Including pregnant women!
"Heat a casualty in foreclosures; As Boston buildings are taken over by mortgage firms, tenants face slow repairs of systems and limited fuel deliveries" by Binyamin Appelbaum, Globe Staff | December 22, 2007
Tenants in some foreclosed Boston apartment buildings are living without adequate heat because the new landlords - mortgage companies often based in other states - have not repaired broken systems or paid for the delivery of heating oil.
Karla Herrera, who gave birth to a daughter Wednesday, has lived without heat in her Roxbury apartment since November, when the system broke.
Ms. Herrera, in Spanish, speaking through an interpreter:
"Sometimes, I turn on the oven for 20 minutes for heat."
I remember how that used to be!
Some foreclosed buildings also lack electricity, or hot water, or even running water, and the tenants may have no one to call: The new landlords often fail to provide tenants with a contact number, as required by Massachusetts law. And when landlords can be reached, the response is often so limited - half a tank of heating oil, for example - that the problems recur within a few days.
At Boston Medical Center, a growing number of children who live in foreclosed buildings are being treated for problems related to a lack of heat, hot water, or electricity, according to the hospital's legal aid clinic, the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children.
Yeah, but WE LOVE CHILDREN in AmeriKa!
That's why we spend TRILLIONS on WARS!!!!
One malnourished child was living in a building without running water, making it hard for the mother to mix formula. A child with sickle-cell anemia was treated for pain after temperature fluctuations in an unheated apartment caused the disease to flare up. The medical center's emergency room has treated children whose asthma inhalers cannot be recharged because their apartments have no electricity.
Proud, 'Murka, of the way you treat your children?
State law prevents utility companies from suspending service in the winter months if a tenant can prove financial hardship.
Ellen Lawton, the legal aid clinic's executive director, said that isn't always enough:
"The law on the books says they can't, but they do. And then who do you go to to get it turned back on?"
Yeah, as usual,the CORPORATIONS -- not the customer -- is ALWAYS RIGHT!
Massachusetts requires landlords to heat apartments to 68 degrees by day and 64 degrees at night.
I keep mine at 60 because I don't want to pay oil companies!
But on a recent 25-degree morning, Herrera's apartment was comfortable only with a winter coat. The thermostat was broken. When the heating system was engaged, the vents blew cold air into the living room. Shortly after Thanksgiving, however, the heat went off and the electricity stopped working in every room except the kitchen.
Herrera said she bought space heaters for her bedroom and her son's bedroom, both operating on extension cords run from the kitchen. She is scheduled to return from the hospital tomorrow with her new baby girl and said she is resigned to the possibility that the heat still won't be working.
"At the beginning I was very upset but I see that in any case, with pressure or without pressure, things basically continue all the same."
That's BUSH'S AmeriKa, all right!
And are you not weeping for the NEW BABY that will have to endure this?
How come AmeriKa HATES CHILDREN and LOVES KILLING, Americans?
In late November, when the heat went off at Herrera's apartment, the company responded to one request for repairs with a note suggesting she should leave if she wasn't happy.
See?!
Customers and people DON'T MEAN SHIT to the FUCKING INSULTING ASSHOLE PROPERTY OWNERS!
Heating is not the only problem. The walks outside Shareka Murdaugh's Roxbury apartment building have not been shoveled since the season's first snow. At more than nine months pregnant, Murdaugh can't do it.
All but one of the other tenants, a woman with a new baby, left after receiving $1,000 from New England Group, which represents the new landlord, GMAC Financial Services.
Murdaugh's reply to the offer: "Are you serious? Where do we have to go?"
I'm disgusted and appalled that AmeriKa doesn't care for its most vulnerable mommies and babies!
I LOVE BABIES!!!
How could any society call itself compassionate and ALLOW THIS?
The radiator in Murdaugh's bedroom isn't working. She has covered her windows in plastic. Two space heaters are pointed at the bed. She uses them so continuously that one of the extension cords melted.
This is heart-ripping!
Michael Abbott of New England Group denied responsibility for heating the building. He referred calls to a law firm, which referred calls to GMAC, which said there had been some miscommunication.
Yup, even the paper got the old RUN AROUND!
Well, I am SICK of THAT, too!
SHITBAG FUCKING CORPORATIONS EXTORTING us with SHIT PRODUCTS, then telling us to fuck off!!!
Time to REVOKE THEIR CHARTERS FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Bereaved family to sue insurer after dispute over liver transplant; Approval came too late for teen" by Alicia Chang, Associated Press | December 22, 2007
LOS ANGELES - The family of a 17-year-old girl who died hours after her health insurer reversed a decision and said it would pay for a liver transplant plans to sue the company, their attorney said yesterday.
Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge, Calif., died Thursday at about 6 p.m. at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center.
Doctors at UCLA determined that she needed a transplant and sent a letter to Cigna Corp.'s Cigna HealthCare on Dec. 11. The Philadelphia-based insurer had initially denied payment for the transplant, saying the procedure was experimental and outside the scope of coverage.
Why don't you go watch Michael Moore's "SiCKO," readers!
Then re-read this article!
The insurer reversed the decision Thursday as about 150 teenagers, nurses and members of the local Armenian community rallied outside of its office. But Nataline died hours later.
Krikor, Nataline Sarkisyan's father, with tears in his eyes at a news conference at his lawyer's office:
"They took my daughter away from me."
Now I have tears in my eyes!
Leading physicians at UCLA Medical Center, including the surgical director of the pediatric liver transplant program, questioned the company's explanation that it does not cover experimental or unproven treatments, saying Nataline's case was neither.
The hospital told Nataline's family on Dec. 14 that a healthy liver was available, but that without Cigna's authorization, the family would have to make a down payment of $75,000, an amount the family could not afford.
Did you watch "SiCKO," readers?
The California Nurses Association organized the rally Thursday outside the insurer's offices in Glendale.
Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the nurses group, in a statement:
"[The outcome was] a horrific tragedy that demonstrates what is so fundamentally wrong with our health care system today. Insurance companies have a stranglehold on our health. Their first priority is to make profits for their shareholders - and the way they do that is by denying care. Every politician who thinks the answer to our healthcare crisis is more insurance should stop and think about Nataline Sarkisyan. Insurance is not care. Paying for insurance coverage is not the same as assuring you will receive appropriate care, even when recommended by a physician as it was for Nataline."
Yup, AmeriKa's Health Care system SUCKS!!!
Nataline was taken off life support at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center on Thursday, her mother said. The teen died within the hour."
Another precious soul lost to AmeriKa's profit-driven, killing-machine culture!
And it is not just health care, readers:
"Signs abound across US of season rife with need; Working poor feel the pinch" by Martha Irvine, Associated Press | December 22, 2007
CHICAGO - A Salvation Army shelter in a well-to-do Kansas county has an unprecedented waiting list that includes families who've lost their homes to foreclosure.
In Florida, a real estate agent who said she was having a tough time making it this year sought assistance from a food bank for herself and her children. And in Maryland, one agency that serves families says it's seeing more young, working, single mothers who move into shelters and ask family members to care for their children. They can't afford rent.
Stories like these tell of a holiday season rife with need across the country, but also what aid workers are calling a disturbing and growing need for assistance all year round.
Everywhere, people are feeling the crunch of rising gasoline and grocery prices, as well as utility bills, rent, and mortgage payments. Those factors also are cutting into people's ability to donate.
Melissa Temme, a spokeswoman for the Salvation Army, where stories like that of the overflow at the Johnson County Family Lodge in Kansas are becoming increasingly common:
"Not only can they not give, many - for the first time - have need and are coming to us."
Yup, but the ECONOMY is GREAT, Bush said this week!
I am sick of him and his fucking destruction and lies!
Last year, 4.8 million Americans got holiday assistance from the Salvation Army, everything from meals and clothing to gifts. It's too early to tell if those numbers will go up this year. Though her organization generally sees a surge in giving of gifts right before Christmas, Temme says she's sensed an unease among staff about the level of need out there.
Others say the same.
Ross Fraser, a spokesman for America's Second Harvest, a domestic hunger-relief organization based in Chicago:
"This isn't a holiday shortage, per se. This is a shortage that's been building."
At Thanksgiving, the organization estimates that food banks nationally were short a total of 15 million pounds of food. Since then, his agency has heard about shortages at food banks across the country.
One food bank in Dallas reports having to spend $100,000 a month buying food, because of declining donations of excess food from grocery stores and farmers.
Rebecca Wagner, executive director of Community Ministry of Montgomery County, Md., also has seen the need for aid grow:
"Before they were cobbling together three and four jobs to make ends meet. Now that utility bill is a backbreaker. Toys and bags of oranges only go so far when you can't keep your heat on."
Yup, Americans are FREEZING, HOMELESS and HUNGRY, and yet ALL the MONEY is going to the WARS!!!!!!!!!!!
Hell, they are evn trying to GET IT BACK from YOU, readers, to PAY FOR THEIR WARS!!!!!!!!
"States toughen up on restitution; Get aggressive on collection plans" by Mark Scolforo, Associated Press | December 22, 2007
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - A young burglar accused of burning down the St. Paul United Methodist Church 13 years ago was ordered to make $2.4 million in restitution. It was, at best, wishful thinking on the part of the court. A new church was built, but no thanks to him. He coughed up a paltry $374.
There is no central database that can put a total price tag on unpaid court-ordered restitution in all 50 states. However, a nationwide examination by the Associated Press shows it is billions of dollars.
So when you going to go after Halliburton and KBR for the BILLIONS THEY STOLE, government?
When do we get THAT MONEY BACK, government?!?
Oh, I see. This is just a FUCK JOB on the American people!
Like usual!
Often, the problem is that restitution orders are purely symbolic, the amounts so big that many defendants can't possibly pay up. But it is also the case that many states make little effort to go after whatever money is available.
Lynne Abraham, Philadelphia district attorney:
"It's a system that's fraught with inadequacies, improper checks and balances, no procedures in place. It's sort of a haphazard little dance that everyone dances around."
That is changing in some places. Many states have begun taking steps to force defendants to pay up. Some, like Arizona, are turning to outside collection agencies. Others, such as Pennsylvania and Colorado, are ratcheting up their in-house collection efforts.
Yup, COMING AFTER YOU, Americans, because THEY NEED TO PAY FOR THE WARS!!!!!!!!!
Michael DiMarco, consolidated collections manager for Arizona's courts, said the amount of unpaid court costs, fines, fees and restitution in Arizona totaled $831 million at last count. But the state has managed to bring in close to $90 million since it contracted four years ago with Affiliated Computer Services of Dallas.
Meanwhile, WAR PROFITEERS STEAL BILLIONS -- and the state governments are looking for pennies!
But they are YOUR PENNIES that are needed to FUND the WARS!
Missouri and Minnesota also use Affiliated, which duns people by mail and phone and keeps a percentage of whatever it collects.
I'm tired of bing ripped off by corporations and the state!
When is America going to toss of this oppressive yoke of a government and economy, readers?
They really need to be destroyed, and a new system to be put in its place.
DiMarco: "We have cases going back to 1984 that people are paying on, simply because somebody finally came and said, 'You owe money.' "
Yup, gonna gp back 25+ years and CRAWL UP YOUR ASSHOLE with a pup-tent!!!!
But when it comes to Halliburton's THEFT from last year, the government says "Aaaah, we can't figure it out, just pay 'em!"
I am tired of being raped by WAR PROFITEERS, dammit, while I STARVE and FREEZE!
In addition, Arizona feeds information from its court system computers to other state agencies, and they use it intercept deadbeats' state income tax refunds.
Colorado has developed an aggressive in-house system with about 100 collection investigators who begin working with offenders on repayment right away. It has doubled restitution collections in the past decade to $25 million."
When are you going to wake up to the police state, shit-eating Amurkns?
WHEN?
