Hey, welcome to this liveblog of Hillary Clinton speaking about pay equality at Barnard. Bwog’s thankful this thing is starting late, because we were a little late getting to the James Room in Barnard Hall, where about 60 students are now watching a livefeed of the podium at which Clinton will speak on a large (but not Obamacain large!) flat-screen TV.

2:16 PM: Still nothin’. Somone who was not Clinton stepped behind the podium to check the sound. It seemed to be working fine.  The podium has a sign that says “Fair Pay for Working Women.” We’re officially 15 minutes behind schedule.

2:25 PM: 25 minutes behind schedule.

2:33 PM: Oh, okay finally. Here we go. It’s D.Spar, talking about “how working women juggle their lives.”

2:35 PM: D.Spar mentioned Wellesley, and looked at Clinton, who is one lady to her right. Oh, topical: She just said what it means to be working and female in America is “not the stuff of Saturday Night Live skits.”

2:35 PM: Ana Oliviera, the President of the New York Women’s Foundation is speaking first. “Women in New York now are more likely to be poor than they were 20 years ago.”

2:37 PM: “Federal measurement of poverty is woefully inadequate measure.” Oliviera is throwing out a lot of statistics about the current financial crisis. D.Spar is mouthing something to the woman next to her, which made students in the James Room giggle, but Bwog is no lip-reader.

2:40 PM: So Oliviera is done, and now it’s a woman from the Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement. This organization developed the sulf-sufficiency calculator.

2:41 PM: Now she’s giving examples of compensation discrimination. Though it’s illegal, “the wage gap continues to be a problem.”

2:43 PM: “Men, of color in particular, are affected by the wage gap in much the same way as women.”

2:44 PM: She urges the Bush administration to enforce the laws already on the books.

2:45 PM: So now Sonia Ossorio is up. She’s the President of New York City Now. She’s talking about maternal profiling, which is where companies avoid hiring mothers. “This is a huge problem.”

2:47 PM: Talking to students now: “You’ll probably start your career making 80% of what your male colleagues make.” She’s done too now. These speeches are short and snappy and to the point. They’re great.

2:49 PM: It’s 14th District Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. She says Martha Stewart is active in her district. Martha Stewart went to Barnard. This, for some reason, is a reason to giggle. Oh, and then Maloney says Barnard has a close relatioship with Columbia and people laugh at this too.

2:51 PM: Maloney says she did a report on the glass ceiling! She must have found 18 million cracks! Maybe Clinton will elaborate. 

2:53 PM: Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act has passed in Congress. “Fortunately our lioness [that's Clinton] is back on the job.”

2:53 PM: It’s HRC! Loud clapping. Oh wait, what’s this? Maloney is back, talking about a book. “She earned 18 million votes,” she’s talking about Hillary. “I say she won the debates.”

2:54 PM: Hi, HRC! She’s a graduate of Wellesley, and she thinks women’s colleges are a “necessity.” HRC says D.Spar has been on the job for 62 days — we’ll take her word for it.

2:55 PM: On the trail, women told HRC that they believed things like pay discrimination were things of the past. HRC says this is unfortunately not true.

2:57 PM: HRC just plugged Maloney’s book.

2:57 PM: “Women, and particularly women of color and particularly mothers are not getting their fair share for the work they do.”

2:58 PM: It’s an issue for everyone, not just women. It’s an issue for the whole nation. “The Equal Pay Act (1963) has never been adequately enforced.”

2:58 PM: “The GAO report is a rining indictment of the Bush administration.” Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is “an oxymoron” under Bush.

2:59 PM: HRC is not surprised. Not one bit. 

3:00 PM: She mentions the Paycheck Fairness Act, which passed the House and met a filibuster by the Republicans in the Senate.

3:01 PM: Oh, she’s now talking about the market, which did not have a good morning.

3:02 PM: Women and men working for financial services industry and “facing some very tough times.” Bush “pursued a reckless ideological agenda,” which allowed firms to take enormous financial risks.

3:03 PM: HRC wants you to know that “we can restore confidence” and “prevent a downward spiral.” She’s talking about the terrible economy.

3:05 PM: She wants Bush to convene an economic summit. “We’ve got to put everyone together on one page.” Oh and now we’re a team. We’re one team — the American team. HRC says it’s the fourth down, and we need to get across the goalline. Roar, Lions, Roar!

3:08 PM: She’s calling for leadership. “Pay equity is a critical issue but having the jobs underlying that pay equity is essential.” Well, yes.

3:10 PM: “Hopefully come January we will have a new team,” she said, but doesn’t mention Obama by name, which is conspicuous. It’s all over, and now she’s taking questions.

3:10 PM: Oh, here, she just mentioned “Senator Obama” in response to a reader question that those of us watching from the Big TV could not hear. She’s talking about how pay equity is a distinction between McCain and Obama.

3:12 PM: There was just a funny question. “I do not think that’s an accurate reflection,” HRC says, laughing. We do not know what this inaccurate reflection was.