First things first. Ex-McDonald's employee Natalie Gunshannon has sued a McDonald's franchise owner, saying the owner paid her and several other employees not with a paycheck, not even with cash, but with a debit card. And this debit card -- provided by JP Morgan/Chase -- came with usage fees. Ms. Gunshannon would have had to pay 75¢ every time she used the card online, $1.50 every time she withdrew money from an ATM, and $5 every time she withdrew money from her bank -- and these fees might have put her and her co-workers under minimum wage. Even the pro-payroll debit card source quoted in the above link seemed annoyed that Ms. Gunshannon's card came with fees, and that the debit card was her only option for payment. Would any of that sit well with you? There's no use telling me that "businesses save money if they can hand out debit cards," like businesses are the boss of us. Sum of Us helps you tell McDonald's to stop forcing its employees to accept debit cards as payment.

Meanwhile, Sens. Feinstein (D-CA), Collins (R-ME), Reed (D-RI), Boxer (D-CA) and Cantwell (D-WA) have introduced S. 1256, the Preventing Antibiotic Resistance Act, which aims to curb antibiotic overuse in feed animals. As you know, America uses about 80% of its antibiotics on non-sick feed animals living in cramped, filthy conditions in factory farms, thus making more and more bacteria impervious to antibiotics. Of course the factory farms have balked, saying they can't make money if we stop the flow of antibiotics to their animals, and of course they're wrong -- they'd make money, but their executives wouldn't be able to gild their plumbing anymore, while we all could actually be safer from superbugs. S. 1256 is almost identical to Rep. Slaughter's bill, H.R. 1150, but S. 1256 also requires veterinarians prescribing antibiotics to maintain an appropriate doctor-patient relationship with their animals, which can't be easy if you're prescribing to thousands of hogs at once. So don't be cowed (as it were) by any right-wing howls of BUREAUKRATZ PAPERWORKZ KILLZ THA JOBZ!!!!! Call your Senators about S. 1256, and they won't see it coming.