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However long we are keepers of the public trust we should never forget that we are here as public servants and public service is a privilege. It's not about advantaging yourself. It's not about advancing your friends or your corporate clients. It's not about advancing an ideological agenda or the special interests of any organization. Public service is, simply and absolutely, about advancing the interests of Americans.

They also deserve to know that there are rules on the books to keep it that way. They deserve a government that is truly of, by, and for the people.

The executive order on ethics I will sign shortly represents a clean break from business as usual.

I will summarize how the process will work and why citizen involvement over the next few weeks is critical.

On January 23rd, the United States Senate will reconvene to begin legislative business for 2012.  After the first order of business is taken care of, Majority Leader Harry Reid w

It is also possible that PIPA never makes it to the January 24th vote, but that depends on the public weighing in with their U.S. Senators before they come back to Washington D.C.  To begin countering the $94 million spent in lobbying in support of PIPA and SOPA, more than a million Americans have contacted Congress in opposition and citizen boycotts have forced corporations to withdraw their support of passage.  Now Senators are home and away from the D.C. lobby, which is the perfect time for citizens to ask their Senators to voice their opposition to PIPA before they return to Washington D.C.  If enough Senators publicly object to PIPA, then it is likely that consideration would be delayed in order to begin negotiating a compromise.  So it is important that the public try to meet with their two Senators and their home state staff and inform them on where they stand and ask their Senators to represent the public interest by standing with them.

HR 3166 and S. 1698 also known as the Enemy Expatriation Act, sponsored by Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA)

give the US government the power to strip Americans of their citizenship without being convicted of being “hostile” against the United States. In other words, you can be stripped of your nationality for “engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States.” Legally, the term “hostilities” means any conflict subject to the laws of war but considering the fact that the War on Terror is a little ambiguous and encompassing, any action could be labeled as supporting terrorism. Since the Occupy movement began, conservatives have been trying to paint the protesters as terrorists.

US government merely has to strip Americans of their citizenship and the NDAA will apply. And they will be able to do so without convicting the accused in a court of law.

the majority of the processed oil was already scheduled for export to foreign countries. That's' right, this Keystone XL pipeline's Canadian tar sands oil would have no positive impact whatsoever on America's national security.

Canada wanted to send the dirtiest oil on the planet through the heart of America so that they could access export routes. And they proposed getting there by bringing the pipeline right over the Ogallala Aquifer, one of America's most important repositories of fresh water. Along the route, Democrats and Republicans alike opposed it.Nocera never mentioned that a first pipeline just like the proposed Keystone XL, built by the same foreign company, TransCanada, had over 12 spills in the U.S. (30 if you count Canada) in just its first year of operation. Some of those spills have yet to be cleaned up.

In fact, when it comes to jobs and the Keystone XL pipeline, the State Department estimated it would create only 20 permanent jobs and about 5-6,000 temporary construction jobs... not the hundred thousand jobs proponents of the tar sands pipeline have been citing.The Keystone XL pipeline doesn't deliver on jobs or national security, it jeopardizes public health and safety and the president was right to reject it. And tar sands are not just "a little dirtier" than traditional crude as Nocera notes. Producing synthetic crude oil from tar sands generates three times the global warming pollution and the extraction process uses vast amounts of energy and water.

The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is the latest body to join the slew of retailers Stateside boycotting books from Amazon’s publishing division.

Barnes & Noble Our decision is based on Amazon’s continued push for exclusivity with publishers, agents and the authors they represent. These exclusives have prohibited us from offering certain eBooks to our customers.

businesses create political action committees, called PACs