owned companies like Eden Foods can deny health insurance coverage for birth control. By signing this petition you will let Michael Potter, the CEO of Eden Foods, know that you are boycotting all Eden Food products until he reverses his position and provides health insurance coverage for legal medical substances and procedures to his employees, without regard for his personal religious objections. After signing the petition, you can also call Eden Foods, toll-free, and tell Michael Potter directly that you are boycotting his company's products: Michael Potter 888-424-3336 Please sign this petition to Michael Potter now.

Iraq needs actual aid, not "military aid." A policy of promoting, facilitating, and engaging in violence has produced nothing but disasters for decades.

We note with great concern that U.S. and other NATO troops are scheduled to participate in joint military exercises in Ukraine in July as part of NATO’s Rapid Trident maneuvers. Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Its participation in military exercises by a nuclear-armed alliance with a first-strike policy can only further destabilize the country.

At an idyllic place called Cove Point, just 50 miles south of the White House on the Chesapeake Bay, a company called Dominion Resources wants to build a massive export terminal to take gas from fracking wells across Appalachia, liquefy it and ship it overseas to be burned in Asia. Cove Point would be the first liquefied natural gas, or LNG, export terminal on the East Coast. It would trigger massive new amounts of climate pollution and incentivize a wave of new fracking and pipelines across the region – all so a few gas companies can make bigger profits. Given evidence that Dominion’s proposed Cove Point project will harm regional air and water quality, increase the demand for dangerous natural gas fracking, and trigger an exorbitant amount of greenhouse gas pollution – potentially equal to all of Maryland’s coal-fired power plants combined – this project is not in the public interest. The only way that FERC could possibly justify the Cove Point project is by sweeping the dangers under the rug, and that’s exactly what the draft “Environmental Assessment” (EA) does. If FERC takes any next step on this project, it must be to conduct a full, comprehensive, and credible Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), specifically one that: 1) Analyzes the “upstream” damage that Cove Point could trigger via expanded fracking and gas infrastructure, given that a major Pennsylvania fracking company – Cabot Oil & Gas - has committed to pipe gas to Cove Point for export. 2) Accounts for the cumulative, lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions Cove Point would trigger from fracking well to pipeline to tanker ship to final smoke stack. 3) Includes an independent, quantitative risk assessment of explosion hazards that could reach nearby homes. FERC’s reliance on Dominion’s own data – and Dominion’s proposed system of untested “vapor barrier” walls -- to dismiss off-site safety concerns is unacceptable. Any thorough and credible examination of the impacts of this project will show that the public and the environment will come out a significant loser, while the gas industry profits. I urge you to deny Dominion’s application right now or, at absolute minimum, conduct a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement. FERC recently released a draft environmental review of this Cove Point project that sweeps its dangers under the rug – paving the way for Dominion and the gas industry. During the 30-day public comment period, it’s our turn to speak, and we need to make a LOT of noise. Find out more information at stopcovepoint.org!

In 2014, on the one century anniversary of World War I, European nations are again mobilizing for war. The “War to All End Wars” began on July 28, 1914 and ended on November 11, 1918, killing more than 9 million combatants. A 2014 war, involving the major European powers and the U.S., could kill many millions more. The Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors loaded with a 1000 tons or more of radioactive fuels. The largest nuclear reactor in Europe is on the Dnieper River, a little north of Crimea. Plus, there are the 4 Chernobyl reactors, still leaking radiation, still needing constant attention. The world cannot afford war in a region with nuclear reactors. Veterans For Peace, a U.S.-based organization of ex-military members and associates, has been following the crisis in Ukraine very closely. We who have experienced the horror and futility of war feel compelled to act urgently to head off the very real threat of war between nuclear-armed nations. We are appalled at the misinformation coming from the U.S. government officials and the mass media alike. The American people are not being told the truth: that the U.S. and western European nations bear much responsibility for this crisis by aggressively expanding NATO, even to the borders of Russia; that neo-Nazi militias played key roles in the violent overthrow of the Ukrainian government, that those same right-wing extremists now hold key positions in the interim Ukrainian government, which is being advised by CIA and FBI agents as it attacks Russian-speaking activists in eastern Ukraine, now conveniently labeled “terrorists.” It is critically important that we understand and take into account the legitimate concerns of different national groups and regions within Ukraine, and that we encourage diplomacy and a nonviolent outcome to this dangerous crisis. Washington and its European allies ought to reverse course and turn Ukraine into a field of cooperation rather than confrontation with Russia. Good relations with both Russia and the European Union are in the best interests of all the Ukrainian people. A just and peaceful resolution that averts the threat of war is in the interests of all the world's people. Veterans For Peace wishes to thank Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) for providing us with some of the analysis and wording for this petition.

The Iraqi government is struggling with a devastated nation, in the wake of a war that killed a half a million to a million-and-a-half people, created millions of refugees, destroyed infrastructure, healthcare and education, and left behind environmental contamination that has produced an epidemic of cancer and birth defects. Using U.S. weapons, the Iraqi government is attacking other Iraqis, under the false belief that eventually this endless cycle of sectarian violence will lead to a stable civil society at peace with its neighbors and itself. What it is producing is more sectarian conflict that is degenerating into a civil war. Caught between the government and private militias are Iraqi citizens who simply want to rebuild their country and lead their lives in peace. And now U.S. troops and more arms are being sent back into what is quite clearly a civil war. We've been down that road before. We can't bomb Iraq into becoming a stable democratic country. If Iraqis establish a stable government that fairly represents all Sunnis, Shia, Kurds and Christians, ISIS will become isolated. If they do not, sending fighters, bombers, drones (and eventually troops) will only create another generation of Iraqis who see the U.S. as the enemy. This petition was posted by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)