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 America's 'Near Poor' Are Increasingly at Economic Risk, Experts Say

ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Abbotts date their tailspin to a collapse in demand for the aviation-related electronic parts that Stephen sold in better times, when he earned about $40,000 a year.

He lost his job in late 2001, unemployment benefits ran out over the next year and he and his wife, Laurie, along with their teenage son, were evicted from their apartment.

They spent a year in a borrowed motor home here in the working-class interior of Orange County, followed by eight months in a motel room with a kitchenette. During that time, Ms. Abbott, a diabetic who is now 51, lost all her teeth and could not afford to replace them.

"Since I didn't have a smile," she recalled, "I couldn't even work at a checkout counter."

Americans on the lower rungs of the economic ladder have always been exposed to sudden ruin. But in recent years, with the soaring costs of housing and medical care and a decline in low-end wages and benefits, tens of millions are living on even shakier ground than before, according to studies of what some scholars call the "near poor."

"There's strong evidence that over the past five years, record numbers of lower-income Americans find themselves in a more precarious economic position than at any time in recent memory," said Mark R. Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of "One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All."

 from Tapped,

TAKE TWO. Let me try to explain this again. I was quoting Concerned Women for America. They and other conservative groups have, in recent years, written extensively about why even "perfectly ordinary hookers" should be considered slaves, and they have hailed President Bush for his leadership on this issue. According to Elaine McGinnis of the Beverly LaHaye Institute at CWA:

    President Bush has stated in several speeches –– most notably in one at the United Nations –– that “prostitution is inherently harmful to women.”

There has been a growing consensus on the cultural right that prostitution is never a victimless crime, and that even in the United States, it is mainly something that depends on the exploitation of vulnerable and abused young girls and women. In their effort to redescribe prostitution as a form of human slavery, cultural conservatives are in sync with a number of feminist anti-prostitution and anti-trafficking activists. Laura Blumenfeld wrote about this effort in The Washington Post last fall, in an article about what Matt calls "perfectly ordinary hookers":

snip

Behind the scenes, an unlikely coalition of evangelicals, feminists, liberal activists and conservative human rights advocates are pushing the issue. They are trying to reframe the way people talk about prostitutes, calling them "survivors" and signing off e-mails with the slogan "Abolition!" 

Nothing wrong with that as far as it goes, but here comes the hypocrisy, More Questions Surface in the Wake of a Congressman's Bribery Case 

WASHINGTON, May 6 — A federal investigation into one congressman's bribe-taking last year has produced a second round of inquiries into the actions of officials at the C.I.A. and the Homeland Security Department and of members of the House Intelligence Committee, government officials say.

These new inquiries reach beyond Randy Cunningham, the former Republican House member from California who was sentenced in March to more than eight years in prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors. The investigations suggest a growing suspicion among some lawmakers that corrupt practices may have influenced decision-making in Congress and at executive-branch agencies.

Last month, The San Diego Union-Tribune and The Wall Street Journal reported that federal investigators were looking into whether the military contractors involved in Mr. Cunningham's bribery had also arranged limousines, poker parties and prostitutes for him at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels here.

Law enforcement officials have confirmed these reports, and a manager at the Watergate has said the hotel was subpoenaed by federal officials seeking documents related to the poker parties. Calls to Mr. Cunningham's lawyer, K. Lee Blalack II, seeking comment were not returned.

Once again, I wrote out a good post pressed save and wordpress ate it. I want this to be more then a link and snippets blog, but I don't have time to redo eveything wordpress eats.