Last Call For Largeness

Yay America! We're no longer the fattest developed nation on Earth!

According to a new report from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the United States is no longer the world's fattest developed nation―Mexico is.

Nearly a third of Mexican adults (32.8 percent) are considered obese—people aged 20 and older whose body mass index (BMI) is 30 and above. That edges out the United States, where 31.8 percent of American adults are considered obese.

Syria at 31.6 percent, is the third fattest among developed countries, while Venezuela and Libya are tied for fourth at 30.8 percent.

Mexico's urban lifestyle and rising income levels coupled with malnourishment among the country's poor have helped it claim this unhealthy title.

“The same people who are malnourished are the ones who are becoming obese,” Abelardo Avila, a physician with Mexico's National Nutrition Institute, told the Global Post. “In the poor classes we have obese parents and malnourished children. The worst thing is the children are becoming programmed for obesity. It's a very serious epidemic.”

Diabetes kills an estimated 70,000 people a year in Mexico—"or roughly equal to the deaths authorities say are caused by more than six years of the country's gangland wars," the Post noted.

Woohoo!  'MURICA.

The Sunset Of Ultrasound Bob, Part 2

Things are starting to crash hard for Virginia GOP Gov. Bob "Forced Ultrasound For All The Vaginas" McDonnell.  Apparently he has a little problem accepting gifts from wealthy donors that he keeps forgetting to tell people about, and what makes it worse is now we see those gifts caused a direct conflict of interest, with his wife and sister making tens of thousands from donors and McDonnell pushing it under the rug.

A prominent political donor gave $70,000 to a corporation owned by Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his sister last year, and the governor did not disclose the money as a gift or loan, according to people with knowledge of the payments.

The donor, wealthy businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr., also gave a previously unknown $50,000 check to the governor’s wife, Maureen, in 2011, the people said.

The money to the corporation and Maureen McDonnell brings to $145,000 the amount Williams gave to assist the McDonnell family in 2011 and 2012 — funds that are now at the center of federal and state investigations.

Williams, the chief executive of dietary supplement manufacturer Star Scientific Inc., also provided a $10,000 check in December as a present to McDonnell’s eldest daughter, Jeanine, intended to help defray costs at her May 2013 wedding, the people said.

Virginia’s first family already is under intense scrutiny for accepting $15,000 from the same chief executive to pay for the catering at the June 2011 wedding of Cailin McDonnell at the Executive Mansion.

All the payments came as McDonnell and his wife took steps to promote the donor’s company and its products.

The payments to the corporation, confirmed by people familiar with the transactions, offer the first public example of money provided by Williams that would directly benefit the governor and not just his family.

McDonnell is in serious trouble here, if only because if there's one thing politicians will cut your throat over it's messing up their legal kickback gravy train by doing it illegally and threatening all the gifts they're getting too.

I don't see how McDonnell survives this, frankly.  Not that it'll matter much with less than six months left in his term, but I'm pretty sure at this point both parties want him out of the way.

We'll see what happens.  I got 60/40 he goes.

The Long, Dark, Tea Party Time Of The GOP Soul

Wow, it's like I've been saying for months now that House Republicans were going to kill immigration reform, and suddenly WIN THE MORNING figures it out.  Genius.

In private conversations, top Republicans on Capitol Hill now predict comprehensive immigration reform will die a slow, months-long death in the House. Like with background checks for gun buyers, the conventional wisdom that the party would never kill immigration reform, and risk further alienating Hispanic voters, was always wrong — and ignored the reality that most House Republicans are white conservatives representing mostly white districts.

Gosh guys, you mean the party of the Last Gasp of Demographic Privilege is betting everything on white men and saying to hell with everyone else?  HOOCOODANODE.

These members, and the vast majority of their voters, couldn’t care less whether Marco Rubio, Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove say this is smart politics and policy.

Republican leaders will huddle with their members Wednesday afternoon to plot their public strategy. But after holding countless listening sessions, it is clear to these leaders that getting even smaller, popular pieces of reform will be a tough sell. The House plans a piecemeal approach: a border-security bill this month, maybe one or two items a month in the fall.

And their approach is "our way or the country burns."  Tens of millions of scared jackasses who never imagined a black President in their lifetimes now want to "take their country back" and by God they will trample on the rights of everyone else to remain on top.

Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) held a town meeting last week where 25 of the 100 people spoke out on immigration — and every single one of them argued for staying clear of anything remotely resembling the Senate-passed bill.

“Our constituents don’t trust our government,” Cotton said. And he is reluctant to pass even pieces of immigration reform that he thinks are needed — like a better tracking system for people in the country on visas — because he is concerned they could become “a Trojan horse in a conference committee for a package that puts legalization first and enforcement later.”

It's all fun and games until one of them dates your daughter, moves in next door, or gets re-elected.  Now it's time for Second Amendment remedies against those who you disagree with, right guys?

Keep walking down that road to political oblivion.  It will catch up to you guys eventually, but not before another generation of massive damage to everyone else.  They'd rather reign over the ashes of America than share it with anyone darker than Snooki.

StupidiNews!

• Texas Dem State Sen. Wendy Davis admits that Texas Republicans will almost certainly pass new anti-choice laws today in Austin, and that Dems won't be able to stop the bill.
• Wal-Mart says it will immediately scrap three planned stores in Washington DC if the city passes a living wage law requiring large employers to pay employees $12.50 an hour.
• A car bomb in in Hezbollah-controlled Beirut that wounded 50 may be in retaliation for the group backing the Asaad regime in Syria.
• Egypt has named former Mubarak-era Finance Minister Hazem El-Beblawi as the country's new Prime Minister after the rejection of Mohamed ElBaradei for the post.
• Last week's failure and crash of a Russian Proton-M rocket carrying a satellite payload may have resulted from sensors installed upside down.

Last Call For Southern Culture On The Skids

Rand Paul, the gift that keeps on giving, apparently.  Always nice to know that the Senator elected to represent me loves to hire unapologetic white supremacist racists for his campaign staff, and apparently that's too much for even the lefty-hating wingers at the Washington Free Beacon to handle.

A close aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) who co-wrote the senator’s 2011 book spent years working as a pro-secessionist radio pundit and neo-Confederate activist, raising questions about whether Paul will be able to transcend the same fringe-figure associations that dogged his father’s political career.

Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul’s office as his social media director in August 2012.

From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.

And Jack Hunter is a real piece of work, folks.

Prior to his radio career, while in his 20s, Hunter was a chairman in the League of the South, which “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.”

“The League of the South is an implicitly racist group in that the idealized version of the South that they promote is one which, to use their ideology, is dominated by ‘Anglo-Celtic’ culture, which is their code word for ‘white’,” said Mark Pitcavage, the director of investigative research at the ADL. The ADL said it does not necessarily classify it as a hate group.

The League of the South maintains that it is not racist and does not discriminate in terms of membership.

“When I was part of it, they were very explicit that’s not what they were about,” Hunter said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon. “I was a young person, it was a fairly radical group – the same way a person on the left might be attracted in college to some left-wing radical groups.”

Sure, white supremacists are just like College Democrats.   Look, it's not like Rand Paul isn't just as much of a blatant racist as his asshole father is, but the next white guy who tells me how awesome of a President Rand Paul will make needs to have this article shoved up his urethra.  I don't care what else he does, nothing justifies this.

There are some things that should disqualify you from higher office, people.  This is one of them.

And Remember Folks, Spay And Neuter Your Inmates

Kudos to Amanda Marcotte, who said exactly what was on my mind when the story broke about California prisons sterilizing female inmates.

CIR interviewed doctors who were involved in sterilizations in California prisons, and comments from these doctors only raise suspicion that they supported a system of bullying and frightening women into agreeing to sterilizations they did not want. Dr. James Heinrich is accused by at least one inmate of badgering her about sterilization until she caved, and his comments about the money spent by the state on these procedures are not very reassuring. 

“Over a 10-year period, that isn’t a huge amount of money,” Heinrich said, “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children—as they procreated more.”

"Unwanted" by whom? The women themselves or Heinrich? Christina Cordero, who was sterilized by Heinrich, says she wished she hadn't had the tubal litigation. So perhaps any child she might have conceived would have been wanted.

Unwanted by whom, indeed.  Between sneaky tactics to restrict access to birth control, sneakier tactics to make abortion inaccessible or as painful as possible, and now this... how can a woman possibly feel safe in this world?  This is hardly the first time this has happened.  Eugenics victims  have been sterilized against their will for decades, or in some cases without their knowledge, if the Eugenics Board decided they would be unfit parents. The one that stuck with me most was a woman who had been raped by three brothers, and brought before the board against her will.  She "did not get along well with others" and was "stubborn and lacked civility."  Well, after being raped by a handful of men and then dragged before a table full of men to hash it through to their satisfaction, I think I understand why she might have had a little bit of an attitude.  Based on that single interaction she was judged and sterilized, and only discovered it when she went to look into fertility treatments many years later because she wanted a child with all her heart.  When she was just a teenager that choice was made for her, not only without her consent but without telling her that it had happened at all.  

I had missed this gem until this time around (originally from 2008), in which state Rep. John LaBruzzo considered paying poor women a thousand bucks to get their tubes tied:   

"We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out, " LaBruzzo said of what he suspects are dangerous demographic trends. "And nobody wants to talk about it."

LaBruzzo said he worries that people receiving government aid such as food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the government. He said he is gathering statistics now.

"What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare, " he said.

He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men.

Vasectomies was just an afterthought, to avoid charges.  It was a wink-wink addition to get to the real business of fixing some lady parts.  It had no seriousness behind it, as evident by men everywhere not having to shoo government away from their balls.  There's a lot more to it than that, but what I'm getting at is that when it comes to men, there's no question who is in charge of their organs.  Furthermore, LaBruzzo's plan involved potential tax breaks for the affluent to have more children.  On behalf of women everywhere, I'd like to say thanks for looking out for us. Glad to know dangling money in front of poor women while throwing money back to the wealthy is his bridge out to a brighter tomorrow.

Now that I've vented some sarcasm, let's get to the point.  The attitudes above itself are frightening beyond measure.  Women are being looked at like breeders and nothing more.  When it suits someone's agenda for us to have kids, we're kept away from birth control, or even just plain old healthcare.  When it suits someone  ego trip for us to be sterile, that can happen too, it's just a matter of who is trying to call the shots on our bodies.  It is a terrifying thing to realize that your innermost body, the one thing you have been taught your whole life is yours and yours alone, is subject to the whim of people in power.  Not even necessarily government, just power in general.  This doctor was one of many who decided for a woman whether she should be allowed to have kids, without any ethical oversight or accountability.  This simply cannot be allowed, not just for reproductive rights but the sake of healthcare principles overall.  Before we dismiss this as an incident or an isolated problem, we need to realize this beast has been lurking in the dark waters of women's healthcare for over half a century. It's distasteful and criminal, so it's been done largely in secret.  But it has, in fact, always been there in some form or another.  Despite the fact that there are millions of us, women have yet to experience full equality.  Our bodies are not our own.  Our lives are up for vote.  Our futures can be chosen by a board of men who think they have the right to enforce their will without question.  Our chances of having the freedom every single man enjoys is always tantalizingly close, but at the last minute an appeal or tactic keeps us waiting and hoping.  And worrying.

This has to stop.  Women should have full ownership of their bodies, and enough of using the law to discriminate or abuse the poor or the disadvantaged.  Imagine the emotional pain inflicted on these women, and the judgment passed on them.  This is a disgrace, and there is no other word for it.  Some will say this is hypocrisy from a pro-choice person, but I don't believe so.  A woman's choices are hers to make, and that's where I stand regardless of the sub-issue at hand.  The overall point is these rights should be hers beyond a shadow of a doubt, with no fear that they may be yanked away in a single political move, or at the whim of someone in control.  Nobody should make these choices for any woman alive, period.  Once we establish that, we establish healthcare that is easily available, and then we work on counseling to avoid unwanted pregnancies because education and empowerment must come first.

We need to do something now, before this crops up again in five years and we pretend to be shocked all over again.

Completely The Hell Out?

With diplomacy involving Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the basement and the Afghan government on the verge of throwing us completely out of the country, President Obama appears to be trying to make the best of an awful situation by withdrawing everyone from Afghanistan by the end of next year and calling it a day.

Mr. Obama is committed to ending America’s military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and Obama administration officials have been negotiating with Afghan officials about leaving a small “residual force” behind. But his relationship with Mr. Karzai has been slowly unraveling, and reached a new low after an effort last month by the United States to begin peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar. 

Mr. Karzai promptly repudiated the talks and ended negotiations with the United States over the long-term security deal that is needed to keep American forces in Afghanistan after 2014. 

A videoconference between Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai designed to defuse the tensions ended badly, according to both American and Afghan officials with knowledge of the conversation. Mr. Karzai, according to those sources, accused the United States of trying to negotiate a separate peace with both the Taliban and its backers in Pakistan, leaving Afghanistan’s fragile government exposed to its enemies. 

Mr. Karzai has made similar accusations in the past. But those comments were delivered to Afghans — not to Mr. Obama, who responded by pointing out the American lives that have been lost propping up Mr. Karzai’s government, the officials said. 

The option of leaving no troops in Afghanistan after 2014 was gaining momentum before the June 27 video conference, according to the officials. But since then, the idea of a complete military exit similar to the American military pullout from Iraq has gone from being considered the worst-case scenario — and a useful negotiating tool with Mr. Karzai — to an alternative under serious consideration in Washington and Kabul. 

In other words, Karzai is calling our bluff, and he's doing so coldly that it's starting to look like the only viable option.  Surprise, it's been the right thing to do for years now, but apparently it's taking Karzai saying "Go ahead, do it, we want you gone" in order for us to consider it.

And I'm completely okay with this.  I think the Obama administration should be trumpeting this from the rooftops.  Get them all out and bring them home, Mr. President.

StupidiNews!

• Flash flooding in Toronto during evening rush hour swamped several passenger trains and cars as police had to resort to boats to rescue people in the streets.
• Several insurance companies have refused to renew liability coverage for Kansas schools in the wake of a recently passed state law allowing teachers to concealed carry on school grounds.
• Egyptian interim President Adly Mansour has promised a new constitutional referendum and parliamentary elections, but has appropriated a number of powers in the meantime.
• Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry will not seek a fourth term next year, raising speculation he will be making another presidential run in 2016.
• Analysts say the nations Emergency Alerting System is vulnerable to hackers as encryption keys for the system are publicly available.

Also, Bon has a post for later this afternoon, so stick around.

Last Call For The Company Store

If you recall last week's article on corporate pigs forcing working-class Americans to get paid solely through debit cards rather than paychecks or direct deposit (because really, payroll is so much cheaper if you make your employees pay for it through crushing fees and you get to pocket the profits) you'll be glad to know that New York AG Eric Schniederman is less than happy with this, and has opened an investigation.  Natalie Gunshannon, a McDonald's employee in Pennsylvania, has sued McDonald's over the cards too:

Under the onslaught of negative press, there have been steps in the right direction—theMcDonald's franchise where Gunshannon worked has now said that it will offer all its employees the option of a paper check or direct deposit, in addition to the card. Previously, according to the lawsuit, only managers had that choice. The decision covers some 800 workers at 16 stores. “We didn't hear any complaints. Many employees have been using these cards without complaint for many months. When it became apparent there were some employees who may want the choice, we're going to give them the choice," a company spokesperson told the Associated Press. (Gunshannon isn't dropping her lawsuit, though, saying that the company's actions are “damage control.”)

In New York, the political battle over a bill that would allow the cards is heating up. Michael Kink, executive director of Strong Economy for All, told Working In These Times, "In New York, workers need protection against both unscrupulous employers who rip them off with payroll debit cards and shady lawmakers in Albany who want to blow the doors wide open for even more ripoffs. Right now Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is digging into current abuses, and unions and community groups—with great work by the New York State AFL-CIO—are fighting hard to stop bad bills in the Legislature."

As Kink noted, perhaps the biggest impact of the heightened scrutiny has been the announcement by New York Attorney General Schneiderman that he would look into the use of the cards. The attorney general's office sent letters to 20 large employers, including McDonald's, Walgreens and Wal-Mart, asking about their use of the cards. He's investigating whether businesses that use the cards may have broken state labor laws, and whether workers are forced, as Gunshannon said she was, to use the cards as a condition of their employment.

Good on both counts here, folks.  There are people working to fight corporate nonsense like this, as few and far between as they are, but they do exist.

The Lukewarm Option

I'm sorry, but WIN THE MORNING pointing out that Harry Reid has 51 of 54 Democratic senators lined up for the filibuster "nuclear option" is complete hogwash.

How this all plays out will be determined behind closed doors at Senate Democratic Caucus lunch meetings, the first of which is on Tuesday. After huddling with his membership, Reid will determine which nominee comes to the floor first to face a likely GOP filibuster.

Reid has refused to answer questions on the topic even as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continues his campaign on the Senate floor to see if Reid will “keep his word” on not changing Senate rules in January — which Democrats are only too happy to turn on McConnell for promising “to work with the majority to process nominations.”

It’s still unclear whether Reid has the votes to change the rules, although the Sierra Club, Communications Workers of America and top Senate aides are confident Reid can marshal 51 members of his 54-member caucus to support at least easing the path for executive nominations such as Cabinet members.

There’s far less certainty on whether the caucus would like to tweak rules for judicial nominees as well.

Savvy readers will note this isn't even the "nuclear option" where the filibuster is mercifully done away with, more like the "lukewarm option" where President Obama's Cabinet nominees are the only up-or-down votes that would be affected by this.  And even this weak tea, as Greg Sargent points out, has little chance of surviving the "comity" of the Senate.

It’s simple math. Lautenberg’s passing means Dems now only have 54 votes in the Senate. (His temporary Republican replacement can’t be expected to back rules reform.) Aides who are tracking the vote count tell me that Senator Carl Levin (a leading opponent of the “nuke option” when it was ruled out at the beginning of the year, leading to the watered down bipartisan filibuster reform compromise) is all but certain to oppose any rules change by simple majority. Senators Patrick Leahy and Mark Pryor remain question marks. And Senator Jack Reed is a Maybe.

If Dems lose those four votes, that would bring them down to 50. And, aides note, that would mean Biden’s tie-breaking vote would be required to get back up to the 51 required for a simple Senate majority. That’s an awfully thin margin for error.

Which means every single Dem other than Levin, Leahy, Pryor, and Reed could blow it.  (Yes, I'm looking directly at you, Joe Manchin, Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu, etc.)   The bottom line is we've heard all this before, and each and every time Harry Reid and the Dems gleefully blow it because they perversely benefit from the Senate's inaction on the tough issues as much (or more at times) than the GOP does.

And no, I don't even think Harry Reid and the Dems can even get this done correctly.

The Sunset Of Ultrasound Bob

Rumors are flying furiously -- and mind you, these are still rumors until confirmed -- that Virginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell will resign as part of a plea bargain deal over revelations involving gifts from a wealthy donor.

A Democratic state senator on Tuesday called on Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) to detail and return all gifts given to members of his family by a prominent donor — or resign from office.

State Sen. J. Chapman Petersen (Fairfax) became the first elected official in either party to raise the possibility that the governor should resign over the gifts.

In a letter to the governor, Petersen wrote that revelations about gifts provided by dietary supplement manufacturer Jonnie R. Williams Sr. gave “the strong impression that your family was materially and systematically benefited by this person and his company.”

“In return, it appears you allowed this person to use the Governor’s Mansion and the Governor’s Office for the purpose of giving unique credibility to his company,” Petersen wrote in the letter. “That is unacceptable.”

Petersen wrote that if the governor can’t explain or deny the reports or return the items, he would “humbly suggest” that McDonnell step down.

That gave way to the story from a Virginia tea party website that McDonnell is cutting a deal, something loudly being denied by McDonnell's office.

Responding to questions posed late Saturday on social networking site Twitter, Gov. Bob McDonnell’s communications director denied a report posted by conservative blog Bearing Drift that the governor is resigning.

“It is false,” Tucker Martin wrote.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, also took to Twitter early Sunday morning in response to rumors that swirled there, writing: “Gov. Bob McDonnell is NOT resigning. I have checked. That is official. Irresponsible rumors are wrong.”

He also posted: “I normally ignore a rumor. But it's so widespread tonite I sought and received official permission to post this.”

On Saturday, Bearing Drift published a post claiming McDonnell would resign, citing two unnamed sources.

Now the story is getting interesting.  McDonnell's in no small amount of trouble here, and given that the race to replace him is heating up big time and Republican candidate (and current state AG) Ken Cuccinelli may have ties to the same donors, well, the longer this story stays front and center in Virginia, the better it is for the Dems.  Any plea deal would have to be run by Cuccinelli too as the state's top prosecutor.

We'll see how it goes.  Personally, I think the wild card here is current Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who Cuccinelli beat out for the shot at his boss's office.  Should be an interesting couple of days in the Commonwealth.

StupidiNews!

• Two are dead and scores hospitalized after Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed well short of the runway at San Francisco's airport, the Boeing 777 breaking into 3 pieces.
• Egyptian security forces have reportedly killed 42, mostly pro-Morsi supoorters, outside the Revolutionary Guard building where Morsi is being held in Cairo.
• A runaway train filled with crude oil derailed and exploded in Quebec, forcing hundreds from their homes in the town of Lac-Megantic, and dozens remain missing.
• Scotsman Andy Murray gave Britain its first men's Wimbledon title in 77 years, taking down Novak Djokovic in straight sets and paving the way to tens of millions in endorsements.
• Jason, the satellite used to help track the globally rising ocean levels for the last 20 years, has finally seen its last backup transmitter fail and has been placed in a graveyard orbit.

Last Call For Watermelons

I grew up in small town North Carolina, and hey, glad to see that things haven't changed a damn bit since I left.

A North Carolina town’s Fourth of July parade featured an unusual float this year: a tractor with a Confederate flag mounted on it, dragging a trailer full of watermelons and a sign proclaiming “White History Month.”

The display was part of the Hope Mills, North Carolina Fourth of July parade, The Fayetteville Observer reported Saturday. City officials received numerous complaints about the float.

The trailer was decorated by local farmer Donnie Spell, frequently seen in the town’s local parades riding on his tractor. Much like prior events, Spell had a permit from local officials.

However, local ABC News affiliate WTVD-TV reported that his permit application for Thursday’s parade claimed the trailer’s sign would read: “Watermelons for sale.” Instead, it read: “White History Month, HUG WTE PPL.” 

But hey, if you have a problem with this, you're the racist, right?

Pick Your Poison, Mr. President

The GOP's debt ceiling deal for this year: "Who will you sacrifice to appease the Republican austerity terrorists, Mr. President?  Choose who must suffer or we crash the economy for all."

The idea is to throw in the “kitchen sink” and allow Obama to pick and choose the cuts. “If what makes it easier to find the deal is to go in and pick and choose among a dozen different programs and just grab a little bit from all 12 — instead of a lot from one them — then that works just fine,” Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA), who heads the Republican Study Committee’s budget and spending task force, told the Journal: 

Yeah, and make it all Obama's fault.

For a long-term deal, one that gives Treasury borrowing authority for three-and-a-half years, Obama would have to agree to premium support. The plan to privatize Medicare, perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Ryan budget, is the holy grail for conservatives who say major deficit-reduction can only be achieved by making this type of cut to mandatory spending. “If the president wants to go big, there’s a big idea,” said Rep. Steve Scalise, chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

For a medium-sized increase in the debt-limit, Republicans want Obama to agree to cut spending in the SNAP food stamp program, block-grant Medicaid, or tinker with chained CPI.

For a smaller increase, there is talk of means-testing Social Security, for example, or ending certain agricultural subsidies.

While the menu includes plenty of variables, the underlying strategic goal is to reduce mandatory spending — whatever the scope of the deal. Even at the smallest end of the spectrum — another months-long extension of debt-limit — there is talk of pushing back the eligibility age for Social Security by an equal number of months.

President Obama resisted these tactics last year, but we got stuck with sequestration as a result.  Now the GOP is going to destroy America's economy unless they get their austerity this time.

So what will the austerity terrorists get from America this time?  The end of Medicare?  Social Security?  Medicaid?  Food stamps?  Who will be sacrificed?

Will it be you?

The Campaign To Lie About Obamacare

The Koch Brothers and their minions are happy to spend hundreds of millions on another round of commercials lying about what Obamacare actually does.  The NY Times notes this and apparently doesn't have a problem with this, because the Kochs have enough money to force a "opposing views differ/both sides do it" story.

Republicans have staked much of their near-term political success on the bet that the health care overhaul will be unpopular with Americans as it is implemented in a process that they have warned will be chaotic and frustrating. Many Republicans in Congress have said they would push to repeal the law. 

So far, the persistent criticism of the law has served the party well with its base. Now, Republicans hope it will resonate with swing voters the party needs to recover from its losses last year. 

In a significant strategic shift, Americans for Prosperity is carefully aiming its new campaign at one of those voting blocs: young women. 

“How do I know my family is going to get the care they need?” asks a young mother of two who stars in a commercial, the first in a series that Americans for Prosperity plans to expand to as many as seven states. “Can I really trust the folks in Washington with my family’s health care?” 

Sure, because the federal government doesn't already help provide health care to over a hundred million Americans already through Medicare and Medicaid. What would they know about it, right?

The Campaign Media Analysis Group at Kantar Media estimates that from 2010, when the law was signed, to 2015, $1 billion will be spent on ads that criticize or defend it. That includes ads for candidates who oppose the law. Half of the $1 billion has already been spent, the group said. 

Ask yourself why these guys are spending a billion dollars to lie about the law rather than trying to help states implement it so that it works better.  Ask yourself why the law scares them so much.