Quite possibly the most disturbing banzai image ever.
Administrator
Author
April 13, 2015 2:34 pm
Opinion: Feminists overreach with Equal Pay Day
By Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Published: Apr 13, 2015 2:07 p.m. ET
In many ways, women already are ahead, but feminists won’t acknowledge that
April 14 is feminists’ misconceived Equal Pay Day.
That’s the day of the year, they say, when all women’s wages, allegedly only 78% of all men’s, “catch up” to what men have earned the year before. The fairy tale is that women have to work those extra months to get their fair share.
Feminists want Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, introduced in this Congress on March 25 by Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, both Democrats. The bill, which would insert government even further into firms’ compensation decisions, did not even pass the 111th Democratic Congress in 2009-2010, even though President Obama would have signed it into law.
Tomorrow is the day that the well-funded feminist machine will spring into action. The National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) has an online “equal pay day kit,” with a sample letter to the editor, a sample op-ed that feminists can send to local newspapers and a sample news advisory. The NCPE advises women to do “anything to encourage editors to send a photographer. Mention any sound effects — a song or a slogan that women will chant to encourage radio attendance.”
The American Association of University Women offers women Advocacy How-to Guides for Equal Pay Day, including instructions on how to put together an issue forum and how to get the whole world to sign a petition. It wants government-funded child care and laws on employer-provided medical and sick leave.
American women are winners, although it’s hard to believe from the Equal Pay Day rhetoric.
To see the politicization of the equal-pay issue, look no further than the White House, where female staffers are paid 87% of the earnings of male staffers. Still, feminists don’t complain. Attacking the White House for its pay gap is not in the advocacy materials of the AAUW or the NCPE.
American women are winners, although it’s hard to believe from the Equal Pay Day rhetoric. Department of Education data show that in 2012, the latest available, they earned 57% of bachelor’s degrees, 60% of master’s degrees and 51% of doctorates, as well as almost half of doctor of medicine and law degrees. The unemployment rate for adult women, at 4.9%, is now lower than that for adult men, at 5.1%.
The latest figures show that comparing men and women who work 40 hours weekly yields a wage ratio of 90%, even before accounting for different education, jobs or experience, which brings the wage ratio closer to 95%. Many studies, such as those by Professor June O’Neill of Baruch College and Professor Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago, show that when women work at the same jobs as men, with the same accumulated lifetime work experience, they earn essentially the same salary.
Some people are paid less than others because of the choices they make about field of study, occupation and time on the job. Compared with men, women tend to choose more college majors in the lower-paid humanities rather than in the sciences, and take more time out of the workforce for child-raising.
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 already requires equal pay for equal work, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act changed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to allow workers to argue that their current compensation flows from discriminatory decisions made years back, with no statute of limitations.
But feminists want still more, and the Paycheck Fairness Act would allow women to sue for unlimited compensatory and punitive damages. It would encourage class actions by requiring workers who do not want to participate to opt out, rather than opt in, a radical change from conventional law and practice. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would collect data on the race, sex and wages of workers to test for and prevent discrimination.
Feminists call for the government to set wages, rather than leaving this valuable function to the private sector, because the private sector does not do it adequately. It’s not fair, say feminists, that social workers, mostly women, earn less than oil drillers, almost all men — even though drilling for oil is a more dangerous profession.
Consider a large firm such as Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A, +0.57% Under the Paycheck Fairness Act, would it have to pay clerical workers, mostly women, as much as it pays drillers on oil rigs? With such “equality,” who would be willing to work at the distant, more dangerous jobs in Alaska?
Wages change constantly and job classifications are imperfect, and can be changed. Some people work harder than others, and so deserve faster promotions and higher pay. Many women prefer to combine work with family, and choose lower-paying professions that allow more time at home.
This week feminists will hold rallies telling the world that women are underpaid, and calling for passage of legislation that would insert the government into firms’ compensation decisions. Don’t believe them. Women in America are doing better than men.
Administrator
Author
April 13, 2015 4:27 pm
[img:large[/img]
Administrator
Author
April 13, 2015 4:28 pm
Clinton’s announcement on April 12 comes 16 years to the day after a “Federal judge held President Clinton in contempt of court … saying he had willfully provided false testimony under oath” in a sexual misconduct lawsuit. Yes, the Clinton 1990s were full of absolutely salacious details (I’d avoid footnotes 210 and 237 of the Starr Report) about sexual harassment, regular fundraising scandals involving foreign countries, many lost documents, crony capitalism and everything else. But it was exciting enough the first time. I’m not entirely sure we can handle the second round.
Anyway, here are a few things to look forward to with the very tiring news that a tired Hillary Clinton is running again for president.
1. Reporters Will Never Ask Hard Questions About Hillary’s Record
Yesterday a New York Times political reporter wondered why only Hillary was being pressed by the press to answer why she wants to be president.
The tweet links to a Washington Post article by Dan Balz addressing the question. I jokingly responded, “I’ll take ‘because it’s such a puffball question’ for $400, Alex.” Seriously, are the media really pressing Hillary on anything? If that’s the thing they’re pressing her on, is it because it’s such a nice way to allow a candidate to speak freely about how awesome she is?
From the media, expect lots of emphasis on the mind-blowing fact that Hillary Clinton is a female of the species. Fun fact: So am I, very happy to be so, and yet in no way would I ever in a million years find this a necessary much less sufficient trait for the presidency.
As for questions about any positive thing from Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State? That we might not expect to hear much about.
2. Everyone’s Weary of the Clintons
Remember Hillary Clinton’s “I don’t feel no ways tired?” speech? Does it exhaust you as much as it does everyone else? Does this level of phoniness seem somehow even worse than the general levels of phoniness endemic to the politician subculture? It is! Hillary Clinton’s skill set does not include pandering with even mild convincingness.
3. She ain’t no ways Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton is definitely going to wrap up the older, single female demographic. Baby boomer females who are also liberal love her. No question about this. But unlike President Barack Obama, who can get any number of constituencies to behave like teenagers at a One Direction concert. Hillary’s appeal to other key Democratic demographics such as Hispanics, millennials and even progressive activists is in question.
4. No accomplishments
Name Hillary Clinton’s top three accomplishments. No, being born a female does not count.
Enough said.
5. She’s an epic liar
From the time she “found” subpoenaed documents two years after the fact in a White House closet to the time she found herself under sniper fire in Bosnia (in a Brian Williams sense) claimed she set up her own private server and then deleted all evidence from it for the sake of convenience, rhetorical prestidigitation is her game.
6. She doesn’t have her husband’s likeability or political gifts.
Say what you want about Bill, the man had raw political talent. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, couldn’t stave off a challenge from a junior senator in 2008 even with all of her money, resources and support in Washington.
7. She hasn’t won a single tough election
Speaking of her lack of political gifts, the woman has only run for office three times before this. The first time she ran was for the Senate seat from New York in 2000. Rudy Guiliani was supposed to be her opponent but his personal life was such a disaster that he had to withdraw because he had cancer and other concerns. He was replaced by a moderate Congressman named Rick Lazio who was so lackluster he couldn’t even win much of upstate New York. The second time, was for her 2006 reelection when the Republicans were unable to field anyone with name recognition to run against her. The 2008 race for the Democratic nomination was tough and she didn’t win it. But even when it wasn’t tough she fared poorly. I mean, she lost to John Edwards in Iowa. John Edwards.
8. Get ready for a frequent emphasis on victim status.
Hillary Clinton likes to paint herself as the victim. When her husband was embroiled in a scandal involving lying in a sexual harassment suit, she developed a theory about a “vast right-wing conspiracy” that sought to undermine him. As much as we all love good conspiracy theories, this one failed to explain how, exactly, the aforementioned group had tricked the president into lying under oath.
Sometimes, however, claiming victim status works well for her. When she cried during a campaign stop in New Hampshire in 2008, Clinton briefly turned around her political prospects there. The (new) New Republic noted that “Americans love her when she is vulnerable and scrappy and loathe her when she is powerful and coasting.”
Get ready for lots of vulnerable Hillary and downplaying of dynasty Hillary.
Administrator
Author
April 13, 2015 4:34 pm
Hillary Clinton’s arrival in Los Angeles today, was coincidentally greeted by street art which appeared overnight in South Central Los Angeles. Posters mocking Clinton that read “THIS BITCH AGAIN” were spotted near the iconic Watts Towers, the University of Southern California and major South Los Angeles intersections.
After many meetings, overnight slumber parties with my Wellesley College gal pals and a barrage of cajoling bordering on coercion, I have decided to acquiesce to the great unwashed and be your leader. I did not make this decision easily, however quite frankly, who else is there? Former Governor O’Malley? See we are already sharing a laugh. Senator Elizabeth Warren? Imagine her sitting across the table from Putin, with those John Lennon, give peace a chance, eye glasses? Meanwhile, Putin has his horse tied to the front of the building so he gallop away like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter. At least then we would know what makes him laugh.
This was not an easy decision for me. In retrospect, I am not a very good candidate and some people even find me aloof and cool (and not in a good way). At least that is what Bill tells me when he texts me good night. However, after just a few minutes, I was convinced that I deserve this and I am going to let you in on a little secret among us royals; Bill really wants to live in the White House again. Apparently it was the best and most fun eight years of his life. Heck, I liked it so much I took the china when we got the boot, just like the day we drove off in our mobile trailer after we missed our third payment in a row. Ah, those were the days! If we learned one lesson from that, it was that in this great country of ours, public housing is the way to a better life!
However, this day should not be completely about me. Have I mentioned that I have a granddaughter? Yes, it is true. My enhanced daughter Chelsea, the poster child for what a great plastic surgeon can accomplish, snagged herself a husband and well, viola, Charlotte was born. I know what you are all thinking. How in the world is my daughter going to juggle a busy career of being Clinton and raise a daughter. Well, once I am crowned president and all illegal, oops, I mean undocumented workers are given amnesty, she will have her pick of the crop, so to speak, of qualified immigrants to raise that precious little child, whom we all love so much!! No daughter of mine is going to be stuck at home raising kids and baking cookies! Boring!!
Enough about me; let’s talk about what I expect from you. During the eight years of my open and transparent future reign, there will be no talk of Filegate, Cattlegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Susan McDougal, Tyson Food, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, Roses Law Firm, Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, Pardongate, Marc Rich, the 90’s in general, the Russian reset, Benghazi, deleted emails from my personal server, my time as Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation, and above all, there will be no eye contact.
In an attempt to keep my approval rating above water, there will be no interviews or press conferences and all communication will go through an open and honest administration approved web site,[email protected]. This is my gift to you. Think of it as a one size fits all, government controlled, mall of information. This way you will always know what we feel is best for you to know and we can shield you from all the bad stuff. The world can be so mean and cruel, but there is no reason for you to worry about it. Again, just another gift from my administration. After all, government knows best!
I am not going to bother you about anything as boring as policy. My policies will all be revealed after they become enacted, so there is really no reason for you to have to worry yourself about them. All you really need to know is that I am a woman and will be the first female President of the United States. We are ready for a female to lead this country and I need this for my bucket list.
I learned a tough lesson in 2008. I thought then that being a female was enough. However, I didn’t realize that race trumps gender! Who knew? Whew, I didn’t see that coming! Then, if you didn’t like Barack Obama you were rightfully called a racist. Now, I will finally get my do, and be able to call someone sexist for not anointing me. It’s been a long 8 years, but “We’ve come a long way, baby!”
Stephanie Shepard
April 13, 2015 5:17 pm
#WhyImNotVotingForHilliary tops #HillaryClinton at the top twitter trend for 3 hours until it is “mysteriously” replaced with #Hillary2016. A 19-year old black Republican from North Carolina named Markeece Young started the twitter campaign that stole Hillary’s glory away. The most comical news read of the day.
Stucky Prediction #1,381: — Three months after Hillcunt is elected, billboards of Obama appear all over America with the caption “Miss me yet?”
Stucky Prediction #1,382: Hillcunt brings the USA!USA!USA! to the brink of nuke war with Russia.
Stucky Prediction #1,383: Putin takes one for the team by boinking the dried-up vaginny. The next day Hillcunt signs into law the ‘Russia-Is-Our-Best-Friend-Ever’ Act.
================================================
*She has always been a warmonger. As First Lady from January 1993, she encouraged her husband Bill and his secretary of state Madeleine Albright to attack Serbian forces in the disintegrating Yugoslavia—in Bosnia in 1994 and Serbia in 1999. She’s stated that in 1999 she phoned her husband from Africa. “I urged him to bomb,” she boasts. These Serbs were (as usual) forces that did not threaten the U.S. in any way. The complex conflicts and tussles over territory between ethnic groups in the Balkans, and the collapse of the Russian economy following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, gave Bill Clinton an excuse to posture as the world’s savior and to use NATO to impose order. Only the United States, he asserted, could restore order in Yugoslavia, which had been a proudly neutral country outside NATO and the Warsaw Pact throughout the Cold War. President Clinton and Albright also claimed that only NATO—designed in 1949 to counter a supposed Soviet threat to Western Europe, but never yet deployed in battle—should deal with the Balkan crises.
The Bosnian intervention resulted in the imposition of the “Dayton Accord” on the parties involved and the creation of the dysfunctional state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Kosovo intervention five years later (justified by the scaremongering, subsequently disproven reports of a Serbian genocidal campaign against Kosovars) involved the NATO bombing of Belgrade and resulted in the dismemberment of Serbia. Kosovo, now recognized by the U.S. and many of its allies as an independent state, is the center of Europe’s heroin trafficking and the host of the U.S.’s largest army base abroad. The Kosovo war, lacking UN support and following Albright’s outrageous demand for Serbian acquiescence—designed, as she gleefully conceded, “to set the bar too high” for Belgrade and Moscow’s acceptance—of NATO occupation of all of Serbia, was an extraordinary provocation to Serbia’s traditional ally Russia. “They need some bombing, and that’s what they are going to get,” Albright said at the time, as NATO prepared to bomb a European capital for the first time since 1945.
*Clinton has been a keen advocate for the expansion of an antiquated Cold War military alliance that persists in provoking Russia. In the same year that NATO bombed Belgrade (1999), the alliance expanded to include Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But Clinton’s predecessor George H. W. Bush had promised Russia in 1989 that NATO would not expand eastward. And since the Warsaw Pact had been dissolved in 1991, and since Russia under Boris Yeltsin hardly threatened any western countries, this expansion has understandably been viewed in Russia as a hostile move. George Kennan, a former U.S. ambassador to the USSR and a father of the “containment” doctrine, in 1998 pronounced the expansion a “tragic mistake” with “no reason whatsoever.” But the expansion continued under George W. Bush and has continued under Obama. Russia is now surrounded by an anti-Russian military alliance from its borders with the Baltic states to the north to Romania and Bulgaria. U.S.-backed “color revolutions” have been designed to draw more countries into the NATO camp. Hillary as secretary of state was a big proponent of such expansion, and under her watch, two more countries (Albania and Croatia) joined the U.S.-dominated alliance.
(To understand what this means to Russia, imagine how Washington would respond to a Russia-centered “defensive” military alliance requiring its members to spend 2% of their GDPs on military spending and coordinate military plans with Moscow incorporating Canada and all the Caribbean countries, surrounding the continental U.S., and now moving to include Mexico. Would this not be a big deal for U.S. leaders?)
*As New York senator Clinton endorsed the murderous ongoing sanctions against Iraq, imposed by the UN in 1990 and continued until 2003. Initially applied to force Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, the sanctions were sustained at U.S. insistence (and over the protests of other Security Council members) up to and even beyond the U.S. invasion in 2003. Bill Clinton demanded their continuance, insisting that Saddam Hussein’s (non-existent) secret WMD programs justified them. In 1996, three years into the Clinton presidency, Albright was asked whether the death of half a million Iraq children as a result of the sanctions was justified, and famously replied in a television interview, “We think it was worth it.” Surely Hillary agreed with her friend and predecessor as the first woman secretary of state. She also endorsed the 1998 “Operation Desert Fox” (based on lies, most notably the charge that Iraq had expelled UN inspectors) designed to further destroy Iraq’s military infrastructure and make future attacks even easier.
*She was a strident supporter of the Iraq War. As a New York senator from 2001 to 2009, Hillary aligned herself with the neoconservatives in the Bush administration, earning a reputation as a hawk. She was a fervent supportive of the attack on Iraq, based on lies, in 2003. On the floor of the Senate she echoed all the fictions about Saddam Hussein’s “chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program.” She declared, “He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.” She suggested that her decision to support war was “influenced by my eight years of experience on the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. in the White House watching my husband deal with serious challenges to our nation.” (Presumably by the latter she meant the threats posed by Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo.) Her loss to Obama in the Democratic primary in 2008 was due largely to Obama’s (supposed) antiwar position contrasting with her consistently pro-war position. She has only vaguely conceded that her support for the invasion was something of a mistake. But she blames her vote on others, echoing Dick Cheney’s bland suggestion that the problem was “intelligence failures.” “If we knew know then what we know now,” she stated as she began her presidential campaign in late 2006, “I certainly wouldn’t have voted” for the war.
*She actively pursued anti-democratic regime change in Ukraine. As secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, Clinton as noted above endorsed NATO’s relentless expansion. She selected to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs the neocon Victoria Nuland, who had been the principal deputy foreign advisor to Cheney when he was vice president. The wife of neocon pundit Robert Kagan, Nuland is a war hawk whose current mission in life is the full encirclement of Russia with the integration of Ukraine into the EU and then into NATO. The ultimate goal was the expulsion of the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the Crimean Peninsula (where it has been stationed since 1783). She has boasted of the fact that the U.S. has invested five billion dollars in supporting what she depicts as the Ukrainian people’s “European aspirations.” What this really means is that the U.S. exploited political divisions in Ukraine to topple an elected leader and replace him with Nuland’s handpicked prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyev, deploying neo-Nazi shock troops in the process and generating a civil war that has killed over 5000 people.
Clinton has increasingly vilified Vladimir Putin, the popular Russian president, absurdly comparing the Russian re-annexation of the Crimean Peninsula following a popular referendum with Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland. She is totally on board the program of producing a new Cold War, and forcing European allies to cooperate in isolating the former superpower.
*She wanted to provide military assistance to the “moderate” armed opposition in Syria, to effect regime change, and after leaving office criticized Obama for not supplying more than he did. In 2011 Clinton wanted the U.S. to arm rebels who quickly became aligned with the al-Nusra Front (an al-Qaeda affiliate) and other extreme Islamists, in order to bring down a secular regime that respects religious rights, rejects the implementation of Sharia law, and promotes the education of women. The U.S. indeed has supplied arms to anti-Assad forces from at least January 2014, But as it happens the bulk of U.S. aid to the “moderate rebels” has been appropriated by Islamists, and some of it is deployed against U.S. allies in Iraq. It is now widely understood that the bulk of “moderate” rebels are either in Turkish exile or directed by CIA agents, while the U.S. plans to train some 5000 new recruits in Jordan. Meanwhile Assad has won election (as fair as any held in a U.S. client state like Afghanistan or Iraq) and gained the upper hand in the civil war. U.S. meddling in Syria has empowered the Islamic State that now controls much of Syria and Iraq.
*She has been an unremitting supporter of Israeli aggression, whenever it occurs. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz described her last year as “Israel’s new lawyer” given her sympathetic view of Binyamin Netanyahu’s 2014 bombardment of Gaza and even his desire to maintain “security” throughout the occupied West Bank. She postured as an opponent of Israel’s unrelenting, illegal settlements of Palestinian territory in 2009, but backed down when Netanyahu simply refused to heed U.S. calls for a freeze. In her memoir she notes “our early, hard line on settlements didn’t work”—as though she’s apologizing for it.
In 1999 as First Lady, Hillary Clinton hugged and kissed Yassir Arafat’s wife Suha during a trip to the West Bank. She advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state. She changed her tune when she ran for the New York Senate seat. When it comes to the Middle East, she is a total, unprincipled opportunist.
*Hillary tacitly endorsed the military coup against elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in 2009, refusing to call it such (even though Obama did). She made common cause with those who feared his effort to poll the people about constitutional reform would weaken their positions, made nice with the ensuing regime and made sure Zelaya would not return to office.
*She provoked China by siding with Japan in the Senkaku/ Daioyutai dispute. Departing from the State Department’s traditional stance that “we take no position” on the Sino-Japanese dispute about sovereignty over the Senkaku/ Daioyutai islands in the East China Sea, seized by Japan in 1895, Clinton as secretary of state emphasized that the islands fall within the defense perimeters of the U.S.-Japanese alliance. The warmongering neocon National Review in a piece entitled “In Praise of Hillary Clinton” praised her for “driving the Chinese slightly up a wall.”
*She helped bring down a Japanese prime minister who heeded the feelings of the people of Okinawa, who opposed the Futenma Marine Corps Air Force Station on the island. The new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party of Japan defeated the slavishly pro-U.S. Liberal Democratic Party in the general election of 2009, had promised to move the hated U.S. base in the heart of Ginowan city for the noise, air pollution and public safety hazards it causes. Clinton met with him, listened sympathetically, and said “no.” Hatoyama was obliged to apologize to the people of Okinawa, essentially conceding that Japan remains an occupied nation that doesn’t enjoy sovereignty. Nationwide his public support ratings fell from 70 to 17% and he was obliged to resign in shame after eight months in office.
*She made countless trips to India, signing bilateral economic and nuclear cooperation agreements with a country her husband had placed under sanctions for its nuclear tests in 1998. While castigating North Korea for its nuclear weapons program, and taking what a CIA analyst called a “more hard line, more conditional, more neoconservative [approach] than Bush during the last four years of his term,” she signaled that India’s nukes were no longer an issue for the U.S. India is, after all, a counterweight to China.
What can those who revere her point to in this record that in any way betters the planet or this country? Clinton’s record of her tenure in the State Department is entitled Hard Choices, but it has never been hard for Hillary to choose brute force in the service of U.S. imperialism and its controlling 1%.
This is a country of 323 million people. 88% of those over 25 have graduated high school. The world respects U.S. culture, science, and technology. Why is it that out of our well-educated, creative masses the best that the those who decide these things—the secretive cliques within the two official, indistinguishable political parties who answer to the 1% and who decide how to market electoral products—can come up with is the likely plate of candidates for the presidential election next year? Why is it that, while we all find it ridiculous that North Korea’s ruled by its third Kim, Syria by its second Assad, and Cuba by its second Castro, the U.S. electorate may well be offered a choice between another Clinton and another Bush? As though their predecessors of those surnames were anything other than long-discredited warmongering thugs?
Quite possibly the most disturbing banzai image ever.
Opinion: Feminists overreach with Equal Pay Day
By Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Published: Apr 13, 2015 2:07 p.m. ET
In many ways, women already are ahead, but feminists won’t acknowledge that
April 14 is feminists’ misconceived Equal Pay Day.
That’s the day of the year, they say, when all women’s wages, allegedly only 78% of all men’s, “catch up” to what men have earned the year before. The fairy tale is that women have to work those extra months to get their fair share.
Feminists want Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, introduced in this Congress on March 25 by Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, both Democrats. The bill, which would insert government even further into firms’ compensation decisions, did not even pass the 111th Democratic Congress in 2009-2010, even though President Obama would have signed it into law.
Tomorrow is the day that the well-funded feminist machine will spring into action. The National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) has an online “equal pay day kit,” with a sample letter to the editor, a sample op-ed that feminists can send to local newspapers and a sample news advisory. The NCPE advises women to do “anything to encourage editors to send a photographer. Mention any sound effects — a song or a slogan that women will chant to encourage radio attendance.”
The American Association of University Women offers women Advocacy How-to Guides for Equal Pay Day, including instructions on how to put together an issue forum and how to get the whole world to sign a petition. It wants government-funded child care and laws on employer-provided medical and sick leave.
American women are winners, although it’s hard to believe from the Equal Pay Day rhetoric.
To see the politicization of the equal-pay issue, look no further than the White House, where female staffers are paid 87% of the earnings of male staffers. Still, feminists don’t complain. Attacking the White House for its pay gap is not in the advocacy materials of the AAUW or the NCPE.
American women are winners, although it’s hard to believe from the Equal Pay Day rhetoric. Department of Education data show that in 2012, the latest available, they earned 57% of bachelor’s degrees, 60% of master’s degrees and 51% of doctorates, as well as almost half of doctor of medicine and law degrees. The unemployment rate for adult women, at 4.9%, is now lower than that for adult men, at 5.1%.
The latest figures show that comparing men and women who work 40 hours weekly yields a wage ratio of 90%, even before accounting for different education, jobs or experience, which brings the wage ratio closer to 95%. Many studies, such as those by Professor June O’Neill of Baruch College and Professor Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago, show that when women work at the same jobs as men, with the same accumulated lifetime work experience, they earn essentially the same salary.
Some people are paid less than others because of the choices they make about field of study, occupation and time on the job. Compared with men, women tend to choose more college majors in the lower-paid humanities rather than in the sciences, and take more time out of the workforce for child-raising.
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 already requires equal pay for equal work, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act changed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to allow workers to argue that their current compensation flows from discriminatory decisions made years back, with no statute of limitations.
But feminists want still more, and the Paycheck Fairness Act would allow women to sue for unlimited compensatory and punitive damages. It would encourage class actions by requiring workers who do not want to participate to opt out, rather than opt in, a radical change from conventional law and practice. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would collect data on the race, sex and wages of workers to test for and prevent discrimination.
Feminists call for the government to set wages, rather than leaving this valuable function to the private sector, because the private sector does not do it adequately. It’s not fair, say feminists, that social workers, mostly women, earn less than oil drillers, almost all men — even though drilling for oil is a more dangerous profession.
Consider a large firm such as Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A, +0.57% Under the Paycheck Fairness Act, would it have to pay clerical workers, mostly women, as much as it pays drillers on oil rigs? With such “equality,” who would be willing to work at the distant, more dangerous jobs in Alaska?
Wages change constantly and job classifications are imperfect, and can be changed. Some people work harder than others, and so deserve faster promotions and higher pay. Many women prefer to combine work with family, and choose lower-paying professions that allow more time at home.
This week feminists will hold rallies telling the world that women are underpaid, and calling for passage of legislation that would insert the government into firms’ compensation decisions. Don’t believe them. Women in America are doing better than men.
[img:large[/img]
Clinton’s announcement on April 12 comes 16 years to the day after a “Federal judge held President Clinton in contempt of court … saying he had willfully provided false testimony under oath” in a sexual misconduct lawsuit. Yes, the Clinton 1990s were full of absolutely salacious details (I’d avoid footnotes 210 and 237 of the Starr Report) about sexual harassment, regular fundraising scandals involving foreign countries, many lost documents, crony capitalism and everything else. But it was exciting enough the first time. I’m not entirely sure we can handle the second round.
Anyway, here are a few things to look forward to with the very tiring news that a tired Hillary Clinton is running again for president.
1. Reporters Will Never Ask Hard Questions About Hillary’s Record
Yesterday a New York Times political reporter wondered why only Hillary was being pressed by the press to answer why she wants to be president.
The tweet links to a Washington Post article by Dan Balz addressing the question. I jokingly responded, “I’ll take ‘because it’s such a puffball question’ for $400, Alex.” Seriously, are the media really pressing Hillary on anything? If that’s the thing they’re pressing her on, is it because it’s such a nice way to allow a candidate to speak freely about how awesome she is?
From the media, expect lots of emphasis on the mind-blowing fact that Hillary Clinton is a female of the species. Fun fact: So am I, very happy to be so, and yet in no way would I ever in a million years find this a necessary much less sufficient trait for the presidency.
As for questions about any positive thing from Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State? That we might not expect to hear much about.
2. Everyone’s Weary of the Clintons
Remember Hillary Clinton’s “I don’t feel no ways tired?” speech? Does it exhaust you as much as it does everyone else? Does this level of phoniness seem somehow even worse than the general levels of phoniness endemic to the politician subculture? It is! Hillary Clinton’s skill set does not include pandering with even mild convincingness.
3. She ain’t no ways Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton is definitely going to wrap up the older, single female demographic. Baby boomer females who are also liberal love her. No question about this. But unlike President Barack Obama, who can get any number of constituencies to behave like teenagers at a One Direction concert. Hillary’s appeal to other key Democratic demographics such as Hispanics, millennials and even progressive activists is in question.
4. No accomplishments
Name Hillary Clinton’s top three accomplishments. No, being born a female does not count.
Enough said.
5. She’s an epic liar
From the time she “found” subpoenaed documents two years after the fact in a White House closet to the time she found herself under sniper fire in Bosnia (in a Brian Williams sense) claimed she set up her own private server and then deleted all evidence from it for the sake of convenience, rhetorical prestidigitation is her game.
6. She doesn’t have her husband’s likeability or political gifts.
Say what you want about Bill, the man had raw political talent. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, couldn’t stave off a challenge from a junior senator in 2008 even with all of her money, resources and support in Washington.
7. She hasn’t won a single tough election
Speaking of her lack of political gifts, the woman has only run for office three times before this. The first time she ran was for the Senate seat from New York in 2000. Rudy Guiliani was supposed to be her opponent but his personal life was such a disaster that he had to withdraw because he had cancer and other concerns. He was replaced by a moderate Congressman named Rick Lazio who was so lackluster he couldn’t even win much of upstate New York. The second time, was for her 2006 reelection when the Republicans were unable to field anyone with name recognition to run against her. The 2008 race for the Democratic nomination was tough and she didn’t win it. But even when it wasn’t tough she fared poorly. I mean, she lost to John Edwards in Iowa. John Edwards.
8. Get ready for a frequent emphasis on victim status.
Hillary Clinton likes to paint herself as the victim. When her husband was embroiled in a scandal involving lying in a sexual harassment suit, she developed a theory about a “vast right-wing conspiracy” that sought to undermine him. As much as we all love good conspiracy theories, this one failed to explain how, exactly, the aforementioned group had tricked the president into lying under oath.
Sometimes, however, claiming victim status works well for her. When she cried during a campaign stop in New Hampshire in 2008, Clinton briefly turned around her political prospects there. The (new) New Republic noted that “Americans love her when she is vulnerable and scrappy and loathe her when she is powerful and coasting.”
Get ready for lots of vulnerable Hillary and downplaying of dynasty Hillary.
Hillary Clinton’s arrival in Los Angeles today, was coincidentally greeted by street art which appeared overnight in South Central Los Angeles. Posters mocking Clinton that read “THIS BITCH AGAIN” were spotted near the iconic Watts Towers, the University of Southern California and major South Los Angeles intersections.
http://gotnews.com/streetart-welcomes-hillary-clinton-hood/#!
Amusing Musings: A Letter from Hillary
April 12, 2015
Donald R. Schuman, Jr.
Dear subjects,
After many meetings, overnight slumber parties with my Wellesley College gal pals and a barrage of cajoling bordering on coercion, I have decided to acquiesce to the great unwashed and be your leader. I did not make this decision easily, however quite frankly, who else is there? Former Governor O’Malley? See we are already sharing a laugh. Senator Elizabeth Warren? Imagine her sitting across the table from Putin, with those John Lennon, give peace a chance, eye glasses? Meanwhile, Putin has his horse tied to the front of the building so he gallop away like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter. At least then we would know what makes him laugh.
This was not an easy decision for me. In retrospect, I am not a very good candidate and some people even find me aloof and cool (and not in a good way). At least that is what Bill tells me when he texts me good night. However, after just a few minutes, I was convinced that I deserve this and I am going to let you in on a little secret among us royals; Bill really wants to live in the White House again. Apparently it was the best and most fun eight years of his life. Heck, I liked it so much I took the china when we got the boot, just like the day we drove off in our mobile trailer after we missed our third payment in a row. Ah, those were the days! If we learned one lesson from that, it was that in this great country of ours, public housing is the way to a better life!
However, this day should not be completely about me. Have I mentioned that I have a granddaughter? Yes, it is true. My enhanced daughter Chelsea, the poster child for what a great plastic surgeon can accomplish, snagged herself a husband and well, viola, Charlotte was born. I know what you are all thinking. How in the world is my daughter going to juggle a busy career of being Clinton and raise a daughter. Well, once I am crowned president and all illegal, oops, I mean undocumented workers are given amnesty, she will have her pick of the crop, so to speak, of qualified immigrants to raise that precious little child, whom we all love so much!! No daughter of mine is going to be stuck at home raising kids and baking cookies! Boring!!
Enough about me; let’s talk about what I expect from you. During the eight years of my open and transparent future reign, there will be no talk of Filegate, Cattlegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Susan McDougal, Tyson Food, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, Roses Law Firm, Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, Pardongate, Marc Rich, the 90’s in general, the Russian reset, Benghazi, deleted emails from my personal server, my time as Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation, and above all, there will be no eye contact.
In an attempt to keep my approval rating above water, there will be no interviews or press conferences and all communication will go through an open and honest administration approved web site,[email protected]. This is my gift to you. Think of it as a one size fits all, government controlled, mall of information. This way you will always know what we feel is best for you to know and we can shield you from all the bad stuff. The world can be so mean and cruel, but there is no reason for you to worry about it. Again, just another gift from my administration. After all, government knows best!
I am not going to bother you about anything as boring as policy. My policies will all be revealed after they become enacted, so there is really no reason for you to have to worry yourself about them. All you really need to know is that I am a woman and will be the first female President of the United States. We are ready for a female to lead this country and I need this for my bucket list.
I learned a tough lesson in 2008. I thought then that being a female was enough. However, I didn’t realize that race trumps gender! Who knew? Whew, I didn’t see that coming! Then, if you didn’t like Barack Obama you were rightfully called a racist. Now, I will finally get my do, and be able to call someone sexist for not anointing me. It’s been a long 8 years, but “We’ve come a long way, baby!”
#WhyImNotVotingForHilliary tops #HillaryClinton at the top twitter trend for 3 hours until it is “mysteriously” replaced with #Hillary2016. A 19-year old black Republican from North Carolina named Markeece Young started the twitter campaign that stole Hillary’s glory away. The most comical news read of the day.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hillary-clinton-presidential-announcement-whyimnotvotingforhillary-hashtag-tops-twitter-10173201.html
[img[/img]
[img[/img]
Stucky Prediction #1,381: — Three months after Hillcunt is elected, billboards of Obama appear all over America with the caption “Miss me yet?”
Stucky Prediction #1,382: Hillcunt brings the USA!USA!USA! to the brink of nuke war with Russia.
Stucky Prediction #1,383: Putin takes one for the team by boinking the dried-up vaginny. The next day Hillcunt signs into law the ‘Russia-Is-Our-Best-Friend-Ever’ Act.
================================================
*She has always been a warmonger. As First Lady from January 1993, she encouraged her husband Bill and his secretary of state Madeleine Albright to attack Serbian forces in the disintegrating Yugoslavia—in Bosnia in 1994 and Serbia in 1999. She’s stated that in 1999 she phoned her husband from Africa. “I urged him to bomb,” she boasts. These Serbs were (as usual) forces that did not threaten the U.S. in any way. The complex conflicts and tussles over territory between ethnic groups in the Balkans, and the collapse of the Russian economy following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, gave Bill Clinton an excuse to posture as the world’s savior and to use NATO to impose order. Only the United States, he asserted, could restore order in Yugoslavia, which had been a proudly neutral country outside NATO and the Warsaw Pact throughout the Cold War. President Clinton and Albright also claimed that only NATO—designed in 1949 to counter a supposed Soviet threat to Western Europe, but never yet deployed in battle—should deal with the Balkan crises.
The Bosnian intervention resulted in the imposition of the “Dayton Accord” on the parties involved and the creation of the dysfunctional state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Kosovo intervention five years later (justified by the scaremongering, subsequently disproven reports of a Serbian genocidal campaign against Kosovars) involved the NATO bombing of Belgrade and resulted in the dismemberment of Serbia. Kosovo, now recognized by the U.S. and many of its allies as an independent state, is the center of Europe’s heroin trafficking and the host of the U.S.’s largest army base abroad. The Kosovo war, lacking UN support and following Albright’s outrageous demand for Serbian acquiescence—designed, as she gleefully conceded, “to set the bar too high” for Belgrade and Moscow’s acceptance—of NATO occupation of all of Serbia, was an extraordinary provocation to Serbia’s traditional ally Russia. “They need some bombing, and that’s what they are going to get,” Albright said at the time, as NATO prepared to bomb a European capital for the first time since 1945.
*Clinton has been a keen advocate for the expansion of an antiquated Cold War military alliance that persists in provoking Russia. In the same year that NATO bombed Belgrade (1999), the alliance expanded to include Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But Clinton’s predecessor George H. W. Bush had promised Russia in 1989 that NATO would not expand eastward. And since the Warsaw Pact had been dissolved in 1991, and since Russia under Boris Yeltsin hardly threatened any western countries, this expansion has understandably been viewed in Russia as a hostile move. George Kennan, a former U.S. ambassador to the USSR and a father of the “containment” doctrine, in 1998 pronounced the expansion a “tragic mistake” with “no reason whatsoever.” But the expansion continued under George W. Bush and has continued under Obama. Russia is now surrounded by an anti-Russian military alliance from its borders with the Baltic states to the north to Romania and Bulgaria. U.S.-backed “color revolutions” have been designed to draw more countries into the NATO camp. Hillary as secretary of state was a big proponent of such expansion, and under her watch, two more countries (Albania and Croatia) joined the U.S.-dominated alliance.
(To understand what this means to Russia, imagine how Washington would respond to a Russia-centered “defensive” military alliance requiring its members to spend 2% of their GDPs on military spending and coordinate military plans with Moscow incorporating Canada and all the Caribbean countries, surrounding the continental U.S., and now moving to include Mexico. Would this not be a big deal for U.S. leaders?)
*As New York senator Clinton endorsed the murderous ongoing sanctions against Iraq, imposed by the UN in 1990 and continued until 2003. Initially applied to force Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, the sanctions were sustained at U.S. insistence (and over the protests of other Security Council members) up to and even beyond the U.S. invasion in 2003. Bill Clinton demanded their continuance, insisting that Saddam Hussein’s (non-existent) secret WMD programs justified them. In 1996, three years into the Clinton presidency, Albright was asked whether the death of half a million Iraq children as a result of the sanctions was justified, and famously replied in a television interview, “We think it was worth it.” Surely Hillary agreed with her friend and predecessor as the first woman secretary of state. She also endorsed the 1998 “Operation Desert Fox” (based on lies, most notably the charge that Iraq had expelled UN inspectors) designed to further destroy Iraq’s military infrastructure and make future attacks even easier.
*She was a strident supporter of the Iraq War. As a New York senator from 2001 to 2009, Hillary aligned herself with the neoconservatives in the Bush administration, earning a reputation as a hawk. She was a fervent supportive of the attack on Iraq, based on lies, in 2003. On the floor of the Senate she echoed all the fictions about Saddam Hussein’s “chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program.” She declared, “He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.” She suggested that her decision to support war was “influenced by my eight years of experience on the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. in the White House watching my husband deal with serious challenges to our nation.” (Presumably by the latter she meant the threats posed by Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo.) Her loss to Obama in the Democratic primary in 2008 was due largely to Obama’s (supposed) antiwar position contrasting with her consistently pro-war position. She has only vaguely conceded that her support for the invasion was something of a mistake. But she blames her vote on others, echoing Dick Cheney’s bland suggestion that the problem was “intelligence failures.” “If we knew know then what we know now,” she stated as she began her presidential campaign in late 2006, “I certainly wouldn’t have voted” for the war.
*She actively pursued anti-democratic regime change in Ukraine. As secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, Clinton as noted above endorsed NATO’s relentless expansion. She selected to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs the neocon Victoria Nuland, who had been the principal deputy foreign advisor to Cheney when he was vice president. The wife of neocon pundit Robert Kagan, Nuland is a war hawk whose current mission in life is the full encirclement of Russia with the integration of Ukraine into the EU and then into NATO. The ultimate goal was the expulsion of the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the Crimean Peninsula (where it has been stationed since 1783). She has boasted of the fact that the U.S. has invested five billion dollars in supporting what she depicts as the Ukrainian people’s “European aspirations.” What this really means is that the U.S. exploited political divisions in Ukraine to topple an elected leader and replace him with Nuland’s handpicked prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyev, deploying neo-Nazi shock troops in the process and generating a civil war that has killed over 5000 people.
Clinton has increasingly vilified Vladimir Putin, the popular Russian president, absurdly comparing the Russian re-annexation of the Crimean Peninsula following a popular referendum with Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland. She is totally on board the program of producing a new Cold War, and forcing European allies to cooperate in isolating the former superpower.
*She wanted to provide military assistance to the “moderate” armed opposition in Syria, to effect regime change, and after leaving office criticized Obama for not supplying more than he did. In 2011 Clinton wanted the U.S. to arm rebels who quickly became aligned with the al-Nusra Front (an al-Qaeda affiliate) and other extreme Islamists, in order to bring down a secular regime that respects religious rights, rejects the implementation of Sharia law, and promotes the education of women. The U.S. indeed has supplied arms to anti-Assad forces from at least January 2014, But as it happens the bulk of U.S. aid to the “moderate rebels” has been appropriated by Islamists, and some of it is deployed against U.S. allies in Iraq. It is now widely understood that the bulk of “moderate” rebels are either in Turkish exile or directed by CIA agents, while the U.S. plans to train some 5000 new recruits in Jordan. Meanwhile Assad has won election (as fair as any held in a U.S. client state like Afghanistan or Iraq) and gained the upper hand in the civil war. U.S. meddling in Syria has empowered the Islamic State that now controls much of Syria and Iraq.
*She has been an unremitting supporter of Israeli aggression, whenever it occurs. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz described her last year as “Israel’s new lawyer” given her sympathetic view of Binyamin Netanyahu’s 2014 bombardment of Gaza and even his desire to maintain “security” throughout the occupied West Bank. She postured as an opponent of Israel’s unrelenting, illegal settlements of Palestinian territory in 2009, but backed down when Netanyahu simply refused to heed U.S. calls for a freeze. In her memoir she notes “our early, hard line on settlements didn’t work”—as though she’s apologizing for it.
In 1999 as First Lady, Hillary Clinton hugged and kissed Yassir Arafat’s wife Suha during a trip to the West Bank. She advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state. She changed her tune when she ran for the New York Senate seat. When it comes to the Middle East, she is a total, unprincipled opportunist.
*Hillary tacitly endorsed the military coup against elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in 2009, refusing to call it such (even though Obama did). She made common cause with those who feared his effort to poll the people about constitutional reform would weaken their positions, made nice with the ensuing regime and made sure Zelaya would not return to office.
*She provoked China by siding with Japan in the Senkaku/ Daioyutai dispute. Departing from the State Department’s traditional stance that “we take no position” on the Sino-Japanese dispute about sovereignty over the Senkaku/ Daioyutai islands in the East China Sea, seized by Japan in 1895, Clinton as secretary of state emphasized that the islands fall within the defense perimeters of the U.S.-Japanese alliance. The warmongering neocon National Review in a piece entitled “In Praise of Hillary Clinton” praised her for “driving the Chinese slightly up a wall.”
*She helped bring down a Japanese prime minister who heeded the feelings of the people of Okinawa, who opposed the Futenma Marine Corps Air Force Station on the island. The new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party of Japan defeated the slavishly pro-U.S. Liberal Democratic Party in the general election of 2009, had promised to move the hated U.S. base in the heart of Ginowan city for the noise, air pollution and public safety hazards it causes. Clinton met with him, listened sympathetically, and said “no.” Hatoyama was obliged to apologize to the people of Okinawa, essentially conceding that Japan remains an occupied nation that doesn’t enjoy sovereignty. Nationwide his public support ratings fell from 70 to 17% and he was obliged to resign in shame after eight months in office.
*She made countless trips to India, signing bilateral economic and nuclear cooperation agreements with a country her husband had placed under sanctions for its nuclear tests in 1998. While castigating North Korea for its nuclear weapons program, and taking what a CIA analyst called a “more hard line, more conditional, more neoconservative [approach] than Bush during the last four years of his term,” she signaled that India’s nukes were no longer an issue for the U.S. India is, after all, a counterweight to China.
What can those who revere her point to in this record that in any way betters the planet or this country? Clinton’s record of her tenure in the State Department is entitled Hard Choices, but it has never been hard for Hillary to choose brute force in the service of U.S. imperialism and its controlling 1%.
This is a country of 323 million people. 88% of those over 25 have graduated high school. The world respects U.S. culture, science, and technology. Why is it that out of our well-educated, creative masses the best that the those who decide these things—the secretive cliques within the two official, indistinguishable political parties who answer to the 1% and who decide how to market electoral products—can come up with is the likely plate of candidates for the presidential election next year? Why is it that, while we all find it ridiculous that North Korea’s ruled by its third Kim, Syria by its second Assad, and Cuba by its second Castro, the U.S. electorate may well be offered a choice between another Clinton and another Bush? As though their predecessors of those surnames were anything other than long-discredited warmongering thugs?
http://russia-insider.com/en/warmongering-record-us-presidential-candidate-hillary-clinton/5596
[img[/img]
In my hood, “one of us” can’t afford Becks,,,try Natural Light next time
Correction..too many Natties…meant “can afford”
With Hillary, I can’t get past my initial and immediate impression of her….Old, Tired, and Sick.
And make that to include Sick in the Soul.
Brian, think how bad that photo would be if they hadn’t used a better looking body double.