Yes, I realize that it’s ugly of me to post this story from Fox 45 in Baltimore. Don’t hate me because I’m not beautiful.
Liberals will, very predictably, counter with some variation of “But this program started under Reagan!!1!1!!”
It did, as a modest land line program for the poor, and that’s one of the reasons no Republican should ever institute even the tiniest government entitlement program. Good intentions soon get turned into bad politics. Eventually they get turned into weapons against taxpayers and against Republicans. The whole scam ends up undermining the law-abiding American’s faith in the republic itself.
Under Obama’s watch, according to the Fox 45 report, in Maryland alone — one little state, mind you — the number of these free phones has ballooned from 6,000 in 2008 to 231,000 in 2011. That tracks with how and when the program ballooned up in Ohio and Illinois too.
For you slower liberals out there, those numbers have nothing to do with Reagan. They have everything to do with the current president. He is using a well-intentioned old program to buy himself another term in office.
In Baltimore they give these phones away in vans marked “FREE PHONE & MINUTES.” People have an easy time getting multiples and many of them end up in the hands of drug dealers too.
You liberals want to blame that on Reagan too?
h/t LNN
Were it possible to do so, it would be interesting to find out how many of these phone scamsters are also involved in vote fraud—whether as operatives for whatever name ACORN is currently masquerading under, for the Obama campaign directly, etc.
Liberty is not a perpetual motion machine. It requires a constant work input. I think that has been lost sight of by those who just want free stuff.
Our General Assembly, with its heavy representation of the Defense Bar, facilitates legislative support for State “operators” (the shrewd or unscrupulous, who knows how to circumvent difficulties/the law and responsible citizenship) setting the stage. Our State is a “Sanctuary” state, with Baltimore (like San Francisco) as a lead sanctuary welcoming and offering support for all comers. Any identifications of this course of conduct as a pathology are Shouted Down. It, in concert with the “Obama-phone debacle, is a patent example of the just rewards of unbridled liberalism.
Chicago and San Francisco have little, if anything, on us!
Wow. I am sure the left will start thinking how to make this inconvenient report Romney’s problem. And Ann Althouse will be seething about the optics and the use of the phrase ‘Obama phone.’ Of course it was the woman in Cleveland who coined that phrase right? As Glenn Reynolds said, it is a favorite lefty-trick to treat any pointed criticism of Obama as ‘impolite’ or in Althouse’s case ‘racist.’
I will join you so you won’t be alone in your ugliness. Here are 3 more Obamaphone videos.
Uncle Sam’s Unlimited Plan: Learn more about this costly government giveaway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCqU8yarNpc&feature=player_embedded&list=PLBFB75A4E2BDC6DC7
KMOV: Fraud and abuse within the Lifeline free cell phone program
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sAt3kPhms8&feature=relmfu
This 3rd. one is eye opening
KMOV: More problems with free cell phone program
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56cx5Dt3WaY&feature=relmfu
Yeah, I read too, that many food stamp recipients get their EBT cards, then go back and say they lost them, and are handed new cards without question, again and again. Only after the fourth time are they required to give a believable explanation. Such a load of crap.
Possibly used by drug dealers, but I’m thinking of something worse. In the aftermath of 9/11, weren’t “talk and toss” phones implicated in Islamist terrorist cells operating in the US? How accountable are these “free” phones?
Just doing some pre-emptive connecting of dots …