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This Black History Month, we have much to celebrate. Not that racism has disappeared or barriers to minority achievement have disappeared, but after the election of Barack Obama as president, we can imagine a time when Dr. Martin Luther King's dream will truly be realized and all men and women will be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
Norway is on the cutting edge of the gender-equity movement. In 2002, the Norwegian parliament passed a law requiring that women must comprise 40 percent of all companies' corporate boards. Since then, women have gone from holding about 7 percent of corporate-board seats to just more than the legally required 40 percent today.
Nearly 50 years after The Feminine Mystique, the consensus appears to be that women have achieved parity with men in nearly all aspects of their professional lives. The larger question still looming in many women's minds is not about shattering glass ceilings but enjoying this equality.
Elections matter. The 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama was historic. The 2010 Senate election of Scott Brown was less symbolic, but perhaps more substantive. President Obama should learn from last week’s result. Massachusetts voters spoke loudly, and what they said bodes ill for the President’s agenda of expanded government.
During the State of the Union, the President wanted to demonstrate to the American people that he understands how frustrated they are with the continued economic problems, and even with the way that Washington has been conducting itself.
Americans make many resolutions at the start of a new year. The most common New Year's resolutions are about diet and exercise, but in 2010, many Americans pledged to focus on getting financially fit. The Boston Herald found that more than one-third of those polled were considering resolutions related to their finances. It's too bad the federal government and our elected representatives aren't doing the same.
The president faces difficult choices as he prepares to deliver tomorrow's State of the Union. His political capital is damaged.The Democrats' filibuster-proof Senate super-majority is no more. And although the administration has been reluctant to acknowledge it, surely they received the message from Massachusetts voters who cite health care as their top concern and elected a man who campaigned explicitly on derailing Congress's health care train.
As we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday, we also should celebrate how much of his dream has been realized. Not that racism has disappeared or barriers to minority achievement have disappeared.
The federal government managed to get something right on January 1 (entirely unrelated to the fact that they were closed!). For one year, the “death tax” has been repealed. That means that assets transferred after a person’s death, such as homes, cars, furniture, and retirement accounts, will not be subject to a government levy. Paid by heirs of the deceased, the tax adds insult to injury (you mean I have to pay the government for this horrible collection of Hummel figurines I inherited?) at a time when loved ones should be grieving, not filling out paperwork.
In his September 8 back-to-school speech, President Obama urged students to take responsibility for their actions. That is also good advice for the president himself and for his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, considering that their recent actions are hurting the prospects of low-income students.
Instead of the typical slow holiday news cycle, the week between Christmas and New Year's featured near non-stop coverage of the Christmas Day terrorist attack on Delta Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam. Yet in all of the talk, one aspect was relatively unexplored: The brave actions of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the respected Nigerian banker who contacted American authorities to report his son’s disturbing radicalization, and what the U.S. government's failure to take his warnings seriously means for others who might be considering reporting love ones who have joined the jihad.
Everyone knows our public schools aren't what they should be. The nation spends more than $500 billion per year on K-12 education. That's much more than other countries – yet we still rank in the middle on international tests measuring the educational performance.
At a meeting of European think tanks several years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu described a training exercise for new soldiers in the Israeli Defense Force.
Just how much can the average American family expect to pay for health insurance if the proposals currently making their way through Congress become law? It's a difficult question to answer, in part because how much you'll pay will depend on many variables.
The hit television program Mad Men provides a remarkable (if exaggerated) portrayal of the sexism that once dominated the workplace, and defined much of mainstream society. The show is centered around an advertising agency in Manhattan in the early 1960s, where women--I mean, girls--work as secretaries until they find husbands, are left out of any meaningful conversation, and are treated largely as sexual objects.
I am black. I am a woman. And, with all due respect, I think Harry Reid has lost his mind.
President Obama’s meetings at the Senate on Sunday, much like his visit to Copenhagen this week, are not indicators of inevitability; they are portents of panic. The reports coming out of the closed door, Democrats-only, meeting of internal divisions that are still irreconcilable, despite the high rhetoric of historic moment, only make the point more vividly: can you say “desperation”?
Congress is still considering health care reform. Unfortunately, legislators appear ready to push our medical system in the wrong direction, and to empower government to ration access to potentially life-saving treatment.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) is a breast cancer survivor who is passionate about ensuring that women have health care options. After undergoing treatment in 2008, she worked to promote screening efforts to insure that women are diagnosed early to increase their chance of survival. When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (a government panel charged with reviewing evidence and making recommendations for preventive services) recently changed their recommendations about best practices for screening women for breast cancer, Rep. Wasserman-Schultz expressed concern.
If you had something you needed in your home, would you go to the store to buy it anyway? Of course not! Strangely, however, some members of Congress seem determined to push the country toward making this counterproductive choice.
It's only been a few weeks since an aghast but riveted world watched as a home-made balloon, presumably carrying a six-year-old child, soared and dipped across the Colorado sky. It seems like it's been a lot longer.
Proponents of the proposed healthcare reform reassure the public that the government won't be in the business of "rationing" care. It's one of the topics on the White House's "Reality Check" website; the headline insists: "Reform will stop rationing-not increase it."
As the health care battle rages on, pundits are quick to point out the importance of doing reform right - after all, it composes one-sixth of the American economy. Unfortunately, harping on that number seems to have reminded Congress of one thing: there's a whole lot of the economy left to take over!
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and her colleagues offer an articulate case against the Pelosi health care plan ("Together against the Pelosi plan," Opinion, Friday). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have the American people believe she is the only voice of women in Congress, which is simply not true.
Democrats want to nationalize America's health care system. The chief victims of such a policy would be women. Women, who make most health care decisions for their families, have the most at stake in preserving high quality medical treatment centered on patient choice.
The Independent Women's Forum's R. Gaull Silberman Center for Collegiate Studies is proud to announce its fifth annual college essay contest. Click h...
