Word on the street, once again, is that Joint Committee for Deficit Reduction Democrats have offered $3 trillion in Social Security and Medicare benefit cuts -- possibly so they can get a deficit-reduction "deal" before Thanksgiving, possibly because they're playing the good cop to Republicans' bad cop. Better for us if they let the deal fail, and saddle the Congress of Screw You with the resulting Medicare cuts they'll have to restore if they want to keep their jobs in 2012. Anyway, it doesn't matter what they want; it matters what we want, so both CREDO and the Campaign for America's Future help you tell Democrats to stop acting like weaklings and defend the benefits that we've worked for and paid for all our damn lives. Because if they don't represent, what the hell good are they?
Meanwhile, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Pingree (D-ME) have introduced the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act (bill numbers not available yet). The bill would (among many other things) help farmers grow more organic crops, help farmer's markets promote their goods, expand loans to local food enterprises, and train more farmers in food safety (as mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010). Of course most of us liberals would get behind this effort, but I think conservatives should get behind it, too. I mean, conservatives want healthy food just as much as liberals do. And this bill would help local and regional food producers, the ones more likely to produce healthy, organic food, and would address the market distortions that massive corn subsidies cause. So the Union of Concerned Scientists helps you support it.
Finally, what a terrible weekend Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain had! First Politico reported that two women had complained of "sexually suggestive behavior" on Mr. Cain's part while Mr. Cain headed up the National Restaurant Association -- and both women received payouts to leave. Then the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal reported that Mr. Cain's two top campaign aides ran a Wisconsin-based corporation that paid many of Mr. Cain's campaign expenses, possibly violating federal law. Guess which accusation Mr. Cain denied today? And here I thought John McCain had made campaign finance reform sexy again. As with Sen. Johnson's possible campaign finance violations which apparently led him to take the Senate hostage for a day, if there's no penis, the "liberal" media's not looking.