Social Security ends visits to seniors

[nadinbrzezinski]

Social Security ends visits to seniors
Officials in three towns say Ariz. shootings cited

By Jenna Russell
Globe Staff / January 12, 2011
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Town officials in three rural Massachusetts communities said the Social Security Administration notified them this week that it will no longer send representatives to meet locally with seniors and answer their questions, because of security concerns following last week’s deadly shooting rampage in Arizona.


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In Palmer and Ware — small towns east of Springfield — and on Nantucket, 30 miles off Cape Cod, town clerks and senior center directors said the federal workers who contacted their towns specifically cited the weekend violence, which killed six people and critically injured US Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, as the reason for discontinuing the visits.

“They indicated they would not be coming to Palmer, as they have for years, because of what happened in Arizona,’’ said Nancy Talbot, the town clerk in Ware.

Yesterday, however, Social Security officials denied any connection between the shootings and ending outreach efforts in some less populated areas, attributing the changes to budget cutbacks instead.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/01/12/social_security_administration_ends_visits_to_seniors_in_rural_mass/

I don;t know about you but that makes the hairs in the back of my neck stand up. This is starting to feel like the whirlwind is coming.

[jillan]

1. Let's all just stay indoors. We can listen to faux news all day long!!

Fuck society!

[reformist2]

5. Society... that sounds like socialism!

[annabanana]

2. This is very very disturbing. . .n/t

[enough]

3. Terrorism is working. (nt)

[RKP5637]

4. We have enough hatred now in this country thanks to Fox and the like to

go around for everyone. What a proud accomplishment for these creepy hate-media terrorists. For them hatred = big profits.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Oh and my friend

add this to trends

[RKP5637]

7. Yeah, I was thinking that a number of times over the past several days. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. List keeps growing

but we may be very well now be in the very early stages of a hot civil war. I hope I am off, but we may very well be.

[RKP5637]

15. While I certainly believe in free speech, I think somehow there needs to be

a mechanism to stop the insane level of hate speech by those with huge megaphones that are in it for profit and personal wealth. The level of ignorance is so great in the US that I think many are innocently not able to distinguish between what is hate speech and what is factual. It's creating a very unstable country and pitting citizens against one another. It's disgusting. And frankly the US is looking like a pack of fools. IMO we have domestic terrorists on the airwaves and cable TV with their hate filled shows.

[yellowcanine]

9. That would be a huge overreaction. I suspect it is more about budgets.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. It is VERY local to very local counties

it is a real threat... that is my read on it.

[rox63]

11. This is strange...

Palmer and Ware are small towns in an economically depressed area of the state. Either someone has made very specific threats regarding those towns, or it's because the budget has been cut. There are lots of areas in MA that have problems with violent crime, but they aren't near those towns. As for Nantucket, maybe they don't want to pay the fare to take the ferry.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. I think it is a very specific threat

but this is one more of those pesky trends.

[jwirr]

12. At least 7 years ago some violent event cause all the social services

departments in our area to have their workers behind bullet proof glass as visitors walked into the office. I think that had something to do with child support collections.

With Social Security the anger would also be there for many reasons including denials of claims and the length of time it take for a claim. Also with this talk of cutting Social Security there could be blowback from that. I feel sorry for workers who have to go out today. Even when I was working many were not happy to see us - they thought we were there to take something from them not help them.

That they do this at this time does seem like a bit of a overreaction. AZ has been a hotbed of anger for quite a while now.

[Hannah Bell]

14. it's money, not concerns about being shot. what bs.