Union representative Ray Goforth told The Stranger that Boeing during contract negotiations, the company maintained that pension benefits are governed by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and that it does not plan to voluntarily offer benefits to the partners of their gay and lesbian employees. The Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples, even if states allow for such unions:
Goforth explains that his union has long sought equal pension benefits for same-sex domestic partners, to no avail. But since voters approved same sex marriage—establishing parity with married straight couples—Goforth re-framed the proposal to apply to his union's gay Boeing employees who wed. "Their answer was that they had no intention of granting pension survivor benefits to legally married same-sex couples because they didn't have to," Goforth explains. Boeing representatives told him that pensions are governed by federal law, which doesn't recognize same-sex marriage, thereby trumping the state law on the matter.
"We were profoundly disappointed to see that they would use a loophole to engage in institutionalized discrimination," Goforth says.
Since Slog published its report, Boeing issued a statement promising to reassess the impact of Washington State's marriage equality referendum on company policy. "Boeing is taking a closer look at how R-74 might impact company policies once it takes effect in December," the statement said. "Nothing is ever final in negotiations until they're over," a company spokesperson told the Slog. "What we said today is that [these pension benefits] are not currently addressed in the contract."
A growing number of companies are offering equal benefits for equal work, regardless of sexual orientation and recognizing that "treating all workers equally makes good business sense." "Research consistently shows that unfair and discriminatory work environments cripple an employer's ability to recruit and retain the best and the brightest. These negative environments also stifle job performance and productivity."
###
John McCain is not very bright
The Monday letter was written by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), chairman of a House subcommittee on terrorism. Those that signed the letter are among the most conservative House Republicans, and at least 10 of them lost reelection bids this month.Buh bye.
They should have figured out by now that women go to the polls more than men, and more black and Latina women voted for Barack Obama than did their male counterparts.
But men like McCain who are ruled by an overweening sense of personal privilege are not very bright. Though they sit on committees with the word "intelligence" in the name of the group, it doesn't seem to have rubbed off. In fact, all this macho posturing and bluster in front of the cameras may put the nation at risk. Loose lips sink ships.
My assessment has nothing to do with his courage, or past service to the country in war.
Men who feel threatened by women of strength and superior intelligence, who resort to bullying, bluster and lying when challenged by said women, are simply lacking smarts.
Their bigotry tends to crowd out brain cells.
I have a rule of thumb when judging the males of our species. I choose to look at their behavior towards women to understand their character. Men who exhibit bonhomie towards other men, yet choose trophy wives (who they demean while pimpin' off of them), who can't or won't deal on a level of equality with women (especially women of color), or accept that there are women who are smarter than they are, have a part of the brain that has never fully developed. It has been culturally limited, constrained, constricted and shaped by our cultural gender norms and as such many would never even recognize it as a failing.
In fact, there are those who see it as admirable. They see them as "manly men."
I'm not one of them.
I'm happily married to a man who is pleased as punch to tell his male friends that his wife is smarter than he is. He isn't the least bit uncomfortable about it. In fact, he thinks he's pretty smart for marrying me. I agree. I'm pleased that he is more talented than I am. We respect each other. That's what makes a good partnership.
Politics is about partnerships. Political leadership requires selecting and building a smart team. If your team doesn't have smart women in it, you won't get my vote.
Let's take this latest Benghazi bullcrap being used to taunt and demean U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. It has nothing to do with Benghazi really, which I wrote about in Black Kos last Tuesday. The racism, blended with their sexism is blatant.
By now those who didn't know her credentials are aware of them. Those of us who have her back, from the president on down to a coalition of congresswomen, to bloggers and commentators like Soledad O'Brian and Rachel Maddow, have made it clear that she is not only a brilliant Rhodes scholar, but is an astute diplomat, with an important background in not only international affairs in general, but Middle East terrorism specifically.
President Obama is not afraid of strong smart women. He's surrounded by them.
Republicans have attacked his wife, his mother-in-law, his daughters, appointees like Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Melody Barnes and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Republicans have gone after Tammy Duckworth on her military record. Teh stoopid ruled. Scott Brown went after Elizabeth Warren on her pride in having Native American ancestry.
So McCain lost an election partly because of his choice of a female running mate. Her selection—based on her having a uterus rather than brain cells—was stupid.
The War on Women launched by the Teapublicans was stupid.
Escalating that war to target Susan Rice is the height of stupidity.
Targeting women of color is political suicide.
Keep it up.
See how well stupid works out for you in 2014 and 2016.
###
Conservatism thanks you, Marco Rubio, for your recent anti-science comments. America really had not heard from as many ridiculous people as we might have, in these post-Romney days, but you managed to shake a few more of them out of their election funk and back into service as productive members of wingnuttia.
I do realize that the American Family Association is made up entirely of loopy people who exist primarily to promote the views of other loopy people, but really. I mean, really.
"The only way we can know the age of the earth is if we have eyewitness testimony of somebody who was there, and that's what we have in the Bible"
That is a good point, says American Family Association guy, while rattling off a few things that do not sound at all like good points. He at least notes that young Adam, the plucky little human made out of clay, was not an eyewitness to his own creation, but that God was, so there. Pics or it didn't happen, scientists! (But only on this one thing, mind you, not on all of the rest of science, for example, the stuff that makes that microphone in front of Fischer work. Fundamentalism tends to be famously inconsistent on these things, depending on convenience; if Fischer ever happens to be accused of murder, I expect fingerprint evidence, DNA, and even videotapes will be cast into the bin of science that is no longer valid because hey, you weren't there. It's a nice metaphysical answer for everything, especially if you are high on the pot, as these kids say today.)
We're in the year dickety-twelve, mind you, but here in America we're still fighting battles—in government, mind you—on whether "science" can be trusted if any part of "science" conflicts with some salt-of-the-earth fellow's literary opinions. Sigh. You know that if someone finds an old scroll in the desert condemning magnetism as the work of the devil, all of American society is going to crumble, right?
###
Climate Change Is Simple - David Robe
###
The UN is convening a huge climate summit in Qatar, but contrary to the hopes of some participants I'm ashamed to say that America will continue to be a lone holdout when it comes to serious participation. I have very little hope that we'll muster the energy to make the serious changes necessary to mitigate the disasters that are destroying our coastal areas and igniting the western mountains every year.
And as a re-elected president talks about global warming again, climate activists are cautiously optimistic that the U.S. will be more than a disinterested bystander when the U.N. climate talks resume Monday with a two-week conference in Qatar.
"I think there will be expectations from countries to hear a new voice from the United States," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute in Washington.
The climate officials and environment ministers meeting in the Qatari capital of Doha will not come up with an answer to the global temperature rise that is already melting Arctic sea ice and permafrost, raising and acidifying the seas, and shifting rainfall patterns, which has an impact on floods and droughts.
They will focus on side issues, like extending the Kyoto protocol – an expiring emissions pact with a dwindling number of members – and ramping up climate financing for poor nations.
They will also try to structure the talks for a new global climate deal that is supposed to be adopted in 2015, a process in which American leadership is considered crucial.
###
Jackass QOTD
"I should try it because, do you know how fabulous I'd look. I'd be so skinny. I mean, the camera adds ten pounds." -Fox News' Andrea Tantaros on the SNAP challenge
Could you live off $133 per month ($4 per day) for food? Personally I know I couldn't, but according to Fox News serious person Andrea Tantaros, doing so sounds like a great idea because she would look "fabulous" afterward.
Tantaros' remarks were made in response to Fox News host Stuart Varney following a short but pointless discussion about Newark Mayor Cory Booker taking the SNAP challenge in a faceoff with his critics. And Tantaros may think she would look "fabulous" after living off food stamps for an extended period of time, but the truth is she would not look fabulous, feel fabulous, or perform fabulously in her day-to-day life.
People who survive on food stamps are tired, they have trouble focusing on their duties, and they're constantly hungry. There's nothing glamorous about it. And to imply that people on food stamps actually have it pretty good because their budget does not allow them to eat more is gloriously asshole-ish.
I'm sure most of those who have no choice other than to go hungry, and thus lose weight, would rather not be in that position.
No comments:
Post a Comment