Welcome to your Friday, drying out open thread. How many of you were flooded? I hear there was flooding in Newark and on the UD campus and some schools are closed. How is it where you live?
By now, you’ve probably heard the terrible story of Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide after his college roommate broadcast Clementi’s sexual encounter with another man. Dan Savage has started a project called “It Gets Better” to help teens deal with the bullying and issues with being gay and coming out. There’s a YouTube channel where people can share their stories. This is a great idea – hopefully something good can come out of this tragic story.
Republicans will have a good election year in 2010 but they have to wonder how much better they would have done if they didn’t have such ridiculous candidates in some races. Take Connecticut GOP Senate nominee Linda McMahon. She just has no clue:
A scandalous multi-millionaire can buy a primary win, and even run enough ads to position herself to buy a Senate seat, but it’s tough to put a price on sound judgment and policy smarts. Connecticut’s Linda McMahon was reminded of this yesterday.
Republican Linda McMahon accepted the endorsement of a prominent business interest lobby on Thursday, but her campaign staff abruptly shut down a press conference in which McMahon was asked to explain whether she agreed with all of the organization’s positions.
Most notably, McMahon said she believed Congress should consider lowering the federal minimum wage in times of economic distress for small businesses, such as the current recession.
“The minimum wage now in our country, I think we’ve set that and a lot of people have benefited from it in our country, but I think we ought to review how much it ought to be, and whether or not we ought to have increases in the minimum wage,” McMahon said.
McMahon, who made her fortune running a scandal-plagued wrestling company, added that she had no idea what the federal or state minimum wage currently is. (Connecticut’s minimum wage is $8.25 an hour, while the federal wage is $7.25 an hour.)
This reminds me of when John McCain said Americans won’t work for $50/hr in the fields. These people just have no clue what life is like for ordinary people.