What's Even Worse is that They are Fucking Proud of It . . . . .

The Gadfly feels that it is long past time to unceremoniously anoint the Republican party as the official political party of vindictive assholes:

Observe:

Indiana is the latest state to decide that poor people need to be punished and humiliated for the crime of being poor. The bill that would force people to pull down their pants and pee in exchange for state assistance was only withdrawn after it was changed to include drug testing for the legislators..

Drug testing people who are poor enough to apply for state assistance has already proven to be an abject failure.

Remember Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) idea of mandating drug tests for welfare applicants? As we’ve discussed before, the Republican governor had a theory: the state could save money by forcing drug users to withdraw from the public-assistance system.

At least, that was the idea. In practice, the policy failed spectacularly – only about 2 percent of applicants tested positive, and Florida lost money when it was forced to reimburse everyone else for the cost of the drug test, plus pay for staff and administrative costs for the program.

Drug testing people who apply for assistance is a waste of time and money. It's also been struck down as unconstitutional.

A federal judge on Tuesday struck down as unconstitutional a Florida law that required welfare applicants to undergo mandatory drug testing, setting the stage for a legal battle that could affect similar efforts nationwide.

Never ones to let an unfair issue die, the Republicans are trying again in another state. They've merely "tweaked" the law this time, hoping they'll be able get around the unconstitutional bits. Issues of fairness or privacy do not concern them. If you're poor, everything is fair game.

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/indianas-misplaced-priorities-0


So basically, if you're destitute and need a helping hand up out of your impoverished circumstances, the Republicans think you should have to deposit some clean piss with the nanny state first before you get any help.

Except what happened in this case was, some enterprising (probably dirty hippie liberal) stuck a provision in the bill that included all legislators in the piss testing scheme and VOILA! -- the Republicons immediately pull the bill off the floor.  Gee The Gadfly ponders -- what possible reason could they have for not wanting their own piss tested for illegal substances?  Hmmmmmmm??

The party of vindictive assholes -- for sure -- unfortunately, and lamentably, there are a great many of them in this country and it's to the detriment of making any productive progress at moving America forward and putting us back on the path to national economic prosperity.



----TFG