Pelosi Continues to Astound...Not Really

From the Washington Times it appears the bill to raise to Minimum Wage from $5.15 to $7.25, a bill strongly supported by the new Democratically controlled Congress took a sharp turn when Nancy Pelosi decided to exempt her district from the increase.

"I am shocked," said Rep. Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican and his party's chief deputy whip, noting that Mrs. Pelosi campaigned heavily on promises of honest government. "Now we find out that she is exempting hometown companies from minimum wage. This is exactly the hypocrisy and double talk that we have come to expect from the Democrats."

The bill stretches all the way to the Pacific as well though it happens to bypass American Samoa. One of the largest opponents to the increase in Samoa is StarKist Tuna, which employs 75% of the island. Now hang on and let me tie it all up. StarKist's parent company is DelMonte whose headquaters is in you guessed it, Pelosi's district. Up on Capitol hill the debate continued back and forth between the Republicans and the Democrats. Republicans tried to state the outright hypocrisy of the this:

"There's something fishy going on here," said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, North Carolina Republican.
During the House debate yesterday on stem-cell research, Mr. McHenry raised a parliamentary inquiry as to whether an amendment could be offered that would exempt American Samoa from stem-cell research, "just as it was for the minimum-wage bill."
A clearly perturbed Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who was presiding, cut off Mr. McHenry and shouted, "No, it would not be."
"So, the chair is saying I may not offer an amendment exempting American Samoa?" Mr. McHenry pressed.
"The gentleman is making a speech and will sustain," Mr. Frank shouted as he slammed his large wooden gavel against the rostrum.
Some Republicans who voted in favor of the minimum-wage bill were particularly irritated to learn yesterday -- after their vote -- that the legislation did not include American Samoa.

"I was troubled to learn of this exemption," said Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican. "My intention was to raise the minimum wage for everyone. We shouldn't permit any special favors or exemptions that are not widely discussed in Congress. This is the problem with rushing legislation through without full debate."

So we haven't even finished the first 100 hours that Queen Pelosi ran on and we are already seeing hypocrisy in the House. I thought she was supposed to clean up the House and bring ethics back to Washington. Of course, being from San Fransisco she is bringing the only ethics she knows. Should any of us be surprised?