5/10/2008

Minnesota GOP Flaunts More "Family Values" Initiatives

Jena Bush Warms Up For for Fun White house Wedding and GOP Convention Antics
























ST. PAUL (AP) ―

Beer taps, wine corkscrews and martini shakers should get an extra workout during the Republican National Convention thanks to state legislation that pushes bar closing time out by two hours.

The Minnesota Legislature approved a compromise bill Thursday that would let local governments in the seven-county Twin Cities area allow liquor dispensing until 4 a.m. during the convention's run.

The current cutoff time for bars is 2 a.m.

From August 31 to September 5, bars could stay open the extra time if their cities give the OK. The local governments would be allowed to charge special permit fees of up to $2,500.

The Senate approved the bill on a 42-20 vote and the House fell in line with a 112-22 vote, forwarding the bill to Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
































Pawlenty, a prominent supporter of presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, said he won't get in the way."No good happens after bar closing time," he said. "But for one week, for this purpose, I think it's fine."

“One of our pitches is to prove to them we are a fun city, the funnest in the country and a 24-hour city,” Hanson said. “That means providing opportunities for them to socialize and enjoy our city as much as possible.” Spokesperson from Minneapolis.



More "Family Friendly" GOP highlights:


Minimum wage agreement faces Pawlenty veto

A legislative agreement to raise Minnesota's minimum wage in two stages faces a veto threat from Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who wasn't swayed by changes designed to attract his signature.

Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said the governor would veto the bill if it reached him in the current form.

Under the plan, the bottom hourly wage for workers at large employers would go up 60 cents to $6.75 in mid-July and climb another dollar a year later. Businesses with annual sales above $625,000 are considered large employers.

Smaller employers would have to pay workers at least $5.75 an hour beginning this July and $6.75 by July 2009. The current minimum wage for them is $5.25 per hour.

House and Senate negotiators said Wednesday they met Pawlenty more than halfway by settling on a lower wage than originally proposed and by pulling out an automatic escalator that would cause the minimum wage to rise on its own in future years.

Rep. Tom Rukavina, the lead House sponsor, also urged the Republican governor to reconsider his stance, citing his upbringing in a blue-collar household.

"I'm hoping that he remembers his roots and where he came from and protects these lowest-paid workers in the state," said Rukavina, DFL-Virginia. "After all, he's protected the highest-paid workers in the state."


Pawlenty rebukes Archbishop's Birthday Wish:

St. Paul, Minn. — Archbishop Flynn says he is not an economist, but he is concerned about the dignity of people.

Flynn supports a bill passed by the Minnesota House this week that would increase the state's current minimum wage of $6.15 an hour by 75 cents in July. The archbishop says people shouldn't need a second or third job to make ends meet.

"True human dignity means that people not only focus on their material survival, but that they have time and opportunity to participate in their social, cultural, and spiritual development as well," Flynn said.

Archbishop Flynn says Minnesota does better than many states on several quality of life indicators. He says the minimum wage should reflect those values.

The state Senate passed a different version of a minimum wage bill last year, and a conference committee will meet next week to try to reach a compromise.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said he favors an increase in the state's minimum wage, but he can't support the House bill since it contains an automatic inflation increase.




McCain - "Bush Made Great Progress"

Bush Tax Cuts Create New High Tech Jobs - In India























THIS IS INDIA.

IT IS WHERE YOU CALL WHEN YOU HAVE

A TECHNICAL PROBLEM WITH YOUR COMPUTER

5/09/2008

McCain: Swamp Land In Arizona? No Problem!

McCain Pushed Land Swap That Benefits Backer
(Pssst...it's called "politics.")




PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers].

Read more.

5/08/2008

Limbaugh Encourages Diversity In "Operation Chaos"



The Drive-By Media is deliberately misreporting that Rush called off Operation Chaos. He did no such thing! Rush has an agenda: to dump this old Hillary-Obama storyline so the Drive-By Media can focus on Rush as the true messiah.

Rush’s Dingle Berries of Wisdom:

There are elected officials named George and Dick who expect to benefit from all the suffering with gas and food prices. They know I turn to Viagra to alleviate my limp dick and to avoid having prostitutes call my Mr. Winky ‘the Little Guy.’"

"According to the Department of Waste Management, talk radio bullshit production has increased approximately 40% since Super Tuesday, while US gulibility has grown more than 30%."

"The Republican Party does not have an attack machine. It doesn't even have a defense machine. The Republican Party is just sitting around twiddling its thumbs and hoping people continue to send it money. There is a conservative survival machine, and it exists entirely to spank it’s own monkey!"

What The Duck...


McCain Makeover Aimed At Young Voters

5/06/2008

Citizen? McCain
















Washington Post:


"On Wednesday evening, the U.S. Senate unanimously declared John S. McCain III a "natural-born citizen," eligible to be president of the United States. That was the good news for the presumptive Republican nominee, who was born nearly 72 years ago in a military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone. The bad news is that the Senate resolution is a non-binding opinion that fails to resolve one of the murkiest, untested areas of the U.S. constitution."

















No McCain listed.

"Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth."

While some people will no doubt seize on the missing birth record as evidence that McCain was not born in the Canal Zone, my own view is that it is probably a bureaucratic snafu. The combination of the birth announcement in the Panamanian American plus the McCain birth certificate plus the memories of his 96-year-old mother persuades me that the senator was indeed born inside the Canal Zone.

But that does not entirely end the constitutional debate. The question remains: how did McCain acquire his U.S. citizenship, by birth or by naturalization. Even though the 10-mile wide Canal Zone was effectively under American sovereignty between 1904 and 1979, when it was handed back to the Panamanians, it was not "in" the United States.

Less Government / More Freedom - Call Your Travel Agent to Book A Carefree Somali Vacation


Our new mayor's political ideology in action:
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose"
From the BBC:

Watch Video:

"People who have visited the capital, Mogadishu, recently say parts of it are a ghost town, but Amnesty says residents fleeing the city are prey for armed bandits on the road who rape women and girls and steal whatever they have taken with them."
"Somalia has been without a central government for more than 17 years and for the past 17 months, the Ethiopian-backed interim government has been struggling to exert its control over the country."