… or why you should be.
Woman Gets Jail For Food-Stamp Fraud; Wall Street Fraudsters Get Bailouts by Matt Taibbi
Here’s another thing that boggles my mind: You get busted for drugs in this country, and it turns out you can make yourself ineligible to receive food stamps.
But you can be a serial fraud offender like Citigroup, which has repeatedly been dragged into court for the same offenses and has repeatedly ignored court injunctions to abstain from fraud, and this does not make you ineligible to receive $45 billion in bailouts and other forms of federal assistance. […]
Anita McLemore, meanwhile, lied to feed her children, gave back every penny of her “fraud” when she got caught, and is now going to do three years in prison. Explain that, Eric Holder!
Here are two unrelated stories, yet there is a connection…
Boy, 13, arrested for selling meth in Lincoln
A 13-year-old boy, not even 5 feet tall and less than 100 pounds, was arrested Wednesday night for selling methamphetamine. […]
According to court records, the boy sold two grams of meth to an undercover officer for $200 in a parking lot near First Street and Cornhusker Highway about 7 p.m. Wednesday.
11-year-old turns in parents for marijuana use
HASTINGS, Minn. — An 11-year-old Minnesota boy who says he was fed up with his mom and stepfather filling their home with marijuana smoke took photos of the drugs, which were then sent to police.
Drug agents served a search warrant on their home in Ravenna Township near Hastings last month and arrested Heidi Siebenaler, a Dakota County probation supervisor, and her husband, Mark Siebenaler.
These two young boys are both pawns in a vicious drug war that destroys families and ruins childhood.
“These two young boys are both pawns in a vicious drug war that destroys families and ruins childhood”.
Great and sad post Pete.
Teach your children well.
Crosby Stills and Nash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVaqZajq-I
HOLDER BONER ALERT,HOLDER BONER ALERT
What was that line in 1984 about parents being scared of their children for fear of being ratted out to the authorities.. and until then having to be ‘proud’ of their brainwashed kids as they were ‘doing the right thing’…
I believe it was the JUST SAY NO program.
Pavlik Morozov is alive and well and living in Minnesota.
Save the children,,as usual,,the ones hollering it are the ones we need to save the children from.
Any bets on how long it will be before Kerli heads to Switzerland with checkbook in hand?
I so wanted Greenwood to ask Walters how much it cost the US to get Holland to criminalize marijuana again.
And how long before Switzerland has to build fences around it’s borders,,to keep illegal American immigrants out?
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It won’t work there. The Swiss are smart enough to demand a certified check or a money order and the US has nothing but IOUs to pay with nowadays. That’s also presuming the farfetched notion that they’re available to enact stupidity as public policy for pay. It appears to me that the Swiss enjoy making things work.
I’m so outraged I’m going to sit at my keyboard and bitch about it.
Good for you. Cause if you sat in your kitchen and bitched at your coffeemaker, I’d have to have you committed.
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Cardboard signs are much more effective if they’ve been professionally produced and created by objective, research driven methods. I wonder if you’re aware of the fact that there were significant focus groups and research involved in the invention of the “will work for money or food god bless” sign? Of course the reason that you see them from coast to coast is because they’re time tested and very effective.
Check out our selection of cardboard signs for sale at http://www.outofwork-outoffood-outonthestreet.com. Don’t worry about it if you don’t have any spare money. Except for the US Federal Government and those people previously blacklisted, we offer a back end payment of a very reasonable percentage of funds generated to all of our customers. Even if you’re paying in full you should look at the back end percentage because you can actually tell which signs are the most effective because the better they work, the lower the commission percentage required for back end payment. You’ll have your pack of cigarettes and a bottle of cheap booze in your hands before you know it if you choose our signs. Spend less time on the corner panhandling and more time in your shanty or lean-to enjoying life.
We also offer a comprehensive selection of well researched political placards, but selections from that department require payment in full at time of purchase.
Hurry, between now and the end of the month we’re offering free shipping and a 3 for the price of 2 special in our selection of political placards.
I see sarcasm has served it’s sentence and is back on Pete’s couch. (I really try not to be a literal minded dipstick, but sometimes it just whistles past me and I don’t even seem to notice. No matter, I’ll try to keep up.)
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I have no clue if Mr. cardboard sign was using sarcasm or serious. My post was intended to make fun of his nonsense because I thought it a serious post as well. Minimization of the efforts of those on our side of the table is one of the Know Nothing prohibitionists’ more common strategies.
My cardboard sign company has been in business since 2008. I started it to ridicule those who thought that the American economy was incapable of collapse, primarily those who subscribe to the Austrian school and/or promote a bailment monetary system. The political placard division was just recently opened for very similar reasons. Diversification is the key to ongoing business success you know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailment
I just noticed that the website is down and I’m going to have to bitch to the hosting company. It’s obvious to me that they hate the homeless. Canceling an important social project’s website intended to directly empower the homeless and give them a choice of whether they want to be homeless or not is despised by the rich and powerful, particularly corporations. Non-payment of subscription fees is just a petty excuse to cover their true malignant intent.
Neither are people required to be domestically displaced individuals to use our signs. Quite a few of our customers are those who are barely able to keep up with the mortgage and the banksters have been sending ape like debt collectors out to break people’s legs if they can’t pay, and after going hat in hand to Uncle Sam for bailout money.
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Now seriously, if you think I’m kidding about the hourly potential of part time cardboard sign work you’re incorrect. I wasn’t kidding about the focus groups either. When I was doing forced volunteer work at the Salivation Army in 1992 there were a lot of cardboard sign owning drunks who would go there for some R&R and a tune up. That’s when I observed some of their focus groups in action, as they compared notes on wording which was most effective, wording to be avoided, and which tales generated the best revenue if one was to choose to directly interact with their potential benefactor. No fooling at all, “will work for money or food god bless” was born of these note trading sessions. Also, amputees make the best hourly despite the fact that they clearly qualify for public assistance for all basic needs. Hispanics make the least except in select areas because of the perception of being an unregistered guest coupled with the not uncommon irrational hatred of what the haters call “illegal immigration.”
I’d work part time with a cardboard sign but the thought of interacting with so many people makes me want to run and hide under the back porch. $50 an hour with easy income tax evasion is tempting, but not that tempting.
Yes, I got that, your liberal use of it was what I was referring to.
I’m really shocked that nobody “liked” my response…I thought it was a work of art. But then I’m a head shrinker and a wonk. But you gotta admit…”bitching to you coffeemaker” was a gem.
Awww, c’mon…..
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OK, I’m not getting it. I’m drawing a blank as devoid of understanding as that of a prohibitionist’s ganglion net.
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I stopped at the gas station about 2:30 AM but it seems that the cashier’s clock was showing 4:20. It brought back fond memories because in the days before student loans on the government’s guarantee I found that midnight shift in a gas station was a low stress job with lots of time to read, study, play guitar, smoke pot and take a nap.
Good times indeed.
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How did these people frame the question?
Why am I the only one who thinks stuff is funny?
And as far as that goes, that’s the same question I asked over at the NORML blog. CBS was the same agency that found the slim majority support the last time around. I’m guessin It’s an anomaly.
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Gosh, of all the people here, you’re the one that should know that when ponies are in a hurry they don’t CBS, they Gallup, duh.
*rimshot* followed by “Shave and a haircut…”
The only crimes that carry lifelong sentences are sex offenses and drug offenses. And even sex offenders can get Food Stamps. What boggles MY mind is how many people still don’t know this.
“These two young boys are both pawns in a vicious drug war that destroys families and ruins childhood.”
One sold drugs and one reported drug-users. The police would tell us the first was evil and the second was a saint.
In five years, which boy will be ruined and which will be OK?
My money says the boy who turned in his parents will be ruined or dead by suicide. You can’t get betrayal out of your head once in there, and it bangs around and creates a mess.
Of course, the other kid will probably be in jail or dead. But his head will still be screwed on straighter than the boy who put his own Mom in jail. Tragic.
@ I’m so angry — Some of us do a lot more than sit at keyboards and bitch. The keyboard-bitching IS important, however, because it actually INFORMS other people while they’re in a position to check facts AND it lets people who sometimes feel very much like voices crying in the wilderness that they are not so alone. (What difference do YOU make?)
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If you have no facts with which to argue, ad hominems seem to be the preferred choice of idiots. One that seems to have been recently adopted by the Know Nothings is to attempt to denigrate people with whom they disagree by pointing out that their “source” of information is Google. This one joins the stable of Know Nothing approved ad hominems in the same category as claiming that a person or corporation which supports cannabis/drugs law reform has no credibility simply because they “believe the wrong thing.” This from the same people who genuflect at the altar of ONDCP/addictionologist credibility. But calling Google a “source” is arguably the most idiotic thing that’s ever come out of a Know Nothing’s mouth in the entire recorded history of the idiocy of prohibitionism. This one is so stupid it’s mind boggling.
It’s only correlation but it’s very interesting that it was after the advent of the Internet and its becoming a ubiquitous tool of communication that support for cannabis law reform has increased by almost 2/3rds, with that happening after having seeing public support for cannabis law reform languishing more or less unchanged in the high 20s/low 30s for decades and decades. I’m going to continue posting facts and opinion in support of cannabis law reform and to denigrate the idiocy of embracing the use of proven failure as a platform for the creation of public policy.
FYI, the link to the meth-selling boy is broken! I googled it: http://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/boy-arrested-for-selling-meth-in-lincoln/article_16aade8d-4ef0-5669-8c85-a82f49284217.html
Thanks, Paul. Fixed now.
The flawed governance running through the three examples is none other than creeping fascism.
In Nazi Germany, someone who broke the law was adjudicated based on who and what they were. Jews, Gypsies, the poor, the disenfranchised, drug users and addicts, the handicapped, jazz lovers, artists, certain intellectuals, people who named their dog Adolph, were all on the Nazi’s hit list.
And it wasn’t just Nazi Germany. In the United States, along with racism and forced sterilizations, there was a 1920s fundamentalist Christian political movement targeting what was called ‘jazz-age morality’ that accompanied the Red Scare. The infamous Harry J. Anslinger belonged to that cadre. One Anslinger biographer characterized the über-prohibitionist as a kind of proto-Jerry-Falwell.
Age and naiveté usually doesn’t matter in these cases. Under Nazi rule, depending on who someone might be, people were executed for stealing two bars of soap, or a coat. If one Nazi officer stabbed to death another Nazi in a bar over some raucous political dispute, the surviving Nazi was set free for defending the Fatherland. And of course, children were encouraged to rat out their parents and anyone else.
Fascism creeps like a poisonous snake. A mongoose’s level of awareness and intent is needed to destroy it. The same is true for prohibition.
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Wow, before today I thought that food stamps went away with any felony conviction. But I’m thinking that it just wouldn’t be a brilliant idea to tell a guy that was convicted of armed robbery, burglary or various other violent felonies to starve (eat cake?) after he gets out of prison and can’t find work because he was in prison. Once they starve to death, no more violent felonies, right?
Want to be even more outraged? It appears that food stamp ineligibility for drug felonies isn’t limited to the person with the conviction but also to members of their household. See linked PDF. California will let you back in if you complete a government certified re-education program and doesn’t exclude people convicted before August 22, 1996. I expect that is the date that the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 took effect.
http://www.cdss.ca.gov/Forms/English/FS26.PDF
Thanks Mr. Clinton! Why yes, the Democrats are our friends. Yes Congress was Republican controlled but they didn’t have a veto proof majority.
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I’m kind of amazed, both Arizona and Indiana have passed laws “opting out” and ineligibility only applies to those who have not completed their sentence. Amazing because both are foaming at the mouth prohibitionist controlled States in my mind.
15 States plus DC have completely “opted out”. Well at least some places think forced starvation isn’t an appropriate punishment.
As of 12/31/2010: http://www.lac.org/toolkits/TANF/TANF.htm
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You call that outrageous? Shirley, you jest. Now this is outrageous:
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/lists/50-top-grossing-non-profit-hospitals-in-america.html
I feel like calling them up and offering a directed donation if a partial would work. O- makes me almost a universal donor, it seems only some obscure blood types found in some Jews and Gypsies are incompatible. Well at least for bone marrow. I’ll bet you didn’t know that Hasidic Jews and Gypsies are related peoples.
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Well that was the wrong link. The one above is just reference material that Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles is a non-profit concern which reported $7.99 billion in revenue in 2010. It might have something to do with the story linked below. Ewebee the judge.
http://www.theweedblog.com/la-hospital-denying-transplant-to-medical-marijuana-patient/
My humblest apologies for the confusion.
Here’s another name to add to the list of people denied life saving transplants for marijuana use:
EARL TERRY. Of Bellingham Washington. Also denied a liver transplant. Earl is a VN Vet who served multiple tours in country and in combat with the First Air Cav. My friend, and somebody who through careful living and cannabis use, has outlived the Doctor’s prognosis by twice. And If I meet the somebitch who denied Earl that surgery I’ll strangle him to death with my own hands.
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Did you notice that the man in the story was not just denied a transplant by the Cedars-Sinai Transplant Department, he got his recommendation from his oncologist at the same hospital?
I doubt my liver would qualify because of a nasty injury in 1987 and I’m almost 3000 miles distant. A publicized directed donation could go a long way if presented correctly. I think I’m going to at least send a note to ASA suggesting the idea. Then again I’m not sure if I could deal with being told I don’t qualify again if the man ends up dead.
Oh well, at least I got to ream Dennis Romero again because of it.
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/11/marijuana_liver_transplant_ced.php
There’s that total ignorance that says that cannabis requires smoking. Hey I thought they transplanted in previously owned organs, where the heck would they get a new liver? Yeah, medically supervised cannabis use by a patient at death’s door is substance abuse. How do these people sleep at night? Vodka? Ambien? Both?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aclS1pGHp8o
You knew this was coming.
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Believe it or not if I’d seen that clip before I had totally forgotten it. Quite frankly that one’s in the “that’s not funny, that’s sick” category. Legless frog on a skateboard panhandling outside of a French restaurant indeed.
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That clip did give me a flashback to the time when I torqued a poor lady CSR at the MVA when I was getting my MD license re-issued after moving back east. She asked me, “Do you want to be an organ donor?” I responded, “No way, who the heck would want to do that?” She then goes into a sales pitch, lots of people yadda yadda yadda, but I interrupt and tell her she didn’t have to sell me, go ahead and sign me up. Now the lady is totally flustered and clueless and I don’t think she understood that you have to be dead to be an organ donor, and I’m sure not volunteering to get croaked on purpose. Do I want to? No way. Will I consent to be one? I’ve never been a guy to waste perfectly usable stuff.
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Say, I wonder if you realize why we employ a socialistic organ “donation” system which creates a thriving black market in the US rather than a capitalist system which allows supply to meet demand in a regulated retail distribution system? Forget about all the bleeding heart bullshit about ethics and keeping poor people from selling their kidneys to fund a crack binge. If there were a regulated market the health insurance companies would be on the hook for the cost of the organs, and certain parts can run into 6 figures. Livers are a great example. Some people just can’t live without one. But for all the machismo in the US I’ve never heard of anyone in the market for a testicle. Perhaps because they’re not for sale at any price? Perhaps it’s just one of those “fear of being queer” guy things?
BTW, I presume that the people denied access to the transplant list don’t have the money to travel to South America and buy the part needed, because I know that needed parts are available there for a price. The price tag above isn’t accurate there, you get a lot more bang for your health care buck in a place like Argentina for example. But I somehow think that isn’t an opportunity that anyone with the available funds would miss. No or not much of a waiting list either. Money talks you know.
Earl does not have the money to travel to see his family in the State next door. He’s been living on VA and disability since the day he was discharged. Earl gave everything to the service, literally.
Parents being denounced to the man over MJ is not new. It seems that the German state of Hesse is a freer entity than America. There although not legal there is no vindictive prosecutions of MJ. There is also no drug testing for benefits there, they willingly abstain from point#13 of the NSM 25 point program for governance. I used to think Minnesota was more progressive, how presumptuous of me.