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Since the day Barack Obama was inaugurated, the term “The Obama Phone” has persisted. People say Obama is redistributing the wealth by starting a program that gives free cell phones – Obama phones – to the poor. Detractors of both President Obama and of the government’s long-standing phone assistance program have fought over this claim since 2009 with each side mudslinging “facts” at each other.

FreeGovernmentCellPhones.net is going to clear this subject up once and for all with the most detailed account of the facts that you will find anywhere. When you next have a discussion on this topic, just give those on the other side the link to this page.

Is the government giving out free cell phones?

Yes. This part is true. They fund low end cell phones plans, and offset some of the cost of landline phones. The programs that authorize the phone distribution program are called Lifeline Assistance and Lifeline Link-Up. Lifeline Assistance helps pay monthly phone bills and Lifeline Link-Up helps pay the initial outlay for the phone and installation. The two programs are often lumped together and simply called Lifeline.

These Lifeline cell phones are delivered through relatively new, government-approved cell phone companies like Safelink Wireless, Assurance Wireless and Reachout Wireless, among others. These companies were spun of off larger prepaid cell phone companies to specialize in the Lifeline program.

Did Obama start the free phones program?

The cell phone distribution program did begin in 2008, the year Obama was elected president, but that is a coincidence. Let’s look more closely at the facts.

Notice that earlier we said Link-Up helps fund “installation.” What installation does a cell phone have? None. So why is installation part of Link-Up, which is under the Lifeline program umbrella? Because, the whole thing began back in 1996 when the Federal Communications Commission authorized the programs for landline phones. At that time it provided discounts on landline phones only, for obvious reasons.

To this day the government provides discounts on landline phones for financially disadvantaged people in the United States and U.S. territories. The Link-Up portion helps with the installation and the Lifeline Assistance part helps with the monthly bills, to the tune of roughly ten dollars a month.

So, the subsidization of phones began under President Clinton, and has continued under Presidents Bush and Obama.

Over that time, the usage of cell phones rose and the costs came down. Assuming one believes in the Lifeline program in the first place, and remembering that the FCC has mandated the program, it only makes sense to expand the phone assistance program to include cell phones. So, in 2008 the first application of this program for mobile phones began when a company called Tracfone started their Safelink Wireless service in Tennessee.

Aha, some say, that’s the same year Obama was elected! Well, that’s true. But the service in Tennessee was launched three months prior to Obama being elected. And that means the discussion and approval of the extension of the program occurred under President Bush’s watch.

The Bush Phone, anyone?

How did the Obama Phone rumors start?

Just how did this “Obama Phone” rumor get started anyway? Back around early 2009, emails began circulating that called the free cell phone program the Obama Phone. And you know what happens when emails start getting passed around — few people verify them, and just simply forward them to everyone in their contact list. And the people who forward them believe that Barack Obama has socialist tendencies, so there was a willing audience. Here is just one sample email:]quote]FW: Obamaphone… no joke!!

I 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.”

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I note for th record that the program has been around in some form since 1984. In 2008 it cost approx $772mil. By 2011 that had more then doubled to over $1.6billion.

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Obama Bucks, Obama Food Stamps, Obama Waffles -- the Dark Images of Racism

Another racist item has entered the public eye. This time it is Obama Bucks. Or Obama Food Stamps. Regardless, it is pure racist.



The Los Angeles Times reported that Obama bucks are faux food stamps with the image of Senator Barack Obama's face on the body of a donkey in the center of the fake tender. He is surrounded with stereotypical African-American food: a watermelon, fried chicken, ribs, and the Kool-Aid logo. The caption beneath the $10 United States Food Stamps image reads: "Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on ????? Food Stamps, what else!"

A Republican San Bernardino Women's Club sent out a newsletter with the Obama Bucks image in it. Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated in Upland, California, sent the newsletter out to around 200 members.

Club President Diane Fedele said, "I apologize to anyone who was offended because that was not my intent. It was poor judgment on my part. It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of Obama's statement that he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

She then explained that she was not a racist, that: "If I was racist, I would have looked at it through racist eyes," she said. "I am not racist, which is why it probably didn't register."

The Times reports that another member, Kristina Sandoval, said, "None of us are racists."

But Ron Nehring of the California Republican Party does not see it that way. In an issued statement Thursday, he said: "Any material that invokes issues related to race is absolutely unacceptable, tarnishes our party, diminishes the hard work of the tens of thousands of volunteers who are working hard every day for our candidates, and must be condemned. I've seen inspires nothing but divisiveness and hostility and has absolutely no place in this election, or any public discourse."

Nehring's statement, according to the Times, also referred to an image on the Sacramento County GOP website that depicted Obama in a turban beside Osama bin Laden with the caption: "The difference between Osama and Obama is just a little B.S."



The site prompted its members to "waterboard Barack Obama."



Republican officials aside, even members of the Women's Club were appalled. Acquanetta Warren said, "My daughter who is 16 was standing over my shoulder when I opened the e-mail, and her mouth dropped wide open. I actually turned the screen away and sent her to her room so she wouldn't see. I don't want to talk to anyone; I want a written apology so the public knows that this is not right and this is not representative of the way Republicans think."

Carol Robb, head of the San Bernardino County Democratic Party, commented on the incident: "I think it's sad and unbelievable that they can't see how offensive this is. People are losing their homes, we are in financial chaos and the best they can do is a caricature of Obama on a donkey's body and food stamps. How out of touch with the 21st century can you get?"

The ugly head of racism keeps rearing its more than monstrous head in this presidential campaign. It comes indirectly from the insinuations coming from those who stress Senator Obama's middle name "Hussein" (unfortunately connotes Arabs) to the more direct statements from voters saying that a black man does not deserve to be in the White House.

It's a stance of ignorance that is as asinine as saying that Senator John McCain is too white or too old.

Yet it persists and prevails. It is not simply the territory of the small-minded but also the stronghold of fear. And it is being used by the ill-educated and the purveyors of ignorant hate to further political agendas. The women of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated can cry unintended racial collateral damage, but the intent is clear and, remonstrations aside, in the heightened atmosphere of racial tension that surrounds the upcoming presidential election, rings of bold falsehood.

But these images keep appearing. The Dallas News reported back in June, at the Repblican Party of Texas donated the $1500 it made off of a vendor's booth to charity after Jonathan Alcox, who rented the booth, sold a pin with the caption: "If Obama is president...Will we still call it the White House?"



At the Values Voter Summit in September, Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss sold boxes of "Obama Waffles" mix for $10 a box. On the cover, was a pop-eyed, thick-lipped caricature of Obama staring at waffles. On the top flap was an image of Obama in a turban.





The Values Voter Summit is sponsored and overseen by the Family Research Council, the religious conservative organization headed by James Dobson.

A $3 bill was being sold at a booth operated by the Snohomish County Republican Party at the Evergreen State Fair in Washington state in August. Republican officials pulled the fake money from the booth when people's outrage became apparent, stating that the money was brought in by a volunteer. The $3 bill shows Barack Obama in a turban, with a camel emblem to the left. {see top}

A bar in Marietta, Georgia was selling t-shirts over the summer with a cartoon picture of a monkey eating a banana under which read "Obama in '08."



And there are many more items, instances, and incidences of the "isolated" and "unintentional" racism that lurks just beneath the surface of politics in this country, just waiting for an opportunity to make its presence felt. A quick google search will far too many examples of these things. And it points to a far larger problem than Americans are willing to openly admit. http://voices.yahoo.com/obama-bucks-obama-food-stamps-obama-waffles-da
rk-2068528.html

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The FCC decided to expand the 1996
Telecom Act of Clinton to include cell phones in 2008.

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