The Conservatard

In an article in The Nation, called Credit Card Tricks, author Nicholas Von Hoffman covers some of the unethical tricks used by credit card companies to prey on low income individuals.

At any other time it would be amazing that congress would not investigated such predatory loaning practices. However, the government up until the last few months has been been an example of how not to run a nation. Could it be that the credit card companies have been funding the conservatard’s over the last six years? Even conservatards like Bush and Cheney know better than to bite the hand that feed them.

Credit Card Tricks

by NICHOLAS VON HOFFMAN

[posted online on March 16, 2007]

In the old days banks lent money to people they were confident would pay them back. No more. These days banks search for people who cannot pay them back and lend them money anyhow.

These unsecured loans come in the form of credit cards. And the banks cannot find enough young people, students, sick people and old people on small fixed incomes to give credit cards to.

Once they’ve got them signed up for a card the tricks and traps begin. From then on their victims will spend their money and their lives paying on a debt which they will never discharge. It’s as though they had been thrown into a new form of indenture to Citigroup or J. P. Morgan Chase.

An example of what credit card-issuing banks do to people was given to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, where Alys Cohen of the National Consumer Law Center, testified about “a young Navy sailor who opened a credit card account with First Premier Bank on November 21, 2006. The credit card had a $250 credit limit and a 9.9% APR for purchases. The same day that the sailor opened the account, he was assessed two fees–a “Program Fee” of $95 and an “Account Set-Up Fee” of $29. The next day (November 22), he was assessed a participation fee of $6. Three days later (November 24), he was assessed an annual fee of $48. When this young sailor received his first month bill, which had a closing date of November 24, 2006, he had already accrued a balance of $178, without making a single purchase.

“The next week, the young sailor used the credit card for four transactions totaling $84.85.On December 22, 2006, he was assessed a participation fee of $6. With all these fees, the young sailor was already over his credit limit, despite making less than $85 in purchases on a card with a $250 limit. He was assessed an over-limit fee of $25 and a late fee of $25, plus a finance charge of $1.96, on December 26. He now owed a balance of $320.81.”*

The Wall Street Journal, covering the same Senate hearing, recounted the story of “an Ohio credit-card holder named Wesley Wannemacher, who recounted for the committee how he wound up paying $6,300 on a $3,200 debt on a credit card issued by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and still owed $4,400. He was charged $4,900 in interest, $1,100 in late fees and $1,500 in over-the-limit fees. Chase eventually forgave the remainder of what Mr. Wannemacher owed, but Mr. Wannemacher said Chase only told him that after he was called to testify before the subcommittee.”

It used to be that, if a person were caught in the credit card web, all else failing, he or she could get out of debt servitude by declaring bankruptcy. The new bankruptcy law, lobbied through Congress with help from the credit card interest, makes bankruptcy painful, expensive and hard to get.

With the Democrats in control–they are somewhat less tainted with bank money than the Republicans–some kind of a new credit card law is a possibility. It might make the tricks and traps used by the banks on their credit card customers illegal.

But that approach is slow, cumbersome and ineffective. A simpler law would make credit card debt arising from tricks and traps uncollectible in the courts. Take away the banks’ power to force payment.

In the meantime if you need money to pay your medical bills or get your car fixed, get a loan from the mafia. You’ll get a lower interest rate and better terms.

In an article in the New York Times today called “Citizens who Lack Papers Lose Medicaid” author Robert Pear uncovers how hundreds of thousands of legitimate US citizens are losing the tiny amount of medical care that they rely on from Medicaid.

Citizens who Lack Papers Lose Medicaid

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, March 11 — A new federal rule intended to keep illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid has instead shut out tens of thousands of United States citizens who have had difficulty complying with requirements to show birth certificates and other documents proving their citizenship, state officials say.

Under a 2006 federal law, the Deficit Reduction Act, most people who say they are United States citizens and want Medicaid must provide “satisfactory documentary evidence of citizenship,” which could include a passport or the combination of a birth certificate and a driver’s license.

Some state officials say the Bush administration went beyond the law in some ways, for example, by requiring people to submit original documents or copies certified by the issuing agency.

“The largest adverse effect of this policy has been on people who are American citizens,” said Kevin W. Concannon, director of the Department of Human Services in Iowa, where the number of Medicaid recipients dropped by 5,700 in the second half of 2006, to 92,880, after rising for five years. “We have not turned up many undocumented immigrants receiving Medicaid in Waterloo, Dubuque or anywhere else in Iowa,” Mr. Concannon said.

…In Florida, the number of children on Medicaid declined by 63,000, to 1.2 million, from July 2006 to January of this year.

…Since Ohio began enforcing the document requirement in September, the number of children and parents on Medicaid has declined by 39,000, to 1.3 million, and state officials attribute most of the decline to the new requirement. Jon Allen, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, said the state had not seen a drop of that magnitude in 10 years.

Dr. Michaels, who is president of the Georgia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that some children with asthma had lost their Medicaid coverage and could not afford the medications they had been taking daily to prevent wheezing. “Some of these children had asthma attacks and had to be admitted to hospitals,” he said.

In Virginia, health insurance for children has been a top priority for state officials, and the number of children on Medicaid increased steadily for several years. But since July, the number has declined by 13,300, to 373,800, according to Cindi B. Jones, chief deputy director of the Virginia Medicaid program.

“The federal rule closed the door on our ability to enroll people over the telephone and the Internet, wiping out a full year of progress in covering kids,” Ms. Jones said.

Mr. C. has had his expectations of the government lowered over the last seven years. Terms like treason, constant war, war on the middle class, and blood for oil are now so common when talking about this administration that he is starting to become numb. What Mr. C. will never accept is when the conservatards pick on the poorest and most helpless of Americans.

If the intent of the “Deficit Reduction Act” truly was to prevent illegal aliens from obtaining government services it has failed. I’m sure that anybody associated with Medicaid would be able to foresee the problems with poor people obtaining proof of citizenship. I’m sure the fact that thoudands of children are being hurt by these rules doesn’t bother the conservatards in the least. Seven years of the Bushtard war on America has proven that it is naive to assume good intentions when dealing with criminal sociopaths like Bush, Cheney and the conservatards in congress.

Unfortunately denying the sick and the poor help is all to much the norm these days. The Bushtards have gone to great lengths to change the balance of wealth in this country for a result like this to not be intentional. If the fools on the hill are not stopped , we won’t have a country left for them to ruin.

Just read an interesting article on Tompaine.com written by Leigh Dingerson of the Center for Community Change. In this informative Op-Ed piece Leigh Dingerson points out how the Bushtard regime has poured most of the post Katrina education dollars into the hands of for profit charter schools.

If you want a “sneak peak” of the Bushtards vision of future of America, you only have to look to the conservatards are ravaging New Orleans.

Playing School In Katrina’s Wake

Leigh Dingerson

March 05, 2007

Leigh Dingerson is the education team leader for Washington, D.C. based social justice nonprofit Center for Community Change . The Center recently published “Dismantling a Community,” that chronicles the transformation of the New Orleans Public schools system.

President George Bush traveled to New Orleans last week. Coincidentally, I was there at the same time. But like a tourist who just visits the French Quarter for Mardi Gras, the president missed the full story by only stopping in on one of the new, well-resourced charter schools in the city.

While much of New Orleans’ recovery was mired in post-Katrina red tape, anti-government advocates and for-profit education corporations, the Bush Administration rushed in to transform the New Orleans public school system into a market-driven smorgasbord.

In the 18 months since Hurricane Katrina, the infrastructure of the New Orleans public schools has been systematically dismantled and a new tangle of independently operated educational experiments has been erected in its place. This new structure has taken away community control and community ownership of all but a handful of schools. Instead, independent charter management organizations—virtually all from outside the state—are now running 60 percent of New Orleans schools.

There are no more neighborhood boundaries. In a market-based model, parents are considered “customers.” And they’re supposed to “choose” where to send their kids to school. But since every one of the charter schools was filled to capacity last spring, hundreds of parents have no choice at all for their kids. Families now returning to New Orleans are bringing 15 to 75 kids per day. Hundreds of kids with disabilities (who are often turned away from charter schools) are being placed in the under-resourced and over-burdened state-run Recovery School District. It’s their only choice.

This Balkanized school system is not closing a gap. It’s opening a chasm. This week, at Frederick Douglass High School (a state-run school), I read students the text of an advertisement for New Orleans teachers that was posted in CareerBuilders.com. The ad read: “Certified teachers will teach in the city’s charter schools. Uncertified teachers will teach in the Recovery School District.” One student, a senior at Douglass, jerked her head up at this line. “What?” she asked. Then she just shook her head, hung it down and muttered, “It’s like we’re experiments.”

The Bush Administration was instrumental in creating this new chasm between the “haves” and the “have nots” in New Orleans. Rather than create the world-class public schools that all New Orleans kids have deserved for so long, the Bush Administration invested in an ideological experiment to make a pro-privatization, anti-public education statement.

Mr. Bush didn’t talk to the astute and articulate students at Frederick Douglass when he visited the Crescent City last week. They might have taught him something about experimenting with children’s futures. The Mardi Gras beads still sparkle in the streets, Mr. President, but you have to get out of the tourist district.

CBSNEWS.com published an article yesterday called Millions Wasted On Anthrax Vaccine Search? It sheds some light on just how much American Taxpayer money has been wasted on the Anthrax vaccine. All under the guise of “protecting our troops”. In reality, it is more about filling the pockets of government contractors.

Editors Note: Highlighted text is by Mr. Conservatard.

Millions Wasted On Anthrax Vaccine Search?

March 4, 2007

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(CBS) The California company VaxGen was the first to get a government BioShield contract in 2004 — a huge one worth $877 million dollars — to develop a better anthrax vaccine.”They were given milestone to meet — production schedules,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “They didn’t meet one of them. Not one of them.”Things were so bad, that recently the government decided to pull the plug on the whole project. VaxGen ends up with only $1.5 million tax dollars.But CBS News discovered taxpayers are actually on the hook for a much larger bill than that.It turns out VaxGen had already been awarded $100 million tax dollars for the anthrax project from another government agency: the National Institutes of Health.Congressman Rogers, who represents the district of a VaxGen competitor, says he wonders why the government entrusted VaxGen with so much money to begin with.VaxGen has never put a single dose of any vaccine on the market.Before the anthrax vaccine flop, the company was best known for failing to develop an AIDS vaccine, using $8 million in taxpayer dollars.And VaxGen got delisted from the stock exchange for failing to file proper papers in 2004.”When you started peeling back the onion, it started to look pretty bad,” said Rogers. “It did not pass the smell test. It was a company that had no proven track record, and here was the recipient of almost $100 million of U.S. taxpayer money and had nowhere to go with it.”"We remain confident that with the proper support, we could develop a modern anthrax vaccine,” said Lance Ignon, a VaxGen vice president.He insists they could have worked out the kinks if they’d just had more time, and it’s the government that has wasted your tax dollars by pulling the contract midstream. He also adds that the company spent way more shareholder money than tax dollars on the vaccine research.”There’s been a modest investment on the part of the government in the research of this vaccine, and it is, to us, regrettable that that investment will now be squandered because the government decided to terminate this contract.”What’s next for the government’s Project BioShield quest for a new anthrax vaccine? It’s back to the drawing board. What’s next for VaxGen? They’re working on a new vaccine for smallpox, without tax dollars.

Mr. C. has read a little about the fraud and waste of the Bushtard regime regarding the Anthrax vaccine. It looks like the main stream media has finally gotten spine enough to report on it.

Most Americans don’t realize how much political and corporate nonsense has surrounded the entire military vaccination program. It hasn’t been reported on the nightly TV news and most people don’t dig deep into the paper to read the little snippets that do get reported on.

For a decent summary on the entire Anthrax Vaccine debacle The Conservatards reader(s) can research a decent set of articles on the Daily Press called “Special Report: Anthrax Puzzle“. Good reading and it seems to outline much of the history surrounding the Anthrax vaccine pork barrel project.