David Vitter is an Idiot
This post was going to be about one of Senator David Vitter’s idiotic bills. But then I started looking at all his bills and each one was stupider than the last.
This isn’t the first time I have written about Vitter. In Sneaky Union Busting I wrote about his bill meant to poke a planet-sized hole in collective bargaining. But destroying unions isn’t all Vitter has been up to. Vitter has sponsored 54 bills in the Senate (none of which, thankfully, have passed). Of the 108 items he has cosponsored, only one has passed.
S.Res.22 – A resolution recognizing the goals of Catholic Schools Week and honoring the valuable contributions of Catholic schools in the United States.
Wow. Vitter has really done Louisiana proud. I’m sure his constituents’ lives are much better now that this resolution has passed.
Hopefully, none of his constituents are too into that whole separation of church and state thing. Vitter isn’t. One of his other submitted senate resolutions is,
S.Res.5 – A resolution expressing the support for prayer at school board meetings.
Vitter is also a proud teabagger. He introduced,
S.Res.98 – A resolution designating each of April 15, 2009, and April 15, 2010, as “National TEA Party Day”.
And he is on the anti-Czar bandwagon. According to Think Progress, he
filed an amendment to the $32.1 billion FY10 Interior-Environment appropriations bill that would block any of the bill’s funds from being used to carry out orders from Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, who is often referred to in the press as the White House “climate czar“
Do you like that health insurance your employer provides? Vitter doesn’t. He would prefer if you lost that and were mandated to buy your own. Vitter isn’t too fond of immigrants either. He would like to change our citizenship laws. Currently, if you are born on U.S. soil, you are a U.S. citizen. Vitter submitted
S.J.Res.6 – A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to United States citizenship.
This proposed amendment would restrict citizenship to only those who have at least one citizen parent. That’s not Vitters only anti-immigrant proposal. He would also like to make sure any wages you earned (and social security contributions you made) while in the U.S. illegally can never be credited to you, even if you become legal (S. 115).
And then there is this gem.
S.91 – A bill to reduce the amount of financial assistance provided to the Government of Mexico in response to the illegal border crossings from Mexico into the United States, which serve to dissipate the political discontent with the higher unemployment rate within Mexico.
Cause, you know, the best way to stop economic refugees is to try to make life in their own country even more dire. Or maybe he wants to cut off U.S. funding for the drug war in Mexico? Hey, I might actually be down with that one.
No, my bad, that’s not it. He’s a drug warrior. He wants drug testing for anyone who applies for help from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.
S.97 – Drug Free Families Act of 2009. A bill to amend title IV of the Social Security Act to require States to implement a drug testing program for applicants for and recipients of assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
And while they are there, maybe they can just give DNA samples too. Vitter would like anyone convicted of a felony to have to fork over DNA (S. 106). So when poor people go to apply for temporary assistance, we can drug test them, convict them for a felony, collect their DNA, and send them off to prison. Then they’ll have three squares a day. It’s just brilliant.
Of course, he has the requisite anti-abortion bills (S. 96 and S. 85). And he has the requisite anti-flag burning bill (S.J. Res. 15). He made sure to show his pro-Israel chops by submitting
S.Res.6 – A resolution expressing solidarity with Israel in Israel’s defense against terrorism in the Gaza Strip.
Perhaps now that the Goldstone Report has come out, clearly showing Israel’s human rights violations, he’ll rescind that one? Yeah right.
Out of all of the horrible miscarriages of justice that David Vitter is fighting against, his crusade against ACORN is my personal favorite. He is shocked, just shocked, to find out that ACORN has been caught supposedly assisting prostitutes. It’s one thing for a Louisiana senator to hire a prostitute to play out his diaper fetish, but low-level ACORN employees advising someone posing as a prostitute on how to report their income to the IRS, well that’s just beyond.
Come on Louisiana. You can do better than this. Can someone please get rid of this guy in 2010?
Update: Apparently, Citizens for Responsibility also think Vitter is an idiot and are trying to get him disciplined by the Louisiana bar for soliciting a prostitute. (Dare I make a crack about how Vitter will feel about being “disciplined”?)
