Rooting for Failure

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Rooting for Failure
By Rich Galen
Monday, January 15, 2007

The new Democratic majority in the House is pretending to accomplish a bunch of things during the first 100 hours of the 100th Congress.

As the Congress opened at noon on January 4th, you might think the first 100 hours would have come to an end at 4 PM on January 8th - 100 hours later.



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., left, accompanied by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss, discusses implementation of the 9/11 commission recommendations during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Jan. 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) Silly child. The first 100 hours is actually the first 100 LEGISLATIVE hours which, at the current rate, will end some time around July 11th.

Nevertheless the Dems are punching bills through at a high rate of speed. One of them was an increase in the minimum wage rate which, over the next couple of years will rise from the current $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour by mid-2009.

Ok, you can argue whether that is a good or a bad idea based upon whatever high-level-macro-micro-economic-counter-inflationary theories you learned in Econ 315 in college.

But, it turns out that in the rush to get the minimum wage boost to the floor, the Democrats exempted workers on American Samoa where the minimum wage starts at $2.63 per hour.

American Samoa is, according to the historyofnations.net website: "An unincorporated and unorganized territory of the US; administered by the Office of Insular Affairs, US Department of the Interior."

American Samoa has a representative to the US Congress (Eni Faleomavaega) who has no vote. From that standpoint, American Samoa has exactly the same status in the US House as the District of Columbia.

It's principal administrative area is Pago Pago which is pronounced "Pango-pango."

According to the Department of Labor:

Canned tuna processing is by far the largest private-sector employer in American Samoa. Many of the other private-sector jobs provide goods or services to the tuna processors. Moreover, the economic growth of many other private-sector employers in the consumer retail and service sectors is tied to tuna industry expenditures.

The two biggest tuna processing companies in American Samoa are StarKist and Chicken of the Sea. StarKist is owned by Del Monte foods. Del Monte foods is located in San Francisco, California the home district of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Although tuna packers make $3.26 per hour, that is still - according to my calculator - $1.89 below what a tuna packer actually working in San Francisco for Del Monte would have to be paid under US law.

The American Samoan government is protesting that the lower minimum wage has to be preserved otherwise the jobs will move somewhere else.






Oh, really? And this is different from what employers in Mississippi, or southern Ohio, or West Virginia are facing  how?

Exempting Del Monte from the minimum wage is just as much an earmark as anything pushed through by Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Cellblock E).

Pelosi's office immediately claimed she had not known about the American Samoan exemption and was opposed to it.

That leads us to two points:

1. This is what happens when you shove major legislation through the House without proper committee hearings and minority party participation. How do we know this? Because the DEMOCRATS COMPLAINED ABOUT IT FOR 12 YEARS!

2. Unless Nancy Pelosi has hired the Oompa Loompas from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory to write legislation, it strains credulity that the bill drafters were unaware of the effect this was going to have on a major corporation headquartered in the Speakers' district.

Tuna packers on American Samoa are, on their own, not crucial to the health of the US economy. However, this episode shows that the Democrats are a long way from cleaning up abuses of privilege in the House.

The very issue on which they ran and won.


www.townhall.com

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Glad to see the dumbocrats are behaving better than the republicans. LOL LOL LOL

[DrMaddVibe]

Must be that alternative time zone they live in.

[LoungeMachine]

Well that was 2 excellent comebacks from our resident Busheep morons...

While we "root for failure", you guys are actually planning for failure.

Do either of you mouthbreathers actually think we have a winning strategy in Iraq?

I don't mean what you're told to think on FAUX, I mean you, yourselves.

I'd love to hear why you think supporting this Iraqi government that wants the US to protect them while their militias kill fellow Iraqis is a "strategy"

Why you think their everbuilding ties to Iran are in our best interest.

Do you even know what you think anymore?

pathetic.

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine
Well that was 2 excellent comebacks from our resident Busheep morons...

While we "root for failure", you guys are actually planning for failure.

Do either of you mouthbreathers actually think we have a winning strategy in Iraq?

I don't mean what you're told to think on FAUX, I mean you, yourselves.

I'd love to hear why you think supporting this Iraqi government that wants the US to protect them while their militias kill fellow Iraqis is a "strategy"

Why you think their everbuilding ties to Iran are in our best interest.

Do you even know what you think anymore?

pathetic.

Why don't you comment on the topic of the thread, Lounge Queen. Please be so kind as to explain why Nancy and the gang passed the exemption which just happens to effect her district?

[Nitro Express]

Politicans are politicians. Most of them are leeches who have their own agendas. It's always been that way. Why do you think the founding fathers set the govt. up the way it is. We have innefficient govt. so the leeches can't hold onto power and turn the country into a dictatorship.

The Republicans have their corruption and the Democrats have theirs.

The Republcan corruption has killed thousands of Americans and Iraqis. It has disolved our constitutional rights. It will probably cost this country a trillion dollars by the time it's all mopped up.

Pelosi allowed Del Monte to keep their slave labor in Samoa.

Ok, drop each offense on the scale and see which is worse.

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Originally posted by Nitro Express
Politicans are politicians. Most of them are leeches who have their own agendas. It's always been that way. Why do you think the founding fathers set the govt. up the way it is. We have innefficient govt. so the leeches can't hold onto power and turn the country into a dictatorship.

The Republicans have their corruption and the Democrats have theirs.

The Republcan corruption has killed thousands of Americans and Iraqis. It has disolved our constitutional rights. It will probably cost this country a trillion dollars by the time it's all mopped up.

Pelosi allowed Del Monte to keep their slave labor in Samoa.

Ok, drop each offense on the scale and see which is worse.

I agree with most of your points, politicians do not have the interests of the American people on their agenda's. Just give Pelosi and her crew some time, they will catch up to the current administration in the blunder department. Their latest stunt is just the beginning. I just wonder when the citizens of the U.S are going to wake up and say enough is enough.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Nitro Express


The Republicans have their corruption and the Democrats have theirs.

The Republcan corruption has killed thousands of Americans and Iraqis. It has disolved our constitutional rights. It will probably cost this country a trillion dollars by the time it's all mopped up.

Pelosi allowed Del Monte to keep their slave labor in Samoa.

Ok, drop each offense on the scale and see which is worse.

Exactly.

Too bad UltraDOUCHE doesn't go sign up and fight himself.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
Glad to see the dumbocrats are behaving better than the republicans. LOL LOL LOL

Actually they are dipshit. They've yet to shut the Republicans out of debate, and passed a bill lightening the load of interest on college loans, effectively cutting subsidies to the banking industry to pay for it --so that means it won't add to the deficit the Republican congress and President racked up...

BTW, they've also rattled the Bush Administration, forcing both FISA oversight on domestic spying and a shuffling of Bush's feeble minds connected to the Iraq War, like Rumsfeld. This with no legislation whatsoever. They've merely threatened not to be the Republican bend-over-and-take-it-in-the Mark-Foley's-asshole-from-pResident Bush congress. In short, there's now oversight and checks and balances...

Of course, if you weren't mildly retarded, coupled with the fact that apparently you are now paying more attention to the "first 100 hours" of a a Democratic congress then you payed to the entire sixteen year reign of corruption, enabled pedophilia, and erosion of civil liberties --you'd know that.

It might help if you didn't get your news spun to you my factually incorrect unemployed, second-rate "columnists, at TownIdiot.com too...

[Nickdfresh]

Wow! What a shocking "scandal" this is...:rolleyes:

Read the fine print

The 110th Congress and unrelenting political hardball are both back in session, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has learned.

Minority Republicans were on the losing end of every vote at the hands of the new Democratic majority last week but that hardly stopped them from trying to embarrass the new speaker over an obscure provision of the minimum wage increase bill that Democrats pushed through.

Democrats, led by Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller of Martinez, made a great show of the fact that their bill raised the minimum wage for workers in the Northern Marianas, a territory where now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff had successfully worked for years to keep out such laws.

Imagine Republicans' delight when some of their eagle-eyed aides discovered the Democrats' bill covered all U.S. territories in raising the minimum wage to $7.25 except American Samoa.

Why American Samoa? Because the territory's Democratic non-voting delegate, Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, worked for an exemption. He apparently said that his Pacific territory's economy, based almost solely on a tuna fishing industry that faces stiff foreign competition, would be wiped out if it had to pay higher wages.

Republican opponents of the higher minimum wage pointed out that lots of U.S. employers faced with paying low-wage workers more make the same complaint. Democrats said that because of protection from Abramoff and his allies, the Northern Marianas had become notorious for garment industry sweat shop conditions.

But further, the GOP found, Falomavaega is a big recipient of tuna industry donations, and one of the biggest operators in Samoa is Star-Kist, a label owned by Del Monte. And where is Del Monte based? In San Francisco, in Pelosi's district.

That's a lot of dots to connect, and the Republicans who told the tale to reporters, never directly connected Pelosi to the Samoa exemption, although some said they were shocked at the legislation. A few newspaper and TV outlets did stories, and some conservative bloggers picked it up, as did some conservative commentators on such outlets as Fox News.

Pelosi's staff said the speaker hasn't been lobbied by Del Monte on the wage issue.

The issue also led to a lengthy, serio-comic exchange on the House between Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who was in the House chair the day after the minimum wage bill was debated, and two Republicans, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas and Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina as the House debated stem cell research.

They wanted to embarrass the Democrats and the speaker, but didn't want to go too strong since the facts don't add up to a giant scandal, at least not yet, in Washington's relentless hot house atmosphere. They were also constrained by the fact that 82 of the 202 GOP House members had voted for the Democratic minimum wage bill.

So the two used parliamentary tactics that probably left C-Span viewers, and even some House members, scratching their heads. But Frank, one of the House's sharpest wits, held his own.

"Mr. Speaker, inquiry of the contents of this legislation," said McHenry. "Would it be appropriate to offer an amendment at this time exempting American Samoa just as it was from the minimum wage bill?"

"The gentleman will suspend," Frank ordered. "Under the rule that was adopted, no amendment is in order at this time."

McHenry: "So the gentleman..."

Frank: "The gentleman has asked the parliamentary inquiry, and he has received the answer."

This went back and forth for a bit until Barton rose.

Barton: "Point of order."
Frank: "The gentleman will state his point of order."

Barton: "How many times..."

Frank: "No. 'How many times' could not conceivably be a point of order. It could be a parliamentary inquiry, but it could not conceivably be a point of order."

McHenry: "I have one additional parliamentary inquiry. Is American Samoa exempted from this bill before us on the House floor?"

Frank: "The chair will respond to the gentleman: That is not a parliamentary inquiry; that is an inquiry about the substance of a bill. Questions about substance of legislation are not parliamentary inquiries. Parliamentary inquiries pertain to the procedures."

This went on until McHenry asked, "Is there a way by which I can derive whether or not American Samoa, like the minimum wage bill, is exempted from this legislation?"

Frank: "The answer is as follows: He asks the gentleman on his side who controls debate time to yield him time. He may then with that time under the rule make the question.

"The other way I could say the gentleman could find out would be by reading the bill. Read the bill and it will tell you."

After more quibbling, an exasperated Frank finally put a stop to the show by saying: "The gentleman from Texas (Rep. Michael Burgess) is recognized to yield time for someone who might actually want to debate the bill."

Off the floor, Republicans pointed out that if nothing else the situation showed that Democrats, by pushing the bill through without committee hearings, had been sloppy.

They also got the last laugh when Pelosi announced on Friday that she wants the final version of the legislation, which must go to the House and then to a House-Senate conference committee, to cover Samoa along with all other U.S. territories.

BTW, four more US soldiers died in Iraq today. Anybody care to talk about that? I've notice the cowardly Neo Cons (with the notable exceptions of lqsdiver, refrain from ever talking about that...

Link (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=12620)

More biased blog info: http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2007/1/12/20043/8550

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
Glad to see the dumbocrats are behaving better than the republicans. LOL LOL LOL

Let me say this again and makes things perfectly clear.

You're an idiot and nobody cares what you think.

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Actually they are dipshit. They've yet to shut the Republicans out of debate, and passed a bill lightening the load of interest on college loans, effectively cutting subsidies to the banking industry to pay for it --so that means it won't add to the deficit the Republican congress and President racked up...

BTW, they've also rattled the Bush Administration, forcing both FISA oversight on domestic spying and a shuffling of Bush's feeble minds connected to the Iraq War, like Rumsfeld. This with no legislation whatsoever. They've merely threatened not to be the Republican bend-over-and-take-it-in-the Mark-Foley's-asshole-from-pResident Bush congress. In short, there's now oversight and checks and balances...

Of course, if you weren't mildly retarded, coupled with the fact that apparently you are now paying more attention to the "first 100 hours" of a a Democratic congress then you payed to the entire sixteen year reign of corruption, enabled pedophilia, and erosion of civil liberties --you'd know that.

It might help if you didn't get your news spun to you my factually incorrect unemployed, second-rate "columnists, at TownIdiot.com too...

Jumping the Loan Shark
If college is a good investment, why should the government subsidize it?

Jacob Sullum | January 17, 2007

The Democrats' eagerness to cut interest rates on student loans reflects a time-honored Washington maxim: If it's good, it should be subsidized. In this case, as in most others, the truth is just the opposite: If it's good, there's no need to subsidize it.

According to U.S. Census data, the average college graduate earns about $1 million more over his lifetime than the average high school graduate. That's a pretty good payoff for the investment in tuition, whether the money is borrowed at the rate promised by the Democrats (3.4 percent), at the current government-subsidized rate (6.8 percent), or even at the market rate (now ranging between 7 percent and 11 percent).

Advocates of increased aid worry that the average college student carries a debt of almost $18,000 when he graduates. But owing the cost of a Hyundai Sonata for a loan that yields an extra $20,000 or so in earnings every year does not seem like a bad deal. It's certainly a better investment than the Hyundai.

Aid supporters also note that the cost of attending college has been rising faster than the rate of inflation for the last two decades. Yet easy money at taxpayers' expense fuels this escalation. Basic economic theory tells us that boosting the demand for a product or service, which is what government loans and grants effectively do, tends to raise its price.

In a 2005 Cato Institute paper, Hillsdale College political scientist Gary Wolfram reviewed the relevant studies and concluded "there is a good deal of evidence suggesting that federal financial assistance has the unintended consequence of increasing tuition for all students." One study found public and private four-year colleges increased net tuition (taking internal aid into account) by 68 cents and 60 cents, respectively, for each additional dollar in Pell Grants. Another study found private colleges raised net tuition by 72 cents for each additional dollar of federal loan aid.

Different types of schools respond differently to increases in subsidies, and price hikes can take several forms, including cuts in state funding and internal aid as well as increases in the official tuition. But the general effect is pretty clear: When someone else is paying part of the tab, consumers do not worry as much about the cost, so the cost tends to be higher. This phenomenon creates a vicious circle in which subsidies push up prices, leading to demands for increased subsidies, which push up prices again.

Although subsidizing college degrees no doubt has produced more of them, this effect has not been as dramatic as is commonly assumed. "The large majority of the rise in higher education participation in America occurred before there was a major federal financial involvement," economist Richard Vedder noted in a December speech at the Heritage Foundation.

To the extent that rising subsidies since the 1970s have encouraged people to enter college who otherwise would not have, that is not necessarily a good thing. Citing low completion rates, Vedder argues that "we probably have over-invested in higher education," attracting marginal students who never graduate.

Which makes sense, since anyone who can finish college and reap the typically large returns from doing so should be able to finance tuition through market-rate loans, private aid, or some combination of the two. The nonfederal market, which already accounts for a rising share of student loans, could be augmented by human capital contracts, under which students agree to pay a percentage of their future earnings in exchange for tuition money.

First suggested by the economist Milton Friedman half a century ago, such contracts reduce risks for lenders, especially when combined and sold as shares in an investment fund. They help borrowers with no collateral tap the added income they expect to earn with a college degree.

Given these alternatives, government aid is necessary only when the investment in college tuition is not economically viable. It makes sense only when it doesn't.




www.reason.com

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
Let me say this again and makes things perfectly clear.

You're an idiot and nobody cares what you think.

Thanks for the thought provoking post, ODShowgirl!

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
Thanks for the thought provoking post, ODShowgirl!

What a fucking idiot.

When you need to cut n paste within an existing thread to make your point, you're officially useless.

What thought provoking posts of your own have you made, asshole?

All you can do is cut n paste other peoples' thoughts.

Oh, but your ODShowgirl and Lounge Queen posts are priceless.

Fucking ignorant moron.:rolleyes:

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH


. I just wonder when the citizens of the U.S are going to wake up and say enough is enough.

They did, dumbshit.

Why do you think we WON CONTROL OF BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS IN NOVEMBER?

You should pay attention.:rolleyes:

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine
What a fucking idiot.

When you need to cut n paste within an existing thread to make your point, you're officially useless.

What thought provoking posts of your own have you made, asshole?

All you can do is cut n paste other peoples' thoughts.

Oh, but your ODShowgirl and Lounge Queen posts are priceless.

Fucking ignorant moron.:rolleyes:

Yeah right, Lounge Queen. You still have not typed any comments about this thread other than spewing curse words at me and ranting about the war. As usual it took your hero, Nick (NO IT ALL) dfresh to respond with a rebuttal. Why don't you go moderate a forum on Basket Weaving.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
Yeah right, Lounge Queen. You still have not typed any comments about this thread other than spewing curse words at me and ranting about the war. As usual it took your hero, Nick (NO IT ALL) dfresh to respond with a rebuttal. Why don't you go moderate a forum on Basket Weaving.



NO IT ALL?

:rolleyes:



Did you even get your GED?

[Guitar Shark]

I'm staying out of this, but...

"NO IT ALL" is pretty damn funny.

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Oh for cripes sakes, pardon my spelling error, oh MIGHTY LOUNGE QUEEN. I meant "Know It All"

[Hardrock69]

You don't know what you mean, IgnorantMan VH....

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
Oh for cripes sakes, pardon my spelling error, oh MIGHTY LOUNGE QUEEN. I meant "Know It All"

That's not a "spelling error" dipshit.

Had you posted "Knoow it all", or something similar you could get away with the "typo" excuse.

You're a fucking ignorant little twat.

NO IT ALL

:lol:

[Keef]

Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
Rooting for Failure
By Rich Galen
Monday, January 15, 2007

The new Democratic majority in the House is pretending to accomplish a bunch of things during the first 100 hours of the 100th Congress.

As the Congress opened at noon on January 4th, you might think the first 100 hours would have come to an end at 4 PM on January 8th - 100 hours later.



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., left, accompanied by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss, discusses implementation of the 9/11 commission recommendations during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Jan. 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) Silly child. The first 100 hours is actually the first 100 LEGISLATIVE hours which, at the current rate, will end some time around July 11th.

Nevertheless the Dems are punching bills through at a high rate of speed. One of them was an increase in the minimum wage rate which, over the next couple of years will rise from the current $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour by mid-2009.

Ok, you can argue whether that is a good or a bad idea based upon whatever high-level-macro-micro-economic-counter-inflationary theories you learned in Econ 315 in college.

But, it turns out that in the rush to get the minimum wage boost to the floor, the Democrats exempted workers on American Samoa where the minimum wage starts at $2.63 per hour.

American Samoa is, according to the historyofnations.net website: "An unincorporated and unorganized territory of the US; administered by the Office of Insular Affairs, US Department of the Interior."

American Samoa has a representative to the US Congress (Eni Faleomavaega) who has no vote. From that standpoint, American Samoa has exactly the same status in the US House as the District of Columbia.

It's principal administrative area is Pago Pago which is pronounced "Pango-pango."

According to the Department of Labor:

Canned tuna processing is by far the largest private-sector employer in American Samoa. Many of the other private-sector jobs provide goods or services to the tuna processors. Moreover, the economic growth of many other private-sector employers in the consumer retail and service sectors is tied to tuna industry expenditures.

The two biggest tuna processing companies in American Samoa are StarKist and Chicken of the Sea. StarKist is owned by Del Monte foods. Del Monte foods is located in San Francisco, California the home district of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Although tuna packers make $3.26 per hour, that is still - according to my calculator - $1.89 below what a tuna packer actually working in San Francisco for Del Monte would have to be paid under US law.

The American Samoan government is protesting that the lower minimum wage has to be preserved otherwise the jobs will move somewhere else.






Oh, really? And this is different from what employers in Mississippi, or southern Ohio, or West Virginia are facing  how?

Exempting Del Monte from the minimum wage is just as much an earmark as anything pushed through by Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Cellblock E).

Pelosi's office immediately claimed she had not known about the American Samoan exemption and was opposed to it.

That leads us to two points:

1. This is what happens when you shove major legislation through the House without proper committee hearings and minority party participation. How do we know this? Because the DEMOCRATS COMPLAINED ABOUT IT FOR 12 YEARS!

2. Unless Nancy Pelosi has hired the Oompa Loompas from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory to write legislation, it strains credulity that the bill drafters were unaware of the effect this was going to have on a major corporation headquartered in the Speakers' district.

Tuna packers on American Samoa are, on their own, not crucial to the health of the US economy. However, this episode shows that the Democrats are a long way from cleaning up abuses of privilege in the House.

The very issue on which they ran and won.


www.townhall.com

Good info to no. What would he have done if we didn't no ?

Fucking cut and paste parrot:rolleyes:

Who trusts this dog and pony show anyway? Bunch of self serving bastards on both sides.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by ULTRAMAN VH
Jumping the Loan Shark
If college is a good investment, why should the government subsidize it?
...

So people don't get their opinions from shitty writers at www.towndouchebag.com

BTW, who paid for your college education Ultrapansey?

Oh nevermind, I'm pretty sure you don't have one...

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
BTW, who paid for your college education Ultrapansey?

Oh nevermind, I'm pretty sure you don't have one...



yeah no wonder he's so heartless about it

[Nitro Express]

Most politicians are whores. They are for sale and you can buy them. That's the problem right there. They don't care about Bubba the average US citizen who is middle class, independant, and believes in minimal govt. Nope, they cater to the welfare rats to buy votes and the rich lobbyists who want special favors for $$$$$$$.

Going to Washington to do the right thing is rare and even if a uncorrupt individual makes it there, the lobbyists and their special intrest money soon corrupt even the most innocent.

Washington is a whorehouse where they like to fuck. They fuck each other, the voters, they even fuck Iraq and other overseas destinations from Washinton. The Washington Monument should be a huge penis with "WE WILL FUCK YOU!" inscribed on it.

Right now George W. Bush thinks he's Ron Jeremy.

[Satan]

Fascism is ALWAYS against intellectualism. Probably because they don't want people to think, only to comply.