Evacuees Using Debit Cards to Buy Expensive Designer Goods?!!

[elehhhhna]

NOT! Fauxnews has repeated several times today that "people bought $800 Vuitton Handbags" with their debit cards.

Sept. 5, 2005, 3:01PM
Knockoffs seized by Customs going to victims
Associated Press


WASHINGTON — The Yves St. Laurent and Tommy Hilfiger labels may be phony, but the thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims getting knockoff items seized by federal customs officials probably don't mind.

Displaced survivors in the Houston Astrodome can choose from counterfeit and abandoned clothing, toys, and even dog food.

More than 100,000 items were quickly taken from warehouses and more will follow, said Kristi Clemens, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection division.

The agency has some 1 million items stored, and Customs officials are going through their inventory to see what else would be useful. While the initial shipment went to Texas, officials are looking toward a wider distribution, Clemens said.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3340305

E.mail the above link to fox if you please--

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77538,00.html

[annabanana]

1. fox lies. they lie all the time. they lie on behalf of the admin.

they lie for money and influence.

[hardrainfallin]

15. Who fucking cares what the money is being spent

on?

People are throwing around billions and trillions at the drop of the hat (bridges to nowhere in Alaska!) and a King Kong-sized handful of "po ' black folk" (who don't know how to handle money anyway ), after 5-6 days with no food, water, bedding, supplies, or hope; standing in human excrement, watching people die around them....well....fuck it, if one of those women went out to buy herself a nice outfit at Saks (and she wouldn't get very far on two grand at Saks) I say: you go girl! And if I had it to spend, I'd give her another two grand to boot.

Here's part of the scam: to the Bushcos and the elite, 2K is a moderate daily BUDGET for chrits'sake. It is nothing to them. They'd drop that much for a bottle of wine at dinner. But they know (and this is how their stinking recruiting plans work) to most americans--even well into the middle class--2K is a reasonable amt of money; to folks in the working and welfare classes, it's one hell of a wad.
Well, it ain't.
Aint shit.
The 2K debit card should be seen as a less than adequate gesture of goodwill by way of saying, We are really, really sorry to have put you through this.

I hope there are conscientious, kind-harded lawyers out there following the evacuees around, offering their services in the nasty, nasty beaurocratic nightmare the "powers that pee" are about to visit upon the evacuees.

Have there been any legal assistance centers set up for evacuees? I think they're going to need em.

[Nite Owl]

2. Why do they even have to pay for

seized items? Not like it could be sold anywhere, they should be giving it to some organization for free distribution and let them use the money for rent or bus fares somewhere.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. I wasn't aware that the survivors had to approve their purchases with

the rightwing fascists at faux. Fuck faux. Fuck every last one of them. Fuck them up the ass with an $800 Vuitton Handbag. Sorry. My outrage just boiled over again.

[elehhhhna]

12. please hit the link--you can email them w/o filling out anything.

it's easy...

These people don't deserve to be lied about--this is Houston, not Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The victims are being demonized.

[rodeodance]

16. oh my gawd. as if these people do not have enough problems.

[ultraist]

4. Faux lies about faux Louis bags. lol

I'm so sick of the "welfare queen" myth. Black women are the poorest segment of our society due to intersectional identity: Black & female. Double whammied.

More victimize the victim BS spews from Faux.

[ThoughtCriminal]

5. No - Sounds like they are confiscating donated goods

Ed: Oops - no they are using confiscated counterfeit goods As donations.

Didn't they kill the Debit Card idea?

[NYCGirl]

9. I think that it's previously confiscated counterfeit goods that they're

giving out.

[LostinVA]

23. That is what it is -- my mom heard it yesterday, NOT on Fox

Customs seizes a zillion tons of fake designer goods every year. The gov't is actually doing something right!

[Zenlitened]

10. That's how I read it, too.

:)

[Mutley]

6. If this is true, why is Faux the only ones reporting it?

Everyone knows they make up stories.

[SemperEadem]

7. Fox is just pissed that they survived

the story is most likely an incendiary lie, told to provoke those who haven't the capacity for discernment and investigation to run around screaming like their heads are on fire.

[charlie]

8. Ah, return of the Welfare Queen

Wingers never get tired of that story. Used to hear it when I was a kid -- back then it was tumbledown shacks with color teevees and Cadillacs. They hate being caricatured as Bible-thumping rednecks, but eat this shit up like popcorn. Fucking idiots.

[Skittles]

11. I heard it was fur coats and Cadillacs

it is so tired

[elehhhhna]

13. Please Nom this thread. This b.s. reporting needs to stop NOW

[FreedomAngel82]

14. Oh yes

I'm sure people who have no clothes or food or anything to their name anymore went out and bought a designer Goochi purse. :eyes: How dumb do they think people are?

[Garbo 2004]

18. It's how dumb & uninformed they think (know) their main audience is.

And it's Fox's job to keep them that way.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

17. I'm confused

I thot they were giving those items away? Who BOUGHT the handbag?

[Garbo 2004]

19. Fox is full of shit. It's propaganda. n/t

[teach1st]

20. I think Fox might be reporting from this NY Daily News Story..

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/345030p-294601c.html

Lavish tastes of card-carrying lowlifes

Profiteering ghouls have been using debit cards distributed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - intended to buy essentials for evacuated families - in luxury-goods stores as far away as Atlanta.

"We've seen three of the cards," said a senior employee of the Louis Vuitton store at the Lenox Square Mall in affluent Buckhead, who asked not to be named. "Two I'm certain have purchased; one actually asked if she could use it in the store. This has been since Saturday."

The distinctive white cards were distributed by the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and carry a value of up to $2,000.

"It doesn't say anything on the card other than alcohol, tobacco and firearms cannot be purchased with it," the store employee told me. "There's nothing legally that prevents us from taking it, unfortunately. Other than morally, it's wrong."

[tallahasseedem]

21. It doesnt sound to me as if they are buying it....

rather that it is being given to them.

[JNelson6563]

22. I think it's so cool

that they're giving this stuff to Katrina Survivors! It may be knock offs but it's brand new and probably pretty stylish. I am sure they are veyr grateful for everything people are giving them but when you have only hand-me-downs, brand new anything is pretty special.

Julie