Columnist.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operating officer and feminist proselytizer, wants to ban the "b" word -- bossy, that is. She has launched a campaign along with Girl Scouts of the USA CEO Anna Maria Chavez (no relation) to discourage using the word to describe girls or women who happen to show "leadership qualities." Count me out. Apparently, Sandberg felt the sting of the "b" word at some point in 9th grade when a teacher advised a student not to be friends with Sandberg because she was "bossy," according to an interview she gave on ABC News. Now she believes the use of the word is one of the factors that leads girls to become less interested in pursuing leadership positions by middle school.
International Women's Day, celebrated this week for the 106th year, marks continued progress for women across the world, but that progress has been reversed in countries where Islamic fundamentalism has taken hold. And nowhere is women's freedom more under official assault than in Iran. Prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, women in Iran had significant personal freedom and protection under the law. One of the first changes the Ayatollah Khomeini made after taking power was to revoke the 1967 Family Protection Law, which governed marriage, divorce and family custody.
A new debate has arisen among prominent conservatives over whether passing an immigration overhaul would be good or bad for Americans, with syndicated columnist George Will weighing in on the pro-reform side and talk-show host Laura Ingraham arguing against. This is a good thing. Until now, few prominent conservatives have been willing to venture into the pro-immigration reform camp, which meant that the arguments advanced in favor of reform tended to be dismissed by grassroots conservatives. Now maybe the actual arguments will get proper attention. Three issues are central to the debate: border security, assimilation and the economic effects of immigration. Those on the right who oppose reform focus especially on the first two. But the facts don't bear out conservative hand wringing on either one.
It's not often that a union election makes front-page news. But last week's stunning loss by the United Auto Workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., is a seminal event in the history of the labor movement. Union membership has fallen consistently over the past 60 years, and the UAW loss suggests there's no way for labor to reverse the trend -- at least not in the private sector. But why? The UAW blames Republican politicians and conservative groups --outside agitators, if you will. Sen. Bob Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor, weighed in on opposing unionization at the plant during the voting, claiming a vote against the union would enhance the chances that VW would give the plant the right to build SUVs, adding hundreds of jobs. But the bigger problem was that the union had little to offer prospective members. Workers get little in return for paying dues that equal two hours' pay monthly.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the White House has chosen -- for the 13th time in a year -- to make changes to the Affordable Care Act delaying its full implementation. The law is a mess -- passed by Democrats, most of whom hadn't bothered to read the legislation, without a single Republican vote. Nonetheless, the latest changes announced this week should embarrass even the most sycophantic Obamacare enthusiast. The act was sold on the promise that the estimated 40 million Americans who were without health insurance would finally be covered. The law forces employers with 50 or more workers to offer health care plans to all of their employees -- and insists that those plans make no exceptions based on pre-existing conditions and cover everything from birth control to substance abuse treatment.
Like Hamlet pacing the stage in angst-ridden doubt, Speaker John Boehner this week delivered the message that immigration reform is dead for 2014. It's not that he doesn't realize the issue is important. It's not that he doesn't believe our current immigration system is broken. It's just that he'd rather suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than take arms to end the sea of troubles brewing in the GOP. Boehner blames President Obama for his troubles. And he has a point -- up to a point. Republicans don't trust that the president will actually enforce a new law that includes stronger border security. Indeed, the president already has shown he's happy to ignore pesky provisions of laws with which he doesn't agree -- think not only his manipulation of Obamacare but also his decision to ignore federal drug statutes on marijuana, to name only two examples.
The cost of higher education has been much on my mind lately, in part because my oldest granddaughter is one of the estimated 22 million students headed to college in the fall. When I was her age, I was able to pay my own freshman tuition from a part-time minimum-wage job in a department store in Denver while I lived at home. But Phoebe won't be as lucky. Chances are she will end up saddled with debt, even though she may receive some merit-based aid and will likely work to pay her tuition. The cost of tuition has risen dramatically in the past 50 years. I paid about $250 per semester for tuition when I started school in 1966 as an in-state student at the University of Colorado. If I were registering today, my tuition would be roughly $5,300 a semester for a full-time class load. Even after adjusting for inflation, this represents a three-fold increase in tuition costs, at a time when a college degree is a prerequisite to middle-class status.
President Barack Obama and the Democrats have decided "income inequality" is the major domestic issue confronting Americans. But a new study by liberal economists challenges many of the president's and his political allies' assumptions about the growing gap between rich and poor. "Where Is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," published this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, debunks shibboleths of both the left and the right. Conservatives often assert that economic mobility is greater in the U.S. than it is almost anywhere in the world, but the data don't support it. There is greater mobility in many other nations than there is in the U.S. -- the Scandinavian countries, Canada and Australia, for example. But liberals are wrong about whether it is more difficult now than in the past for Americans to move up the income ladder, according to the study. Moreover, there is substantial variation in economic mobility based on a variety of geographic factors.
Racial profiling, which has always been a thorny issue, is about to get a lot more complicated. In a private meeting with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Attorney General Eric Holder this week promised that the Department of Justice soon will issue long-anticipated new rules expanding the definition of what constitutes racial profiling. De Blasio made his opposition to the city's tough "stop and frisk" policies a central theme in his successful campaign, alleging that the practice constitutes harassment of racial minorities. And Holder apparently agrees. Now, Holder plans to prohibit federal investigators from considering not only race, but also sex, religion, national origin and sexual orientation. What's more, Holder is expected to broaden federal prohibitions on profiling beyond criminal justice to include counterterrorism investigations, surveillance and immigration enforcement.
With much ballyhoo, the Obama administration announced this week that it will keep a close eye on school districts that discipline minority students at higher rates than whites. Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan held a joint press conference to release a "Dear Colleague" letter to school districts issuing guidance on school discipline that will likely encourage districts to make race a significant factor in deciding how to administer punishment. Of course, Holder and Duncan claim their intention is to ensure nondiscrimination in school disciplinary procedures -- but the guidelines they've offered will result in exactly the opposite.
Does it make sense to allow someone who has broken our immigration laws to be admitted to the practice of law? Most people would answer "no," but then not much makes sense when it comes to the morass of immigration policy these days. This is why the decision by the California Supreme Court this week to admit Sergio Garcia to the practice of law in the state should come as no surprise. Garcia came illegally to California as a 17-month-old baby, brought by his migrant worker parents. He lived in California until he was 9 years old, and then returned with his family to Mexico in 1986. In 1994, at age 17, he accompanied his father back to California to work in the fields picking almonds. By then, the father had obtained legal status in America and immediately applied for legal status for his son.
With days to go before recreational pot use becomes legal in Colorado, those of us who live in Boulder are wondering what will change. Marijuana use is already ubiquitous. Open up the free newspapers on campus at the University of Colorado, and ads for "medical" marijuana fill the pages. Funny how a "medicine" whose primary benefits are restricted to glaucoma, chemotherapy-induced nausea and peripheral neuropathy -- conditions far more likely to afflict the elderly -- is being marketed to college kids. But, come January 1, pot entrepreneurs will be able to push Purple Haze, Blue Rhino and Sour Diesel without the fig leaf.
I saw one at the airport on Monday and then another in the elevator on Wednesday. I see them on the street, at coffee shops around town, often at the grocery. Now Obamacare supporters have adopted one as the face of their new public relations campaign. I'm speaking of adults of both sexes and all ages -- though the style seems to be most popular among those under 30 -- who can't be bothered to change out of their pajamas when they go out in public. The latest entry into the fashion craze is Pajama Boy, the now infamous, plaid-clad twerp pushing Obamacare on Twitter. At least Pajama Boy is dressed in his onesie only in cyberspace, not sitting on an airplane at four o'clock in the afternoon.
Republicans are finally looking like grownups capable of governing, and much of the credit goes to House Speaker John Boehner. After caving in to the kamikaze wing of the House and shutting down the government for 16 days in October, this week Boehner decided it was time to lead his troops in passing a two-year budget. In doing so, the Speaker took on powerful, well-funded conservative groups that have pushed the GOP into dangerous territory over the past few years. The groups aren't happy, but it is folly to think they represent the Republican Party much less the interests of Republican voters.
The president tried changing the subject this week from Obamacare to income inequality. It's no surprise. Despite White House claims that Healthcare.gov is now working as intended, reports of major failures -- from inaccurate enrollment data being sent to insurers to dangerously inadequate security -- continue. And the president's critics include those on the left, as well as the right, which is why President Obama has returned to campaign mode.
The day John F. Kennedy was assassinated is still fresh in the memories of those of us who lived through it. We all remember where we were when we first heard the news that he'd been shot and how we waited for word that he would survive. We remember the sound of news anchor Walter Cronkite's voice breaking as he delivered the news that the president was dead. But for millions of Catholics, it had a special meaning. It was lunchtime, and I was in the girls' bathroom putting on lipstick -- a new privilege for a 16-year-old in Catholic school -- when one of my classmates rushed in to say the president had been shot. Everyone froze. One girl screamed. And then Sister Jean Patrice's voice came over the intercom asking all students to report to their homerooms immediately.
The rate of teen pregnancy in the United States has fallen dramatically over the last two decades -- 52 percent -- though in the developed world, it still remains the highest. In 2008, the last year for which in-depth data are available, nearly 750,000 young women under 20 became pregnant, including some 236,000 teenage girls ages 15-17. The overwhelming majority of them were unmarried. The good news is that the numbers of teen pregnancies have declined so significantly for two reasons: First, fewer teens are having sex and second, more teens who are sexually active are using birth control.
Both Democratic and Republican strategists are dissecting Tuesday's election results for clues to what might happen in next year's congressional elections. State races in off years are not always good predictors of how a party will do nationally during congressional or presidential elections, but there are some important lessons to be learned.
The White House welcome of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki this week couldn't come at a more awkward time for President Obama, whose fecklessness in foreign affairs will be his most enduring legacy. He has managed to insult our most important allies again and again -- and not just in the most recent cellphone-listening scandal involving German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others. At the same time, Obama has shown weakness to our enemies. But the Maliki visit is in a category all its own.
The latest opinion polls show that the GOP has suffered a huge drop in its approval ratings, even among self-identified Republicans. In the wake of the government shutdown, only 28 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of the party, and Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to view their own party negatively, according to a recent Gallup poll. Given these dire numbers, you'd think the Republican leadership would jump at the chance to help repair the damage. But is there anything Republicans can do?
