The Campaign for America's Future helps you tell Congress to repeal the sequester. Which they could do, you know -- no trap-door awaits them if they do, unless Congress thinks an economy that functions a little better is a trap door for them, and I guess it's possible they do think that. But most folks know by now that cutting government spending obviously isn't boosting the economy. And that's not just because it's not working anywhere else it's being tried (cf. Spain, Greece, Britain), or because 14% of Americans are still unemployed or underemployed while corporations continue to enjoy record profits, or even because a grad student shot the Reinhart/Rogoff study full of holes. It's also because children are about to get booted from Head Start, because almost a million unemployed folks are getting their checks cut by over $100 a month, because cancer clinics have begun to turn away folks on Medicare, and because homebound seniors aren't getting home-delivered meals. These things do tend to hit home eventually.

Meanwhile, Consumer Reports finds that turkey raised with antibiotics tends to harbor more antibiotic-resistant bacteria than turkey raised without. That's not a big surprise to you, right? Yet around 80% of our antibiotics go to feed animals, mainly to keep their filthy living conditions from making them too sick. Anyone think it might be a better idea to let the feed animals run free a bit and live a more decent life, rather than penning them up and pumping them full of pills that make bacteria stronger in the long run? Of course, most Americans think that would be a better idea -- but neither our Congress or our Executive branch does, so in thrall are they to the wishes of big agricultural corporations, so eager are they to package up raw deals and call it "bipartisanship." Hence Consumers Union helps you tell Congress to pass H.R. 1150, the Preserving Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. Remember: factory farms don't get all the say around here.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the Tribune Company not to sell their newspapers to the Koch brothers, the Center for Media and Democracy provides another opportunity to do that. It's not so much that the Koch brothers are inveterate right-wingers, or even that I don't think anyone should own more than one media outlet in America, as that the Koch brothers' wealth gives them the power to distort public opinion in America, and owning eight American newspapers (including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times) would give them even more power. If we're going to be a sane, healthy, and decent society, we must restrain the power of our wealthiest members, for we know that power corrupts. If we're going to continue to wink at such power, even to crave it for ourselves or to live vicariously through its exercise, we'll continue to be the sick, immoral, and decadent society we are.