Long story short: tell your Congressfolk to codify abortion rights protections into our laws, pass the Equality Act, ensure Supreme Court Justices adhere to ethics standards, pass the Palestinian Children and Families Act and the PASTEUR Act, and confirm Alvaro Bedoya to our FTC. Use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or, if you're on a cellphone, the bottom of this page) to find your Congressfolk's phone numbers and/or use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs.
Avaaz helps you tell Congress to codify abortion rights protections into law. The easiest way for Congress to do that, in theory, would be for our Senate to pass the already House-passed H.R. 3755, the Women's Health Protection Act, but they've already refused to do that. Sen. Schumer says he'll bring it up for a vote again, so that (if nothing else!) everyone will see how their Senators voted, which could be a big deal on Election Day 2022, though I can't say for sure. One thing I can say for sure: it won't end here! If the leaked ruling overturning Roe v. Wade turns out to be the actual ruling, it will give our Court a pretext for going after gay marriage, birth control, and anti-sodomy laws, too. We'll have a very busy time fighting for what we already had, and we'll have to keep fighting for them. Which we'll do, because duty is duty.
Daily Kos also helps you tell your Senators to pass H.R. 5, the Equality Act, which would protect gay, transgender, and others from discrimination. Because right-wing state legislatures have been attacking these folks just as surely as they've attacked voting rights and abortion rights the last year and a half! And, as I've said, it'll soon be open season on rulings like Obergefell Griswold, and Lawrence, so we've got to codify protections against discrimination into our laws. Gay and transgender folks don't deserve to be fired, frozen out of apartments and homes and loans, or hounded out of public restrooms merely because they are who they are, so let's stop politicians from enabling all those evil things. And quickly.
In a related note, the Juggernaut Project helps you tell your Congressfolk to ensure our Supreme Court Justices follow the Federal Judge Code of Conduct. Once there was a time we could convince ourselves that it'd be somehow uncivil to make the highest Court in the land adhere to the same standards as all other federal courts, but no more. And I'm not the only person who thinks so! Polling has told us for years that more and more Americans look at our Supreme Court as a political body, with its own policy aims; Justice Alito's leaked draft sure hasn't helped that look! Neither has Justice Thomas's wife's actions in support of the January 6 coup, or Justice Thomas's alleged poobahs with Gov. DeSantis; it ain't just about Justice Thomas, though. All judges must bow to civilization.
Peace Action helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 2590, the Palestinian Children and Families Act, which would start to extract some accountability from Israel in exchange for American aid. The government of Israel continues to oppress the Palestinian people -- lately in the form of separating families and detaining Palestinian children in prisons where they're more likely to get COVID -- and yet we continue to give them military aid, apparently out of a belief that "support" means lockstep agreement with every policy. Support doesn't mean that, and neither does friendship. And Israel is the far more powerful actor here! Being the far more powerful actor means you must not use your power to oppress others, even if that oppression looks like "security." It never is.
The Pew Charitable Trusts helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 3932/S. 2076, the Pioneering Antimicrobial Subscriptions To End Up-surging Resistance (or PASTEUR) Act, which would help fund the antibiotics of the future. And we're gonna need them! We presently use seven out of every 10 antibiotics not on sick people or sick animals, but on nominally healthy feed animals, and that means more superbugs and more of a possibility that we'll bring back the days when the next cut on your hand could kill you. All so big ag executives could make more money! (They'll say it was so we could have cheaper meat, but is that really a lot better if you can't survive a cut on your hand?) I'd spend directly on making antibiotics, rather than grant money to corporations to do it, but we can fix that later. We need action on this matter now.
Finally, today's as good a day as any to a) call Senate Majority Leader Schumer (here's his contact info) and tell him to schedule a vote on President Biden's nomination of Alvaro Bedoya to our Federal Trade Commission, and b) call your Senators (using the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page, or, if you're on a cellphone, the bottom of this page) and tell them to confirm Mr. Bedoya. Mr. Bedoya's opposition to government spying and expertise in digital privacy issues would be enormous assets to our FTC, plus he'd provide a likely third vote in favor of more vigorous antitrust prosecutions; perhaps for this last reason he couldn't get through the Commerce Committee (which deadlocked on his nomination twice), and required a discharge petition to get his nomination considered by our full Senate. But now they must act. We deserve no less.
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