Free Republic

Team Obama calculates that its road to victory is paved with the votes of women, so the American people are now subject to a coordinated effort to cast GOP opposition to expanding government power as an assault on the weaker sex. But few women view public policy as a battle between the sexes. Women whose husbands, brothers and sons are struggling to find jobs find no comfort in women's comparatively low unemployment rate. Next up in the Democratic campaign is the Paycheck Fairness Act, supposedly necessary to achieve "equal pay" for women. Never mind that it's already illegal to pay...

... There are numerous other factors that affect pay. Most fundamentally, men and women tend to gravitate toward different industries. Feminists may charge that women are socialized into lower-paying sectors of the economy. But women considering the decisions they’ve made likely have a different view. Women tend to seek jobs with regular hours, more comfortable conditions, little travel, and greater personal fulfillment. Often times, women are willing to trade higher pay for jobs with other characteristics that they find attractive. Men, in contrast, often take jobs with less desirable characteristics in pursuit of higher pay. They work long hours and...

Several recent polls have shown a near four-way tie among top GOP contenders in the Iowa caucus, which kicks off the nominating process on Jan. 3. A Nov. 10-12 Bloomberg News poll, for instance, showed Herman Cain at 20%, Ron Paul at 19%, Mitt Romney at 18% and Newt Gingrich at 17% among likely GOP caucus goers. But the real story isn't that horse-race snapshot: It's how few Iowa caucus-goers have committed to a candidate with less than two months to go before the main event. A survey conducted by the Polling Company for Independent Women's Voice on Nov. 11-13...

Today is Hillary Clinton's 64th birthday. Do any Freepers want to wish her a happy one?

Look for moments of maximum pessimism. To the legendary value investor Sir John Templeton, this was the secret to learning how to buy low and sell high. In recent months, I've been feeling the pessimism in a big way. You probably have too. Watching the scroll of headlines on cable news channels this summer, I thought I was in an overdone disaster film. Riots break out across the globe, screamed a Drudge headline. Markets were crashing. An earthquake cracked the Washington Monument. In my hands, Mark Steyn's new book After America -- a rollicking read that makes a strong case...

Since this is Respect Life Sunday, and the beginning of Respect Life month, I wanted to talk about one woman who did respect life – and her choice has made a difference in the life of virtually every person in this church. Her name is Joanne Schiebel. In 1954, she was a young unmarried college student who discovered that she was pregnant. In the 1950s, her options were limited. She could have had an abortion – but the procedure was both dangerous and illegal. She could have gotten married, but she wasn’t ready and didn’t want to interrupt her education....

Since this is Respect Life Sunday, and the beginning of Respect Life month, I wanted to talk about one woman who did respect life – and her choice has made a difference in the life of virtually every person in this church. Her name is Joanne Schiebel. In 1954, she was a young unmarried college student who discovered that she was pregnant. In the 1950s, her options were limited. She could have had an abortion – but the procedure was both dangerous and illegal. She could have gotten married, but she wasn’t ready and didn’t want to interrupt her education....

The Chicago Bears team that won the 1986 Super Bowl never had an official visit to the White House because of the Challenger explosion, so President Obama — a big Bears fan — has invited the squad for a visit on Friday. It may be a nice gesture, but one player is saying no thanks. Dan Hampton, who played for the Bears for more than a decade, said on Chicago’s Mully and Hanley radio show on Monday, “It's my own personal choice, and I don’t choose to go.” Hampton explained that he won't go, first of all, because his family...

Would the Steiger amendment benefit chiefly the rich, as the President says? Not really. Undeniably, a cut in the capital gains tax below the present top rate of 49% would help mainly people in (or above) the 50% tax bracket, who are more likely to own stock and other assets. To be in that lofty bracket, one needs taxable income of about $40,000 or more. But a lot of "average" taxpayers leap into the higher brackets a few times in their lives—when they sell a house, a farm, or the stock that Aunt Tillie left them; or when they collect...

After President Obama tapped Princeton University professor Alan Krueger to chair the Council of Economic Advisors, Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein wrote that Krueger “is arguably the leading labor economist in the country” and “known for bringing a near-superhuman rigor” to the subject. One wonders how any economist would earn a “near-superhuman” superlative for their research. One can particularly wonder in the case of Professor Krueger, who is known for his 1990s academic research that attempted to prove that employee wages were not subject to the laws of supply and demand. In 1993, Krueger and David Card published a study...

The U.S. economy stumbled badly in the first half of 2011 and came dangerously close to contracting in the January-March period, raising the risk of a recession if a stand-off over the nation's debt does not end quickly.

Tuesday is Equal Pay Day—so dubbed by the National Committee for Pay Equity, which represents feminist groups including the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, the National Council of Women's Organizations and others. The day falls on April 12 because, according to feminist logic, women have to work that far into a calendar year before they earn what men already earned the year before. In years past, feminist leaders marked the occasion by rallying outside the U.S. Capitol to decry the pernicious wage gap and call for government action to address systematic discrimination against women. This year will be relatively...

How much should a college education cost? According to the College Board, the average cost of earning a degree at a private, 4-year university is now more than $100,000. If tuition prices continue to rise as quickly as they did during the past decade, a college degree will cost more than $200,000 by the time today’s third-graders are applying. That price tag is enough to cause most parents to break into a sweat. Is a college degree really worth this cost? Some bright minds think Americans are paying way too much. In fact, Bill Gates--one of the country's most famous...

VANITY: I tried doing a search to find the list of the 1,000+ companies/unions/etc. that have been granted waivers from the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." Needless to say, it is not a featured link on the HHS.gov website. I'm sure there are some great Freeper sleuths who know where we should be able to find this -- Google and Bing don't seem to want to help. Maybe HHS doesn't want people to know who is being granted waivers... Maybe HHS doesn't want people asking the question. I think it should be a FAQ on the HHS website because...

When Republicans take over the House of Representatives in January, they'll have a solid majority, 242 to 193. With enough imagination and fortitude, they could become the party of hope and change. For the past two years, with Democrats in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, Republicans were seen by Democrats and the media as the "party of no." Indeed, they opposed nearly all of President Obama's agenda: the omnibus spending bill, the economic stimulus package, cap-and-trade climate legislation, health-care reform, a slew of new regulations, and billions in spending. But the political culture of the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Metro report says fare increases have been a factor in decreased ridership. Over the summer Metro increased fares for bus and rail riders in an effort to fill a projected $189 million budget deficit. The hikes were expected to generate more than $100 million, but through October the agency is more than $11 million below where it projected it would be according to a new financial report...

When a new candidate signs up for the upcoming mayoral election in Cicely, this triggers a large amount of activity among the residents.

From this morning's Squawk Box on CNBC. See link.

Around 7:30 this morning, noted financial columnist for the New York Times Andrew Ross Sorkin made an astounding statement that I can only paraphrase. He said that a recent Paul Krugman piece in the NYT was encouraging that the Social Security Trust Fund may actually be in better shape than generally believed and may actually have a longer expected life than the (around) 2037 forecast. When Joe Kernan and the guest at that time (Ed Yardeni) challenged him saying there's nothing in the trust fund, Ross Sorkin came back saying "well I found Krugman's piece very persuasive." The link is...

Goldman Sachs cuts its forecast for 2011 U.S. GDP to 1.9%, from 2.5%, and forecasts some "unconventional" easing coming that will include more asset purchases. The firm still expects 1.5% growth this year, but a smaller pickup next year as Congress resists further stimulus.