April 27th, 2012 Update: Some background to this column. A few weeks ago, after the initial outbreak of EBT card abuse, the liberal governor, Deval Patrick had accused the Boston Herald of attacking the welfare abusers, while calling it “anecdotal” and essentially downplaying what the Herald had allegedly stirred up. He felt there was a consipsary theory by believing the Herald was trying to get the people “angry” about the abuse. This story that I am putting color to came from an April 20th article in the Boston Herald. While this post was written back in mid April, the controversy is still hot. I felt since Howie’s column from early April had excessive ranting and bitching, and I noticed there some of the quoted phrases, I felt there needed to be another edition to this post.
April 17, 2012 Editorial Note: The author of this blog had quoted the entire column of Howie Carr from the Boston Herald in verbatim because there was no parts of the column that we believe that we could quote to put into proper context. We apologize in advance for quoting the entire column, and we hope the editors of the Herald screen his columns a bit better. He was bitching way too much about this problem like a little 10 year old girl
Here’s another reference to Howie Carr’s excessive rant’s on the legitimate abuses of EBT cards. Most people with developmental disabilities use these cards in legitmate purposes. It takes the many bad apples to ruin it for the disabled. However Carr like many of his readers and listeners are actually against *all* welfare and they disregard any disability outside ones who are physically and crippled types.
Here is his column from this past Wednesday (no copyright infringement is intended)
State Auditor Suzanne Bump says the only evidence she’s seen so far of EBT card abuse are “anecdotes.”
So Suzanne, here’s another “anecdote” that went down in Roxbury last Friday night.
The drug control unit out of Area B-2 made a heroin bust on Fayston Street near Blue Hill Avenue. They arrested a party named Kimball Clark, and after he was lugged, Clark got to make his one phone call. According to the police report, here’s what happened:“Once booking was completed and Suspect Clark made his telephone call as allowed, he was heard by Officer Flaherty stating to whomever he had called ‘GET MY EBT CARD AND GO TO THE ATM AND GET THE MONEY TO BAIL ME OUT, GET ME OUTA HERE TONIGHT.’ ”Those are the cops’ capital letters, by the way. Let’s look on the bright side, though. What this means is that not every welfare recipient is using his EBT card to buy jewelry or tattoos or go on ship cruises. Some of them are using their EBT cards for … bail money.
Auditor Bump is going to do a report on the Department of Transitional Assistance, and she wants to get beyond these pesky anecdotes “that end up polarizing the participants in the discussion.”
And I hear the moonbats saying, you’re just demonizing the most vulnerable members of our society, the people who fell through the safety net, the victims of George Bush and Halliburton. This poor oppressed citizen has no money, right?
Wrong. Back to the report:
“Officer (Kevin) Clark recovered (5) five separate folds of United States Currency from Suspect Clark’s person, one fold containing $12.00 and the second contained $65.00, these were located in Suspect Clark’s left front pants pocket. The remaining three folds were recovered from Suspect Clark’s wallet, one contained $100.00, the second contained $81.00 and the third contained $500.00, the total money seized was $758.00.”
When was the last time you had $758 cash walking around money? And I’ll bet you don’t even have an EBT card.
Another anecdote, from the police report:
“Officer then observed Suspect Clark look at his cellular phone.”
The man has a cellphone, too! Granted, so does almost everybody nowadays, but if he claims to be so broke that he needs an EBT card to make ends meet, how can he possibly afford even a cheapo phone?
Clark was charged with distribution Class A drugs, distribution Class A drugs within 1,000 feet of a school zone and distribution Class A second offense.
According to the BPD, this EBT cardholder is a convicted drug dealer.
How many more anecdotes do you want Auditor Bump?
Source, bostonherald.com Wednesday, April 11th, accessed on April 13th, 2012
Well Howie, there are some autistic listeners and readers of your show and Herald columns and I as for one a bit tired of you making the whole EBT and “welfare” (as he simplifies it) all evil.
This is the worst time suffering with autism and seeing the abusers making everyone look bad.
This is terrible. It blows my mind that people are so focused on the abuses of something that they can’t see the benefits. Thanks for posting this. I hope this is an isolated example, and not something rampant. I know my son and I have no encountered this yet, but I worry about him once he becomes an adult and has to deal with this.
Nick
http://www.1in88.org/
Nick,
For the case of this post, I would certiantly hope it’s an isolated issue for the country, however in Mass. like I had said before, there is one too many abuse cases out there. Allegedly, people have sold their EBT cards to buy drugs, using it to go to casinos, to get boob jobs, lifts (in some cases out of the country) and not to mention illegal aliens ahead of disabled people for services or welfare funds.
I hope the laws the legislatures in that state are not overintrusive and not micromanaging once the crackdown laws go into place.
Good luck to your son in hopes of getting services.