Long story short: demand more affordable EpiPens, protect transgender kids in North Carolina, help end the concept of the "citizen's arrest," tell Facebook to keep Donald Trump off its platform, tell President Biden to roll back the Title X "gag rule," and tell your Senators to reject Rahm Emanuel as the next Ambassador to Japan. You'll find email/petition tools in the following paragraphs. Good hunting!
Change.org helps you tell Viatris to make EpiPen more affordable. Sound familiar? A few years ago, when Mylan owned EpiPen (Mylan merged with Upjohn in 2020 to create Viatris), it got in hot water for pricing it at $700 for two doses; the drug being delivered costs about a buck, and in 2009, two EpiPen doses cost "only" $100. But $700 for a life-saving drug that monopolizes the market? That's uncivilized, particularly coming from the richest civilization on the planet. In Europe they pay a whole lot less, despite the spectre of socialized medicine. Or do I mean because? In fairness, EpiPen also has competition over there, which our notorious "free" market somehow hasn't delivered. That means we're left with embarrassing EpiPen's owner into submission.
Change.org also helps you beat back yet another anti-transgender bill, this time SB 514 in North Carolina, which would (stop me if you've heard this one before) ban transgender surgeries and treatments in the Tar Heel state. The bill's authors appear to think trans kids are faking it, but if so, they don't understand children, like, at all -- the most important thing to a kid is approval, and coming out as trans risks that approval, whether from family or peers; who does that just for attention? When the "attention" you get is getting kicked out of your house or beaten up in science hall, the answer is "nobody." And it's not like there aren't ten thousand other ways to get attention that don't involve announcing you're really a different sex than you look like you are. Hell, for me it was aggressive sarcasm. You may be surprised to learn that people still remember me for it.
Progress America helps you tell New York state to outlaw "citizen's arrest" laws. Maybe you think of the "citizen's arrest" as something you saw on The Andy Griffith Show, though the "citizen's arrest" is as old as the hills -- or, at least, medieval England. But encouraging citizens to arrest other citizens doesn't befit a civilization that has police officers, and encourages far too many folks to do things they shouldn't do. Case in point: George Zimmerman, who was not a police officer but who took it upon himself to apprehend Trayvon Martin because he looked "out of place" or whatever. And you can all too easily imagine Trump-soaked citizens taking it upon themselves to "right" "wrongs" with powers they haven't earned and don't deserve.
Speaking of which, Free Press helps you tell Facebook to permanently ban Donald Trump from its platform. Because Donald Trump does not have a First Amendment right to a Facebook platform, that's why! He only has a First Amendment right not to be put in jail for his speech -- unless, of course, he makes terroristic threats, commits libel or slander, or (pretends to rack brain) incites folks to riot. Facebook is a private corporation, and though it too often acts like it just can't do anything about user content, we would best regard Facebook, both conceptually and legally, as a publishing house. And we don't demand that publishing houses accept every single manuscript, do we?
Daily Kos helps you tell the Biden Administration to repeal the Trump Administration's Title X "gag rule," which keeps health providers from discussing abortion with their patients while receiving Title X grants. You've heard me say take government money, play by government rules enough times to think I might support the Trump-era "gag rule," but I've always said that when discussing employers taking our taxpayer money and then discriminating against employees. That's just wrong. Preventing health providers from discussing legal options for women's health care as a condition for getting federal grants? That's also wrong -- abortion is a legal procedure and a legal right.
Finally, Roots Action helps you tell your Senators to reject Rahm Emanuel's nomination as Ambassador to Japan. Because he's got a long rap sheet: as Barack Obama's first Chief of Staff, he was also the chief architect of capitulation in 2009 and 2010 -- calling liberals "retards" at one point for the heinous crime of wanting more out of a Democratic President than warmed-over Clintonism -- and from there he went on to serve two terms as Mayor of Chicago, overseeing systemic police brutality and privatizing as much of the city's public services as he could get his mitts on. And no, he gets no credit for Democrats retaking the House in 2006; if any one person gets credit for that, it's Howard Dean. We can't let the worst Democrats continue to fail upward.
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