Robert A Letcher who was treated by a couple of Tea Party protesters as a bum and a beggar apparently graduated from Cornell University with a doctorate in nuclear engineering.

Parkinson’s patient gains national attention from health-care rally confrontation

Dispatch video of encounter widely circulates on the Internet

Friday,  March 19, 2010 2:53 AM

By Catherine Candisky

A demonstrator at a Columbus health-care rally who was chided for looking for a handout “on the wrong end of town” actually is a former nuclear engineer with a doctorate from Cornell University.

Robert A. Letcher, 60, had no way of knowing that attending the rally would make him a flashpoint in the raging national health-care debate.

But the treatment of Letcher, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, by two opponents of health-care legislation instantly became the topic of Internet chatter and bloggers and was given a prime spot on cable-news programs in the past two days.

[snip]

Letcher, a Steubenville native, said he has helped design nuclear-power plants, worked as a community organizer and taught at the college level. He has been politically active most of his adult life, usually on the “progressive-leftist” side.

He went on disability five years ago. Letcher is insured through the tax-funded Medicaid program but wants others to have health insurance, too.

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For the last several years, Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance “charity” have conducted “Freedom Concerts” across America. They’ve told you that they are raising money to pay for the college tuition of the children of fallen soldiers and to pay severely wounded war vets.  And on Friday Night, Hannity will be honored with an award for this “Outstanding Community Service by a Radio Talk Show Host” at Talkers Magazine’s  convention.

But it’s all a huge scam.

In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes.  Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships.

[snip]

According to its 2006 tax returns, Freedom Alliance reported revenue of $10, 822, 785, but only $397,900–or a beyond-measly 3.68%–of that was given to the children of fallen troops as scholarships or as aid to severely injured soldiers.

[snip]

You’ve heard the saying, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”  I love patriotism, but in this case, Sean Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts” and the Freedom Alliance are Exhibit A of that saying.  But they’re not really patriots.  Not even close.  Their only patriotism is to the faces they see in their mirrors.  Hey, Sean, you’re a “Great American.”

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Thursday signed into law a package of tax breaks and spending designed to give the nation a jobs boost by encouraging the to start hiring again.

It’s the first of several such measures Democrats have promised this election year to address the public’s top worry: jobs. The measure includes about $18 billion in tax breaks and pumps $20 billion into highway and transit programs.

At a ceremony in the sunny White House Rose Garden, Obama said the bill is necessary “but by no means enough.”

[snip]

Small businesses in particular will benefit, the president said.

“Many of them are on the fence right now about whether to bring on that extra worker or two, or whether to hire anyone at all,” Obama said. “This jobs bill should help make their decision that much easier.”

Under the new law, businesses that hire anyone unemployed for at least 60 days would be exempt from paying the 6.2 percent through December. Employers also would get an additional $1,000 credit if new workers remain on the job a full year. Taxpayers will have to reimburse Social Security for the lost revenue.

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AUSTIN, Texas – A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.

Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation’s Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a “constitutional republic,” rather than “democratic,” and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.

“We have been about conservatism versus liberalism,” said Democrat Mavis Knight of Dallas, explaining her vote against the standards. “We have manipulated strands to insert what we want it to be in the document, regardless as to whether or not it’s appropriate.”

Following three days of impassioned and acrimonious debate, the board gave preliminary approval to the new standards with a 10-5 party line vote. A final vote is expected in May, after a public comment period that could produce additional amendments and arguments.

Decisions by the board — made up of lawyers, a dentist and a weekly newspaper publisher among others — can affect textbook content nationwide because Texas is one of publishers’ biggest clients.

Ultraconservatives wielded their power over hundreds of subjects this week, introducing and rejecting amendments on everything from the civil rights movement to global politics. Hostilities flared and prompted a walkout Thursday by one of the board’s most prominent Democrats, Mary Helen Berlanga of Corpus Christi, who accused her colleagues of “whitewashing” curriculum standards

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A former Massachusetts dentist is accused of putting paper clips in patients’ mouths during root canals, then billing Medicaid for the stainless steel posts he should have used.

The state attorney general announced Tuesday that a grand jury indicted former Fall River dentist Michael Clair last week. The charges include assault and battery, larceny, submitting false claims to Medicaid, and illegally prescribing drugs.

Prosecutors say Clair was suspended by Medicaid in 2002. He allegedly hired other dentists for his clinic and filed claims under their numbers between August 2003 and June 2005. He’s also accused of illegally prescribing drugs to staffers who returned medications to him.

Clair is to be arraigned April 8. He now lives in Maryland. A telephone listing could not be found for him, and it’s unclear if he has an attorney.

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(CNN) — Deaths from pregnancy and childbirth in the United States have doubled in the past 20 years, a development that a human rights group called “scandalous and disgraceful” Friday.

In addition, the rights group said, about 1.7 million women a year, one-third of pregnant women in the United States, suffer from pregnancy-related complications.

Most of the deaths and complications occur among minorities and women living in poverty, it noted.

Amnesty International issued a report Friday that calls on President Obama to take action.

“This country’s extraordinary record of medical advancement makes its haphazard approach to maternal care all the more scandalous and disgraceful,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

“Good maternal care should not be considered a luxury available only to those who can access the best hospitals and the best doctors. Women should not die in the richest country on earth from preventable complications and emergencies,” Cox said in a news release.

The report, “Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA,” notes that the lifetime risk of maternal deaths is greater in the United States than in 40 other countries, including virtually all industrialized nations.

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VATICAN CITY – Germany’s sex abuse scandal has now reached Pope Benedict XVI: His former archdiocese acknowledged it transferred a suspected pedophile priest while Benedict was in charge and criticism is mounting over a 2001 Vatican directive he penned instructing bishops to keep abuse cases secret.

The revelations have put the spotlight on Benedict’s handling of abuse claims both when he was archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982 and then the prefect of the Vatican office that deals with such crimes — a position he held until his 2005 election as pope.

Benedict got a firsthand readout of the scope of the scandal Friday in his native land from the head of the German Bishop’s Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, who reported that the pontiff had expressed “great dismay and deep shock” over the scandal, but encouraged bishops to continue searching for the truth.

Hours later, the Munich archdiocese admitted that it had allowed a priest suspected of having abused a child to return to pastoral work in the 1980s, while Benedict was archbishop. It stressed that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger didn’t know about the transfer and that it had been decided by a lower-ranking official.

The archdiocese said there were no accusations against the chaplain, identified only as H., during his 1980-1982 spell in Munich, where he underwent therapy for suspected “sexual relations with boys.” But he then moved to nearby Grafing, where he was suspended in early 1985 following new accusations of sexual abuse. The following year, he was convicted of sexually abusing minors.

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WASHINGTON — Retail sales posted a surprising increase in February as consumers did not let major snowstorms stop them from storming the malls. The advance, the biggest since November, provided hope that the recovery from the Great Recession is gaining momentum.

The Commerce Department said Friday that retail sales rose 0.3 percent in February, surpassing expectations that sales would decline by 0.2 percent.

The overall gain was held back by a 2 percent decline in auto sales, reflecting in part the recall problems at Toyota. Excluding autos, sales rose 0.8 percent, far better than the 0.1 percent rise outside of autos that economists had forecast.

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I applaud Bank of America for this change but find it ridiculous that BofA and other banks have been gouging customers for years with the overdraft fees.

In a move that could bring an end to the $40 cup of coffee, Bank of America said on Tuesday that it was doing away with overdraft fees on purchases made with debit cards, a decision that could cost the bank tens of millions a year in revenue and put pressure on other banks to do the same.

Bank officials said that effective this summer, customers who try to make purchases with their debit cards without enough money in their checking accounts will simply be declined. Debit purchases account for roughly 60 percent of overdrafts at Bank of America, the nation’s largest issuer of debit cards.

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I’ve worked with elderly people and very young people and I prefer working with the elderly.  While some of them were quite resistant to change and learning  new technology, I found ways to make it fun and they did eventually learn how to use the computer for the things that the job required.  The younger people, in my experience, lacked greatly in people skills and I found it much harder to teach them those skills.

Unemployment for Americans 55 and older surged 331 percent over the past decade, according to a new analysis by the AARP Public Policy Institute.

“The data clearly shows that older workers have faced a devastating rise in unemployment, with far-reaching implications not only for their employment status but also for their health and retirement security,” said AARP spokeswoman Mary Liz Burns. Burns added that unemployment puts a particularly tough squeeze on middle-aged folks — who often have to provide for kids moving back home after college and elderly parents.

According to AARP, from January 2000 through December 2009, the total number of unemployed individuals 55 and older rose from 490,000 to 2,114,000. The number of unemployed 65 and up rose from 143,000 to 479,000. And the average duration of unemployment for people 55 and up increased 85.6 percent from 18.7 weeks to 34.7 weeks. For people older than 64, the duration went up almost a third, from 24.8 weeks to 32.9 weeks.

SOURCE.