Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wants to help the long-term unemployed

[mojowork_n]

Source: yahoo ("associated content" from yahoo)

Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch Proposes to Deal with America's Drug Problem by Withholding Unemployment Benefits Unless Recipients Submit to Alcohol and Drug Testing

If Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) gets his amendment added to the Unemployment Benefits Extension bill, which is currently in filibuster limbo on Capitol Hill, the taking of sobriety and drug tests would be required of all seeking to collect on the unemployment benefits paid into for years on their behalf with the expectation of receiving the financial assistance if and when they ever entered the ranks of the unemployed. Hatch, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, wants unemployment benefits recipients as well as welfare recipients to submit to testing.

<snip>

Not passing the proposed 2010 Unemployment Benefits Extension Bill, even a revised version, is one way to reduce the national debt. Perhaps that is the overall aim, considering Hatch's somewhat unfair and authoritarian proposal. Republicans voted to continue debate on the bill, mounting a successful filibuster, on Thursday, further suspending some 300,000 people whose benefits ran out on June 2 in limbo (an extension would retroactively cover them) and jeopardizing another 900,000, whose unemployment benefits are to renewed at the beginning of July. The extension is designed to provide unemployment benefits until November 2010.

"This amendment is a way to help people get off of drugs to become productive and healthy members of society," Hatch said of his proposed amendment, "while ensuring that valuable taxpayer dollars aren't wasted. Too many Americans are locked into a life of a dangerous dependency not only on drugs, but the federal assistance that serves to enable their addiction."

Read more: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5503864/2010_unemployment_extension_bill_a.html?cat=62

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This is the latest thing I could find on the proposal to create a "Tier 5" for extension of unemployment benefits. It's from last Saturday, but there wasn't much else out there.

[xchrom]

1. God - I hate that man. Nt

[Dawson Leery]

2. Evil little troll.

:puke:

[blue neen]

3. Who the heck is going to pay for the testing?

Hatch is a real genius, isn't he? :sarcasm:

[EJSTES2005]

11. His wife and kids probably own testing facilities nationwide

or are heavily invested in them and would surely get the inside track on the outsourcing bids

[704wipes]

28. He will probably have it in there that they have to pay for it too

deduct it from their next check... knowing that sack of shit.

[endless october]

4. still waiting on hatch to give up his government health care

and buy on the free market.

[Tx4obama]

5. HuffPo headline is better. 'Orrin Hatch: Drug Test The Unemployed' n/t

[safeinOhio]

6. Extend it to all that get government pay

Farmers, oil companies and congress people.

[EJSTES2005]

10. Took my thunder

I would support this if it included all state and nationally elected officials and their staff......

[bemildred]

22. Especially Congress, we need to drug test the Congress and all their minions too.

We sure as hell cannot afford to have the drug-addled making laws and working in the legislature, think what could happen!!!

[704wipes]

29. ESPECIALLY the Board of Directors of any NO BID contracts

test them too, not like they bid on the job...

[defendandprotect]

7. Another GOP religious/social fanatic who should have been targeted by lefties long ago --

[customerserviceguy]

12. You don't know Utah

There are practically no "lefties" there. Oh, we can sometimes get a Democratic officeholder in the heart of Salt Lake City, but outside of there, it's solid red state mentality.

[defendandprotect]

18. Remember Roseanne Barr came out of Utah ...

and that wherever there is oppression -- either racial or religious as exists in utah --

it is kept in place by oppressing ALL of the citizens and not just those who are the

actual targets.

That's why I say I'm still waiting for the South to free women!

Organized patriachal religion has been failing since it came under attack by democracy,

"all are created equal," and Separation of Church & State.

Segregation, Inc. is gone -- let's hope that organized patriarchal religion will be next!

[customerserviceguy]

20. And what elective office did she hold?

Yeah, I thought so. I lived for six months in Utah in 2005, it was the longest ten years of my life. I spent long enough there to know what passes for thinking over there, and the idea of the separation of church and state is more alien there than any other place in the United States.

[defendandprotect]

21. Barr is emblematic of diversity in Utah . . .

After all, you were there, as well!

Don't know where the oppression points are still, but seems at one time if you weren't

Mormon, you didn't get a job.

Mormon Church has long history of oppression -- worked with US government in genocide vs

Native American -- Mormon Church was the most notorious of the Church schools which

abused and kidnapped young native Americans to steal their language/culture from them.

RCC and Mormon Churches used tax-exempt dollars to defeat the ERA here --

Most recently, we have the Mormon Church using its tax-exempt dollars to pass Prop 8 in

California to overturn gay marriage!

No one can support two masters -- either you want democracy or you want theorcracy.

My money is on Utahans deciding on democracy . . . eventually!


There was an interesting book written I guess 2 decades ago now on the Mormon Church . ..

Deborah Laake? Holy underwear from neck to toe -- secret handshakes for males?

This male-supremacist church also believes that women are spiritually unable to reach

heaven on their own -- spirutally inferior. They have to rely on their husband's calling

their names in the afterlife! Quite a problem for divorced women there.

We really need to laugh at these things more often.

and we need to pass on this information so that most Americans are aware of it!

:evilgrin:

[customerserviceguy]

30. Yes, there is diversity in Utah

But my point is that there isn't anywhere near enough of it to get rid of Hatch. I mean, look at the runoff election for Bennett's seat yesterday, there were two teabaggers going for the position! That's not going to happen in too many places in this country.

The Mormons in Utah want theocracy. Outside of the Hispanic population in SLC, the rest of the place is 90% Mormon. And it's so far isolated from non-Mormon Christian populations that there will never be any influences that change them for the rest of either of our lifetimes. And their women pretty much all accept the second-class status that they're given.

Mormonism isn't like any other religion you know. It's brainwashing of the most extreme degree.

As I said earlier, that six months was the longest ten years of my life...

[BulletproofLandshark]

8. U.S. Senators need to submit to drug testing. n/t

[AsahinaKimi]

14. Before the first unemployed person is

Drug tested, lets let Hatch, Palin, Bachmann, and all the other prominent Republicans be drug tested first. I would love to see the results...

[defendandprotect]

26. How about BP officials . . .. ??? And while we have them, let's give 'em truth serum!

I'm a liberal -- only kidding!!

[onpatrol98]

15. +1

U.S. Senators need to submit to sanity testing.

[totodeinhere]

9. Of course it's a ridiculous idea on it's face. But can you imagine the logistical nightmare that

this would create if they had to drug and alcohol test all of the millions of people on unemployment insurance? It would make the long lines that they have at the unemployment office now seem like a picnic by comparison.

[customerserviceguy]

13. They'd farm it out to private testing laboratories

If the unemployed want to get jobs, chances are they're going to have to submit to those tests, anyway.

[totodeinhere]

25. Those private labs could not handle the influx of millions of unemployed people.

The difference is that only those offered jobs might have to take a drug test now. That is a much smaller number and it's easier to handle.

[customerserviceguy]

31. It would be a strain, that's for sure

But I would expect any plan to drug test the unemployed to be some sort of a joke, that only did it once or twice a year, with plenty of advance notice given to the test subject. The individual would have plenty of opportunity to get 'clean', and the fundies would all feel smug that they were doing something.

[nineteen50]

16. orrin hatch

All congresspersons should have to live by the same standards they place on others. Pass the high school exit examine, score higher than 900 on the SAT, be tested before receiving any taxpayer money, and live on minimum wage for at least one year.

[lunatica]

17. Words of loathing fail me

What a dandified self-righteous prick.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

19. That's right, Hatch. Make the massses of long-term unemployed feel worse.

Like it's our fault we were laid off to begin with and are having trouble finding jobs. After all, I'm just sitting around the house all day, eating bon bons...not going to networking events, applying for jobs, etc. Jerk.

[mojowork_n]

23. It's a distraction.

I posted the link because it seemed like part of the smokescreen/filibuster strategy --

don't talk about the real issue ----> what's going to happen to however many tens or hundreds of
thousands are going to be denied any support for rent, phone bills, utility bills, etc., if there's
no support in Congress for extending benefits...

I'm afraid it's going to be a tsunami of people all applying for the same few crummiest jobs, at
once.

So what's the best way to hide that salient concern?

Make 'em all look like bums, anyway.

"Heck of a job," Orrin. (Or that's what you're going to say if you're making your money from a sincecure at the Heritage Foundation, or some place like that.)

[mojowork_n]

27. Oops

That should have been " 'SIN-eh-cure" at the Heritage Foundation.' "

[ProudDad]

24. K&R - Orrin "Kick 'em when they're down" Hatch (n/t)

[Odin2005]

32. Poor-bashing sucks!

:grr:

[Jennicut]

33. As if long term unemployed people drink and take drugs!

And if they do, it is from the stress of not finding a job in a year or two. Idiot.

[mojowork_n]

34. I don't know how the numbers would play out,

but for every panhandling bum-on-the-street (we have a few of those in my neighborhood, but I don't think many of them collect UC checks anymore), I'd like to know how many of the long-term unemployed are just the opposite:

• When you know you've got to be competing for any and every job offer that comes along, you've got to have at least 30 days of no-tokin' behind you, not to be disqualified, if they ask you to pee in a cup.
  

A group that's probably way under-counted.

[peacefreak]

35. Great idea.

:sarcasm: As one of those long term unemployed the stress of these past few weeks of Senate bullshit landed me in the ER & prescribed anti-anxiety meds for the first time in my life. Oh well, at least something will show up on my test now.