California homeless program is cut

[Judi Lynn]

Source: L. A. Times

California homeless program is cut
Governor signs the budget today, which eliminates a $55-million project that focused on the mentally ill.
By Scott Gold and Lee Romney, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
2:47 PM PDT, August 24, 2007

The fears of advocates for the mentally ill were realized today, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated a $55 million-program that has helped thousands of mentally ill homeless people break the costly cycle of hospitalization, jails and street life.

The program had been on the chopping block all summer. Advocates, including the architects of California's closely watched effort to overhaul its troubled mental health system, had staged a furious lobbying effort to stave off the cut. They lost, a casualty of the Legislature's bitter, 51-day budget dispute.

In a letter to people who had flooded his office in recent weeks with pleas to save the mental health program, Schwarzenegger had called it "one of the few voluntary or non-mandated programs available for … reduction."
(snip)

State Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who created the program in 1999, called the decision "unconscionable."



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-mental25aug25,0,4948896.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

[obiwan]

1. Judging by the behavior of freeway drivers out here....

... you must be mentally impaired to live here, at least in Southern California.

[alofarabia]

2. If AHNOLD signed the budget

does that mean it was passed by the legislature? If so, what were the Dems thinking? Can they reinstate later?

[WhiteTara]

16. he had line item veto and cut it out after

the budget passed. I hate him.

[Demeter]

3. Shades of Ronald Reagan!

After fleeing the Golden State, I must concur--you have to be nuts to live there.

[Orsino]

4. The folks most in need with the least voice in government. Duh. n/t

[sarcasmo]

5. Looks like Ahnuld hates poor Americans just like our Dictator.

[atreides1]

15. It looks like Arnold did learn something from his father.

'According to documents obtained in 2003 from the Austrian State Archives by the Los Angeles Times, which was after the expiration of a 30-year seal of his records under Austrian privacy law, Gustav Schwarzenegger voluntarily joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (also known by its German initials as the NSDAP or simply as the Nazi Party), in 1938, and also voluntarily applied to become a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the NSDAP's paramilitary wing, on May 1, 1939. Austria became part of the German Reich through the Anschluss on March 12, 1938.

Schwarzenegger remained in the SA until the end of the war, but records of his activities, if any, were not discovered by the State Archives.'

It seems kind of convenient that no records of his activities were found, especially when you consider the places that his unit was reported to have served in.

Schwarzenegger was a Hauptfeldwebel (about the equivalent of a Company Sergeant Major) with Battalion 521 of the Feldgendarmerie, which were military police units attached to regular army units for traffic control, to enforce military law, and battlefield security, only being used to control civilian populations in the combat zone of the German army. Late in the war, such units were also used to impose draconian measures against both "defeatist" German civilians and military personnel alike. Schwarzenegger appears to have received much medical attention and may have contracted malaria during his term of service; he was discharged in 1943.

Ursula Schwarz, a historian at Vienna's Documentation Center for Austrian Resistance, has said that Schwarzenegger's career was fairly typical for his generation , and no evidence has emerged that has directly linked him with participation in war crimes or abuses against civilians. At the same time, his unit appears to have participated in theatres of operation (in particular, the invasions of Poland, France, and the Soviet Union) where some of the bloodiest fighting occurred and atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht were common.

In any case, Schwarzenegger was probed for and cleared of suspicions of participation in war crimes and allowed to resume his duties as a policeman in 1947.

But it appear that the Austrians got a free pass when it came to being tried for War Crimes:

While Austrians within the Nazi hierarchy constituted a minority, their percentage in the killing machinery was disproportionately large. Only a small number of them were brought to trial after 1945 and not all of them were sentenced.

Simon Wiesenthal assumes that Austrian Nazis shared responsibility for the murder of some three million Jews, approximately half the number of Jewish victims killed during the Nazi regime. Some commandants of the extermination camps and around 70 percent of Adolf Eichmann's staff were Austrians, among them well known figures such as

So, maybe dad wasn't as pure as he's been made out to be, but because the Austrians consider themselves to be the first victim of Hitlerite aggression, they just like to look the other way
regardless of the evidence that has been presented.

Just a little history lesson.

[cornermouse]

6. BIG mistake.

Steinberg is right. It is unconscionable.

[onehandle]

7. Rich Republican kicks the least of us.

The Gropenfuhrer strikes again.

[LibDemAlways]

8. One thing California has an abundance of these days -

homeless people. A $55 million dollar program was only a drop in the bucket under present circumstances, but it was something. Shame on Arnold for eliminating it. He just condemned thousands to a wretched life and quite possibly early death on very mean streets.

[Oreegone]

9. The Rich need to beef up their security systems

There are going to be a lot of hungry people out there with forks and knives and they gotta eat "something".

[jamesinca]

10. Let us not forget Arnolds other pet project

From the CA Dem party. A look at page 75 gives a nice table of what was cut and from who. Health and Human serivces was cut so deeply they alone almost balanced the budget. Education cuts he made helped get the budget balanced and the extra +200 million were just to solidify his status as a butt head.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

California Democratic Party
For Immediate Release
Friday, August 24, 2007


Contact: Roger Salazar


Schwarzenegger Rewards Drug Companies by Killing Affordable Prescription Drug Plan He Touted on the Campaign Trail



SACRAMENTO -- Among the $700 million in mean-spirited budget vetoes by Governor Schwarzenegger today was a gift to the pharmaceutical companies that have poured nearly $5 million into his campaigns: the near-elimination of a law to provide Californians with affordable prescription drugs.



Schwarzenegger vetoed $6.3 million in funds for the California Discount Prescription Drug Program (Page 90, http://govbud.dof.ca.gov/pdf/Enacted/BudgetSummary/FullBudgetSummary.pdf). Schwarzenegger had twice vetoed the program before agreeing to a deal months before his re-election with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate pro tem Don Perata.



"Today's vetoes show the mean-spiritedness of a Governor who puts the concerns of his contributors and political extremists above the needs of the people of California ," said Senator Art Torres (Ret.), Chairman of the California Democratic Party. "But it's classic Schwarzenegger: he touts bipartisanship but rewards partisan and special interests where the rubber hits the road."



Here's what Schwarzenegger said on the campaign trail about the program:



Prescription drug discount deal reached in California , San Diego Union Tribune, 8/24/06



The sweeping program would serve the uninsured who earn up to $60,000 a year for a family of four -- about triple the federal poverty level -- providing them with discounts of up to 40 percent on brand-name drugs and 60 percent on generic drugs, Schwarzenegger said yesterday at a news conference.



"I'm very happy about that," Schwarzenegger said. "It's very important that we help our vulnerable citizens. So many people out there cannot afford prescription drugs."

[Hepburn]

11. Shades of Ronald Fucking Reagan when he was the gov of Calif.

I can recall that bastard Reagan doing this to the mentally ill. Suddenly...they are out on the streets whereas before there were day care centers where they could go and have food and supervision, etc.

Bastards.......fucking bastards: They attach those least able to defend against things like this!

:grr:

[EFerrari]

12. Poor California. We are screwn. n/t

[Bitwit1234]

13. So California voted for him

as they keep repeating over and over about those who voted for bush. They did it, they elected him. Or in view of all the election voting machine fiascos in CA DID THEY REALLY VOTE FOR HIM.

[glitch]

14. That is the question of this new american century, isn't it?

DID THEY REALLY VOTE FOR HIM?

Hint: If they did why would Republicans have needed to make all the disenfranchising moves they've made in the past 20+ years?

[Faux pas]

17. Oh those big hearted humanitarian rethugs! Warms the cockles

of my heart....:sarcasm: (just in case you thought I was serious)