Free Republic

Three leading House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats are calling for an oversight hearing on the Federal Communications Commission's Lifeline program, a phone subsidy for the poor that has been disparagingly referred to as the "Obama phone" program. The program, which began long before President Obama took office, has been notorious for waste and abuse. The FCC enacted reforms last year aimed at trimming billions of dollars from the program, but recent reports indicate that people who are ineligible for the program are still receiving subsidies. The program gained more attention last year when conservatives seized on a viral video...

Fraud and abuse grow after subsidized telephone program expands A federal program subsidizing phones for the poor increased from 6.8 million to 18 million recipients from 2008 — the year it was expanded to include cell phones — to May 2012. And fraud and abuse from the expansion have been far more extensive than expected, to the extent that tougher enforcement of long-existing rules is projected to bring in enough money to finance the expansion of the program to provide low-income users with free Internet service, according to the Federal Communications Commission report released last week. Up to 15 percent...

I had to see it to believe it! Not an Alex Jones fan by any means but there she is...slamming Obama.Obama Phone Lady Wakes Up

Exclusive: Robert Ringer seeks ways to get through to the redistribution-minded While driving into D.C. last week, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh expound on an important issue that I don’t believe many pro-liberty people give much thought to. He said that “low-information” voters present a serious problem because there is no way to reach people who are uninformed. Worse, most of these people don’t like conservatives or libertarians. No doubt about it, Rush has zeroed in on the crux of the problem when it comes to the decline and fall of the American Empire. How in the world do...

While some saw the clip of the lady implying 'victory for Obama means phones for everyone' as perhaps exaggerated out-of-context right-wing propaganda - as that would be preposterous right? - it appears San Francisco took it a little more serious. As SFGate reports, the California Public Utilities Commission is expected to approve (within a couple of weeks) a plan to offer homeless and other poor people in California 'virtually free cell phones and service'. The plan is funded through the federal LifeLine program and is designed to enable these individuals to 'keep in touch with family, potential employers and others...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Friday added his name to a growing list of Republicans who are rebuking Mitt Romney over his “gifts” comments. “You can't expect to be a leader of all the people and be divisive,” said Christie on MSNBC’s Morning Joe when asked if he agreed with fellow Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who was one of the first to criticize the former GOP nominee over the comments. In a conference call with donors Wednesday, Romney said that minorities and young people voted for Obama because he offered them “gifts.” Said Christie: “You have to...

I made up a song parody for Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" that I think is fitting; edits welcome.

It's all anecdotal at this point, but if crime reports following hurricanes Katrina and Irene are any indication, the East Coast is in for a crime wave, post-Sandy. No reports of looting or Hurricane Sandy-related crimes have been reported yet but that doesn't mean we won't see some soon. Following Hurricane Katrina, the most devastating hurricane in modern memory, New Orleans was besieged with reports of looting, rape, and murder, causing delayed troop deployments, delayed medical evacuations, and police department mutiny, The New York Times reported in 2005....(excerpt)

Call it racist, call it unfair, call it whatever you like: As a political ad, the Tea Party Victory Fund “Obamaphone lady” ad is a masterpiece. The genius is in combining the simple facts-and-figures stuff (one in seven Americans on food stamps, etc.) with the way-out-of-left-field Obamaphone lady, who, even though she doesn’t seem to know that the phone-subsidy program was launched under the Reagan administration, expresses something true (in gross, cartoon form; i.e., in perfect political-ad form) about the entitlement mentality that anti-Obama (as opposed to pro-Romney) voters abhor intensely. The music is an inspired touch, too. This ad...

Super PAC Tea Party Victory Fund is using the "Obama Phone" lady in a new Ohio swing-state aimed ad. The pitch for the video, which asks donors for help in spreading the video in the state, is written by the Fund's chairman Ken Blackwell, Ohio's former secretary of state, via SLATE: This is it-- this is the October surprise. We just need to get this ad on television today. Will you help us? This commercial is a microcosm of the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans want to create an environment where free people make their own choices and pursue...

Maryland woman has 6 "Obama phones" in her purse, and claims to have have obtained a total of 30 of them... http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aTYiKjFnMos

A Mexican telecom mogul who holds the title of world's richest man, and one of President Obama's top donors are both getting even richer from the U.S. government program that supplies so-called "Obamaphones" to the poor. Carlos Slim, who has an estimated net worth of $70 billion, owns a controlling stake in TracFone, which makes $10 per phone for each device it provides to poor Americans. The company, whose president and CEO is Frederick “F.J.” Pollak, also makes money from extra minutes and data plans it sells to subscribers who get phones and service through the government's Lifeline program. The...

A new rap star is launched.Obama Phone Remix (parody song)

The origins of the ‘Obama phone’ A viral video flying around the Internet in the last week of September introduced America to the “Obama Phone Lady,” an angry woman with a shrill voice who turned up at an Ohio rally for the Republican presidential candidate and snarled, “Romney sucks!” Asked why she supported Obama, she rattled off a list of benefits, including: “Everybody in Cleveland minorities got Obama phones! Keep Obama in President, you know? He gave us a phone!”Her in-your-face determination to hang on to government benefits rankled taxpaying Americans. But the most widespread immediate response to the video...

A wireless company profiting from the so-called “Obama phone” giveaway program is run by a prominent Democratic donor whose wife has raised more than $1.5 million for the president since 2007. Last week a video of a President Barack Obama supporter in Ohio claiming to have received a free phone from the president—“[Obama] gave us a phone!”—went viral, prompting media outlets to investigate. Since 1985 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has operated a program called Lifeline, originally designed to provide free landline phone service for low-income individuals. The government subsidizes telecommunications firms providing the service, and those firms also pass...

Click on link to watch more video of Obamaphone Lady. "I'm from Cleveland, Ohio down in the Bronx!"

Hey B, it’s me. If you’re there, pick up. I just got my phone from the Obamaphone plan. [Sigh] Anyway, call me back. I was walking around, didn't know what to do Democratic Convention 2-0-1-2 I never wanted to have anything more Than a free phone from you So I put down the help wanted ads Knew that phone had to be mine So black and sexy, it's so fine ‘Cause I’ve got a crush on my Obamaphone I cannot wait, 'til 2-0-1-6 'Cause I know my Bammy boy will get me my phone fix Then I can make some...

Any supposed concerns about Romney from Black Americans are completely contrary to Romney's history in governing. "Obama phone vs Romney car Part II"... (continued) (Interactive transcript button available for "humble..."

..............In the Right-wing's dreamworld, the Obama Phone Lady is a "surplus" person with no place in an Ayn Rand fantasy, what is the Tea Party GOP's dystopian soon-to-be made true reality. Culture is also transmitted through historical memory. The white gun shop owner who believes that Obama is a socialist usurper represents a type ofwhiteness that is not benign. While white folks imagine themselves through the lens of white privilege (where they are kind, innocent, and good). For others, Whiteness (and by implication, white people) has been a harbinger of violence, death, destruction, and exclusion. White men with guns who...

Up until the viral video of Obamaphone Lady appeared (“Keep Obama in president, you know!”), the webpage at obamaphone.net was all about how President Obama was giving all the poor people free phones. As if he was paying the bill, rather than us. But now that the Obamaphone Lady has been exposing the program so effectively as a vote-buying giveaway to hate-filled societal leeches, the Obamaphone.net page has changed completely. Guess what?! Obama has nothing to do with it! As you might expect, it’s Bush’s fault, at least partially. The webpage that previously bragged about how much Obama was doing...