US citizens: phone your congresscritter and convey this message.

My name is NAME, I am your constituent. Please reject any budget that slashes Medicaid, and publicly oppose any plan to create a closed-door commission to cut Social Security and Medicare.

The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.

If you phone, please spread the word!

US citizens: call on the Bureau of Land Management to protect the Western Arctic from oil drilling.

The FDA warned pharma companies to stop lying about which drugs are covered by their patents.

The patent system is basically a scheme to give big companies power over markets. In the area of medicine, they enable pharma companies to make medicines so expensive that most people who need them, even in a "rich" country (one with a comparatively large fraction of rich people), cannot afford them.

The companies argue for this power based on the expense of developing and then testing the drugs. Indeed, those are expensive, and we can't just wish those expenses away. But the development expenses are often paid for by the government (as they should be) and yet the government allows the company to seize the profit for itself. As for the testing, giving pharma companies control over testing of medicines enables them to corrupt it.

We should most definitely remove testing of the effects of medicines from their hands.

Family life in Scandinavia, with the help of government-funded child care, encourages couples to share housework and to reserve mealtimes for togetherness.

* Reality TV show contestants are more like unpaid interns than Hollywood stars.*

Exploitation of interns occurs in many fields of business.

When there is competitive pressure on people starting out on careers, they are compelled to accept whatever form of hazing might get them started. A need for an unpaid internship can really cut down the candidate pool. Meanwhile, the candidate or per parents needs to have money in order to support the internship. It becomes one of the things that keeps the children of poor families out of good jobs.

But let's not forget that enabling the most capable young people get the best jobs is only part of what is needed for a good society. We need to enable everyone to have a decent life — which means, the less capable don't get so much less than the more skilled.

Likewise, social mobility is not as important as giving everyone a decent life. Social mobility is one of the ways the wealthy try to convince most of society to settle for a chance of getting rich rather than demanding a decent life.