1/22/07

Our Speaker: woofer or tweeter?


As hopefully all of you know, this month in Congress the Democratic party took over the majority in the House and the Senate. This ushered in the first ever woman Speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco (though since we are told that there are no appreciable differences between men and women, I don’t see why the political left is heralding this event). San Fran Nan, as Laura Ingraham calls her, is a firm supporter of most socialist principles and a staunch ally to the foundational special interests of the Democratic Party…or is she?
Now that she is in the public light, Pelosi’s business interests and investments have been receiving more careful scrutiny, beginning with her attempt to exempt American Samoa from the national minimum wage increase. The Del Monte Corporation of (surprise, surprise) San Francisco runs nearly all of its StarKist tuna operation out of American Samoa and was not excited about a nearly $2/hour increase in wages. Since the Pelosis have had business dealings with Del Monte, it is at least suspicious that American Samoa, at Pelosi’s urging, got a rare exemption from this "improvement" for the working man (to say improvement is ignoring the fact that a minimum wage prices low skilled labor out of a job).
Below are summaries of inconsistencies between her liberal rhetoric and the opposite, but economically sensible positions that she has taken in her personal life.

-Despite having won the “coveted” Cesar Chavez Award for her support of unionized farm workers, the Napa Valley Vineyard of which the Pelosis are partial owners employs exactly 0 farm union members. In her defense, her non-union workers earn an average of $1.25/hour more than their union counterparts. Does this not show that it is good business to pay employees well to KEEP them from unionizing?

-Neither the hotel nor the restaurants (the Piati chain) that they own allow unionizing either, despite Pelosi being the top recipient of PAC dollars from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Unions.

-The Corde Valle Country Club that she and her partners built failed its environmental reports for 7 years for not providing an environment for 2 rare species (a requirement to receive approval to build) before she hired a lobbying firm to get the law changed. Oh, did I mention this club has a membership fee of $250,000?
For more specifics, see Peter Schweizer's piece at: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22207

I think this proves to me that even apparent ideologues like Nancy Pelosi are, in their heart of hearts, realists when it comes to their own money. I reiterate that I agree with most of the above personal business decisions, but is it not hypocritical to, through congressional power, force and coerce small developers, business owners and individuals into actions that as a multi-millionaire, you have no intention of adopting yourself?
I guess that depends on what the definition of “is” is.

I don't think I could have created a better picture to represent the irony of this post than the one above (from 2004). I wonder if the recent news about Pelosi's business practices has the proprietors of that website kicking themselves. I doubt it as they probably dislike being burdened by the facts in the face of their utopia.

1 comment:

  1. The good ole "Do as I say, Not as I do." Mentatlity. Glorious how rampant it is in the leaders of our country

    ReplyDelete

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