Sharron Angle: Unemployed Workers are Lazy Welfare Queens
By karoli Tuesday Jun 22, 2010 7:00amI'm really trying to understand what Nevada Tea Party Senate hopeful Sharron Angle thinks her job as US Senator should be. According to her remarks on this video, it's not the job of a United States Senator to be involved in job creation. Further, evidently job creation isn't something that's really a problem. No, the problem is that those unemployed people just think they're too good to scoop garbage out of the gutters as long as they collect the fat unemployment check every couple of weeks.
Really? The "unemployed as deadbeats" theme has been around for years. It's not new and it's not unusual from the right, though it usually doesn't come from candidates running for the Senate in a state where unemployment is at one of the highest rates in the country.
What resonates with me here (besides her amazing whiny-toned voice) is how utterly craven she is about slapping down people who have lost their jobs for no reason other than to bolster the bottom line.
I had a job from the time I was 15 to the time I was 51. Always full-time, and I was always self-sufficient. When I was laid off and had to apply for unemployment, it was a low day for me, and it's because of people like Sharron Angle who blame us for being in need while they do every thing in their power to make sure that need goes deeper and lasts longer than the last time someone was in need.
And no, we don't "make more" by collecting unemployment than by working.
Here's a little factoid for Sharron Angle: 51-year old workers don't get hired at McDonald's or elsewhere at minimum wage, even. They don't because we either don't fit the optics (young, up-and-coming staff), or we cost too much. We didn't ask to be laid off and we're not asking for a handout.
Angle's remarks about it not being her job as a Senator to create jobs or anything else, it seems, are a huge gift to Harry Reid. If ever there was a definition of 'workfare', it's Angle's idea about what it means to earn around $174,000 a year of taxpayers' money to NOT represent constituents.
Back in the days when I was in management, you know what I used to do with employees who said it wasn't their job to do whatever I'd just told them to do?
I fired them. When Angle is fired, she'll take comfort in knowing that unemployment benefits are not available to employees fired for cause, rendering her ineligible to apply for an unemployment claim.
How ironic. In Angle's case, losing an election will be truer to her values than winning it. No welfare queen, she.
(h/t Steve Sibelius)
Update: Rand Paul concurs. The chorus grows louder. And Rand Paul is even more egregious than Angle, because he advocates the unemployed taking pay cuts so the bottom lines of corporate America can be enhanced even more on the backs of American workers. Nice folks, these teabaggers.
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Can you feel the GOP love?
Another great piece karoli!
Keep up the good work.
:)
and the snippets C&L showed her making poorly worded points. She is going to lose for her poorly chosen words. But in fairness she was not incorrect on a few points.
Personally I don't see these as a great points to run a campaign on myself and suggesting minimum wage for unemployment is spoiled is really asinine.
It is the Governor's job to draw flies. And unwarranted disparagement of our otherwise excellent would be nation.
went into selecting a state into which Bush could be air dropped with some hope of political success. Texas got the short straw. It was the perfect job for him don't you think, Governor of a state whose legislators meet rarely and briefly and has a one paragraph list of duties.
Being the so-called governor of Texas is the only job Dubya's family bought him where he wasn't a total and complete failure. And that's because he didn't have to do anything much. Any more duties and he'd have messed it up just as bad as all the others.
manner in which Georgie sent people to the death chamber.
Unemployment should pay more than minimum wage. The idea of unemployment insurance is to make sure that when someone gets RIFF'd, they don't end up getting forclosed on and having thier family thrown out on the street. If you were making 50k/yr and were then forced to go on a minimum wage income, there is no way you could maintain the financial responsibilities you had at your former salary. I'm not talking vacations or trips to the movies, I'm talking food and housing.
So if everything is being taken care of by everyone else in Nevada, what the hell do you need to pay a governor for?
I didn't make the rules, and I'm not defending her poor choice of words. What does the Governor in Nevada do? Good question, probably helps Nevada gaming commission to count their money they so kindly share with the casino's while sitting at a girlie bar.
Angle is barrel scrapings.
Love,
Mr Green Jeans
Las Vegas, Nevada
what he said
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Until these so called liberals stop giving H1B visas to Indians to come take tech jobs from us, they are just as bad.
Where did you hear that?
what about H1B virus?
where did i hear that? from the unemployment line...Oracle laid off thousands last year. guess where those jobs are?
I like to think Rand and Angle are talking their way out of winning elections, but seeing how bizarre and detached from reality the right wing is I am not too sure.
For many years, I have believed earth is the nut house of the univers; now I am sure!
What a charmer she is. Jesus, is this what the republicans call a candidate? The crazier the better I guess.
Bachmann got elected. Do we really need more of her?
same look in their eyes as Bachmann has in hers. What the hell can be causing that? A virus? Insanity? Pods from outer space? Creepy!
Paul notes that, " "In Europe, they give about a year of unemployment. We're up to two years now in America."
You'd think that a doctor would realize the impact that nationalized health care in Europe would have on the true life-status of the unemployed. In the US, if you're unemployed and sick, you're screwed - period.
Especially since her opponent had clear views on a U.S. Senator's role in promoting the health of constitutents by monetizing fowl.
It must have been a tough decision for the voters. How do you measure crazy in candidates, especially when you are wanting to vote for the craziest one? Actually this one makes chicken woman look kind of, sort of, a little bit, saner.
that in this election, there was no clear-cut decision; it was really deciding between two bowls of shyt, and deciding which one smelled better than the other one.
People like angle and paul simply don't give a sh&t. They have "theirs, and everyone else can just f&ck off and leave the wealth to them... I am sure that if one goes back into their family histories, one would find that they all got some "help" along the way, at some time.
Those who align with republicans are the most disgusting breed in our country.
back in the early 1900's, before the cold war, before the palmer raids, there were socialist candidates, such as eugene debs, on the ballot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Debs
the united states government ruthlessly crushed any real leftist parties at the start of the last century, and then stomped on the ashes during the 1950's. we are where we are today because american capitalism has run riot for the last one hundred years, not to say that we didn't partake in plenty of injustice during the previous century.
job one is getting the real history of the capitalist experiment across to the american public, until that is accomplished, nothing else will change. job number two will be designing something better.
I will never forgive Debs for selling out Big Bill Haywood. Obama must have taken a page right out of that book. Politicians like Debs and Obama love to kick their base in the teeth.
debs and haywood had differences, but to compare "bloody barack" to debs? debs went to prison for speaking out against capitalism, obama shovels money in their pockets, big difference.
i would certainly put debs closer to haywood than to the exalted one.
I am sure you would. He could have fought Haywood's expulsion but did not. Just as Dem's could have stood up against the expulsion of ACORN or the castigation of CodePink.
of course he could have, but still and all; debs spent time in prison for agitation, a far cry from our peace prize president.
At least we know where she is coming from. With Democrats there might be a dozen who will not vote to extend unemployment beyond 99 weeks in some states. That is real betrayal.
And I also don't hear them telling us we deserve it.
Has she never heard of outsourcing
Had she never heard of stagnant economy
Had she never heard of being over-qualified
Had she never heard of oil drilling moratoriums
Had she never heard of lack of infrastructure investments
What has she hoid?
and am now unemployed. Maybe Baby Paul and Obtuse Angle need to see how much an unemployment check really is, and then tell them they have to live on 4 of those for the next month?
AND NO CHEATING!
But that won't happen, rich pricks always cheat. That's how they become rich pricks.
then I've been de-throned, because my benefits have been exhausted because the ReThugs in Congress, along with 12 Traitor Democrats, refused to pass the extension.
I, too, have worked from 15 to 47, and was laid off in last summer, so I'm coming up on a year of unemployment and no other means of getting any money to pay my bills.
Phuck her, Rand Paul, ReThugs in the Senate and the horse they ride on.
if you want higher wages than you can get working or on welfare, pass on those "honest" jobs. Take the dishonest ones. Like Senator or CEO.
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Following UTube links I saw a JP endorsement video for Angle. He says that he speaks with "radio host Mark Levin" and they both endorse her! Well with Levin behind her Reid is a shoe in!
JP had a t-shirt on that said spread my work ethic not my wealth...
Irony is lost on this useless tool :)
the rhetoric from the right is always about the importance of the individual. The facts are that they despise all individuals not like them and worship big money.For example..we shouldn't tax corporations cuz they just pass it on to consumers.
I say they should ONLY tax corporations. Then people would have more money to buy the corporations goods.
Well,No more illogical than their argument that we should bow at the feet of big money.
The average American is a wage earner not careerist;
Only working for a pay cheque;
And malaise from the process;
And yet they still identify themselves with their job;
It's one of the first questions strangers ask of each other;
So loss of job is not just loss of money, but social standing, and self-identification;
With anomie resultant.
But malaise is best with tuna fish sandwiches
Good thing I hate tuna fish sandwiches...
but don't all workers pay into the unemployment insurance plan against just such an eventuality? Does this Angle ever have any idea what she is talking about?
through payroll taxes. Including cabinet nominees with nannies.
but employers take it out anyway as part of a lower wage package.
They got us coming and going. But you must be even invisible handed in your tretment of them.
Exactly. And now that people have normalized on the unemployment fund-adjusted wage levels, if we removed unemployment insurance, people wouldn't get paid more, corporations would just keep more money. In other words, rather than looking out for the majority of people and ensuring their basic human dignity if and when they lose thier job, removing unemployment benefits would just further enrich the wealthy minority. Exactly what the GOP is good at.
not employees. That is, unless you consider the lower wages they have to endure because unemployment insurance costs their employers so much money.
Same with worker's comp.
and assumes (correctly) that most others that like her also suffer from lack of empathy.
It's bad enough that every person ever elected is a narcissist, do we need to have sociopaths, too? Cheney and Bush were enough.
Even the most working class of working class will turn on their own because they got theirs. They have been convinced that anyone who needs a hand is lazy, stupid, etc..
I was laid off last year and was out of work for the first time in 25 years. I spent every single day looking for a job and only scored getting back by doing IT contracting because of some help from people that I know. 10 months I was out of work and collecting unemployment. My wife makes a good living and I was able to be covered by her insurance, but without that, we could have been in trouble. If I had not been married, I could have lost my house.
So, in closing, fuck this stupid bitch and anyone that supports her.
and I concur with your conclusion.
I meant to use the C word for her, but that always gets deleted..
Clown?
when he was talking to some people and a woman told him that she was working three jobs to support her family? He just chuckled and said, "That's the way it is in America today," as if the government doesn't have anything to do with that problem. As if the jobless situation is just an uncontrollable, animated entity with a mind of its own, much like the "free market"?
The hell with all of these morons.
mere spoiled, idiotic, asshole. An arrogant moron with money. Someone whose lack of self-awareness eludes him. A person with an undeserved, but overwhelming sense of his own importance. A great big motherfu...never mind.
... Angle probably thinks I'm a lazy, worthless sort for having been on disability for nearly two years.
Manolo-Blahnik fits, says Angle....
PG. Look at Angle's hair. Does that say Monolo-Blahnik to you?
More this: http://www.begoths.com/html/images/fashion/bu...
say sensible anything, even sensible shoes?
..she thinks you're black.
This is just the logical culmination of thirty years of Reaganite rhetoric demonizing those receiving any kind of public assistance as lazy, shiftless bums who are stealing the money of hardworking Americans. It is and was a blame the victim strategy for shifting attention away from the fact that it was tax cuts for the wealthy, stagnant wages, and growing income inequality and concentration of wealth at the top which was causing the problems for the middle classes.
...thier nonsense. It is a good thing when these douchbags admitt to thier real feelings and thoughts on issues. At least the crazy is there for everyone to see. Unfortunately, there are a bunch of knuckleheads that will vote for them, but at least we know where these canidates stand...on the backs of the poor and middle class, feeling empathy for no one that isn't standing beside them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-emQAsGMeQ
The Tea party would love the old feudal Middle Ages. No slavery, just serfs who couldn't leave the land. No unions, so in times of high unemployment the non-serfs had to work for nothing. Just the wealthy and the peons who worked for them. It took a series of plagues to lower the population enough that workers become scarce and could start to demand some basic rights.
You know what happens when you cut unemployment benefits in a society where most people can't afford to save more than 1-3 months of cusion money? When people lose thier jobs, they have to break leases, default on morgages, fall behind on bills, default on car loans, and a number of other things. Then you know who loses? Property management companies, banks, morgage handling companies, utilties, cable companies, car dealers and manufactureres, and anyone else that makes money selling to those people that no longer have money. In other words, all the GOP corporate donors.
Let alone the human impact, destroying the social safety net destroys the economy as well. And these retardlicans are supposed to care about that.
Coming from Nevada. with its rich beauty pageant heritage, Angle would not disparage queenship by associating it with those on the dole. And you err in attributing her disparaging remarks to the unemployed.
What she did say is that American citizens are spoiled. "Angle blames the laziness of all Americans for illegal immigration." That would be my honest misinterpretation.
...on that part when she talks about how they don't want to take jobs that pay less, but dammit, they're gonna have to because they're just scum-sucking society drains as long as they receive UI.
You know a senator only has to have worked five years of one six year term to be invested for life, along with their spouse, in FEHB plans.
have to serve eight whole years in that crummy paying job before they are eligible to retire as if they served and were paid as a judge.
Stop worrying about unemployment compensation and enact WPA 2.0 now!
End rapacious crony capitalism, claw back the corporate welfare from the welfare kings.
Take the masters of the universe and give them jobs as gandy dancers.
the Gandy.
where it said ditch diggers instead of gandy dancers. How about gandy ditch diggers.
dew the Gandy , on a bed of 4-6 inch rock , shoeless since they have no heart .
push the same propaganda, that everything is the fault of the slaves. Massa's greed is never the issue.
and make foolish claims about their knowledge of birthing babies.
The floggings will continue until morale improves.
Once you have improved the morale of the man with the whip, it is foolish to then allow him to lay about idle. Perpetual flogging keeps the profits perpetually climbing.
Works for me...
Do you know what a good dom in Dallas costs now days?
At least they've gone back to the traditional whip, for awhile they were experimenting with electro-shock torture...
will have no excuse for not being able to make it to the polls to vote against this woman.
will line up TO vote FOR Angle just as so many have always voted against their interest.
Period.
Republicans would prefer you working like a dog with shit pay, no job security, no benefits and working 2 or more jobs normally reserved for teens and immigrants. What a bunch of corporate prostitutes. They are sickening and part of the reason why your country has gone to shit.
i double dog dare you.
If they had a choice about what to be reincarnated as they made the right one.
That's "family values" and capitalism at work. Think otherwise? You're a socialist!
Sharon Angle's information about "welfare queens" probably doesn't go any deeper than the rhetoric Ronald Reagan used to spew. I don't think the term was used much before segregation was done away with.
The ineptitude of the GOP is reflected in their inability to come up with new slanderous old wive's talks to fling at the poor and non-whites.
There aren't enough jobs. It's really that simple. I suppose Angle wants us all to kill each other just to makes some space?
Personally, I'd like to see the GOP pick up a alot of seats.
The country obviously needs some shock therapy to jar it's long term memory.
I prefer preserves...
Has anyone yet to point out that workers pay their own unemployment COMPENSATION as part of their wage package? It's not a free handout.
Someone is getting a hand out. Not the employee.
I was in the same boat...worked steadily from age 16 to 51 and was laid off at the beginning of the bank collapses. I was out of work fo over a year in spite of continuous and dogged job-hunting. Many applications were wholly ignored and the few interviews I managed to get were for positions I was wholly unsuited for (selling insurance door to door on such money that I would no way have been able to afford the gas and vehicle upkeep.) Just as my unemployment was ran out I was finally offered employment at a big box home improvement store. I am working there right now for a pay rate that I have not seen in 28 years and add to that a routine cutting of hours (last week I have fifteen hours). In that way Angle is correct---I actually *was* making more money unemployed. What she fails to understand is that if I was not living with a partner (same sex couple--we cannot marry so I have also been insurance-less for over a year) I would most definitely have been homeless and even with a job would not be making a living wage. You can't think about getting another job because the hours are arbitrary and all over the map (5:30 am to 2 pm one day, 2 to 11 pm the next) and if you say you are unable to take any specific shift they let you go and high some other hapless schmuck to take your miserable place.
I am fortunate in that I made friends with someone at this job who snagged a better job and managed to get me in to that company under the auspices of her and her friend there. The pay is double what I am making now and the hours are confirmed and regular and though I will not be wealthy by any means, my partner and I will not be living on the ragged edge as we have been since my lay off in Dec. '08.
The unsympathetic, grasping, nasty condescension that polticians in general (Dems, Rethugs---makes no fucking difference anymore) hold toward their constituents leaves me cold. It's my wish to see all of them fall on their faces...it's my wish that those that vote against social nets like unemployment suffer debilitating monetary losses that they are never, everable to recoup and wind up seeing what it is like to be on the other side of their rosy world.
If at one time there was an unwritten social contract in some parts of America that presumed anyone who works full time, no matter how humble the job, is entitled to at least the minimum of food and shelter, then that contract has long since been torn up and spat upon. Fact is nobody can survive working part time or for temp agencies, I went through that in the 70's and 80's. I worked construction for years and found myself out of work at least once a year, often for a month, and could not collect unemployment because the industry paid everyone, down to the carpenter, as a subcontractor. I've sold door to door and it's a crock. Our capitalist system is wasteful and abusive. And still people like this demonize people who are out of work.
And still people like this demonize people who are out of work.
Right. As if we chose to be in a dependent and precarious state. As if this is what we've been waiting all the years that we were gainfully employed and working our asses off mostly for someone else's benefit.
There is no such thing as corporate loyalty to workers and there is no such thing as politicians who give a crap for anything other than what they can get out of their years in office (exceptions do not make the rule: I am aware of the unfairness of painting with a broad brush...just as we have been painted so.)
The days of being able to work for a company for thirty years and pull a pension that would augment the social security you faithfully contributed to throughout your working life are long over.
FOr someone like Sharon Angle with her narcissistic, holier-than-thou, ill-informed suppositions to blather on like this offends me deeply.
A proper good admonishment to those out of work shamefully encumbered with a sense of entitlement from one who is obviously unencumbered with any notions of entitlement. Note: the sense of entitlement to be part of the aristocracy does not count.
Clean out gutters she says, and I'm sure she has cleaned many a gutter. Unemployment pays more than minimum wage, why should they work? Especially when minimum wage is so minimal.
Queen Sharron and her soulmates will have America purged of the unfit, leaving America for the true Americans, and the best way to do that is to further polarize us into the haves and have-nots. For those who just barely have and fear being a have-not, her kind offers the fig leave of belonging to the haves (winners) while mocking and scorning the have-nots. Beware, this strategy only works until a critical mass of the haves fall into the abyss of the have-nots. Then all bets are off.
First thing ol' Meggie is going to do is get rid of 40,000 state workers, because you just know they're the ones responsible for the California budget's many problems.
I have a good friend who got laid off by a technology company almost a year ago and has been unable to find a job that will support her family since then. I wish these clueless Republicant's could spend a month doing what she's doing. They might just shut their yaps after that. Maybe.
Are those people really that stupid to believe and vote for that kind. If they are a majority there is no hope for The USA. And than they deserve what they get. I will NEVER vote for a GOP candidate or a "conservative" Democrat again.
is do these rethuglicans think that unemployed means you lose your right to vote? I mean do they think that you have to be a property owner and gainfully employed to be allowed in the voting booth? That's the only reason I can see that they would go on tv and disparage the multitude of people that are seriously hurting right now to pull in a couple more like-minded idiots.
I think the general idea is that she might be speaking to out of work voters, but to them, it's only OTHER out of work people who are lazy; the sympathetic audience has an excuse. As Americans, we are far to willing to cut our neighbors' throats if it momentarily makes us feel better.
Or maybe they know something about whose vote will be actually counted in the upcoming election
that the republicans will gain 70 - 100 seats in the House of Reps and some bit number in the Senate?
According to beltway wisdom the independent voters are just waiting with bated breath so that they can vote in droves for republicans come Nov.
For those who've been paying attention...you know my prediction.
A slight loss in seats in the Senate...but gains in the House for Democrats.
The incumbent party typically falters in a down economy during the midterms. However, these are not typical times. The faces of the GOP...the Palins, Bachmans and Pauls of the world...show their total callousness towards regular Americans, even in their own districts. That shit isn't flying anymore. Unemployment hits EVERYONE, and if the choice is what's scarier...unemployment with no benefits or brown people...well...guess which one wins.
Why do you not see Mitch McConnell or John Boehner acting like assholes on tv all the time anymore. Because they're smarter than the Bachmann's of the world. They know when to shut up and lay low.
I was reading a book about the 1920's in America and one of the chapters delt directly with the popularity of the KKK back in the 20's. As Iread about the issues that animated the Klan back then, mostly immigration and smaller government, I realized that the teabaggers were following a similar trajectory only nowhere near as popular.
A sizable chunk of the country flocked to the Klan in the 20's viewing it mostly as a cool new social club, what eventually brought them down was their own hypocracy corruption and scandals (behavior we already see in Republican polititions).
I can only hope that the teabaggers hurry and burn themselves out in hypocracy corruption and scandal very soon so that we dont have to deal with their brand of stupidity on a national level anymore.
Totally out of touch with reality!
She oughta' try living on unemployment insurance!
It sure ain't fun!
All you see is a philosophy on display. In this case, the philosophy is, people should not receive benefits from the government....period.
I'm sure this goes for every other social program as well, including all forms of welfare, SS, and healthcare.
What she doesn't understand is the relationship of government (the US government) and monetary policy (the Federal Reserve) to employment. Unemployment is planned from the top down. And she is telling NV voters she doesn't understand unemployment and has no intention of ever understanding it, let alone doing anything about it.
Politicians, especially right-wing ones, who rule by ideology vs. reality do not deserve to be elected and are a danger to our society.
She's toast. She doesn't know it yet, but she just killed her budding political career - she shot it in the head.
Stick a fork in her ... she's done.
*
I think you're right. I don't think the tea bagger's positions are nearly as popular as the media has made them out to be.
For most of my political involvement in American, it's been what the Republican do since I started following politics some 34 years ago. You would think, they, those we call Republicans, would be ready to say what they believe clearly, loudly, and proudly. Instead, what I have seen is this unspoken craft of rationalizing, hedging, and avoiding their unpopular believes. Yet, thanks to the Tea party and radio personalities like Russ Limbaugh, today's Republican is hoping the opposite of avoiding the issue will set them free and help them to win the Congress and Senate in November.
For some, there is nothing the public would like more then to get politicians to say what they believe, do what they say they will do, and stand up for what they say they are going to run on. The former will never work for the Republicans because their are anti people politicians. They belong, lock, "stock," and barrel, to big business.
As far as winning in November, the polls are not following histories pattern. When you match the Democratic and Republican popularity numbers, it would follow the Republicans have to do a little catching up.
Finally, there is the "nut" Republican like Sharron Angle who is bringing the Republican Party down. I love it, but there is nothing I love more then to see the MSM get it wrong about the Republicans take over the political landscape.
Joseph
Teabaggerosity reaches a new low.
I'd love to see Angle out on the streets on garbage day, spending the unemployment check on truck gas so she can pick up old appliances and metal to sell as scrap (watch that back on the refrigerators, Sha), going through moving and eviction piles to salvage flea-marketable items, and grabbing repairable furniture, unscrewing handles from junk dressers, ...and then having the paltry income earned selling these items, deducted from the unemployment check with no credit for expenses incurred in finding income-producing opportunities if it's less than 50 miles from home base.
It's not only the guys doing this, btw. Some women would rather do this than whore. Or is this the last two admins' way of recruiting for sex work?
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