S. 567, the Strengthening Social Security Act, would actually increase Social Security benefits to seniors present and future. How? By telling the Department of Labor to create a CPI-EC, or Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers, and then chain cost-of-living increases to that index, rather than those indeces that don't reflect seniors' actual living expenses. The bill would also phase out the payroll tax cap over the next five years, so as to tap income above $113,700 -- and would then increase future benefits in accordance with that cap's disappearance. But we shouldn't talk about cutting Social Security benefits anyway -- we should talk about increasing them, because increasing those benefits is a good thing, and it's not true that we "can't afford" better retirement benefits. What we can't afford are more corporate tax breaks. MoveOn helps you tell your Congressfolk to support S. 567.

Meanwhile, the EPA has proposed raising allowable limits of glyphosate in our food and in animal feed. You may recognize glyphosate by its popular brand name Roundup -- as in the Roundup that has driven corporations to genetically modify their seed to better withstand it. Scientists have linked glyphosate to cancer, Parkinson's, and fertility issues, among other things, and even if we took the EPA at its word that glyphosate is safe at the limits it's set, it wouldn't stay that way, because the weeds Roundup targets have already begun developing a resistance to it, meaning we'll see allowable limits pushed further and further upward, making our food less safe -- but preserving profits for certain favored corporations. The EPA still must take public comments on their proposal, so Organic Consumers helps you tell the EPA to lower our exposure to glyphosate.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to support H.R. 1150, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (or PAMTA), the Environmental Working Group provides one more. Our factory farms use four pounds of antibiotics on their feed animals for every pound of antibiotics doctors use on human and animal patients. And the predictable result? Antibiotic-resistant superbugs found in more than half of supermarket meat -- including over 80% of raw turkey, almost 70% of raw pork chops, and over half of raw ground beef. Yeah, I know, you cook all that meat, but the more superbugs you get in your meat, the less likely you'll kill them all. But most Americans already understand this -- nine out of 10 Americans want factory farms to stop throwing antibiotics at animals. Only the factory farms, ever mindful of their profits, don't seem to get it. But they ain't the boss of us.