Down And Out In Walnut Hills

With millions potentially losing their jobless benefits until Congress can get their crap together, here in Cincy people are already paying the price.

Deborah Coleman lost her unemployment benefits in April, and now fears for millions of others if the Senate does not extend aid for the jobless.

"It's too late for me now," she said, fighting back tears at the Freestore Foodbank in the low-income Over-the-Rhine district near downtown Cincinnati. "But it will be terrible for the people who'll lose their benefits if Congress does nothing."

For nearly two years, Coleman says she has filed an average of 30 job applications a day, but remains jobless.

"People keep telling me there are jobs out there, but I haven't been able to find them."

Coleman, 58, a former manager at a telecommunications firm, said the only jobs she found were over the Ohio state line in Kentucky, but she cannot reach them because her car has been repossessed and there is no bus service to those areas.

After her $300 a week benefits ran out, Freestore Foodbank brokered emergency 90-day support in June for rent. Once that runs out, her future is uncertain.

"I've lost everything and I don't know what will happen to me," she said.

And Republicans are hoping people like Deborah will either not vote or take it out on Obama and the Democrats.  Why should they lift a finger to help him assist the American people when they stand to gain politically from the economy tanking and people losing jobs and income? 

How do you beat political nihilists hell bent on winning power even if it means wrecking the country?