This post is heavily weighted towards self-consciously liberal media, and on editorials rather than straight news. I’m under no delusions that there is no political slant in the sources I follow. I do, however, think that reading about the issues of the day rather than watching news is of greater cognitive value, even if sources are biased. For example, I’ve found that whenever I actually read an article on the Fox News website, for example, it often contains more nuance than the same story covered by the pinheads on Fox News television, and certainly more nuance than the headline typically implies.
I am going on record wanting a presidential debate on women, moderated by women. The first moderator I want is Sr. Simone Campbell, director of NETWORK, the Catholic social justice lobby that sent forth Nuns on the Bus this summer. The other moderator needs to be Gloria Steinem, the veteran feminist activist and author. I want the candidates to answer hard questions about breast cancer research, single motherhood, women who seek and hold elective offices, abortion, early childhood education, and about fifty other things.
I want there to be a segment in which the moderators interview the candidates’ wives alone because I want to know how he treats her and what he really thinks of women. I would like to see the candidates tend to a room of a half-dozen toddlers and see how what happens. It would NOT be a photo-op, but a test. A roomful of over-tired 3-year-olds can’t be that different from Congress.
I want to subject the candidates to obnoxious questions that powerful women must answer, like “What designers do you prefer?” and “Can you really have it all – a great career and family? Aren’t you demanding unfair sacrifices of your children and spouse? Who has taken care of your children as you built your career?”
I think the authors of these first two articles might agree with me.
Women Went Missing in Last Night's Presidential Debate
What Obama Forgot to Say to Women
Bryce Covert calls out the debates and candidates for not saying more about how their platforms and policies would affect the lives of women. Obama addressed this rather indirectly, and Romney not really at all. Jessica Arons argues that one of Obama’s weaknesses was his reluctance to toot his own horn and contrast his own administration’s policies with those Romney and Ryan would support. He ought to call the GOP out for opposing Lilly Ledbetter and attempting to redefine rape, and remind everyone of the benefits Obamacare requires insurance companies to provide women and children, including preventive care without co-payments.
As these authors or any thinking woman knows, women’s issues are not secondary to economic and foreign policy issues, but integral to them. Because women live longer and earn less over their lifetimes – whether because their work lives are interrupted by family obligations or they did low wage work or experienced wage discrimination – women rely more heavily upon Social Security and Medicare. Equal pay is an economic issue. So are affordable health care and family leave. Access to affordable contraception and child care is vital to the well-being of families. I want to know that candidates can realistically imagine what working- and middle-class families’ lives are like. Foreign policy has particular ramifications for women. When we send troops overseas, a significant portion of them are women these days. Servicewomen are all too often subject assault by their fellow troops, and in forward areas their options are limited. When we provide support for undemocratic leaders around the world, what violence and prejudice do we perpetuate against women in those nations?
Will either presidential candidate give peace a chance?
The answer is probably no.
Mile-High Rhetoric: Debating in Denver
Throwing Obama Under the Bus: Dems Do Disloyal
Commonweal offers a fair assessment of the first presidential debate which points out that neither candidate addressed the lives of the poor. Lorraine Devon’s editorial doesn’t offer much, although there may be something to her feeling that political campaigns have become like reality shows
Obama's Approval Rating Soars To Its Highest Point In Three Years
REASON 64: I support Obama because, despite enormous pressure, he refused to publicize a picture of Bin Laden’s corpse.
Obama’s approval rating, announced the day after the first presidential debate, is 54%. This is good news for any incumbent president; if their approval rating is above 50% on Election Day, they win. I suppose that the debates themselves, especially last week’s lackluster performance may
90 Days, 90 Reasons is an interesting pro-Obama daily blog. Notables and other writers explain their primary reason for supporting President Obama in 2012. On Day 64, Israeli author Etgar Keret characterizes Obama’s decision not to show images of Osama bin Laden dead as courageous. Obama had nothing to gain by this decision, and many were disappointed or even angry about it.
Democracy should be more than mob rule, and our foreign policy more dignified than a gladiator match. Leave gruesome displays of mutilated dead to Kurtz.
Someone needs to remind Paul Ryan you can’t spell compassion on a calculator
Richard Milhous Ryan: No Specifics, Just a 'Secret Plan'
Why This Veep Debate Matters a Lot
Biden Should Rip Ryan on Neglect of Hometown Workers
More commentary on the Vice-Presidential debate, which according to the New Yorker, had the potential to quell a lot of anxiety in Democratic quarters. Now that it’s over, I guess Biden can say “mission accomplished.” The Nation compares Ryan’s reluctance to give specifics on the Romney tax plan to Richard Nixon’s “secret” plan to end the war in Vietnam. In case you don’t know, it was not until 4 years after he took office that the Nixon Administration agreed to the treaty that ended our military involvement in Vietnam. Over 20,000 of the 58,000 who died in Vietnam did so during the Nixon administration, so I’m not putting much stock in secret plans.
If you haven’t read Margaret and Helen’s blog, you are really missing out. They have been close friends for over 60 years, and are absolutely freaking hilarious. Helen does most of the writing, but Margaret always gets the final punch line. In their response to the VP debate on Thursday, they sympathize with the frustration that Biden, a senior citizen like them, must feel when dealing with a whippersnapper like Paul Ryan. No description I can ever give of Margaret and Helen’s blog could be adequate. One of my particular favorites, which made me and the hubs laugh out loud until we cried, is this gem about vaginas: http://margaretandhelen.com/2012/06/21/vagina-is-a-6-letter-word/
If you read nothing else today, read “Vagina is a 6 Letter Word.” Read it out loud to your family members, roommates, cat or dog, whoever lives with you. If it doesn’t make you fear peeing your pants, you probably need to see a physician and have that stick removed from your …
Affirmative Action vs. White Privilege
Yes, this piece is from Ebony, which is predictably in favor of affirmative action. Unfortunately, the African-American press may be the only place outside of academia where discussions of white privilege are taking place.
The Supreme Court may well destroy affirmative action when it decides Fisher v University of Texas. I believe it premature to dismantle affirmative action as long as so many in America are willfully blind to the breaks they enjoy. It would be a cruel twist indeed if this case that killed it, since University of Texas has argued that even without the consideration of race, Abigail Fisher would not have been admitted to the institution.
Foreign Policy
Anti-Semitism—Bad for Palestinians, Too
The author, Emily Hauser is an Israeli-American, and Jewish herself, and supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She acknowledges how frequently the accusation of anti-Semitism is launched at anyone who dares to criticize Israel, but here she examines the very real threat that anti-Semitism among pro-Palestinian activists poses.
I see this as a persistent problem in politics: how does one act as an advocate, but not a chauvinist? Patriotism in particular can easily become jingoism. The chauvinists and jingoists frequently are unaware that they have crossed an ideological Rubicon, and may become defensive, retrenching their positions. I don’t have any answer for how to avoid this pratfall.
Benghazi’s Intensifying Blame Game
Mother Of Slain SEAL Tells Romney To Stop Talking About Her Son
Killed former SEAL used in stump speech thought Romney was ‘pathetic’: friend
The officials who testified before Congress about the attacks on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya basically provided no clarity on the question that everyone wants answered: did the State Department utterly fail to provide adequate security for its diplomatic corps in Libya? I’d feel better about the whole investigation if I didn’t feel that the Obama administration will twist the situation to defend itself, or that House Republicans will grasp at any straw to discredit Obama and Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
Wherever the responsibility lies, apparently Mitt Romney had no idea what he was stepping into when he began invoking his brief, chance meeting with former SEAL Glen Doherty, who was killed in Benghazi. Doherty was from Massachusetts and apparently neither he nor his mother cared much for Romney. He also served on the advisory board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which advocates for the separation of church and state and the protection of the religious freedoms of service members. It doesn’t take much imagination to see why Doherty’s would object to Romney’s invocation of her son’s name.
CIA drone strike kills Al Qaeda leader wanted in USS Cole bombing, US officials say
It’s always a relief to learn that al-Qaeda leaders are being discovered and some measure of justice is being meted out, but I just can’t get behind drones.
Can FSA leadership be relevant again in Syria?
I’ve got no wisdom to offer on the civil war in Syria, except that any intervention must originate with neighboring nations in the region, not the United States, and must have the support of Russia. Syria needs to be isolation among the community of nations. Also, anyone who argues that somehow the United States should have known that al-Assad was going to be an unrepentant tyrant doesn’t know much about American foreign policy during the last 70 years.
Iran: Eleven men face imminent execution
Death Penalty: A decade on, executions are on the wane but challenges remain
Stuff That Makes Me Indignant
Kids in solitary confinement: State-sponsored child abuse
Jerry Sandusky Headed To Prison, But Scandal Persists
Her ‘Crime’ Was Loving Schools
Clinton: Pakistan Shooting Shows Challenges Facing Girls
Agency says Depok rape victim can still attend school
Fighting child marriage in the slums of Moradabad, India
Why Was Breast Milk Banned from an Israeli Maternity Ward Fridge?
If you haven’t heard about Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by soldiers – but mercifully survived – you should learn her inspiring story. This past week, the first International Day of the Girl was celebrated and I hope that in the future it focuses attention on the unchecked violence, ignorance, and sexism that plagues too much of the world.
God bless that girl.
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