Friday Open Thread
Welcome to your Friday open thread. It’s another hot, humid day but TGIF! I’m ready for the weekend, how about you?
I don’t think we’ve discussed Tom Emmer, the GOP candidate for governor. Emmer got himself in some hot water last week by proposing that Minnesota reduce the minimum wage for waiters to $2.16/hr, since waiters were making $100,000/yr with tips. He’s been doing damage control ever since.
Emmer last week voiced his support for a policy known as a “tip credit,” which is used in 43 states but not in Minnesota, which allows employers to pay a lower minimum wage to waiters — as low as $2.13 per hour, depending on the implementation, by crediting their tips towards the $7.25 federal requirement. Emmer especially got himself in trouble when he said: “With the tips that they get to take home, there are some that are earning over $100,000 a year — more than the very people that are providing the jobs and investing not only their life savings but their family’s future. Something has to be done about that.”
Since then his damage control efforts have included waiting tables, and insisting that he does not want to cut wages at all, but would only institute a tip credit as part of a package that would raise the overall minimum wage while keeping tipped employees at the current level. (On the other hand, he also opposes raising the minimum wage, and in 2005 he introduced a proposal to abolish it entirely, calling it a “true form of socialism.”) His damage control has also included this town hall event — which like all the other attempts, he might have been better off never doing at all.
At a town hall meeting, someone dumped 2,000 pennies on the table in front of Emmer, a tip.
Louisiana Senator David Vitter is really on the ropes now. Vitter now has a primary challenger and a slowly building scandal with his girlfriend-abusing staffer. He was also caught on tape supporting birthers:
“I know all the information I’ve been able to get my hands on through the media. But obviously with the mainstream media as a filter, that’s not a whole lot. I personally don’t have standing to bring litigation in court. But I support conservative legal organizations and others who would bring that to court. I think that is the valid and most possibly effective grounds to do it. Let me also say this. I think quite frankly, and I’ll be blunt, I think if we focus on that issue and let our eye off the ball in terms of this fall’s election, in terms of ongoing policy votes, week in, week out in the Congress, I think that’s a big mistake. I think we need (applause) — I think first and foremost, I’m not dismissing any of this. I think first and foremost, we need to fight the Obama agenda at the ballot box, starting this fall, we can (inaudible, due to applause) a new and very different Congress.”
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) is strongly denying that he is a birther, after he was recorded on video approving of birther lawsuits at a Tea Party event this past weekend. And furthermore, he’s denying that he ever praised the lawsuits, either — and blasting the “liberal thought police” for opposing people’s right to bring them.
“This attack is ridiculous,” Vitter said in statement, Politico reports. “I’m not a birther, and I even said the issue is distracting. But I think people should have appropriate access to the courts. Is even that statement unacceptable now to the liberal thought police?”
Liar, liar, diapers on fire.
Tags: Open Thread
…since waiters were making $100,000/yr with tips.
W…T…F?! This dude is a talking-point-crack smoker. I was clearing $250k in my day! Yeah, right. I was lucky to crack $25k in the one year I did it FT (many years ago), but no bennies at all, so it wasn’t a true FT $25k. Later, as a bartender, I did better than that on a 30/hr week, but not by a lot. I hate talking points, I really freaking do. They make people stupid, in a very lazy-thinking sort of way.
Anybody hear anything about Paul Calistro running for mayor?
Check this out: Delaware has the second largest decline in the employment to population ratio since the recession began in 2007 at -7.1%
“June’s employment numbers highlight that our economic recovery is not yet on solid footing. An analysis by The Hamilton Project digs into the regional distribution of these unemployment trends and finds that, by one measure, the five hardest hit states are Alabama, Delaware, Colorado, Georgia, and Utah.”
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0702_jobs_greenstone.aspx
Sharron Angle is dropping like a rock in Nevada. A new poll shows Reid ahead by 7% – 44% to 37%.
I’d love to see some new polling on the PA-Gov race. Has Corbett’s remarks about the unemployed hurt him yet?
This is rich. Alan Greenspan is now calling for letting the Bush tax cuts expire completely. He, as much as Bush, is responsible for them in the first place. Remember him telling us how dangerous surpluses are?
I was rooting for Angle. I’d do just about anything to get rid of Reid, as long as we keep 50 Dem Senators (because we all know Dem Senators 51 through 60 are useless anyway).
Reid should not be rewarded for his weak leadership.
Remember him telling us how dangerous surpluses are?
That is the one peril Bush managed to save us from.
Take a gander at this chart. Crime is down 12% in Arizona, except for Maricopa County (rightwing blowhard Sheriff Joe Arpaio), where it’s up 58% over the last decade.
Tuesday the Senate will vote on the unemployment extension fifteen minutes after the new Senator from WV is sworn in.
Anyone see the article talking about mandatory BMI ratings in electronic medical records? I wonder what they are going to use those numbers for. How many people here would have an ‘unfavorable’ rating?
UI, if you actually look at the numbers, Wilmington has more murders, rapes, and robberies per capita than Maricopa County. All in all, it is just shy of 4 million people, and their crime rate isn’t bad at all when compared to other areas with that many people.
Phoenix is also located in that county, and that is a ‘sanctuary’ city where illegals can live. That chart doesn’t have an estimate of how many of those crimes could of been comitted by non-residents.
It’s ok though, I’m sure this lawsuit against AZ will just cause Illegal immigrant violence and border drug problems to just vanish.
Mike Castle on Channel 12 right now.
Segment was 3 minutes long — sorry.
Mike said President Obama should work with both Democrats and Republicans.
Thanks Mike!!!
Just an FYI–Maricopa County has become the “Middletown” population boom of Arizona. Instead of cornfields to cookie cutter houses, it is cactus to communities. No wonder it’s up 58%. BTW–it’s a foreclosure festival also.
Poor little Birthers (still in denial about their losses), but the Judge will continue to smack down the crazies . To all the birthers in La, La Land, it is on you to prove to all of us that your assertion is true (TOUGH WHEN YOU KEEP LOSING CASES), if there are people who were there and support your position then show us the video (everyone has a price), either put up or frankly shut-up. I heard Orly Taitz, is selling a tape (I think it’s called “Money, Lies and Video tape”). She is from Orange County, CA, now I know what the mean when they say “behind the Orange Curtain”, when they talk about Orange County, the captial of Conspiracy Theories. You know Obama has a passport, he travel abroad before he was a Senator, but I guess they were in on it.
In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme of clans; the Baggers, Birthers and Blowhards (people who love to push their beliefs on others while trying to take away the rights of those they just hate) and that’s who they need to extract from their party if they real want to win in November. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Out”.
I wonder if Orly Taitz, is a mail order bride, just like her law degree? She is perfect reporter material for “Fake News”, where unfounded rumors and innuendo reign supreme, unlike a our US courts of law. The way our courts work is that you get a competent lawyer, verifiable facts and present them to a judge, if the facts are real and not half baked lies, then, and only then, you proceed to trial. The Birthers seem to be having a problem with their so called facts that they present. Let’s face it no one will go along with you until you guys win a case, but until then, you will continue to appear dumb, crazy or racist, or maybe all three. A lawyer, dentist, realtor and black belt, WOW I must say a JACK of all trades master of none.
I heard that Orly Taitz, now wants to investigate the “Republican 2009 Summer of Love” list: Assemblyman, Michael D. Duvall (CA), Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), Board of Ed Chair, and Kristin Maguire AKA Bridget Keeney (SC), she wants to re-establish a family values party, good luck with that.
We won the election and now these sore losers will continue to spew their hate with lies.