Elections have consequences

I'm trying to look past the Democratic primary to the general election.  Now, there are some people who say that McCain wouldn't be that bad.  I'm here to tell you that this is a gravely mistaken assumption.  Here's one in a long list of reasons why McCain would be just as bad as Bush...  Equal pay for women.

A Republican minority in the Senate has thwarted attempts to repair the damage done by a bare majority of the Supreme Court in Ledbetter, which determined that companies should be able to engage in pay discrimination without the threat of punitive damages as long as they're able to to keep employees in the dark about it for 180 days after it starts. John McCain, although he didn't show up to the vote, applauds the Senate's decision to help companies pay women unequal wages:

"I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what's being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems," the expected GOP presidential nominee told reporters. "This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system."

In other words, McCain favors women's rights...as long as they can't actually sue to enforce them. People who, affected by the bitterness of the primary, are tempted to think that the parties are indistinguishable may want to consider the votes in both the Senate and on the Supreme Court.

So McCain would like to support the retrograde republican-appointed Supreme Court which came to the tortured logic that the law regarding pay equity doesn't permit anyone to actually enforce it.  The Ledbetter decision is so patently ridiculous, that I almost feel embarrassed for the Justices who signed on to it.  It may be embarrassing, but sadly, it is not surprising.  These jack-holes never saw a law limiting the ability of our corporate overlords to exploit us which they didn't like.  With McCain, we'll get another generation of idiots like Alito, Scalia, and Thomas... and seemingly reasonable, but stealthily nasty corporate apologists like Roberts.

One thing I can promise is that with a President Obama (or Clinton), the next Justices will look nothing like that losers that Bush appointed...

Comments

[cheo]

This should not come as any surprise to anyone familiar with McCain's history in the Senate of carrying the GOP agenda regardless of where it leads and what it does to his maverick image. McCain is simply unprincipled. Those of us who have lived in Arizona and read New Times regularly are familiar with the many faces of John McCain 

[The Dude]

I'm with you.  I grew up in Phoenix, and then lived for about 10 years in Tucson...