Why a plank in the GOP platform: "No minimum wage for the Mariana Islands"? Ask Ralph Reed [View all]
Why would a plank in the official GOP platform say "No minimum wage for the Mariana Islands"? Ask Ralph Reed ... or read this latest essay from Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.
Ralph Reed in the Marianas Trenches
http://www.billmoyers.com
A plank in the GOP platform tells just one tale of Reed's heinous hypocrisy.
Ralph Reed in the Marianas Trenches
August 31, 2012
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Entrance to garment factory on Saipan; Credit: WikiCommons
As the sun slowly sets over the Republican National Convention in Tampa, we settle back in the chairs that nice Mr. Eastwood just gave us and ponder some of the other oddities of the week. Like this item in the official GOP platform pointed out by Brad Plumer of The Washington Post:
No minimum wage for the Mariana Islands. The Pacific territories should have flexibility to determine the minimum wage, which has seriously restricted progress in the private sector.
This caught our attention (and thanks to colleague Theresa Riley for sending) because it once again reminds us of the sordid past of evangelical and political entrepreneur Ralph Reed who, as this weeks edition of Moyers & Company reports in detail, has emerged from the ashes of epic career fail to reestablish himself as a powerful figure in Republican politics.
As head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Reed boasts hes building a political dynamo of five million members with a massive database, an annual budget of $100 million and full-time lobbyists in all fifty state capitals, a colossal effort aimed at putting in place a right-wing social agenda and identifying and establishing contact with what it estimates as 27 million conservative voters in America. As you can imagine, with clout like that, Reed and his coalition were in high cotton at the Tampa convention.
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