A Hinckley Township native, inspired to start her company after she contracted malaria when she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, is the “Small Business Person of the Year.”

With the national unemployment rate continuing to hover near the 8 percent mark, bringing jobs and businesses back to the United States is a focus for legislators and local residents.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said growth in the backlog of veterans claims needing attention prompted him to draft the Veteran's Service Outreach Act, which would require the Veteran's Affairs Administration to notify veterans of resources in their community that can help.

Republican Josh Mandel’s U.S. Senate campaign returned $105,000 in contributions under investigation by federal authorities, a Mandel spokesman confirmed late last night.

Obama for America released a new television ad focusing on the President's work with veterans returning home from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Again, this reinforces the commitment our President has to supporting veterans and military family members. By increasing educational benefits, creating job opportunies and  providing health care coverage, the Commander-in Chief is keeping his sacred trust with our returning veterans. Watch the ad and join us today to ensure we continue making progress in our community.

This election is about our rights. And it's about the future—about the kids out there who need to know they can grow up to achieve their dreams and love whom they choose.

I spent two and a half years in the White House working for President Obama. I had worked for him on the campaign in 2008, and I'm now helping re-elect him from the Democratic National Committee. I feel like I know his heart and the intentions of those who work around him, especially when it comes to equality and fairness for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.

I was in the room when President Obama taped his “It Gets Better” video. It was clear how much he got the issues and the pain so many kids and their families go through, but I will always remember one moment in particular: The President stopped the taping and said he wanted to do a certain portion over again, because he wanted to get it right for the young people out there. As someone who was bullied and had contemplated suicide, it was a real moment and a glimpse into the character and compassion of this President.

I have been extremely proud of the headway President Obama and his administration have made on behalf of this community, whether it be the Hate Crimes Act, the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," hospital visitation rights, a national HIV/AIDS strategy, or the numerous ways the agencies have worked to improve the lives of LGBT Americans. But May 9, 2012, was different. It was a moment in time when everything stopped as he thoughtfully announced on national television, "At a certain point, I've just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."

It was also a moment that laid out a clear contrast in this election: the choice to continue moving forward with President Obama or to roll back the clock with Mitt Romney. Romney not only opposes marriage equality and civil unions, but he is also prepared to amend the U.S. Constitution and enshrine discrimination simply based on whom we love.

This election is about our rights. And it's about the future—about the kids out there who need to know they can grow up to achieve their dreams and love whom they choose. It is about our families knowing they are valued. It's about a continuation of the hard work of the many on whose shoulders we stand—people, like Harvey Milk, who knew elections have consequences.

That's why I'm asking you to sign up for the newly launched Obama Pride: LGBT Americans for Obama—and to encourage others to join as well.

There's too much at stake to sit out this election. And just in case someone needs a reminder why, print out the Romney pledge below and keep it in your purse or wallet. Only one candidate in this election stands behind your family and your values. That's why I come to work fighting on behalf of this President every day—and why I'll do everything in my power to make sure he gets another four years to keep fighting for people like me.

Don't Let This Happen

I'm a Democrat because I've always felt that lifting others up lifts me up too. My progressive values regarding social justice, women's health, and the greatness of this country are best represented by the Democratic Party. The United States welcomed my first-generation immigrant family, and I show my gratitude by continuing to support the very American values of civil liberties, lifting up the oppressed, and working to make this country a better place to live for everyone.

As a Vietnamese American woman, I am pleased that President Obama's Affordable Care Act expands health care coverage to more Americans, when fully 36 percent of all Asian Pacific American women are uninsured. APA women—and Vietnamese women in particular—face the highest rates of cervical cancer of any ethnic group. When more Americans have access to health care, the whole nation becomes healthier. I know that helping those less fortunate doesn't take anything away from me, but lifts everyone up. Democrats and President Obama understand this.

As President Obama has said, as a leader, he simply can’t leave his faith at the door. For him, and for so many of our leaders throughout American history, their efforts to build a better nation aren’t just about politics and policy. They were motivated every single day by their faith and values.

The President’s values are fundamental to his commitment to effecting change in this country. Our story has never been about what we can do alone. It’s about what we can do together. We are greater together than we are on our own. We are greater together than we are divided.

Read the Obama administration’s impact on faith-based communities here.

"To me, Mitt Romney takes from the poor and the middle class and gives to the rich," says Rayburn. "He's just the opposite of Robin Hood."

Last week we introduced you to Romney economics: making millions in profit while loading companies up with debt, driving them into bankruptcy, and putting thousands out of work without pensions or health care. Mitt Romney spent nearly two decades in the private sector doing just that, and today, he considers it his top qualification for the presidency.

That idea—that 20 years of putting profit over people somehow makes you qualified to lead the country—is a slap in the face to workers in Marion, Indiana, who watched their jobs and livelihoods disappear when Romney and his Bain Capital partners took over their paper plant. And today, those workers are speaking out. Valerie Bruton, a former employee, says, "I really feel in my heart, people need to know what Mitt Romney did to Marion, Indiana, in 1994."

The SCM paper plant Bruton worked at provided good-paying jobs with good benefits. The work was hard, but it instilled a sense of pride in the plant employees, who made file folders, index cards, and other office supplies. Another former employee, Randy Johnson, says, "We had good jobs that you could raise a family on. It was a lot of work, but you really felt like you'd accomplished something."

In 1994, Bain Capital–owned Ampad bought SCM. Armed guards showed up at the front doors, and employees received this memo: "As of 3:00 p.m. today, Tuesday, July 5, 1994, your employment with SCM Office Supplies Inc. will end. Health insurance with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Indiana will continue through the end of the week." Those who were re-hired as Ampad employees found their wages sharply reduced and benefits like retirement funds taken away.

"This was the worst day of my life," says Bruton.

"I understand if you've gotta cut back, layoffs, that's part of the business; we've accepted that over the years when we were there," says former employee Jerry Rayburn. "But you don't come in and take everything everybody's got and destroy a business. I mean, that's what they did."

By 2000, Ampad was so saddled with debt that it had to declare bankruptcy, and 1,500 people lost their jobs. Romney and his partners, however, walked away with more than $100 million in profit.

"To me, Mitt Romney takes from the poor and the middle class and gives to the rich," says Rayburn. "He's just the opposite of Robin Hood." And it offends Rayburn to his core to see Romney on television claiming to be a job creator: "It makes me sick to my stomach when I sit there and watch Mitt Romney tell the American people about how he creates all these jobs."

The point here is not to challenge the merits of private equity or even Romney's right to run his business as he saw fit. But stories like these prove how fundamentally dishonest it is to style yourself as a job creator when your business model was to run companies and livelihoods into the ground while turning a profit for yourself. These former Ampad employees know that. Even Romney's former business partners at Bain acknowledge that Romney is not fit to call himself a job creator.

The Romney economics philosophy of "heads, I win; tails, you lose" is no way to run a country. What Romney did in the private sector has implications for what he'd do as president. "Mitt Romney's philosophy for doing business is to take over companies just to get some money from them, dump the business no matter what," says Johnson. "If that's his approach to the American economy, I can't imagine it being very pretty for the workers."

This week President Obama released a proclamation celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Department of Agriculture. He wrote:

The USDA has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the American people for generations. During the Great Depression, the Department helped bring an end to the Dust Bowl by promoting soil conservation. Through two World Wars, the Victory Garden Program fed troops and families around the world. The USDA worked to bring electric power to rural communities, establish the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance and School Lunch Programs, implement our nation's food safety regulations, and protect our forests and private lands. For one-and-a-half centuries, USDA has empowered communities across our country and helped ensure we leave our children a future rich with promise and possibility.

Read the entire proclamation here.

News broke this morning that Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade, is working on a $10 million plan to tear down the President this fall through a hate-filled, divisive "sneak attack."

The 54-page blueprint, called "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan," is posted at the New York Times site—and it is worth a read to see exactly what we're up against. Arguing that the President's former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, "has never been properly exploited," they're primed to exploit away—to do "what John McCain wouldn't let us do." Their millions would go toward TV ads, a radio campaign, newspaper ads, and huge aerial banners to be flown over September's Democratic National Convention.

They did get one thing right: The Republican nominee this time, Mitt Romney, is no John McCain. Where McCain denounced similarly despicable smears against Obama, Romney dodged a question on the story this morning with the pitiful excuse that he hadn't "read the papers yet."

What a leader.

If Romney can't summon the courage to stand up to hateful attacks by super PACs, he isn't fit to lead our country. Send a strong message to Romney and his allies that these shameful tactics won't be tolerated by the voters.

Mitt Romney said today that class sizes don't matter. If you're an educator who thinks otherwise, share your story here.

What's your story?

Source: Market Watch

Mitt Romney claims that federal spending has “accelerated without precedent in recent history,” but that’s just not true. Under President Obama, we've seen the slowest increase in federal spending in decades. Take a look at this chart to see how the past three years stack up against former presidents, and then share it with your friends.

Dear Mr. President …

Tanisha fought hard for the chance to go to college, and now, she’s on her way to law school. She recently wrote a letter to President Obama, letting him know what his commitment to making college more affordable has meant to her.

Watch her tell her story, then say you’ll stand with President Obama in the fight to give everyone a shot at a good education.