For those of you who have ever gotten the email from the deposed prince of the Congo, you will find this amusing.
___________________________________________________________________
Rush Limbaugh has clearly lost it. Riots in Denver. Remember, though, he’s not trying to encite you to riot, he’s just reminding you that it is your patriotic duty to do so.
_________________________________________________________________
It’s been a slow week in the queue. But, there are 2 recent stories that have a common thread: how women are treated in the courts.
The first is about a Fox reality series coming out next year called “Bad Dads.” This show will be similar to “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” only instead of chasing people who jump bail, they will instead chase guys who aren’t paying their child support. Which of course is a good thing.
The “star” of the show is a guy who is already doing this line of work. What is alarming is that if he is successful in claiming what is owed to the woman in question, his cut ends up being about 1/3 of what he collects. Now, I realize that this line of work has inherent risks, and requires a great deal of skill. I also realize that if he is unable to collect, he does not get paid, so he has to make up for it when he does collect. Worker’s comp law works the same way. Still, I find such a high sum to be problematic.
As the show will be eager to exploit, these women and children are “hand luck cases.” The rationale behind charging such high amounts is that “these women are happy to receive anything we can get them.” Which is true, and illustrates a bigger point: why aren’t we doing a better job of ensuring that child support is being paid? Why are women being forced to pay 1/3 of what is owed to them in order to receive any of what they are owed. There has to be a better solution to this.
The second story that came up recently is that the Republicans in the Senate successfully fillibustered the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This act was put into place to close a loophole in pay discrimination laws. Years ago, Lilly Ledbetter was an employee working for Goodyear. She worked for them for 20 years when she found out that she was being paid significantly less than the men who were doing the exact same job as her. She filed a pay discrimination lawsuit, but it was tossed because the law said that such a claim had to be filed within 180 days. She had filed the suit within 180 days of finding out that she was being discriminated against, but the courts ruled that such a suit had to be filed within 180 days after the discrimination occurred.
Of course, salaries are confidential, so she had no way of knowing. This case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling. This is such a stupid ruling. How is it possible to file a discrimination claim before you know you are being discriminated. This sends a message to employers: it’s okay to discriminate as long as you can keep it a secret for 6 months.
John McCain was not present, but noted that he would have voted against it because it “would lead to frivolous lawsuits.” I agree that frivolous lawsuits are a problem in this country, but can anyone with a straight face argue that Lilly Ledbetter’s case was frivolous. Goodyear doesn’t even deny discrimination in this case, they simply argue that they were successful in closing the loophole.
If a statue of limitations in nessecary for that reason, then fine. Just make it 180 days after the person becomes aware of the discrimination.
Filed under: election, politics, pop culture | Tagged: bad dads, fox, goodyear, john mccain, lilly ledbetter, rush limbaugh, senate
So, it’s OK for Al Sharpton, Roseanne Barr and a group called Recreate ‘68 (recreate68.org) actually promising riots, but when Rush says he’s “dreaming of riots” it’s not OK. Apparently, it’s also OK for Florida dems to threaten riots as well.
No, it’s not okay for anyone to threaten riots. But I quit paying attention to Al Shartpon a long time ago, and who cares what Roseanne Barr thinks. I mean, if that’s who you have to draw comparisons to defend your guy, then there is clearly and issue.
Speaking of things we stop paying attention to, one big one for me is any story in the news about Rush Limbaugh. They usually do a fantastic job of butchering his comments, dissecting them, removing them of context, ignoring any original meaning and intent, and in some cases just plain making stuff up. Now, I’m not necessarily saying that this happened here, because I didn’t hear the original broadcast with all the necessary context. But in every case where they decry something he said and I actually did hear the original broadcast, they got it totally wrong. And they always include comments from prominent people denouncing his out-of-context remarks, but offer nothing from the other side – or, what I like to call, the correct side. It’s so bad that in some cases I actually did not hear the original broadcast, yet it was still very obvious that they missed the point and invented some sinister meaning.
But here, they actually do include him admitting that he isn’t actually calling for riots, which was nice of them. And if Rush says that he isn’t actually calling for riots, we should believe him. Because like him or not, he is always completely honest about what he says and thinks. Besides, we all say we dream of things that we would never actually endorse.
So, if you don’t care about them then it’s OK to threaten riots. Didn’t we not care what bin Laden and Al Qaeda thought before 9/11 or Japan before Pearl Harbor?