From HuffPo:
CHICAGO - President-elect Barack Obama and his wife took their daughters to work at a food bank on the day before Thanksgiving, saying they wanted to show the girls the meaning of the holiday, especially when so many people are struggling.(More photos and video here.)
Their visit comes at a time when:
[T]he number of Americans needing assistance from the Simplified Nutrition Assistance Program (i.e., food stamps) will reach its highest level ever this month. This comes on the heels of the USDA reporting last week that 12.2% of all Americans struggled with hunger in 2007...And:
Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims: 4-Week Moving Average at 25 Year High.
John K: This is interesting. Every politician who does that stuff works in front of the camera. You ask soup kitchen people where help is needed most and they say behind the scenes, cleaning tables and washing dishes. I am not impressed. This is a photo op. If this guy had any conviction, he would be in the back, out of camera angle, washing dishes.
ReplyDeleteJohn K: Weekly employment is up. Not at Exxon. Not at Shell. Those guys don't need a bail out. Those oil companies don't have labor cuts. Who gets vilified by the left? LMAO LOL LOL You just made a fool of yourself once again. It is too easy. LOL
ReplyDeleteJohn K: 12.2% struggled with hunger in 1968 and 1978 and 1988 etc. Liberal policies have not resolved any of that. All those policies have done is ensured a voting class for the Democrats. Those numbers of people struggling with hunger have been around since the time of Christ. You do remember that quote he gave from the bible?
ReplyDeleteactually john. they have done this in years past.
ReplyDeletehave you?
and john, isn't it about time people like you STOPPED using that quote to ignore poverty.
ReplyDeleteYes, by all means, let's forget how thrilled the food bank patrons were to meet the Obama family. It would have been so much better for all concerned to stick them in the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteJohn K: Sherry, isn't it about time you started doing something about poverty besides using those people for votes.
ReplyDeleteJohn K: Yah Hussein Obama has done this for years. My point exactly. He uses them and the photo op they provide for votes. He wants them poor. Without that he gets no photo op. Which is exactly what this guy is all about.
ReplyDeleteEight years of Reagan, four years of the first Bush and eight years of the second Bush. conservatives have not only done nothing to help the poor, they have made the rich richer, and forced more people to drop their health care and give up their dreams of further education. If Obama chose to be visable to people at a food bank to give them some hope, who areyou to criticize him? Unless you plan to do something, then you (like Quinn and Limbaugh) are just a blowhard.
ReplyDeleteEd.. Wow. I didn't know that poor people only existed with Republican administrations. I guess there were no poor people under Clinton. I also take it from your reply that all poor people will suddenly disappear or become financially successful on January 20, 2009.. because "The One" wills it so.
ReplyDeleteEd, there will ALWAYS be poor people.. accept it. The poorest Americans are MUCH more well-off than many in the rest of the World. Study after study has confirmed this.. food stamps, air conditioning, cable TV, mobile telephones, etc. etc. etc.
P.S. I know what you're going to say now.. "Prove it. What studies?" Forget it. I'm not playing your game. The poor in the US are MUCH better off than many others in the World. Accept it.
No, Conservative Mountaineer, you might be surprised to hear that I largely agree with you. I was simply responding to John K.'s implication that the poor only exist during Democratic administrations. I also agree that American poor are much better than much, maybe most of the world, certainly what we call the Third World. I suspect that is cold comfort to the American poor, but it is clearly evident. Don't need any studies or anything for that. In fact, I will go further and say that, as I understand it (and I risk admonishing from David or Infinimous (sp?) on this) the gap between rich and poor has steadily grown since the mid fifties, through administration’s Democratic and Republican. Clinton may have slowed it a bit, but a fair bit of what he did benefited relatively wealthy people perhaps even more (education credits work better for people who pay more taxes).
ReplyDeleteAnd I certainly am not stupid enough to think that the “One” will end poverty anytime soon. In fact, I worry Democrats are going to screw things up in short order if they have sixty votes in the Senate. Not particularly because they are Democrats, but because of the lesson we should learn from the period of January 2003 to January 2007, when the Republicans had the Congress and the white House and proved to be as greedy and inept as most other politicians. We’ll see what the “One” does when he takes over, but I can guarantee you it will not be anything close to a miracle. Let’s just hope it’s enough.
And I hope that maybe one day the people we call poor won’t think of themselves that way. Probably not, and if it were to happen it almost certainly wouldn’t be in my life time. But I think it is a worthwhile goal.
Wow...wingers like John K. and Con'eer are just fucking disgusting.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the issue here, you ignorant fucks?
He went to a food bank to volunteer with his family...have Republicans/conservatives really become this fucking petty and desperate? Are you guys really this sad and miserable that you make a political issue out of this?
John K., Con'eer -
Get a fucking life.