It is a threat. It is illegal to threaten the president. They are so big on the "rule of law," they should be enjoying some of it in some of their rustic jails.

after our earthquake here in 1994 the neighbors came out, checked on each other and we gave out flashlights, candles and radios to those who did not have them. Those of us who had it gave out bottled water and frozen food which would melt to edibility before long. The power was out, and it was a warm day. Some people didn't have food in the house. The neighbors with barbecues heated food for the neighbors without.

We can care for each other. That is why the hard conservatives are so frightening. They can, but they won't. As I type the images from Katrina cross my mind.

But thanks for the link. I checked it out at both Amazon and Alibris and I am going to pick it up. It looks like something that would be of great interest. Also in a good range of prices at both places.

money. It is their God, their life's blood and their reason for everything. They also have the minds of spoiled two year olds. Mine now. Mine everything. Nothing for you.

against this crap. Why don't they prosecute the people responsible? There is a law against threatening the president. Why won't anyone enforce it? I have been wondering about this since the so called town hall meetings.

because both parents put the child first and thought of what he needed instead of thinking of themselves. I don't make the difference between psychological and biological. A parent is who mothers or fathers the child and whom the child loves regardless of relationship. Isn't that the basis for adoption?

which is a system of government run by the wealthy. They may reach out through their corporations, but make no mistake this is a government for and by the rich. The rest of us don't really matter unless we help make them richer.

the ones described in this post, the fees have been raised sharply at California universities as well. There were student demonstrations at Berkeley yesterday. Of course And I understand that a lawyer is taking the university system to court.

I hope SDSU survives intact. We need artists and they need a training ground or we will become as ignorant and wart covered as the Conservatives. Sometimes the intangible things like beauty and soul get us through the worst of times.

I knew he was a liar and a crook and that he had stolen the elections both time. I never had any hesitation about seeing him go. I was afraid Cheney would be worse, but I figured that could have been dealt with somehow. I never understood why Congress hesitated, especially after they impeached Clinton for what was essentially a private matter and not a crime.

So my second thought is the same as my first though. Bush should have been impeached. His administration should have been prosecuted after he was, and that they should all be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, even though I know it isn't going to happen.

My husband says we'll call HUD for advice and help on Monday. We know that with Chase Manhattan in the picture there is no such thing as being safe. I wish we could move our mortgage out of there as quickly as we moved our other accounts to a credit union. We are going to try to do that as well as get it renegotiated. This is a family house. My father built it 70 years ago. I grew up here and we moved back to take care of my mother who was dying of congestive heart failure. I have so many memories here. My husband loves it too. Everyone has special feelings for their home, these are just ours. You live in a house and it assumes its own meaning to you and becomes a part of your family life. To Chase Manhattan we are just worthless small depositors whom they don't want anyway and our home is just another figure on a bottom line.

Thank you so much for posting this. We have put in for assistance under Obama's stimulus bill with Chase Manhattan who holds our mortgage. I do not trust them as far as I can throw them, so I really appreciate this information and the phone numbers.

One thing with a reverse mortgage in California, both parties who live in the home must be 65 or older, so that is not an option for us for about nine years.

We had WAMU at first, which was a reasonably good bank. We were in their overdraft protection program which did not require a line of credit. When Chase took over I had a feeling things would change for the worse. My husband and I closed all of our credit card accounts, paid off in full. We still had the overdraft protection, there was no way to opt out and it was helpful on occasion.

We did a refi of our mortgage with WAMU. We had good credit, so we got a 5.5% fixed rate back when interest rates were averaging 6% or above. Then my husband got sick to the point of death and had to be hospitalized for 14 weeks. During that time WAMU became Chase. Also during that time our house lost most of its value and our equity disappeared. In essence we are renting from Chase Manhattan and calling it a mortgage. My federal pension was reduced by $182 which is what happens when you initially retire on disability (I have MS) and later turn retirement age. I am 62. I guess when you get old they think the disability doesn't matter as much.

My husband came home, still very ill and with a whole new galaxy of medications to keep him alive. Our food costs soared because of inflation and because he has to follow a special diet. We fell behind on our bills and finally we missed one mortgage payment to Chase after never missing a payment before. They gave us two days to pay. We scraped together enough money to make our payment but they wouldn't accept it then. They said we had to pay the next payment as well. We decided to use the overdraft protection which allowed us to write over $1000, but they had turned it off. We called them and begged for a payment holiday which was allowable under our original contract. They refused and tried to bully us into applying for a line of credit at about 30% interest. We explained that we had not been able to make payments to my husband's doctors for the amounts his health insurance would not cover. We wouldn't qualify for any credit. We begged them to help us and they would not.

I called my sister who is 72. She closed out her IRA account that she was depending on and gave us enough money to catch up on the mortgage and our other bills. I don't know what we would have done without her help, and I hated like Hell having to ask her and perhaps take away money she might need. She sent the money by wire transfer so that it would get to Chase by their impromptu deadline and they charged us $15 for the transaction. We brought the mortgage up to date and put in for relief under Obama's stimulus plan which Chase had never suggested to us even though they were supposed to. When the stimulus first became public and we checked it we were not eligible because my pension had not been cut. That put us over the edge. We didn't know it but Chase did. They just didn't feel like sharing. They have lied to us and acted in bad faith at every turn.

Two days after we had squared the mortgage, we found a credit union and we have moved our direct deposits there and opened a share draft account. When and if it is feasible we will ask them to refi our existing mortgage, if we ever get any equity back. We haven't told Chase yet. We don't feel like sharing either. They will figure it out on December 1 when all of the direct deposits except the VA check will not go on. The VA check will be out of there in January. And you can bet that any renegotiation of the existing mortgage will be carefully vetted. There are lawyers circling like sharks just waiting for stuff like this.

What you posted doesn't surprise me at all. Please get out of Chase. Go to a small bank or a credit union with your bank accounts and if you can, close the account they are threatening you with and get some guidance about negotiating a payment agreement you can live with. Chase has lied to all of us. They released a story to the media earlier this year about how they were going to "help" all of their customers by letting them opt into an overdraft program if they wanted it effective January 1 and renegotiate all of their credit card agreements to benefit new and existing customers. Obviously they chose not to wait. I have to thank Congress too. I can't tell you how bad the stress of this has been for my husband, for my Multiple Sclerosis and for my sister.

The final insult was that after the mortgage was paid in full, they sent a letter dated earlier threatening to foreclose and telling us that we needed to let them know if we were ill or our income had been reduced or we needed financial counseling. We had been telling them that all along. They took notes on their computers as we spoke. I could hear them typing. Obviously they lie more easily than they breathe. Too bad we can't all get together and put them out of business, but then the world is for the rich, the banks are for the rich and we are just the fools who keep them running whether we want to or not.

moratorium on foreclosures, and the banking industry as a whole needs to be much more tightly regulated.

Let me tell you what Chase Manhattan did to my husband and I. Last year my husband nearly died from MRSA, an antibiotic resistant bacterial disease. He was 14 weeks in the hospital with the trusty private insurance that Obama is touting and when he came out we owed literally thousands of dollars in co-payments, deductibles, and services that the the insurance company simply refused to pay for even though they were covered.

My husband came home with serious damage to his heart after two surgeries. One replaced a destroyed heart valve, and the other implanted an ICD, a device to keep his heart in rhythm and fibrillate it if it goes out of rhythm. He has to spend much of his day in a hospital bed and sleep in a semi sitting position wearing an oxygen mask in order to breathe while he is asleep.

His kidneys were damaged, his lungs, his liver and his bone marrow. His blood values have never returned to normal. His vision has changed radically and the MRSA took away his ability to walk as he used to. He can now walk only short distances even with a walker.

During this time Chase Manhattan acquired the banking chain where our accounts are held. We had been planning to pay the money we owed in medical costs by tapping our home equity, but like many others in this economy we found that the value of our home had plummeted. What had been a safe equity had evaporated and we were more or less paying rent to Chase Manhattan.

My husband had to take a whole galaxy of medication to deal with his new medical conditions. Inflation hit our area hard and we began struggling. We fell behind one month in our mortgage and sometimes had to hit one of our zero balance accounts and depend on the overdraft protection that the bank before Chase Manhattan had extended us. That was the only way we could get by.

Yesterday we attempted to pay our mortgage payment that way and found that Chase had cut off the overdraft protection without warning or explanation. When we called them they said they would be happy to reinstate it if we applied for a line of credit which had a rate of interest that could only be described as usurious. We had deliberately avoided credit cards or lines of credit because of the predatory lending practices of both the banks and the credit card industry. We explained that we couldn't afford what they were asking of us, that we had no money to deal with extra expense, and that our credit reports were probably not any good anymore because of unpaid medical bills. We told them we were desperate and begged for a one month payment holiday with the payment to be added to the end of the mortgage, a common practice in reputable banks. They refused and kept pushing the credit.

We were mouse trapped but good. I was finally able to beg enough money from a relative to catch the mortgage up and keep us above water this time, but I don't know how it is going to turn out. I thank you for taking the time to read this post, and please avoid Chase Manhattan. I always knew they were crooked, but this is so blatant I don't have words to describe it. It is like, "let's go force the customers to have credit they don't want and which will sink them for sure."

I'm calling the Senate Banking Committee to tell them about this and to point out that Chase lied in its news releases promising customer relief. Once again just when I thought I was free of him, George Bush's fingers are closing around my throat. He was the one who made the decision to close my former banking chain. They were struggling but they were solvent, and his banking commission ordered them to close so that his friend and contributor Chase Manhattan could step in and acquire their assets for pennies on the dollar. Unfortunately for me, my husband and I were a part of those assets.

the meaning of what I just posted? I think instead of "nuanced" difference this amounts to a semantic difference. Semantics is a fascinating subject. Two people can use the same words and mean two different things, based on their own perceptions and experiences. As everyone has different perceptions and experiences each word that they all use in common may have many different meanings to them. Did you ever see the movie Rashomon? Nine different people witness the same incident and each sees it in a different way, so there are nine different versions of what happened. Each one is true, it is simply a matter of perception.

This is what I think you are missing from my post. You are attaching different meanings to what I wrote than what I intended. After reading your last reply I am stumwatggled as to how I can make myself any more clear, except to say I want the same thing that you do. It doesn't matter if we "nuance" words fifty different ways for rest of the millennium, my meaning won't change. Those are all of the reasons I have always had for wanting health insurance available to everyone with parity for everyone. They do not change no matter how they are "nuanced." Now for a personal note which will not change no matter how it is "nuanced."

I'm for government run health care for all of the reasons I have given. I am also for government run health care for many personal reasons, because my husband barely survived a bout with MRSA last year, and I was a first hand witness to how his health insurance company mistreated him. MRSA is an antibiotic resistant strain of staph which began in hospitals, but has now spread out into the community. It is very contagious, aggressive and mutates constantly to defy treatment. People usually die from it.

My husband survived but the MRSA did the following:

1. Took from him the ability to walk and use his left arm. This functionality has returned but only just barely. He will never be able to walk normally again. He spends a large part of his day in a hospital bed. The doctors don't know why. No one has seen that many cases of MRSA where the patient has survived.

2. Caused my husband to have a heart attack and destroyed his aortic valve so that his blood could not oxygenate. They had to wait to do surgery until they cleared the MRSA out of his blood. Since his breathing, even with machines to help him, was becoming less and less efficient they had to operate sooner than it was safe to do so. He barely made it out of a 7 1/2 hour surgery which was only a partial success. They had to install an ICD later to control his heart beat and fibrillate his heart if it goes out of rhythm. One of the surgeons said he spent the whole surgery picking piles of dead MRSA bacteria off of, and out of my husband's heart. The MRSA had also given him Endocarditis, a severe inflammation of the heart. He now takes a galaxy of medications for his heart that he never had to take before. They are very expensive. He has to eat a salt and fat restricted diet. All fresh food. This is becoming more and more expensive, but he will have potentially fatal heart problems if he uses salt which is found in most prepared foods. He also is beginning to have congestive heart problems and fluids pooling his lungs. He has to clear his lungs daily.

3. Caused him to form blood clots in his lower extremities which took weeks to dissolve with Heparin in an IV. He went into heart surgery with blood clots which could have killed him if the surgeons had not been exceptionally skilled. But he would have died if they had not operated without taking the risk of dealing with the clots. He will have to take warfarin for the rest of his life to thin his blood and keep new clots from forming.

4. Damaged the lower portion of his lungs by collapsing the alveoli. The doctors tried to keep the alveoli from dying. They did not succeed. Between his heart and his lungs he is short of breath at the slightest exertion. The doctors do not know why the lung damage occurred. No one has seen that many cases of MRSA where the patient has survived.

5. Attacked my husbands bone marrow. His red blood counts dropped to the point where he was and is profoundly anemic. His white count dropped until he had virtually no immune system. We had to wear masks to protect him. His food had to be irradiated before he could eat it and he could only drink bottled water. The depression of his immune system caused a yeast overgrowth in his mouth and throat and sores which would not heal. Until the white blood counts came back of their own accord he was unable to chew food. He lived on his IVs, Cream of Wheat and Cream of Mushroom Soup. His platelet count fell so low that he cannot shave, because if he cuts himself it takes forever for him to stop bleeding. He can't use an electric razor because that would trigger his ICD. He was given at least five blood transfusions to try to equalize his blood count. They didn't work. His Hematologist took a bone marrow aspiration to try to see what was happening. It told him what was happening with my husbands bone marrow but not why, so there was very little the doctor was able to do. My husband was given injections of medications in the stomach daily first in the hospital, and then by me when he came home. I gave him the injections because his health insurance company would not pay for any home nursing visits even though they are contractually obliged to do so. They simply refused and nothing I could say or do would change their minds. They also tried to deny him the medication I injected, until his doctor threw a fit and threatened to admit him to the hospital again if my husband could not get the necessary medication for home use. The insurance company caved and we injected, carefully following the instructions that came with the medication and sweating the possibility of an air embolism. My husband read the instructions aloud and pinched up his own skin while I injected. Not an activity I would recommend for people if they have any other choice. My husband's blood is slowly returning to normal, but whether it will ever come back fully, the doctors don't know. No one has seen that many cases of MRSA where the patient has survived.

6. Caused my husband to have to take Vancomycin which is the antibiotic of last resort for resistant staph infections. The protocol to clear the MRSA was six weeks in the hospital under constant supervision. Vancomycin is very toxic and not easily tolerated. My husband made it less than four weeks before he had an anaphalactic reaction to the Vancomycin. His whole body swelled, his skin turned an orange tone and began to slough off. He developed a rash which was almost black in his lower extremities. It damaged his kidneys to the point where the doctors were discussing dialysis with us. Fortunately the elevated kidney functions dropped to the point where this was not necessary. However, my husband still has kidney damage. He will have some degree of impairment for the rest of his life. In this case though the doctors do know why. It is one of the things Vancomycin can do to patients who use it. That is why the patients must be so closely supervised.

7. Caused my husband to have liver damage. The liver damage resulted in the inability of the body to break down waste products efficiently. Ammonia is being released into my husbands bloodstream. This can cause lethargy, confusion, coma and death. Fortunately the doctors were able to diagnose what was happening and medicate him for it. This is also an expensive medication that he will have to take three times a day for the rest of his life. The doctors cannot say why this happened. No one has seen that many cases of MRSA where the patient has survived.

8. It "colonized" my husband's body so that any small infection or a cold or the flu can turn back into full blown MRSA which the doctors are able to tell us that he probably would not survive.

9. Because of the liver damage and the fact that the liver eliminates medications and other foreign substances from the body, my husband has a very narrow range of medications for other medical conditions that he can take without causing further harm. We have to check with a doctor each and every time before he takes any new medications. Even over the counter medications. We also have to be sure that the doctor we are talking to is familiar with MRSA, because many of them are not. No one has seen that many cases of MRSA where the patient has survived, or has seen that many cases of MRSA period. Unfortunately that is going to change. It was just my husband's terrible luck that he was one of the first cases from the community. They sent in an Epidemiologist to try to figure out where he got it, but that was not possible. It could have been anywhere.

Now to finally terminate this post, let me tell you that my husband was in an acute hospital, as he should have been for 16 weeks. All during this time his health insurance company kept trying to force an early discharge which would have killed him for sure. I could not move them; they would not discuss it with me. One insurance representative told me that in spite of the fact that they were denying covered services it was their right. They also told me that they never considered the actual coverage when they were making decisions on patient care. Fortunately he was in a non profit hospital and the head case worker, who has seen an awful lot of this crap did three or four successful appeals for us which overturned every one of the insurance company's decisions. She had the staff, she had the knowledge, she had the lawyers and she had the compassion to do so. She did a heck of a job. If it had not been for the excellent medical care by both my husband's nurses and doctors which was given in spite of the health insurance company he would not have survived. But how many people have access to staff people at hospitals who care so much. It was a fluke that we did. It just happened to be the closest hospital with a vacancy that the EMTs could take us to. Your life should not depend on dumb luck. Everyone should have access to this type of care, but they do not because of the health insurance companies.

After he got home, the insurance company as I have stated, denied home nursing ordered by my husband's doctors and which was pursued by the hospital case workers, denied him physical therapy which might have helped him to regain muscle tone and walk, and denied durable medical equipment such as a walker, again ordered by his doctors and pursued by hospital case workers. In short after paying high premiums for years, higher co payments every year for less, and much more for prescription coverage the insurance company was not there for us unless the hospital was standing on them and forcing them to do what little they ended up doing. All this stress and frustration and fear during what is one of the worst times of a person's life anyway, a serious illness that could kill them and is not easily cured or curable.

We are still here, still alive, but nearly bankrupt and living with my husband's severe illness which no one understands, and my severe autoimmune disorder which is understood but not easily treatable, especially when the health insurance company would rather not treat it. We have no safety nets because Bush and other mostly Republican politicians took them away. Utopia, as you seem to envision it isn't happening right now and may not happen because the ugly fact is that the rich control the purse strings and the purse strings control a lot of politicians who could help all of us, but won't. What should happen will not happen easily, or may not happen at all if things go badly. We will keep trying, we will help other people the best we can no matter what is happening in our own lives, and hopefully we can create change together. Sometimes the nuances are not as important as the reality. Especially when we are talking about the same goal and for the same reasons.

Our current system isn't up to it. My husband's mother has a rare form of cancer that is wrapping around her esophagus and metastasizing throughout her lungs, neck and eventually her brain. She has difficulty swallowing and is in constant pain. She has to measure her life expectancy in days, weeks and months. She can't count on more time than that.

What is her HMO doing? Not much. They said surgery to remove the tumor when it was initially discovered months ago was not possible. They said they could not use radiation. Instead they gave her an old chemotherapy drug that is not effective on the type of cancer she has, because they have to "cut costs". (Read increase profits.) The chemo drug was toxic to her. She nearly died from taking it. Her blood values dropped across the board and it took two weeks in the hospital to get her white count up to the point where she had an immune system. Now the HMO is putting off any more treatment for her at all. She is desperate. She is dying and she knows it.

I just want to ask while you are expressing concerns about "our own system," if you have ever sat across the table from a loved one and held her hand while she told you, "I'm afraid to die. Please don't let me die alone." There is nothing like it except for watching your husband almost die because he has a rare illness and his insurance company does not want to pay for a full recovery. In that case I was lucky because the non profit hospital intervened and helped him. Now, right off his own illness he is watching his mother die because her for profit HMO decided at some point that her life was not worth saving. This is our own system. We need something much better. I don't care who we emulate. I want people like my mother in law to have a chance.

As I sat and tried to comfort her, seeing all the while how emaciated she is, covered with bruises which appear spontaneously and with no hair from her botched chemo, I realized that aside from love and my promises that she will not die alone I don't have anything else to offer that will help her live. How did we get here? We are in a place where corporate entities are deciding who is fit to live and die based on their profit margins. It is time for something new and different, and really, what does it matter where it comes from if it gets us out of the mare's nest that greed stuck us into?