100 Hours of....Corruption

[RR]

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2. I hate to say this, but doing favors for companies in your district is completely standard and does not mean Pelosi is corrupt. Her constituents probably want that company to be healthy for the jobs it provides.


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SO you are conceeding that raising the min wage costs jobs? I mean I everyoen pretty much agrees on that. I guess not even those on the left deny that they are counting on enough people to not understand this that are willing to put poor people out of work to be in power. I guess we can no longer start with the premise that people run for office to help people.

[Copernicus]

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Standing ovation for William Jefferson. Reid's property sham. Whines for "minority party" rights...when they were the minority, ignore them when they are the majority.

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Yes, the MW bill is clearly politics. Economic rationalization here, none there. If the Dems are hypocrits, why don't we ever hear from you about the Republican hypocrisy of the last decade? Why bring out the bullhorn now? Aren't they both hypocrits? Didn't we hear this bipartisanship/cooperative BS every election cycle from Republicans too?

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If indeed we did (and I dont remember it), it was still the Dems bullhorn to bring out. They want the power, then their screw ups will be broadcast like every slip GWB (allegedly) made, and in a lot more civil fashion.

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More Civil? Lol. Most of what I hear and read is pretty venomous. On both sides. Stop pretending Republicans are any less civil or less hypocritcal. Everyone looks crappy here. Dems whine about unfair treatment, and yeah, dish a little back, and probably will continue to do so. Republicans spend the last 6 years neutering the minority better than any in recent history, and get all hot and bothered when they have to taste just a little bit of their own medicine, after just a week.

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The Republicans neutered the minority? I guess there are no justices that should be sitting that aren't because the minority decided to abandon 200 years of tradition. I guess there were no bipartisan bills passed in the 6 years. I guess the Democrats never had an amendment make it into a bill, even though they were ostensibly allowed to. I guess we have no viable immigration bill because the Republicans railroaded what they wanted through. I guess no Democrats voted for the war on Iraq.

History is too fresh to rewrite it, sorry.

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It is too fresh, so what was that all that about?

Yes, that is clearly what I meant. I guess there are only two scenarios: fair treatment and absolute repression. Therefore if there were not "no amendments" or "no bipartisan bills" then it was not absolute repression, and hence everything was kosher. If you want links detailing the committee level bullying and general dirty tactics, ask for it. But you've read them already, because you keep up on this stuff. You just choose to ignore it.

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Or you choose to inflate negotiating from a majority position as "bullying". there is a difference between negotiating as the majority and totally excluding the minority.

[andyfox]

"doing favors for companies in your district is completely standard and does not mean Pelosi is corrupt."

I agree it's completely standard, but it's the very definition of corruption.

[iron81]

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SO you are conceeding that raising the min wage costs jobs?

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Well, yeah. I've said before that the number of jobs available probably goes down when you increase the Minimum Wage. My point has always been that the increased wage for those who keep their jobs vastly outweighs the lost wage of those who lose their jobs and can't find new ones.

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"doing favors for companies in your district is completely standard and does not mean Pelosi is corrupt."

I agree it's completely standard, but it's the very definition of corruption.

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I disagree. When I said that Pelosi is doing Del Monte favors, I should have said that she is more sensitive to their concerns. But so what? Just because Pelosi takes their phone calls doesn't mean that constitutes corruption.

Also, for it to be truly corrupt, Pelosi needs to get something out of it. Is there any evidence that she's on the take? Of course not. Is there any evidence that Del Monte is making campaign contributions to the Dems in exchange for favors? No. Is there even any evidence that they contribute to the Dems at all.

Is anyone here arguing that doing something because your constituent asks you to is automatically corruption?

[hmkpoker]

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Well, yeah. I've said before that the number of jobs available probably goes down when you increase the Minimum Wage. My point has always been that the increased wage for those who keep their jobs vastly outweighs the lost wage of those who lose their jobs and can't find new ones.

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Iron-

Care to provide your reasoning? If a minimum wage kicks out the less productive and redistributes their earning opportunities to the more productive, it must be creating an income gap (albeit between the poor and poorer). Seems like if you believe in diminishing marginal utility, the best thing would be to stop protecting the more productive so that the poorer can have more work opportunity.

[BCPVP]

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My point has always been that the increased wage for those who keep their jobs vastly outweighs the lost wage of those who lose their jobs and can't find new ones.

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So what about the people you've just forced out of a job? You've also made it much more difficult to hire them again unless they become more productive all of the sudden. Or perhaps sentenced them to a life of crime and begging. If you close off the legal job market, what's left?

[Myrtle]

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SO you are conceeding that raising the min wage costs jobs?

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Well, yeah. I've said before that the number of jobs available probably goes down when you increase the Minimum Wage. My point has always been that the increased wage for those who keep their jobs vastly outweighs the lost wage of those who lose their jobs and can't find new ones.

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"doing favors for companies in your district is completely standard and does not mean Pelosi is corrupt."

I agree it's completely standard, but it's the very definition of corruption.

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I disagree. When I said that Pelosi is doing Del Monte favors, I should have said that she is more sensitive to their concerns. But so what? Just because Pelosi takes their phone calls doesn't mean that constitutes corruption.

Also, for it to be truly corrupt, Pelosi needs to get something out of it. Is there any evidence that she's on the take? Of course not. Is there any evidence that Del Monte is making campaign contributions to the Dems in exchange for favors? No. Is there even any evidence that they contribute to the Dems at all.

Is anyone here arguing that doing something because your constituent asks you to is automatically corruption?

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iron,

Have you ever run head-on into the "old boy" network in your day-to-day life?

It comes in many shapes, sizes and colors.

What Andy is getting to is that in this particular case, this example is reflective of one of the variations.

There are many layers to, and causes of corruption.

I always like to ask myself the "Why" question when I sense something is amiss.

"Why" did so-and-so do this or that?

List ALL of the options.....exclude NONE of them for consideration.

See where that line of reasoning takes you......

[Poofler]

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Or you choose to inflate negotiating from a majority position as "bullying". there is a difference between negotiating as the majority and totally excluding the minority.

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We're both exaggerating a little bit. It also wasn't "total exclusion" or always "negotiation". There are notable Republicans I'd even vote for who haven't become hypocritical big-spend neo-cons. But there were quite a few corrupt and powerful leadership figures in the Republican party who barely sniffed the word "negotiation". Mostly the House. Not so much in the Senate, which is a whole different dynamic.