Long before Donald Trump hit the political stage, Colorado and the nation had Tom Tancredo. Tancredo was a GOP member of Congress for ten years and in 2008, he embarrassingly lost a bid for president. He also lost a bid for Colorado’s governor in 2010.
Tancredo wasn’t the original fear-baiter, but he was good at it. He once called Sonia Sotomayor a member of the “Latino KKK without the hoods or nooses.”
He said that Miami was becoming a “third world country” because of immigration.
He once wanted to bomb Mecca.
Like Trump, he’s anti-immigration and anti-Muslim. At the time (just two years ago) he was called extreme. Today, he’s probably not extreme enough, which means that it’s time for him to say something bats*it crazy and he didn’t disappoint. In an op-ed in Brietbart, Tancredo, who’s as opposed to food stamps as anyone, offered this:
To show we are serious about empowering 100 million citizens for self-defense, we should seriously consider subsidizing the purchase of firearms by low-income citizens. Terrorists and criminals already know how to obtain guns, so why not help the defenseless? If we can afford food stamps and housing subsidies, why not gun stamps to help urban citizens survive the next Islamist assault?
One has to wonder which low-income people Tancredo is referring to. Is it the man who refers to black people as “thugs who intimidate people at the polls?” Does he feel that low-income black people should have guns? What about low-income Muslims or Latinos, should they also be given free guns?
The man wanting to give away guns is the same man who said this:
The idea that they’re doing anything that would benefit Republicans in the long run is ludicrous. Hispanics vote for Democrats for exactly the same reason that other people vote for Democrats: They want ObamaPhones! They want big government! It’s got nothing to do with immigration!
Ironically, here’s Tancredo nine years ago, complaining that entitlements are going to immigrants because we don’t have a way of checking their status. Can we assume that he somehow solved that problem with his free guns for poor people plan?
Here’s that video:
Featured image via Facebook
Science has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that being in the presence of a Rethuglican AND a gun reduces your IQ by 50 points.
Science has established the average African American IQ is 85.
Since the average American IQ has fallen to its lowest point since recording began…I wouldn’t take much pride in the 3 point difference you ignorant idiot.
Average white IQ is 100.
Logical.
Sotomayor belonged to La Raza, which is a racist organization.
Did this article say “Obama phones don’t exist”? A quick Google of “Obama phones” will give you all the information you need. There is even talk of expanding it to include broadband service.
cept it was never an obama phone… Imagine for a moment what your life would be like without a phone, corded or wireless. How would you contact emergency services if there was a fire or a serious injury? How would you contact a potential new employer, or keep in touch with a current one? How would you contact your utility company about a power outage, or a doctor about your sick child? How would you keep in touch with your loved ones and your community? In this day and age, telecommunications services are a real necessity, and not being able to afford them is a real liability.
Those types of questions prompted the Federal Communication Commission to implement the Lifelinebenefit program for income-eligible consumers in 1984. That program had two parts: Lifeline Assistance, which provided discounts on basic monthly landline telephone service at the primary residence of qualified telephone subscribers, and Lifeline Link-Up, which provided discounts on the initial installation fee for landline telephone service at the primary residence of qualified telephone subscribers.
As cell phone usage has increased and cell phone service fees have dropped, the Lifeline program has been expanded to include wireless technology. Prepaid cell phone companies have spun off government-approved subsidiaries (such as Safelink Wireless, Assurance Wireless, and Reachout Wireless) to specialize in providing Lifelife-covered telephone services to qualifying participants.
From that basic framework, rumors like the ones encapsulated in the Examples cited above have circulated, claiming that “the Obama administration created a program to give free cell phones paid for by taxpayer money to welfare recipients.” All the elements of such statements are erroneous or exaggerated:
The Lifeline program originated in 1984, during the administration of Ronald Reagan; it was expanded in 1996, during the administration of Bill Clinton; and its first cellular provider service (SafeLink Wireless) was launched by TracFone in 2008, during the administration of George W. Bush. All of these milestones were passed prior to the advent of the Obama administration.
The Lifeline program only covers monthly discounts on landline or wireless telephone service for eligible consumers. It does not pay cellular companies to provide free cell phones to consumers, although some cellular service providers choose to offer that benefit to their Lifeline customers.
Lifeline discounts are not available only to “welfare recipients” — these programs are implemented at both the state and federal levels, so qualification criteria can vary from state to state, but in general participants must have an income that is at or below 135% of the federal Poverty Guidelines, or take part in at least one of the following federal assistance programs:
Medicaid;
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamps or SNAP);
Supplemental Security Income (SSI);
Federal Public Housing Assistance (Section 8);
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP);
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF);
National School Lunch Program’s Free Lunch Program;
Bureau of Indian Affairs General Assistance;
Tribally-Administered Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TTANF);
Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR);
Head Start (if income eligibility criteria are met); or
State assistance programs (if applicable).
The Lifeline program is not directly subsidized by taxpayer monies. It is paid for out of the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) through a fee assessed against telecommunications service providers, who may or may not pass those costs along to their customers: All telecommunications service providers and certain other providers of telecommunications must contribute to the federal USF based on a percentage of their interstate and international end-user telecommunications revenues. These companies include wireline phone companies, wireless phone companies, paging service companies and certain Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers.
Some consumers may notice a “Universal Service” line item on their telephone bills. This line item appears when a company chooses to recover its USF contributions directly from its customers by billing them this charge. The FCC does not require this charge to be passed on to customers. Each company makes a business decision about whether and how to assess charges to recover its Universal Service costs. These charges usually appear as a percentage of the consumer’s phone bill. Companies that choose to collect Universal Service fees from their customers cannot collect an amount that exceeds their contribution to the USF. They also cannot collect any fees from a Lifeline program participant.The costs of administering the Lifeline program have increased greatly with the move towards cellular telephone services, leading the FCC to approve a comprehensive overhaul of the program in January 2012 intended to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. in other words..
so.. say hello to your Wilson Phones.. (or maybe Roosevelt phones).. The current president (Obama) has no direct impact on the program, and one could hardly call these devices “Obama Phones,” 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.
Question: Free food, free housing, free phone, free internet, who pays for all this “free” stuff?
Medicaid-Taxpayers
SSI-Taxpayers
SNAP-Taxpayers
Section 8-Taxpayers
I could go on, but I imagine you get the idea. So when I go to work and I make a check to pay for me, I also make a check to pay for people who get “free” things. These things are not free, they are paid for by the men and women who work in this country. The people who pay taxes. Almost half the population in this country don’t pay taxes. This country is in a serious debt hole. So, what do you think will happen to all of these people when the money runs out? They have so use to “free” that when it is yanked out from underneath them they can’t adjust. What do they do then when the austerity comes for them? You should Google “Who’s gonna feed my kids”, it’s enlightening or maybe watch the music video of “It’s Free, Swipe Yo EBT”, very educational.
I’m sure you have no problem with the massive Corporate welfare and huge tax breaks for them poor 1%ers though….
I am sure you have no idea what goes on inside my head so assuming.
The U.S., according to tradeeconomics, has a 39% corporate tax rate, the highest in the world. But companies like GE keep billions of dollars offshore, never bringing them into the country in order to avoid paying the taxes. I do believe that companies have anonymous loopholes that they can drive a bus through, so if you raised the rate to 100%, it still wouldn’t affect them. Also, we do not need to be bailing out companies or corporations, if they fail, then they die. That’s it.
With your “posts” I am sure NO one wants to know what is going on in your head…..By the way did your proctologist find your head?
Very witty, I can feel the burn. I see you did not engage one thing I said. I even agreed with you about the corporate welfare, they shouldn’t have it. Maybe the reading level is to high for you. I will type slower so you can keep up.
You do assume quite a bit. I don’t watch Fox, I don’t have a basement and the reason I couldn’t respond was because I was at work.
I didn’t respond to the Obama phone diatribe because it is to easy to prove otherwise that it is in fact true. I am not going to waste my time.
You seem angry and frustrated. Is it because Bernie got kicked off the team?