At the youth town hall this week, young voters came to ask President Obama questions about his past policies and future intentions. These young voters understand that this time of year, the mid-term elections, is when we interview candidates for the job of representing us in Congress. The president, though, called it “silly season” — an insult to them and to all American voters trying to decide whether to re-hire incumbents or look to another candidate for the job.

The index used to determined the cost of living increase for retires says costs went down in 2009, despite the standard cost of living index saying costs have increased every year.

Voters have a right to know whether candidates to Congress will protect Social Security from cuts. If members or candidates refuse to sign a pledge against cuts, then it is reasonable to assume that they support cutting Social Security.

Only 19.3% of Senate Dems oppose cuts in Social Security, if signing onto to the equivalent of House member Raul Grijalva’s “No Cuts” resolution is a reasonable indicator. As far as you should be concerned, that means 80.7% of Senate Dems support cuts. And things are a little better in the House, where 43.9% of Democrats have signed onto Grijalva’s resolution. What are we gonna do about it?

Rachel Maddow shows clip of Bennet-Buck debate, where Bennet nails Buck to the wall on Social Security flip-flops.

Noted Conservative Hack Jonah Goldberg posted a little article tearing into the idea that the Supreme Court is the place where we define what is and is not constitutional. He is defending the new radical Republican talking point that all legislation should have a constitutional justification attached to it. This is the Tenther’s (folks who think that the powers of the Federal Government are completely enumerated in the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment gives all other powers to the states individually) favorite meme.

They would use this thinking to end the Federal minimum wage, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. All the big Tea Party faves have this idea, with Joe Miller, Sharon Angle and Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell really leading the charge.

This idea is nuts on the surface but it is packed full of nutty goodness as you get deeper as well. The whole push for “constitutional fealty” by the Right is a ruse and always has been. The reason that they want to return to so called original intent it so wipe out two centuries of case law that does not suit their radical agenda.

The deficit hawks have held up the threat of borrowing from China as an excuse to cut Social Security and Medicare. In reality, the budget deficit has almost nothing to do with borrowing from China.

The Washington Post dismisses concerns about the cost of the Afghanistan war on the grounds that it is less than 1% of US GDP. But the Post supports raising the Social Security normal retirement age, although the savings to the government from doing this would be less than 1% of US GDP.

NOW members have spoken loud and clear: they want Fiscal Commission Co-Chair Alan Simpson out – and NOW President Terry O’Neill is ready to send him home with 1,500 baby bottle nipples.

Why a government shutdown is great for us and bad for the GOP.