Politics Rules Litigious Society Is Women’s Fault Probably Since Receiving Right To Vote

  A bill that would pave the way for women to more easily litigate their way to pay equality failed in Congress for the second time in two years according to The New York Times. The Senate, to be exact, where Lilly M. Ledbetter, the woman whose name was attached to a 2009 law that ensured equal pay for women, watched from the gallery as the vote was 52 to 47 in favor of an open debate on the legislation, 8 votes short of the required 60. 

  Tuesday’s bill sought to bar companies from retaliating against workers who inquire about pay disparities and open pathways for female employees to sue for punitive damages in cases of paycheck discrimination. The same bill that failed a procedural vote in the Senate when no Republican supported it in 2010.

  Both the Times and Reuters saw the measure was part of the Senate Democrats’ continuing effort to highlight divisions with Senate Republicans over women’s issues to force Republicans to take difficult votes on bills focused on domestic violence, wage discrimination and other matters.

  The only Republican to denounce the measure on the floor was Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, who has authored his own less sweeping legislation. Mr. Heller said, “Let me be clear: pay discrimination based on gender is unacceptable.” And, “Despite the political rhetoric around here, everyone agrees on this fact. The question is, will the Paycheck Fairness Act actually address workplace inequality? And the simple answer is no.”

  But Democrats tried framing the issue as a broader economic one. “Middle-class families need the economic security,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan. And Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, acknowledged Republicans’ central complaint that the bill would create litigation and potentially onerous compliance issues for small businesses. But she also said: “Where are these women supposed to go? What are they supposed to do? Have an appointment with their congressman? Show the congressman their paycheck?”

  Democrats have repeatedly harped on the point that women make about 77 cents to the male dollar or based on median hourly pay, 86 percent as much as men, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

  The Times states that even before the vote, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, criticized Mitt Romney as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and his Republican colleagues for failing to take a position on the bill. Mr. Reid said, “They want to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the reality.” Then Mr. Reid went on to perform a legislative trick of his own voting against the measure as he’d then be able to procedurally call the legislation back to the floor again. Ms. Mikulski, of Maryland, also promised that would happen while brandishing a red lipstick as her weapon in a post-legislative news conference where the Democrat’s soapbox was rounded out by Nevada’s Senator Reid introducing Ms. Ledbetter, who the bill was named for. “Paycheck fairness is near and dear to my heart,” Ms. Ledbetter said.

  During a different news conference held after the vote, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said Republicans were justified voting against the legislation. “We don’t think America suffers from a lack of litigation.” While President Obama said, “It is incredibly disappointing that in this make-or-break moment for the middle class, Senate Republicans put partisan politics ahead of American women and their families.”

  But Republican critics said the legislation would allow women to pursue punitive damages in wage discrimination cases that would encourage too many frivolous court cases. “Unfortunately, the only winners under this legislation would be trial lawyers, giving them a windfall,” said Nevada’s Republican Senator Heller. “This legislation opens the door to frivolous lawsuits which already cost our economy billions of dollars every year.” And where does that money perhaps trickle? Lawyers have a pipeline to vacation homes on the shores of Afghanistan? Money doesn’t trickle from lawyers' pockets too? Granted they’re probably tighter with their dough than the desperate poor, but no doubt their intent to make so much is to spend it too. Maybe not as much on their female secretaries as they’d like, but there are already laws covering those fair wages. 

  But is it true since lawyers are so influential that any law that comes down the pike is a financial boondoggle for that industry? Probably not if legislative lobbyists are lawyers who are quite proficient in revenue raising whether laws are passed or not. Handlers’ fees come whether anything makes it to court or not. Lawyers are among our smartest and resourceful people. No matter what potential laws are deemed less worthy of enforcement, Congress is hardly protecting us from lawyers. Knowing where the money is they must make the best friends Congress has.

  It is true our litigious society is stifling. Yet a fact women are discriminated against. Wouldn’t any kind of law against that lead to less lawsuits and not more when one equal person making more for the same job is a potential lawsuit whether they’re a man or woman or not? Maybe by trying to make this a non-gender issue ignores it’s a dominant gender issue. 

  Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, said, “It’s a very sad day here in the United States Senate,” after the vote. Apparently unaware its women’s fault lawyers get to keep their vote too.

6/6/2012

---------------------------------------------------------------

George W. Bush Apology Clock
---------------------------------------------------------------

Politics Rules Litigious Society Is Women’s Fault Probably Since Receiving Right To Vote

6/6/2012 concluded: Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, said, “It’s a very sad day here in the United States Senate,” after the vote. Apparently unaware its women’s fault lawyers get to keep their vote too.

June 6 - 13, 2016

  What I could make out is ending the previous essay - Apparently unaware its women's fault lawyers get to keep their vote too - meant women's independence even enabled lawyers' freedom to remain possible, too. Laws, rules, custom, to the contrary. Women have done as much and more than all the mortal saints accredited with contributing to society's betterment.

  Well. Lauding June 6 as D Day seemed less in vogue than it's been in even recent years. That momentous day from "a good war." I didn't forget. I started this reassessed essay, June 6, 2016, just as was coincidentally done June 6, 2012. When better to write about women's standing in society than D Day. Because while it should be hard to believe women's status is still held at bay, what's more incredible is our whole economies, focus, and patriotism, are all still linked to the foundation of leverage in war.

Suffrage Political Cartoon, March 1917

  No. Women, and men, having equal rights was fought for, and possibly much more diplomatically than the rest of the world settles differences. Subjugation was and is an unethical tradition and until that fact is faced nothing will ever be. Not even the excuses. 

SOAPBOX VIEW

Women

Women on Currency Why not? 

And Eleanor on the dime too with Franklin!

May the custom of fairness prevail.

KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT, 1964 Polly Bergen

Trust Women

The liberation of women stands between us and an objectively operating world.
Women Are Progress' Barometer

Augusta National Noteworthily Accepts Women?

Woman’s Rights Members at the 1st convention 
in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

First Wednesday in November Criticism of 2012 Presidential Election Winner

The New York Times Victory Speech Webcast

* * * 

Again our split in half nation seems to not have led to violent revolution? We are civilized? 

Next, to be clear, whatever criticism I have of either of the two major party ticketmen, who ran for president, is basically the same. Choice crafted to appeal to how Americans are trained to think, is just the public relations game and Americans' fault more substance isn't required. From the convenient polished soundbite, "change," to big promises void of care for the little things that make a difference, it's all about what we're led to keep thinking. Election Night commentators, in isolating how minorities didn't budge enough in the Republican direction, pointed out messages had to be re-crafted. Nothing about breaking down this invisible wall that keeps Americans feeling separate but better is how we win. Why we deserve to be put in an equal place with our brethren.

Neither candidate really differed on the Detroit automotive industry bailout, except in the order in which the money was rearranged. However magnificent the automobile highway system is, there's not enough shame for how the transportation business frayed and subsidies were, and are, not balanced in the public's favor. 

"A long campaign is now over," President/President-elect Obama said last night. And, "relieve ourselves of dependence on foreign oil." Really? It really makes a difference where and how money travels this small world? American companies don't extract a slice selling foreign oil? In a geo-political sense, yes we don't want to be dependent on foreign oil when spigots are shut off. But to think our entrepreneurs don't have hands on a lot of the cash misses the point. America is now less strong financially, the same as most strapped countries throughout the world where untaxed cash is offshore. But that doesn't mean Americans don't have it. Why my opinion is that it's futile to tax the rich more. Despite any regulations, if there is a method of losing less and getting more it will be found. So, despite billions in publicity, that will circulate where God only knows, politicians don't change how business operates from the top where the bottom is just invited to participate by purchasing with money they're less and less likely to see worth anywhere near the same again. Another extension of corporate welfare where it's hard to place where change can begin. 

It does make a difference where and how money flows. But whether foreign or local aristocracies store the money doesn't matter. When banks made mistakes, American taxes bailed them out, shoring them up, without our ability to harness that wealth beyond the suits finding comfort. Americans of a certain class, who were basically stolen from for houses they were manipulated to not afford, weren't worthy to share in the bailout, described as a lack of confidence, that's still just one more facet of greed that is good when wealth circulates. This mess is bad and presidents shouldn't claim to fix what Americans should fix themselves.

Kids idolize presidents before seeing they're fallible men. Adults shouldn't fawn over them. Understand? As great as we want leaders to be, the mistake is, as always, that their lives are better. One luxurious meal is more than many children eat in a week(s). But why businesses spend millions on the right address to appear the opposite of weak. Face it. Anything less than the medical insurance plan Congress affords themselves, that can't be salvaged for the country, is b. s. Find some way to pay doctors and nurses properly and maybe the skimming of the medical industrial complex profits won't continue perverting medical care as it already has the economy. 

Whites dropped from 74% to 72% of the electorate so we're on notice something must be done to save our country from the others. Yet our tribe's chiefs have had casinos for quite a while already. And except for a guy who rarely opens his mouth, pseudo-caucasions dominate the highest court and it has been shown anything can be railroaded through our highest court if the political price is high enough.

You'd think in a country where silly mistakes, such as Hugo Chavez's banning golf, aren't made, where the rich are kept separate and made to resent the lower classes more by having their golf taken away, we'd have enacted a lot more solutions by now. But I can't blame the President for mislabeling himself a socialist that was done in part for the purpose of the all-out jousting our political culture is. Our collectively paying for police and fire protection happened a long time before our current president was elected. 

Anyway, I should really express what I don't like about President Obama and again it's also what his opponent projects. That All- American wholesome image that's hard to imagine facing down Middle Easterners to tell them the resentment you've nourished yourselves on all these many years has to be given a rest. When just this week The New York Times reported Palestinians broke out in riots when the Palestinian National Authority President Abbas was quoted sounding conciliatory and contrary to the Israeli hatred they've been reduced to their whole lives. And vice-versa. How are our Howdy-Doody characters going to put their foot down? Through another decades-long war where the poor suffer the most and elites profit where they can? Maybe what we need is for the real Howdy-Doody to stand up? And apologize, you dope.

Because every leader needs to appreciate satire too.

So, to all our futures becoming brighter.

Good luck.

 November 7, 2012

Reuters 

 Wisconsin's first openly gay Senator Baldwin

To The Victor Goes Being Spoiled?

Winners Write History. Losers lose sycophants. But objectively points-of-view are just opinion without encompassing all aspects. Where wrong cannot be recognized if clarity rests in the shadows unpolished by the light. When there's no recess in the always in session court of public opinion marked by varying degrees of imaginative publicity the public endures, susceptible to the most disturbing public private hijinks. If only twisting the truth were just the half-of-it. 

From a surface, cursory, look there seems to be something of comforting value in the proportion blowing candidate for Mayor of New York City Anthony Weiner Scandal. As Reid Pillifant touches on in The people who are advising Anthony Weiner, or not in Capital New York, alluding to The New York Times Magazine April 10th profile, Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin's Post Scandal Playbook, there's a subtle twist to this scandal's backdrop. That not so rare Public Relations phenomena of losing a round. 

"Father of Public Relations" 1928 book Propaganda

Without complete facts, 1928,
women's attitudes toward
smoking were changed.

With a twist. Though practically multitudes (my embellishment) of associates answer Mr. Weiner's queries for advice, which is basically his appearing to handle this on his own, no professionals were named early advisors even wanting to be paid as if this has truly been the most devastating melodramatic political burnout possible. Really? Even Popes have been disclosed as outright deviants, though, for the most part already dead when evidence is revealed, but still. Presidents, philanderers of the most executively privileged bent. Right, Mr. Weiner is married and I can personally feel flirting is over an unfaithful line. But media coverage is the thing. 

For instance Bill O'Reilly blowing his top over black on black crime. There are buttons to push to be in the public eye.

TV news reports even mention former Congressman Weiner's running for office now is damage control giving the politician a better opportunity at a later date, having already challenged the embarrassment. Pshaw. 

Fact is people are goofy and the most straight laced respectful, polite person in the realm of sexual compulsion appears not quite normal either. 

The question is how affordable is the circus as an answer? That Anthony Weiner can't yet directly buy his way out of this particular Public Relations spectacle isn't the problem. He's paid a price and the public has been amused. The problem is money is how debates are decided. 

Global Warming. Equal Time. Time was when perhaps a pint of ale bought political favor while today's just more simply complicated? Still might always makes right and hope is truth one day actually brightens deceit for all to see that when nothing matters except winning and the battle for territory is everything, it's one-sided. Know what I mean?

The public shouldn't be pieces in a chess game but are. Otherwise there's little point finding out what people think at all. It's not an accident real life is stranger than fiction. In fact The New York Times July 27th reported Anthony Weiner's 28 year old campaign manager, Danny Kedem quit which could pass for fiction. No?

--------------------------------------------------

Political Control Is Made Up?

RT paid this month's psuedo-nationalist rent with their political celebrity coverage of the Alexander Navalny sentencing to five years. The Washington Post covered post sentencing demonstrations. Specifics were noted by RUSSIA Beyond The Headlines, while Pravda even had some nice regime editorializing under the title, Alexei Navalny follows the path of Pussy Riot. 

Somehow though The Atlantic found How Putin Uses Money Laundering Charges to Control His Opponents, printing "The Magnitsky case highlights Russia's multi-faceted corruption problem." The Soapbox View

Kirov Government Building 
Courthouse Photo Unavailable

Of course what's fascinating is the public is supposed to make up their own minds about the polished melodrama that makes up the news. In The Edward Snowden In Transit Affair it seems the truth has us all in over our heads. Where producers of Twilight Zone hold onto all our poor pawns' scripts. Really. As much as government is right wanting to control their reality, misguided, misjudged, or even in a purely innocent way, governments should still have to be judged on the same level of distrust as its' investigated citizens. The basis upon which rule of law exists. It's all used against us in a court of law? The Russian Court System's shame is that Mr. Navalny's lawyers did not get to present his complete case. But then courts muddle things the same as the rest of us. If only we all shared a degree of that same immunity.

But, no fear, all is right with the world's public imagery. July 27th The New York Times also reported Putin in Ukraine to Celebrate a Christian Anniversary.

We want institutions to be more than brick and mortar façades. Revenge is no real reward, and so justice is not the enforcement of law but the facilitation of ending territorial violence in all forms from individuals to States.

Sanford Courthouse

Everyone Has Real Choices?

     I met someone once who wondered if anyone has a real choice the way something fell in his lap. I said, "Happy Holidays" as we shook hands across what he called my "well-appointed desk."
     My meteoric career had only just begun. But his comment confirmed he'd probably never exchanged compliments across any level of executive's desk before. Slightly amusing me so I interviewed him with interest in his life because there was no pressure. I already knew I wasn't giving him any job. 
     His spur-of-the-moment suit didn't fit as he'd apparently neglected an even short inspection by the executive who'd recommended he fill our equal-opportunity quota of dead-beat white guys. I repeated it to myself like a mantra. I'm not giving him any job. But the form had to be filled out straight from the potential hiree's mouth, so to speak. Regulations can trump custom sometimes.
     I was also curious if there was a real reason for Herb's recommendation. Because the story around the office was he was caught walking the halls unescorted. Supposedly looking for Herb. But our receptionist said she had just stepped away for a moment. A real scene. Eileen was offended and confronted the messenger about his not waiting at the front desk at all. Taking extreme liberty. There was yelling about calling security. Then Herb came back, smiling as always, and recognized the package and courier and covered with "the smart-aleck" was just mimicking him. While the lawyers got their kick out of the commotion, laughing in their stern, consistently ticking, billable hours way. 
     Consequently companies remember how money disappears. Even our president had to be told about that lost half-hour. So it was a little shock when Herb recommended for our mailroom, this particular bike messenger. Who probably cut his own hair and shaved as if it didn't matter. And sat forward in his seat complimenting my "well appointed desk" and effusively thanking me "for this opportunity." 
     Everyone's polite in interviews. I said, "You're welcome. Everyone has something to offer. So. Let's find out what you're capable of here." I soon raised my eyes from his application asking, "You graduated high school, but left college without graduating? It appears you stayed long enough. Five years? Why didn't you finish?"
     He said, "It sounds arrogant."
     Which made me smile, so I said, "Then tell me, by all means. Arrogance is business' most interesting part." 
     He officially stopped smiling and said, "Well. I always wanted to be an historian. But at the precipice, from my student's perspective, professors are required to periodically publish quality which is daunting. When I learned I wanted to write something like Russia's Nineteenth Century novelists who influenced the revolutionary Twentieth Century." 
     I wanted to say uh huh. But in my position said, "Intriguing. And how is that project working out?" 
     He shrugged and there's a lesson. Even if it's your answer, don't shrug your shoulders in a job interview.   
     I said, "Let's move on. I see you've been a bike messenger for a decade?"
     "Courier," he said.
     I said, "What's the difference?" 
     He said, "Professionally it's very significant for some people. Couriers carry packages that's commerce. While messengers carry messages people prefer not to deliver themselves."
     Maybe that's what Herb thought? He could communicate directly with messengers. Correctly citing their delivering what we didn't have to ourselves. But giving up a degree to pretend to be a Russian novelist? It was doubtful he could communicate with anyone. Because so far his only duty was to impress me and he'd failed, miserably. Plus since I'd pre-judged him unsuitable anyway, I was ready for him to leave and cut the interview short. I said, "You've been with three courier companies. Any reason to fire you?"
     He just grinned without volunteering an answer. I said, "Something amusing?"
     He said, "Yes and no. What happened scared the crap out of me. So technically it wasn't amusing and I wasn't actually fired. Technically."
     Relating I asked what the technicality was so his review of me would be I was polite. But, seeing nothing in his application, I said, "This is just conversation to learn from. Companies hiring and firing aren't often born of incidents." I wondered if he caught I meant his interview was a lark? 
     But he ignored me, reflecting, then just started in. "In 1986 I was technically fired," he said. "A dislocated disc in my back probably irritated me and I forgot I was asked a few months before to make sure this specific delivery went smoothly without a hitch."
     So the applicant was giving me a story when I distinctly just asked for an explanation. Then he just stared over my shoulder out my window. Ignoring my whole facial expression telling him to just wrap it up. His commitment was to explaining in my office what seemed to gain steam from his staring harder out the window as if his listening was as important as mine. 
     He said, "I'd made my central location an area of Madison Avenue in the vicinity of Rockefeller Center at 49th Street. Lately I wait for work at the New York Public Library at 40th and Fifth. But back then, 49th and Madison was my spot. Tragically I liked carrying this particular company's correspondence. The telephone in the lobby of their office building is an art installation and the company is The Carnegie Corporation, no less. The philanthropy built by the fortune of Andrew Carnegie who practiced the policy of paying workers less, when he could afford more, because workers would just drink more alcohol to their detriment. In retrospect not really what expanding capitalism is about. But the benevolent Carnegie Corporation has contributed to bettering discrepancies. I got to ride the elevator from their floor to the first, alone with the famous journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault. I embarrassingly asked if she was really herself and she said she was and pronounced her name and, well, it really was a very nice introduction." 
     I was waving both a pencil and pen, ready to be rude too and intrude. 
     He said, "It was morning. I'm hanging around not making money because my back is bad. If you can't keep the pace no one is giving you money. So I'm no smooth operator but the beeper beeps and I'm given this special delivery and right away I lose it thinking some big deal dropped in my lap. My dispatcher asked if I was clear about what I was doing." 
     He sighed but still beat me to speaking and said, "I told the dispatcher Michael, 'Yes, I was clear.' But really, I somehow forgot I'd been asked earlier to deliver this specific envelope without a hitch. I was already there waiting so I took time to write a poem to where the envelope was going. The sanctioned country of South Africa did not have a Permanent Mission to the United Nations then. But they had an office on 46th Street between First and Second Avenues. A nice building I guess they sold because the South African Mission is on East 38th Street near First Avenue now. 
     "When I picked up the package from The Carnegie Corporation, the African-American woman I received the package from, second-guessed sending it with me because I said something about doing the right thing. But I reassured her and I don't think I was lying telling her it would be okay, nothing would go wrong."  
     He saw me look at my watch and continued as if the clouds outside were all he needed following him. He said, "Well, apartheid like religious war are bad traditions. I wrote five copies of the poem before picking up from Carnegie. I walked right in South Africa's first-floor office entrance after I imagine I was buzzed in. But I don't remember that detail, except it felt like I just waltzed right in the perfectly sized Reception Area without room for requiring crowd control." 
     He smirked. "I really had no way of thinking through what I was doing. I went to the Front Desk bullet-proof partition and put the envelope in the trough with the poem on a small piece of paper. The room was how I'd thought it would be with a table lamp and couch, so I backtracked circling the room placing copies of the poem until before reaching the two chairs the powerful South African official's voice stopped me declaring, 'What is this?'
     "Unbelievable. I was just trying to seriously convey racism should end without violence. There was bounce in my step back to the window where I pleaded, 'Come on. I didn't mean to sound mean. It's just time. You just have to stop the violence.' 
     "He said what I did would not be taken lightly and I'd lose my job and he wouldn't take the package. I wouldn't stop smiling and he said I'd done a very bad thing interfering where I don't belong. He had me pick up the other poems while the whole time I'm apologizing for the extreme voice I used in the poem. It was the poem that made me beg. The act was supposed to be about acceptance and tolerance but the poem lacked any sentiment. I was apologizing profusely how sorry I was, please. I didn't mean to sound so mean, it's just, I said, 'I meant to emphasize how rude callous is. You have to stop the cycle of revenge.' 

     "But what I wrote was,

Black backs brought your wealth from the ground.

Black backs enabled your wealth to grow beyond profound.

Give back their ground and get out of town.

     "South Africa actually kept the package but the man at the desk promised it wouldn't be opened and I never returned to The Carnegie Corporation again. When I left the building a female and male New York City Police Officer stopped and questioned me. Patting me down they found my wide back-brace belt which caused them a short alarm. But somehow my numb smiling calmed the officers and I explained my bad back problem probably caused my frustration inside that the cops said 'happens all the time.'
     "Hence why I was asked to deliver that package without a hitch dawned on me. Knowing next I'd face my ruthless boss. No one ever yelled at me like him."
     He sighed again and said, "Everyone acted their roles and my boss didn't fire me but I've never set foot in The Carnegie Corporation again. Turned out the package was paperwork for Archbishop Desmond Tutu's visa to the United States that was a prickly issue for them in their efforts to stem worldwide sentiment. And I'd broken my boss' word. I should have recused myself. Because not only had I ridden in the elevator once with a civil rights icon, Charlayne Hunter-Gault. But when I was around maybe five years old, I was dressed up with two other guys as The Three Kings to sing the hymn before the whole church. Before while preparing our robes in our Sunday School classroom a kid in the back said I was the black one. And not only that. My home I was raised in was an African-American funeral home in a white neighborhood whose mortgage paid for my university education. And after hearing Reverend Ralph Abernathy speak at my school he stepped from the aisle down my row to shake my hand and we said some things. Apparently I forgot a lot and moved on bare instinct. Even though I had no choice I still feel a little grateful South Africa reconciled so however insignificant my interference was the dream is above sabotage." 

     Then he stood and shook my softly offered hand and walked to the door concluding, "Underneath all the publicity, history is mostly a big oh well. But how long is civilization meant to just sit on the precipice?" And left winking, singing, "Not your stepping stone." 

------------------------------------------------ 

Putin Amnesty Granted Khodorkovsky and Pussy Riot +?

The Next Day: FirstPost.World, Aljazeera, Bloomberg News, Jerusalem Online, USA Today, WorldNews.NBCNews, North Jersey, Washington Post, Roonte.com, REUTERS, News.XinHuaNet, PBS.ORG, The New York Times, Wikipedia, Bloomberg Business Week, Slate, Huffington Post, EuroNews, LA Times, Sydney Morning Herald, Radio Free Europe, Forbes, DW, The Guardian, The Star, RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES, Russia Today ...

Amnesty By Russia Includes Greenpeace Case, NYT, Dec. 24

Take aim beyond mere protocol President Putin, please?

Denial's As Damaging As Racism