You load 16 tons and whatta ya get?
At The Oregonian, columnist Susan Nielsen smacks around the U.S. Supreme Court over its recent decision regarding paycheck discrimination:
As if Congress doesn't have enough damage to undo, this issue presents yet another task. But it will take getting a Democrat in the White House before we can truly move forward on paycheck equality. I'm also afraid the damage that will be done by the Roberts court could be rather fearsome. Rove didn't get his permanent Republican majority, but he did get enough extremists on the court to set us back about 100 years.
Paying women 80 cents on the dollar for their labor is morally repugnant, and it has some very real consequences for single moms and their kids. You'd think if modern conservatism was in any way consistent, people who go to pieces over the mention of snowflakes would at least want already born children to have the best possible shot at success in life. But I guess it's easier to worry about clumps of cells sitting in freezers rather than do something constructive about actual walking, talking, breathing beings. As the old joke goes, to a conservative life begins at conception and ends at birth.
Men today earn less than their fathers. Women earn less than men. Both genders get unfairly docked for being perceived as too old, too young or the wrong color.It was a ridiculous ruling by the court. As Nielsen points out, the absurdity of requiring people to file suit within 180 days of their first unequal paycheck should be obvious. We knew Justice Samuel Alito was going to be a disaster, and sure enough, here he is authoring an opinion that is a gross insult to all working Americans.
This risk of pay discrimination isn't just a problem for Lilly Ledbetter, the ordinary Alabama woman who lost her high-profile case before the U.S. Supreme Court last week. It's a problem for every American who earns a paycheck. It will take years, plus an act of Congress and a new president, to restore the civil rights ignored by the Bush administration and stripped away by the court's new majority.
This court just gave businesses a free pass to cheat their workers.
As if Congress doesn't have enough damage to undo, this issue presents yet another task. But it will take getting a Democrat in the White House before we can truly move forward on paycheck equality. I'm also afraid the damage that will be done by the Roberts court could be rather fearsome. Rove didn't get his permanent Republican majority, but he did get enough extremists on the court to set us back about 100 years.
Paying women 80 cents on the dollar for their labor is morally repugnant, and it has some very real consequences for single moms and their kids. You'd think if modern conservatism was in any way consistent, people who go to pieces over the mention of snowflakes would at least want already born children to have the best possible shot at success in life. But I guess it's easier to worry about clumps of cells sitting in freezers rather than do something constructive about actual walking, talking, breathing beings. As the old joke goes, to a conservative life begins at conception and ends at birth.
