Famed Utah hazzan Senator Orrin Hatch proposed an amendment to the $140 billion jobs benefits extension bill today that would make people seeking welfare benefits first pass a drug test. Welfare will now be a level playing field, as poor people will not be able to get away with taking steroids to make themselves super-poor. And also poor drug addicts will maybe starve and thus no longer be a problem, so that’s good. [Salt Lake Tribune]
POOR PEOPLE LOVE DRUGS AM I RIGHT
June 16, 2010
{ 90 comments }
Alt-alt-text: “Are ya holdin’?”
Fair enough, so long as people elected to Congress are required to pass a douchebag test before taking office.
He should know by now that white people can get welfare too.
all i can say is, thank moroni.
I’m down. So long as we can drug test Congress.
[re=600150]Judas Peckerwood[/re]: Great minds
Can we test Orrin Hatch for traces of Summer’s Eve?
Oh, and nice choice of photo. Guy who wants poor drug addicts to suffer, with lady who just wanted poor people to suffer, period, because it made God happy.
I hope he’s extending that policy to corporate welfare recipients too.
Haha, no of course not. That would be fair.
So Orrin figures that if government money has to go to help the poors, at least it should force just a little bit more humiliation on them. Awesome.
Just when being poor started being fun …
Can we give drug tests to the employees of every company America bails out (and feed the ones who fail to the oily turtles of Mexico?)?
yxtry “myky” Mr. styyf.
of course, what he doesn’t tell you is that the plan will cost $150 Billion to implement… thus it is really a Drug Testing Company Recovery and Re-investment Act.
So this is a way to veto the jobs bill during a recession. Not going to work, Orrin. No welfare to druggies used to be a dog-whistle for the colored welfare queens but with the volume of majority real-america-looking meth addicts out there, people in Hatch country are gonna be against it.
(Needless to say, the overwhelming number of actual people on welfare are children, so is Orrin suggesting the little tykes are shooting up? Buying teeny tiny crack pipes? What?)
[re=600153]Clancy_Pants[/re]: You’re right; Congress is on the dole too, and for a lot more than an unemployment or a welfare check.
And speaking of Orrin Hatch, that reminds me, why are the Mormons so against lesbians when they’re so into the three-ways? Makes no sense to me.
The Poors should also have to take a loyalty oath, have special tags on their license plates, and wear big sweaters embroidered with ‘Welfare Recipient.’ And show good cause whey they’re not picking up tarballs from beaches along the Gulf coast.
F*ck you, Orrin. No oversight for industry, but the all-seeing eye for the poor and downtrodden. It’s enough to make a guy want to fill a C-130 full of dime bags and empty it out over Salt Lake City just to piss you off.
Mother Teresa was an old slut on junk.
And any company that gets interest free gov. loans, all executives must pass drug tests. Surprise tests, and results are made public.
All the Real Amurricans will love this plan until it dawns on them that the drug tests are not free. And that the cost of the tests is likely to exceed any money you might save by throwing people off welfare. And cousin Nancy tested positive for pot AND meth and y’all know that those tests are real unreliable.
[re=600160]Jerri[/re]: Now, none of our nation’s CEOs or stockbrokers would ever use illegal drugs like cocaine.
I guess Orrin has plenty of free time on his hands as that whole “Let’s throw everyone in jail who lied about their military service especially you Blumenthal” amendment thing didn’t work out (thanks Mark Kirk.)
If the universe works according to plan then very shortly someone in the GOP’s gonna be busted with drugs.
Mother Theresa who said (according to Tony Robbins) “What gives me ecstasy, Tony, is to see a person die with a smile on their face.”
Evidently not familiar with the idea of the death rictus.
[re=600170]SayItWithWookies[/re]: I got 5 on it.
Next up, a law forbidding any welfare recipient from wearing a crown or driving a Cadillac.
what a booby hatch. he’s been around the block enough times to know such a requirement is likely to fail the fifth-amendment test. it’s nothing more than mean-spirited political grandstanding from a man who sold his soul so long ago, he can’t even remember the price he was paid for it.
You’ll notice Hatch never suggests gay-testing anyone.
Can’t wait for this amendment to pass and then run smack into the marijuana peddler lobby when California legalizes the stuff in November.
God forbid the struggling long-term unemployed should have a little fun while waiting for the economy to bounce back.
His entire pension must be invested in prisons.
Loyalty oaths are next.
In the eighties when I worked in a long forgotten industry we called “Adolescent Psychiatric Services” the super awesome Reagan administration made drug testing as hip and popular as internet porn. We tested anything that could walk. The testing labs made a mint, and since they were paying their expert lab techs all of seven bucks an hour it was pure profit for somebody. Then parents and insurers got fed up with the bullshit, started challenging the tests and wouldn’t ya know, they were about as reliable as a crystal ball. Then the test labs started to dry up or try to convert to paternity testing, which is too hard for the seven buck an hour experts, and here we are back again.
[re=600180]JMP[/re]: Indeed, for they are above reproach!
[re=600187]slappypaddy[/re]: I think Orrie is just looking for an excuse for his piss tasting habit.
I’m positive he suggested the same thing for anyone seeking assistance from the Relief Society. Right? He did, didn’t he?
I like you, Jack Stuef. You’re no Newell, but you’ll do fine.
[re=600186]comicbookguy[/re]: I had a wingnut classmate last semester who insisted that he really knew someone on “welfare” who drove a Cadillac. He was the worst type of wingnut, too, the kind that you wanted to just punch—you got the feeling he felt a little tingle in his leg every time some poor person went to bed hungry.
When do we get to test members of Congress for STDs?
[re=600167]you didn’t ask, but[/re]: You’d be surprised how many people on Facebook are members of both the “legalate it man” and “drug tests for welfare recipients” groups. Plus! I have actually met individuals who (a) were serious everyday potheads and (b) thought the guvmint should drug test welfare recipients and (c) were on fucking food stamps themselves.
People are idiots. They don’t think they’re on welfare unless they get a check that says “WELFARE”, and even so they’re not black, so it can’t be welfare.
Most po’ peoples problem is cigarettes and alcohol.
[re=600186]comicbookguy[/re]: Well done.
So we should divert limited resources into drug testing programs instead of helping, say, poor children.
Way to use your head Orrin.
Okay, I was on the fence about you, new guy, but that’s totally over after that steroid line. Nicely done!
Would there be any point in spending ten seconds to find out how he feels about funding drug treatment centers? Yeah I didn’t think so.
[re=600202]mynameisdetroit[/re]: This Jack Stuef is so good, I think he is Newell, come back to us in the middle of the night because he couldn’t stay away, and because Gawker’s no Wonkette. I’m also highly suspicious because the owner of this here storefront lawyer shop has not yet introduced Mr. Stuef, so “Jack Stuef” can’t be his real name, and therefore he must really be Newell.
My theory’s just as logical as spending money to test welfare recipients and unemployed workers for drugs, without funding drug rehabilitation centers, to say nothing about the 5th amendment, if slappypaddy is right, and he always is. Besides, there are no guns in the 5th, so fuckit.
My thinking is so clear, I could be Orrin Hatch.
[re=600223]Oldskool[/re]: “to find out how he feels about funding drug treatment centers?”
The prison-industrial complex counts as a “treatment center”, right?
Not a problem! Just drop the pot (which stays in your system for a whole month or more) and take up meth instead (which only shows up on a test for a few days, and is so much better for you than pot anyway.) It’s win-win! (for the for-profit drug testing industry, and the prison/industrial complex.)
Is this some kind of Utah or Senator code for “Man seeking golden showers”?
[re=600182]Ducksworthy[/re]: Or, she’s the closest we’ve had on earth to The Joker. Hitchens may be a worthless prick, but I’m still going with my answer
[re=600225]Katydid[/re]: Of course, there is nothing in the 5th amendment to protect the rights of people “to be secure in their persons and papers” from corporations to which they apply for jobs, only from the gubmint. While teabaggers continue to freak out about Big Bad Obamunism, private companies have more control over their lives than ever before, and more than the government ever could. Progress!
The answer is clear, only drug addicts are on welfare. Long term unemployment can be solved by these damn hippies getting off the drugs and go out and get jobs!
I’m withholding judgment until I hear Sharon Angle’s “second amendment solution” to this problem.
Here is your sample cup, Mr. Blankfein. fill it to the line, please.
Does Hatch own a piss-test company? Or a company that helps you fool piss tests? Or both?
[re=600210]Fuck Toad[/re]: “People are idiots. They don’t think they’re on welfare unless they get a check that says “WELFARE”, and even so they’re not black, so it can’t be welfare.” True. It’s the “not me” that the Repubs work so effectively.
[re=600213]tribbzthesquidz[/re]: word. In fact, that’s where my reservation about legalizing pot kicks in. For the poors, it’ll be little money and little relief after bad (checking out). But it’s better than putting folks in jail for being broke and having a joint.
You’d think Hatch would be more sympathetic to the poors since his ass was broke when he was younger and the minimum wage jobs (at least referenced in Wikipedia) are now going to the undocumenteds.* Who aren’t on welfare* (obvs.)
I guess the right is fanning out this year, attacking one group of poors then another, then another. Appalachians, you’re next!
[re=600160]Jerri[/re]: I think drug tests for Wall Street Traders and Bankers who got bailout funds are in order and they should also be forced to take an ethics class. (The ethics cannot be taught by a Catholic Priest)
I don’t get welfare, but I had arm surgery yesterday and feel very Rush Limbaugh like with all the oxycodone I have been taking. Now I am starting to worry that my employer (a government agency in NYS) will start drug testing me. This is all I need, particularly when I don’t care for the “high” that comes with the oxy.
I’ll go along with this as long as every government contractor and bailed-out Wall Street crook has to do the same.
[re=600259]Beowoof[/re]: If they drug test you, can’t you show them your prescription and laugh in their face?
[re=600227]HedonismBot[/re]: From what I could find online (because I was just curious a little while ago) pot is the only popular illicit drug that’s detectable for longer than 72 hours. And while my first instinct was to rail at nature for being so unfair to such a pleasant drug, it’s equally possible that it’s more a function of the free market than of nature — a test for pot yields enough positive results to give the appearance of being effective, but without the expense one would have to go through to test lingering traces of other drugs for the same period of time. Then I decided to stop thinking about it because I hardly need more reasons to despise the goddamn free market.
[re=600262]SayItWithWookies[/re]: No, I would blame nature. As usual, it’s nature’s fault – just like it’s nature’s fault that all that oil is flowing in the gulf. If nature had not created all those plants and animals millions of years ago, then caused them to turn into oil, then created people – who needed to create internal combustion engines so they could drive their fat asses down to the local Sonic Burger for a milkshake – then none of this would have happened.
Fucking nature.
Click on the AlvinGreeneForSenate site; the South Carolina Senate candidate has something to say about this important issue, and he also weights in on the Gulf oil crisis, sancations against Iran, and the financial overhaul legislation.
[re=600261]HedonismBot[/re]: As with Rush I could be accused of Dr. Shopping. Also. I was arrested once in Texas for drugs. I showed them the prescrption, but still spent a night in the Crokett County Jail with my cellmates: Pedro, Miguel and Juan. Then it took 6 months to get the charges dropped and 9 months to get my $1,000 bail back. So I am not too trusting of government and their tests. And of couse I just popped some more oxy, thus feuling my paranoia.
[re=600259]Beowoof[/re]: I passed many drug tests while taking prescribed oxycodone. I don’t know if it was because it didn’t show up or because I wrote down the Rx, but either way you’re OK. I hate that stuff too, but I hate pain even more.
However, I would like to drug test the guy who made this 911 call(the audio link is near the bottom) just for entertainment.
[re=600265]HedonismBot[/re]: You’re right, Nature is useless. That’s why we’re destroying it as fast as we can (with the Gulf Fountainhead) and as slowly as we can (with sprawl) and at an intermediate rate (with gas-guzzling, planet-destroying, road-hogging SUVs stuck in freeway traffic). The War on Nature is proceeding successfully on all fronts! Turn up the air conditioning!
Lately, our corporate leaders can certainly be defined as welfare recipients. Besides, if Senator Hatch’s target demographic did have drugs, it’s highly likely they’re to be sold for supplemental income since the only economic recovery seems to happening to the top 1%. Again.
[re=600259]Beowoof[/re]: [re=600276]Jim89048[/re]: Yes, yes, we all just hate our oxycodone high but take it we must given our bad back, lack of fulfillment and the lousy programming on basic cable. Think of it as Soldier’s Disease for the post-modern era…
[re=600163]JMP[/re]: Well, being a Rep(tilian) is all about humiliating your “inferiors.”
If Orrin Hatch thinks my unemployment check is enough to buy me drugs, he doesn’t know how much good weed costs. If I spent the whole thing in one day, I might be able to tie on a first-class drunk once a week, but drugs? I have to go to Costco to be able to afford the generic version of Pepcid AC. When they come out with Kirkland Oxycontin, please let me know, I used up all the ones Grandma had in her medicine cabinet.
Why not cut out the additional handling and mail urine samples to the good senator himself for evaluation? The mental image of hundreds of little plastic bottles, many leaking, sitting in Orrin’s office ripening up makes me smile a little.
It’s about damn time we stopped helping the least among us so that the best can get on with the business of killing ourselves with ignorance. Whew. Next sentence: Placenta is good for you! Eat up, baby machines!
Oh, you attended a Rock, Jam Band, or Rap concert 3 weeks ago?
Sorry, your family will just have to starve to death.
Hatch probably has the usual well-off Americans definition of welfare. It’s what OTHER PEOPLE get. His federal salary, his mortgage deduction, his crop supports or export subsidies — they ARE NOT WELFARE. My $150 a month disability for losing my leg and my mind in Viet Nam IS evil welfare. I should suffer. He should not.
I had a congressman once who was convicted of statutory rape with a 13-year old black girl. (He was a near-60 white guy, and an unusually conservative Republican.) His defense: he did it, but it wasn’t wrong for him. He was totally sincere! The conviction was totally Ohio: 90 days in jail, out after 30 days, when he promised to go to a rehab clinic in another state. Last I knew, he was living in Texas and probably visiting teen-age harlots in Mexico.
[re=600191]imissopus[/re]: Hopefully, Kentucky will legalize soon after California.
Wouldn’t some sort of implantable birth control make more sense? From the GOP voter demographic point of view doncha know…
[re=600181]ManchuCandidate[/re]: “That’s why I stab children when they’re watching cartoons.”
[re=600340]zhubajie[/re]: Don’t get me started on well-employed military retirees leeching from the VA’s meager coffers for 20 years of paper cuts.
I’m confused, does Orrin hold the penis or the cup?
Who is that with him? Is that one of the Wee People that BP cares so much about? Looks like some kind of Albanian Footwasher.
Is her ghost still roaming India, passing out invisible condoms forever?
[re=600169]V572625694[/re]: Dont’t forget the tatoo. (and the yellow star for their coats.)
Guess this would me we can eliminate “the right to food money”, but we still have free speech and the right not to be killed, so yeah.
[re=600241]Aurelio[/re]: I bet Hatch either owns a piss test company or got a bunch of lobby money from someone who does.
[re=600213]tribbzthesquidz[/re]: Most po’ people’s problem is they are po’.
[re=600170]SayItWithWookies[/re]: That’s a great idea about the GSL, I be looking forward to those results.
[re=600213]tribbzthesquidz[/re]: “Most po’ peoples problem is cigarettes and alcohol.”
But legislating against alcohol ads in the inner city is unAmerican.
[re=600260]BlueStateLiberal[/re]: That is so full of win.
“Ain’t Gonna Piss In No Jar” by Mojo Nixon sums up how I feel about drug testing.
The Orrin Hatch’s of the world looooove to dole out punishment. In this case, he probably gets sexual pleasure from cutting poor folks money off for their “moral failings.”
This is to punish everyone on welfare. “How dare they be on welfare? They are all freeloaders. We’ll make ‘em all wait in line for an hour to pee in a cup, charge the public for it, and make my 3rd cousin/brother-in-law/Eyes Wide Shut-orgy-partner’s pee-pee lab some major loot.”
This seems to be what most Americanz believe so naturally, I suspect the welfare freeloader is mostly a mythical creature.
[re=600418]MilwaukeeKent[/re]: I believe he may be in search of the golden shower.
A welfare applicant who tests positive for ‘Herbal’ Essence is toast. Use Prell.
But Orrin has a second test. Each child of a welfare sponger/burden-on-society must have garbage breath. Rush, he so approves.
*****
— Limbaugh attacks school lunches, suggests hungry children should “dumpster dive” —
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201006160041
Testy, testy. I wonder who didn’t get some messy sucky-suck on his honeymoon..
Those who got big tax cuts on Dubya should be tested too–they have lots more money to blow on Blow. Uncut. No freakin’ manitol.
[re=600469]S.Luggo[/re]: “Testy, testy. I wonder who didn’t get some messy sucky-suck on his honeymoon..”
Well duh, the wife’s presence made it all the more difficult to pick up rentboys.
That is *so awesome*!
So once we implement this, desperately poor people who need a little bump or shot or toke of this or that to make it through their miserable existences will just have to go back to mugging folks!
Good lookin’ out, Orrin.
Such wisdom.
[re=600504]Maus[/re]: What’s that girl-half-his-age’s name again? The one Rush married? Kathryn Beard?
Why take steroids when any and all drugs will now make you super-poor? Utah–where basic human rights are aspirational!
Maybe Orin could take all the poor to Mountain Meadow and, well, take care of them…
That’s why I stick to huffing paint.
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