Bill seeks to require drug screening for jobless benefits

Legislation introduced by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) would require applicants for federally subsidized jobless benefits to fill out a drug screening questionnaire to determine whether they should have to take a drug test. Those identified as having a high probability of drug use would be required to pass a drug test.

"Drug screening as a condition of unemployment benefits safeguards valuable taxpayer dollars by ensuring job seekers are at their competitive best for re-employment and helps to reduce the nation's debt by not using federal resources to enable an individual's drug dependency,'' Kingston said in a letter to colleagues seeking their support.

The proposal has already drawn partisan criticism:

“This is just another attempt to demonize the unemployed, most of whom have no job for no fault of their own," said Rep. George Miller of California, top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. "Why doesn't he propose to drug test executives at Wall Street banks? It was their actions that have been documented to have directly contributed to the recession and high unemployment rate in the first place.”

Kingston said he came up with the idea after an employer in his district told him that half his job applicants failed a drug test.

"While we need a safety net, taxpayers should not be on the hook to pay someone who renders themselves ineligible for work," he said in a statement. He said his proposal "incentivizes beneficiaries to ensure they are preparing themselves to re-enter the workforce.”

Under the legislation, applicants for unemployment benefits would be required to complete a drug screening assessment form approved by the National Institutes of Health, "to measure a person's level of probability for drug abuse,'' says a summary of the proposal on Kingston's website.

Individuals screened as having a high probability for drug use would be required to pass a drug test in order to receive benefits.

States can deny unemployment benefits for jobless who are fired for willful misconduct, such as drug abuse. But existing federal law prohibits states from requiring unemployed workers to take a drug test as part of the initial application for unemployment insurance, said George Wentworth, senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project.

Wentworth said in an interview that there is "no reason to single out the unemployed as a particular category that is more likely to be abusing drugs. There is no justification for it. The vast majority of unemployed Americans have fallen on hard times and are looking hard for another job."

He said that state efforts to require drug testing for other forms of public benefits have proven costly.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott won passage of a state law this year requiring drug testing for welfare recipients, but the measure has been put on hold by a federal judge.

“With long-term unemployment at record levels, Congress should be focused on renewing federal unemployment benefits , not devising new ways to insult American families struggling to hold it together until they can find that next job,” Wentworth said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scam watch: Computer virus warning, Ponzi scheme, fake BBB email

Computer virus warning -- The Federal Trade Commission has started mailing refunds to 300,000 consumers who were victims of a scam in which they were tricked into buying unnecessary software to remove nonexistent viruses and spyware from their computers. The perpetrators of the scheme caused ads to appear on victims' computers, informing them that a “system scan” had detected viruses and other threats that needed to be removed immediately. In December 2008 the FTC obtained a court order putting a halt to the scheme. The FTC alleged that the defendants conned more than 1 million consumers into buying software products such as Winfixer, Drive Cleaner and Antivirus XP to remove the malware the bogus scans had supposedly detected. Consumers who believe they are entitled to a refund or have questions may call the settlement administrator toll free at 1-877-853-3541 or visit www.FTC.gov/refunds for more information.

Ponzi scheme -- A San Diego investment manager was arrested on charges that he ran a $25-million investment fraud, in which he falsely claimed that he made huge profits trading stocks. Federal prosecutors alleged that Robert L. Holloway lost millions trading stocks, diverted more than $1 million of investors' money to himself and used new investor money to pay returns to early investors. The scheme operated from 2005 to 2007, prosecutors said. Holloway, 54, is charged with four counts of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return.

BBB emails -- The Better Business Bureau is cautioning businesses and consumers about an email that falsely claims to be from the BBB and could infect computers with damaging viruses. The email subject line reads, “Complaint from your customers,” and contains a link to a site not affiliated with the consumer protection group. Consumers should not click on the link because it could cause their computers to be infected with a damaging virus. Anyone who has already clicked on the link should have their computers scanned for spyware, viruses or other potential problems, the BBB said. The group is working with law enforcement to determine the source of the emails.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/12/scam-watch-computer-virus-warning-ponzi-scheme-fake-bbb-email.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Editorial

L.A. County: Bringing dignity to death

It is to be commended for the moving and respectful service it holds each year in which the indigent and the unclaimed are laid to rest.

December 10, 2011

It took only 12 minutes Wednesday to memorialize the lives of 1,639 people who share a fresh grave at the Los Angeles County Cemetery and Crematory, their cremated remains packed in individual plastic boxes beneath a layer of dirt.

Five chaplains, joined by a smattering of mourners and an unusually quiet contingent of media, stood in the sun, offering prayers that promised an eternal life kinder and richer than the mortal one that ended with a burial plot marked not with the names of the dead but only the year they died: 2008. They are here because they were poor or their remains were unclaimed — or both — and they died in Los Angeles County. Despite the anonymity with which they were buried, they are not unknown; county authorities have identified them all.

County officials have been carrying out these burials since the late 19th century. Interfaith services have been conducted for decades.

The chaplains, who read from various spiritual texts, are usually the only people at these services who may have spent time with some of the dead as they lay dying. The chaplains may have sat at bedsides in county hospitals, heard stories of family members who hurt them or family they hurt. Whether at a hospital or in the hillside cemetery, the chaplains serve as the family that sees the ailing from life to death.

"None of the five elements can destroy the soul," intoned Rambhoru Brinkmann, a Hindu priest and chaplain educator, reading from the Bhagavad Gita. "…Death is only the gateway to a fuller life."

When the unclaimed dead enter the Los Angeles County system, their bodies are kept until the public administrator does a full investigation, searching out family members, and declares the case closed. Then the bodies are cremated. By policy, the remains are kept for two years, but a backlog means they are actually stored for three years before being buried. Depending on whether the person died in a county hospital or not, it costs from $352 to $466 for a family member to take possession of the ashes. Sometimes relatives are contacted and they simply do not have the funds to claim the remains. However, if family members discover after the fact that a loved one has been buried in the cemetery, county authorities allow them to have a marker with the deceased's name and dates of birth and death placed near the grave marker — rather like an annotation of the collective grave.

Generally, few elected county or city officials are present at these services. Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, who sometimes attends, always sends flowers; some of his staff members usually come to the services as well. This year, his beribboned bouquet of yellow and white flowers sat atop the grave site. Although it would be nice if other county officials chose to attend, this is an occasion to contemplate the words of the chaplains and the silence of the dead, not the politics of the living.

As lamentable as it is that there is a need for this ritual each year, it is a credit to the county that services exist to take care of the dying in county hospitals, to store their remains for several years before burial and then, finally, unashamedly, to conduct a public ceremony in daylight.

The number of deceased sent on their way at this service doesn't change much from year to year. And there may be no county laws or programs that can dramatically lower that number. These are "disconnected people, and society can't piece them all together," says Chris Ponnet, a Catholic priest who conducted the service this week and is the director of the St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care.

A family rift can be a problem beyond an easy fix. But this small ceremony should spur everyone, particularly during a season of holidays and an old year giving way to a new one, to think about mending relationships with people we consider our family, whether by birth or by friendship. As Ponnet says, there is no special social program that can dissolve loneliness and anger or undo a lifetime of bad choices. But through volunteer work in a neighborhood, in a charity or other nonprofit, individuals can reach out to people in need. County officials giving people dignity in death should remind us to offer as much dignity, if not more, to the living.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-burial-20111210,0,5187875,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Google News

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Northeast states cut heating aid to poor

by ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press

Mary Power is 92 and worried about surviving another frigid New England winter because deep cuts in federal home heating assistance benefits mean she probably can't afford enough heating oil to stay warm.

She lives in a drafty trailer in Boston's West Roxbury neighborhood and gets by on $11,148 a year in pension and Social Security benefits. Her heating aid help this year will drop from $1,035 to $685. With rising heating oil prices, it probably will cost her more than $3,000 for enough oil to keep warm unless she turns her thermostat down to 60 degrees, as she plans.

"I will just have to crawl into bed with the covers over me and stay there," said Power, a widow who worked as a cashier and waitress until she was 80. "I will do what I have to do."

Thousands of poor people across the Northeast are bracing for a difficult winter with substantially less home heating aid coming from the federal government.

"They're playing Russian roulette with people's lives," said John Drew, who heads Action for Boston Community Development, Inc., which provides aid to low-income residents in Massachusetts.

The issue could flare just as New Hampshire votes in the Republican presidential primary.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said she hopes the candidates will take up the region's heating aid crunch because it underscores how badly the country needs a comprehensive energy policy.

Several Northeast states already have reduced heating aid benefits to families as Congress considers cutting more than $1 billion from last year's $4.7 billion Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that served nearly 9 million households.

Families in New England, where the winters are long and cold and people rely heavily on costly oil heat, are expected to be especially hard hit. Many poor and elderly people on fixed incomes struggle with rising heating bills that can run into thousands of dollars. That can force them to cut back on other necessities like food or medicine.

"The winter of 2011-12 could be memorable for the misery and suffering of thousands of frigid households," New Hampshire's Concord Monitor newspaper said in an editorial. "Heating oil prices are expected to hit record highs, and federal fuel assistance may reach a record low for recent years."

Higher home heating oil prices and more families seeking aid due to the sour economy are straining resources. There's a 10 percent surge in new applicants in Boston, Drew said.

"Our whole program could hit a rock soon," said Mark Wolfe of the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association.

Families can expect to pay, on average, about $3,300 to heat a home with oil this winter in New England, Wolfe said. That's about $500 more than last winter. About half of the region's homes use oil heat.

Congress, which is locked in a bitter battle over reducing spending, still must decide how much money to give the program for the budget year that began Oct. 1.

In fall 2008, amid concerns about rising fuel prices, the government nearly doubled fuel assistance, releasing $5.1 billion to states for the following winter.

But last February, President Barack Obama proposed cutting the program nearly in half, calling for about $2.5 billion. The House is considering $3.4 billion for fuel assistance, while the Senate reviews a $3.6 billion proposal.

Snowe, along with Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are pushing for $4.7 billion, last year's funding level, but they face long odds.

The government has given an initial round of funding, $1.7 billion, to the states.

In Maine, one of the coldest states, the average benefit has been reduced by about $500. The state's average benefit last winter was about $800 among 63,842 households served. The average income of recipients was $16,757. About 80 percent of Maine households use oil heat.

"It's a very serious situation," Dale McCormick, director of MaineHousing, a state agency that administers heating aid, said. "We can't send out money we don't have."

That view is shared by home heat aid advocates across New England and into New York and Pennsylvania. Most of those states have cut benefits. New Hampshire has tightened eligibility requirements.

Vermont's average benefit was cut from $866 to $474. New York's maximum benefit this year is $500, down from $700 last winter. Pennsylvania's minimum benefit is dropping from $300 last year to $100, Wolfe said.

"We have a lot of terrified people who can't see how they are going to survive," said Drew.

Online: LIHEAP: www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/12/11/national/w020341S77.DTL&type=printable

.