HOW DEMS OPERATE: Call The House GOP Nazi's

The newfound civility didn’t last long. Political rhetoric in Congress doesn’t get much nastier than the words of one House Democrat during the debate on repealing the health care law.

In an extraordinary outburst on the House floor, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) invoked the Holocaust to attack Republicans on health care and compared rhetoric on the issue to the work of infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

“They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels," Cohen said. "You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing." And Congressman Cohen didn’t stop there.

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it--believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover," Cohen said.

Cohen made his comments late last night, but they have attracted no attention because his speech was made to a virtually empty House chamber with no reporters around to watch.(source)

Hope And Change Diary: Unemployment At 10% After Two Years Of Obama (How's That Hope And Change Working For You?)

PRINCETON, NJ -- Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is at 10.0% in mid-October -- essentially the same as the 10.1% at the end of September but up sharply from 9.4% in mid-September and 9.3% at the end of August. This mid-month measurement confirms the late September surge in joblessness that should be reflected in the government's Nov. 5 unemployment report.

Certain groups continue to fare worse than the national average. For example, 14.2% of Americans aged 18 to 29 and 13.8% of those with no college education were unemployed in mid-October.

Fewer Working Part Time Looking for Full-Time Employment

The percentage of part-time workers who want full-time work is at 8.6% of the workforce, not much different from the 8.7% at the end of September, but well below the 9.2% reading in the middle of last month.

Underemployment Is Declining

The decline in part-time workers wanting full-time work has led to a situation in which underemployment is declining even as unemployment is increasing. The 18.6% mid-October underemployment figure (the sum of the 10.0% unemployed and the 8.6% employed part time but wanting full-time work) is down slightly from 18.8% at the end of September and is the same as the reading in the middle of last month.

U.S. Unemployment Rate Should Increase on Nov. 5

Gallup's unemployment measure showed a sharp increase to double digits at the end of September, before seasonal adjustment. The mid-October measurement suggests the resulting double-digit unemployment rate has been maintained during the first half of the current month. In turn, this suggests that the government will report an increase in the U.S. unemployment rate for October.

In this regard, Gallup modeling suggests the government's unemployment rate report for October will be in the 9.7% to 9.9% range when it is released Nov. 5. The government's last report showed the U.S. unemployment rate at 9.6% in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, as Gallup anticipated. In addition to seasonal adjustments, the official unemployment rate is likely to be held down by a continued exodus of people from the workforce. It is easy for potential workers to become discouraged when the unemployment rate is expected to remain above 9% through the end of 2011.

In this regard, the lack of increase in Gallup's underemployment measure when the unemployment rate is increasing would normally be a good sign for jobs and the economy. However, the current decline in the percentage of workers employed part time but looking for full-time work is not necessarily positive. It might be that some workers who are employed part time are losing their jobs -- becoming unemployed or dropping out of the workforce -- and are not being replaced, while new part-time workers are not being hired.

Regardless, Gallup's employment data continue to reveal little good news for consumer spending, retailers, or the unemployed as the holidays approach.

Gallup.com reports results from these indexes in daily, weekly, and monthly averages and in Gallup.com stories. Complete trend data are always available to view and export in the following charts:

Daily: Employment, Economic Confidence and Job Creation, Consumer Spending
Weekly: Employment, Economic Confidence, Job Creation, Consumer Spending

Read more about Gallup's economic measures.

Survey Methods
Gallup classifies American workers as underemployed if they are either unemployed or working part time but wanting full-time work. The findings reflect more than 18,000 phone interviews with U.S. adults aged 18 and older in the workforce, collected over a 30-day period. Gallup's results are not seasonally adjusted and tend to be a precursor of government reports by approximately two weeks.

Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking Sept.16-Oct. 15, 2010, with a random sample of 18,218 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each daily sample includes a minimum quota of 150 cell phone respondents and 850 landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents for gender within region. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, cell phone-only status, cell phone-mostly status, and phone lines. Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2009 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com. (Source)

Hope And Change Diary: Stimulus Bill Witness In Obama's White House Is Laid Off (How's That Hope And Change Thing Working For You Now?)

Toledo Public Schools teacher Amanda VanNess, second from right, is on hand as President Obama signs the stimulus bill.

TPS teacher who watched Obama sign bill is laid off

Board not using $7.6M share to rehire workers

As Toledo Public Schools teacher Amanda VanNess stood in the Oval Office and watched President Obama sign an education stimulus bill, she already knew she'd lost her teaching job back home to budget cuts and low seniority.

The $26 billion stimulus bill, designed to save 160,000 teacher and other government jobs across the nation, couldn't save her position at Pickett Elementary.

In fact, Ms. VanNess has been laid off twice from TPS this year.

TPS hasn't spent a dollar of the $7.6 million in teacher rehire money it received from the Aug. 10 bill, opting instead to save it for next school year to rehire or retain a myriad school employees - probably not teachers.

The legislation allows the one-time money to be spent that way over the two school years.

The hard-fought federal legislation was sold as a way for school districts to call back laid-off teachers or to save others from losing jobs. But as of Nov. 15, Ms. VanNess will be without a teaching assignment, according to TPS' human resources department.

Ms. VanNess, 25, couldn't be reached for this story, but the irony of her situation was featured in the Wall Street Journal last week and on television and talk radio.

The stimulus measure gave governors $10 billion in education aid to hire and retain certain local school district workers and about $16 billion to help cover increased costs for Medicaid, the state-level health-care program for the nation's poor. More people access Medicaid in hard economic times.

The bill was stalled in Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) called members back from a break in August to push it through. The legislation has become a powerful symbol in the rhetorical battle over the wisdom of stimulus spending and debate over government's proper size.

And Ms. VanNess' job loss has become political foil for the anti-Obama right as midterm elections approach.

To set up the bill signing in the Oval Office, the American Federation of Teachers contacted local union President Fran Lawrence and asked if she knew of a Toledo teacher who could come to Washington to stand with the President.

Ms. Lawrence thought of Ms. VanNess because she had been notified about her job loss. Ms. Lawrence said she doesn't feel the situation is ironic because Ms. VanNess was already laid off when the stimulus bill was signed.

The young teacher had received a letter in early July with an effective layoff date of Aug. 25.

Ms. VanNess traveled to Washington Aug. 10, but her plane was late and she missed attending a morning press conference when the President discussed the bill, Ms. Lawrence said.

But Ms. VanNess arrived in time to watch congressional debate about the bill, which passed on a party-line vote. Later, as she and the other visiting teachers with their guides approached the Oval Office, the door opened unexpectedly. The President emerged, reached out his hand, and said, "You must be Amanda, you were MIA this morning," said Ms. Lawrence, recounting what Ms. VanNess told her.

Ms. VanNess, the other teachers, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan stood behind the President as he signed the bill.

Ms. VanNess was officially laid off the day before school started, Aug. 25, about two weeks after her Washington trip.

She fell prey to budget cuts designed to close a $39 million deficit last school year. About 400 employees, including 237 teachers, received pink slips.

Student services were cut and bus service curtailed affecting about 5,000 students, and elimination of middle school and freshman sports.

About 24,350 students are enrolled in TPS.

Ms. VanNess was quickly reassigned as a second-grade permanent substitute at Reynolds Elementary School because a position opened up unexpectedly.
But Oct. 1, she was notified again. With falling enrollment, 14 more teachers were let go, effective Nov. 15. According to the union contract, the district must continue to employ the teachers for 45 days after they are notified.

"It's terrible," Ms. Lawrence said. "I wish they would have used some of that money not to lay off those 14 teachers because that disrupted those classrooms."

TPS released its head count for this school year in mid-September, down more than 5 percent. Many parents pulled their children because of cuts to services.

TPS Superintendent Jerome Pecko said the district expects a $44 million deficit next school year. He said he's scoured the wording of the federal legislation for permissible uses beyond rehiring teachers.

As enrollment falls, the district doesn't need as many teachers, and Mr. Pecko said he must balance all needs for students. He said the district might use the money to hire its own crossing guards, instead of using an outside company, and to hire more bus drivers to restore service to where it was before last year's budget cuts. (source)

Hope And Change Diary: Making Things Better For Black People (Section 8 ranks swell to record sizes)

Thirty thousand people showed up to receive Section 8 housing applications in East Point Wednesday, suffering through hours in the hot sun, angry flare-ups in the crowd and lots of frustration and confusion for a chance to receive a government-subsidized apartment.

The massive event sometimes descended into a chaotic mob scene filled with anger and impatience. Some 62 people needed medical attention and 20 of them were transported to a hospital, authorities said. A baby went into a seizure in the heat and was stabilized at a hospital.

People were removed on stretchers and when a throng of people who had been waiting hours in a line were told to move to another line, people started pushing, shoving and cursing, witnesses said.

Still, officials of East Point declared the day a success. Nobody was arrested and nobody was seriously injured, they said. It was an assessment roundly challenged by many of the people who had to go through it.

The massive event sometimes descended into a chaotic mob scene filled with anger and impatience. Some 62 people needed medical attention and 20 of them were transported to a hospital, authorities said. A baby went into a seizure in the heat and was stabilized at a hospital.

People were removed on stretchers and when a throng of people who had been waiting hours in a line were told to move to another line, people started pushing, shoving and cursing, witnesses said.

Still, officials of East Point declared the day a success. Nobody was arrested and nobody was seriously injured, they said. It was an assessment roundly challenged by many of the people who had to go through it.


Kim Lemish, executive director of the East Point Housing Authority, said the event marked the first time the city has offered Section 8 housing applications since 2002. The waiting list that lasted eight years had depleted, she said, and the agency was beginning a new one. So people braved all the physical difficulties just to get on a waiting list that could keep them waiting for years.

Lemish said the agency had expected about 10,000 people but three times as many showed up. Many were just accompanying those looking for an application. Some 13,000 applications were handed out.

Concern is rising that a similar scene could occur Thursday when the housing authority of this small city begins accepting the completed applications. Wednesday's event was only to hand out the paperwork. The housing authority will begin accepting applications at 9 a.m.

Some of the crowd waited for two days at the Tri-Cities Plaza shopping center. As the temperature rose Wednesday, people fell ill.

Sgt. Cliff Chandler, spokesman for the East Point Police Department, said a toddler was treated earlier in the morning for "some type of seizure," Chandler said.

"A lot of it was heat and some was health-related issues" such people not taking their medications, Chandler said.


By the time everyone had left around 2 p.m., the temperature had climbed into the low 90s.

East Point police, some wearing riot helmets, were patrolling the area. Firefighters and EMTs were attending to people who were overheating in the sun. Police from College Park, Hapeville, Fulton County and MARTA assisted in crowd control.

Chandler said there were no arrests.

Felecia McGhee told the AJC she arrived around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. She said the major problem began when people started breaking into the line and then officials handing out applications started moving those areas and those line breakers. She said she saw at least two small children trampled when the crowd rushed the building where the applications were to be handed out.

"It's a real mess out here," she said.

Channel 2 Action News reporter Mike Petchenik said fights were breaking out and police had to stop people who were storming the door.

Channel 2 reporter Tom Jones said, “There are thousands, I mean, thousands of people here. I’ve seen people fall out from the heat.”

By late morning the crowd had thinned considerably and people were walking up and getting their applications without delay. But just before the 1 p.m. deadline, a line of about 200 people had formed. Shortly after 1 p.m., several people ran across the parking lot to get in line but were told by police that the line was closed.

Emergency personnel brought in a pickup truck full of bottled water and were handing it out to the crowd.

A sign on the door of the office explained that only applications were being handed out.

"The housing authority will be issuing applications Wednesday, August 11, starting at 9 a.m. Everyone in line by 1 p.m. on the 11th will receive an application. ... No Section 8 vouchers are available at this time. There are no public housing units available at this time. You're applying for the waiting list only."

The Housing Choice Voucher Program, called Section 8, subsidized the rents of low-income families living in apartments and houses that are privately owned. The federal program makes up the difference in rent that the poor can afford and the fair market value for each area.

The federal government has specific standards for its subsidized properties but at the same time landlords are assured an income.

Only families with incomes no more than half the median income for the area qualify. The median income for the East Point area is less than $32,000, according to Census data. It is up to the renter to find a place that meets HUD standards, which includes being 90 percent to 110 percent of the “local fair market rent.” [source]

Are Literacy Tests Needed?

It's scary to listen to the average Obama supporter: