It might be good to point out that your 'skills stagnate' at, say, IT, if you are delivering pizzas?

Devil's advocate: can you accept that MAYBE she intended the "which really doesn't benefit anyone" clause to refer to the actions of Reid and Berkeley? In other words, they should be doing more to generate jobs than extending benefits? Still not "progressive" thinking but not as spoiled brat thinking as you thought.

I know Angle's comments were insane, but if politicians think that extending unemployment benefits are much more than a band-aid they are sadly mistaken. Unemployment is simply a bridge to help people get from here to there with there being a good job with a future. Right now the Republicans and Blue Dogs are proposing nothing to create good jobs. Frankly, except for saving the auto industry and some tax incentives for renewable energy, I haven't heard much out of our administration. They seem pleased with themselves that they preserved bonuses on Wall Street.

Just visited pollster.com & found some mildly encouraging news, believe it or not: Giannoulias tied with Kirk, Conway not far behind Paul, Reid ahead of Angle. And even that damned "generic ballot" number seems to be coming in a bit.

Maybe over the summer, voters weren't following politics but were just generally pissed off and said they'd vote Repub, but now they're actually looking at the GOP candidates on offer? And getting increasingly horrified? Here's hoping.

Angle is a nutcase, no doubt, but this post is attacking a straw man. What it looks like she's arguing is that extending unemployment benefits isn't a solution to the economic crisis - NOT that unemployment benefits "don't help anyone."

She's saying that Democrats' only solution is to extend unemployment benefits, not craft policies that would create permanent jobs. (A straw man in and of itself)

She's not really talking about the underlying merits of unemployment insurance. That seems pretty clear in context, given that she also made the comment about job skills stagnating (which is obviously a huge problem for the long-term unemployed).

Let's be clear about two things here. One is that Republicans don't care about the unemployed. Secondly, they subscribe to fantasy-world economic theories of the Ayn-Rand school. Together, this constitutes a recipe for nihilism, which we'll apparently get to experience first-hand next January.

It becomes clear that people like Angle have confused unemployment benefits with some kind of government sponsored vacation pay. They frequently make statements that seem to suggest that people should just go get a job, instead of choosing to be idle.

Yes, it is a little insulting, in that they themselves are applying for a job involving doing very little in exchange for a government check, but maybe that's the point. Maybe all those people on unemployment should just get off their butts and run for office, like Sharron Angle is.

Or something. It's not like she really ever makes sense.

I was forced to take unemployment in 2007 when I was laid off, and I can attest to the benefit of this program. Fortunately, I landed a job after about six months of receiving the checks. They were small, but they were necessary for my wife and I to make ends meet. It takes at least six months -- often much more -- to network to find new professional work, and if you're delivering pizzas or working a minimum wage job every day, you are not trying to find new professional work. You're stuck. Unemployment does not encourage laziness. It is a motivator and an important safety net.

Use that unemployment money to ship these lazy loafers to China. There are plenty of jobs in that booming economy, and, in these tough times, those of us with a job need all the cheap shit from China we can get.

Like TomByrd, I have the sense that what she chiefly wants to say is that it's the application of the band-aid that "really doesn't benefit anyone," because she wants to say that it's short-term thinking rather than some kind of fundamental long-term reconsideration of how to handle the economy.

But she's having trouble talking about that without getting all tied in knots around the idea that unemployment benefits themselves don't, um, benefit anyone. You can tell that she's been coached to say that your "skills stagnate" and you become "demoralized," rather than that receiving unemployment makes you lazy, which is what that hard-right libertarian wing of the Republican party really, truly believes and has for more than 50 years.

Wrong Steve: Angle is not running to represent Nevada. She is running to represent the Tea Party. There's a difference, and it is what makes this radical right movement fundamentally different from conservative parties in the past. There is now no longer any pretext that a US Senator, once elected, is responsible for the entire state's population. That is why Angle feels no need to reach out to the larger public or speak with news organizations not directly affiliated with her narrowly defined constituency.
Sarah Palin set the precedent: a candidate for vice president who didn't appear outside the bubble of adoring right wing crowds.

Oh, for God's sake...she didn't say "unemployment benefits don't benefit anyone"...she said the policy of extending them doesn't...not necessarily the same thing even IF that is what she truly believes...must we go down the same road they do?

Ted, all too true. But, I think the adoring crowd precedent began with the GWB campaign in 2004.

Ted Frier -

Excellent point - this explains a lot about the style and methods of today's right wing. It explains why these guys make exactly zero attempt to appeal to moderates - they really don't give a shit about moderates, since their strategy is to get energize and mobilize their far-right base.

But I would say the precedent was set by GWB, not Palin - this is entirely the Karl Rove approach. And it will keep working as long as turnout in US elections is so low - you don't get elected by "the public", you get elected by your voters, as long as you can get enough of them to the polls. Full stop.

chrenson beat me to it. But the thing to remember is that the policy of exclusion and intimidation of non-supporters practiced at Bush's invitation-only "town halls" was a feature, not a bug.

Any bets on whether it will be the story "that is pushing my hot buttons" on THE ED SHOW...misrepresentation and all...MY GOD...time to TURN THEM ALL OFF...course it will be a toss off with the BREWER performance...

Democrats should be CAMPAIGNING on this issue
The President should hold press conferences and DENOUNCE theses heartless Goopers
What better campaign issue ?

Unfortunately, President Obama seems to be channeling Michael Dukkakis
Hillary said she was a 'figher' during the primary campaign

FlipYrWhig, that's how I read her comments as well. I think you're right about her beliefs (she's said as much elsewhere), but I don't think that's the idea her comments conveyed here.

"It's ironic, in a way. Unemployment will very likely cost Democrats their congressional majority, but it's Republicans who seem to actively, personally dislike those who've lost their jobs."

As well as being the ones responsible for the greatest LOSS of jobs. But then they really don't care. Let those still working support the top 1% and life 'as they know it' will go on...they think.

So for you supporters of Angle of the Dangle's sanity have any of you actually looked at her record as a poltician in Nevada state govt? have any of you actually heard what this woman has said in the past about the subject of unemployment money? did you even bother to listen to what she said on the radio show? I DOUBT IT! The woman is batshit crazy. If you believe for one instant that she' got some coherent plan to make a positive change to the employment situation in this country then your more batshit crzy than she is.

Business does not WANT to provide more jobs. They just want profits and driving down the payroll helps that. They don't want higher wages, they -- and Republicans and conservative
Democrats -- want cheap labor.

So to put business in the driver's seat for employment recovery, in light of this simple fact of life, is just on more part of our stupid political discourse.

Clear and simple:

The Republicans created this recession and they have obstructed every effort to fix it.

Basilsic

The divide and conquer style of politics is definately Rove's and Bush's, as is the idea that you then govern on behalf of the 50.1% that elected you. But the refinement Palin put on that is that you don't even have to engage with a public that is not pre-approved. Bush was starting the process with all of his pre-screened audiences, especially during the ludicrous Society Security campaign right after the 2004 election, but Palin and now her Tea Party progeny have taken it to a whole other level -- a truly frightening Balkanization of politics. We've gone from "who elected the press" to "who cares about the press, screw 'em!"

I wish there was a National database on unemployement benefits. Why, because I suspect every politician has either been on it or will be on it when they are voted out.

I received benefits for nearly a year when I left the Navy after my enlistment and was waiting for college to start. I would have an extremely hard time believing that incumbents who lose don't do the same thing. Ditto for every member of their staff and family members involved in their organizations.

In other words, has Delay, Newt, O'Reilly, Tucker, Morning Joe, Rush, Coulter, and the other million dittos heads every collected unemployement and for how long ? We all know they have been unemployed, and mostly not by choice, it would shock me to find out they didn't take advantage of the funds.

The difference of course is they wouldn't have needed them to feed their family or pay the bills.

That Angle is given any credibility for anything she says is unfathomable. There are not enough jobs to reemploy the millions who are currently unemployed; many are not even counted in the unemployed statistics because they have given up looking and are not counted, lost their "benefit" because their entitlement has expired, are working at less than their preferred occupation for less money or only part-time for less money than they used to making or they are running for political office. That a Sharron Angle can get away with her insane rhetoric and not be called out on it by those interviewing her or the politicians running against her is astonishing. The very people funding her campaign are the ones who should be doing the hiring of all these unemployed people. Instead, the highest paid CEOs are the ones who have laid off the most workers, based on a recent study. I do not read all the economic information and have no degree in economics, but I know beyond a doubt that our system is broken beyond repair and the solution is not in more jobs. It is a complete transformation of our economy and way of life.

Sharron Angle and her like are the visible manifestation of the breakdown of our system. We are entering a period of chaos through which we must pass in order to reform how we live. This is not a small adjustment to a wobbly cart; it is the redesign of how we move in the world.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation
peace,
st john

There is a part of me who would like the see the GOP take over Congress this year. Then, by 2012 the American people would remember why they voted against them!

I like your blog.