Pelosi one-ups Biden

[AZhitman]

...in the "Who Can Say The Stupidest Thing" contest.

Biden had a STRONG lead until this gem:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07 ... eate-jobs/

[nissangirl74]

I would be willing to help pay the first 26 weeks of her unemployment check if her retarded a** would step down from her job.

[IBCoupe]

Can't access the quote from work; I can only see what the link says in its URL:
"pelosi-unemployment-checks-best-way-create-jobs"

Best way? Yeah, that's unlikely. But I suppose there's an argument that the checks keep money flowing through the economy, the argument being that people who are on unemployment aren't just sitting on their cash. Of course, it could be that the majority of unemployment checks go to paying off debt, which isn't particularly helpful for making the economy move, but I can't say for sure.

[srellim234]

I think you could make the argument that unemployment preserves some jobs (supermarket clerks, Wal-Mart employees and the like) but actually create jobs? No.

[stebo0728]

I ignore current unemployment figures, and jobless rates, and jobs created numbers, they are all conjured figures for political use, and are useless for actual social improvement endeavors. Some people without a job do not consider themselves unemployed, but they are counted that way. Not much thought or scrutiny goes into this field of study.

[AZhitman]

Normally, when we have issues like this, wherein one "side" points to it as an example of "the other side's" failures, it's a debateable or at least partially-defensible topic.

This is one of those that even the hard-core, fingers-in-ears, na-na-na-na-I-can't-hear-you, support-the-party-at-all-costs Dems can't even explain away.

And, once again, it'll be relegated to Page 6, and once again, she'll not be taken to task for it.

[AZhitman]

I think you could make the argument that unemployment preserves some jobs (supermarket clerks, Wal-Mart employees and the like) but actually create jobs? No.

Not just CREATE jobs. The BEST WAY to CREATE JOBS.

[IBCoupe]

In all reality, when Nancy Pelosi gives a facepalm-worthy statement, it belongs on Page 6 'cause it's not news.

[AZhitman]

While I love the idea behind that sentiment, if that had been ANYONE in the GOP, it would have been trumpeted in the headlines.

She's the Speaker of the House, for crying out loud. She's THIRD IN COMMAND.

Seriously, it's time for someone to pull her feeding tube.

[IBCoupe]

Here's the only quote I can find (being that I'm limited on where I can go at work):

"It injects demand into the economy," Pelosi said. "It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name."

Which is a little bit different. Maybe there's more that I'm not seeing, so I hope you guys can help me out.

You wouldn't have heard a member of the Republican Party saying that the government was an avenue for job creation in any way, let alone unemployment checks being the best means of job creation. That's not the kind of stupidity that Republicans tend to demonstrate - but it's not sheer stupidity that gets you in trouble. Usually it has to be coupled with something else - racism, audacity, poorly planned presentations (I'm looking at you, Rep. Barton). There's some logical flaws at play when we're trying to conclude that the media is biased because of a disproportionate representaion.

I'm going to try to walk a very fine line, here. The media may well be biased, but it may also be that the kind of stupidity ("coupled stupidity," if you will) that's picked up by a national media that directs its attention and concern to large population centers (read: east and west coasts; educated populations, etc.) is the kind of stupidity that's more likely to be demonstrated by the type of person who's more likely to be a Republican. The House of Representatives, drawing from far more localized voting population than the state-wide Senate positions, can be prone to developing more, for lack of a better term, crackpots. And being that the national media caters more to the better educated populations (especially news outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN, for example), they're going to pick up on the hicks from the middle of the country that get elected from rural districts and adequately represent the, perhaps, less educated (on average) populations there.

In other words: maybe Republican stupidity is broadcast more often because the media is biased, but maybe Republican stupidity is broadcast more often because Republican stupidity is demonstrated more often.

To be clear: I am not saying Republicans are stupid. I am saying that, maybe, the "airtime-worthy" stupidity comes from areas that tend to be red, more than blue. Not that the blues don't have their own special stupidity - believe me, they do, but that's not the kind of outrageous thing you're going to see on the front page.

[stebo0728]

I dont agree with her statement that unemployement injects demand into the economy. People generally join the unemployement pool because the job they lost dissolved, so the job is not going to move to someone else to create this "demand", its just gone, or its filled but a foreign worker in a call center somewhere in India.

[srellim234]

Correct assessment. It doesn't inject demand. It reduces the rate of demand loss.