When Georgia Redneck THUGS speak

They sound like this stupid asshole…

He said that like he is proud of his record. Georgia rednecks, wake up and get rid of this trash.

If anyone has supported Bush and the neocon agenda, then their judgment is lacking and they should never represent you good people. You can do better.

As an example of better, check out Regina Thomas.

Whose bright idea????

Having worked in the field prior… I can not even begin to understand who decided to build/house this population next to a gun range!! How inhumane!!!!! Now having to up meds and extend treatment… my God, what are we doing with our soldiers??!!!! We owe these young people… we allowed them to go into hells own war following a lie… and then to not treat them correctly and properly is unforgiveable!

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 3, 2008; Page A01

FORT BENNING, Ga. — Army Sgt. Jonathan Strickland sits in his room at noon with the blinds drawn, seeking the sleep that has eluded him since he was knocked out by the blast of a Baghdad car bomb.
Like many of the wounded soldiers living in the newly built “warrior transition” barracks here, the soft-spoken 25-year-old suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. But even as Strickland and his comrades struggle with nightmares, anxiety and flashbacks from their wartime experiences, the sounds of gunfire have followed them here, just outside their windows.
Across the street from their assigned housing, about 200 yards away, are some of the Army infantry’s main firing ranges, and day and night, several days each week, barrages from rifles and machine guns echo around Strickland’s building. The noise makes the wounded cringe, startle in their formations, and stay awake and on edge, according to several soldiers interviewed at the barracks last month. The gunfire recently sent one soldier to the emergency room with an anxiety attack, they said.
“You hear a lot of shots, it puts you in a defensive mode,” said Strickland, who spent a year with an infantry platoon in Baghdad and has since received a diagnosis of PTSD from the military. He now takes medicine for anxiety and insomnia. “My heart starts racing and I get all excited and irritable,” he said, adding that the adrenaline surge “puts me back in that mind frame that I am actually there.”
Soldiers interviewed said complaints to medical personnel at Fort Benning’s Martin Army Community Hospital and officers in their chain of command have brought no relief, prompting one soldier’s father to contact The Washington Post. Fort Benning officials said that they were unaware of specific complaints but that decisions about housing and treatment for soldiers with PTSD depend on the severity of each case. They said day and night training must continue as new soldiers arrive and the Army grows.
“Fort Benning is a training unit, so there is gunfire around us all the time,” said Elaine Kelley, a behavioral health supervisor at the base hospital. If a soldier had a severe problem, it would have been identified, she said.
Lt. Col. Sean Mulcahey, who recently took command of the Warrior Transition Battalion, where wounded soldiers are assigned, said: “No soldier has talked with me about the ranges.” If it is an issue, “we will address it,” he said, stressing that the battalion’s mission is “getting those soldiers to heal.”
Under Army rules, commanders of warrior transition units are supposed to enforce “quiet hours.” Officials said the location of the barracks for wounded soldiers, along with a $1.2 million Soldier and Family Assistance Center, was chosen for its proximity to central facilities such as the hospital. About 350 soldiers are assigned to the battalion — including 176 who live in the barracks near the ranges — where they stay an average of eight months, Mulcahey said. An estimated 10 to 15 percent of the soldiers have PTSD, he said.
The soldiers are part of a growing group of an estimated 150,000 combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have PTSD symptoms. The mental disorder has been diagnosed in nearly 40,000 of them.
PTSD symptoms include flashbacks and anxiety, and noises such as fireworks or a car backfiring can make sufferers feel as though they are back in combat. Health experts say that housing soldiers near a firing range subjects them to a continual trigger for PTSD.
“It would definitely traumatize them,” said Harold McRae, a psychotherapist in Columbus, Ga., who counsels dozens of soldiers with PTSD who are at Fort Benning. “It would be like you having a major car wreck on the interstate” and then living in a home overlooking the freeway, he said. “Every time you hear a wreck or the brakes lock up, you are traumatized.”
Fort Benning, which covers more than 180,000 acres, is one of the Army’s main training bases, with 67 live-fire ranges. The base has thousands of housing and barracks units. “There is no excuse” for the housing
situation, said Paul Ragan, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, who treats veterans with PTSD. “Charitably put, it’s very untherapeutic.”
Brig. Gen. Gary Cheek, director of the Army’s Warrior Care and Transition Office, which oversees 12,000 wounded soldiers, said: “I can see how that would be a problem. It’s something we haven’t considered” but should. “We have alternatives for housing the soldiers who have issues” with the ranges, he said, adding that the barracks for wounded troops at Fort Benning are an interim facility.
The gunfire “makes me crazy,” said a soldier who lives in the barracks and has PTSD and traumatic brain injury from a roadside explosion in Iraq. “It makes me jump and I get flashbacks.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Army.
Soldiers living at the barracks say their rooms are in good condition and have recently been outfitted with flat-screen TVs, laptop computers and free Internet service. They say that their rooms are inspected frequently for cleanliness and that even soap scum on a sink or sunflower seeds left on a counter are noted in records. But the soldiers said they have received no explanation for why they must live so close to the firing ranges, even though they said at least one soldier raised the question at a town hall meeting with battalion leaders several weeks ago.
“It . . . freaks me out,” said Sgt. Jonathon Redding, 27, of Little Rock. He said the gunfire has required him to increase his sleep medication. “I was under the impression I would get help here,” he said. Instead, he said, he “got considerably worse.”
It Just Kind of Drains You’
Rolling through Iraqi towns with his artillery unit during the 2003 invasion, Redding saw and smelled the charred corpses of Iraqis he helped kill. “You can never forget that,” he said, sitting in his room at Fort Benning last month.
When he returned home in August 2003, the Army did not screen him for behavioral health problems, he said.
Redding began “self-medicating” — which is common for PTSD sufferers — drinking several fifths of Southern Comfort a week. His weight dropped 30 pounds, to 135, in two months, and he grew withdrawn, sleepless and depressed.
According to Pentagon data, up to 15 percent of returning U.S. troops now show signs of PTSD, and the total number who receive diagnoses of chronic PTSD rose by nearly 50 percent last year.
Redding went home and joined the Arkansas National Guard. With help from a civilian doctor who gave him medicine for insomnia and anxiety, he limited his drinking and took a part-time job carrying caskets at the funerals of fallen soldiers. “I did about 90 funerals, I loved it,” he said.
But Redding was informed in September that he would be mobilized with a military police unit bound for Iraq. At Camp Shelby, Miss., where he went for training in January, gunfire and artillery practice caused him to “freeze up,” he said. He asked his civilian doctor for a prescription, but the company medic told him it was for a “non-deployable” medication, so if he was planning to deploy, his family would have to fill it and mail it to him — skirting the rules.
Redding took the prescription through proper channels and was sent to a behavioral health expert, who determined he had PTSD and depression. The expert advised that he not deploy and that he go to a community health organization at home in Arkansas. Instead, in February, Redding was sent to Fort Benning, where he awaits orders to leave. “I went from a bad situation to a worse situation,” he said. “In formations, they would be shooting and I would just be cringing. . . . I’d want to see where it’s coming from.”
Redding complained to his doctor about his housing. “She said it didn’t make any sense,” he said. He said his psychologist at the base hospital called the location “stupid.” His chain of command said they would “look into it,” he said.
But he still waits for relief from the constant gunfire. “It just kind of drains you,” he said.
‘Near-Constant Fear’
The 29-year-old Army specialist palmed the wheel of his 2003 Cadillac on the way to his psychotherapy appointment in downtown Columbus, just outside Fort Benning. He reached into the leather armrest, filled with bottles of prescription medicine: tranquilizers, antidepressants, pills to calm anxiety. He popped a couple of tablets in his mouth and turned into the clinic parking lot.
Spec. Keith, who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used in order to protect his privacy, has what he calls “daymares” — flashbacks caused by chronic PTSD that has left him paranoid. “Anytime I see a U-Haul truck pull up, in my mind I think it might be a car bomb,” he said.
Last July, Keith was nearly killed in Iraq when insurgents fired 107mm rockets, hitting his tent. Shrapnel shredded his uniform, narrowly missing him. He soon began suffering headaches, dizziness and nausea. Doctors told him his ailments would go away, but they “only got worse,” he said.
In November, he arrived at Fort Benning, where the live ammunition reminds him of the attack. “I have a hard time sleeping at night when they do night firing,” Keith said. “For a moment I think something bad is going to happen, then I try to sit back and realize that it is a firing range.”
Keith lives in “near-constant fear of being shot or killed,” said an Army evaluation written by a doctor at Fort Benning in April.
Two weeks ago, the Army released him, so he loaded his car, pills close at hand, and drove away.
Strickland, who says he is lucky if he can get four hours of sleep a night, said the sounds from the firing ranges return him to the sweltering August night in Baghdad when the bomb threw him to the ground. He came home from Iraq in March 2005 and PTSD was diagnosed. But when his unit was called up to serve in Iraq late last year, his superiors encouraged him to go.
The “commander told me if I got back on the deployable list, I’d get my promotion,” said Strickland, whose wife is expecting their second child. “I was trying to look after my family and get more pay.”
He was ultimately pulled from the deployment and sent to Fort Benning, where he awaits paperwork to allow him to return to Arkansas. In the meantime, he looks out the window of his third-floor room onto firing ranges where recruits blast at targets.
“We’ve been there, we’ve fought in it, we’ve lost friends there,” Strickland said, his mind in a distant war zone. “I’m not going to get any better in this environment.”

Crooks and Liars: Watching the Blue Dog Bushie Tools

From Howie Klein at Crooks and Liars. Remember these Bushie Fools Come next election, rednecks:

more about “Crooks and Liars “, posted with vodpod

Today’s Blue America candidate is Georgia state Senator Regina Thomas. She’s taking on one of the very worst and most reactionary of all the congressional Blue Dogs, John Barrow, in a district that encompasses much of Savannah and Augusta. Barrow votes more frequently for the Bush agenda and with the GOP than any other Democrats, although he’s sometimes tied with Nick Lampson and Jim Marshall. Regina will be blogging live at Firedoglake today at 2pm (Georgia Peach Time). Blue America worked with singer-songwriter Jason Joseph to put together a little music clip for Regina. If you’d like to help us get this spread around, please consider donating to Regina’s campaign at our Blue America ActBlue page today.

McJesus Christ

Dear Lord,

Please protect me from your crazy-assed followers on the right (especially those who live in the SE USA). They are absolutely bat-shit crazy and expect us to agree with them, no matter how insane their irrational rants are.

State GOP chair: McCain ‘kind of like Jesus’

By AARON GOULD SHEININ
Published on: 05/17/08

Columbus — Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party’s presumed presidential nominee has a lot in common with Jesus Christ.

“John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross,” Everhart said as she began the second day of the state GOP convention. “He never denounced God, either.”

Everhart was praising McCain for never denouncing the United States while he was being tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“I’m not trying to compare John McCain to Jesus Christ, I’m looking at the pain that was there,” she said.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/05/17/gagop_0517.html

Pot Suckers Are Banned From Georgia

I saw this at Jonathon Turley’s blog a while back:

Stoner Bans Pot Candy in Georgia

Georgia legislators have been busy. With an economy tanking and foreclosures rising, politicians in Georgia have taken action to ban candy that is favored to taste like pot like Kronic Kandy and Pot Suckers. The effort is led by a real stoner, Rep. Doug Stoner to be specific. (Sure, I posted this primarily for the pun, but there is a slim legal issue discovered below)

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed the bill this week, banning such sales of “marijuana flavored products” to minors. Any last trips to buy Pot Suckers will have to occur before July 1st.

Georgia’s Stoner says” “I don’t think that folks are aware this is going on. It’s mainly, from what I can tell, particularly targeted to minority communities.” Well, Stoner sure found out about it.

The question is whether this even satisfies a rational basis test to restrict these manufacturers. There is no high from this candy and no data showing that such candy turns people into . . . well . . . stoners.

For the full story, click here.

B’Man: The first thing I’d like to say is, “yuck”. I don’t like the taste of ‘erb (yes, I have eaten a bud before, and yes, it worked after about 45 minutes). So, they must have done something to improve the taste, otherwise I can’t understand why they would sell any (other than the first novelty sucker).

Secondly, I find it impossible to believe that a sucker that tastes like weed would cause someone to crave weed, especially if you can’t get high from it.

I smell petty SE ReTHUGlican politics. If not, it is idiocy.

WTF Thursday: America Is The Pawn Shop Mecca

B’Man: The pawn shop craze is back. Selling whatever one can, or finding crap steel and recyclable metals to load up the ‘89 Nissan to take to the Recycling shop for a few bucks just to get a little gas money (the story I heard from my little brother yesterday). Unfortunately, he has already sold all his shit at the pawn shop (can’t get a job, no income other than the odd job here and there… raking leaves, wiring an old house, mowing a yard when he can find someone with the money). Our country is falling apart while rednecks just go along with these fools who are pillaging our lives. Saying nothing. Letting them screw us all due to the redneck ignorance.

Sorry, but I speak truth and you know it.

From Alternet:

Americans Selling Possessions to Stay Afloat

Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville at 2:06 PM on April 30, 2008.

In the wake of the housing crash and rising food and energy prices, Americans are pawning their clothes, furniture and more.

want you to think of President Mondo Fucko’s total shock at hearing gas would hit $4/gallon and how blissfully isolated his precious ass is from actual Americans as you read this item:

Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.

To meet higher gas, food and prescription drug bills, they are selling off grandmother’s dishes and their own belongings. Some of the household purging has been extremely painful — families forced to part with heirlooms.

…At Craigslist, which has become a kind of online flea market for the world, the number of for-sale listings has soared 70 percent since last July. In March, the number of listings more than doubled to almost 15 million from the year-ago period. Craigslist CEO Jeff Buckmaster acknowledged the increasing popularity of selling all sort of items on the Web, but said the rate of growth is “moving above the usual trend line.” He said he was amazed at the desperate tone in some ads.

 Like a Georgia teenager whose mother lost her job and whose ad pleaded, “Please buy anything you can to help out.” Or like Alabama mobile home resident Ellona Bateman-Lee, whose husband was disabled in 2006 by an electric shock on the job as a dump truck driver: “Among her most painful sales: her grandmother’s teakettle. She sold it for $6 on eBay.”

Now, according to conservative philosophy, private charity is supposed to step in and help these struggling Americans in their time of need. That’s the whole plan: Let people keep their tax money, starve the government, subcontract welfare to via faith-based initiatives to private charity, who will be phat with donations from the Americans who have been allowed to keep more of their income care of tax breaks.

But guess what?

The trend may be hurting secondhand stores too. Donations to the Salvation Army were down 20 percent in the January-to-March period. George Hood, the charity’s national community relations and development secretary, said that was probably partly because people were selling their belongings instead.

 There’s your trickle-down economics at work, right there.

As The Military Industrial Complex Profits Soar… REAL Jobs Are Lost

Layoffs hit hard across Southeast Tennessee, North Georgia

By: Cliff Hightower

…Companies across Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia like Huber Engineered Woods; Whirlpool in Cleveland, Tenn.; and Mount Vernon Mills in Trion, Ga., have laid off hundreds of workers in the last three months, federal records show.

Even federal statistics might not tell the whole story because industries or businesses that employ 50 people or fewer are not mandated to report layoffs, officials said.

“You can go into some of the small businesses in Dalton and see that their jobs are reduced,” said Kathy Williams, employer marketing representative for the Georgia Department of Labor in Dalton, Ga. “People are trying to do with the minimal.”

Most of those layoffs have occurred in industries that deal with the housing market, records show. Slumping home construction has lessened demand for wallboard, carpet, appliances and other products, experts said.

Other losses came in the textile industry, where jobs have been moving overseas for years to take advantage of lower labor costs.

UNEMPLOYMENT RISING

Unemployment rates have risen over the last year and in some counties have almost doubled from the previous year, records show.

The unemployment rate for Catoosa, Dade and Walker counties rose from 3.5 percent in March 2007 to 6.5 percent in March 2008, said Patrick Todd, labor market analyst for the Tennessee Department of Labor’s Chattanooga Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Chattanooga MSA comprises those Georgia counties plus Hamilton, Marion and Sequatchie counties in Southeast Tennessee.

Unemployment in Whitfield County, Ga., went from 4.3 percent in March 2007 to 6.3 percent this March, federal records show.

March jobless rates jumped in McMinn County, Tenn., to 7.9 percent, up from 5.1 percent the previous year. In Meigs County, Tenn., the rate rose from 6.5 percent to 8.1 percent in the same period.

In Sequatchie County, Tenn., March jobless rates rose from 6.6 percent to 7.8 percent.

“What we’re seeing is a lot of counties are higher than a year ago,” said Larry Green, labor market analyst for the Tennessee Department of Labor. “Everybody is having trouble in manufacturing across the board.”

In McMinn County, Collins & Aikman, a company that sewed automobile upholstery, laid off almost 500 workers last year, records show. Whirlpool laid off 355 employees in Cleveland, Tenn., last month, and Mohawk Industries in Dalton told 66 workers in February they were no longer employed, records show.

Layoffs in smaller counties can be a shock to the entire community, Mr. Green said.

“There’s a lot of counties solely dependent on one or two manufacturers, and if they close, they are in trouble,” he said.

Jack Hammontree, director of the McMinn Economic Development Authority, said county officials are hoping for another employer to take over the former Collins & Aikman plant.

But in tough economic times, that might be hard to achieve, he said.

“It’s always difficult to recruit,” he said. “But it’s more difficult. The companies are thinking less about expanding.”

SEEKING RETRAINING

Some people who lose their jobs go back to school and learn different skills.

Scott Spears, of Trion was among 250 workers laid off from Mount Vernon Mills in Chattooga County, Ga., in January.

Mr. Spears enrolled at Northwestern Technical College in Rock Spring, Ga.

He can draw unemployment while he’s enrolled, and he gets money for school books, gas and food through the federal Workforce Investment Act.

He said he hopes the economy will be better by the time he’s through with his two-year degree in industrial control systems.

“That’s what I’m hoping,” he said.

Susan Doesburg, WIA assistant coordinator at Northwestern, said the most popular programs are nursing, electrical and heating and air conditioning. She said enrollment has increased because of layoffs. School officials said WIA enrollment averages 15 students a quarter, but 60 students enrolled this quarter.

Mrs. Doesburg said those students are using resources at a fast clip, and she’s worried how much help Northwestern can give to victims of future layoffs.

“Due to this increase, WIA funds are now limited,” she said.

Joyce Carrier, dean of the school of technology at Dalton State College, said she expects enrollment to jump in the fall, and perhaps the spring, because of layoffs. Many former employees come hoping the economy will get better once they graduate, she said.

“I think all of us would like to believe that,” Mrs. Carrier said.

B’Man: Look at the bright side. You can always sell shit on EBAY.

“We Could Be In Darfur”

Cabbagetown Tornado