I wanted to highlight something about the Cat Food Commission to permanently shrink government, something we've all known about, but which hasn't been laid out in specific detail in a while. This Presidential commission has been borrowing paid staffers from groups that are ideologically committed to destroying the social safety net in America. This hasn't been well-reported in the traditional media until today.

Instead, about one in four commission staffers is paid by outside entities, many of which have strong ideological points of view about how to tackle the deficit.

For example, the salaries of two senior staffers, Marc Goldwein and Ed Lorenzen, are paid by private groups that have previously advocated cuts to entitlement programs. Lorenzen is paid by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, while Goldwein is paid by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is also partly funded by the Peterson group.

The outsourcing has come under sharp criticism from seniors' organizations and liberal activists, who say the strategy is part of a broader conservative bias favoring painful entitlement cuts over other solutions. The fears of some liberal groups appeared to come true on Wednesday, when the commission's two leaders recommended significant reductions for Social Security and other social-welfare programs.

[snip]

And this played out in the outside coverage of the commission report, which mirrors the position of the commission because it's paid for by the same person. One of the first words of praise for the Bowles-Simpson report came from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Peterson-funded group. Almost nobody else was so quick with a comment about the hastily drawn press event and report, so CRFB featured heavily in many of the stories today. There's almost no question that they had a heads-up, along with other ideological compatriots like Third Way. On NPR today, they invited one person on to comment about the co-chair's mark - David Walker, who has been paid by the Pete Peterson Foundation for many years. The rollodexes of practically every major reporter in Washington are filled with "experts" with ties to the Peterson Foundation. A pernicious feedback loop has developed: Peterson staffers are inside the commission as well as commenting from outside the commission. They're all speaking with one voice.

Add to that the $20 million dollar investment in paid media by Peterson himself with the "OweNo" campaign, and it's possible to watch a segment on cable TV on the cat food commission featuring a Peterson staffer, followed by a paid Peterson commercial, followed by turning to your morning paper to read about the commission in an article full of quotes from Peterson staffers. The man has bought a large chunk of the media, and the result will be that his views will get a much wider airing than anyone else's.

We should always ever vote for only 2 candidates, else it's our fault if YOUR chosen candidate loses....

It has nothing to do with the notion that YOUR candidate and YOUR party didn't motivate those voters to vote for him.

My strategy from here on out is to NEVER vote for the Democrat or the Republican until a political party actively changes my current mindset that it really doesn't matter who wins anymore.  Thus please feel free to look me up and blame me when YOUR candidate loses.

Gore lost cuz he ran a piece of crap campaign - it was inept, it was cowardly, it was pathetic.

Nader voters voted for Nader, and Nader lost. Adding their votes to some other candidate is S.T.U.P.I.D. or delusional.

HOWEVER, if repeating STUPID arguments makes you feel better about tossing your vote away on political incompetents, OR, sell outs, keep making it!