MySpace Mayor Poses in Underwear on Town Firetruck

Victoria's Secret, Look Out!

Calmly Fights off Recall Efforts

Mayor is on fire;
So are some of her constituents

"I'm not going to change who I am. There's a lot of officials that have a personal life, and you have people in this community who have nothing better to do than scrape up stuff like this."

--Arlington, OR Mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist

Curvaceous MySpace Mayor, Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, now has her MySpace page set to "private", but the casual searcher can still see that the Arlington, OR Mayor describes her mood as "silly".

The townspeople who are leading the charge for her recall are a little more subdued.

And anyone can still see that the Mayor was logged in yesterday, a few days after her provocative MySpace pictures hit the public airwaves. Her MySpace account had already been set to "Private" by then, but not before someone had tipped off the local TV station, KATU, to the MySpace Mayor's photo shoot alongside the Arlington town firetruck.

Kontur-Gronquist also doubles as the fire department's executive secretary.

So, she's in the clear--she probably gave herself permission to use the Arlington firewagon for the "Mayors Gone Wild" backdrop.

Be that as it may, the town's annual meeting was this past Wednesday night.

Some citizens campaigned for the Mayor's recall. From all reports, she seemed as calm at the town meeting before the citizens who had gathered to voice their concerns.

One wonders if the Mayor was employing an old trick that speakers have used for years to cure "butterflies in the stomach".

Imagine that everyone in the room is in their underwear.

Or maybe not.

Mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist - who created a stir with her decision to post a photograph of herself, clad only in a black bra and panties, on her MySpace page - calmly listened to and then ignored calls for her resignation.

In a town of 500, as is Arlington's population, 30 citizens are about 6%--but how many of them were voters?

And how many had just showed up for the drama?

Nearly 30 citizens stood with Ron Miller Wednesday night as he addressed Kontur-Gronquist at a council meeting that attracted far more than the usual number of constituents. Miller listed five complaints against the mayor - the first four dealing with city business and, lastly, the photo of the scantily clad mayor on a town fire truck.

"The apparent lack of city leadership has become so blatant we feel a change needs to be made," he said. Miller said if the mayor was unwilling to resign, the group would proceed with a recall petition.

Earlier this past week, the following was the typical report that most of the nation saw on the MySpace Mayor's shenanigans.

Some of the mayor's roughly 500 constituents will want to know her views on the issues affecting the Eastern Oregon community; others will want to talk about her underwear.

The mayor's lingerie is a hot topic here, with some residents upset that she posted pictures of herself wearing only a black bra and panties on her MySpace page. She was on one of the town's fire engines.

Kontur-Gronquist's MySpace page is blocked to all but her friends, but the pictures were at one time available to all users. Someone sent the picture at the top of the page to local TV station, KATU, last week.

This is what the local station had to report.


In an interview with the (Pendleton) East Oregonian, the mayor said she did nothing wrong and those who are offended need to get over it.

"That's my personal life," she said. "It has nothing to do with my mayor's position."

Kontur-Gronquist, who is also the fire department's executive secretary, said the photos were taken before she was elected mayor three years ago, and she saw no reason to remove them from the Internet after taking office.

"I'm not going to change who I am," she said. "There's a lot of officials that have a personal life, and you have people in this community who have nothing better to do than scrape up stuff like this."

Lorena Woods is one of those residents who say the photos of a scantily clad mayor reflect badly on Arlington.

"It's a picture of her in bra and panties on a rural protection fire truck in a rural protection fire hall," Woods said. "This isn't the way we want our city to be portrayed."

Councilman Jeff Bufton said he's heard a lot of negative comments about the pictures but declined to say whether the council plans to address the topic.

Some residents said they were starting a recall petition.

And at least one city council member is speaking out, saying the photos are inappropriate and send the wrong message to kids.

"It gives the impression that it's just OK to do whatever you feel like doing, whenever, and not have any kind of concern about how it might affect other people, and that is a big concern I have," council member Alice Courtney told KATU.


Nothing up my sleeve...

Will the Mayor be recalled?

Will Carmen Kontur-Gronquist be thrown out on her ear, to fend for herself in a cruel and unfeeling world?

Will she apply to Victoria's Secret for an open model position?

Will the lingerie company tell her they'll hire her, but she has to supply her own fire truck?

The crisis in Arlington, OR continues.

UPDATE: January 30, 2008 MySpace Mayor Now Quiet as Others Ride to Her Rescue

by Mondoreb
Sources:
* timworstall
* Oregon mayor ignores call for resignation amid MySpace picture scandal
Back to DBKP at Blogger Front Page

Politicians Keep Disguising Taxes, Taxpayers Keep Pulling Off the Mask

Government officials at all levels have become more saavy at trying to disguise taxes as something else. But, it seems Democrats are especially adept at the practice.

However, voters/taxpayers are also getting better at recognizing the camouflage.

Gavin Newsome, Democrat mayor of San Francisco, is trying out a tax with a double disguise: first, it's called a fee; and second, it's dressed up in the now-familiar costume of preventing a health problem.

As an added touch, the tax is supposed to help alleviate a children's health problem.

...San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has set his sights on soda - working up a plan to charge a new city fee to big retailers of sugar drinks.

"The bottom line is that there is a direct nexus between high-fructose corn syrup drinks like colas and Big Gulps and obesity among schoolkids," Newsom said Friday.

The idea of taxing soda to combat obesity - which is being touted as the first in the nation - has been roiling around in health circles for some time, including backing from the American Medical Association.

The size of the fee (it won't be billed as a tax) is being worked out, but it may include a sweetener - namely giving the stores some other kind of fee break.

First of all, it's not a tax, it's just a governmentally creative way to combat obesity.

Child obesity.

Besides, it's not even a tax, it's a fee.

And, to top it off, it's going to hit "them" not "you"; i.e., the tax is to be on Wal-Marts and other businesses, not really on consumers.

That's a lot of camouflage.

Now Newsom wants the soda sellers - primarily big-box retailers and chain drugstores - to chip in for his "Shape Up San Francisco" program and for media campaigns to discourage the soda habit.

The mayor further states that sodas "account for millions of dollars in city health care costs.

One might point out that personal habits other than sodas probably account for more money in city health care. Perhaps some of these personal habits also should be subject to "fees".

But one realizes that even government creativity in taxation has its limits.

Don't be too harsh on the mayor: he's only a sign of Democrat restlessness with the stagnation of the rates of taxation.

The mayor's plea for a fee was detailed in the San Francisco Chronicle and its website. It drew 181 comments, mostly taxpayers not fooled by the mayor's attempt to dress up the tax as something completely different.

Here was a sampling of the readers who pulled the mask off of the mayor's "fee". They try to help the mayor out and suggest some other ways government can "help".


* Let's tax hair gel so Gavin Newsom can contribute to scalp health. Let's tax lattes and organic free trade coffee because they give people jitters and contribute to all kinds of heart ailments.
- Paul Kim, 40, Mission


* Why not tax "oversized" clothes? Video games? Butter? Air? Heck, wait until city (over)government drives all of the small business out of town and see how they handle the loss of THAT tax revenue. They better start considering a BIG tax on U-Hauls.
- Fritz Frisbie 49, Potrero Hill ("Restaurant owner dba 'Connecticut Yankee' ")


* How about a special tax for any restaurant tab over $100 with a sliding scale at $250 increments all that way up to $5,000. If you can afford to drop $2,500 on a dinner for 4 then you can definitely afford a higher "tax," right? Besides, eating all of that kobe beef and foie gras is so BAD for your health.
- Rob Kennelson, 36, North Beach


* Well don't stop there. The city should give tax breaks to Asian food cafes and restaurants which serve vegetarian-heavy menus over Europeans types which are heavy in creams and sauces. Garlic, which could cause Muni accidents, should be next. Pizza dough and fat cheeses followed by Super Burritos full of cheese, red meat and sour cream. And all St. Patrick's Day goodies from beer and corned beef to Irish whiskey, and fish and chips of the English.
- Hank Bellomo, 50, Fillmore


* Better tax that Vitamin Water stuff all the pseudo health conscious parents are feeding their kids. A bottle has 32 grams of sugar - almost as much as a can of Coke.
- Jeff Schwartz, 45, Sunset


* Remember when coffee was bad for you? Turns out it's the biggest source of anti-oxidants for Americans. Is wine good or bad? How about milk? Wheat germ? Eggs? Get out of the micromanagement of San Franciscans' lives, Newsom. My doctor doesn't even know if these things are bad or good.
- Brendan Taylor, 35, San Mateo ("ex-Mission & 18th resident")


* Mayor Newsom is on the right track, sort of. Drinking too much soda is not a good thing, but neither is excessive taxation. I used to drink 3 or 4 sugary sodas a day, for more than 10 years. All that has changed. I lost 15 pounds this year by drastically reducing my soda consumption. In addition to feeling better, I saved at least several hundred dollars - and that's without the mayor's soda tax.
- Darren Richardson, 43, Berkeley


* I recommend a 2-cent tax on all fried hamburgers within San Francisco city limits, for obesity research at UCSF Medical Center.
- Robert McCullough, 56, North Beach (a.k.a. "Captain Democracy," former mayoral candidate)


* I like the idea. I would support higher taxes (whatever they're called) for soda, junk food, and other destructive products (cigarettes, alcohol, gas, meat, plastic, Styrofoam, toxic chemicals, etc.).
- Dan Brook, 40, Parkmerced


* If the city is confident that excessive consumption of high-fructose corn syrup by schoolkids is linked to poor health and chronic obesity, then a surtax on beverages sweetened with HFCS should have the effect of discouraging excessive consumption while generating incremental revenue.
- Henry Walker, 44, Castro


* Anyone out there have a better idea, without taxing fuel, tobacco, alcohol, fast-food-to-go, meats, produce, utilities? Since San Franciscans pride themselves with having the highest property values, let them show it by upping the property tax on their faux-Victorians, high-rise condos, and baron-owned slum rentals. This is one solution. I like your mayor.
- Keith Schmidt, 53, Medicine Lodge, Kan.


* Great tax proposal. But it will drive people to buy soda from San Mateo.
- Gerald Chu, 32, Burlingame

Good civic-minded people, all.

But don't think that some of their ideas might not be proposed in the future

Once you start taxing in the name of what accounts for health care costs, there's no logical stopping point.

Most of the above readers are trying to propose ridiculous examples of fees.

If they're not careful, the mayor, and other Democrats, might just hire them to write new "fee" proposals.

by Mondoreb
[image:deviantart]
Sources:
* 12-17 Newsome considers sugary fee for sellers of soda
* Reader's Platform



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Giuliani's Illegal Immigration Plan: "Give Me Three Years"

[image:oswegonews]

by Mondoreb & Little Baby Ginn

Rudy Giuliani wants to do for the U.S. as president what he couldn't do for New York City as mayor: reduce illegal immigration within three years.

More on a man with a plan by the New York Daily News:

If elected president, Rudy Giuliani wants to do for illegal immigration what he did for crime in New York City - reduce it dramatically within as little as three years.

"It can be done. It is not impossible," Giuliani told an Iowa town hall-style meeting on Wednesday night. "You can do this, you can stop them at the border."

To get the job done, Giuliani said he would boost the number of border patrol agents to 18,000 from the current 12,000 - much like he increased the size of the NYPD as mayor - and build a physical and "technological" border along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"If you do this for two or three years, you'll change behavior," Giuliani said. "If people come to the border and figure they can't get in, they'll stop."

Giuliani has been touting his illegal immigration plans since last summer, but his pledge to put a time-limit on dealing with the problem - considered among the most complex on the domestic front - is a more recent addition.

The generally-friendly tone of the article addressed a concern of many in the last paragraph.

Giuliani - who as mayor was considered among the most immigrant-friendly executives in the country - has stopped short of calling for the deportation of all illegal immigrants, saying deporting 12 million people is an unrealistic goal.

But he has called for the immediate deportation of all illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

So Rudy's joined the chorus of those strawmen-builders who keep addressing a question which has never been brought up by anyone except themselves:

"Can we deport all the illegals?"

He's spent considerably less time addressing his record as mayor on this problem and his support of sanctuary laws then on the books and any attempt by city officials to change them.

Giuliani doesn't require a dressing-down on this problem, but the insistent questions remain until he answers them; brushing them aside whenever they are raised or changing the channel won't satisfy those want to know.

The question of an ID card, and whether there will ever be such an animal remains for a later date.



Back to Front Page.

Like Evidence of Man-Made Global Warming:Atlantic City Mayor Still Missing

by Little Baby Ginn

Atlantic City Mayor Still Missing, Party Affiliation Remains a Mystery

From jammiewearing fool:
Lord knows we've tried to help the media out with this one, and we can only chalk it up to laziness or willful omission of the facts.

We report, you decide.

Granted, we did find one local outlet that mentioned it this morning, but curiously, the national media has zero interest in this story.

As JammieWearingFool has so succinctly pointed out… many questions surround the mystery of the “disappearance” of the mayor of Atlantic City.