The GOP messaging continues to mimic the Onion in new and disturbing ways:
Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino said he would transform some New York prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients, where they would work in state-sponsored jobs, get employment training and take lessons in "personal hygiene."
Paladino, a wealthy Buffalo real estate developer popular with many tea party activists, is competing for the Republican nomination with former U.S. Rep. Rick Lazio. The primary is Sept. 14.
Paladino does not see this as punitive, however. Heck, no. He sees this as a voluntary endeavor, not a mandatory one. And he thinks that welfare recipients will be just flying out of the cities and towns of New York to head behind bars to learn an exciting new way of life.
One which includes such incentives as military conscription...lessons in hygeine...
[In the prison "domitories"], they would do work for the state - "military service, in some cases park service, in other cases public works service," he said - while prison guards would be retrained to work as counselors.
"Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we'll teach people how to earn their check. We'll teach them personal hygiene ... the personal things they don't get when they come from dysfunctional homes," Paladino said.
I always figured it was just a matter of time before the GOP would put their formal imprimatur on the general concept of debtor's prisons.
Amazingly, one of them found an even more offensive way to couch it.
