NFL football icon Brett Favre is involved in a Mississippi welfare scandal — and it’s not pretty.
Politics :
Like most states, Mississippi earmarks a certain portion of its state budget for poor welfare recipients. However, the former Green Bay Packers quarterback apparently doesn’t think using those funds for the underprivileged is all that important or necessary. For you see, Brett Favre petitioned then-Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant to divert money from the public welfare fund in order to build his daughter an elite volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Can you spell PRIVILEGED?
Interestingly, investigative journalists uncovered text messages between Brett Favre and Gov. Bryant wherein Favre warned the governor to make sure their scheme wasn’t leaked to the media.
“So let me understand this right, the former Republican Gov of Mississippi Phil Bryant, multimillionaire Brett Favre and others made a scheme to funnel nearly $5M in welfare funds to build a new volleyball stadium at a college that Favre’s daughter played at? That is a crime yes?” a Twitter user asked upon hearing news of the welfare scandal.
Yes, one of the richest athletes in the world (who earned more than $140 million over 2 decades and millions more in product endorsements) looted nearly $77 million from one of the poorest states in the US — and the governor of Mississippi allowed it to happen.
So, how did the money get secretly moved, you ask?
The Mississippi governor used the welfare funds to pay Favre millions in 2017 and 2018 for “motivational speeches.” Favre then funneled the money to build his daughter a college stadium.
However, according to Mississippi state auditor Shad White, Favre never gave the speeches which prompted the state to demand the money back with interest. Although Favre has repaid the fees, he did not repay nearly $228,000 in interest as the auditor demanded.
“The notion of tens of millions of dollars that was intended by the country to go to the alleviation of poverty — and to see it going toward very different purposes — was appalling to many of us,” said attorney Brad Pigott, who was hired by state auditor White to investigate the mishandled funds — but was fired by the current GOP governor for apparently knowing too much. “Mr. Favre was a very great quarterback, but having been a great NFL quarterback, he is not well acquainted with poverty.”
“Governor Bryant gave tens of millions of dollars of this TANF welfare money to a nonprofit led by a person who he knew well and who had more connections with his political party than with the good people in Mississippi who have the heart and the skills to actually cajole people out of poverty or prevent teenage pregnancies,” Pigott added.
As expected, Brett Favre is (weakly) fighting back.
“I would never knowingly take funds meant to help our neighbors in need, but for Shad White to continue to push out this lie that the money was for no-show events is something I cannot stay silent about,” the NFL star tweeted.
Can you spell PRIVILEGED?
OK WASSUP! discusses Politics:
Brett Favre and the Mississippi welfare scandal.
You already said it right. This is nothing but white privilege. All that money needs to be paid back and somebody needs to go to jail.