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An economist serving on a second-term president's Council of Economic Advisers might expect to weigh in on fundamental issues, restructuring the tax system or making entitlement programs sustainable over the long term. Barack Obama once talked of addressing such issues, and Republican leaders such as House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp are doing so. But that's not what University of Michigan economist and CEA member Betsey Stevenson finds herself doing. Instead, she is defending the use of misleading statistics in support of legislation addressing a minor problem. The legislation is Obama's latest pay equity measure, which failed to pass...

See a comprehensive takedown of liberals on this issue at Legal Insurrection.

Transformation is fascinating, especially when the change is dramatic and you can see it happen before your very eyes. That point was underscored to me this week by "Body Evolution" by Global Democracy, a video that was released two years ago, but went viral last week, when the model was identified publicly. In slightly more than a minute, the video shows a model walking onstage, hair undone, no makeup, and then being transformed through makeup, hair, lights and, finally, photoshop. The latter not only removes minor skin imperfections, but makes massive sculptural changes to her body -- resulting in...

Four years ago, psychologist Leonard Sax (MD, PhD) wrote a well-received book titled “Boys Adrift.” The doctor tried to answer the question, why have so many young males fallen into passivity and indifference? Dr. Sax had heard more and more parents complain that their boys stayed indoors most of the time, spent hours on video games, and in general seemed to lack the confidence and esprit de corps that had characterized boys throughout history. “Something scary is happening to boys today,” Sax concluded. “From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were...

While gun control legislation is a politically risky vote for red state Democrats, it’s also an issue that could hurt the GOP’s efforts to attract female voters.A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 65 percent of women favor stronger gun laws, compared to 44 percent of men. That’s consistent with previous polling; a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed 61 percent of women and 45 percent of men in favor stricter gun laws.Richard Feldman, Independent Firearms Association president and former NRA lobbyist, said that the gender gap on gun laws is a long-standing one, and that much of it has...

Mitt Romney continues his momentum in a poll conducted both before and after the final presidential debate, taking the lead for the first time among likely voters in the AP/GfK poll at 47/45. Not only are respondents starting to question Barack Obama&'s chances of winning the election, but Obama's gender gap advantage has disappeared: What gender gap?Less than two weeks out from Election Day, Republican Mitt Romney has erased President Barack Obama's 16-point advantage among women, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows. And the president, in turn, has largely eliminated Romney's edge among men.Those churning gender dynamics leave the presidential...

WASHINGTON (AP) — What gender gap? Less than two weeks out from Election Day, Republican Mitt Romney has erased President Barack Obama's 16-point advantage among women, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows. And the president, in turn, has largely eliminated Romney's edge among men. Those churning gender dynamics leave the presidential race still a virtual dead heat, with Romney favored by 47 percent of likely voters and Obama by 45 percent, a result within the poll's margin of sampling error, the survey shows. After a commanding first debate performance and a generally good month, Romney has gained ground with Americans...

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines remained as the top Asian country in ensuring that men and women have equal access to rights and privileges, including economic opportunities, a report released Wednesday by the World Economic Forum showed. The country remained at the 8th spot of the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index 2012, which ranks countries based on their ability to close the gender gap in healthcare, education, political participation and economic equality. "The Philippines remains the highest-ranking country from Asia in the Index. It ranks 1st on both education and health and is also among the top 20...

An interesting story from last winter: An e-mail friend, a staunch Republican who lives in an affluent suburb far from Washington, was watching one of the Republican debates with his wife, a staunch Democrat. He was surprised by her response to Mitt Romney. “He’s a grown-up. He’s someone who is reliable,” he told me she said. “People will feel safe if he is in charge.” I’ve been thinking about that e-mail in the wake of the first presidential debate on October 3 and the vice-presidential debate last week. (This is written on deadline before the October 16 Long Island debate.)...

The “war on women” is back. No, not the Republican assault on the legal equality of women: That never happened in the first place. We mean the Democratic campaign to pretend that Republicans are a threat to women’s rights. Now that Obama no longer has a clear lead in the polls, his campaign and its allies are returning to the talking points of an earlier season. Obama hit them hard in the town-hall debate at Hofstra University. He took credit for signing the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which is supposed to promote equal pay for women, and for forcing almost all...

During the Republican Convention, Democrats took every available moment of air time to count the women's vote. "Republicans are anti-women," they chanted. And they frequently brought up this oft-repeated nugget: For doing essentially the same jobs, men get paid more than women. That claim is often combined with the complaint that whites get paid more than blacks and non-Hispanics get paid more than Hispanics. But are these assertions true? Let's take the Labor Department finding that women make 77% of what men make. To hear the backers of the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA) tell it, this is prima facie...

Like tightly structured novels, political conventions introduce no random characters or irrelevant passages. So when former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez were chosen for prime slots on the night of vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan's national debut, the Romney campaign was intentionally advancing a narrative it will emphasize over the next nine weeks: Women like Mitt Romney. And the endorsement of impressive leaders like Rice and Martinez - not to mention his appealing wife, Ann - suggests that female voters should believe the Romney-Ryan ticket will best serve their interests. It may be a pivotal...

Why, wonders Beth Reinhard of National Journal, is Team Obama airing a new television ad with claims already rated by Politifact as "pants on fire" false? The ad in question, "Troubled," claims Romney wants to make all abortions illegal, even in cases of rape an incest:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO The ad from the Obama campaign said Romney "backed a bill that outlaws all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest."The Obama campaign provides virtually nothing to back that up, however. It has no evidence that Romney explicitly opposed the exception for rape and incest. While he supported...

If “Julia” taught us anything, it’s that the Democrats' agenda — a set of cradle-to-grave policies designed to “protect” women and keep them under the auspices of government control — is doomed to fail come November. Yesterday’s CBS/New York Times poll that found that women support Romney over Obama 46-44, revealing that playing gender politics actually doesn’t win you women’s — or men’s — votes. The fact is this “gender split” really just mimics the general vote split, suggesting that these ideas are widely unpopular. As I’ve written before, the “War on Women” narrative is risky business, as women are...

President Obama holds a 50-to-45 percent lead over Mitt Romney in Florida, according to a new poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. PPP also tested four potential Florida running mates for Romney — Sen. Marco Rubio, former Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. Rick Scott and U.S. Rep. Allen West — and found that only Bush would have a positive effect on the GOP ticket in Florida. A Romney/Bush ticket would narrow Obama’s advantage to 49-46, within the poll’s 3.7 percent margin of error. The survey of 700 Florida voters was taken Thursday through Sunday. The Obama/Joe Biden ticket holds...

CNN Poll: Gender Gap And Likeability Keep Obama Over Romney CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser (CNN) - President Barack Obama holds a nine-point lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney thanks in part to the perception that the president is more likeable and more in touch with the problems facing women and middle class Americans, according to a new national poll. A CNN/ORC International poll released Monday also indicates a large gender gap that benefits Obama, but the public is divided on which candidate can best jump-start the economy. Full poll (pdf) According to the poll, 52% of registered voters say...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking elected woman in the United States, plunged Wednesday into the heated battle over gender gap politics, arguing that Republicans and their party's presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, have alienated millions of women voters. That helps Democrats' chances of taking back the House of Representatives, Pelosi said at a news conference in San Francisco. "I would have said, two months ago, we had a fifty-fifty chance of winning the House," she said. "Since then, so much changed because women have shifted in large measure to the president and to the Democrats." Pelosi cited GOP budget...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - The War on MenPosted By Daniel Flynn On April 11, 2012 @ 12:13 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments “The focus of the Republican Party on turning back the clock for women really is something that’s unacceptable and shows how callous and insensitive they are towards women’s priorities,” Democratic National Committee chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz explained on CNN over the weekend. If there is a figure who personifies the unwelcome mat the Democratic Party rolls out to men, it is the abrasive Wasserman Schultz. Like Bella Abzug and Pat Schroeder before her, the...

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released Tuesday shows female voters play a significant role in President Barack Obama's current lead over Mitt Romney among 2012 voters. Tuesday's poll is the second major national poll in recent weeks pointing to a gender gap.

'Women Are Not An Interest Group,' Obama Says By Mary Bruce | ABC OTUS News – 1 hr 5 mins ago Email Print As the fight to woo female voters in 2012 intensifies, President Obama today argued that women should not be relegated to a political interest group, and he highlighted the crucial contributions women make to the economy. "There's been a lot of talk about women and women's issues lately, as there should be. But I do think that the conversation has been oversimplified," the president said at a White House forum on women and the economy, two key...