For Everything Else, There's FEMA Debit Cards

On the quickly abandoned FEMA debit card welfare program, I had this ridiculously obvious observation to make last week:

So, these cards could also be used for cigarettes, liquor, and iPods?

Where do I sign up?

Well, here's one I hadn't considered (from the Cape Cod TImes).

As state police continued to screen the 200-plus Katrina survivors living at Camp Edwards for criminal histories, six known male sex offenders remain among the residents of a dormitory housing single men.

[snip]

The evacuees were not screened before leaving New Orleans.

Another evacuee, John Kitchens, 46, was arrested Thursday night on a fugitive-from-justice warrant, arraigned in Falmouth District Court, and held on $250,000 bail. He remained at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility last night.

Cummings confirmed Kitchens had several hundred dollars in his possession at the time, some of it stuffed in his underwear. Cummings also confirmed that Kitchens sought to bail himself out with a debit card issued by the federal government.

Shocking.