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How not to use Twitter

by The Big E on July 15, 2010

There are certain basics to Twitter.  Thankfully, they’re simple.  Follow everyone back who follows you (you can exclude porn bots, spammers etc.), be yourself, have conversations regularly and write about interesting stuff.

And don’t do what this guy did.  He’s on Team Emmer.  Or was.

Don’t have private conversations on Twitter if you’re part of a campaign, you might jeopardize your campaign.  Like this guy did.  You’ve got freakin’ cell phones, you can text, send emails, send those emails on your cell phones.

Twitter is for communicating with the public.  Duh?

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Emmer still telling debunked lie that servers make $100,000 per year

by The Big E on July 13, 2010

Republican MN-GOV candidate Tom Emmer continues to repeat the debunked lie he told at the Eagle Street Grille last week that servers make $100,000 per year.  Instead of apologizing or saying he misspoke he’s blaming the media.  He still says that he’s for a tip penalty law yet somehow this won’t lower the minimum wage. MN Publius has the details:

Tom Emmer spoke at a Republican Jewish Coalition fundraiser yesterday and he repeated the claim that some Minnesota servers make $100,000!  This despite having his earlier statements debunked thoroughly in the mainstream media (and disavowed by the very restaurant owners who supplied him with the initial information).  
“I wasn’t there to talk about tip credit.  I was asked a question after some owners of a restaurant had suggested you know what we got these great people who work here, wonderful people that make a great living.  And they are the one who gave me the number by the way of 100,000 and you can ask some folks there are servers who do that well, not many but there are.”

The video is found here, and the relevant passage comes just after the 4:30 mark.

This is classic Republican behavior.  When busted for telling an outright lie, tell more lies.  Now the media don’t report “truthfully, honestly and accurately” if they repeat your lies.  

Just in case, here’s the video of Emmer at the Eagle Street Grille:


(h/t Mike McIntee for the vid)

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Good-Bye Unemployment Line – Hello $100,000 Bartending Jobs!

by Mark My Words on July 7, 2010

MN Republican Gubernatorial candidate  Tom Emmer is going to start focusing on “the Help”:  Since they, according to him, already make “over $100,000″ as waiters and bartenders, they should get a cut in pay from their employer.  

As MinnPost notes:

Wage stats from Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) indicate that those $100,000 servers are the rarest of people.

The median wage for the 45,000 waiters and waitresses in the state is $9.36 an hour, including tips, meaning that if a server is working full time, he or she could make a little more than $19,000 a year. In the Twin Cities, servers do a little better – the median hourly wage is $10.57. But the waiter in southwestern Minnesota is being paid less than $8 an hour, including tips, according to the state’s statistics.

Emmer, who spoke at the Eagle Street Grill, a popular hot spot at the Xcel Energy Center in St Paul, said the owner told him that three of the restaurant staffs are taking over $100,000 a year.  Emmer, who’s apparently only looking out for the little guy, sprung the idea on the crowd.  (Which, I’m sure, became the worst group of tippers the Eagle Street Grill has seen in years.)

His complaint doesn’t make a lot of sense because it flies in the face of the GOP’s track-record!  If what he says is true, then why wouldn’t he be pushing for tax breaks for these wealthy bartenders and waiters?!  And, shouldn’t they be permanent tax-cuts?!  If everybody is tipping 20% of their drink and meal tabs, then why would the bar/restaurant owners care about a measly $9.36 per hour wage?  If my math is correct; with a generous 20% gratuity per tab equates to an excess of $100,000 annually per waiter, then the restaurant owner is pulling in excess of $500,000 per year, per waiter/bartender!  That only means permanent tax-breaks for everybody that works at that place!!

My dear departed grandmother worked most of her adult life as a waitress at Bill’s Cafe in Deer River, Minnesota.  Let me be the first to inform Tom Emmer: Grandma never made $100,000 a year in tips.

I’m going out on a limb here, I know; but I think Tom Emmer is a giant sized gift for the DFL in November.  If he’s got the time time brag how he’ll cut Minnesota’s budget easily by $12 billion in his first two years, he’s probably got time to talk to his “$100,000 waiter” who’s asking him if he wants fries with that.  

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