Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 26, 2012

Dollar a day… lol.

“Earnest money.” Ray doesn’t have much, but he feels the need to prove he’s no freeloader.

If the check doesn’t clear, the bank’ll charge a $63 overdraft fee.

@Travis Bickel

I owe you a proper reply to your reply to my reply a few days ago, but probably won’t get to it this week. (Won’t agree with 90-95% of it.) What’s an OBAMAPHONE? I know telephone, microphone, and Anglophone, but not that one.

I could only pay $100 last month to my friend. Before that I spent about a month living in a storage unit. (It had power inside and a water spigot outside, so it could have been worse.)

“Where’s the Bank of The Nile?”

Many of them find it difficult to find work since their in service training, eg medic, doesn’t count for jobs,eg. EMT. Still more lost their jobs despite a promise to hold them until they returned from much longer service stints then were ever originally intended. My next door neighbor was lucky enough to have a job when he left and have his boss hold it for him through three tours. Honor such as that on both sides would serve the country well.

Ray reps another kind of soldier, one damaged and in need of repair BEFORE he will find meaningful work. They need to be treated. I hope there is general agreement on that need and no whining about other areas of health care for the term of the comic’s focus. DOD can syphon some money from drones focus on returning their warriors to health.

I’ll buy that.

No, wait, I can’t. That $100 was all I had until next month. And then I get only $200.

“Obamaphone” is a term, often used pejoratively to refer to a program (actually introduced during the BUSH administration) to provide basic (minimal) cell phone service for poor people. One chief aim is to make sure they are able to contact emergency services when needed. These are also called “Lifeline” phones. See http://obamaphone.net/

Another rerun week, until GT can draw new strips, post election.

Cashing the check could legally make evicting him (if necessary) more difficult.

Take the check.Let the man have his dignty.Then send it through the grinder when hes out of earshot.

Yes, this is a rerun.

1.DavyG said, about 5 hours ago@Travis BickelI owe you a proper reply to your reply to my reply a few days ago, but probably won’t get to it this week. (Won’t agree with 90-95% of it.) What’s an OBAMAPHONE? I know telephone, microphone, and Anglophone, but not that one._______________________________________________Dave,An Obamaphone is the street name for a free full featured cell phone with a couple of hundred monthly minutes provided free of charge by the cell phone providers. The providers are reimbursed by the federal government. The program is also known as a part of the “free sh$t” from the feds and you got my vote if you keep the “free sh$t” coming. Basically anyone that qualifies for public assistance qualifies for the free phone. You will see a lot of stuff about Lifeline and Bush associated with the Obamaphone but please do your own research for the facts. The facts are Lifeline originated under Sir Ronnie in 1984. The program was a federal program to subsidize the installation of a land line and about $9 a month for the monthly phone bill. The good intention was to provide a Lifeline for 911 and other essential services. So far so good. Now fast forward to a good thing gone bad and morphed into totally free cell phones and a huge market the providers mine like it was gold. Payment by the feds is guaranteed by the full faith and trust of a loan provided by the Chinese government. In recent years there has been an explosion to 12.5 million cell phones, ergo Obamaphones. An added bonus is a person that can show qualification can obtain a free phone from multiple providers and then exchange the phones for cash, black tar or a few bindles. No wonder folks risk death to come to America

my best friend, PTSD Vet, cannot get his finances together, cannotwillnot work.. he lives in a timewarp, continues to do penance for his lost comrades, refuses all medical help, loathe himself for depending on others, and continues as a soldier who has seen quite through the commercial country he gave his peace, sleep & sanity for. most patriotic person I’ve ever known. “Already dead” – like the Denis Johnson novel’s hero.

Go to Thinkprogress for info on Wphones

In 3 states we can get these phones from Assurance.http://voices.yahoo.com/assurance-wireless-free-cell-phone-200-free-6806658.html

In Sir Ronnie’s era, the phones were landline phones, so kinda different from our more common cell phones we see today. Many folks are abandoning landline phones today.

If you are on a budget and have to choose one or the other, a cell phone seems more practical.

Try lining up a job without a phone. No doubt it’s possible, but it adds several degrees of difficulty to an already-difficult task.

A dollar a day? That’s what the Army pretty much pays our military personnel, at least the lower ranks (better known as “grunts”). So, $63 is a about two months pay for Ray!

Yes, update the GI bill.

I’d like to point out that the newer phones available now make the “free” phones look like (small) dinosaurs. Someone mentioned “full features”, but bear in mind that it just means caller ID, voice mail, etc. these are not fancy touch screens, or anything like that. One does not get to select a model. They are simple, no frills bar phones.

mercedes said, about 3 hours ago

@Travis Bickel

u r i d ot_________________________________Real nice intellegent reply. Go back to your cave______________________

But, but, but, that woman on tv said Obama gave them all phones, so it must be true!(And BTW, it’s “intelligent”.)

A microcosm of those who believe illegals actually pay enough per-capita taxes to pay for their drain on taxpayers.

Uncle Joe said, 40 minutes ago

@Travis Bickel

Get your facts straight:

Lifelink aka “Obamaphone” is NOT paid for by tax dollars or money borrowed from China. The telecomm companies pay for the program and provide free phones the same way they do for regular subscribers to their service. They like the program, because most people wind up using more minutes than they get for free. It’s a money maker for the cell companies.

Some companies use “Obamaphone” in their marketing because no one wants a “Bushphone” or a “Reaganphone”. The only thing Obama has done with Lifelink, is ask the FCC to crack down on fraud and people getting multiple phones per household.

Poor old Uncle Joe,If you believe the the cell providers do this stuff for free I have a very nice bridge for sale only for you. In addition if you think America is not borrowing $$ from China I have a bonus of two bridges for sale onlu for you.

I don’t know, but he my have just been playing the “republican” card.

Whoever said, “Only the victors write the histories,” was wrong. Or at least out of date. W. Bush, C. Rice, D. Cheney, D. Rumsfeld, et al., set us up for what is in reality a loss in Iraq. They also set us up for an upcoming loss in “the graveyard of empires” Afghanistan.

It is these losers — not the boots on the ground of the Rays, the BDs and the Toggels — who are now attempting to write the history.

But if you accept the John McCain definition of victory, then you must accept the definition of defeat in these two wars.

Vietnam redux.

“Only people who care and study the issues should be voting otherwise all you have is “one thousand monkeys on one thousand typewriters…””

Can’t accept the fact that Bronco Obama beat Willard Rmoney, eh?

Well, it appears that these “monkeys” [voters] are a gosh-darn-it-all-to-heck smarter than UR.

I am afraid that when the “illegals” aka human beings, leave, we will starve to death under leaky roofs.

Thanks. The other ridiculous claim is that Obama “bought” votes with free phones and foodstamps. People who got free phone service and foodstamps were still free to vote for Romney. It isn’t just that they saw tangible benefits for voting for Obama, they strongly feel that the GOP offers nothing for them. The party of Lincoln has lost the minority vote because they do not support anything that helps someone born poor, to get ahead. Republicans win elections based on getting white voters to believe the Government is giving “others” handouts. These people sincerely believe the Government aid they and those like them receive, is earned and deserved. They ignore the promises implicit in the Ryan plan, because Ryan was canny enough not to connect the dots for voters.

Last year, states like Georgia and Alabama paid the price when they enacted tougher immigration policies. Their farmers had rotting food left in the field and rising food prices for consumers. Not such a good deal.

I prefer cash.

Having a hissy fit over the “illegals” isn’t going to help anyone. I am sure that the farmers would love to have folks from the US tending their fields, but if this can’t happen then they have to have a way to get the job done one way or the other. Also, we have had 2 instances in our family where we had to replace a roof on 2 different houses due to hailstorms. In both cases, everyone in the neighborhood had to have their roofs replaced. None of the workers (roofers) were not Latinos, in both neighborhoods. None of them were English speaking. Nobody asked any questions. Were any of them illegal? We didn’t know or care nor did anyone else. We needed new roofs. We were told by our roofers that they had to use the workforce which was available to them. Roofing is hard, dangerous work. It may pay more than tending a field, but if a worker had fallen off the roof, it would have been a tragedy. It was quite the experience to see theses amazing guys, crawling around on top of our roofs like insects! We were told they were insured in case of injury.There are many difficult jobs of this kind out there and the world is far more complicated than just writing off people who are considered “illegal.” I know the right wing doesn’t like nuanced answers, but sometimes the world is a little more complicated than any of us would like.

In all seriousness, you are a hero, too!

I dont think that Gweedo’s point is valid. Who decides if someone is “qualified” to vote? We shouldn’t go back to the olden days when there were unanswerable questions for voters to answer, as in the days of Jim Crow. Voter suppression is not the way to go. No one said anyone has to vote a certain way in order to be qualified to vote, but we don’t want to place obstacles in the way of voters. That is a very bad idea. It is shameful that the GOP keeps trying to find ways to keep people from voting. Both sides should support as many as possible eligible voters voting, however it falls, right or left. We want to ROCK THE VOTE, not BLOCK THE VOTE!

obamaphone,or otherwise, when someone takes from me to Give to someone else,its called theft, robin hood was a thief,

and all cellphones are required to be able to call 911 with or without service, I shouldnt have to pay for parasites to yap

Point well taken.There are other ways to return the funds.

When I worked as a roofer, I had no insurance. I never fell off a roof, though I came terrifyingly close a few times. But I did fall THROUGH a hole in an unfinished, flat cafeteria roof (of a high-school boarding “academy”, read high school). Fortunately there was a high pile of sand directly under my feet. If I had landed on a stack of cement block or high-fired clay brick, I would probably have been killed, or at least seriously injured.

I don’t think just letting illegals in to take up all of our jobs is right. Sorry.

I do not believe my (mis)perceptions are popular.