Sometime yesterday, Congressional staffers (government employees) walked out on their jobs to the front steps of the House of Representatives to protest the laws (written by themselves) that led to the death (at the hands of other government employees) who were enforcing the will of government employees. Instead of meaningless symbolic gestures, why don't they protest by making it legal to sell "loosies" without a punitive tax that pays their own (government employee) salaries? Lord have mercy, what a pack of doofuses....
The Missouri House Thursday passed a bill that would require welfare recipients to undergo drug testing upon "reasonable suspicion" they used drugs. But the Senate version of that bill, SB 607, is under sustained attack by Senate Democrats, who are filibustering it this week.
Under the bills, all work-eligible adults who received cash payments through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program would be drug tested if a caseworker has "reasonable suspicion" they are using drugs. Those who test positive would become temporarily ineligible for cash assistance, but their children could continue to receive benefits through a third party.
TANF is a federal program designed to help poverty-stricken parents provide for their children. In Missouri, more than 112,000 people get cash assistance through the program. The average family on the program gets $292 a month.
A legislative staff fiscal analysis of the Senate bill put the annual cost to the state at more than $5 million next year, and more than $6 million in coming years. Those figures represent the cost of drug testing an estimated 90,000 TANF recipients or new applicants each year and the cost of providing additional drug treatment services to deal with those who test positive.
This is one of those ridiculous sideshows that allows one of our ruling factions to show that they care about your money being wasted, while forcing the other faction to defend giving money to crackheads.
What would happen if we broadened this proposal to cover other welfare recipients who don't fit the stereotype so well?
Patricia Woertz, Chairman, CEO and President of Archer Daniels Midland Company, is an ethanol subsidy queen of the worst possible sort. She has made a ton of money on the public teat. I want Ms. Woertz (and the rest of her family) to go in for a supervised piss test before she receives another dime of taxpayer money. She has three kids, and I'm worried about their exposure to this type of behavior.
At my company, if a driver is involved in any accident that causes damage to people or property, they have to go in for a urinalysis. Chris Dodd, please report for your drug screen. We are still trying to find someone willing to test Barney Frank.
Under the phenomenally corrupt deals within the pending healthcare monstrosity, Nebraskans will receive something called "The Cornhusker Kickback". Mary Landrieu orchestrated something called "The Louisiana Purchase" for her Louisiana constituents. Florida gets something mockingly named "Gatoraid". The residents of these states need to get a test tube, get in line, and give us at least three ounces. (Note to my Cajun friends in Louisiana: Nobody is impressed if you can supply 16 ounces. Nobody. Don't bother.) This should take a while, but the results will be in the mail before the November elections, which is all that matters in any of this.
Are you a farmer? Are you one of the ten percent of all farmers who collected 74 percent of all subsidies amounting to $130.6 billion dollars over a 12 year period? Get your wholesome, welfare-queen-condemning, salt-of-the-earth rear ends in line to fill up a piss cup. (Warning: Don't bother substituting livestock urine. It's been done before, and we know what you're up to.)
Al Gore is trying valiantly to force you to use products and technologies developed by his partners at the venture capital firm of Kleiner-Perkins. Well, Al, you're not going to get a cent until you can prove that you're not on crack. Plus, there are a lot of us who are just curious.
Seriously, why stop at the "traditional" welfare recipient? Let's test military contractors. Let's have every recipient of the Porkulus kickbacks go in for a urinalysis. Want an NEA grant? Prove that you haven't smoked weed, and good luck to you. Are you a UAW employee, and did Obama save your job with taxpayer money? Get in line.
Just think....if the Missouri Republicans and I get our way, we'll soon be doing nothing but test each other.
FINEMAN: Maybe not in Massachusetts, but maybe in some places, there are codes, there are images, ah, you know, there are pickup trucks, uh, you could say there was a racial aspect to it one way or another. OLBERMANN: What were the Scott Brown ads, though? Every one of the Scott Brown ads had him in a pickup truck. FINEMAN: That’s why I mentioned pickup trucks. I mean, my mind goes back to Fred Thompson down in Tennessee.
A coat of Whitening to Hot Air for the transcript on this one. I'm new to Keith Olbermann. I get almost all of my news from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Real Clear Politics, and Instapundit. (Along with a range of weekly reads from The Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, etc., just to try to understand the mindset.)
It wasn't until I watched some MSNBC coverage of the recent Massachusetts election that I saw Olbermann and Rachel Maddow in action. I was amazed. Seriously. I couldn't believe it. Every statement from the left was taken at face value. Every now and then Chris Matthews would try to bring in a comment from the world of reality, and he usually failed.
I'll admit it: I watched MSNBC for a while last night. It's like discovering a fairly sophisticated world where they haven't invented the wheel yet.
I might as well sound off on this one, since everyone else already has. This is from the Huffington Post:
On Monday, Olbermann described Brown as "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees." Later on, Olberman added "sexist" to his list of accusations against Brown.
Let me address these one at a time. The "tea-bagger" line is in itself a homophobic slur. So to call someone a "homophobic" "tea-bagger" tells us as much about the accuser as the accused. It's like being dumb enough to call someone a "Bigoted Wetback".
"Irresponsible"? I don't see it. Brown once cussed at a high school assembly, and stated that one of his daughters was "available". I used to cuss at high school assemblies. I have a daughter roughly the same age as Brown's. If there's a young man out there who wants to take over her tuition at A&M, I can put in a good word for you.
"Racist"? He questioned Obama's parentage. That doesn't make him a racist.
"Reactionary"? We're up to 12 trillion in debt. He got elected BECAUSE he was reactionary. Please hurry up and understand this.
"Ex Nude Model"? Yeah, Scott Brown took off his clothes for Cosmo. And your point is? He'll soon be whoring for the Republicans. That's the usual career path in the political prostitution industry, isn't it?
"Sexist"? and "Supporter of Violence Against Women"? Someone in the Ted Kennedy seat could be sexist and a supporter of violence against women?
In which the Republican Party attempts to start a blog.... This is from the Hot Air site:
Among the glitches on the newly redesigned GOP.com: The site password was visible for a time in the New York section and the “Future Leaders” page was left (temporarily) blank. Quoth the chairman: “It’s a beta site, meaning that there — we’re working out a lot of the kinks and the bugs… So the Dems can have their fun.”
And so they have. Way to score an own goal, pal, completely needlessly and amateurishly.
Today's video on the GOP.com website moans about the "trillions in new spending".
This is from the