AMERICA UNDER THE GUN; Wikileaks Plus: Issues Of The Day

AMERICA UNDER THE GUN; Wikileaks Plus: Issues Of The Day

Washington (CNN) -- The threat of publication of thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables by a muckraker website has prompted a massive review of documents at U.S. embassies around the world, a U.S. official says.


The official, who was not authorized to comment on the record, tells CNN that the State Department has, for months, been intensively dealing with the potential impact of the release of documents that WikiLeaks just recently hinted it will publish.


The documents are believed to include hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of diplomatic reporting cables from around the world from between 2006 and 2009, the official said.
In October, WikiLeaks released nearly 400,000 U.S. military reports about operations in Iraq. In July, it released more than 70,000 reports from the war in Afghanistan.


"Next release is 7 [times] the size of the Iraq War Logs," the WikiLeaks stated in a posting on its Twitter page on November 21. "Intense pressure over it for months. Keep us strong."
The State Department has directed every diplomatic mission in the world to analyze cables issued from their locations during that period and to highlight those cables that might contain material sensitive enough to harm the relationship with the host country or put in danger the lives of any sources of information.


The State Department website lists 297 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.
The source says the concern is that the WikiLeaks release could undermine the United States all over the world.


Honest diplomatic reporting is essential, the official says, and the leaks could hurt that, as well as compromise traditional diplomatic sources. The leaks could ruin their careers or even result in their deaths.


In preparation, the State Department has been reaching out to other governments to warn them and has notified Congress about what could be published, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said earlier this week.


For example, David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, has called Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon to inform him of the matter, said Alain Cacchione, a Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman. The Canadian Embassy in Washington is working with the U.S. State Department, he said.


The Pentagon also is concerned about the newest release. Officials there expect the documents to be released soon, possibly by the end of the week.


The agency is increasing the size of a task force assigned to comb through the records of the already-leaked documents regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the new documents are published as threatened, the Pentagon team will help assess how damaging they are to U.S. interests. The task force numbers more than 100 people, including staffers from other agencies.


The military has charged Pfc. Bradley Manning with leaking videos to WikiLeaks, as well as downloading documents from military computers while he served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Among the documents he is alleged to have taken are 150,000 diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks has denied being in possession of those cables.
Manning is being held at a military jail in Quantico, Virginia.

http://www.facebook.com/wikileaks

WikiLeaks may show US has helped terrorist group
Sydney Morning Herald - 8 related articles

If security guards at a big, fat terrorist target like the U.S. Capitol can be expected to figure out that members of Congress aren't a threat, why don't we trust TSA agents to figure out that little grandmothers, nuns and 8-year-olds aren't a threat either? - by Jose, the $20-an-hour security guard-

Wikileaks: US chickens coming home to roost : Assange we salute you

In case you haven't noticed, or are simply dim enough to believe the propaganda, the US has been stomping around the globe like it owns the place since the end of the Second World War. It might be true to say that was the prerogative of us Brits until the pesky Germans first started getting all uppity, but we can't be held responsible for the sins of our fathers, as my kids are pleased to note.

From Central America through the Middle East to the Far East, the US has fought wars, indulged in clandestine operations, organised coups, assassinated people it doesn't like the look of and generally behaved like a bully towards anyone not embracing its own brand of killer capitalism.

It usually trots out the line that it's up to such shenanigans in the name of 'freedom' or 'democracy'. Yet, its idea of freedom and democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan clearly amounts to: 'We'll make them have elections after we've killed all the people who won't vote the way we want them to.'

Thanks to WikiLeaks we have a better idea of the crimes the US militaryhas been committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it appears that, thanks to the bravery of the people working at WikiLeaks, including - it must be said - the much-hassled Julian Assange, it appears we're about to learn a whole lot more of the sort of dirty tricks the US is engaged in around the globe in its cause - not indeed of promoting democracy, or freedom, but of undermining it.

What is expected to be brewing is the delivery of hundreds of thousands of secret State Department cables.

"These revelations are harmful to the United States and our interests," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley has said on the matter, having consulted his crystal ball. "They are going to create tension in relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world."

We note that the newspapers in the likes of Canada and Australia say their governments have been alerted by the US that a diplomatic storm is brewing.

WikiLeaks has not said what the coming release might contain, other than to state it will be "seven times" the Iraq War logs leak which consisted of 400,000 secret documents.

Bring it on, we say.

The more we learn about what our governments actually get up to, the more informed the choices we make and the better the democratic process can function.

By spilling the beans, WikiLeaks is doing more for democracy than all the bombs that have so far fallen on the poor folk of Iraq and Afghanistan put together.

WikiLeaks Urges Public to Download 'Insurance' File
By Eric Calouro
WikiLeaks Insurance Tweet This is interesting, to say the least. Whistle-blowing organizationWikileaks is urging the public to download their ever-so-famous “ insurance” file from The Pirate Bay, according to a recently transmitted ...
Erictric - http://erictric.com/

Report: WikiLeaks Docs to Show US Military Supporting PKK in Turkey’s Civil War Military Praises PKK as 'Warriors for Freedom' Against NATO Ally

Dutch issue warrant for Nazi war-criminal suspect
Boston Globe
... for one of the most prominent unpunished Nazi war crimes suspects — a Dutch collaborator convicted in the Netherlands but living in freedom in Germany. ...
See all stories on this topic »

President Obama is engaging in a relentless assault on our freedoms and constitutional government. The growing backlash against the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport screening procedures signifies that Americans finally may have had enough.

OR IS THIS OUR CHOICE?

There is a grass-roots revolt against state-sanctioned sexual harassment. And who can blame the protesters? Children are stripped of their shirts, and their private parts are touched. Nuns and old ladies are groped by intrusive TSA agents. Breasts have been fondled. Men's crotches have been patted down. Full-body scanners show images of people naked - a clear violation of privacy and civil liberties.

The administration insists that the enhanced procedures are vital for national security. The rationale: Last year's underwear bomber nearly blew up a plane flying over Detroit. Hence, everyone's private parts are now the property of the federal government - at least when flying.

This is wrong and dangerous. Airport screening procedures have been a huge experiment in mass political correctness. For fear of insulting Muslims, the U.S. government has insisted that all Americans take off their shoes, pull out their belts and walk through metal detectors at airports. Americans have patiently put up with these inconveniences. But now, for many, enough is enough. "Don't touch my junk" has become a national rallying cry.

The central problem with modern airport security is that it falsely assumes that every person - each of the 7 billion people who inhabit the planet-is an equal terrorist threat. The 80-year-old Irish Catholic nun, the 3-year-old toddler, the 61-year-old bladder cancer survivor whose urine bag was punctured by TSA apparatchiks - all of them, according to Mr. Obama, are potential suicide bombers. They're not. To pretend they are is to engage in leftist multicultural fantasy. It embodies the triumph of ideology over reality - the deranged belief that anyone at any time is a lurking jihadist.

Islamic terrorism is not an open-ended, universal characteristic. Rather, it is a specific, narrowly defined phenomenon. It is fueled by Muslim extremists bent on waging a holy war against the West. Its perpetrators tend to be young adults from the Middle East, North Africa, the Arab world and the Muslim ghettos of Europe. Most jihadists fit this profile. What is needed is not more groping, crotch-grabbing or nude screening, but better intelligence-gathering, random checking and targeted profiling.

Washington insists on perpetrating the illusion that a Christian grandmother in Iowa poses the same possible national security threat as a 19-year-old Yemenite exchange student majoring in Islamic studies. Hence, America is squandering precious resources and manpower, as well as abrogating basic civil liberties and humiliating its population, in order to appease the sensitivities of the Muslim lobby.

Moreover, the new TSA procedures mark another major step in Mr. Obama's drive to impose state socialism. If anyone else did what TSA agents do regularly, they rightly would be charged with sexual assault. Mr. Obama has done the unthinkable: He has extended the federal government's reach into our most private, intimate body parts. Big Brother not only watches us in the nude, he can routinely molest us at will.

The administration is not restricting its unprecedented power grab to airports. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently said that trains, boats and subways also may implement the same screening procedures. If the White House has its way, Americans will be getting felt up on the Metro and Amtrak every day - morning, afternoon and night.

Ultimately, these measures are not only degrading and wrongheaded. They are profoundly illiberal, reflecting a deep-seated contempt for individual rights and civil dignity. They also reveal a radical leftist outlook that views Americans not as self-governing citizens, but as subjects of a nanny state.

Like many on the progressive left, Mr. Obama is an anti-American political thug. He despises the Constitution and capitalism. He bristles under the restraints of democratic governance and the system of checks and balances. From Vladimir Lenin to Fidel Castro to Hugo Chavez, socialist leaders have masked their will to power by portraying themselves as visionary thinkers - sophisticated intellectuals seeking social justice. In reality, they have one goal: revolution.

Mr. Obama has embarked America upon that perilous path. He has de facto nationalized health care, the financial sector, the insurance industry, student loans and major automakers. He has appointed numerous policy czars with vast Cabinet-level powers who have not been confirmed - or even vetted - by the Senate. His administration violated parliamentary procedures and repeatedly bribed and arm-twisted members of Congress to ram through Obamacare - against the expressed will of the people. His surrogates sought to directly manipulate and interfere in primary elections on behalf of pro-Obama candidates - likely committing several felonies. His Interior Department falsified scientific reports to justify the temporary ban on oil drilling in the Gulf Coast. His Justice Department has refused to prosecute blatant voter fraud and intimidation. Mr. Obama has referred to his critics as "enemies" who must be "punished."

He is seeking to use the lame-duck session of Congress to pass more unpopular, sweeping legislation - a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill; the DREAM Act, which effectively grants amnesty to illegal immigrant students; and repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuals in the military. Hence, an unrepresentative Congress, in which the House Democratic majority was defeated and replaced in the Nov. 2 election, thinks it has the right to circumvent the electorate.

Mr. Obama's regime has abused its power and fostered anti-democratic behavior. He is slowly erecting a soft police state. It is not one with a fascist jackboot on your face but with a unionized TSA bureaucrat in your crotch - all in the name of public safety. Say hello to Big Brother Barack.

Which WikiLeakS Cover Names are still working ?

WikiLeak

There has been a fair amount of publicity in the blogosphere promoting the actual IP address 88.80.13.160 of the WikiLeakS.org servers at IPQ Internet in Stockholm, Sweden.

There have been some inaccurate reports in the the mainstream media about lots of "mirror sites". There do seem to be some sites which are mirroring actual copies of the disputed documents in the Bank Julius Baer legal action against Wikileaks in California e.g. Cryptome.org, and the documents are available via the BitTorrent distributed peer to peer file sharing network.

However most of these alleged mirrors hold no actual copies of the documents at all, and just point some of their Domain Name Service sub-domains at the 88.80.13.160 IP address in Stockholm. This is important, as many of these Cover Names are not legally under the jurisdiction of the United States of America or the People's Republic of China etc. which are trying to censor WikiLeakS.org.

There are other alternative ways of getting your web browser software to connect to this website, some of which may be useful for getting around some crude methods of PC client or local router based censorware, if some organisations may choose to add this IP address to their banned lists.e.g. 

·         http://88.80.13.160/ - the normal dotted quad form of the IP address

·         http://1481641376/ - the decimal form of the IP address

·         http://0130.0120.0015.0240/ - the octal form of the IP address

·         http://0x58.0x50.0x0D.0xA0/ - one of the hexadecimal forms of the IP address

·         http://0x0058.0x0050.0x000D.0x00A0/ - another of the hexadecimal forms of the IP address

There are all sorts of other possibilities including padding with leading zeros, hex encoded ascii characters, double byte Unicode representations etc., and mixing some or all of these formats within a single URL. Modern web browser will usually translate all of these variants into the real IP address.

Unless any Court Orders catch all of these possible variants, it may be that you can legally evade any censorship.

Harry Truman and the Atomic Bomb by Ralph Raico
While the mass media parroted the government line in praising the atomic incinerations, prominent conservatives denounced them as unspeakable war crimes. Felix Morley, constitutional scholar and one of the founders of Human Events, ...
LewRockwell.com - http://www.lewrockwell.com/

Turkeys And Sheep Are Not Intelligent: Reporting The News On The Turkeys In DC And The “Rafter/Gang/Flock” Collaborators.

Turkeys And Sheep Are Not Intelligent: Reporting The News On The Turkeys In DC And The “Rafter/Gang/Flock” Collaborators.

http://www.examiner.com/american-politics-in-vancouver/the-left-supportive-of-obama-tsa-opposed-all-anti-terror-measures-under-bush

http://www.impeachbush.org/site/News2/1031052011?page=NewsArticle&id=5451&news_iv_ctrl=1281

New Poll Undercuts GOP Claims Of A Midterm Mandate

                                      By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers 

 

WASHINGTON — A majority of Americans want the Congress to keep the new health care law or actually expand it, despite Republican claims that they have a mandate from the people to kill it, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

The post-election survey showed that 51 percent of registered voters want to keep the law or change it to do more, while 44 percent want to change it to do less or repeal it altogether.

Driving support for the law: Voters by margins of 2-1 or greater want to keep some of its best-known benefits, such as barring insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. One thing they don't like: the mandate that everyone must buy insurance.

At the same time, the survey showed that a majority of voters side with the Democrats on another hot-button issue, extending the Bush era tax cuts that are set to expire Dec. 31 only for those making less than $250,000.

The poll also showed the country split over ending the "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, with 47 percent favoring its repeal and 48 percent opposing it.

The results signal a more complicated and challenging political landscape for Republicans in Congress than their sweeping midterm wins suggested. Party leaders call the election a mandate, and vow votes to repeal the health care law and to block an extension of middle-class tax cuts unless tax cuts for the wealthy also are extended.

"The political give and take is very different than public opinion," said Lee M. Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., which conducted the poll. "On health care, there is a wide gap between public opinion and the political community."

Far from the all-or-nothing positions staked out by politicians and pundits, Americans are more divided about the health care law.

On the side favoring it, 16 percent of registered voters want to let it stand as is.

Another 35 percent want to change it to do more. Among groups with pluralities who want to expand it: women, minorities, people younger than 45, Democrats, liberals, Northeasterners and those making less than $50,000 a year.

Lining up against the law, 11 percent want to amend it to rein it in.

Another 33 percent want to repeal it.

Among groups with pluralities favoring repeal: men, whites, those older than 45, those making more than $50,000 annually, conservatives, Republicans and tea party supporters.

Independents, who swung to the Republicans in the Nov. 2 elections, are evenly divided on how to handle the health care law, with 36 percent for repealing it and 12 percent for restraining it — a total of 48 percent negative — while 34 percent want to expand it and 14 percent want to leave it as is — also totaling 48 percent.

Several benefits of the new law are broadly popular.

Registered voters by a margin of 59 percent to 36 percent want to keep the requirement that insurance companies provide coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Among supporters, Republicans want to keep that part of the law rather than repeal it by a margin of 51-45. Independents want to keep it by a margin of 59-37. Even 46 percent of conservatives and 48 percent of tea party supporters want to keep it.

The section of the law requiring insurance companies to allow young adults to remain on their parents' policies until age 26 also is popular, with voters saying keep it rather than repeal it by a margin of 68 percent to 29 percent.

Among those who like it, 75 percent of women, 80 percent of independent women, and 54 percent of Republican women.

Voters, by a margin of 57 percent to 32 percent, also want to keep the part of the law that closes the so-called "donut hole" in Medicare prescription drug coverage.

They turn a solid thumbs down on the law's mandate that every American must buy insurance, with 65 percent calling that unconstitutional and 29 percent saying it should be kept.

A majority of every type of American called the mandate wrong, except for Democrats overall and Democratic men in particular. Among critics of the mandate: 50 percent of liberals, 53 percent of Democratic women, 68 percent of independents, and 83 percent of tea party supporters.

As Congress prepares to debate whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, the poll showed that 51 percent want to extend the tax cuts only for households making less than $250,000 a year, and 45 percent want to extend the tax cuts for all.

Those who support tax cuts only for those making less than $250,000 a year include minorities, Democrats, liberals and moderates, women, college graduates, Midwesterners and Northeasterners.

Those who want to extend all of the tax cuts, including for the wealthy, include Republicans, tea party supporters, conservatives, Southerners and Westerners,

Independents were closely divided, with 49 percent for extending only the "middle class" tax cuts, and 48 percent for extending all of them.

METHODLOGY

This survey of 1,020 adults was conducted Nov. 15-18. Adults 18 and older residing in the continental U.S. were interviewed by telephone. Telephone numbers were selected based upon a list of telephone exchanges from throughout the nation. The exchanges were selected to ensure that each region was represented in proportion to its population. To increase coverage, this land-line sample was supplemented by respondents reached through random dialing of cell phone numbers. The two samples were then combined. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

There are 810 registered voters. The results for this subset have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. There are 371 Democrats and Democratic leaning independents and 337 Republicans and Republican leaning independents. The results for these subsets have margins of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points and plus or minus 5.5 percentage points, respectively. The error margin increases for cross-tabulations.

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

The 2010 electorate: Old, white, rich and Republican

Jim DeMint still battling to keep Murkowski from Senate

Washington state's Cantwell not looking ahead to 2012 — yet

Liberals offer alternative deficit-reduction plan

For more McClatchy politics coverage visit Planet Washington

“WAS DICK CHENEY IN NORTH KOREA LAST WEEK?”..AND OTHER ANNOYING QUESTIONS!”

http://chrisbearde.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/was-dick-cheney-in-north-korea-last-week-and-other-annoying-questions/

“WAS DICK CHENEY IN NORTH KOREA LAST WEEK?” 

“WHY IS THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY TRYING TO KILL ENTIRE FAMILIES?”
….AND OTHER IMPORTANT QUESTIONS!


After reading Chris Hedges prognosis of the future of Corpo-Fascist America on the Alternet blog.. and realizing any further diatribes concerned trying to alter our political course would be completely futile… we hereby return to cynical comedy for ever…perhaps!


A constant stream of yuks will always be available via recent “comedy classics” like the entire Palin family.


THE MUSINGS OF NEWT GINGRICH AND OR OTHER LIKE MINDED EGO MANIACS WHO ACTUALLY THINK THEY CAN RUN A COUNTRY COME TO MIND.


Glen and Bill and Sean and the rest of the Keystone Cop-outs will every day bring us quotes of such 3 Stooges qualities that defy reason and go beyond the pale and in to a bucket of horse-crap!


We will always have the “Housewives of Plastic Surgery” to kick around…and “The Face that Launched a Thousand Lifts” Mister Bruce Jenner and the fabulous KARDASHIAN “shop ‘till they droppers are a constant reminder of the 1% who don’t want to pay taxes like the rest of us assholes!!


Yes these are the Cheap jokes about the cheap folks..folks!   


REALITY TELEVISION has become soooo important in lowering the cultural limbo poll down to floor level where only lowlifes can make the grade!


On any given night we can watch enormous fat people sweating the mega- pounds off for dollars ignorant rude people getting ruder…non dancing C grade celebrities giving their professional partner’s hernias…”Survivors” eating grubs …family members  beating the shit out of each other… nasty assed judges telling mental cripples how totally lacking in human dignity or talent they are…all this and other spiritually enlightening acts of “ non- professional “ entertainment.   


We lap it up…we love it…it makes us feel better… we are fat … we are rude… we are untalented..we’d like to beat the shit out of family members…we all know who they are too!!


THESE PEOPLE ON THE REALITY SHOWS SHARE OUR EMOTIONS,
THEY SHARE OUR IDEALS..
THEY SHARE OUR PROBLEMS..THEY ARE JUST LIKE US…BUT THEY ARE NOT US .. THEY ARE “THEM”..”THEM PEOPLE” NEXT DOOR..”THEM RELATIONS” THAT WE ONLY SEE AT THANKSGIVING .


We give thanks we only see them at thanksgiving ‘caus they suck!


Glad to be sheep…glad to be drones… glad to watch FOX NEWS and feel comfortable about being white and being told what to believe in!!


So relaxing…isn’t it.. going through the full body scans at the “aeroports “ knowing that the nice people patting us down are making us safe from  the attack of the underpants bombers in our midst….But let’s get the body pat people out of Government hands and into the hands of free enterprise. We’d rather have them BLACKWATER dudes fiddlin’ with our parts than any damn Obama run thing.


And as for North Korea.. when we get Sarah running the country she’s just gonna nuke those Chink bastards.. All of them Asiatics…!


THEN AMERICA WILL BECOME ONE BIG FULL TIME REALITY SHOW ..IT’LL BE “SARAH PALIN’S ENTIRE AMERICA!”


Now we’re gonna go down to the Cheesecake Factory and have ourselves some 1,500 calorie , 2,500 sodium content Turkey Cheese Burgers and curly fries and an entire 4,000 calorie Strawberry Shortcake cheese cake…


We’ve taken the Congress back and soon we’ll get back the senate whatever they are.. and then we’ll just be having a great time…heh heh heh!


**disclaimer..To all of those who might come across these ravings ….it’s plain to see that I’m in a minority as reality television is huge and entertaining so that’s a choice we all have the freedom to make .. The GOP MAY BE THE OTHER CHOICE and will probably rule this country for the rest of time ….But until these totally awful heartless mean spirited insane people finally kill off this country that I’ve lived and loved in …it is my right as it is yours to make my choice …speak my piece..This is then is my blog today… my blog piece .. but nobody at no “aeroport” is ever gonna touch my other piece without at least telling me they love me .

Middle-Class Needy Now Turning To Food Pantries

Irene Botsko lost her job at a local bank in February 2009. Now, she and others who have depleted their savings or exhausted unemployment benefits are seeking help at a time when resources already are stretched thin.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010  02:56 AM

BY CATHERINE CANDISKY

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

ED MATTHEWS | DISPATCH

Irene Botsko, left, collects food with her son, Shaun Newcomer, and volunteer Gloria Woodard at Lutheran Social Services' food pantry. She's grateful, but angry and embarrassed that she needs help.

Botsko, who has been unemployed for 21 months, looks through the bag of Thanksgiving fixings she received from Lutheran Social Services' food pantry. With her is volunteer Gloria Woodard.

Wearing a jacket and dress pants, Irene Botsko might have looked a bit out of place when she walked into a South Side food pantry this week.

She wasn't.

The 49-year-old divorced mother of one lost her bank job 21 months ago and has been unable to find steady work since then. Her savings is gone, and she's living on $267 a week in unemployment benefits and some help from friends. She struggles to keep up with the mortgage on her Columbus condominium.

Botsko personifies a growing demographic that is causing holiday demand to rise at food pantries. The needy are former middle-class workers who have lost their jobs or are earning less. Many have depleted their savings and exhausted unemployment benefits. Some have lost their homes.

Pantry operators expect demand to continue to rise as more jobless workers exhaust unemployment benefits. Botsko has six weeks left unless Congress extends benefits before a lame-duck session wraps up for the year. Congress has extended benefits four times in the past year, but the House rejected an extension in its latest vote on Nov. 18.

This week, as Botsko waited her turn to "shop" at the Lutheran Social Services food pantry on S. Champion Avenue, she repeatedly checked her cell phone, anxious to hear about a job interview she'd had the day before.

"I think it went well," she said. "They were smiling."

But until a job offer comes, Botsko must rely on others for help.

This week, it came from the pantry and a friend who wanted to be sure she had food for Thanksgiving and other meals during the holiday weekend. As a result, Botsko is able to host her 26-year-old son, Shaun Newcomer; his visiting girlfriend; and two family friends who until recently were unemployed, too.

"There are so many feelings and emotions," said Botsko, who was laid off from her job as a commercial-loan processor at Huntington National Bank in February 2009.

She's grateful for the help but angry and embarrassed that she needs it.

"I've worked since I was 15 years old," she said. "I was the one who was volunteering, and I was the one giving to food drives."

More than 44 percent of Ohioans visiting food pantries have been out of work for more than two years. Nearly 14 percent worked in managerial or professional jobs, said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks.

"This great recession has brought many new faces to food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens across Ohio and the nation," she said.

Lutheran Social Services' two Columbus pantries provided Thanksgiving groceries to 1,600 families this week.

Botsko said she tries hard to focus on the positive, such as her son's upcoming graduation from Ohio State University with a master's degree in Chinese studies, and she is hopeful that she'll find a job before her benefits run out.

But optimism is a challenge, and Botsko acknowledged that some days she struggles to stay strong.

"It's been a roller coaster," she said. "There have been times when I didn't know if I wanted to live. You do everything you are supposed to, but ..."

Most days, she said, she feels hopeful and grateful for the connections she has made during the past 21 months. Among them is Gloria Woodard, a pantry volunteer who made her feel at ease and helped load her cart with pork and cheese, potatoes and canned goods.

"My car hasn't been this full of food for I don't know how long."

Information about help for unemployed Ohioans and others in need is available at www.ohiobenefits.org.

Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief Jonathan Riskind contributed to this story.

ccandisky@dispatch.com