When President Obama took office, two-thirds of his top aides were men. Women complained of having to elbow their way into important meetings. And when they got in, their voices were sometimes ignored.
That economic expansion leads to greater well-being is a central tenet of modern thought. And yet, that’s not what is happening in America today.
.. In the early days of the Obama administration, the West Wing was a well-documented bastion of testosterone, due largely to the dominating roles of men such as Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, now mayor of Chicago, and then-economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers.
.. Second terms have traditionally served as a critical period for women, an opportunity to move up after the men move out.
The power of community banks
reformers underestimate the significant amount of political power they wield. Even in the most broken and polarized Congress in decades, acts championed by community banks sail through as standalone legislation or attached to must-pass bills with barely any notice. Rather than a bulwark against the largest banks, community banks are just as likely to support changes that would help the largest banks while providing no new protections on them. Meanwhile research shows that community banks are doing fine financially, not struggling from regulations as most coverage shows.
.. “at least 75% of the decline in new bank formation would have occurred without any regulatory change” and that low interest rates and overall economic weakness are the bigger drivers. The fact that 10-year Treasuries fell from 2.25 percent to 1.5 percent this year, a sign of continued economic headwinds, put far more pressure on bank income than any reporting statement.
Fox News and the Repercussions of Sexual Harassment
According to Gabriel Sherman, an editor atNew York magazine who has kept a close eye on Ailes and Fox News for several years now, the former chairman spent millions of dollars from the network’s budget to settle sexual-harassment claims and to maintain a cadre of consultants and private detectives
.. “It was the culture,” one Fox executive told Sherman. “You didn’t ask questions, and Roger wouldn’t entertain questions.” When it came to sexual harassment, ideology surely played a role, too: given the pervasive scorn at Fox for “political correctness,” or feminism of any stripe, it must have been especially hard to be an ambitious woman who chose to make a stink, to risk looking like what Carlson says Ailes called her—“a man hater.”
.. sexual harassment may be even more prevalent, she said, where women are “gaining power in the workplace, and it becomes a way of trying to reëstablish who’s actually in charge.”
.. McLaughlin says that these findings make sense, because, she believes, workplace sexual harassment isn’t really about sex; it’s about power.
.. The appeal, for a guy like Ailes, of using the office as your personal hunting ground may have more to do with trying to leverage your authority there to get women who’d be out of your league on the more even playing field of Tinder.
.. some women who reported offensive behavior paid the price that women often fear: “They were labelled as untrustworthy or ‘not a team player’ and were subsequently passed over for promotion or excluded by their colleagues.”
Exclusive — Fox News Stars Stand With Roger Ailes Against Megyn Kelly, More Than 50 Fox Contributors, All Primetime, Willing To Walk
“If Fox wants to become the ‘all about Megyn Network,’ that’s fine,” one top Fox News host said. “We stand with Roger. And real anger has emerged that the so-called Megyn incident happened 10 years ago. The consensus among the hosts and contributors is: ‘Why didn’t she say anything then? Really, the same woman that posed half naked in GQ? The same woman on Howard Stern saying what?’”
.. The fact that nearly the entire network is willing to walk out over this, and support Ailes over Kelly is significant in that they have banded together to show their strength. It will harder than ever now for the Murdochs to side with Kelly over Ailes, especially with the lack of any evidence of her allegations–and the fact that Kelly waited 10 years to say anything about this evidence-less supposed incident.
.. In comments to the outside firm investigating the matter, according to New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman—an anti-Ailes agitator in the mainstream media—Kelly alleged that Ailes sexually harassed her. She and her attorneys have, sources say, manipulated her way in a manner that rival Claire Underwood of the hit Netflix dramaHouse of Cards. “Even her haircut looks like Robin Wright [the actress who plays the ruthless First Lady in the series],” said one source in Cleveland. “She’s a woman who not just will do anything for power, but anything to make it all about her.”