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

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.

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

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."

Free Market Tribute to Fallen Heros

Home Depot Honors Fallen Soldiers With Great Prices On Tools

Tough Questions for Sen. McCain

Profits Don't Equal Patriotism

"The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle. "My business is sacred " says the business man in his heart. "Whatever prospers my business, is good; it must be. Whatever hinders it, is wrong; it must be. A bribe is bad, that is, it is a bad thing to take; but it is not so bad to give one, not if it is necessary to my business." "Business is business" is not a political sentiment, but our politician has caught it. He takes essentially the same view of the bribe, only he saves his self-respect by piling all his contempt upon the bribe-giver and he has the great advantage of candor. "It is wrong, maybe," he says, ‘but if a rich merchant can afford to do business with me for the sake of a convenience or to increase his already great wealth, I can afford, for the sake of living, to meet him half way. I make no pretensions to virtue, not even on Sunday."

Lincoln Steffens
From The Shame of the Cities (1904)

Ain't Politics Grand!

With the 1924 Presidential and congressional elections only two weeks away, politicians of all parties began to promise lower taxes to woo voters. In this cartoon, “Mr. Tax Payer” revels in all the attention as the Republican elephant, the Democratic donkey, and the Progressive goat try to outdo each other.

Cartoons by Clifford K. Berryman

See more at The National Archives & Records Administration.

4056 American soldiers dead, 1,205,025 Iraqis dead, $3 trillion & climbing

"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

President George W. Bush,
(Response attributed to him by the Reverend Pat Robertson, when Robertson warned the president to prepare the nation for "heavy casualties" in the event of an Iraq war, 3/2003)


"Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, Saddam has continued to produce them, he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be deployed within 45 minutes."

Prime Minister Tony Blair
Sept 24, 2002

"I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators"

Vice President Dick Cheney
March 16 2003

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

Barbara Bush,
on Good Morning America
March 18,2003

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

President George W. Bush
May 24, 2005

The Times They Aren't A Changin'

"The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation: we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling-places to prevent universal intimidation or bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled; public opinion silenced; business prostrated; our homes covered with mortgages; labor impoverished; and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes-tramps and millionaires."

From the Populist Party platform 1892

McCain On Gay Rights

Obama Union Support

How Ya Gonna Keep Him Down In Hyde Park?

"The humblest citizen of all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error."

William Jennings Bryan

The Hyde Park Hillbilly Speaks

“It's a funny story so get ready to laugh. Get ready to bust your sides laughin', 'cause it's sure a funny story. It's about a hick, a hick like you, if you please. Yeah, like you. He grew up on the dirt roads and the gully washes of a farm. He knew what it was to get up before dawn and get feed and slop and milk before breakfast, and then set out before sunup and walk six miles to a one-room, slab-sided schoolhouse. Aw, this hick knew what it was to be a hick, all right. He figured if he was gonna get anything done, well, he had to do it himself. So he sat up nights and studied books. He studied law, because he thought he might be able to change things some -- for himself and for folks like him.

Now I'm not gonna lie to ya. He didn't start off thinkin' about the hicks and all the wonderful things he was gonna do for 'em. Naw, naw, he started off thinkin' of number one. But something came to him on the way. How he could do nothin' for himself without the help of the people. That's what came to him. And it also came to him with the powerful force of God's own lightning back in his home county when the school building collapsed 'cause it was built of politics' rotten brick. It killed and mangled a dozen kids. But you know that story. The people were his friends because he'd fought that rotten brick. And some of the politicians down in the city, they knew that, so they rode up to his house in a big, fine, shiny car and said as how they wanted him to run for President.

And he swallowed it. He looked in his heart and he thought, in all humility, how he'd like to try and change things. He was just a country boy who thought that even the plainest, poorest man can be President if his fellow citizens find he's got the stuff for the job. All those fellows in the striped pants, they saw that hick and they took him in.

Now, shut up! Shut up, all of you. Now, listen to me, you hicks. Yeah, you're hicks too, and they fooled you a thousand times, just like they fooled me. But this time, I'm gonna fool somebody. I'm gonna stay in this race. I'm on my own and I'm out for blood. Now listen to me, you hicks! Listen to me, and lift up your eyes and look at God's blessed and unfly-blown truth. And this is the truth. You're a hick, and nobody ever helped a hick but a hick himself!

Alright, listen to me! Listen to me! I'm the hick they were gonna use to split the hick vote. Well, I'm standin' right here now on my hind legs. Even a dog can learn to do that. Are you standin' on your hind legs? Have you learned to do that much yet? Here it is! Here it is you hicks! Nail up anybody who stands in your way! Nail up Hillary Clinton! Nail up McCain! And if they don't deliver, give me the hammer and I'll do it myself!”

Food For Thought