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By Eric W. Dolan
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) blasted House Republicans on Tuesday as they planned to kill the Senate compromise bill to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance.
If the payroll tax cut and employment insurance is not extended, 160 million Americans will see their taxes go up by $1000 in 2012 and 2.5 million jobless workers will lose unemployment benefits.
“Don’t blame Congress for not working together,” she said on the House floor. “Blame the House Republicans — who can’t even work with each other.”
“The one and only reason this House of Representatives is not voting for the bi-partisan Senate bill to provide relief to middle class taxpayers, seniors and disabled on Medicare and jobless Americans is because it would pass That’s right. The Republican scam was to bring up the bill, supported by 90% of the Senate, and kill it.”
“On the way to this slaughter, a funny thing happened,” Schakowsky continued. “Sensible Republicans basically said, ‘You want me to vote to abandon millions of struggling middle class Americans without the help they need this holiday season? No way!’”
Republican House Speaker John Boehner said Monday that his members agreed the payroll tax cut should be extended for a full year. Democrats had originally pushed for a one-year extension and a surtax on millionaires, but agreed to compromise on a short-term extension.
The House voted 229 to 193 along partisan lines to reject the compromise bill on Tuesday. The Senate is currently in recess and is not scheduled to return until January 23.
“The sanctimonious rhetoric you hear today from the Republicans is nothing but talk, baby-talk,” Schakowsky said. “If they don’t get their way exactly, they won’t play.”
“And so, Happy Chanukah to middle class Americans lighting the first candle tonight who won’t get their $1000 tax break. Happy New Year to our seniors and persons with disabilities who may lose their doctors.”
“Merry Christmas to the jobless Americans, desperate for work, looking for work, who barely survive on unemployment checks. The House Republicans are the Grinches who stole your Christmas.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/20/rep-jan-schakowsky-house-republicans-stole-your-christmas/
Watch video, uploaded to YouTube on December 20, below:
"I wonder if their Guilt is the reason they Hate Christmas???"By Eric W. Dolan
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) blasted... more
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This is about using what The Economist calls artificial artificial intelligence (like Mechanical Turk, which uses people as artificial computers) to enhance (artificially intelligent) machine visionThis is about using what The Economist calls artificial artificial intelligence (like... more
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STOCKTON, Calif. (CN) - A woman with a prosthetic leg sued Starbucks, claiming its employees wouldn't let her use a restroom to fix a loose screw unless she bought something first.STOCKTON, Calif. (CN) - A woman with a prosthetic leg sued Starbucks, claiming its... more
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Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.
Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.
The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that's been running in the red for years.
New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security's much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry as well.
Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security's retirement system. Proposals range from raising the retirement age to means-testing benefits for wealthy retirees. But the disability system is in much worse shape and its problems defy easy solutions.
The trustees who oversee Social Security are urging Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994. That would provide only short-term relief at the expense of weakening the retirement program.
Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can't find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That's 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.
"It's primarily economic desperation," Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. "People on the margins who get bad news in terms of a layoff and have no other place to go and they take a shot at disability,"
The disability program is also being hit by an aging population — disability rates rise as people get older — as well as a system that encourages people to apply for more generous disability benefits rather than waiting until they qualify for retirement.
Retirees can get full Social Security benefits at age 66, a threshold gradually rising to 67. Early retirees can get reduced benefits at 62. However, if you qualify for disability, you can get full benefits, based on your work history, even before 62.
Also, people who qualify for Social Security disability automatically get Medicare after two years, even if they are younger than 65, the age when other retirees qualify for the government-run health insurance program.
Congress tried to rein in the disability program in the late 1970s by making it tougher to qualify. The number of people receiving benefits declined for a few years, even during a recession in the early 1980s. Congress, however, reversed course and loosened the criteria, and the rolls were growing again by 1984.
The disability program "got into trouble first because of liberalization of eligibility standards in the 1980s," said Charles Blahous, one of the public trustees who oversee Social Security. "Then it got another shove into bigger trouble during the recent recession."
Today, about 13.6 million people receive disability benefits through Social Security or Supplemental Security Income. Social Security is for people with substantial work histories, and monthly disability payments average $927. Supplemental Security Income does not require a work history but it has strict limits on income and assets. Monthly SSI payments average $500.
As policymakers work to improve the disability system, they are faced with two major issues: Legitimate applicants often have to wait years to get benefits while many others get payments they don't deserve.
Last year, Social Security detected $1.4 billion in overpayments to disability beneficiaries, mostly to people who got jobs and no longer qualified, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Congress is targeting overpayments.
The deficit reduction package enacted this month would allow Congress to boost Social Security's budget by about $4 billion over the next decade to invest in programs that identify people who no longer qualify for disability benefits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that increased enforcement would save nearly $12 billion over the next decade.
At the same time, the application process can be a nightmare for legitimate applicants. About two-thirds of initial applications are rejected. Most of these people drop their claims, but for those willing go through an appeals process that can take two years or more, chances are good they eventually will get benefits.
Astrue has pledged to reduce processing times for applicants' appeals, and he has had some success, even as the number of claims skyrockets. The number of people waiting for decisions has increased, but their wait times are going down.
"It's ludicrous to say that the backlog problem is getting worse," Astrue said. "The backlog problem has gotten dramatically better."
Patricia L. Foster said she was working as a nurse in a hospital in Columbia, S.C., in 2005 when she was attacked by a patient who was suffering from a mental illness. Foster, 64, said she injured her neck so bad she had a plate inserted. She said she also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Foster was turned down twice for Social Security disability benefits before finally getting them in 2009, after hiring an Illinois-based company, Allsup, to represent her. She said she was awarded retroactive benefits, though the process was demeaning.
"I have to tell you, when you're told you cannot return to nursing because of your disability, you don't know how long I cried about that," Foster said. "And then Social Security says, 'Oh no, you don't qualify.' You don't know what that does to you emotionally. You have no idea."
http://news.yahoo.com/social-security-disability-verge-insolvency-090119318.html
{Addendum}
Here are two other nice resources when discussing Social Security
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12375
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2006/506/infocus/p15.htm
Feel Free to suggest others....
SchnookumsLaid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability... more
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Our Ability was founded by John Robinson, a congenital amputee. His goal in starting Our Ability was to create a web portal for young people to mentor, view, listen to, read and interact with successful People with Disabilities in the education and business world. When John was a young person he had no role model to look towards for his path to success. He attended Syracuse University aspiring to be a broadcaster like Bob Costas, not creating or running a business. Robinson sees this web portal as a means for giving young People with Disabilities the opportunity to make connections with the leaders of today and tomorrow, something that was not available to him. Young people today look to the internet and video stories to formulate their opinion. Our Ability will provide great success stories about People with Disabilities forging a new path in the business world. At its core, Our Ability is a story telling community on the web.Our Ability was founded by John Robinson, a congenital amputee. His goal in starting... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
This week marks the final edition of the Weekly Pulse. I have been writing the newsletter since 2008 and it has certainly been an exciting time to be covering health care in the United States. Thanks to all the Media Consortium journalists whose work I’ve featured over the years, and thanks to our loyal readers, tipsters, Tweeters, and Facebook fans.
As the Pulse winds down, we look ahead to some of the most pressing health care issues facing the nation: The Republican war on Medicare and Medicaid and the anti-choice onslaught.
89 arrested over Ryan plan
Eighty-nine disability activists were arrested following their occupation of the Cannon House Office Building rotunda, Alison Kilkenny reports in The Nation:
The disability rights group ADAPT staged the event to protest Representative Paul Ryan’s Medicaid cuts, which would force people with disabilities to live in nursing homes rather than in their own houses.
Additionally, the House-passed budget resolution would turn Medicaid into block grants and reduce the program’s spending by more than $700 billion over ten years.
Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones reports that the Republicans in Congress are putting forward some “kinder, gentler” proposed Medicaid cuts in the hopes that these less extreme proposals will have a better chance of passing that the more extreme cuts Ryan has been touting.
Kinder and gentler by Republican standards is still pretty radical. Republicans in both houses of Congress introduced bills that would make it easier for states to kick people off of Medicaid or erect new barriers to entry. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) claims that “only” 300,000 patients would be kicked off Medicaid rolls under his proposal, many fewer than those would be under the Ryan plan. Gingrey, however, admitted that he didn’t have an independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score to back up his claim.
The war on choice
Sadie Doyle of In These Times takes a closer look at proposed legislation in Ohio that bans abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detectable:
Ohio’s “Heartbeat Bill” is part of a barrage of anti-choice legislation designed to circumvent the fact that abortion is legal by making it nearly impossible to obtain one. But, whereas other bills focus on cutting funding or creating obstacles to abortion, H.B. 125 takes a relatively new tactic: It aims to ban abortions outright if the fetus has a detectable heartbeat—which happens at around six weeks, before many women even realize they’re pregnant.
This bill is one of hundreds of pieces of anti-choice legislation percolating at the state level. Many of these bills seem deliberately engineered to provoke a challenge to Roe v. Wade. Anti-choicers seem eager to get their challenge to the Supreme Court as soon as possible, before Obama can appoint any more justices.
Meet the H.R. 3 ten
At RH Reality Check, Sarah Jaffe introduces us to another one of the 10 Democrats who co-sponsored the so-called “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV). The bill, H.R. 3 would effectively end private abortion insurance coverage in the United States by imposing such onerous bureaucratic regulations on insurers that they would more likely to drop abortion coverage altogether rather than comply.
Michigan vs. teen moms
Pregnant teenagers are bearing the brunt of Michigan’s draconian new “fiscal martial law” bill that authorizes cities to appoint emergency managers with sweeping powers to take over cash-strapped cities, towns, and school boards. Students at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, a high school for expectant mothers, were arrested and manhandled by police as they protested the impending closure of their school.
Amanda Marcotte writes in AlterNet that the move to close the academy epitomizes the contemptuous attitude that so many conservative anti-choicers have toward teen girls who choose to give birth:
The imminent shut down of Catherine Ferguson demonstrates the emptiness of Republican claims that they oppose reproductive rights because they value life. Instead, Republican policies are rooted in a sadistic desire to punish and control, and to deprive women—especially young women, poor women, and women of color—of any opportunities whatsoever.
Archives from The Weekly Pulse can be found here and will remain posted at this site. If you’d like see more top news and headlines from independent media outlets, please follow us on Twitter, or fan The Media Consortium on Facebook.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
This week marks the final edition... more
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VANCOUVER - B.C. will soon become the first jurisdiction in Canada to recognize alcohol addiction as a chronic medical condition.
Health Minister Colin Hansen said the change, to take effect April 1, will put the emphasis on preventive measures and give family doctors more time and resources to treat patients with alcohol addiction.
"It's saying to family physicians that if they identify somebody that has a chronic alcohol problem, they can treat them in the same way they would treat complex illnesses," he said.
"They get to spend more time with their patient, as opposed to the standard doctor's visit [where] they've got however many minutes to fill a prescription."
The move follows a 2009 B.C. Medical Association report on improving addiction care that recommended addiction be recognized as a chronic, treatable disease.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/first+Canada+treat+alcoholism+medical+condition/4422268/story.html#ixzz1IkLzNV16VANCOUVER - B.C. will soon become the first jurisdiction in Canada to recognize... more
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Zheng Guigui, a 19-year-old girl from Henan Province in China, was born with no fingers on her right hand, but can play the piano like a badass. Apparently, she only started playing piano three years ago.
Source: BuzzfeedZheng Guigui, a 19-year-old girl from Henan Province in China, was born with no... more
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http://d14j21k36u347g.cloudfront.net/wordpress_core/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/killthepoor_licca-500x334.jpg
MADISON, WI (FDL) – Members of a disability rights group have occupied the Wisconsin Republican Party headquarters in Madison, and vow to stay until Governor Scott Walker takes out the Medicaid provisions in the budget repair bill. The news of the occupation was met with thunderous cheers at a noontime rally in the Capital Rotunda, which featured Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and a large contingent of firefighters from around the state.
ADAPT, the nationwide disability rights group, took over the headquarters to protest the portion of the budget repair bill that switches authority over Medicaid and BadgerCare over to the Department of Health Services. Governor Walker appointed Dennis Smith to run the Department of Health Services, a senior fellow from the Heritage Foundation who has repeatedly argued that states should drop Medicaid altogether. Under the budget repair bill, Smith would have near-unilateral authority to carry that out if he chose. Jonathan Cohn has written extensively about the Medicaid changes in the budget repair bill.
“We are asking the GOP to intervene,” said Jason Glozier with ADAPT, one of the organizers of the occupation. “The changes to Medicaid Assistance have been ignored in this bill. People’s lives are at stake.” Glozier believes that if medical assistance for the disabled is underfunded or unfunded, people will lose jobs and many disabled Wisconsinites would be drastically affected.
Glozier and ADAPT believe that transferring nursing home funding to community-based services funding would save Wisconsin $383 million. “This Governor favors nursing home incarcerations to community services,” Glozier said. “It’s not about the budget, it’s about cutting services.”
There are about 30-40 members of ADAPT in the building and the main rooms on the first floor. Many of them are part of the disabled community. Members of the United Steelworkers and other protesters began to filter in to join them as they heard about the occupation.
ADAPT plans to stay in the headquarters until the state GOP arranges a meeting with Gov. Walker and gets the transfer of power in Medicaid stripped out of the bill. “We will not leave until our deamnds are met or we’re forcibly removed from the building,” Glozier said.
Staffers for the Wisconsin GOP were seen taking literature out of the building and packing it into cars. Asked if they were abandoning the building, a GOP staffer told me, “No, we’re doing our business, we’re working.”
UPDATE: WisPolitics says that police arrived on the scene, but that must have happened recently, as they weren’t there when I was there.http://d14j21k36u347g.cloudfront.net/wordpress_core/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/killthep... more
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http://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/ Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) is a non-governmental non profit organisation which campaigns on behalf of benefit claimants and low paid workers. They also offer advice and support including accompanying claimants to ATOS medicals and interviews at JHP Employability, Ingeus and council. ECAP has also organised protests against welfare to workfare provider A4ehttp://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/ Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) is a... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head at a constituent outreach event in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson on Saturday. In all, the gunman shot 18 people, killing 6, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.
Jamelle Bouie of TAPPED urges President Barack Obama to take up the issue of mental health care in his upcoming speech on the mass shooting. Several people who knew the alleged shooter came forward with stories of bizarre behavior and run-ins with campus police at his community college. College administrators ordered him to seek treatment before he returned to school, but he does not appear to have done so.
H. Clarke Romans of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Southern Arizona explained to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that mental health services in Arizona have been devastated by budget cuts.
In 2008 the state eliminated support services for all non-Medicaid behavioral health patients and stopped covering most brand-name psychiatric drugs. At least 28,000 Arizonans were affected. Arizonans with mental illnesses can expect even more cuts in the future as the state slashes spending in an attempt to address its budget shortfall.
In AlterNet, Adele Stan, argues that, while we don’t yet know the gunman’s motives, the right wing’s intensifying campaign of anti-government hysteria and violent rhetoric may have emboldened an already disturbed person:
Had the vitriolic rhetoric that today shapes Arizona’s political landscape (and, indeed, our national landscape) never come to call, Loughner may have found a different reason to go on a killing spree. But that vitriol does exist as a powerful prompt to the paranoid, and those who publicly deem war on the federal government a patriot’s duty should today be doing some soul-searching.
Reform repeal vote on hold
The House Republicans had scheduled a vote to repeal health care reform this week, but the vote has been postponed in the wake of the Giffords shooting. However, the conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce threw its full weight behind the repeal effort on Tuesday, according to Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones. The Chamber is going back on its earlier pledge not to oppose health care reform outright.
CA insurer hikes rates by 59%
Nearly 200,000 policyholders in California are reeling from a 59% rate hike by Blue Shield, Brie Cadman reports for Change.org. According to the company, the increase was not due to health care reform, but rather to “increased utilization.” State insurance officials are reviewing the rate hike, but they can’t reverse it unless they find that Blue Shield fails to meet the legal medical loss ratio (percentage of premiums spent on medical care).
Reproductive rights in the states
Rachel Gould and Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute recap reproductive rights in the states at RH Reality Check. Last year, 44 states and the District of Columbia considered 950 repro rights-related measures on issues ranging from abortion to sex ed. By year’s end, 89 new laws had been enacted in 32 states and DC. Of these, 39 were abortion laws.
The vast majority of new abortion laws served to further restrict women’s access to abortion. The passage of the Affordable Care Act spurred several states to pass laws restricting insurance coverage for abortions. The District of Columbia’s decision to reinstate public funding was one of the few exceptions to the trend of restrictive new laws.
Autism/vaccine study based on “deliberate fraud”
The author of a discredited study purporting to link autism and vaccines schemed to profit from his tainted research from the very beginning, according to new research published in the British Medical Journal.
It turns out that the lead author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was secretly working on a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers when he published a study in The Lancet that appeared to show a link between vaccines and autism. We now know that Wakefield falsified the findings that sparked a global panic over the safety of childhood vaccines.
The journal retracted the paper last year. Wakefield was stripped of his license to practice medicine.
Some observers think these revelations will finally put the debate over vaccines and autism to rest. Kristina Chew of Care2 is doubtful:
I am very sure that, even with all the facts, data, and evidence laid before them, those who believe that vaccines or something in vaccines caused or somehow ‘contributed’ to their child becoming autistic will stand by their claims, and by Wakefield. Some of these persons are my friends. They are parents, as am I, of autistic children.
Wakefield’s die hard supporters weren’t swayed by earlier revelations of shoddy research and unethical conduct. It seems unlikely that this new found conflict of interest will change their minds.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was... more
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MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — Authorities have identified two of the suspects recorded in sexual assaults of profoundly disabled women, officials said Friday.
Los Angeles police officers recognized the men after detectives went public with artist sketches and photos of four men on Thursday, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Dan Scott said. As many as 10 suspects could have been involved in the assaults.
One of the suspects was a worker at a Los Angeles care facility and had already been prosecuted by police for two felony sex counts and two abuse counts. He is currently imprisoned at Tehachapi State Prison and scheduled for release in 2012, Scott said.
The images were gleaned from over 100 hours of video delivered to sheriff's headquarters in suburban Monterey Park last March. It took months for investigators to digitally enhance the grainy footage and produce pictures and artist sketches of four of the suspects.
The videos show the men sexually assaulting physically and mentally disabled women, some of them in diapers.
Full Story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40968443/40975244MONTEREY PARK, Calif. — Authorities have identified two of the suspects recorded... more
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This is really strange footage, but it doesn t surprise me considering the locale (Gastown area). This was recorded earlier this week in Vancouver. A wheelchair-bound man with a potty mouth had a super-soaker and was shooting water at people s crotches.This is really strange footage, but it doesn t surprise me considering the locale... more
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Sophisticated brain scans accurately predicted which teens with dyslexia would learn to read within three years, a finding that could lead to better ways to treat the common learning disability, researchers said on Monday.
:http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6BJ52R20101220Sophisticated brain scans accurately predicted which teens with dyslexia would learn... more
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Return To Work Matters is a social enterprise which serves Disability Management and Return To Work Professionals. The people whose responsibility it is to facilitate injured or ill employees to recover their health and get back to their jobs. http://www.rtwmatters.com/Return To Work Matters is a social enterprise which serves Disability Management and... more
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A man in a wheelchair is being called a hero after he got a robber in a headlock and wrestled him to the floor during an attempted robbery.
"Just because I'm in a chair doesn't mean I can't stand up and do what's right," Larry Skopnik told reporter.
Skopnik has been in a wheelchair since an quad-bike accident 10 years ago. He was shopping in his local supermarket in Chetwynd, Canada this week when a customer who tried to pass off a fake $50 became abusive when it wasn't accepted.
Surveillance video shows the man grabbing at some of the counter items and coming at the clerk before she pushes him back.
Skopnik rolled towards the counter and put the would-be thief in a headlock. The pair wrestled for a few seconds, and then Skopnik held the man by the torso until both of them fell to the ground.
"I'm pretty sure I can defend myself," said Skopnik. "Her not getting hurt was the important thing."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMyjVpag8osA man in a wheelchair is being called a hero after he got a robber in a headlock and... more
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LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Concerned citizens have been calling Adult Protective Services and police about a man in a wheelchair in central Lubbock, advertising for a Halloween store. What the citizens' don't know is that he wants to be there, he wants to work, and because of his limitations, he sees it as a perfect opportunity to be able to work and provide for his family.
Recently, drivers have been honking at him, calling police, and threatening to boycott the company he works for. Jamie is upset because it is a distraction for his job and his quest to lead a normal life.
He drives his motor powered wheelchair 19 blocks to work and holds up signs off 50th Street to advertise for Spirit Halloween store. Johnston's manager Grant Gassaway says he gets complaints daily. "[They say things like] you guys are wrong, this is an unjust cause, we're going to call the police and adult protective services."
There's no case for adult protective services or police because after they've talked with Johnston, they understand he's more than willing and able to do his job. Cerebral palsy is a condition that affects motor coordination, not mental health. Johnston wants people to know that he chose this job and just wants to provide for his wife and family like any other person. "Thank you for your concern, but I'm fine. I'm just happy to bring home a paycheck every week."
Even though people in the community might be concerned about Johnston's welfare, the manager says he's one of the best employees they've ever seen. "His work ethic is top notch. He's been one of the best employees we've ever had, bar none. He's completely dependable and that's what we like. He's done a great job for us."
Johnston says he gets bored when he's at home alone. His wife also has cerebral palsy and a full-time job. He told us he enjoys his independence. "Sometimes I will take the bus, but sometimes I like cruising," Johnston said.
Gassaway says above all else, Johnston wants to be treated just like anybody else. "He wants to come to the job, clock in, do the job, clock out and go home. Just like everybody, else every day."
Johnston will continue working until the seasons over, he says it makes him feel better. "I'm happy where I'm working," Johnston said.
Johnston has written a letter to the concerned citizens:
"Hello, my name is Jamie, I am a 35-year-old male with cerebral palsy, and make use of a motorized wheelchair. I have been married for 14 years. For many years I have been trying to find gainful employment, but it can be difficult and frustrating.
"I have been a bell ringer for the Salvation Army for about 10 years, in front of Market Street on 50th and Indiana which I really love. I also work at Goodwill.
"I have recently applied at The Halloween Store as a sign holder. I appreciate them giving me the opportunity to work. For the most part people have been encouraging and supportive, and I really appreciate their support. However, they have been receiving a few complaints about me being out on the corner where I'm supposed to be, and I have been informed that it is starting to affect their business.
"This is very disappointing to me. The police have been called out several times. Adult Protective Services has also been contacted. I appreciate people's concern for me and my safety; I'm just trying to do the best I can to contribute in making a living for me and my wife.
Thanks,
Jamie"
Copyright 2010 KCBD. All rights reserved.
http://www.kcbd.com/Global/story.asp?S=13200957LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - Concerned citizens have been calling Adult Protective Services... more
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