Want to know the latest on the pro-austerity campaign to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits behind the public’s back?

Join our Firedoglake Membership webinar Wednesday, August 29th at 8pm Eastern on “Catfood 3.0 and the Ongoing Fight to Protect Social Security” with special guests Nancy Altman, Eric Kingson and Alex Lawson of Social Security Works.

Please leave any ideas for questions to ask supercommittee members in the comments below, if I don’t get to them this time I will try again at their next meeting.

You can also call Senator Murray and Rep. Hensarling to demand they broadcast all meetings, not just the opening statements and canned speeches. Click here for phone numbers and a script.

This is an extremely important moment not only in the fight to preserve the social safety net, but for the future of the country. Nancy and Eric are both critical figures in this fight, and have bravely led it in the face of incredible opposition, at tremendous personal sacrifice. I cannot say enough good things about them, their courage and their moral integrity.

If you’re an FDL member, you should have received an email invitation to the webinar. If you didn’t, contact Ryan Cook at (202) 506-3907 and he will make sure you get one.

If you’re not a member and would like to become one, you can join here for as little as $45/year and we’ll send you an invitation.

Simpson claimed that the Commission is “mainly working on solvency” for the Social Security system. But Galbraith says that addressing the “solvency” of Social Security is outside the mandate of the Catfood Commission.

Alice Rivlin is the chief wonk appointed by President Obama to the debt commission, and has long supported cutting Social Security benefits as a way to address the country’s financial woes.

Alex Lawson caught up with Rivlin and asked her about her plans right after his famous interview with Alan Simpson when the commission met two weeks ago, and she didn’t want to talk about it.

But it appears Rivlin’s ideas are gaining important support.

Right before a midterm election, the the Repubicans want to announce to likely voters (who tend to be older) that they want to default on the treasury bonds issued to the Social Security trust fund, rather than the Chinese? And that after shoveling billions in taxpayer money into record Wall Street bonuses, the GOP supports “balancing the budget” on the backs of old people?

Each time the Catfood Commission holds its secret meetings Alex Lawson of Social Security Works has been outside with his camera, shooting video of the closed front door as FDL runs a live stream on our front page. The Washington Post wrote it up recently. As committee members go in and out of the room Alex asks them questions when he can and yesterday he had an exchange with Alan Simpson that was…well, extraordinary.