This thug had EBT card? I’m shocked ... SHOCKED!

Edwin Alemany is a career criminal and he had an EBT card.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

The Mass. Republican Party got it right in a tweet yesterday. Not everyone with an EBT card is a criminal, but it appears that every criminal has an EBT card.

Of course Gov. Deval Patrick would dismiss this as just another “anecdote.”

Please don’t ask why the state is supporting a guy who has 10 convictions at age 28, not to mention 52 citations on his CORI record. His welfare records are sealed, you understand. Alemany has his rights, after all. If you work for the state or the city, your salary is public record. If you live off the state, nobody can find out how much you’re collecting, unless you get lugged selling your EBT card.

This happened last October. Drug cops were patrolling the person-of-interest’s home, the Old Colony projects, when they spotted him leaning into a car and handing something to the driver. The cops moved in.

“The operator stated that the transaction was not a drug deal,” the cops wrote, “and further volunteered that he had purchased an EBT card from the white Hispanic male for $100.”

Another one of those white Hispanic males! That day he was selling a SNAP card — food stamps. The cops said “the EBT card was seized pending further investigation.”

How dare the cops relieve him of his EBT card? Now that was a hate crime.

From the moment this guy was identified last week, you knew he had an EBT card, didn’t you? Just like you knew about the Tsarnaevs. The key words with them were “political refugees.”

His neighbors in the projects said Alemany wasn’t a bad guy. Of course nobody seemed to recall him ever working, but Aunt Zeituni never broke a sweat either, did she? He just went fishing with his child (by a girlfriend, naturally, as opposed to a wife) and drank beer. But wait, you can’t buy alcohol with an EBT card anymore, can you?

No, you have to go to an ATM, get some cash and then walk back to the package store. The card he sold, of course, was just good for food. How much do you want to bet that he also had an EBT cash card? That’s where his beer money came from. That, and the muggings.

Just yesterday, the guy who sent me the $7,000 EBT card receipt that started Rep. Shaunna O’Connell’s campaign emailed me two more from the same store in Pittsfield.

One of the receipts, dated July 27, showed a balance of $5,993.81.

“I guess this means the holder will be getting a call from the DTA,” O’Connell said with a laugh when I showed her the bill. Remember, under the latest “reforms,” the DTA calls anyone with a balance over $5,000. Doesn’t take the card away or zero it out, just calls the layabout and gives them a heads-up.

One last thing. If Alemany called the welfare department last October to get his new EBT card, he didn’t have to pay a replacement fee. Everything is free in America.

Order Howie Carr’s new book “Rifleman” at howiecarrshow.com