About
Learn More about our progressive online community for the Granite State.

Create an account today (it's free and easy) and get started!
Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


Search




Advanced Search


The Masthead
Managing Editors


Jennifer Daler

Contributing Writers
elwood
Mike Hoefer
 susanthe
 William Tucker
ActBlue Hampshire

The Roll, Etc.
Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch, finch, beech
Democracy for NH
Live Free or Die
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Granite State Progress
Seacoast for Change
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
Tomorrow's Progressives

Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Krauss
Landrigan
Lawson
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Primary Wire
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes
Welch

Campaigns, Et Alia.
Paul Hodes
Carol Shea-Porter
Ann McLane Kuster
John Lynch
Jennifer Daler

ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC

National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
The Next Hurrah
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo

50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

The Judd Gregg and Sharron Angle Mind Meld

by: Dean Barker

Mon Jul 05, 2010 at 19:03:53 PM EDT
Conventional wisdom is a funny thing.

CW says (and yes, I think this is true even outside of dirty hippie land) that US Senate GOP nominee from Nevada Sharron Angle is a Crazy Person, for example:

"You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but it doesn't pay as much. We've put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry."
And then you have Judd Gregg, whom CW dictates both here and nationally to be a Very Serious Person (He's even on the Catfood Commission, he's so Very Serious!), for example:
Because you're out of the recession, you're starting to see growth and you're clearly going to dampen the capacity of that growth if you basically keep an economy that encourages people to, rather than go out and look for work, to stay on unemployment.
So, what's the daylight between those two statements, anyway?
Dean Barker :: The Judd Gregg and Sharron Angle Mind Meld
Tags: , , , , (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
The Judd Gregg and Sharron Angle Mind Meld | 4 comments
Myth of the Day: Benefits Make People Lazy (4.00 / 2)
TNR's Alex Hart:

...A 2007 study from David Card, Raj Chetty, and Andrea Weber took a closer look at what happens to people when their unemployment benefits run out. They don't magically find jobs, it turns out. Rather, they simply stop submitting the information that would cause the government to count them as unemployed.

Remember, to be officially "unemployed," you have to be seeking work. And unemployment benefits are only available to people who declare they are hunting for a job. Once the benefits run out, people no longer bother to make that declaration. (Why go to the trouble, if you can't get the benefits anyway?) So the statistics stop counting them as jobless even though, as the researchers found, only a tiny fraction of workers return to the workforce right when benefits run out.

But, hey, we're about to get something like a real-world test of Angle's theory. Thanks to the Republicans and Democrat Ben Nelson, hundreds of thousands of people will lose their unemployment benefits in the next few weeks. If she's right, a bunch of them will magically find jobs just as the benefits run out. Bets, anybody?



"Politics ain't beanbag" - Finley Peter Dunne
It really isn't possible to have a rational (0.00 / 0)
conversation with the bi-polar population.  When everything is either this or that, there are so many other alternatives or options left out that it's impossible to know where to start.  How do you explain red to a color-blind person?

What's an employed person?  Is it a person who's being used by someone else?  What about an abused person?  Is an abused person employed?  If so, then isn't that person better off being unemployed?

What other alternatives are there?  How about

self-employed
entrepreneur
gambler
diletant
investor
craftsman
inventor
trader
salesman
middleman?

If employment is signified by the transfer of money in payment for energy expended, then why are the ostensible proponents of employment withholding money from Main Street? It's like promoting reading by burning books.

[ Parent ]
What's telling in both quotes is that the (0.00 / 0)
speakers are presuming to speak on behalf of an unidentified "you."  The use of the second person has several benefits for the speaker:

1) Personal thoughts or ideas are disguised.
2) Truth is dismissed as an issue.
3) The speaker assumes an unselfish stance.
4) The listener is induced to believe that the speaker is genuinely concerned.

Crazy Person? (0.00 / 0)
More like completely, utterly nutso! Come on! 2nd Amendment remedies? She's insane!
Tomorrowsprogressives.com
The Judd Gregg and Sharron Angle Mind Meld | 4 comments

Connect with BH
     
Blue Hampshire Blog on Facebook
Powered by: SoapBlox