Yesterday came news of a Supreme Court decision tailor made for a test of PBO's views on empathy. In a nutshell, SCOTUS decided 7-2 that women who took pregnancy leave from their employer prior to 1979 were not covered by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1979, which outlawed the practice of removing time taken during pregnancy leave when calculating a retired worker's pension benefit. More details here.Pregnancy . . . retirement benefits . . . worker rights . . . faceless corporations . . . interest group politics . . . the Supreme Court. It's hard to imagine a more tempting stew of competing interests and identity politics to clarify, just a little, the Empathy Test.
Here's what I'd ask PBO, if I could:
- Does the majority or the minority pass your empathy test? Why?
- If not, how would have Justices you consider appropriately empathetic settled the matter?
- If not, couldn't empathy be directed toward current AT&T shareholders and employees for having engaged in conduct Congress specifically, deliberately considered legal 30 years ago and every year since?
- Let's assume for a moment some or all of the affected pensioners had substantial retirement income/assets independent of the AT&T plan. Does that affect the application of empathy?
2 comments:
I guess there goes my chance of being nominated.
Yes, I have a question for BHO. Actually, two.
1. How stupid do you think we are?
2. What are you going to do when the media removes its drool cup and turns on you?
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