Newt steps up war on workers

A few days ago, somebody told me that Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich sounds like exactly the sort of clod who'd advocate the latest Freeper cause du jour: forcing welfare recipients to take a drug test even without probable cause. I said it's almost certain he'd express support for this idea sometime before next November. Newt is known for ideas that bad.

But we didn't even have to wait nearly that long, since now he's on it already. Never mind that it was already ruled unconstitutional years ago.

When somebody asked Gingrich how to reform the disastrous War on Drugs, he said we should expand this failed prohibition campaign by instituting drug tests - not just for welfare recipients but also anybody else who gets government aid, including veterans' benefits and Social Security. "Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it," he said.

Surprised? I'm not. This is the man who ushered in the failed welfare "reform" measures of the '90s - which have led to the deaths of countless Americans. Newt Gingrich is also the asshole who hired a Nazi as House historian. And he advocated placing kids in orphanages just because of their parents' marital status. Nothing is too extreme for ol' Newt. Still, The Media has fawned over him for years. Much as they heaped praise upon his orphanage proposal, they've been grooming him to become President ever since he left Congress. Since then, the TV pundits have always had him on as a guest every time there's some major story he has nothing to do with.

If you want to go after welfare, go after the budget-busting Bush tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts are the new welfare. Unlike the old welfare, however, it's not for the poor but for the rich.

And - even if Super Congress wasn't unconstitutional - Super Congress was destined to fail at its stated mission to rein in the deficit, because it was completely unwilling to look at ending the Bush handouts for the wealthy. This form of welfare was effectively exempt from cuts - and it still is even with the committee's failure.

(This is not to be confused with Bush's phony tax "rebates" that excluded the poorest Americans. Outrageously, an amendment added to one of the "rebate" bills by the disgraced John Ensign made it so overseas military personnel also didn't get any payment.)

Newt Gingrich is not only evil. He's such a joke that he doesn't even understand how limited the appeal of his ideas is. He thinks attacking the poor appeals to workers. But the poor are workers. That's why they're called the working poor. Drug-testing of welfare recipients without reasonable suspicion appeals primarily to the dwindling Republican base that thrives on meanness and class warfare. Anybody else who may have once thought the idea looked good on paper has abandoned it now that there's been enough time to debate it thoroughly.

(Source: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/28/376987/newt-gingrichs-latest-assault-on-the-constitution-drug-test-americans-before-they-get-any-kind-of-federal-aid)