It appears that not all apples are alike when it comes to food stamps. Tracy Browning, 38, of Louisville has been arrested for trying to buy several iPads with food stamps. After she was turned away by the Apple store and fled, she then tried to make the same purchase at a second Apple store.
Browning went first to the Valley Station Walmart and tried to purchase two iPads with an Electronic Benefit Transfer card. When she was barred from using the food stamps, she is accused of assaulting one store clerk and pushing another to the floor. She then fled with the iPads. Not satisfied, she allegedly then went to another Walmart and tried to buy several iPads with the EBT card. She was arrested while trying to flee from the store. She is now charged with robbery, shoplifting and trespassing.
Source: Philly
The title had me wondering why she would be arrested for ‘trying’ to do this. I imagine had she succeeded the store would have been the one in trouble for accepting them.
I ‘friend” huckabee on facebook to read the claptrap he puts out (and so I can reply though I doubt my words heard or even seen). Today he went on a screed about how welfare recipients get more money then any working poor family. From the read of it it is not quite the welfare queen in a limo Reagan fraud but enough to rile up his Fox listeners. He took a story, from somewhere, he never gives cites, that says “Last month, the Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal year 2011, between food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid and other benefits, the average US household below the poverty line received $168 a day in government support. What’s the problem with that much support? Well, the median household income in America is just over $50,000, which averages out to $137.13 a day. To put it another way, being on welfare now pays the equivalent of $30 an hour for a 40-hour week, while the average job pays $25 an hour. And the person who works also has to pay taxes, which drops his pay to $21 an hour. It’s no wonder that welfare is now the biggest part of the budget, more than Social Security or defense. And why would anyone want to get off welfare when working pays $9 an hour less? ”
Forget it is average amount, 7 days breakdown (apparently vs 5 but he doesnt bother with that math or whether true or not, since he does.
It makes a good story and makes people hate those who need assistance, those lazy bums, none of whom are single mothers with no one to help, elderly, disabled, etc. A bum is a bum is a bum. Just like this lady in the story.
Why would she be arrested? The whole idea of a legal system is to find any contrived reason to arrest anyone for anything. The person that arrests whoever is acting like a religious person arresting Jesus. Jesus did not arrest anyone. We for our souls sake should not arrest anyone. To arrest is to make the person arresting feel better than the one arrested. The devil is in that.
Arresting itself needs to be outlawed. Arresting only gives what the devil has, and that is guilt. Arresting does not give what Jesus gives. We must have him in us saving our soul to even be able to give what Jesus gives.
Bron, Absolutely. I know folks who go in on whole cows and pigs w/ a couple other families. You got to have a big freezer is all. And, what’s nice about that beyond the price is you know where the livestock were raised. You get to buy them from people you get to know and trust vis a vis hormones, feed, etc.
NICK:
yes, that would be a good use of the money. and she could have gotten the meat for something less than $2/pound buying it that way.
Even a couple of families on food stamps going in on a whole cow and splitting it is an efficient use of the money given to them by the tax payers.
Bron, I would encorage people on food stamps to buy a half of cow and freeze it for personal use. Saying she was using it for a party was akin to this woman’s stupidity.
Blustering defense attorneys would often say in plea negotiations, “My client would have to be very stupid to have done[fill in the blank]. A sharp as hell, tough female prosecutor I worked for would always reply, “Counselor, we are not required to prove your client smart, only guilty.”
Truth about how Americans perceive things like “Food Stamps” poor people, iCons like Apples, and cant distinguish the apples from the oranges.
Number One. The first paragraph is contradicted by the rest of the article. There is no “Apple Store”. She went into a Walmart to the computer dept. Number Two. There are no “food stamps” in America. The states issue credit cards for the purchase of food– and only certain items of food to poor people who sign up for the program and qualify.
Number Three: She is arrested for assault and for robbery.
The food stamps which didnt exist had nothing to do with it. But the words are used to denigrae poor people and minorities. THAT might be a topic for the commenters to comment on here JR. What time night did you write this article? Keep your apples and oranges straight.
I know a farmer in West VA who has a market/restaurant where the family sells the farm production to the locals. She was telling me about the welfare queen (white) who used her monthly allocation of food stamps to buy a quarter of a cow for a party. The farmer called the food stamp agency and asked about it and was told no problem, go ahead and sell the beef to her.
It is too bad these programs are abused to this extent; there would be more for people who could really use the money and who might be more respectful of its origins.
Raul Castro is dismantling government sector jobs in Cuba due to abuse. When people know something will be given to them, there isnt much incentive to either work or be a good steward of the beneficence of others.
This lady is nothing compared to the banks.
Nationalize the failing ones if there is something worth saving.
Otherwise let them fall.
Economic collapes? BS.
The finance world always find a new gig. And the investors have their end covered by hedging and spreading their investments.
Spend your dime on education and programs with teeth. No study, no food stamps.
Going to the social support today in Spain. 80,000 have been getting food packets from the Red Cross InternationaL. This a first IRC says, and they expect this will spread to other southern EU countries. Greece next, where the local org. is broke now. And has no money for food packet.
IRC expects food riots etc next. In their estimation, it was not freedom which was the prime mover in Egypt, but high food prices and reduced subsidies on base foodstuffs.
What happened to social security? It went up in smoke in face of over the cliff reductions in taxes and benefits. Hope you get a better deal from Congress.
Ms. Browning is also listed on Mugshots.com The story appears to be all too true. Not amazing-hardly that, just true.
Dredd,
You will work for an iPad, Apparently, Some don’t want too!
I’m leaning towards Truely’s take on this.
“Several” iPads? Anyone want to take a guess how many of even the cheapest iPads you could buy on the maximum amount of food assistance somebody can get?
Unless a reputable news organization picks up the story my guess is that this is a wingnut generated urban legend that will be making the rounds in emails every election year in perpetuity.
Will work for iPad …
They always manage to take something and through their own stupidity graduate it up to a felony.
Yep, ipad and the felony charge are more important apparently than buying food. Idiots like this would starve if they had to live on the frontier and fend for themselves.
OK, I’m now officially calling shenanigans on this story. Philly.com picked it up after it was picked up by…Fox News (which no doubt pounced on it for its outrageous “welfare queen ” angle). And where did Fox News get it from? This bastion of journalistic integrity…”The Weekly Vice,” a compendium of “crime, politics, naughty teachers and other social insanity”:
http://www.theweeklyvice.com/2012/12/tracy-browning-jailed-after-repeatedly.html
Given that there’s not a single link or direct quote in the article connecting it to actual events in Louisville, one has to wonder how much attention was paid to ensuring its legitimacy before this harbinger of “seriously messed up news” ran with it. And it sure did draw a lot of comments…most of them from conservatives griping about how horrible it is that their taxpayer dollars are being used by welfare queens to buy iPads who apparently are too greedy to be satisfied with their already ill-gotten “Obama Phones.” .
Of course, we KNOW why Fox News ran with it…nuff said.
Besides, those Apples already have a bite out of them. Yuck.
No worries, raff. You saved me from having to say it. 😀
Aw, c’mon. Is anybody really this dumb? If Ronald Reagan wasn’t dead I’d swear he had invented her. Sounds like an updated version of his mythical “welfare queen.” Oh, no, wait, in Reagan’s version of the story, she actually would’ve been sold the iPads. You know, just to get all of us not on food stamps upset with the idea that those ghetto trash people are using our hard-earned taxpayer dollars to buy iPads we can’t afford ourselves.
To quote a famous American, “Stupid is as stupid does”! Sorry Gene! 🙂