The USA Isn't Exporting Much Anymore But The American Obesity & Gun Worship Lifestyles Are Making Impacts Worldwide

One of the candidates Blue America has endorsed this cycle is Rep. Tony Mendoza of Los Angeles, currently running for state senator. Tony believes in the ability of mankind to band together-- government being one of those "bands"-- to accomplish tasks to better the community in ways that individuals might not be able to do alone. Maybe you've seen the Rachel Maddow promos where she shows the Hoover Damn and talks about how only concerted government action could accomplish something like that. One of Tony's most impressive accomplishments was passage of his very first bill, A.B 97 in 2007 which ended the use of trans-fats in California restaurants. With the special interests-- particularly the California Restaurant Association and the Chamber of Commerce-- lined up solidly against him, it literally looked impossible. It took two years and he didn't get a single Republican vote, but he managed to get it passed and signed into law. "We're the first state to require restaurants to cook without artery-clogging trans-fats, which have been linked to heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Banning their use helped to reduce the number of cases of cardiovascular disease-- the No. 1 killer in the nation-- by an estimated 6 to 19 percent, reducing health care costs and most importantly, saving lives.”

In the video above you meet Jon Basso who started the Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Arizona in 2007, something we first looked at in 2009, pointing out how the only thing they leave off their burgers is lettuce. On March 1 of this year, a spokesperson for the restaurant, 575-pound Blair River died; he was 29 years old.


The obesity lifestyle is a uniquely American export-- and it's catching on worldwide. Gee, and I was upset because Newt Gingrich was revving up Obama-hatred at the NRA convention by complaining that Obama isn't pushing America's gun lifetstyle on other nations! I'm sure what guns won't do, obesity will. I ran across it big time in Guadalajara a couple months ago. As I pointed out at the time, the U.S. may be the fattest country in the world, but Mexico is now number 2, a problem that is now a rival to the deadly arsenal that's flowing south. Remember, there was a time-- and not so very long ago-- when virtually all non-right-wing Democrats and many mainstream conservative Republicans took responsible gun control seriously. That's gone now as gun control policy has been ceded to the NRA. It's destroying Mexican civil society. Gingrich and the rest of the gun nut panderers want to see that spread everywhere in the world... just like McDonald's.

As an unprecedented number of American guns flows to the murderous drug cartels across the border, the identities of U.S. dealers that sell guns seized at Mexican crime scenes remain confidential under a law passed by Congress in 2003.

...Drug cartels have aggressively turned to the United States because Mexico severely restricts gun ownership. Following gunrunning paths that have been in place for 50 years, firearms cross the border and end up in the hands of criminals as well as ordinary citizens seeking protection.

...What is different now, authorities say, is the number of high-powered rifles heading south-- AR-15s, AK-47s, armor-piercing .50-caliber weapons-- and the savagery of the violence.

Federal authorities say more than 60,000 U.S. guns of all types have been recovered in Mexico in the past four years, helping fuel the violence that has contributed to 30,000 deaths. Mexican President Felipe Calderon came to Washington in May and urged Congress and President Obama to stop the flow of guns south.

U.S. law enforcement has ramped up its focus on gun trafficking along the southwestern border. Arrests of individual gunrunners have surged. But investigators rarely bring regulatory actions or criminal cases against U.S. gun dealers, in part because of laws backed by the gun lobby that make it difficult to prove cases.

Gun lobby propaganda insists that the Mexican gun problem all comes from Central America, a complete and shameless fabrication. Guns from the United States "have been feeding the violence and overwhelming firepower being unleashed by drug traffickers," said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the United States. "We need to defang drug trafficking organizations of these high-caliber and semiautomatic and automatic weapons, and we need to do it now.