Unemployed Workers Stage Sit-In at McConnell’s Senate Office
EmailABC News’ Sunlen Miller and Serena Marshall report:
Wearing homemade T-shirts with the words ”I need a job” written on the front and back, about 20 unemployed D.C. residents today staged a sit-in at the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Ky.
The group is part of OurDC, a jobs advocacy group, with a few members of OccupyDC also participating.
Eating Subway sandwiches, sitting on every piece of furniture in the minority leader’s office lobby, and even the floor, the protestors pledged to stay in McConnell’s Russell building office until they get a face-to-face meeting with McConnell.
“We believe the senators need to hear, feel and understand the pain of the unemployed,” a member of the protest said, “The bottom line for here is that there is bitter, bitter pain of not working and gridlock and they want folks to see it, hear it and feel it.”
The group has been offered a lower-level meeting with a McConnell staff assistant, but the protestors said they wouldn’t leave until they got to speak directly to the majority leader. The protest has so far stayed calm and peaceful. As they occupy McConnell’s office, the protestors have been busy on cell phones delivering the same message to other senators.
“Every day, I apply every single day. If I’m not on the computer, I’m out there looking for various work around the region,” Andre Henson, 23, an unemployed short-order cook who has been out of work for more than a year, said. ” I go to D.C., Maryland, Virginia. Doesn’t really matter. Anywhere I can get on the train, because I don’t have a car. But I’m out here every day doing it.”
The group said it supported the Democrat’s infrastructure jobs bill that was set to be voted on later today, but that the main purpose of their visit was not to get involved in the politics of the bill but to have the senators “feel the pain” of the unemployed living in the nation’s capitol.
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What were this people doing 2 years ago when Obama and Congress was wasting time on the HC bill that DID NOT have the majority suppor then and it has even gone down. Why did Obama wait until NOW to think he needs to get something passed, and then whine to the American people because everyone is not jumping on board?
Posted by: anotherday | November 3, 2011, 2:38 pm 2:38 pm
FIX your stupid “Posting too Fast” error ABC!
And.. PLease.. fix the page so it will save my name and email so I don’t have to retype it all the time.
Posted by: anotherday | November 3, 2011, 2:40 pm 2:40 pm
Mitch McConnell doomed the republicans two years ago with his famous “Our only goal is to defeat this President” statement. Is he so arrogant that he thinks the American people believe that is all the Senate should be doing? The good citizens of Kentucky should vote him out not just because of his arrogance but because of his stupidity. I’ll bet he won’t get many votes from the coal mining counties around Bluefield.
Posted by: tmferretti | November 3, 2011, 2:41 pm 2:41 pm
They are in the wrong office…….it is Harry Reid, who has stopped everything in the Senate. Out of 16 bills from the house, sent to the Senate, only one has been brought up for a vote.
Just shows how really badly informed the “occupy” movement really is. They know nothing of the real facts.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | November 3, 2011, 2:43 pm 2:43 pm
RICK MCDANIEL
All 16 of those bills involved the de-regulation of big business and would not create job 1. Again the republicans have put the interests of the truffle eaters ahead of the middle class.
ANOTHERDAY
I agree, by the time I get to post I’ve forgotten what I wanted to say
Posted by: tmferretti | November 3, 2011, 2:53 pm 2:53 pm
“Occupy Congress” Now they are starting to get it!!!! “Crony Capitalism” is the problem, not free market trade. There is still alot of work to be done. Next up, repeal the fourteenth amendment.
Posted by: Mickey | November 3, 2011, 3:43 pm 3:43 pm
I’m so glad ordinary Americans are standing up to the idiots in the Republican party who got us into this mess and show no interest in getting us out of it! “Occupy Republican Congress” while you’re at it!
Posted by: tstorm | November 3, 2011, 4:41 pm 4:41 pm
Thank you, Occupy Mconnel’s office! The middle class is sick of how badly the Republican party has raped us in the past decade. Get these Republican creeps out of office NOW!
Posted by: tstorm | November 3, 2011, 4:44 pm 4:44 pm
This is good news. The GOP party of no is just too out of touch with reality. They need a dose of it up close.
Posted by: Debbie | November 3, 2011, 4:52 pm 4:52 pm
“Unemployed Workers Stage Sit-In at McConnell’s Senate Office” – ABC News
What? ? ? ? ?
Why aren’t they sitting in front of Harry Reid’s office?
Harry is the guy holding up legislation in the Senate.
Don’t these occupy people get it?
Posted by: Noz | November 3, 2011, 5:22 pm 5:22 pm
Where’s the coverage of the lawlessness, riots in the streets, and property destruction? You know that OWS (destroy America) that the Democrats support ?
Speaking of rape, where’s the outrage at the women being assaulted at OWS? I guess women aren’t important (to OWS) either. What do they respect? Communism, socialism? Those isms that have murders 10′s of millions – in just the last 150 years???
Posted by: deanbob | November 3, 2011, 5:27 pm 5:27 pm
ABC, where’s my post?
Posted by: deanbob | November 3, 2011, 5:35 pm 5:35 pm
Is it just me; or does it seem “odd” that some of the best posts just seem to get lost?
Posted by: deanbob | November 3, 2011, 5:49 pm 5:49 pm
I hear you DeanBob.
ABC has “lost” hundreds of mine, all of them stellar.
: o )
Posted by: Noz | November 3, 2011, 6:00 pm 6:00 pm
Its become increasingly obvious to me as (unfortunately) a constituent of McConnell that he is not paying a bit of attention to the needs of ordinary Americans but rather representing the interest (via protecting them against any tax increase and attempting to do away with regulations governing corporations) of the very wealthy.
Posted by: Angela Lee | November 5, 2011, 8:36 am 8:36 am