Obama Say Reach Out And TOUCH Someone

The now SCRUBBED image that was still displayed on the “obamaphone.net” site as of 9/28/2012. H/T Philosophical Fragments-Timothy Dalrymple

Posted by William A. Jacobson    Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 6:55pm

As long time readers know, I have been searching for a unified theory of race card players.

It seems too simplistic to view people like Chris Matthews as liars.  It’s not that they lie about facts, it’s that facts are irrelevant.  Everything becomes racist or at least a racist dog whistle, based solely upon the political advantage to be gained.

It’s what’s so maddening.

Prof J. goes on to quote Harry G. Frankfurt (WHAT a name, eh?)  about the art of Bullshitting – well worth reading.

Speaking of bullshit, I read the blog-like informational site “obamaphone.net”.  That’s the website which used to be festooned with obama’s likeness in the screenshot above, making that little hand gesture for “call me” – but is now scrubbed of all but boring text which I took the trouble to skim on your behalf kittens.

One “page” in particular caught my attention. 

Who Pays for the Obama Phone?

Posted on December 2, 2011

Now, my version of that -

Facts about the Lifeline phone assistance program (Free Obama Phone)

Some people claim that the government is using taxpayer’s money to run this program, however, the claim is false.

The Universal Service Fund (USF) is the source of money on which the Lifeline phone assistance program runs.

According to the Telecommunication Act of 1996, telecommunication service providers are obliged to contribute a portion of their interstate and international telecommunications revenues.  For example: paging service providers, wireless telephone companies, wire-line telephone companies, and Voice over Internet Protocol service providers.

Although Federal Communication Commissions, which administers the program, doesn’t require this charge to be passed to the customers, paying customers will find a line item named ‘Universal Service’ on their telephone bills. This is because telecom companies choose to collect the amount they need to contribute to Universal Service Fund, from their (paying) subscribers.  These charges appear as a percentage of the original phone bill.

Lifeline customers (free obama phone) are exempt from these charges.

The percentage of contribution of the telecom companies (via their paying customers) is renewed (reviewed?) every quarter depending on the demand of the Universal Service Fund.   (So kittens – that means that the more obama phones given out the higher that “Universal Service” fee on YOUR phone bill will be.)

Here’s the flow…………….

All contributions ARE FUNDED BY paying telecom customers (taxpaying consumers being me & you) by a “fee” attached to their bill.  -  Those “fees” are collected by the Telecommunication Companies that we pay to provide service to us.  -   Our “fees” monies are collected and forwarded to the Universal Service Fund (this “Fund” is where obamaphone.net tries to imply the money originates)  -  THEN a program Administered (but NOT funded) by, The Federal Communication Commission along with the Universal Service Administration Company uses the magical non-taxpayer money that mysteriously appeared in the USF coffers  tooooooooooo-  give “free obama phones” to recipients.

Like we didn’t know that?

2012-09-30 16:40:04

Source: http://myveryownpointofview.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/obama-say-reach-out-and-touch-someone/