The public strongly opposes laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions as a way to ease state financial troubles, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. The poll found that 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to one being considered in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law. Wisconsin is the first state to consider the limits, prompting protests that have closed schools and drawn tens of thousands of protesters.

Writer and editor Anne Hays recently penned an open letter to the New Yorker on Facebook, demanding her money back for the most recent issue because it contained only two pieces by women -- and it wasn't the first time. The letter went viral and was republished by publications that used it to note how few other submission-based magazines have a regular number of women writers. But it also had its detractors, such as the one who declared it an example of "feminist schizophrenia."

You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years — which it has — that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.