We have seen lots of examples of incivility toward political leaders and public figures. Senator Ted Cruz and his wife were confronted in a Washington, D.C. restaurant and had to leave. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McDonnell and his wife were accosted while leaving a dinner at Georgetown University. Senator Rand Paul was physically attacked. Tucker Carlson had a leftist group show up at his house and even damaged his front door while his wife cowered in a closet.

Columnist Walter Williams argues, “much of today’s incivility and contempt for personal liberty has its roots on college campuses.” In the past, I have documented some of those attacks against speakers.

Charles Murray was harassed and the liberal professor walking by him was attacked and sent to the hospital with injuries. Heather MacDonald had her lectures disrupted at two universities. I have interviewed most of these people I just mentioned and can tell you that they are gracious individuals who would never treat anyone else the way they were treated in public.

Walter Williams is right, this disrespectable behavior is taught to them on the college campus. A recent poll conducted by the Brookings Institution found that nearly half (44%) of all college students believe that hate speech is NOT protected by the First Amendment. And since many professors and students label just about anything they don’t like as hate speech, you can see why we have this behavior.

The poll also found that more than half (51%) of college students think they have a right to shout down a speaker with whom they disagree. And a smaller percentage (19%) of students think it is acceptable to use violence to prevent a speaker from speaking on campus.

Leftist professors and students have taken over many campuses. It is time for administrators and other professors to turn this around. And it is time for us (taxpayers and alumni) to demand changes on campus.

The pay gap between men and women has been the source of economic discussion and political debate for decades. Progressives claim that the gender pay gap is due to sexism and requires government intervention. But others argue that the difference has more to do with the priorities of women in the workforce and the choices they make.

The Wall Street Journal recently summarized a study done by Harvard economists of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. It provided a perfect test case since it is a union shop with uniform hourly wages in which men and women adhere to the same rules and thus enjoy the same benefits. Workers are promoted based on seniority, not performance. Men and women have the same option for scheduling, routes, vacation, and overtime. The rules and regulations made it nearly impossible for bias, sexism, or preferential treatment to affect pay.

Even at the Transportation Authority, female bus and train operators earned less than men. In order to explain why, the professors looked at time cards and scheduling and compared it to such factors as sex, age, seniority, and tenure.

They found that male bus and train operators worked about 83 percent more overtime hours than their female colleagues. They were also more than twice as likely to accept an overtime shift on short notice. Since the agency pays time and a half for overtime, this obviously affected earnings.

The economists also found that female bus and train operators were much more likely to take routes that wouldn’t require them to work nights, weekends, and holidays. That is why they concluded that, “women, especially single women with children, value both time and the ability to avoid unplanned work much more than men.”

I think that is the best explanation for the gender pay gap.

Do tax cuts lead to lower tax revenues? That’s what liberals proclaim any time conservative politicians attempt to cut taxes. Last year, that’s what Democratic leaders predicted would happen when President Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress pushed through tax cut legislation.

The Republican argument was the tax cuts (along with reduced government regulations) would ignite a stagnant economy. Although the tax cuts would lower the tax rate for businesses and individuals, a booming economy would actually increase revenue. That would occur because of increased consumer spending and increased business investments.

The latest government figures suggest that the president and the Republicans were right. October was the first month of the new fiscal year. Revenues for that month were more than $252 billion. That is $11.4 billion more than the revenue for October of last year, which was also a previous record for that month. Soon we will have the revenue numbers for November, and I predict those numbers will also be record-setting.

If you don’t understand the economic basis for this, it can be confusing. We have a dynamic economy that the general public and even members of Congress need to understand. Cutting taxes doesn’t mean you will also be cutting tax revenues. Actually, just the opposite took place. Cutting taxes increased tax revenues.

Democrats will take control of Congress in January. You would hope the Democratic leadership would have learned this lesson. Apparently presumptive speaker Nancy Pelosi has not learned this lesson. Earlier this year she referred to the tax cuts as “crumbs.” More recently, she made it clear that one of his most important legislative agenda items was to roll back the Republican tax cuts.

I think she should be grateful that the tax cuts provided more revenue for all the spending programs she has proposed. But apparently, she doesn’t see it that way.