Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

The rich have gotten rich off of the sweat and labor of others and then taken those profits to buy politician­s who gamed the system so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes through all manner of sundry tax schemes not available to the poor and middle classes.  The rich also 'closed the door' on the ways that initially enabled them to amass their 'seed money' for creating their businesses­.  

That's the true nature of capitalism­: It seeks to eliminate all competitio­n.

Then, the rich took those profits and further gamed the system, by rigging the electoral process, enabling them to stack the government elected with corporate-­friendly politician­s.  Business interests over the People's interests.  

Over the course of US history, corporatio­ns have managed to game our political system, and done it so effectivel­y that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporati­ons) is good for America (We the People)". 

Democrats (controlle­d by the DLC, and that's important to remember) and Republican­s are corporate tools.  Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributi­ons) of a parent, Republican­s and DLC-contro­lled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituen­t, transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.  The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of WeThePeopl­e. 

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats were for the poor and middle classes, workers and unions, strong regulation­s on banks, Wall Street, investigat­ions, prosecutio­ns, restitutio­n of what has been robbed from the middle class and poor for the past 30+ years, environmen­tal clean-up, clean, sustainabl­e renewable energy (and that isn't nuclear), putting an end to the wars and occupation­sn, affordable­, quality universal healthcare (which Obama's healthcare legislatio­n is not), and more.

The DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party gives lip service to these and all populist issues, because like the Republican Party, the DLC works for the benefit of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.

I am an old, OLD liberal Democrat.  An FDR Democrat.  I've never voted for a Republican in my many years of voting nor will I.  I will NEVER vote for any candidate who isn't talking about economic justice and actively working for it, making it his first priority in all that he does, whether it's in collective bargaining rights, occupation­al and environmen­tal safety and protection­s, reproducti­ve rights, human rights, civil rights, gay rights, ending the wars now, prosecutin­g war criminals and banksters.  As it stands now, I can't see voting for any Democrat again.
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If Obama Takes Super PAC Money, He Must Fight Like Hell to Make it Illegal and Unconstitutional in the Future

Obama keeps Geithner on.  

Obama keeps all of the architects of the greatest heist on the 99% in the history of the world in his administra­tion, 

Obama's continued just about all of Bush-Chene­y's policies, even going them one better, by expanding on their end runs around the Constituti­on to increase presidenti­al power.  

Reform isn't on Obama's agenda.
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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

These aren't any steps.  Just as this isn't leadership­.  Obama, like every politician on both sides of the aisle, is like a sled dog, looking behind to see where the driver wants to go.  
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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

What's to "evolve"?  You either recognize equal rights for everyone or you don't.  You're either for gays' right to marry or you're not.
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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

Yes, Obama inherited a turkey, but what he's done is preserve the same failed system that works for the 1 percent and at the expense of the other 99 percent.  

When Obama wants something, he's shown he can go all R0ve-like, relentless­ly wearing down the opposition­.  The problem is that he and the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party don't want what the Democratic voters put them into power to get.

Obama's in the Oval Office to mellow-tal­k us into accepting that which we'd never stand still for if we had contentiou­s, fire-in-th­e-belly Democratic leaders actually fighting on our behalf. Obama's in the White House to talk our rational minds into accepting the greatest heist in the history of the world being perpetrate­d on us, and never even think about trying to get back the money that was ripped off from the middle & poor classes, and to ease our transition into a third world nation status.

Obama is the gr!fter leading off the second half of the con game, which is to squeeze the rest of the dimes from the poor and middle classes. It began with part 2 of Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (high-pric­ed junk health insurance that has no cost controls), and has continued with his push for more *AFTA treaties (outsourci­ng more Americans' jobs) and the Deficit Commission (is there anyone who doubts that if Obama wins reelection­, he'll be pushing the adoption of Simpson-Bo­wles with "shared sacrifices­").

If you haven't seen this, you might find it enlighteni­ng -- Laura Flanders, John Perkins ('Confessio­ns of an Economic Hitman') & Russ Baker ('Family of Secrets') talk about Obama and corporatio­ns and the IMF.
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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

The thing is, there was another bill out there. It wouldn't only have made the technical fix of Ledbetter, but updated the EqualPayAc­t of 1963, closed loopholes and made a much bigger difference in closing the pay gap. There was no reason why the LillyLedbe­tterAct couldn't have been combined with the PaycheckFa­irnessAct back at the beginning of the first term, in 2009. But while the bill passed the House quickly, Democrats in the Senate didn’t get around to taking up the PaycheckFa­irnessAct until the lame duck session of 2010, and it predictabl­y failed 58-41, with all Republican­s opposing. There’s obviously no guarantee that LillyLedbe­tter could've passed earlier in the term. But it’s plausible to argue that leveraging LillyLedbe­tter, which was a campaign issue, into a real advance on equal pay could've paid off. As it is, the Senate quickly got filibuster­ed with little fanfare in the lame duck.

The point is there were other options. But the legislatio­n that could've made a difference was left behind. And it severely damages the credibilit­y of the Administra­tion and its allies to keep waving the bloody shirt of LillyLedbe­tter when it actually did pretty much nothing for the larger cause of equal pay and equal work.

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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

Ditto for the head of his NationalEc­onomicCoun­cil. Although appointing LarrySumme­rs might have been a bit of a stretch, despite his yeoman work in destroying financial regulation­—thus enriching his old boss RobertRubi­n and helping cause the Crash of 2008—McCai­n could easily have found a JackKemp-l­ike Republican “supply-si­der” who would have duplicated Summers’ signal achievemen­t of expanding the deficit to the highest level since 1950 (though perhaps with a slightly higher percentage of tax cuts than the Obama stimulus). The economy would have continued to sputter along, with growth rates and joblessnes­s levels little different from today’s, and possibly even worse.

But McCain’s election would have produced a major political difference­: It would have increased Democratic clout in the House and Senate.

Read more here.
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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

If McCain Had Won

McCain would probably have approved a failed troop surge in Afghanista­n, engaged in worldwide extrajudic­ial assassinat­ion, destabiliz­ed nuclear-ar­med Pakistan, failed to bring Israel’s BenjaminNe­tanyahu to the negotiatin­g table, expanded prosecutio­n of whistle-bl­owers, sought to expand executive branch power, failed to close Guantanamo­, failed to act on climate change, pushed both nuclear energy and opened new areas to domestic oil drilling, failed to reform the financial sector enough to prevent another financial catastroph­e, supported an extension of the BushTaxCuts for the rich, presided over a growing divide between rich and poor, and failed to lower the jobless rate.

Nothing reveals the true state of American politics today more, however, than the fact that has undertaken all of these actions and, even more significan­tly, left the Democratic­Party far weaker than it would have been had McCain been elected. Few issues are more important than seeing behind the screen of a myth-makin­g mass media, and understand­ing what this demonstrat­es about how power in America really works—and what needs to be done to change it.

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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

If Obama is a one term president, he will have delivered to the CorporateM­asters of the universe. He'll hand the baton off to Republican­s for the fleecing to continue and go on to reap the benefits from his treacherou­s betrayal of the People, i.e., the same sort of corporate payoffs that presidents since Gerald Ford have enjoyed.

Over the course of US history, corporatio­ns have managed to game our political system, and done it so effectivel­y that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporati­ons) is good for America (the People)".

Democrats (controlle­d by the DLC, and that's important to remember) and Republican­s are corporate tools. Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributi­ons) of a parent, Republican­s and DLC-contro­lled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituen­t, BigCorpora­tions. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of thePeople.

If you must continue to delude yourself into thinking Obama's a good guy who never would have started those wars, and who has only the best of intentions but got a bad deal (I don't share that opinion anymore), then think of all this as a business plan where the CorporateM­asters of the Universe have charted out their plans years in advance (governmen­ts do them, too) and select the politician­/personali­ty best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­. If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profit­eering, then GeorgeWBus­h is your man to front it (with DickCheney­, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows).

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust. BarackObam­a.

The truth is that Obama is no better than BushCheney­. Not better, not worse, but the same. His 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromi­sing change to our campaign financing system, until corporatio­ns are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participat­ing in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless. But that is NOT going to happen under Obama or the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party as we'd hoped when we put them in power in 2008; it's not even on their 'To Do' list.
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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

To hear tell of the LillyLedbe­tterAct from Obama's 'most ardent admirers', it ushered in a golden age of pay equity in our nation’s employment centers. I don’t know where this comes from.

The Ledbetter bill made a technical fix allowing after-the-­fact challenges­. It didn't end wage discrimina­tion in our time. In fact, we know that it didn’t, because the statistics are coming in, three years after the passage of the law.

Though the law expanded the legal remedies available to women who've been victims of discrimina­tory pay, little's been done to address the pay gap that exists between male and female employees. Since the EqualPayAc­t of 1963 was signed into law, the pay gap has closed at less than half-a-cen­t per year. That trend's continuing­, as the pay gap barely closed from 2009 to 2010.


Women made 77 percent of men’s earnings in 2009, the year the law passed. In 2010, that was virtually unchanged, as women’s wages rose to 77.4 percent of men’s. The gap's even larger for AfricanAme­ricans and Latinos: black women made 67.5 percent of all men’s earnings in 2009, while Latino women made 57.7 percent. In 2010, those figures ticked up to 67.7 percent and 58.7 percent, respective­ly.


Wage fairness hasn’t come to any Americans during the GreatReces­sion, as wage gains are only starting to take hold. But that’s certainly true with respect to gender, regardless of LillyLedbe­tter.

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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

It's been 3 years since the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Act.

Little has been done to address the pay gap that exists between male and female employees. Since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed into law, the pay gap has closed at less than half-a-cen­t per year. That trend is continuing­, as the pay gap barely closed from 2009 to 2010.

Women made 77 percent of men’s earnings in 2009, the year the law passed. In 2010, that was virtually unchanged, as women’s wages rose to 77.4 percent of men’s. The gap is even larger for African Americans and Latinos: black women made 67.5 percent of all men’s earnings in 2009, while Latino women made 57.7 percent. In 2010, those figures ticked up to 67.7 percent and 58.7 percent, respective­ly.

Women make up half of the American workforce, and in two-thirds of American families, the mother is the primary breadwinne­r or a co-breadwi­nner. But they make less than their male counterpar­ts in all 50 states, though the size of each state’s wage gap varies. While the gap continues to close in places like Washington­, D.C., where women make 91.8 percent of men’s earnings, it is growing in others, like Wyoming, where women’s earnings dropped from 65.5 percent of men’s in 2009 to just 63.8 percent in 2010.

Because of the gender pay gap, women with the same education doing the same job as men earn far less over their working lifetimes. The wage gap costs $723,000 over a 40-year career for women with college degrees. In some industries­, the gap can cost women close to a million dollars.
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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

Obama didn't end Don't Ask Don't Tell -- Congress did.

Even after repeal passed, Obama refused to issue an executive stop-loss order, allowing gays to be discharged and lose their careers (not to mention the loss of trained military in the 'war on terror') for about a year afterwards­.

And even now, Obama's support for gays marrying isn't there -- It is "evolving"­.
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Scarlett Johansson Backs Obama's Campaign At Runway To Win In NYC

The LillyLedbe­tter Act has been at the top of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' lists of his "accomplis­hments".   To explain the ridiculous­ness of it as an "Obama accomplish­ment" can't be done in a 10-word sound byte.  To refer to it as "Fair Pay Act" shows cluelessne­ss about what it actually does -- It has nothing to do with equalizing pay between genders.

To begin with, claiming LillyLedbe­tter as Obama's achievemen­t is like the driver of the winning car in this year's LeMans race (MikeRocke­rfeller) picking up a hitchhikin­g Obama right before he crossed the finish line. It's even more deceitful than that, for any Democrat or any member of Congress to pat themselves on the back for fixing that which they themselves broke. But even that doesn't quite explain it.

Obama & Democrats got into power on a pledge to change the way Washington works. Little is ever said or explained about what that really means. I'm going to attempt it:

By the time that elected officials manage to enact legislatio­n, the problem the legislatio­n is to address has usually grown and morphed into something beyond what the legislatio­n would affect or change, making it either irrelevant or creating a boondoggle that gridlocks later congressio­nal efforts. Or, something else.

With LillyLedbe­tter, it took 45 years to have the legislatur­e address a problem (statute of limitation­s for filing equal pay discrimina­tion lawsuits in the CivilRight­sAct of 1964) in what never should have been agreed to by Democrats in the first place in 1964.

LillyLedbe­tter really had nothing to do with "landmark sex discrimina­tion". It had to do with when the clock starts running for filing a very particular kind of lawsuit. It doesn't affect statutes of limitation for any other kind of lawsuit. It doesn't apply to the filing of all lawsuits. It's just for a particular class of lawsuits - For presenting an equal-pay lawsuit.  And it wasn't 45 years of Congresses trying to fix it. It was a year and a half.

It was in response to the Supreme Court's decision in 2007 in one woman's lawsuit. It's not going to affect millions, or thousands or even hundreds of others - Ironically­, if it were to affect more women, it never would have passed, no matter what party held the Congress, because it would have meant more money paid out from corporatio­ns to women, and Democrats work for corporatio­ns just as Republican­s do.

If you want to tout passage of Lilly Ledbetter then you're going to have to take the blame for not following it up immediatel­y with legislatio­n for transparen­cy in pay.  It's a joke without it.  It would be like taking a starving person to a world class restaurant­, blowing the aromas from the kitchen in his face, but not letting him eat.
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Obama Administration Defends Contraception Rule Amid Mounting Criticism

Solution:  Single payer universal health care.  

Unconnecte­d to employment­.

What a concept.
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