JCR Blog

Well our friends on the left have once again shown their true colors. New Speaker Nanci Pelosi has decided to can ethics and exempt a company based in her district from having to comply with the proposed increase in the minimum wage.

StarKist Tuna owned by DelMonte Corporation has a tuna factory based on the U.S. territory of American Samoa, which employs about 500 workers many of whom are paid at minimum wage. So...what's so special about DelMonte??

DelMonte is based in Pelosi's district in San Francisco.

(Update 1/15--New information reveals that Speaker Pelosi's husband currently owns about $17 million in DelMonte stock!)--What was that about "most ethical Congress in history, Madame Speaker?

I guess if you're a Democrat that has a district with a company that might have the ability to funnel large sums of contributions to your campaign someday or help your family's stock fortunes..and you need to exert a little influence on legislation for them--that's OK...

If you're a Republican...you automatically are part of the "Culture of Corruption" because..no Democrat could possibly ever be corrupt....

Ron Paul, GOP congressman from Texas, filed his papers Thursday. It's not his first try for the White House; he ran as the Libertarian Candidate in 1988 before joining the Republican Party:

Kent Snyder, the chairman of Paul's exploratory committee and a former staffer on Paul's Libertarian campaign, said the congressman knows he's a long shot.

"There's no question that it's an uphill battle, and that Dr. Paul is an underdog," Snyder said. "But we think it's well worth doing, and we'll let the voters decide."

Paul, of Lake Jackson, acknowledges that the national GOP has never fully embraced him despite his nine terms in office under its banner. He gets little money from the GOP's large traditional donors but benefits from individual conservative and Libertarian donors outside Texas. He bills himself as "the taxpayers' best friend" and is routinely ranked either first or second in the U.S. House by the National Taxpayers Union, a group advocating low taxes and limited government.

If I may be allowed to coin a new Caucus Coolerism, could Paul be a CFCA (Credible Fiscally Conservative Alternative)? He's certainly a credible fiscal conservative, but I'd be shocked if he could rally the money and organization needed to compete with the big guns (or even the medium guns). I know there is a small core of Libertarian activists (I was once one of them) who Paul could rely on in Ames and Iowa City if he made a stand here in Iowa. My guess is that Paul will enter the Cooler Line somewhere between Duncan Hunter and Chuck Hagel, say 250-1.

Krusty and his kommenters demonstrate some McCain-Romney-(Huckabee?) conspiracy theories in one of today's threads. Well actually in more than one thread. I guess that's what blogs are for anyway, eh? Whatever way you swing, it makes for some fun reading.

State29 has a great post about our outgoing governor's record:

• Appointing Michael Gartner to state boards.
• Corporate welfare (Vision Iowa).
• Touchplay
  
• Ongoing polluting of Iowa's rivers and streams by factory farmers.
• An out of control deer population that is killing people and ruining livelihoods.
• The draining of the Senior Living Trust.
• Allowing the fraudulent spending of the tobacco shakedown money.
  

There are a bunch more and State's taking submissions for other "highlights." You won't hear any of that in his "presidential" stump speeches.