The thing that makes my teeth set on edge when I hear pundits and politicians talk about how everyone needs to sacrifice is that it is clearly evident that they have no frame of reference at all for how much sacrifice people on the lower end of the socio-economic scale already do on a daily basis. So I am completely in favor of all politicians and pundits to expand their understanding by taking the Food Stamp Challenge, living on the equivalent of SNAP benefits for a week, which in the case of this CNN producer is roughly $30/week.

So I applaud Newark Mayor (and future NJ Governor candidate) Cory Booker for taking on the Food Stamp Challenge. But moreover, I love that Booker also dared a Twitter detractor to put her money where her mouth (or typing) is and take it along with him:

The mayor — who interacts frequently with his Twitter followers — challenged one of his followers, @MWadeNC, to join him in the challenge of living on food stamps, after the tweeter, who bills herself as an “Army Veteran, Army Daughter, Army Wife … fighting against any and all forms of socialism/communism,” criticized Booker for quoting the Greek historian Plutarch on Sunday. “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics’ Plutarch ancient Greek historian (c. 46 -- 120 CE)” Booker tweeted. “We pay 4 HUGE back end govt programs: prisons, police, etc. If we invested in Schools, nutrition, etc we’d save $ & create wealth,” Booker tweeted to another follower another who charged that Booker wanted to “redistribute wealth,” to which @MWadeNC responded, “nutrition is not a responsibility of the government.” “We have a shared responsibility that kids go to school nutritionally ready 2 learn,” Booker answered, receiving a “why is there a family today that is ‘too poor to afford breakfast’? are they not already receiving food stamps?” tweet back from @MWadeNC The back and forth culminated with Booker offering @MWadeNC a challenge: “Lets you and I try to live on food stamps in New Jersey (high cost of living) and feed a family for a week or month. U game?” @MWadeNC accepted on Twitter “sure, Mayor, I’m game.”

I hope that @MWadeNC follows through and learns a little about what it's like for so many in America. When one in five children in the wealthiest nation in the world goes to bed hungry, we no longer need refer to it as a "redistribution" problem, but one of an inhumane system.

From Gustav Wynn at NYAlt News, some rather pathetic news about Mitt Romney: He appears to be outsourcing Twitter followers:

Mitt Romney has gotten extremely popular on Twitter in the last 24 hours. In fact, he is receiving 25 new followers per second as I write this.

What’s happening? It seems to have started Friday, when Romney’s typical average of 3,ooo-4,000 per day increased some twenty fold to over 62,000 in a single day, according to TwitterCounter.com. But the new followers are highly suspect. From “empty” accounts to pornbots, spambots, Justin Beiber-related accounts, Obama supporters and foreign accounts, the followers tell a puzzling tale, suggesting spam automation, purchased traffic or perhaps even sabotage.

Accounts like “@banvardrazjzk” or “@etonyge” have ten or less tweets, some containing gobbledygook characters and despite only following a few accounts themselves, they each have hundreds of followers, implying it’s part of a mass-generated fake account network.

Romney’s account had over 673,000 followers on July 20 following his typical numbers, but his graph made a “hockey stick” leap yesterday, climbing to over 767,000 as I write.

With some onlookers assuming the Romney campaign is buying accounts to pad his numbers, we highly doubt they would be so clumsy. Last summer, Newt Gingrich received embarrassing national press when he had 1.3 million followers at a time no other GOP candidate even had 100,000 followers. The news then had sport reporting over 90% were fake accounts.

Just yesterday, Rush Limbaugh was exposed as it was discovered that New Delhi was the most popular source for “shares” on his “Rush Babes for America” Facebook promotion. This suggested he was outsourcing “astroturf” by paying experts in India to pad his traffic figures and perceived female support.

But Romney’s followers are not necessarily being bought. It could be that he has become more popular because his account is promoted more heavily by Twitter as a “you might want to follow” suggestion. Many of President Obama’s 17 million followers are also spambot or questionable accounts, but his numbers have climbed predictably where Romney’s sudden spike invites more questions.