The Right Wing Hate Fest Continues With Arizona GOPT Vice Chair's Call to Sterilize Poor Women

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The GOPT continues to use hate fests to broaden its base beyond its billionaire investors and people who believe the propaganda on Fox.

Earlier this week, Georgia state Senator Fran Millar categorically admitted that he hates allowing black people to vote earlier. Georgia’s Secretary State, Brian Kemp, backed him up.

In closing I just wanted to tell you real quick, after we get through this runoff, you know the Democrats are working hard, and all these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November.

The Koch owned Republicans went all out to show their love for women, beginning with a Maryland GOPT candidate, David Anthony Wiggins. Commenting on an article about Ray Rice, Wiggins said Ray Rice was just giving his wife some equality when he beat her unconscious then dragged her body out of the elevator.

“How is she a victim when she began the assault?” Wiggins replied. “Are you holding her blameless and to a higher standard? Did you watch as she continually assaulted him until he knocked her Jodi Badass out? Quit it with the sexist double standard.”

He demanded that other commenters “stop making excuses for female violence against men,” claiming that Janay Rice “caused her own so-called victimhood by perpetrating violence.”

“Women want equality,” Wiggins continued, and “she got some of it.”

Wiggins, by the way, is campaigning to be the new sheriff in Baltimore.

Russell Pearce, the current Vice Chair of Arizona’s GOPT, did one better. Pearce wants to sterilize poor women and drug/alcohol test anyone on public assistance. Can we say class-based eugenics. As he told a caller to his hate talk radio show, if a poor woman wants a child, she should get a job. ”You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get [female recipients] Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

Pearce’s rant against poor women was not complete without the mandatory anti-government rhetoric. ”I know there’s people out there [who] need help, and my heart goes out to them, too, but you know what? That should never be a government role. That’s a role for family, church, and community.”

Naturally, Pearce overlooks several inconvenient facts, during his hate fest on the poor. Many people who are on public assistance have at least one slave wage job. We all know how Republicans feel about the existence of a minimum wage, let alone the prospect of increasing it to a living wage. He also overlooks the fact that conservatives believe employers should have the right to fire pregnant women because they are pregnant.

Mandatory drug and alcohol testing public assistance recipients is unconstitutional as Florida was told.

There are other facts that discredit Pearce’s repugnant ideas. People on public assistance are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol than others. There are tons of studies on this topic, including Florida’s findings on the subject, as noted in a Federal court ruling on Florida’s drug testing for public assistance law.

“In fact, the study commissioned by the State undermines its argument on this point. In 1998, DCF conducted a study known as the Demonstration Project after the State passed legislation requiring the Demonstration Project to test empirically whether individuals who applied for TANF benefits were likely to abuse drugs and whether such abuse affected employment opportunities. In the study, researchers found a lower rate of drug usage among TANF applicants than among current estimates of the population of Florida as a whole.”

When you factor in the costs of drug testing, it fails because this really isn’t about costs. It’s about the pathological hatred Republicans have for poor people.

Of course, Pearce never let the constitution get in the way of a good hate fest. This is the same guy who was behind Arizona’s unconstitutional “papers please” legislation.

No story involving Pearce is complete without reminding ourselves that Pearce has been a government employee for years and remains so. He collects a government pension aside from the $85,000 a year he earns as an employee of Charles “Hos” Hoskins, the Treasurer of Maricopa County.

Here’s the added bonus. While saying government shouldn’t have a role in helping poor people, part of Pearce’s current job description requires him to help promote participation in a county program called the Elderly Assistance Fund. The program’s purpose is to help low-income seniors reduce their property taxes.

Image: Political Gates