So you've lost your job huh? Well when you get that unemployment check in the mail in many states you'll now get a bank debit card instead. Which bank? In California it's one that didn't have to pay federal income tax after being bailed out. The one that threatened to raise ATM fees in the same month it announced it was CUTTING 30,000 jobs. Which bank? Bank of America.

From Huffpo:

When Bank of America announced plans to charge regular banking customers a $5 monthly fee to use their debit card it created a wave of public criticism. But the lesser-known fees attached to prepaid debit cards are already extracting money from the most vulnerable Americans -- those unable to pay their bills and feed their families without public help -- in the midst of stubbornly high unemployment and soaring rates of poverty.

"The big banks have actually figured out a way to make unemployed workers a profit center, one that only grows as things get worse," said Angela Martin, executive director of Economic Fairness Oregon, a nonprofit advocacy group for low income and poor families.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Bancorp, the parent company of U.S. Bank, said unemployment recipients are clearly informed about the fees that pertain to their debit cards. She added that the cards provide a convenient and economical service, because they allow holders to use them to buy goods at stores and withdraw cash back without incurring a fee.

So not only are the skimming unemployment and welfare benefits - the recipients don't get a choice. Convenience? For whom? The bank. The pic above was from a reader who proudly closed his BofA account on November 5th at OccupyLA's action...only to get his unemployment benefits (and fees) in the mail a couple of days later with a big BofA logo on it.

This is really, really wrong.

Good news for those of you left hanging by a thread by the fight over unemployment extensions -- they finally passed them yesterday, thanks to a new Senator. For those of you hoping and praying for Tier 5 benefits? Sorry, even though your situation may be even more desperate, you're plain out of luck. But do feel free to call your elected representatives and let them know what you think:

The Senate voted 59 to 39 Wednesday to restore emergency jobless benefits to millions of people who have been out of work for more than six months.

House leaders said they will ratify the measure Thursday and send it on to the White House, where President Obama plans to immediately sign it.

The bill would authorize states to provide retroactive support to an estimated 2.5 million people whose unemployment checks have been cut off since federal benefits expired June 2. It would also make available up to 99 weeks of income support through the end of November to millions more who have exhausted state benefits, which typically last for 26 weeks. Advocates for the unemployed say it could be several weeks in some states before the checks are in the mail.

The vote comes after a months-long battle over whether to pay for the $34 billion measure or add that sum to the nation's mounting national debt. Both parties have agreed in the past not to pay for emergency jobless benefits during periods of high unemployment, in part because cutting spending or raising taxes to cover the cost could depress economic activity.

WKRG.com News

For now, the well is closed. Oil is not gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at unprecedented rates, but this is far from over. No one can hear Drew Landry's BP Blues without feeling a small twinge of the pain caused by BPs destruction.

Sometimes my innate optimism fails me, and today is one of those times. I know corporations are made of people and investors, and serve their bottom line above all others, but even so, there should be at least the appearance of a care for the people and inhabitants of a place so ravaged by human misdeeds.

Not so for BP, evidently. The first story I have for you comes via The Political Carnival, telling the first-person tale with email support for BPs intentional effort to short the pay of qualified HazMat workers trained to handle disasters like this. BP has told the government they are hiring qualified workers, but as this string of emails proves, once they were out of the spotlight BP cut workers' pay and contract terms. From the email:

I had been scheduled to start working for an oil spill cleanup contractor but then got delayed when they called all of us to say that BP had changed the terms of the contract with them and was ordering them (as well as ALL other hiring agencies) to pay workers less money and with no more per diems, or housing offers (some were offering housing).

The original terms:

We are offering pay rate of $13-$14 / hr and per diem for those who live 55 miles or more outside of the work area.

Subsequent to that offer, changes were made. Specifically, the pay rates were dropped to $11/hr and all per diem allowances dropped.

When this worker pushed back on the hiring agency about the change to the terms of the contract, she received the following reply:

It made us sick when we heard. The coast guard is under what the federal govt calls ESF (Emergency Support Function) the coast guard is just monitoring the spill. Unfortunately the Govt has no say in the matter. BP is evil.

A look at the ESF structure tells an interesting tale. This is basically a command structure for various national emergencies, ranging from hurricanes to terrorist attacks. Last modified in January 2008 during the waning of the Bush Administration, it doesn't appear to really address a situation of this magnitude, but clearly assigns all decision-making concerning contractual arrangements to BP, rather than the government.

Are you screaming about deregulation yet? If not, now is a good time to start.

Continue reading »

Granted, it's the Politico, but still an interesting look at the mindset around Obama. Gee, I wonder if a certain Pretty Ballerina also feels the same way about the $10 million the Democrats spent on Arlen Specter's campaign?

A senior White House official just called me with a very pointed message for the administration's sometime allies in organized labor, who invested heavily in beating Blanche Lincoln, Obama's candidate, in Arkansas.

"Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toilet on a pointless exercise," the official said. "If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November."

Lincoln relied heavily both on Obama's endorsement, which she advertised relentlessly on radio and in the mail, and on the backing of former President Bill Clinton, who backed her to the hilt.

Lincoln foe Bill Halter had the unstinting support of the AFL-CIO, SEIU, AFSCME and other major unions. And labor officials Tuesday evening were already working to spin the narrow loss of their candidate, Bill Halter, as a moral victory, but the cost in money and in the goodwill of the White House may be a steep price to pay for a near miss.

I love the AFL-CIO response:

"If that's their take on this, then they severely misread how the electorate feels and how we're running our political program. When we say we're only going to support elected officials who support our issues," said AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale. "When they say we should have targeted our money among some key house races among Blue Dog Democrats — that ain't happening."

"Labor isn't an arm of the Democratic Party," Vale said. "It exists to support working families. And that's what we said tonight, and that's what we're going to keep saying."

Glenn Beck has presented Fox News with an interesting dilemma:

Does the cable network hang onto its star tea-partying pundit with the once-stellar (but now rapidly declining) ratings, or does it now give its official imprimatur to a talk-show host who openly promotes the work of a Nazi sympathizer -- and then refuses to apologize for it or even acknowedge that his endorsement was misbegotten?

Because yesterday, faced with the insurmountable fact that he had avidly promoted the work of Hitler apologist/American fascist Elizabeth Dilling, Beck refused to back down, and in fact tried to pretend that it was somehow that fault of liberals that he had done so.

Simon Maloy at Media Matters has the whole sordid story. Here's Beck's response:

BECK: But I'm also getting some amazing mail from the left that now says I'm a Nazi anti-Semite because I quoted a book on Friday -- it was the Red Book, or something like that. It was a who's who, who's in the communist party in 1935. Apparently, I don't know, apparently written by a Nazi sympathizer here in America. Part of the, I'm sure -- I don't know because I didn't look it up -- but I'm sure part of the Father Coughlin, social justice crowd, because this is the choice that progressives give you -- you're either a Nazi or a communist. No, I'm neither. But now -- so now I'm kind of stuck between the place where the left says that I'm a Nazi sympathizer and a Jew lover. So I guess the left can have it all, that I'm a Jew-loving Nazi sympathizer. It's a really interesting place that I don't know if anybody's ever been.

Sorry, but WTF? Beck's understanding of fascism has been so completely polluted by Jonah Goldberg's Newspeak that he is incapable of any kind of coherent understanding of what Americans fascists were all about in the 1930s and afterward.

As Maloy puts it:

First of all, you don't get to play like you don't even really remember what book you were talking about. You told everyone that you spent all of Thursday night reading it, and you were praising it to the skies on Friday as an early example of the sort of communist documentation you yourself claim to be currently undertaking: "This is a book -- and I'm a getting a ton of these -- from people who were doing what we're doing now. We now are documenting who all of these people are. Well, there were Americans in the first 50 years of this nation that took this seriously, and they documented it." I mean, really, Glenn -- you held the book in your hand as you feted it...

MM's Eric Hananoki notes that Dilling actually attended Nazi meetings in Germany.

And if you want to sample Dilling's work for yourself, the text of The Red Network can be found online.

It's really very simple: If Fox News continues to employ Glenn Beck after this, it will forever after be known as a TV network that employs an apologist and advocate for Nazism.

If so, it will have irrevocably proven itself to be not a news organization, but a propaganda organ for the worst kind of racial and ethnic hatred known to man. It's pretty close to that judgment now.

Today is the last day I'm going to run the fundraiser for a while. We're hoping to have a late surge to hit our mark, but it's gone very well. (Blue Gal makes very funny C&L vids too.)
You can send donations to our P.O. Box also. Many people like to use this option. You guys have done a wonderful job so thanks-very-much. Readers understand what we do and how hard we work to do it and the work we will continue to do.

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We're almost done with this leg of our fundraising drive. Only one more day remains, but I wanted to offer up a C&L special. Every person who donates 100.00 or more will receive an autographed copy of our new book that will be released in June called "Over The Cliff." (It's retroactive)

I hope you'll consider donating any amount you can to C&L because we could use your help. The people of TeamCrooks work incredible hours to keep the information flowing and the videos playing. I've outlined what we're doing here. You can send donations to our P.O. Box as well also. Many people like to use this option. The response has been very good from all of you so far, so thanks.

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I'm not going to fundraise for too much longer this month, but don't forget about our C&L Cafe Press Store. The mugs look really cool with the C&L logo.

I hope you'll consider donating to C&L because we could use your help. This site works really hard to keep the information flowing and the videos playing. I've outlined what we're doing here. You can send donations to our P.O. Box as well. Many people like to use this option.

Snail Mail:

Crooksandliars.com

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Los Angeles, CA 90066

(h/t David at Video Cafe)

This Week marks the passings of baseball player Dorothy Kamenshek , ATM inventor John Shepherd-Barron and jazz pianist Hank Jones. In addition, the Pentagon has released the names of eleven service members killed in Afghanistan.

US Navy PO3 Zarian Wood, 29, Houston, TX
US Marines CPL Nicholas D Parada Rodriguez, 29, Stafford, VA
US Marines SSGT Adam L Perkins, 27, Antelope, CA
US Army COL John M McHugh, 46, New Jersey
US Army LTC Paul R Bartz, 43, Waterloo, WI
US Army LTC Thomas P Belkofer, 44, Perrysburg, OH
US Army SSG Richard J. Tieman, 28, Waynesboro, PA
US Army SPC Joshua A Tomlinson, 24, Dubberly, LA
US Marines LCPL Patrick Xavier Jr, 24, Pembroke Pines, FL
US Army SSG Shane S Barnard, 38, De Smet, SD
US Army PFC Billy G Anderson, 20, Alexandria, TN

According to iCasualties, the total number of allied service members killed in Iraq is 4,717; in Afghanistan, 1,783. During this same period, Iraq Body Count lists 78 Iraqi civilian deaths. The Army announced this week that they would launch an investigation into the illegal deaths of Afghan civilians.

This is Day III of the very important C&L Fellowship Action Campaign. I've written at length about it here.

I have nothing more to add except that I'll be on a blogger panel Friday night for the LA Weekly's LA Weekend event at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills and I'll be appearing with Roy Sekoff, Mickey Kaus and Andrew Breitbart. I heard it's being called the 'Bad Boys of Blogging.' All the proceeds go to the Charles Mingus Youth Arts Center.

Anyway, I hope you'll consider donating to C&L because we could use your help. This site works really hard to keep the information flowing and the videos playing. You can send donations to our P.O. Box as well. Many people like to use this option.

Snail Mail:

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We've also been acknowledged many times by the MSM for the work that we do also. C&L named a Top 25 Blog of 2009 by Time Magazine

Many thanks to all the people who have donated so far. We're off to a really nice start.