United States: Blood for Money Scheme

17 December 2009
by HRM Deborah

US Federal officials visited the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) west of Chicago on the 16 November 2009. The Obama administration officials are considering the now minimum security Illinois prison as a possible location to house alleged foreign terrorism suspects moved from the Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp in Cuba.

The plan being considered for the Thomson Correctional Center, pitched by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn in a recent meeting with US President Barack Obama, calls for the Federal Bureau of Prisons to operate it as a maximum-security “prison” and lease a portion to the US Defense Department to house an estimated 200 Guantanamo detainees. The plans could include a purchase of the facility by the federal government, Quinn said.

Which this comes at a time when the small economic depressed town of about 600 people seems excited towards a minute opportunity to work at the facility if it does comes into reality for the contention that the US military as in Guantanamo Bay will still be the overseers, which such as this on US soil brings once again into International legal focus of not just an actual populated concentration camp there and not a normal prison setting; but the continued noncompliance of the majority of innocent political hostages being held not just currently on Cuban soil; but now possibly within the US itself.

It also stands into question of the same practices of torture, religious discrimination, murder and other human rights violations will be initiated at Thompson and when will the US Concentration Camp system cease.

Obamanomics: 1 in 6 Americans live in poverty, revised estimates say

20 October 2009
By Hope Yen

The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed.

A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government's official figure.

The disparity occurs because of differing formulas the Census Bureau and the National Academy of Science use for calculating the poverty rate. The NAS formula shows the poverty rate to be at 15.8 percent, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans, according to calculations released this week. That's higher than the 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million, figure made available recently under the original government formula.

That measure, created in 1955, does not factor in rising medical care, transportation, child care or geographical variations in living costs. Nor does it consider non-cash government aid when calculating income. As a result, official figures released last month by Census may have overlooked millions of poor people, many of them 65 and older.

According to the revised NAS formula:

--About 18.7 percent of Americans 65 and older, or nearly 7.1 million, are in poverty compared to 9.7 percent, or 3.7 million, under the traditional measure. That's due to out-of-pocket expenses from rising Medicare premiums, deductibles and a coverage gap in the prescription drug benefit.

--About 14.3 percent of people 18 to 64, or 27 million, are in poverty, compared to 11.7 percent under the traditional measure. Many of the additional poor are low-income, working people with transportation and child-care costs.

--Child poverty is lower, at about 17.9 percent, or roughly 13.3 million, compared to 19 percent under the traditional measure. That's because single mothers and their children disproportionately receive non-cash aid such as food stamps.

--Poverty rates were higher for non-Hispanic whites (11 percent), Asians (17 percent) and Hispanics (29 percent) when compared to the traditional measure. For blacks, poverty remained flat at 24.7 percent, due to the cushioning effect of non-cash aid.

--The Northeast and West saw bigger jumps in poverty, due largely to cities with higher costs of living such as New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The Census Bureau said it expedited release of the alternative numbers for this month because of the interest expressed by lawmakers and the Obama administration in seeing a fuller range of numbers. Legislation pending in Congress would mandate a switch to the revised formula, although the White House could choose to act on its own.

Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that because the revised formula factors in non-cash government aid, the amount of increase in poverty from 2007 to 2008 was generally smaller compared to the current measure.

"Food stamp participation rose during the first year of recession and appears to have softened what could have been an even greater increase in financial hardship," he said.

Sherman said the revised formula could take on greater importance in measuring poverty for 2009 as more Americans take advantage of tax credits and food stamps under the federal stimulus program. Food stamp assistance currently is at an all-time high of about 36 million.

Obamanomics: Social Security Freeze Means Seniors Must Scrimp

Retired US truck driver Frank Ferrira, 90, talks about social security Thursday, 15 October 2009 at the Pembroke Pines, Fla. Southwest Focal Senior Center. There will be no cost-of-living increase for more than 50 million Social Security recipients next year, the first year without a raise since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.


16 October 2009
By MATT SEDENSKY

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – If her check were bigger, 76-year-old Agnes Conti might be able to spring for a better cut of meat for her pot roast. She could afford to send her nine grandchildren more than $20 for their birthdays and Christmas. She'd be able to buy some nice new clothes, like she sees on QVC, not what she settles for at Walmart.

If only. The government has said the Social Security checks Conti and tens of millions of other seniors rely on as their primary source of income will not increase next year as consumer prices have fallen overall. And while the retired hospital clerk will get by, she'll be watching her spending even closer, knowing she can't expect the annual raise she's been accustomed to.

"We were good citizens all our lives. We went to work, we lived by the book, we weren't on welfare, we didn't ask the city for anything," Conti said while taking a break from crafts at a senior center here. "And what do we get?"

At the Southwest Focal Point Senior Center in this Fort Lauderdale suburb, seniors lamented the cost-of-living freeze and praised a White House plan for $250 checks to soften the blow. But they took all of the news in stride, saying they've had a lifetime of experience living on a fixed income and would manage with the money they currently receive.

Frank Ferreira sits in the center's lobby, near a decorative fireplace and an autumn centerpiece. The 90-year-old retired truck driver loves to sing, even practicing on a karaoke machine at home, and loves to dance even more. He gets about $890 a month from Social Security, most of which he hands over to his daughter to help pay his share of the bills.

The money isn't the biggest issue, Ferreira said. It's the message the government is sending about caring for seniors.

"I could use a little more, but that's all right, I get along," he said. "But I think that we deserve it, the elderly. You can't just discard them. You've got to help them."

Nearby, 89-year-old Miriam Danzinger is shuffling along with a walker. She gets about $1,300 monthly in Social Security, and after rent and other expenses, including a MediGap plan, she has little to spare. Her daughter helps pay her bills.

When her Chevrolet Cavalier broke down a few months back, Danzinger was forced to give it up. When she goes to the store, she's thrifty, having learned how to cut grocery costs when she ran a coffee shop. She lives as simply as possible.

"Listen, there's no money. People are going hungry," she said. "But what can I say? I'm only a little ant."

The freeze in next year's checks is the first since automatic Social Security cost-of-living increases were adopted in 1975, and follows a 5.8 percent increase in January, the largest since 1982. By law, the adjustments are pegged to inflation, which is negative this year because of lower energy costs.

The Obama administration plan to send $250 stimulus payments to about 57 million seniors, veterans, retired railroad workers and people with disabilities, would amount to a roughly 2 percent raise for the average Social Security recipient. If approved, the checks would cost about $13 billion, though there is no plan yet how to finance them.

While seniors here have grown used to the annual raises, many of them said they're willing to cut the government some slack given the recession and the federal deficit.

"When they have the money, they give us the raise. If they don't have it, they don't have it," said Lucy Polieto, a retired waitress who lives in Southwest Ranches. She wears a glittery gold sweater and chains around her neck, and walks with a spry bounce that belies her 94 years. "Sometimes, I'm so surprised when I look at the check and I get a raise."

The news this week that checks would be stagnant is buffered by some positives: Seniors won't be getting any less than they already do, most recipients' Medicare part B premiums will freeze as well, and the president's plan could soften the blow. But because the one-time stimulus payments won't be a lifetime raise, it means many seniors will never see what amounts to thousands of dollars.

For those in poverty, the raise could have made a huge difference. But for the average senior simply living on a fixed income, it is seen less in dollars and cents, and more in the tangible costs they might be more careful with.

Polieto cooks eggplant, chicken cacciatori and pasta fazool. A raise could have given her more leeway with her grocery bill.

"Then I could buy some steaks, maybe," she said. "But I'd rather have a pork chop."

Obamanomics: U.S.S. Economy

Ensign: "For once can't we focus on something besides the environment (tailpipe exhaust), I think we have a much more serious problem, here?"

New jobless claims in the U.S. rise more than expected to 640K

23 April 2009

WASHINGTON - New jobless claims in the United States rose more than expected last week, while the number of workers continuing to filing claims for unemployment benefits topped 6.1 million.

Both figures are fresh evidence that layoffs persist and the job market remains weak. The Labour Department says initial claims for unemployment compensation rose to a seasonally adjusted 640,000, up from a revised 613,000 the previous week.

That was slightly above analysts' expectations of 635,000.

The number of people claiming benefits for more than a week rose to 6.13 million, setting a record for the 12th straight week.

This comes at a time when a US propaganda poll is claiming through US President Barack Obama, that their country is going into the right direction; even more so then it has in years, while hanging over the economic cliff with an untied rope. As to Obama's claim of confidence, he need's to rethink of how the American people are actually living from day to day or does he even taking into consideration their disgruntled voice and protesting.

"Pay the Bonus"

“Keep the Home Fires Burning;" is the song under the photograph, which was a propaganda tune from World War 1. If one also notices the upper part of the newspaper article header, one will also see that the harshness of segregation or racism between white and black American’s was still being enforced during this time period.

The Bonus March on Washington

The self-named Bonus Expeditionary Force was an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers — 17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups, who protested in Washington, D.C., in spring and summer of 1932. Called the Bonus March by the news media, the Bonus Marchers were more popularly known as the Bonus Army. The war veterans sought immediate cash payment of Service Certificates granted to them eight years earlier via the Adjusted Service Certificate Law of 1924. Each Service Certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier's promised payment, plus compound interest. The problem was that the certificates (like bonds), matured twenty years from the date of original issuance, thus, under extant law, the Service Certificates were un-redeemable until 1945.

The Bonus Army was led by Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant, and was encouraged in their demand for immediate cash-payment redemption of their service certificates by retired U.S.M.C. Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, one of the most popular military figures of the time.

In 1924, over-riding President Calvin Coolidge's veto, Congress legislated compensation for veterans to recognize their war-time suffering: receive a dollar for each day of domestic service, to a maximum of $500; and $1.25 for each day of overseas service, to a maximum of $625. Amounts owed of $50 or less were immediately paid; greater sums were issued as certificates of service maturing in 20 years.

Some 3,662,374 military service certificates were issued, with a face value of $3.638 billion. Congress established a trust fund to receive 20 annual payments of $112 million that, with interest, would finance the $3.638 billion dollars owed to the veterans in 1945. Meanwhile, veterans could borrow up to 22.5% of the certificate's face value from the fund. In 1931, because of the Great Depression, Congress increased the loan value to 50 per cent of the certificate's face value; yet, by April 1932, loans amounting to $1.248 billion dollars had been paid, leaving a $2.36-billion-dollar deficit. Although there was Congressional support for the immediate redemption (payment) of the military service certificates, President Hoover and Republican congressmen opposed that, because it would negatively affect the Federal Government's budget and Depression-relief programs. Meanwhile, veterans organizations pressed the Federal Government to allow the early redemption of their military service certificates.

Bonus Marchers In Washington
Original caption: Bonus March on Washington, July, 1932. Veterans cheer Rep. Fish who was in Favor of bill to pay soldier's bonus, after they were ordered off capital steps.

Bonus Veterans Crouch Beneath Banner
Original caption: 6/19/1932-Washington, DC- "We need cash not a tombstone, pay the bonus now," says the sign these veterans from Muncie, Indiana display. And the Muncie contingent is just one of the many who say they will remain in the capital until the bonus is paid them.



"I was horrified to see plain evidence of hunger in their faces."

Evalyn Walsh McLean was the wife of the owner of the Washington Post and a pillar of Washington Society. She describes the scene as the Bonus Army first entered Washington and marched past her elegant mansion:

On a day in June, 1932, I saw a dusty automobile truck roll slowly past my house. I saw the unshaven, tired faces of the men who were riding in it standing up. A few were seated at the rear with their legs dangling over the lowered tailboard. On the side of the truck was an expanse of white cloth on which, crudely lettered in black, was a legend, BONUS ARMY.

Other trucks followed in a straggling succession, and. on the sidewalks of Massachusetts Avenue where stroll most of the diplomats and the other fashionables of Washington were some ragged hikers, wearing scraps of old uniforms. The sticks with which they strode along seemed less canes than cudgels. They were not a friendly-looking lot, and I learned they were hiking and riding into the capital along each of its radial avenues; that they had come from every part of the continent. It was not lost on me that those men, passing anyone of my big houses, would see in such rich shelters a kind of challenge.

I was burning, because I felt that crowd of men, women, and children never should have been permitted to swarm across the continent. But I could remember when those same men, with others, had been cheered as they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. While I recalled those wartime parades, I was reading in the newspapers that the bonus army men were going hungry in Washington.

That night I woke up before I had been asleep an hour. I got to thinking about those poor devils marching around the capital. Then I decided that it should be a part of my son Jock's education to see and try to comprehend that marching. It was one o'clock, and the Capitol was beautifully lighted. I wished then for the power to turn off the lights and use the money thereby saved to feed the hungry.

When Jock and I rode among the bivouacked men I was horrified to see plain evidence of hunger in their faces; I heard them trying to cadge cigarettes from one another. Some were lying on the sidewalks, unkempt heads pillowed on their arms. A few clusters were shuffling around. I went up to one of them, a fellow with eyes deeply sunken in his head.

'Have you eaten?' He shook his head.

Just then I saw General Glassford, superintendent of the Washington police. He said, 'I'm going to get some coffee for them.'

'All right,' I said, 'I am going to Childs'.'

It was two o'clock when I walked into that white restaurant. A man came up to take my order. 'Do you serve sandwiches? I want a thousand," I said. "And a thousand packages of cigarettes.'

'But, lady - '

'I want them right away. I haven't got a nickel with me, but you can trust me. I am Mrs. McLean.'

Well, he called the manager into the conference, and before long they were slicing bread with a machine; and what with Glassford's coffee also (he was spending his own money) we two fed all the hungry ones who were in sight.

...One day Waters, the so-called commander, came to my house and said: 'I'm desperate. Unless these men are fed, I can't say what won't happen to this town.' With him was his wife, a little ninety-three-pounder, dressed as a man, her legs and feet in shiny boots. Her yellow hair was freshly marceled.

'She's been on the road for days,' said Waters, 'and has just arrived by bus.'

I thought a bath would be a welcome change; so I took her upstairs to that guest bedroom my father had designed for King Leopold. I sent for my maid to draw a bath, and told the young woman to lie down.

'You get undressed,' I said, 'and while you sleep I'll have all your things cleaned and pressed.'

'Oh, no,' she said, 'not me. I'm not giving these clothes up. I might never see them again.'

Her lip was out, and so I did not argue. She threw herself down on the bed, boots and all, and I tiptoed out.

That night I telephoned to Vice-President Charlie Curtis. I told him I was speaking for Waters, who was standing by my chair. I said: 'These men are in a desperate situation, and unless something is done for them, unless they are fed, there is bound to be a lot of trouble. They have no money, nor any food.'

Charlie Curtis told me that he was calling a secret meeting of senators and would send a delegation of them to the House to urge immediate action on the Howell bill, providing money to send the bonus army members back to their homes."

Arrival in Washington

The Bonus Army massed at the United States Capitol on June 17 as the U.S. Senate voted on the Patman Bonus Bill, which would have moved forward the date when World War I veterans received a cash bonus. Most of the Bonus Army camped in a Hooverville (transit or homeless Camps named after US President Herbert Hoover, well-known during the 1930’s Great Depression) on the Anacostia Flats, then a swampy, muddy area across the Anacostia River from the federal core of Washington. The camps, built from materials scavenged from a nearby rubbish dump, were tightly controlled by the veterans with streets laid out, sanitation facilities built and parades held daily. To live in the camps, veterans were required to register and prove they had been honorably discharged. The protesters had hoped that they could convince Congress to make payments that would be granted to veterans immediately, which would have provided relief for the marchers who were unemployed due to the Depression. The bill had passed the House of Representatives on June 15 but was blocked in the Senate.

Shacks, put up by the Bonus Army on the Anacostia flats, Washington, DC, burning after the battle with the military, 1932.

The U.S. Army intervenes

On 28 July, 1932, Attorney General Mitchell ordered the police evacuation of the Bonus Army veterans, who resisted; the police shot at them, and killed two. When told of the killings, President Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to effect the evacuation of the Bonus Army from Washington, D.C.

At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, Fort Myer, Virginia, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of Civil Service employees left work to line the street and watch the U.S. Army attack its own veterans. The Bonus Marchers, believing the display was in their honour, cheered the troops until Maj. Patton charged the cavalry against them — an action which prompted the Civil Service employee spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"

After the cavalry charge, infantry, with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, entered the Bonus Army camps, evicting veterans, families, and camp followers. The veterans fled across the Anacostia River, to their largest camp; President Hoover ordered the Army assault stopped, however, Gen. MacArthur—feeling this free-speech exercise was a Communist attempt at overthrowing the U.S. Government—ignored the President and ordered a new attack. Hundreds of veterans were injured, several were killed — including William Hushka and Eric Carlson; a veteran's wife miscarried; and many other veterans were hurt.

The Posse Comitatus Act — forbidding civilian police work by the U.S. military — did not apply to Washington, D.C., because it is the federal district directly governed by the U.S. Congress (U.S. Constitution, Article I. Section 8. Clause 17). The exemption was created because of an earlier "Bonus March". In 1781, most of the Continental Army was demobilized without pay, two years later, in 1783, hundreds of Pennsylvania war veterans marched on Philadelphia, surrounded the State House wherein Congress was in session, and demanded their pay. The U.S. Congress fled to Princeton, New Jersey, and, several weeks later, the U.S. Army expelled the war veterans back to home, out of the national capital.

An infant, Bernard Myers, later died in the hospital after the incident but reports indicated the death was not caused by the evacuation of the BEF.

Casualties and Losses

All told their where 4 dead and as many as 1,017 marchers and family injured, with at least 69 police injured.

Aftermath

Following his election, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not want to pay the bonus early either, but handled the veterans with more skill. In March 1933, Roosevelt issued an executive order allowing the enrollment of 25,000 veterans in the Civilian Conservation Corps for work in forests. When they marched on Washington again in May 1933, he sent his wife Eleanor to chat with the vets and pour coffee with them, and she persuaded many of them to sign up for jobs making a roadway to the Florida Keys, which was to become the Overseas Highway, the southernmost portion of U.S. Route 1. On September 2, the disastrous Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 killed 258 veterans working on the Highway. After seeing more newsreels of veterans giving their lives for a government that had taken them for granted, public sentiment built up so much that Congress could no longer afford to ignore it in an election year (1936). Roosevelt's veto was overridden, making the bonus a reality.

References:

Evalyn Walsh McLean's account appears in: Father Struck it Rich (1936); Daniels, Roger, The Bonus March; an Episode of the Great Depression (1971).

Bonus Army, Wikipedia

Memory: The Bonus Army March, Library of Congress

The Justified Shoe Throwing Heard Around the World

Iraq shoe thrower jailed for three years

Muntazer al-Zeidi, a 30-year-old Al-Baghdadiya television reporter who threw his shoes at former US president George W. Bush, making him a hero across the Arab world, was on Thursday sentenced unjustly to three years in jail; after the US government forced the Iraqi judicial system to find al-Zeidi guilty of assault.

Al-Zeidi, threw the shoes in anguish of not just Bush; but the devastation, illegal occupation and genocide that has been continuously being done to his country, by the US.

Which it has been almost six years, since the US illegally invaded Iraq; while the invasion had nothing to do with what occurred as the result of 9/11, but to the contrary; what Bush did was tell a very huge lie to not just the American populace to rally around him; but towards the global community and what actually was the true reason was nothing more then Islamophobia.

With the forgoing same conclusion, occurring also in Afghanistan and not what keeps being the broadcasted bombardment across the whole US media propaganda dung heap.

Since US President Barack Obama has taken office, regardless of what is being awkwardly published in the media propaganda; he too continues this madness not just towards these two countries; but the whole of the Islamic and Jewish world, at the cost of not just devastating the US economy into implosion, but further attempts to devastate towards the global economy as well; with even his continued obstinacy of trying to express to the global community of the stability of the US, as it plunges deeper into a sphere of a fourth world economically.

Off the Record: The California Dream

Come to California
There are jobs of plenty
And land is cheap.
Every working man can have his own house and inside every house a happy all-American family.
You can have all this and who knows…you may even be discovered…become a movie star or at least see one.
Life is good in California...It is paradise on earth…that is what they tell you, anyway. Because they are selling and image…they’re selling it through movies, radio and television.

You think California was the Garden of Eden, but the underbelly always has had its serpent, with felony crime, corruption, prostitution and drugs.

Just as the clean fresh face Mid-Western girl’s who got of the bus in plenty, with star’s glittering in their eye’s with the hope of becoming that next big movie star and as far as she ever got on a Hollywood lot of fame and fortune; is some director’s office sofa or ending up along prostitution row, only to die from a drug over-dose, other unmentionables; to ending up on some vacant lot dead, all cut up like Elizabeth Short (The Black Dahlia) and this was her only walk to fame’s headlines of the butchering, with no solid lead of the killer.

A mug shot of Elizabeth Short (The Black Dahlia) by Santa Barbara police, after her arrest for underage drinking, on 23 September 1943; prior to her murder.

Or those fresh faced young men stepping of the bus from who knows where, with the same star twinkles in their eyes and end up a slap boy for some up and coming politician or lawyer; slapped and tickled homosexual play toy. To later, be tossed away on some trumped-up charge like a ‘kiddy rapper beef;’ heading for (San) Quentin or the “Q;” with yet, just the possibility of just getting their throat sliced from ear to ear.

But less we forget, it was all done with champagne luxury style…which in reality until the economic bust, California became one of the most expensive states to live in; other then New York City….so let’s keep this on the GT and very Hush-Hush with the same old tabloid rag.

Places called “Hoovervilles,” named after former US President Herbert Hoover sprang up during the Great Depression as people lost their jobs and homes; besides the shanty towns, there where an overwhelming amount of what was called “transit camp’s,” which many consisted of nothing more then tent cities. In 2009, American’s are living in what is now being termed as “Obamavilles;” after current US President Barack Obama.

Obamaville: The tents and other makeshift homes have sprung up in the shadow of Sacramento's skyscrapers

Today, tents are once again springing up in the city of Sacramento. But this time it is for people with no hope and no prospects.

Obamaville: The tent city is already home to dozens of people, many left without jobs because of the credit crunch

Those who have lost their jobs and homes and have nowhere else to go are constructing makeshift shelters on the site, which covers several acres.

As many as 50 people a week are turning up and the authorities estimate that the tent city is now home to more than 1,200 people.

In a state more known for its fantastic wealth and the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, the images have shocked many Americans.

Conditions are primitive, with no water supply or proper sanitation.

Many residents have to walk up to three miles to buy bottled water from petrol stations or convenience stores.

Obamaville: Ben Cardwell, carries supplies to his tent at a homeless settlement

Obamaville: Tammy Day, a homeless woman, cooks potatoes on a campfire at the site

At other times, charity workers arrive to hand out free food and other supplies.

Joan Burke, who campaigns on behalf of the homeless, said the images of Americans living in tents would shock many.

'It should be an eye- opener for everybody,' she said. 'But we shouldn't just be shocked, we should take action to change things, because it's unacceptable.

'It is unacceptable that in this day and age we have gone back to a situation like we had during the Great Depression.'

Obamaville: Keith and Tammy Day cook dinner

Authorities in Sacramento, where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's family in Austria where of the Nazi Party at Adolph Hitler’s height of in fame; at his office, admit the sight of families living in such poverty is not pretty.

The city's mayor Kevin Johnson said: 'I can't say tent cities are the answer to the homeless population in Sacramento, but I think it's one of the many things that should be considered and looked at.'

Foreclosure rates last year rocketed by 327 per cent, with up to 500 people a day losing their home.

Coupled with massive job cuts that have seen one in ten workers laid off, many people who once enjoyed a middle class existence are now forced into third world conditions.

Former car salesman Corvin and his wife Tena are among the newest residents of the tent city.

Obamaville: Tent city residents queue up to receive supplies handed out by a local charity

The couple, who are in their fifties, lost their home and jobs around the same time.

With homeless shelters full in Sacramento, they had little choice but to use what savings they had left to buy a tent.

The couple admit they have yet to tell their grown-up children about their hand-to-mouth existence.

Tena said: 'I have a 35-year-old son, and he doesn't know. I call him, about once a month and on holidays, to let him know that I'm well and healthy.

Many of those who have found themselves homeless worked in the building trade.

But with no new home builds and as many as 80,000 people losing their job every month, there is little chance of employment.

'He would love me anyway, but I don't want to worry him.'

US President Barack Obama jaunts jubilantly on stage as he arrives to speak about education at the 19th Annual Legislative Conference of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, 10 March 2009. The song under the photograph above was called. “Where in the Money,” which came out in 1933 as a propaganda tune in retrospect as a mockery of how dire the condition’s actually where during the Great Depression. The song was first featured in the film called; “The Gold Digger’s of 1933” and was presented by a chorus line of scanty dressed women.

As these tent cities will continue to grow in the weeks, months and years ahead with no prosperity in sight. US President Barack Obama’s previous stimulus package fund’s finding its way out of the country for such thing’s as there terrorism genocide increase and troop build-up in Afghanistan or to fund various military contracts for their global initiatives on they’re domination projects for example or for such pet projects as $1.8 million for swine odor and manure management research in Iowa, $2 million to promote astronomy in Hawaii and $381,000 for music programs at New York City’s Lincoln Center.

But yet, the American people have to stand and wait and wonder what sorrows will still becoming there way, as the poverty problem continues to balloon somewhere out past the stratosphere.

Update:

13 March 2009

As to the Obamaville’s in Sacramento which are seen in the above photograph's, it has been reported while these camps are acquiring 50 to 100 people a day with no other place to live or no other foreseeable place to go; that US President Barack Obama’s solution for these particular camps was to order the city of Sacramento to evict all these tent resident’s from their present location.

As to the present living conditions which are deployable and unsafe health hazard with no sanitation or water for instance and having to in most instances to cook over dug holes made into a type of grill to cook what ever a person can"hope to find," instead of Obama helping these American’s; he has found a way to increase their misery.

These camps are also being considered worse, than any fourth world country.

Nevertheless, as to the US commenting of being a safe investment in the world, is nothing but arrogance; as the country plummet’s further into despair.

“The Bank Owns It”

In this 23 February 2009 file photo, a bank owned sign blows in the wind in front of a home; in Antioch, California.

During the 1930’s Great Depression with the overwhelming amount of foreclosures of not just homes, but farms; it became as a deluge of hardship for the banking system along with financial runs by customer’s to the point; that it was common to see a closed sign on a bank that had failed.

The phrase, “The Bank Owns It;” was a common thing said during the 1930’s Depression as a former owner stood outside there yard because it became illegal to enter his former property, in part because of the sorrow of the former homeowner or a passerby damaging the property as it lay silent for no one could afford to claim or buy the property with the overwhelming amount of unemployment and no one had a dime.

This was also during the time that the American Nazi Parties where on the Adolph Hitler “goose-step” march, as such people as former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was not just financing the “Final Solution;” along with Prescott Bush (grandfather to former US President George W. Bush), with many others giving the Nazi global domination handshake and waving the 'iron' flag at rallies.

Jewish Holocaust, also known as “Final Solution”

Then as the US government plummeted deeper into the financial and political global domination devastating destruction Jewish Holocaust abyss; we got the propaganda version about face; of World War two.

As the United States in 2009, stands at the threshold of this stand still of that time of ‘dust bowl tears;’ as a forgotten home owner see’s his lost home being racked with the weather and to say, “The bank owns it!”

As always, the US is on the march bankrupting their own country and the world, as the death toll globally continues to climb into triple digit record numbers; as the Jewish and Islamic people watch the death viewed around them from the US strangling grip and the global community watches the bread being grabbed from there very mouth‘s, by US Uncle Sam's hands.

'Unbridled Greed' Says Malaysian Prime Minister on Global Financial Crisis

From L to R) Chairman of World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) Tun Musa Hitam, Ras al-Khaimah Crown Prince Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al-Qassimi of the UAE, Prime Minister of Morocco Abbas El Fassi, President of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Prime Minister of Malaysia Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Deputy Prime Minister of Yemen Abdul Kareem Al-Arhabi, secretary-general of OIC Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, and Indonesian National Organizing Committee, Sofyan A Djalil, attend the opening ceremony of the 5th World Islamic Economic Forum in Jakarta, on 2 March 2009.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi blamed 'unbridled greed' for the global financial crisis as business people from the Islamic world gathered for an economic conference.

The fifth World Islamic Economic Forum on “Global Food and Energy Security” will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia on the 1-4th March 2009.

Obama Poll: Demon or Saint

As the American propaganda spreads some fictitious poll to make US President Barack Obama out to be some type of saint; there is a much wider more global conscious that tells a much better view of Obama‘s popularity, which is less the prodigy of sainthood, to more the exposure of a apostate demon of bogus hope; especially for the American’s.

Nevertheless, with Obama’s alleged stimulus package and other insidious proposal’s under the guise of aiding the American people, in reality this is just a method to commit financial rape of the whole of the populace of that country; to have the financial means to continue with their criminal activities doesn’t only affect Palestine, but the bulk of the global community.

How much longer should not just the global community, but the citizens of the US have to tolerate all these unspeakable criminal activities; as the US government abuses and continues to try an hold the world hostage?

Guadeloupe Economic Riot

A man looks at the burned remains of a car after rioting over the rising cost of living on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. The tiny island state has been gripped by month-long strikes; due to the depressive economic conditions similar to what is occurring in the United States; on 17 February 2009.

The riot was due to the people of this country, wishing better conditions, such as rise in employment pay and lower living cost's; that has been apparently strangling the citizen’s of Guadeloupe, just trying to survive from day to day.

But yet the demonstrator’s are still bound by the ties of slavery, thought long forgotten; as it continues to raise its head like a cobra, with blood stained fangs.

Further Reading:

French riot police arrive in Martinique

Anti-riot police to be sent to Martinique, French minister returns to Guadeloupe

US: For millions, digital TV deadline still is now

13 February 2008

SAN DIEGO - Isidro Diaz surfs channels on his old TV about three hours a night in the trailer he rents for $350 a month. Come Tuesday, his limited choice of programs will be much more limited.

Although the government delayed the mandatory shutdown of analog TV signals by four months to give people with older TVs more time to prepare, that's small comfort to Diaz and other people who live in cities where some broadcasters are switching to all-digital broadcasts Tuesday, as they had originally planned.

Because it is costly to keep broadcasting analog signals, nearly 500 stations said they would make the transition on Tuesday or one of the nearby days, rather than June 12. After last-minute prodding by the Federal Communications Commission, 43 of them backed off. But still there will be an odd patchwork of programming for millions of Americans who rely on analog TV signals.

To deal with the change, they need a digital converter box or a new TV with a digital tuner, or cable or satellite service.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition of 200 advocacy groups, has digital TV assistance centers in seven metropolitan areas — Atlanta, Detroit, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Ore., and St. Paul, Minn. — to answer questions, demonstrate converter boxes and sometimes send out house calls.

In San Diego, the nation's eighth-largest city, the ABC, CBS, Fox and CW affiliates plan to end analog broadcasts Tuesday.

Diaz, a 63-year-old Mexican immigrant who was laid off a month ago by a garden nursery that paid $10 an hour, figures he will eventually muster $200 for a digital television; the least expensive model on Best Buy Co.'s Web site costs $130.

He recently shopped at an electronics store for a digital converter box for the $40 used Sony TV he bought from a newspaper classified ad four years ago. But the $60 converter box didn't seem worth it because he can get a new TV for a little more.

Subscribing to cable or satellite TV is out of the question.

"There's no work right now, $40 a month is very difficult," Diaz said while scarfing a dinner of beef tacos at a stand in San Diego's Barrio Logan neighborhood.

The Obama administration sought the delay in the analog TV shutdown after the government ran out of money for the $40 coupons that subsidize digital converter boxes. The program has a waiting list of 4 million coupons; each household can get up to two.

According to research firm MRI, 17.7 percent of Americans live in households with only over-the-air TV. The Nielsen Co. said last week that more than 5.8 million U.S. households, or 5.1 percent of all homes, were not ready for the analog shutdown.

However, officials at stations that plan to make the switch Tuesday believe that the transition will mainly go smoothly, and that the delay will confuse consumers.

"They've had two years to get ready is our feeling," said Larry Patton, general manager of KSWO-TV, an ABC affiliate in Lawton, Okla. "We feel there's always going to be a few people who are going to wake up on the morning of Feb. 17, or June 17, or whenever it is, and not be ready."

Bryan Frye, marketing director at KAKE-TV, the ABC station in Wichita, Kan., said he was half-joking when he described fears about the analog shutdown as "a little like Y2K."

"We are going to pull out all the stops, we are going to have everybody on board, you know, full alert," Frye said. "It is going to happen and everybody is going to go, `Hmmm, OK.'"

In Jackson, Miss., Ashley Lewis, 25, said she has visited an older neighbor several times to help with her digital converter box. Lewis bought a new antenna Thursday for the neighbor, thinking that might make the box work better. In most cases digital signals, which are more efficient, come in better than analog, but some older antennas aren't well suited.

"She can barely walk," Lewis said. "Her knees are so bad sometimes and she is on a fixed income, and I don't think it is fair for elderly people."

A Radio Shack store in Casper, Wyo., where the ABC and CBS stations switch next week, has found that the converter boxes confuse some consumers, said assistant store manager Dorothy Durda.

"Normally, they come in and we draw them a little diagram or whatever of how to do it and that seems to fix their problem for them," Durda said.

Major San Diego stations have twice flashed warnings to TV screens on analog signals, telling anyone who sees the message to call a toll-free number for more information, said Jeff Block, manager of KGTV-TV, an ABC affiliate.

After a warning in December, the toll-free number got 359 calls. A warning in January yielded 510 calls.

Diaz didn't call the number but said Tuesday's switch comes as no surprise. The stations he watches have advertised the change for about three months.

He'll still be able to get Spanish-language news broadcasts, which he watches about three hours each weeknight. And he can still enjoy boxing on Saturday nights and soccer matches on weekends. But starting Tuesday he'll have a puny selection of English-language programs.

Diaz said he might browse again for TVs this weekend but isn't sure when he'll buy one.

"I can wait a little longer," he said.

___

On the Net:

http://www.civilrights.org/dtv

___

Commentary:

Digital TV is not what it snowed up to be, with channel’s that are scrambled endlessly here and there that are not watchable or no signal; so what was the importance of the switch?

As to the cost of cable, a converter box, a new television at cost’s ill afforded by most American’s something such as this is more to letting the American public either hear the media propaganda one or two days longer, to ever increasing poor grade programming; to what ever the date maybe for shut-off, to just sitting in the dark with a box full of snow.

What is further the question of who profit’s from the switch, is the consumer the loser which it looks like or is censorship in further swing?

The bottom line, is the programming gremlins or having a run away, the American people are left in the poor man’s dark, does the whole sphere of the television need to be reinvented or shall we go back to the golden age of radio; in the United States.

Obama’s Stimulus Bill

This historic 'Major Milestone' for American domestic dissention and economic implosion.

US Foreign and Domestic Policy

“Can’t quite reach it, without keep falling down!”

The Blood from a Turnip

It is tax time again; for the majority of American’s and it is assured your mouth is watering with the hope of that nice return check, but this year think again.

US President Barack Obama passed a bill to nix that income tax return check, instead the majority of American’s rather it is state or federal will have to pay until the pain can not even be relieved by an aspirin.

If American’s where wondering about the issue of how Obama was going to come up with money for his current beat the government over the head stimulus package, here is one idea.

What is saddened by this, is how American’s are struggling to make end’s meet now and those who took out loans with the hope to pay them back with the now invisible tax return check; it is a wonder of how far the American people will have to suffer before their government stripes everything away from them.

Hurricane Katrina: End of rent help is a disaster for many

Displaced by storm, they scramble to stay afloat

7 February 2009
By Katy Reckdahl

As a longstanding disaster rent subsidy ends this month, thousands of families might be unable to pay their March rent.

Among them is a nursing assistant from Algiers who just got laid off, a Gentilly homeowner who works with the homeless and now fears he could join their ranks, and a disabled St. Bernard Parish man who worked with oil for decades until the fumes scrambled his nervous system.

The federal Disaster Housing Assistance Program, known as DHAP, will no longer pay rent for nearly 15,000 New Orleans-area households and thousands of other families displaced by Katrina, including more than 5,000 in the Houston area. "We don't know what we're going to do. I guess we're going to have to become a burden to our children," said Charles Ricord, the disabled man from St. Bernard.

On the Bush administration's last day, federal housing officials refused to continue the program. The Louisiana Recovery Authority and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., are pushing for a one-year extension, arguing that New Orleans still faces an acute affordable-housing shortage and that thousands of Louisiana homeowners still await Road Home money.

In a recent letter to President Barack Obama, Landrieu wrote: "It would be remiss of the federal government to infuse hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy . . . while we terminate a program housing more than 30,000 people in a region struggling to restore its affordable housing stock."

As many as 80 percent of DHAP tenants might be eligible for permanent Section 8 rental assistance because they're elderly, disabled or impoverished, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which administers the program. But only 300 of the area's 15,000 affected households secured vouchers by this week, officials said. Many renters interviewed for this story didn't know they were eligible.

HUD, along with the Housing Authority of New Orleans, has beefed up the staff for its toll-free phone line, 866.202.3487. The agency can handle as many as 150 appointments a day in the office and more through teams that make home visits, said Dwayne Muhammad of HANO. "Get in here and we'll see you on the spot," he said.

Still, the sheer number of vouchers at stake might make the task impossible, with three weeks left and Mardi Gras approaching, observers say -- especially since disabled and elderly renters are apt to need more time and help.

Even renters who emerge with vouchers have more work to do. If their landlords accept vouchers, HANO still must inspect each unit and sign a contract, which usually takes at least two weeks.

--- 'We don't want to unpack' ---

Charles and Cynthia Ricord moved into a house near the Murphy Oil plant in July, supported by DHAP, since their only income is his $637 monthly disability check. On one wall are family photos. All else remains in boxes.

"We don't want to unpack," he said. "We don't know when we'll be moving again."

Many tenants who remain on DHAP could be called the neediest of the needy, because the program took in the last Katrina holdouts living in hotels and in FEMA trailers. For some, the past three years have been a turbulent sequence of moves between temporary homes, made worse by illness, depression, meager resources and shattered support networks.

The Ricords, who ran a successful but uninsured oil recycling business before Katrina, lived in Texas and Mississippi motels before returning to St. Bernard. They've stayed inside a tent, a garage, a FEMA trailer and an apartment where sewage ran under the floor.

They had begun to repair the home they lived in before Katrina, making payments on it as part of a lease-to-own deal. But last year, their landlord evicted them without explanation, they said.

The house was across the pasture from where they grew up as neighbors, before her rheumatoid arthritis made it hard to fold laundry and before he was diagnosed with nerve damage that causes him to clench his fists in pain, even when he's taking painkillers. "It seems like a lifetime ago," he said.

--- No one is hiring ---

D'Antionette Johnson got the call from her supervisor on Wednesday, and her heart sank. Her employer had laid off a group of people, including her.

She has been trying to land a job as a nursing assistant. But few, if any, are hiring, she said.

After Katrina, a helicopter rescued Johnson, clutching her toddler daughters, from a roof in the Lower 9th Ward, where she had rented a one-bedroom apartment for $150 a month. They began a nomadic life, mostly following relatives who can keep her daughters while she works.

Before her apartment in Algiers, the family lived with an aunt in Baton Rouge, cousins in Houston, and in three different places in New Orleans.

Her girls -- Darreion Johnson, 9, and Laureion Johnson, 8 -- have now attended nearby Harriet Tubman Elementary School since March, their longest stay in the same place since the storm, she said. She hopes to get help there for her younger daughter, whose sweet disposition changed after the storm.

Lately, Johnson has earned about $800 a month, the same amount DHAP paid for her apartment. Inside, there's almost no furniture except a flowered couch, salvaged from the street. The girls sleep on the couch, Johnson on the floor.

Johnson graduated atop her high school class, got her nursing assistant's certificate when she was 19, and has always worked hard to provide for her children, she said.

She hopes to pay her own rent again, she said. But not by March 1. "I can do it if I have a little more time," she said.

--- 'I have to make a decision' ---

Last fall, FEMA relocated Clarence White from the trailer he had set up in front of his Gentilly house, citing potential formaldehyde exposure.

He's now in an apartment, paid for by DHAP, in the Irish Channel. But the house he owns is only half rebuilt because of Road Home delays, a bad contractor and the incessant demands of his job as a caseworker for the homeless.

White helped house hundreds of people from the city's homeless encampments at Duncan Plaza and underneath the Claiborne Avenue overpass. Most of his monthly salary goes toward his $1,200 mortgage, utilities and other bills.

But DHAP renters who aren't elderly or disabled can get vouchers only if their income is less than 30 percent of the area's median income. Even White's modest paycheck exceeds the threshold of $12,550 a year for a single person.

By the end of this month, I have to make a decision," he said. Right now, he's leaning toward living with relatives in Baton Rouge and commuting.

White spends every day working with people who live precariously. He and other caseworkers say thousands of homeless people squat in houses that lack electricity or plumbing.

Only his family saves him from that fate, he said.

--- Not so wonderful ---

The Ricords still hope to get a voucher by March 1, with the help of a New Orleans Legal Assistance lawyer. But they aren't sure their landlord will accept it.

The two flip through a photo album they brought when they evacuated on Aug. 28, 2005. Pictures show the family clowning on its boat, Mr. Mac. They're smiling, playing horseshoes and volleyball, boiling crawfish. "It's like we're in the movie 'It's a Wonderful Life,' " said Charles Ricord.

But in this version, no angel appears to give them the good part back, he said.

Further Reading:

Competing stimulus bills divide Congress

US Sapping the Blood of Increase Unemployment

In this 2 January 1974 file photo, people are shown as they sell blood in an Atlanta laboratory.

Blood donors for pay have increased considerably in recent months as unemployment has risen. Economic battered employers eliminated 598,000 jobs in January 2009, the most since the end of 1974 as said by some economist and has catapulted the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent; which lacks the 2 percent margin that was considered the bench mark for the unemployment rate of the 1930’s Great Depression.

With yet more turbulent economic seas yet ahead, as the US economy continues to plummet with no end in sight and no foreseeable manner of return. Even US President Barack Obama’s underhanded moves to force his latest stimulus package, will not save the US economy from falling deeper into the economic pit.

Democrats Playing Economic Dirty Politics

National Democrats Target LA GOP Congressmen

4 February 2009

New Orleans-National Democrats paid for attack advertisements targeting three Louisiana Republican congressmen, in their home districts, to highlight GOP votes against President Barack Obama's proposal to stimulate the economy.

Joseph Cao of New Orleans, Bill Cassidy of Baton Rouge and John Fleming of Minden are freshmen who voted against the plan last week, as did all of their fellow House Republicans.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's radio ads began airing Tuesday. They say the three "voted against economic recovery." The campaign is part of a national effort: in all, the DCCC bought advertising attacking 28 House Republicans in their home districts, the committee said.

Another Louisiana Republican, U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany of Lafayette, said in a statement that the ad campaign is proof that Democrats are "playing partisan games."

On second thought, never mind about that bailout

A man holds a sign with the words: "Need Food For Family, God Bless You, Will Work," at an intersection in Miami, Florida. US lawmakers are set to hand Barack Obama the first major win of his week-old presidency, overriding chiefly Republican objections to pass a highly questionable $825bln economic stimulus plan.

30 January 2008
By MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON – A small but growing number of community banks are backing out of the government's bailout, which they see as fraught with hidden strings and government interference.

About 20 banks so far that applied for or had been approved to receive about $1 billion combined in taxpayer money have reversed course in the past month and refused to take the money. That's just a fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars the government already has spent, but it shows that taxpayers aren't the only ones anxious about the financial bailout.

"The government's going to own a good portion of these banks," said David Heintzman, president of Stock Yards Bank & Trust in Louisville, Ky. The bank recently turned down $43 million in approved bailout money.

After Congress approved the $700 billion bailout in October, the government gave banks only a few weeks to decide whether they wanted to take part in the government investment program. Many applied to get a foot in the door, in case predictions of an economic collapse came true.

"We drank the Kool-Aid," said Michael Ross, president of Fidelity Bank in Dearborn, Mich., which applied for about $29 million in November.

But as details emerged, the deal didn't look so good. For Fidelity, taking the money would mean the government would have owned about 25 percent of the company's outstanding stock. Then Congress and the White House could start calling the shots, Ross said. He remembers the government's failure overseeing Freddie Mac and its sister company, Fannie Mae, the two housing companies so badly mismanaged they were taken over by the Bush administration.

"These are the guys who brought you Hurricane Katrina. These are the guys who were supposed to be watching Fannie and Freddie," Ross said. "I've not seen anything like this, where they really are talking about nationalizing banks."

Much of the criticism about the bailout has focused on the lack of oversight, which allowed banks to take money and refuse to say where it's going. Wall Street executives, who make millions of dollars and enjoy lavish perks like private jets, earned the ire of consumer watchdogs who said taxpayers were getting a raw deal.

But some community banks, which had little or nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis, say the deal didn't look great for them, either.

Congress wants banks to make loans, so businesses can expand and people can start buying houses again. But lawmakers also want them to make only trustworthy loans. But there are only so many good loans to make in a weak economy with high unemployment.

Explaining that to investors is easy. To politicians, it might looks like you're hoarding taxpayer money.

"Then what? Then they have a guy at our board meeting?" said William Campbell, president of Pamrapo Savings Bank, a Bayonne, N.J., bank that walked away from its $11 million bailout application.

The government also can force banks to cut dividends to shareholders, making a bank's stock less attractive to investors. President Barack Obama has said he wants to prohibit banks from buying other banks. And at any time, Congress can change the law and add new terms.

"Are you going to enter into a contract that will cost you millions of dollars if you can't live with the rules and you don't even know what the rules are?" said Steve Buster, CEO of Richmond, Calif.-based Mechanics Bank, which refused $60 million in bailout money. "I don't know of any other forum that parties can change the contract at will. This is not fair."

The banks that turned down the money said they were comfortable their own finances will allow them to weather the storm. For some, taking the money seemed riskier than turning it down.

"We finally said, 'Hey do we really want to go down this path?'" said Michael Blodnick, chief executive of Glacier Bancorp of Kalispell, Mont. "I understand a lot of banks do, and a lot of banks need to."