For GOP only

[EvilMonkey]

Well so far we have deals by Blago and Barak on the Rezko list, next up, Luis Gutierrez

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/i...1&cset=true

But I thought he was just a Republican problem?

[southsider2k5]

Well Nancy's job of cleaning up Congress, sure looks to be getting harder by the minute

 

A former head of the Nevada state gaming commission who’s been previously linked to shady land deals, now accused of corruption? Who could have guessed?

 

Oh, right. Everyone.

 

As convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff reported to federal prison today, a source close to the investigation surrounding his activities told ABC News that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was one of the members of Congress Abramoff had allegedly implicated in his cooperation with federal prosecutors…

 

A source close to the investigation says Abramoff told prosecutors that more than $30,000 in campaign contributions to Reid from Abramoff’s clients “were no accident and were in fact requested by Reid.”…

The Associated Press reported earlier this year that Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to the tribes that had contributed money to his campaign…

 

The AP also reported that Abramoff’s billing records showed extensive contact with Reid’s office over a three-year period in which Reid collected more than $68,000 from Abramoff’s firm, partners and clients.

Reid’s spokesman denies it. According to the Blotter, “an ever larger number of Republican members of Congress,” including outgoing loose-cannon Conrad “Secret Plan” Burns, have also been implicated. Could Trent Lott and Mel Martinez be among them? Hope springs eternal!

 

Exit question: will panicky Dems, fearful of the “culture of corruption” meme blowing up in their faces, opt now for Hoyer in tomorrow’s House election? The last thing they’d want to do is elect Murtha on a day when questions about Reid’s ethics are plastered on page A1 C35.

[southsider2k5]

And one more that of course never hit the MSM...

 

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editori...247191278714751

 

Nancy Pelosi's Sour Grapes

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

 

Posted 10/31/2006

 

Leaders: Rep. Nancy Pelosi has her own "grapes of wrath" scenario going on. Is her opposition to enhanced border security due to the fact that the House Democratic leader personally profits from a steady supply of cheap foreign labor?

 

If Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives, the San Francisco Democrat will not only be the first female speaker, but also the richest. The liberal Center for Responsive Politics puts her net worth as high as $55 million.

 

There is no record of Pelosi's ever returning her portion of those "tax cuts for the rich" to the U.S. Treasury. Or any record, for that matter, of using her (dare we use the word?) windfall to give the workers at her Napa Valley vineyards a raise.

 

As Peter Schweizer notes in his best-selling expose of liberal hypocrisy, "Do As I Say (Not As I Do)," part of the fortune of this defender of the working man is a Napa Valley vineyard worth $25 million that she owns with her husband. The vineyard produces expensive grapes for high-end wines. Napa grapes bring up to $4,000 a ton compared with $300 a ton for, say, San Joaquin grapes.

 

But Pelosi, winner of the 2003 Cesar Chavez award from the United Farm Workers, hires only nonunion workers and sells these grapes to nonunion wineries. Schweizer places Pelosi in a chapter titled "Workers of the World Unite Somewhere Else." UFW members need not apply at the Pelosi family vineyards.

 

Which makes Pelosi's steadfast opposition to any attempts to enhance border security and stem the flow of illegal immigration into the U.S. all the more interesting since she seems to be among those rich employers who financially benefit from a steady supply of cheap foreign labor.

 

She led the opposition and voted against the Secure Fence Act of 2006 recently signed into law by President Bush to build a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

 

She opposed the Real ID Act of 2005, a valuable anti-terror tool, while bragging that Democrats under her leadership "defeated Republican attempts to restrict the easily forged Matricula Consular card" issued by the Mexican government.

 

She voted against a bill to make employers such as herself financially liable for hospital costs if undocumented employees seek medical attention, preferring that either taxpayers foot the bill or that hospitals close under the burden, as many are doing throughout the Southwest.

 

In 2005 she voted against barring the issuance of driver's licenses to illegal aliens and against a requirement that businesses use an electronic system to verify whether new hires have the legal right to work in the U.S.

 

Nor has Pelosi been a fan of employer sanctions against the hiring of illegal aliens. In 2003, she accused immigration officers of conducting "terrorizing raids" on Wal-Mart stores that led to the arrest of more than 300 illegal aliens.

 

Loraine Stewart, a farmworker advocate with Napa Valley Community Housing, in a 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article estimated that half of the migrant labor force in the valley consisted of undocumented workers, without whom "not one bottle of wine would get made here."

 

The people coming across our southern border aren't just seeking better lives. They're joined by drug smugglers and an assortment of people with criminal records. There are also what Immigration and Customs Enforcement calls OTMs (Other Than Mexicans) among whom potential terrorists could sneak in undetected.

 

Pelosi apparently puts her financial interests above the security of this nation and the safety of its citizens, exploiting undocumented workers in the process. If the people at Immigration and Customs are looking for an employer to check out, we know this little vineyard in the Napa Valley.

[Texsox]

And one more that of course never hit the MSM...

 

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editori...247191278714751

 

A non Union Dem just like me. Not too many of us around Dem circles. It's nice to know she can have a conserative bone in her body and still be accepted.

 

The author seems to imply that non union workers are the same as illegals. Not nice.

[NorthSideSox72]

HEEEEEEEE'S BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK

 

From Drudge

Glad to see we learned from our mistakes. Maybe the Libertarians need another voter afterall...

Its official. Both parties have decided to alienate as many of their constituents as possible by way of their positional nominations.

 

The time is ripe for the Greens, the Constitutionalists, the Libertarians and/or some other party to sweep into Congress in 2008 and make a stand. SS2K5 and I will seize that opportunity.

 

Vote North-South in 2008!

[EvilMonkey]

Seems Reid has his own 'Hastert' deal. Toobad the media couldn't report this BEFORE the election.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na...-home-headlines

Will the pork stop here?

Reid pledges change, but he pushed funding that may benefit him.

By Chuck Neubauer and Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writers

November 13, 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON — Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vows to make reform of congressional earmarks a priority of his tenure, arguing that members need to be more transparent when they load pet projects for their districts into federal spending bills.

 

But last year's huge $286-billion federal transportation bill included a little-noticed slice of pork pushed by Reid that provided benefits not only for the casino town of Laughlin, Nev., but also, possibly, for the senator himself.

 

Reid called funding for construction of a bridge over the Colorado River, among other projects, "incredibly good news for Nevada" in a news release after passage of the 2005 transportation bill. He didn't mention, though, that just across the river in Arizona, he owns 160 acres of land several miles from proposed bridge sites and that the bridge could add value to his real estate investment.

 

Reid denies any personal financial interest in his efforts to secure $18 million for a new span connecting Laughlin with Bullhead City, Ariz.

 

"Sen. Reid's support for the bridge had absolutely nothing to do with property he owns," said Rebecca Kirszner, Reid's communications director. "Sen. Reid supported this project as part of his continuing efforts to move Nevada forward."

 

But some Bullhead City property owners and local officials say a new bridge will undoubtedly hike land values in an already-booming commuter town, where speculators are snapping up undeveloped land for housing developments and other projects. Experts on congressional spending say Reid's earmark provides yet another sign of the need for reform.

 

"It's a really bad idea for lawmakers to earmark projects when they have a financial interest that could in any way be affected by it," said Norman Ornstein, coauthor of "The Broken Branch" a recent book that examines earmarking and other practices.

 

Ornstein said he did not have enough information to fully evaluate the Reid deal. But, he said, "we already have too many examples — including a number of Southern California representatives — who are very directly using this process to enrich themselves."

 

Said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog that tracks congressional spending, "Unwittingly, the taxpayer may have helped inflate the value" of Reid's property.

 

Earmarking allows congressional leaders, committee chairs and other insiders to insert narrowly targeted spending orders into pending legislation without going through the normal budget review process. Members of both parties defend earmarking as a way for Congress to get attention for local concerns when executive-branch agencies are unresponsive.

 

Earmarking was at the heart of the case against former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe), now in prison for using his congressional seat to secure federal funding for individuals who provided him personal benefits. It was also the basis for much of the wealth amassed by criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who referred to the appropriations committee as "the favor factory."

 

Reform has been difficult to achieve in part, critics say, because leaders of both parties encourage earmarking to build popularity at home and power among fellow Congress members.

 

Reid is not the only powerful member known to use the practice. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a former appropriations panel member, has used earmarks prodigiously.

 

The minority leader of the new Senate, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), is an active earmarker, as is current Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who last year secured funding for a highway interchange near property he owned outside Chicago. (He too has claimed there is no connection between his earmarks and personal land holdings.)

 

Last week, when Reid's status rose as Democrats took control of the Senate after the midterm election, the senator promised, like Pelosi, to make earmark reform a top priority when party members caucused.

 

"With Democrats running Congress, we are in a much better position to achieve real transparency and openness," said Kirszner.

 

In earlier years, Reid has boldly claimed credit for getting earmarks for his constituents. Last year, he boasted of securing $300 million in earmarks in the transportation bill.

 

When pressed about his position on earmarks in an interview on public television in January, Reid acknowledged abuses, but added: "There's nothing basically wrong with earmarks. They've been going on since we were a country."

 

Actually, earmarks have skyrocketed in recent years, from 1,439 in 1995 to 15,268 last year, according to a Senate estimate.

 

The proposed bridge between Laughlin and Bullhead City was not on the priority list sent to local members of Congress by either the Nevada or Arizona transportation agencies.

 

But beginning in 2003, local supporters of the bridge — which would be the second span connecting the two towns — found a receptive audience when they approached some members of the Nevada and Arizona congressional delegations. Civic leaders argued that an additional bridge was needed because traffic on the existing connector bridge, on the northern edge of Bullhead City, had become overwhelming.

 

Laughlin consists mainly of casinos and hotels, and has little housing or shopping. Most of the casino workers live across the river in Bullhead City, which also has shopping and a hospital. Elected officials say both communities would benefit from a second bridge.

 

Reid's land, three to five miles from several proposed sites for the second bridge and near the local hospital, is undeveloped. New housing is springing up around it.

 

Acting on a request from the town of Laughlin, Reid, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's transportation subcommittee, in 2003 secured $500,000 for preliminary studies.

 

Last year, Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.), supported by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), got $2 million for the bridge inserted into the House version of the transportation bill.

 

By the time Congress approved the $286-billion transportation bill, $18 million more in bridge funding had been added. Reid took credit in a news release for securing money that would kick the project into high gear. The bridge, still in the planning stages, is projected to cost $30 million to $40 million.

 

Arizona's two Republican senators voted against the entire transportation bill as pure pork.

 

Nowhere in Reid's statements about the project was any mention of his Bullhead City land holdings; he does list it on his Senate financial disclosure forms. He valued the Arizona land at $500,000 to $1 million in his most recent disclosure, which reported total assets of at least $2.2 million.

 

Reid's interest in the Arizona land dates back more than 20 years and, according to his staff, has been a long-running headache. He paid about $150,000 for 100 acres of the Bullhead City parcel, and his longtime friend Clair Haycock bought the remaining 60 acres for $90,000.

 

Californians who bought the property from the two in the early 1990s defaulted on a $1.3-million note and returned the land to Reid and Haycock.

 

In early 2002, Haycock sold out to Reid for $10,000, or about $166 an acre.

 

At the time, the Mohave County assessor valued the entire parcel at $339,620, or more than $2,000 an acre.

 

The low price resulted from Haycock's need to sell and Reid's lack of interest in buying, the two men said.

 

The investment "had been a losing proposition for about a decade running," Reid's staff said.

 

Haycock, who owns Haycock Petroleum Co. of Las Vegas, said in an e-mail that he needed to sell his share to liquidate a company pension plan, which owned the property.

 

He said in a statement that he "expected nothing from Sen. Reid" in return for selling him the property.

 

"Sen. Reid has never taken any official action to provide personal financial benefit to me, and I would never have asked," Haycock said.

 

City and county officials say that land values have been rising in Bullhead City as developers and speculators discover the area.

 

"Once they build a bridge, values will go up," said Frank Capotosto of the Mohave County assessor's office.

 

"A new bridge will increase value because there would be better circulation, " said Pawan Agrawal, public works director and city engineer for Bullhead City.

 

"A lack of a bridge depresses our growth."

 

California businessman Ken Renfroe recently bought property near Reid's that he intends to develop in five years or so. He believes that a new bridge will increase property values.

 

"I am sure it has already had a positive influence," he said of the proposal.

 

He paid $240,000 for 37.52 acres, an average of $6,396 an acre, records show.

 

Some other local real estate owners, however, question whether the bridge would increase land values.

 

Reid's office referred inquiries about land values to developer Robert Bilbray, a Reid supporter who works in the LaughlinBullhead City area.

 

Bilbray disputed the notion that Reid could stand to gain from the bridge construction.

 

Site plans have not been finalized, he said, and some proposed locations could decrease Reid's property value.

 

"The concept that Sen. Reid's property in Bullhead City, Ariz., will gain in value from another bridge between Bullhead City and Laughlin is ludicrous," he said.

[Gregory Pratt]

Seems Reid has his own 'Hastert' deal. Toobad the media couldn't report this BEFORE the election.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na...-home-headlines

 

Reid's questionable finances have long been a matter of public record. Some people think he's real crooked. Sometimes his finances irritate me. Wish he were squeaky clean because I really like him.

 

----

 

But on to the real reason I came into the pits of Conservatism: I thought some Republicans might get a kick out of this:

 

I'm dating a girl who drove her car through a government building, leading to it being shut down for awhile.

 

(She was going to the DMV to get her license, stopped in front of it, was going to park, but instead of hitting the brakes, she accidentally stepped on the accelerator and drove through it. No one was hurt except the pride of bureaucrats everywhere.)

 

She might be a Republican yet!

[southsider2k5]

Another member of the most ethical congress ever. AKA how to go from impeached and convicted judge to head of the intelligence committee

 

On August 3, 1988, the House of Representatives voted on a resolution, co-sponsored by Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, to impeach Alcee Hastings, the federal judge in Florida accused of conspiring to take a bribe. On that day 18 years ago, some of the Democrats who are today preparing to take power in the House were relatively new to the job; others were, even then, veterans who had served in Congress for years. For both, the vote was a rarity; Hastings was just the 10th judge in U.S. history to face impeachment.

 

One of the newcomers to the House was the future Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had been in office a little more than a year. She voted to impeach Hastings.

 

Rep. Steny Hoyer, the future Majority Leader, also voted to impeach. And so did the lawmakers who will soon chair powerful House committees. Rep. Conyers, now in line to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Charles Rangel, soon to chair the Ways and Means Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Barney Frank, in line to head the Financial Services Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Henry Waxman, next chair of the Government Reform Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. John Dingell, in line to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. George Miller, soon to head the Education and the Workforce Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. David Obey, in line to chair the Appropriations Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Ike Skelton, next chair of the Armed Services Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. John Spratt, next in line for the Budget Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Howard Berman, next head of the Ethics Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Tom Lantos, in line to chair the International Relations Committee, voted to impeach. And Rep. Louise Slaughter, next chair of the Rules Committee, voted to impeach.

 

So did other well-known Democratic lawmakers like Rep. John Lewis, Rep. (and later Sen.) Barbara Boxer, Rep. (and later Sen.) Charles Schumer, Rep. (and later Sen.) Richard Durbin, Rep. Ed Markey, Rep. Ron Dellums, Rep. Julian Dixon, and Rep. Richard Gephardt.

 

In fact, just about everybody in the House voted to impeach Judge Hastings: the vote was 413 to 3. (Just for record, the three who voted against impeachment were Reps. Gus Savage, Mervyn Dymally, and Edward Roybal.)

 

A few of those members have left the House, moved on to the Senate, or died. But the ones who remain — the ones who now have the seniority to hold influential positions — have another tie to Hastings: They’ve been his colleagues for more than a dozen years. Hastings, who was convicted in the Senate but not barred from holding future office, ran for Congress himself in 1992, winning a seat from Florida’s 23rd District. And now, because incoming Speaker Pelosi has apparently ruled out the appointment of next-in-line Rep. Jane Harman to chair the House Intelligence Committee, Hastings appears to be headed toward the top position on that panel — one of the most sensitive and responsible posts on Capitol Hill.

 

The question of whether Hastings should be put in charge of the Intelligence Committee is not as clear-cut as the vote to impeach him years ago. For one thing, these days the 43-member Congressional Black Caucus is solidly behind Hastings, who is black. That’s a much different situation from 1988, when Conyers, a founding member of the CBC, voted against Hastings, along with fellow founders Rangel, Dellums, William Clay, and Louis Stokes. (In fact, all the founders of the CBC who were in the House in 1988 voted to impeach Hastings.)

 

Late last week, the CBC sent a letter to Pelosi affirming the group’s support for Hastings “The CBC sent a letter to Ms. Pelosi just to let her know that the CBC is behind Mr. Hastings 100 percent,” CBC spokesman Myra Dandridge told National Review Online Friday. CBC officials declined to release the letter itself, but Dandridge said it was sent after CBC members discussed the Hastings issue at their weekly meeting on Wednesday.

 

On the other hand, the 37-member Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate Democrats, has sent a letter of its own to Pelosi, this one in support of Harman (a Blue Dog member herself). “She exemplifies all the reasons the American people instilled their trust in our party on November 7th to protect them here and abroad,” the letter said. “We believe she is supremely qualified for the job.”

 

The decision is Pelosi’s to make; the head of the Intelligence Committee is chosen by the Speaker. But the Hastings case is not just a problem for Pelosi. It could present an agonizing choice for other Democrats who were in the House in 1988 and went on the record in favor of Hastings’s impeachment. If they support Hastings, they will likely feel some pressure to explain why they once believed him unfit for office but now feel he is the right choice to occupy such a critical position.

 

The pressure might be particularly acute for Conyers, who not only voted for Hastings’s impeachment but also chaired the House Judiciary subcommittee that investigated the case, co-sponsored the impeachment resolution, and argued for Hastings’s conviction as an impeachment manager in the Senate trial. As such, Conyers left a long record explaining his belief that Hastings was guilty.

 

“No one could have been more skeptical than I at the start of this process,” Conyers told the Senate during the trial. “No one more anxious to ensure that this man be neither penalized for his race or insulated by his race, from the consequences of wrongful conduct. No one was more predisposed to believe the best of Judge Hastings and his case and to doubt his accusers. I said so.”

 

But as chairman of the subcommittee, Conyers continued, he examined the evidence that Hastings conspired with a close friend, a man named William Borders, to solicit money from defendants in return for favorable treatment in Hastings’s court. And that evidence changed Conyers’s mind. “I heard some evidence that forced me to reevaluate my position, the evidence presented, not only in my subcommittee but over here as a manager,” Conyers said. “I have heard this thing twice. And what I have seen and heard and studied and listened to and reread and argued with my staff counsel and back and forth has only matured my conclusion that, measured by any standard, Judge Hastings’ guilt has been established and Congress has an obligation to protect the integrity of the judiciary.”

 

“There is an enormous amount of evidence that makes no sense at all unless Judge Hastings conspired with William Borders and lied at the trial,” Conyers concluded. “It is the mass of evidence that makes the case, but it may be just one of the undisputed facts that convinces you that Judge Hastings is not to be believed on this and many, many other facts made both in and outside of this legal process.”

 

“Justice and the integrity of our government depend on the importance of these impeachment proceedings, and they argue that the judge should be removed from the bench.”

[NorthSideSox72]

Another member of the most ethical congress ever. AKA how to go from impeached and convicted judge to head of the intelligence committee

This is another one of those leading indicators I was talking about. Hoyer won the battle over Murtha, which seems to indicate at least a controlled troop pull-out in Iraq, and Hoyer was the better (at least cleaner) choice of the two anyway. So that seems to point in a semi-positive direction, though I would like to have seen someone else entirely.

 

This one is a big indicator about corruption. If this guy, who was apparently guilty enough to be impeached by the entire house, is given the chair of the Intelligence committee... I will be very disappointed. This guy may in fact be a reformed man, but it sends all the wrong signals to put him in that chair in either case.

[southsideirish71]

Nancy Pelosi SNL Skit

 

Just remember the safe word.

Edited November 20, 2006 by southsideirish71

[Gregory Pratt]

This guy may in fact be a reformed man, but it sends all the wrong signals to put him in that chair in either case.

 

Is it possible to be a reformed man, in the case of corruption? I'm under the impression that you're a money-grubber or you're not, and that's not going to change because you got caught one day, IMO. It'll just make you more careful.

[NorthSideSox72]

Is it possible to be a reformed man, in the case of corruption? I'm under the impression that you're a money-grubber or you're not, and that's not going to change because you got caught one day, IMO. It'll just make you more careful.

Probably. But not definitely. On rare occasion, some people make dramatic changes in their lives and their fundamental beliefs.

[Gregory Pratt]

Probably. But not definitely. On rare occasion, some people make dramatic changes in their lives and their fundamental beliefs.

 

Rarely, to be sure.

[mreye]

Probably. But not definitely. On rare occasion, some people make dramatic changes in their lives and their fundamental beliefs.

 

Sure, but I'm not going to put him in charge of the church collection. Just like a recovering alcoholic should not work as a bartender.

[NorthSideSox72]

Sure, but I'm not going to put him in charge of the church collection. Just like a recovering alcoholic should not work as a bartender.

Definitely agree. He doesn't belong in that position. Has anyone heard if they've made a decision on him yet?

[Balta1701]

Definitely agree. He doesn't belong in that position. Has anyone heard if they've made a decision on him yet?

CQ.

 

House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi was to meet with Rep. Alcee L. Hastings late Tuesday to close the door on his bid to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a congressional aide said.

 

But Pelosi, D-Calif., has not yet decided who will get the job, according to the aide. . . .

 

Pelosi met with Harman two weeks ago to discuss the House Intelligence Committee chair job. There is little to suggest Pelosi will reverse her intention to replace Harman atop the panel.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?he...b6-a8f2720bd65e

 

Former Sen. John Edwards is to spend an hour at the Manchester Barnes & Noble tonight promoting his new book. We find his choice of venue very interesting.

 

In Manchester, the local Wal-Mart store sits right behind the Barnes & Noble. It has more floor space, a parking lot several times the size of Barnes & Noble's, and is easier to access by car or public transportation.

 

But Edwards would not be caught dead inside a Wal-Mart. Saying that the company pays its employees too little, Edwards has embarked on an anti-Wal-Mart crusade. He instructs his staff members and all Americans not to shop at Wal-Mart.

 

"Wal-Mart makes plenty of money. They need to pay their people well," Edwards said at a Pittsburgh anti-Wal-Mart rally in August.

 

So naturally Edwards is holding his book signing at Barnes & Noble instead of Wal-Mart. Which is too bad for his anti-low-wages campaign, because in Manchester Wal-Mart pays hourly employees more than Barnes & Noble does.

 

The Barnes & Noble where Edwards will hawk his book pays $7 an hour to start. The Wal-Mart that sits just yards away pays $7.50 an hour.

 

Oh, the humanity!

 

From 7 to 8 p.m., Edwards will bring business to a retailer that pays wages he thinks are so immorally low that they should be illegal. Meanwhile, right behind him, thousands of Granite Staters will be supporting a business that pays an Edwards-approved starting wage, but which Edwards wants everyone to boycott.

 

Asked back in January what he thought would be an appropriate minimum wage, Edwards told The New York Times, "My view is it should be $7.50 an hour, and I can make a great argument for it being a lot higher than that."

 

Seven-fifty an hour? Why, that's what Wal-Mart pays! And without a federal mandate, too.

 

Unfortunately, people who want to support a company that pays at least $7.50 an hour cannot go to Wal-Mart to buy Edwards' book and then take it over to Barnes & Noble for him to sign it. Wal-Mart doesn't carry it. Wonder why.

 

Of course, Barnes & Noble is no less virtuous than Wal-Mart because it pays 50 cents an hour less. And Wal-Mart is no less virtuous than other companies that pay more. Both businesses provide useful, productive employment at competitive market rates. That in itself is virtuous.

 

John Edwards should take the virtuous path and stop his anti-Wal-Mart demagoguery. Anyone can see that it is nothing more than a populist ploy to make him look like a champion of low-income people. But those very people he is trying to help end up saving hundreds of dollars a year by shopping at Wal-Mart. Its efficiencies provide them with low-cost items they might not be able to afford otherwise.

 

We'd bet that if America's poor could choose between Wal-Mart and John Edwards, they would choose Wal-Mart. They understand that Wal-Mart has done more to improve their lives than John Edwards ever will. Which is why, as Edwards signs copies of his coffee table book inside Barnes & Noble tonight, hundreds of people will continue to shop at the Wal-Mart just a stone's throw away, never knowing that a millionaire former senator is sitting nearby secretly disapproving of their behavior.

[Balta1701]

And one more that of course never hit the MSM...

 

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editori...247191278714751

As Peter Schweizer notes in his best-selling expose of liberal hypocrisy, "Do As I Say (Not As I Do)," part of the fortune of this defender of the working man is a Napa Valley vineyard worth $25 million that she owns with her husband. The vineyard produces expensive grapes for high-end wines. Napa grapes bring up to $4,000 a ton compared with $300 a ton for, say, San Joaquin grapes.

 

But Pelosi, winner of the 2003 Cesar Chavez award from the United Farm Workers, hires only nonunion workers and sells these grapes to nonunion wineries. Schweizer places Pelosi in a chapter titled "Workers of the World Unite Somewhere Else." UFW members need not apply at the Pelosi family vineyards.

 

ABC News

The Pelosis' vineyard is about seven acres on the south side of St. Helena. On her financial disclosure statements Pelosi lists the vineyard at between $5 million and $25 million dollars. As Peter Schweizer of the Hoover Institution pointed out in his book, the Pelosis hire non-union labor.

 

Peter Schweizer, Hoover Research Fellow: "She has won the Cesar Chavez award from the United Farm Workers Union and yet they don't use members of the United Farm Workers Union to actually pick the grapes on their winery."

 

Schweizer calls it liberal hypocrisy. And with Pelosi set to become the next speaker of the House, his charges are getting a lot of attention.

 

Peter Schweizer: "Investors Business Daily has run a column on it. There's been a lot of people on talk radio that have talked about it."

 

But in Napa we found the facts don't fit Schweizer's claim. For starters, the Pelosis pay more than union workers are paid in the same valley -- that from the pastor at St. Helena's Catholic Church, a well known advocate for farm workers who's involved in labor negotiations with the same labor manager the Pelosis use.

 

Monsignor John Brenkle, St. Helena Catholic Church: "So I know exactly what his pay scale is."

 

And Monsignor Brenkle says the Pelosis pay a $1.25 an hour more than workers at Napa's biggest union winery.

 

Monsignor John Brenkle: "I don't think she has the possibility of finding other union workers here in the valley."

 

Of the more than 300 vineyards, fewer than four are union, and most of the farm workers in the Napa Valley get paid better. St. Helena is a town rich with wine and the money that it has generated.

 

We heard the same from workers who say they're making between nine and 10 dollars an hour. Angel Calderon, the manager of a farm workers camp, says migrant workers in Napa get much more than union workers in the Salinas Valley or the Central Valley.

 

Angel Calderon, farm worker camp manager: "It's the truth, it's the truth. They pay better wages right here in Napa Valley."

 

Calderon manages one of three camps subsidized by Napa growers. For $11 dollars a day, workers get a clean place to live and three meals a day, access to doctors and dental care. But all of that aside, if Nancy Pelosi wanted to have union workers she could not ask the union for a contract. It's illegal and has been since 1975.

 

A spokesman for the United Farm Workers Union explains.

 

Marc Grossman, United Farm Workers Union: "It is patently illegal for any grower to even discuss a union contract, which is the only way you can supply union workers, without the workers first having voted in a state conducted secret ballot election."

 

I asked Peter Schweizer, the Hoover Research fellow, if he had researched those facts before he called Pelosi a hypocrite.

 

Peter Schweizer: "It's really for her to explain why there is this inconsistency. It's not my responsibility to go and find out how every single particular circumstance is handled on the Pelosi vineyard."

 

The 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act is pretty clear, what Peter Schweizer suggests would be illegal. Growers like Pelosi can't just hire workers from a union, but workers can unionize on their own and then negotiate with growers after they have organized. Schweizer told me this morning he would call me back and clear this all up -- he hasn't. We've left several messages.

 

Today, Nancy Pelosi's press secretary said this account is riddled with errors and clearly wasn't fact-checked. Well, it's been fact-checked now.

[southsider2k5]

OMG, so a free marketplace is actually paying a higher rate than the union ones? I thought that wasn't supposed to happen?!?!?

[YASNY]

OMG, so a free marketplace is actually paying a higher rate than the union ones? I thought that wasn't supposed to happen?!?!?

 

I bet the benefits are better too!

[Texsox]

OMG, so a free marketplace is actually paying a higher rate than the union ones? I thought that wasn't supposed to happen?!?!?

 

The Unions provided value a generation ago. They lead the way to clean up industries and better, safer, working conditions. The government has stepped in and via OSHA, minimum wage laws, and public campaigns, the unions just are not as necessary, if at all. They are a dying industry.

[Rex Kickass]

How is it anti-union to believe in fair labor practices? If workers choose not to organize, that's perfectly fine. Sometimes, the mere presence of a union tends to better working conditions in non-union shops.

 

Toyota factories in KY can't get union representation because Toyota offers compensation packages comensurate and sometimes better than UAW contracts with other automakers in the US. I have a feeling, if UAW contracts didn't provide for the worker in Michigan, working conditions in KY Toyota plants wouldn't nearly be as rosy as they are today.

[YASNY]

Carter Mideast book sparks bitter dispute

Dec. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM

BRENDA GOODMAN AND JULIE BOSMAN

NEW YORK TIMES

 

 

ATLANTA—An adviser to former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and one-time executive director of the Carter Center has publicly parted ways with his former boss, citing concerns with the accuracy and integrity of Carter's latest book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.

 

The adviser, Kenneth W. Stein, a professor of Middle Eastern history and political science at Emory University, resigned as a fellow with the Carter Center on Tuesday, ending a 23-year association with the institution.

 

In a two-page letter explaining his action, Stein said the book was "replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions and simply invented segments." Stein said he had used similar language in a private letter he sent to Carter, 82, but received no reply.

 

 

Stein said he admired the former president's accomplishments but felt he had to distance himself from the Carter Center and the book, which was published by Simon & Schuster.

 

"It's an issue of how history should be written," Stein said. "I had to distance myself from something that was coming close to me professionally."

 

Deanna Congelio, spokeswoman for Carter, released a statement with his response: "Although Professor Kenneth Stein has not been actively involved with the Carter Center for more than 12 years, I regret his resignation from the titular position as a fellow."

 

It did not address Stein's criticism of the book.

 

That criticism is the latest in a growing chorus of academics who have taken issue with the book, including Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard, who called the book "ahistorical," and David Makovsky, director of the Project on the Middle East Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "I was just very saddened by it," Makovsky said. "I just found so many errors."

 

 

 

Stein declined to detail the inaccuracies he found, saying he was still documenting them for a planned review. He said parts were strikingly similar to the work of another author.

 

 

 

 

David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, dismissed Stein's claims. "We're confident in his work," Rosenthal said of Carter. "Do we check every line in every book? No, but that's not the issue here. I have no reason to doubt president Carter's research."

[EvilMonkey]

Here's our new Democratic overlords in action. Despite their call for more openness in government, the first congressional meeting will be a private, closed door affair.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...av=rss_politics

Senate Democrats, who campaigned on a pledge of more openness in government, will kick off the 110th Congress with a closed meeting of all 100 senators in the Capitol.

 

Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who will be the majority leader when the new Congress convenes Jan. 4, announced yesterday "a joint caucus meeting" for senators only, to be held that morning in the old Senate chamber, a cozy, seldom-used room.....

[NorthSideSox72]

Here's our new Democratic overlords in action. Despite their call for more openness in government, the first congressional meeting will be a private, closed door affair.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...av=rss_politics

At least they aren't excluding the other party entirely, like we were seeing before.