The link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070113/ap_on_go_co/minimum_wage
Nancy Pelosi is very proud of herself for ending the “culture of corruption” in Washington. And, of course, by “corruption” she means “things Republicans do.” What she does is, by definition, moral.
That's why it was perfectly ok for her to put an exception into the Democrat's new minimum wage bill that benefits her directly.
“Her remark Friday followed accusations from Republicans a day earlier that American Samoa, which is not now covered by the $5.15 an hour federal minimum wage, was not included in the law raising the federal pay floor to $7.25 an hour because StarKist has a large cannery in the island chain. StarKist is owned by Del Monte Foods Co., which has its headquarters in San Francisco, Pelosi's district.”
Yes, that' fine. She's just looking out for her constituents by excluding them from the very helpful minimum wage increase... Hmmm. Wait, there's more. Pelosi's husband owns $17 million in Del Monte stock. Yeah... I know that's not corruption, and certainly not an entire culture of corruption, but I can't tell how. Hopefully somebody can explain that to me.
To make matters even more confusing, when the Republicans attempted a cheap, tawdry stunt to draw attention to this totally understandable and non-corrupt exception for American Samoa, Barney Frank shouted them down in a witty, not at all ridiculous fashion. Barney Frank is another non-corrupt person, not at all like evil Denny Hastert. As you may recall, Denny Hastert didn't do enough to stop Mark Foley from scandalously and lewdly flirting with male pages, which is a very corrupt thing to do. Barney Frank, however, a non-corrupt, scandal free person, isn't to blame for his own boyfriend running a prostitution ring from his house. It's all totally clear. Jeez, pay attention.