Replies to post #444779 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[newmedman]

except that the education you offer is highly misguided. You post generalizations that most of the time make little to no sense and never once provide a source for your manufactured ideals.

You're a tired old trope of a human, incessantly whining through the voices in your head. "he gave me a phone", what kind of bullshit is that? That line was not famous nor even spoken and you're a moron for buying into that.

Save your game theory for your games because it's not working around here Mr. Professor.

Just because you say the same thing a hundred times does not make it true. It might work with the mentally challenged magats but you're going to have to try harder to convince people who think for themselves that your Putin playlist is some kind of enlightenment.

It's all gloom and doom with you clowns and if you actually posted a link to a source even once, we could show you how your lack of critical thinking skills comes from a place that pulls your strings with propaganda and outright falsehoods.

Your bullshit opinions are as tiresome as your hindsight about the economy. "Derp, I told you, derp, derp" and even then you are dead wrong.

[sortagreen]

Those were Reagan phones. Expanded to include cell phones by W Bush. Racist bitch.

[blackhawks]

Keep your big gubment hands off my Medicare. Remember that Tea Bagger sign? How about the birthirism?

Both played to the same kind of flaming ignorance that gave us birther Trump and his credulous conspiracy theory spouting, economically illiterate, junk science believing MAGAts.

You've mentioned here that you voted for Obama, Why, did you need the f'ing phone?

And you believed that crap for how many years now, 14 is it?

You could have checked it out as early as '09. I did.


The Obama Phone?
By Justin Bank

Posted on October 29, 2009 | Updated on Nov. 5, 2009
https://www.factcheck.org/2009/10/the-obama-phone/

Q: Has the Obama administration started a program to use "taxpayer money" to give free cell phones to welfare recipients?

A: No. Low-income households have been eligible for discounted telephone service for more than a decade. But the program is funded by telecom companies, not by taxes, and the president has nothing to do with it.

FULL QUESTION

Is this e-mail true?

had a former employee call me earlier today inquiring about a job, and at the end of the conversation he gave me his phone number. I asked the former employee if this was a new cell phone number and he told me yes this was his "Obama phone."

I asked him what an "Obama phone" was and he went on to say that welfare recipients are now eligible to receive (1) a FREE new phone and (2) approx 70 minutes of FREE minutes every month. I was a little skeptical so I Googled it and low and behold he was telling the truth. TAX PAYER MONEY IS BEING REDISTRIBUTED TO WELFARE RECIPIENTS FOR FREE CELL PHONES.. This program was started earlier this year. Enough is enough, the ship is sinking and it’s sinking fast. The very foundations that this country was built on are being shaken. The age-old concepts of God, family, and hard work have flown out the window and are being replaced with "Hope and Change" and "Change we can believe in." You can click on the link below to read more about the "Obama phone"…just have a barf bag ready. https://www.safelinkwireless.com/EnrollmentPublic/home.aspx Google: Safelink Wireless

FULL ANSWER

Welfare recipients, and others, can receive a free cell phone, but the program is not funded by the government or taxpayer money, as the e-mail alleges. And it’s hardly new.

How It Works

SafeLink Wireless, the program mentioned in the e-mail, does indeed offer a cell phone, about one hour’s worth of calling time per month, and other wireless services like voice mail to eligible low-income households. Applicants have to apply and prove that they are either receiving certain types of government benefits, such as Medicaid, or have household incomes at or below 135 percent of the poverty line. Using 2009 poverty guidelines, that’s $14,620 for an individual and a little under $30,000 for a family of four, with slightly higher amounts for Alaska and Hawaii.

SafeLink is run by a subsidiary of América Móvil, the world’s fourth largest wireless company in terms of subscribers, but it is not paid for directly by the company. Nor is it paid for with "tax payer money," as the e-mail claims. Rather, it is funded through the Universal Service Fund, which is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company, an independent, not-for-profit corporation set up by the Federal Communications Commission.

The USF is sustained by contributions from telecommunications companies such as "long distance companies, local telephone companies, wireless telephone companies, paging companies, and payphone providers." The companies often charge customers to fund their contributions in the form of a universal service fee you might see on your monthly phone bill. The fund is then parceled out to companies, such as América Móvil, that create programs, such as SafeLink, to provide telecommunications service to rural areas and low-income households.

History

The SafeLink program has actually been offering cell phones to low-income households in some states since 2008, not beginning "earlier this year," as the e-mail claims. But the program is rooted in a deeper history.

When phone lines were first laid out in the late 19th century, they were not always inter-operable. That is to say the phone service created by one company to serve one town may not have been compatible with the phone service of another company serving a different town nearby. The telecom companies themselves saw the folly in this arrangement, and so in 1913, AT&T committed itself to resolving interconnection problems as part of the "Kingsbury Commitment."

That common goal of universal service became a goal of universal access to service when Congress passed The Telecommunications Act of 1934. The act created the FCC and also included in its preamble a promise "to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.”

There was a fear, expressed by telecom companies themselves, that market forces alone might encourage companies to pass on providing service to hard-to-reach places. This would both hurt the people who wouldn’t have service as well as existing customers who wouldn’t be able to reach them. So the new FCC was tasked with promoting this principle of "universal service."

This informal practice was codified when the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) was created as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act to "ensure all Americans, including low-income consumers and those who live in rural, insular, high cost areas, shall have affordable service and [to] help to connect eligible schools, libraries, and rural health care providers to the global telecommunications network."

The USAC includes four programs to serve rural areas, high cost areas, rural health care providers, and schools and libraries. Since 1997, USAC has provided discounted land line service to low-income individuals. (A more limited program to offer assistance to low-income individuals was created a decade earlier; the telecommunications act expanded and formalized it.) According to Eric Iversen, USAC director of external relations, the Universal Service Fund more recently began funding programs that provide wireless service, such as the pre-paid cellular SafeLink program mentioned in the chain e-mail.

The president has no direct impact on the program, and one could hardly call these devices "Obama Phones," as the e-mail author does. This specific program, SafeLink, started under President George Bush, with grants from an independent company created under President Bill Clinton, which was a legacy of an act passed under President Franklin Roosevelt, which was influenced by an agreement reached between telecommunications companies and the administration of President Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson Phones, anyone?

[fuagf]

stock_observer_77, One epitome of the ignorance of conservative arrogance we find in your

"The famous line we saw in the Obama era
I’m voting for Obama, He gave us an Obama phone.
Not the exact quote but proves my point. People vote on popularity, who they think others would vote for, how the candidate looks etc etc
This is really not rocket science and I’m not surprised I have to educate you on this"

As if anyone doesn't understand that millions are so involved in the struggle to survive they take little interest in politics.

Compulsory voting would encourage more participation, but of course you conservative freedom lovers wouldn't tolerate that.

And it's not surprising you would pick Obama phone to be involved in your
preaching as that was a false idea promoted by your side in the first place.