Bush To Poor: Drop Dead

One week after proposing an obscene $700,000,000,000,000 bailout for Wall Street, George W. Fuck announced that he would oppose a package of less than 10% of that to remedy his economic meltdown on Main St.

The White House will oppose a $56.2 billion dollar stimulus package, specifically opposing aid to the poor, including extended unemployment benefits for seven weeks, a 10% increase in food stamps, and $50 million to food pantries.

Golden parachutes for Wall Street thieves, golden showers for everyone else.

Fuck you too, asshole. Enjoy the ignominy of being remembered as the worst president in history.

People Are Really Hurting

And the millionaire media pundits keep talking about themselves.

Bob Hebert, NYTimes: Letters From Vermont

Despite the focus on the housing crisis, gasoline prices and the economy in general, the press has not done a good job capturing the intense economic anxiety — and even dread, in some cases — that has gripped tens of millions of working Americans, including many who consider themselves solidly middle class.

Working families are not just changing their travel plans and tightening up on purchases at the mall. There is real fear and a great deal of suffering out there.

A man who described himself as a conscientious worker who has always pinched his pennies wrote the following to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont:

“This winter, after keeping the heat just high enough to keep my pipes from bursting (the bedrooms are not heated and never got above 30 degrees) I began selling off my woodworking tools, snowblower, (pennies on the dollar) and furniture that had been handed down in my family from the early 1800s, just to keep the heat on.

“Today I am sad, broken, and very discouraged. I am thankful that the winter cold is behind us for a while, but now gas prices are rising yet again. I just can’t keep up.”

[]

A 55-year-old man who said his economic condition was “very scary,” wrote: “I don’t live from paycheck to paycheck. I live day to day.” He has no savings, he said. His gas tank is never more than a quarter full, and he can’t afford to buy the “food items” he would like.

His sense of his own mortality was evident in every sentence, and he wondered how long he could continue. “I am concerned as gas prices climb daily,” he said. “I am just tired. The harder that I work, the harder it gets. I work 12 to 14 hours daily, and it just doesn’t help.”

A working mother with two young children wrote: “Some nights we eat cereal and toast for dinner because that’s all I have.”

Another woman said she and her husband, both 65, “only eat two meals a day to conserve.”

Updates

A211243, Double bird and Owl Effigy Pipe, Virginia, Scott County (Smithsonian)

Courtney Prince, the former New York Rangers cheerleader, has filed her response to MSG's third motion for summary judgment. She says MSG told her to tell the other cheerleaders to act sexy; she also says she did not realize she had been fired for several months. MSG must have raised a statute of limitations defense. Discrimination claims have some of the shortest time limits of any civil claim. You have three years to file suit if you slip and fall or get hit by a car; for sexual harassment, it's six months. MSG immediately issued a press release saying that her claim is baseless and without merit, but as the article notes at the end, George Bush's (read, very conservative) EEOC "has recommended that MSG have its employees undergo sexual harassment discrimination training and pay Prince $800,000 in damages."

The albatross released on Sunday was found waddling on Route 25 in Plymouth yesterday; it's been returned to the Tufts wildlife rescue facility where it was initially nursed back to health.

A reporter for the LATimes tried the Food Stamp Challenge as a vegetarian; she ended up snacking at the sample tables of Whole Foods. Excellent column in the Worcester Telegram lauding Congressman McGovern and his efforts to fight hunger.

Yesterday, while George W. Bush was defending Abu Gonzales, a bird shit on his suit. You cannot make this stuff up.

News Round-Up, Monday, May 21, 2007

flickr

McClatchy (formerly Knight-Ridder) has an important article on the success Karl Rove and his minions have had in suppressing legitimate votes, all in the name of faux voter fraud.

ThinkProgress: TSA Confiscates Congressman’s Last Meal During Food Stamp Challenge Stupid, stupid TSA liquids rules. Did they think Congressman Ryan was going to blow up the plane with a jar of peanut butter? I can't wait until saner minds prevail. The confiscation of liquids is just as stupid as the 15 years that we endured the Lockerbie questions. (Did you pack your own bag? Has your bag been out of your possession at any point? Has anyone unknown to you asked you to carry anything? Arrgh.)

Great anti-war piece in the Chicago Sun-Times: Bring troops home now (hat tip, Suburban Guerrilla)

TalkLeft: Here Come The Detention Camps: Immigration Legislation No wonder George W. Bush supported the new immigration compromise legislation; it lets him build more gulags.

Brilliant at Breakfast: Why can't a First Lady have a career? Michelle Obama has left her job at a Chicago hospital.

Best health care system in the world, my ass: The LA Times reports the heartbreaking story of a woman who was allowed to die writhing in pain in a hospital ER in Los Angeles County. They had told her to leave and call her own doctor in the morning.

The Boston Globe reports on the resuscitation of a (southern hemisphere, really lost) albatross that was found in a field in Maine.

The WaPo discovers left blogtopia; better late to the party than never, I guess.

Updates

The latest news in some stories we've covered previously.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), the federal agency charged with making our nation's mines safe, has issued fines for the Sago Mine disaster in which 12 miners died. Only one died as a result of the lightning strike said to have started the fire; the other 11 died subsequently. They were each wearing self-contained self-rescuers (SCSRs); there were numerous code violations in these, and obviously they failed. The MSHA issued a fine of $60 to the mine operator. Yes, $60. 12 deaths, divided by $60, that's $5 per death.

In the wake of the resignation of Boston College women's ice hockey coach Tom Mutch for an inappropriate relationship with a player, one incoming freshman has chosen another school, and a freshman was released from her scholarship. Neither is the player reportedly involved with the coach. In similar news, the women's golf coach at the University of Georgia, Todd McCorkle, resigned May 7th after being accused of sexually harassing his players. He showed them the Paris Hilton sex tape, talked about their bras and underwear, and touched them inappropriately. Like Mutch, McCorkle is married to a former player, Jenna Daniels, who is now on the LPGA Tour. But he met her while he was her golf coach at the University of Arizona, when she was 18 and he was 36. Warning bells!

Don Imus is suing CBS Radio for $120 million. Did he have a clause in his contract saying that he got to stay if advertisers bailed? I'm sure he'll donate whatever he gets to charity.

When Rudy Giuliani reported his finances this week, we learned a weird fact: He has Judi Nathan on the payroll, to the tune of $125,000 per year. So those campaign contributors are putting their money right into the Giuliani/Nathan kitty. It's all about the Benjamins.

Congressman Jim McGovern's Food Stamp Challenge made the front page of the Boston Globe yesterday.

Congressman McGovern Leads Fight to Increase Food Stamp Budget

I love my Congressman. Jim McGovern (the original sponsor of the House bill to ending funding for the Iraq war) is also co-Chair of the House Hunger Caucus. He and his co-chair, Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) are both eating on a food stamp budget for a week. They challenged other members of Congress to join them (here's the letter they sent out, pdf link) but only two have joined them: Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Tim Ryan (D-OH).

McGovern has a video on his blog of his speech on the House floor describing the challenge.

The average food stamp recipient gets $21 a week; that's $3 a day, or $1 per meal. I'm frugal, but I spend that in a week on vegetables alone. You can't buy fresh vegetables on that budget; most of your food is going to be cheap grains and proteins.

McGovern and his wife, Lisa, did their food shopping for the week with help from Toinette Wilson, a D.C. resident and mother of three who relies on food stamps. Wilson gave him some tips, but it was still a struggle, he said.

"No organic foods, no fresh vegetables, we were looking for the cheapest of everything," McGovern said. "We got spaghetti and hamburger meat that was high in fat -- the fattiest meat on the shelf. I have high cholesterol and always try to get the leanest, but it's expensive. It's almost impossible to make healthy choices on a food stamp diet."

WaPo: FOOD STAMP CHALLENGE
Lawmakers Find $21 a Week Doesn't Buy a Lot of Groceries

Congressional Food Stamp Challenge

Congressman Ryan has posted his grocery receipt on his blog, along with this explanation of what he bought and how he's feeling:

Today I began the Food Stamp Challenge. I took the subway to Safeway, where I picked out the $21.00 of food that I’ll be living on for the next week. $20.66 bought me:

One bag of corn meal- $1.43

Two jars of strawberry preserves- $4.00

One jar of chunky peanut butter- $2.48

Two boxes of angel hair pasta- $1.54

One can of coffee- $2.50

Three jars of tomato sauce- $4.50

Two cartons of cottage cheese- $3.00

One loaf of wheat bread- $.89

One clove of garlic- $.32

Obviously, $21.00 doesn’t go too far, especially when it comes to variety. I'm starting to understand that living on such a tight budget doesn’t allow a person to get the balanced diet they need, I wasn't able to get much protein and produce was almost completely out of the question.

So far today I have eaten a quarter container of cottage cheese, one and a half peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and had one cup of coffee. It still amazes me that so many Americans live like this every day. I already notice a difference in my energy level. After only a day on this diet, I’m tired and hungry, but I’m looking forward to talking to people about my experience, and making people aware of the millions across the country who deal with this every day.

Others participating around the country:

Oregon governor Theodore R. Kulongoski:
NYTimes: Statehouse Journal
A Governor Truly Tightens His Belt

Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr., and a dozen other community leaders:
Salt Lake Tribune: Eating a week on the cheap

New York City Councilor Eric Gioia
New York City Hunger Blog: Life On Food Stamps Weighs On Councilman Gioia