Across the country, Republican governors are pushing policies that mandate drug-testing for all welfare recipients and marginalize low-income Americans in the process. Now, the latest GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich is trying that idea on the national stage. When asked by Yahoo News’ Chris Moody for his thoughts on how to reform the U.S.’s failed war on drugs, Gingrich declared that “we need to consider taking more explicit steps to make it expensive to be a drug user.” His first and foremost step? Drug test Americans “before you get any kind of federal aid“:

[MOODY:] Speaking of Ron Paul, at the last debate, he said that the war on drugs has been an utter failure. We’ve spent billions of dollars since President Nixon and we still have rising levels of drug use. Should we continue down the same path given the amount of money we’ve spent? How can we reform our approach?

[GINGRICH:] I think that we need to consider taking more explicit steps to make it expensive to be a drug user. It could be through testing before you get any kind of federal aid. Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it.

It has always struck me that if you’re serious about trying to stop drug use, then you need to find a way to have a fairly easy approach to it and you need to find a way to be pretty aggressive about insisting–I don’t think actually locking up users is a very good thing. I think finding ways to sanction them and to give them medical help and to get them to detox is a more logical long-term policy.

Gingrich’s first step would likely run headlong into the Constitution. As UCLA Professor Adam Winkler noted, random drug testing is a “suspicion-less search” and “the Supreme Court has upheld the ability of government to mandate random drug tests in a few limited circumstances,” most often in “high-risk public safety environments.” In fact, courts have struck down such policies again and again.

The fact that Gingrich’s first thought regarding drug users points to federal aid recipients should not be surprising given his low opinion of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. He once insisted that an unemployed mechanic receiving jobless benefits was made lazy by that “welfare.” Nearly one-third of America’s 14 million unemployed have been unable to find work for a year or more. And yet, to Gingrich, “it is fundamentally wrong” to give these people jobless aid “for doing nothing.” Unless, of course, we drug test them first.

Determined to distinguish herself with the most draconian immigration position in the GOP field, today Michele Bachmann elaborated on her plan to deport every single undocumented immigrant in the country:

[P]residential candidate Michele Bachmann called for 11 million illegal immigrants to be deported from the United States in steps. [...]

Asked by radio host Laura Ingraham on Monday about an earlier statement she made differentiating between immigrants who had recently entered the country illegally from those with longstanding ties to the United States, Bachmann said she was never referring to legalization.

“What I’m talking about is the order of deportation, the sequence of deportation,” Bachmann replied. “It is almost impossible to move 11 million illegal immigrants overnight. You do it in steps.” Bachmann said deporting those convicted of crimes would be the first step.

Despite the sheer impracticality (and sinister connotations) of somehow identifying, rounding up, and transporting each and every undocumented immigrant to their country of origin, experts say that such a radical move would be utterly calamitous for the U.S. economy. A Center for American Progress analysis estimated that the cost of deporting the undocumented population would total $285 billion over five years.

It costs $23,148 for each person to be apprehended, detained, legally processed, and transported out of the country. A deportation-only policy would amount to $922 in new taxes for “every man, woman, and child in this country” — an exorbitant price tag for the satisfaction of appearing tough on immigrants.

Furthermore, mass deportation would reduce the country’s GDP by 1.46 percent, which would amount to $2.6 trillion in cumulative losses over 10 years. It would also cripple several essential industries, like agriculture, that depend on immigrant labor — which is why the farmers and business owners Bachmann claims to represent have been vehemently opposed to such a plan.

Harsh immigration laws in states like Alabama have already resulted in a mass exodus of migrant workers that many farmers say will drive them out of business by next year. Crops are rotting in the field without migrant workers to harvest them.

All of this is to say nothing of the human toll of needlessly separating families and overwhelming the foster care system with the American-born children of the deported. Not that Bachmann cares about that — she once said proudly that she wouldn’t do “anything” to help the children of undocumented immigrants. She has also sponsored legislation to repeal birthright citizenship — a blatant violation of the 14th amendment — to strip these children of their legal status.

Last year, Sen. Mike “A Noun, A Verb, and Unconstitutional” Lee (R-UT) upset longtime Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) in the Utah GOP’s arcane candidate selection process — allowing the Tea Party to elevate someone to the Senate who believes that everything from Medicare to Social Security to child labor laws somehow violate the Constitution. Since then, Utah’s senior Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) has tripped over himself to pretend that he is just as radical as young Sen. Lee.

Alas, all of Hatch’s extremist posturing may be for naught, as the Tea Party has found someone who shares their apparent policy goal of ensuring that people who can’t afford health care are left to fend for themselves:

During a recent media blitz in Washington, D.C., Dan Liljenquist, a state senator from Utah, went after Sen. Orrin Hatch, arguing he has done more than any other Republican to promote nationalized health care. [...] The skirmish is the first between these potential 2012 opponents. Liljenquist, a Republican, says he won’t make an official decision until early next year, but he has prepared for a possible run for Hatch’s seat. [...]

[Liljenquist] argued that Hatch is not committed to returning power to the states, focusing on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that Hatch spearheaded in 1997. That program, which pays for health coverage for poor children, has come under fire from tea party Republicans who see it as a step toward a national takeover of health insurance. Liljenquist went as far as to call it “unconstitutional.”

Liljenquist’s suggestion that the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is unconstitutional is absurd. SCHIP works by providing funds to states to help them pay for health insurance for children. Because the Constitution allows the federal government “to lay and collect taxes” and to use those revenues to “provide for the…general welfare of the United States,” there is simply no doubt that it can spend money on providing health care to vulnerable young people.

Moreover, other essential health care programs — such as Medicare and Medicaid — stand on similar constitutional footing as SCHIP. So if Liljenquist thinks one of these programs is unconstitutional, it is likely that he believes that we must eliminate all three.

In other words, if Liljenquist succeeds in taking Hatch’s Senate seat, Utah could become the only state in the union to have its entire Senate delegation believe that the Constitution requires millions of children, low-income Americans and seniors to be cast out into the cold with no meaningful access to health care.

Last month, ThinkProgress reported on Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) attempt to create his own personal slush fund — funded by unlimited donations from wealthy individuals and corporations — which he could then use to buy more friends in Washington by helping other politicians win elections. As we wrote then, this kind of activity is an invitation to corruption, and it should be illegal despite the Supreme Court’s egregious Citizens United decision.

Thankfully, at least one member of the Federal Election Commission appears to agree with us:

The commission issued a draft advisory opinion Wednesday that if adopted would shoot down the Utah senator’s request to turn his Constitutional Conservatives Fund into a political action committee capable of accepting big dollar checks directly from corporations and unions. [...] A draft opinion means that at least one of the six commissioners disagrees with Lee’s legal argument, but other commissioners could release their own drafts before the official meeting — and that’s exactly what Lee’s attorney Dan Backer is banking on. [...]

[T]he draft opinion says Lee’s request flies in the face of the 2002 campaign finance law that expressly prohibits elected officials from being associated with a political entity that collects money beyond the legal limits. For a PAC such as the Constitutional Conservatives Fund, the limit is $5,000 per person per year and a complete ban on corporate giving.

The draft opinion, which the full FEC will consider this Thursday, is available here. Should the full body agree that Lee’s proposed slush fund is such an invitation to corruption that even Citizens United can’t save it, the Tea Party purist is unlikely to take that decision sitting down. Lee previously claimed that federal child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution, so he would hardly be going further out on a limb by claiming that any effort to keep wealthy corporations from buying politicians violates his twisted vision of our founding document.

Last Monday, Kansas high school student Emma Sullivan attended a speech by Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS), during which she published a tweet critical of the governor. In response, Brownback’s office reported Sullivan’s critical tweet to her high school’s administration, and the high school principal ordered her to write a letter of apology — despite the fact that this punishment is unconstitutional because Sullivan’s tweet is protected by the First Amendment.

Last night, Sullivan sent out another tweet — announcing that she will not obey her principal’s unconstitutional command to apologize to the thin-skinned governor:

Among other things, this incident highlights the incompetence of Brownback’s communications team. At the time of her first tweet, Sullivan had only a few dozen followers. Had the governor’s office simply ignored the tweet, it’s doubtful that more than a few people would have read it. Instead, they decided to intimidate the dissenting teenager by reporting her — and the incident blew up into a major national news story. As of this writing, Sullivan has more than 4,000 Twitter followers.

Team Brownback justifies its heavy-handed response by claiming that Sullivan’s original tweet — which said that Brownback “sucked” and ended with the hashtag “#heblowsalot” — wasn’t respectful.” Perhaps it wasn’t, but the First Amendment cares very little whether a persons’ speech is respectful or not. One of the Supreme Court’s seminal First Amendment cases held that the words “Fuck the Draft” are protected speech. And, while a public school student’s First Amendment rights are somewhat reduced, schools typically cannot discipline students for speaking out unless their speech is likely to disrupt the school’s learning environment.

Now that Sullivan has chosen to assert her First Amendment rights, the ball is in the school’s court. If they are smart, they will recognize that their attempt to punish Sullivan unambiguously violates the Constitution and save themselves from expensive potential litigation that they are exceedingly unlikely to win.