Tuesday Reads: More Caucuses and a Beauty Contest; Dems Support Anti-Union Bill; and Protecting Children vs. Parents’ Rights

Posted: February 7, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, 2012 primaries, Mitt Romney, morning reads, Newt Gingrich, Reproductive Rights, Republican presidential politics, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 51 Comments

Good Morning!!

There are four more Republican caucuses and one “primary” coming up this week. Tomorrow, Minnesota and Colorado will hold caucuses and Missouri has a beauty contest, a non-binding primary (actual delegates will be apportioned by the Missouri Republican party on March 17). Maine holds it’s caucuses on Saturday. After that, we get a two-week respite with no primaries. Won’t that be great?

Right now, Rick Santorum is leading in the polls in Minnesota, and Mitt Romney has wasted no time in turning his mean-spirited attacks on the new upstart. Wall Street Journal:

In a radio interview in Minnesota on Monday, Mr. Romney criticized Mr. Santorum for voting to raise the country’s borrowing limit, allowing earmark spending to proliferate and letting government spending explode.

“His approach was not effective and, frankly, I happen to believe if we’re going to change Washington we can’t just keep on sending the same people there in different chairs,” he said in an interview on WCCO.

The Romney camp also circulated a research memo to challenge Mr. Santorum’s contention that Mr. Romney imposed a “top-down, government-run” health-care system in Massachusetts that led to higher costs and longer wait times. For good measure, the Romney team rereleased Mr. Santorum’s endorsement of Mr. Romney in the 2008 race.

Romney is currently leading in Colorado, but there are suggestions that Santorum could do well there too–maybe even take first place. From CNN:

Could Rick Santorum pull off a surprise victory in this week’s caucuses? Newt Gingrich thinks so.

“I think that Santorum’s going to have a pretty good day tomorrow and he will have earned it. He targeted differently than I did,” Gingrich told reporters gathered outside an energy forum in Golden, Colorado….

Speaking to reporters after the same forum, Santorum opted against setting any expectations for the caucuses. But he questioned Mitt Romney’s ability to close the deal with Republican voters, noting the former Massachusetts governor has failed to attract as many voters as he did in 2008 in some previous contests.

“He’s underperformed from four years ago. And I suspect he will again,” Santorum said about Tuesday’s caucuses.

According to USA Today:

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum has spent the past few days shuttling among Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado hoping that a good showing in one or all Tuesday would show the conservative electorate was not solidly behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

“Our hope is conservatives are stepping back and looking at the race and making the same calculations that I’ve just made that a Romney nomination will not be in the best interest of us winning the general election,” Santorum told reporters here Monday. “We need to have a conservative alternative and my feeling is that Speaker Gingrich has sort of had his chance in the arena and came up short in Florida and Nevada, and now it’s our turn.”

Santorum has spent a great deal of time in Missouri while the other candidates were competing in Nevada. He apparently thinks the “show me” state will help him launch a comeback in the race.

Tomorrow’s primary in Missouri is the staging ground for Rick Santorum’s latest campaign message—that he is the real conservative alternative to Mitt Romney and that he is the person who can best compete with Barack Obama.

A win in Missouri would be absolutely crucial in keeping Santorum’s campaign afloat. His chances look good there because Newt Gingrich—whose campaign has been plagued by logistical missteps such as failing to get on the ballot in Virginia—decided not to sign up for tomorrow’s primary.

Unfortunately for Santorum, a win won’t get him any delegates.

Yesterday, Democrats in the Senate joined their right-wing colleagues in passing an anti-union FAA bill.

The Senate passed a Federal Aviation Administration bill on Monday that includes an anti-union measure bitterly opposed by labor groups.

The bill, which modernizes America’s air traffic control system and funds the FAA through 2014, was fought over for four years, leading to a partial shutdown of the FAA last summer because of anti-union measures added by the Republican-controlled House.

It passed 75 to 20, with a majority of Democrats backing it.

Among the controversial provisions were changes to labor law for rail and airline workers — backed by the airline industry — that would count anyone who did not vote in an election for a union as voting against it, making it much more difficult to certify attempts to organize new unions.

What’s the point of voting for Democrats if they’re no different from Republicans?

Braden and Charlie Powell

This story makes me so sad that I had to share it with you. It demonstrates one of the worst thing about U.S. family courts–they care more about parents rights than they do children’s safety and well-being. Yesterday, the husband of a missing Utah woman, Susan Powell, committed suicide and chose to take his two sons along with him.

The deaths of a Washington man and his two sons in what authorities believe was a murder-suicide may mean the 2009 disappearance of the children’s mother may never be solved.

Josh Powell, a suspect in the disappearance of Susan Cox-Powell, died Sunday along with his two sons, 5-year-old Braden and 7-year-old Charlie, in what police believe was an intentionally set fire in Powell’s Puyallup, Washington, home.

It was a tragic development in a puzzling case that began two years ago in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley City, Utah, when Susan Cox-Powell, 28, went missing.

Josh Powell was never charged in her disappearance, and was embroiled in a bitter custody dispute with his wife’s parents.

Why was this man allowed access to his children? If the court believed he had the right to see them, why not arrange for the meeting to take place in a neutral location? Not only was this man a strong suspect in the murder of the children’s mother, but also he had allowed the boys to live with his father who was arrested awhile ago for possession of child pornography. The arrest led to Powell’s in-laws getting custody of the two boys. Powell apparently had been planning the murder suicide for some time.

Authorities say Josh Powell planned the deadly house fire that killed him and his young sons for some time, dropping toys at charities and sending final emails to multiple acquaintances.

Powell, the husband of missing Utah woman Susan Powell, died along with his children Sunday.

Authorities say they found 10 gallons of gasoline inside the home. A five-gallon can was spread throughout the house and used as an accelerant in the huge blaze. Another can was found by the bodies.

They say Josh Powell did send longer emails to some people, including his cousin and pastor, with instructions such as where to find his money and how to shut off his utilities

The motive for killing the boys might have been the fact that once they were away from their father, they began talking about the night their mom disappeared.

The children of missing woman Susan Cox Powell have said for years that “Mommy’s in the mine,” an attorney representing the Cox family said on Monday….adding the boys mentioned their mother may have been looking for crystals in the mine.

Another lawyer representing the Cox family said the children had started talking to their grandparents about things they remembered from the night their mother vanished.

“They were beginning to verbalize more,” said attorney Steve Downing. “The oldest boy talked about that they went camping and that Mommy was in the trunk. Mom and Dad got out of the car and Mom disappeared.”

The attorney said Charlie Powell drew a disturbing picture as a part of a school assignment several months ago. The drawing depicted the boy’s father driving the van with Charlie and Braden sitting in the backseat, and their mother in the trunk.

“There was a subsequent question with regard to, ‘Why is your mother in the trunk?’ And his response was simply that he didn’t know, but his mother and father had gotten out of the van, and his mother then got lost,” said Downing.

So why was the man allowed access to his children? A psychologist quoted in an article in the Christian Science Monitor seems troubled by the decision.

Joy Silberg, a psychologist who specializes in child protection and abuse cases, says courts often place more value on parental rights than a child’s safety – or see them as equal concerns, when in her view, the parental rights should be secondary.

“I have situations where the child has disclosed very clear disclosures about a parent, or terror at being near a parent … and the judge still orders a child to go [to visitation] because the parental right is seen as having so much more power,” says Dr. Silberg.

While she doesn’t know all the facts of the Powell case, she adds, “it’s hard for me to believe that this was completely out of the blue and that no one knew he was this destructive. People usually leave clues.”

In fact, Powell was named a “person of interest” by the authorities when his wife, Susan Cox-Powell, disappeared two years ago. But he was never officially charged with any crime, and no details have ever been made public linking him with the case.

I don’t like to end with an utterly heartbreaking story like that, so I’ll add this one from The Daily Beast on Nancy Brinker and her really really bad decision to defund Planned Parenthood. Apparently Brinker is real meanie when it comes to competition with other groups raising funds for breast cancer.

“Komen plays hardball and is determined to stay on top,” says a member of another cancer organization, who declined to be identified. “Let’s be honest about all this: people think of breast cancer as a charity, but it’s really a major business.”

I’m going to keep that in mind the next time I get a request for funds for breast cancer. I’ll especially want to find out what each group’s attitude is toward women’s autonomy. More from the article:

…in the early ’80s, she [Nancy] met and married multimillionaire restaurateur Norman Brinker, a major Republican donor. He had previously been married to Grand Slam tennis star Maureen “Little Mo” Connnelly, who had died from ovarian cancer.
When they tied the knot, the union provided Nancy with a network of A-list political connections and friends, plus the funds to lead a luxurious lifestyle and create the Komen Foundation, now the Susan G. Komen for the Cure with affiliates in 170 communities in 50 nations. (Interesting note: the largest Race for the Cure, a three-day run, is held in Rome, Italy.)

In 1993 Norman Brinker suffered severe head injuries during a polo match and remained on crutches for the rest of his life. Several years later the couple divorced and with a hefty settlement, formidable drive, and her chum George W. Bush in the White House, Nancy was ready to step onto the world stage. First the [resident appointed her ambassador to Hungary and then U.S. chief of protocol.

Did Nancy dump her rich hubby because his health problems were a pain in the a$$. Inquiring minds want to know. There’s more gossipy stuff in the article if you’re interested.

Now what are you reading and blogging about today?

Obama Changes Course — Will Use SuperPACs After All

Posted: February 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , | 11 Comments

Obama is very worried about superPACs

President Obama has reversed himself–again. He sure has a bad habit of changing his mind on issues. Now, according to Politico, he’s “reluctantly” decided to “permit” his bundlers to raise money for a superPAC that will provide “outside” support for his reelection campaign.

President Barack Obama — a vehement opponent of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — is offering a reluctant blessing to his top bundlers to raise cash for his pet super PAC in a bid to kick-start sluggish fundraising for Priorities USA Action, according to three Democrats with knowledge of the decision….

Top Obama campaign staff will appear at super PAC events, although the president himself will not.

Obama told Matt Lauer in an interview shown just this morning that he “worries” about superPACs.

“One of the worries we have obviously in the next campaign is that there are so many of these so-called super PACs, these independent expenditures that are gonna be out there,” Obama told NBC’s Matt Lauer in an interview taped before the Super Bowl on Sunday. “There is gonna be just a lot of money floating around, and I guarantee a bunch of it’s gonna be negative.”

As of tonight:

Two former White House aides have formed a super PAC, Priorities USA Action, which — along with an affiliated nonprofit group — hopes to raise $100 million to support Obama. But so far, its funding has been dwarfed by Republican groups’. In all of 2011, the Priorities groups reported raising $6.7 million while a single donor, casino owner Sheldon Adelson, has poured $10 million into a super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich.

Obama’s campaign has vowed that neither Obama nor his aides will raise money for super PACs, but the president’s senior campaign staff is now allowing top fundraisers to request that wealthy contributors donate to Priorities USA Action.

Obama was also very concerned about NAFTA, immunity for telecoms, and the Iraq war before reversing his positions on those issues, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.

Open Thread: Republicans don’t *have* to be Mean-Spirited like Karl Rove

Posted: February 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: open thread, Republican politics, the GOP, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 15 Comments

I admit I didn’t watch a single Superbowl ad. I didn’t watch the halftime show either. I just can’t stand to. I did hear that there was an ad with Clint Eastwood in it, and I decided to watch it after I heard that Karl Rove was “offended” by it. From Raw Story:

Fox News host Jon Scott on Monday told Rove that Democrats were celebrating the ad as evidence of the effectiveness of President Barack Obama’s bold decision to bailout the auto companies instead of letting them go under.

“This is a sign of what happens when you have government getting in bed with big business like the bailout of the auto companies,” Rove complained. “The leadership of the auto companies feel they need to do something to repay their political patrons.”

“I was, frankly, offended by it,” he added. “I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood. I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics. And the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”

As the article points out, Rove’s old boss Dubya provided General Motors with $17.4 billion in government loans before Obama was President. Was he offended by that?

We’ve actually reached the point where Republicans are “offended” by improvement in the U.S. economy and are doing everything in their power to bring it down again. As for Clint Eastwood, who is a registered Republican, I thank him for not only doing the ad but also for standing up for LGBT rights.

Margaret Sanger: A Rebel With A Mighty Cause

Posted: February 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: birth control, black women's reproductive health, children, Civil Liberties, education, Feminists, health, Hillary Clinton, Human Rights, just because, Planned Parenthood, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , | 11 Comments

A Book Review; Review of a Life

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of catching Jean Baker, history professor at Goucher College, featured on BookTV.  Baker discussed her book ‘Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion,’ but more importantly connected the dots between the Right Wing’s attack on Sanger and the Pro-Choice, Family Planning movement.

A couple years ago while Glenn Beck hurled his diatribes, chalk boarding his twisted worldview on an unsuspecting public, he took Margaret Sanger to task.  Beck described Sanger as one of his ‘evil’ progressives, a woman dedicated to racism and the application of eugenics in America.

The attack startled me.  Why Sanger?  I knew she had spearheaded the whole idea of inexpensive, reliable contraception and that her family clinics and her own reputation had come under constant assault.  Anything and everything having to do with sexual behavior was taboo when Sanger began her work in the early, heady days of the 20th century. I also knew that Hillary Clinton had specifically mentioned Sanger as a personal hero.  At the time, I thought that was Beck’s aim—discredit Sanger, discredit Clinton.

Au contraire!

Though Hillary Clinton did, in fact, make it on the list of evil progressives [along with Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, even Lindsey Graham and John McCain], the attack on Margaret Sanger had and continues to have far broader implications.  This is particularly true in any discussion of birth control, abortion and/or family planning and in the midst of a concerted effort to push a fetal personhood amendment to the fore.

The recent dustup between the Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood is a case in point.  Women’s healthcare has become politicized.  We as women are discussed in a myriad of parts—our uteruses, our vaginas, our breasts, our reproductive capabilities.  Too often, our autonomy as full-fledged human beings, adults capable of thought and decision-making about our own destiny is dismissed, made secondary to the considerations of others.  Sadly, today’s opposition to female self-determination is the same that Sanger faced throughout her lifetime: men, who were convinced they had the right to an opinion and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and other religious institutions that felt and continue to feel perfectly justified to chime in, making moral declarations, complete with Biblical arguments and opinions.

Young 'Maggie'

Professor Baker claims [and makes a very good argument] that the attack on Sanger’s work is also directly related to the attacks now being waged—female autonomy, the ability for women to direct their own reproductive lives.  But Sanger had an especially hard road to travel, introducing her radical vision on the heels of the Victorian era.

Whatever’s old is new again!

While reading Baker’s new biography, I was startled by the similarity of the arguments, the pitfalls, the myriad of excuses to block any and all reasonable discussion when it comes to reproductive freedom.  That being said, it’s hard to contemplate a time when the very discussion of or writing about birth control was considered perverse, pornographic and could end in jail time.  Such was the case in the early 20th century.

Sanger’s efforts were so reviled by the status quo and Catholic Church that she was forced to leave the country for a brief stay in the UK or face arrest. She faced continuous harassment and was eventually arrested for her public, relentless stands. But ironically, this woman who had a spotty formal education, no training in public speaking would become by age fifty, one of the most influential women in the world.

Why?  Because she would not stop.  Because she was totally gripped by a single, burning idea–women were entitled to information [sexual or otherwise] and had a right to be empowered when it came to their own bodies.

Her background was fertile for dissent, her family a template for radical reaction.  Born Margaret [Maggie] Higgins in 1879 in Corning, NY., she was the sixth child of 11 surviving children.  Her mother, a devout Catholic, died at the age of 48, suffering with tuberculosis, the scourge of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

But here’s a factoid that Sanger’s critics rarely mention: her mother had eighteen pregnancies during her short life.

Eighteen!

Sanger’s father, a stone carver who royally ticked off the Church with his firebrand criticisms of Rome’s dictates, found it difficult to provide for his huge, ever-growing family.  The family was poor, shanty Irish poor, with too many mouths to feed and an increasingly sick mother, made all the worse by cramped, squalid surroundings.

Though her impossible dream had been medical school, Sanger went to New York City following her mother’s death.  There she trained as a nurse and midwife and spent several years attending patients on the Lower East Side.  The living conditions in the tenements were appalling—cramped, rat-infested, devoid of anything approaching basic hygiene.  She watched scores of young immigrant women die of pregnancy-related complications and botched abortions [many self-performed].  And she listened to scores of these women beg attending physicians [when available], pleading for help to prevent back-to-back pregnancies, birthing more children than they were able to feed or care for.  To no avail.   From that experience, that massive wave of human suffering, the idea of birth control and family planning was born.

Sanger took the remedy upon herself.  Because no one else dared.

A prolific self-taught writer, Sanger traveled across America and was invited around the world to speak to the issue of contraception, sex education and reproductive services.  Her work became the basis for health clinics dedicated to the health and education of women.  She was, in fact, the mother of Planned Parenthood.

Ahhhh.  No wonder she’s on the enemies’ list.

So what are the arguments against Sanger? Read the rest of this entry »

Monday Morning Reads

Posted: February 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , | 42 Comments

Good Morning!

There’s been so many outrageous things in the news recently that I hardly know where to begin.  We talked a lot about the next two subjects but I think there’s some follow-up analysis worth reviewing.  First, Ron Paul’s assertions about “honest” rapes and his implication that third trimester “abortions” are every day happenstance is beyond reality and the pale.  Here’s some analysis on “The 2 Most Dangerous Things Ron Paul Gets Wrong about Honest Rape”.

1. Women do get raped by their husbands and partners. That’s not some out-there hypothetical. Intimate partner rape is a major problem — and yes, it happens to well-to-do women like Ron Paul’s daughters too.

2. Although Paul keeps going back to women seeking abortions late in their pregnancies, the reality is that 90 percent of abortions occur in the first trimester. So his focus on late-term abortions is disproportionate to the number of women actually seeking late-term abortions.

Paul seems to think married women are still property.  I think his exposure to the press this particular election cycle has shown him for the neoconfederate he truly is.  Hopefully, he’ll go crawl back under his rock in Texas and leave us in peace soon.

The more we find out about Komen for the Cure, the more appalled we become.   It’s apparent that Brinker sees the Foundation as her personal ATM and influence pet and continues to stack the board with Republican Droogies.  Brinker’s husband is a huge GOP donor.  Surrender the Pink!

A review of the board of directors of Komen by BuzzFlash at Truthout reveals that Brinker has the likely votes to control board decisions at any given time, and that those votes are either Republican stalwarts or individuals personally loyal to her. For instance, one of the members of the relatively small nine-person board – given its nearly half-billion dollars in annual revenue – is Brinker’s son, Eric Brinker. Another is Brinker herself, although, to be fair, many non-profit boards have the CEO as a member.

Linda Law, an apparently extremely accomplished real estate developer and consultant, includes in her Komen board biography that she is an “RNC regent.” This means she is a top bundler and fundraiser for the Republican National Committee, an odd detail to be included in a non-profit board bio. Komen board member Linda Custard, a Dallas social insider, and her husband, William, are listed on opensecrets.org as giving more than 95% in significant contributions to Republicans.

Connie O’Neill is a Dallas socialite, who headed the Junior League there and numerous charity balls, has been on the board and working with Brinker on developing Komen over many years. Although there is no opensecrets.org record of her political giving, unless something has changed she appears to be a Brinker friend and insider.

That’s not to impugn the integrity of Komen board members, despite Brinker’s apparent de facto control of the board and the partisan leanings of some key board members. Indeed, there are some members, such as the chair, Dr. LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr., who is a nationally distinguished oncologist — also a medical professor at Howard University — who appear non-partisan in terms of their roles on the board. So to for Brenda Lauderback, a cancer survivor, and Elyse Gellerman (also a breast cancer survivor), who represents the Komen affiliates.

Komen board member John D. Raffaelli, though, is a lobbyist who swings both sides of the aisle –although he started as a Democrat and has given donations to Dems — is now a full-fledged K Street operative. Raffaelli showed his K Street colors when he told the New York Times (NYT) that “Komen was bitterly disappointed that Planned Parenthood was using Komen’s decision to raise money.” In another NYT article he played the self-pity card: “”Why are they [Planned Parenthood] going nuts?” Mr. Raffaelli asked rhetorically. “And the answer is that they want to raise money, and they’re doing it at the expense of a humanitarian organization that shares their goals and has given them millions of dollars over the years.” Whether or not Raffaelli’s lobbying firm also has contracts with Komen could not be ascertained from the IRS filings online.

From some other of Raffaelli’s statements, it appears entirely possible that along with Karen Handel, he played a key role in coming up with the “congressional investigation” excuse for cutting off Planned Parenthood in the future (before the so called “mea culpa”).

Here’s a headline that’s worth a chuckle or two from Politico: “Trump endorsement a net negative for Romney”.  Really? Ya Think?  This is some weird polling methodology but I think it probably reflects a degree of reality.

Donald Trump’s endorsement of Mitt Romney may have consumed the news cycle on Thursday, but Nevada Facebook users see the endorsement as a net negative for Romney, according to a Facebook/POLITICO poll.

Forty-one percent of those surveyed said Trump’s endorsement gave them a more negative view of Romney, compared with just 10 percent who said they now view him more positively. Forty-nine percent said the endorsement had no effect.

The results only represent the sentiments of Nevada users on Facebook, not registered voters or likely GOP caucus voters that tend to be more reliable barometers of caucus elections. The Facebook poll, for instance, doesn’t exclude Democrats or independents.

Daniel Kahneman—who recently won the Noble Prize in Economics–is the subject of  an interesting interview up at The Economist on the relationship between economic decision-making and psychology.  It’s all about trusting instincts.

If you assume that economic agents are completely rational, two immediate conclusions follow. One is people don’t need to be protected against their own choices—and that has been very explicitly the line of the Chicago economists, as illustrated by their opposition to social security. I think the evidence against perfect rationality is overwhelming. A large proportion of the population wants to save more than they do and they have firm intentions to start saving next year. Helping them do this will actually help them make the decision they wish they would make.

Another pernicious implication of the assumption of consumer rationality is that individuals need little protection from the firms with which they interact. For example, the law requires truthful disclosure, but there are no regulations about the clarity of the disclosure or about the size of the print. The assumption is that rational agents will make the effort to read the small print where it matters but, in fact, most of us don’t. Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click ‘I agree’ but you don’t know what you’re agreeing to. In the United States, especially under the influence of Cass Sunstein, the White House regulatory chief, firms are required to produce information for their clients in a form the clients can understand. I don’t see that this has any drawbacks, except for the corporations. Those changes in, for example, mortgage and credit card regulations have been fought by the industry, which means the industry thinks it is to its advantage to keep customers poorly informed.

I have a real uphill battle in my field because I don’t buy rational or efficient markets hypotheses.  There are just too many frictions and too many examples of behavioral paradoxes.  I’ve noticed that the few women in the financial economics field tend to be more behavioralists than not.  Perhaps if we ever get to actually dominate the field, we can get rid of that Chicago School nonsense started by the likes of Fama and perpetrated by his son-in-law Cochrane who are buddies of Paul Ryan and other Republican acolytes.

It’s been a year since the Egyptian uprising.  This Der Spiegal article asks of Egypt will be able to make democracy work in light of the outcomes of recent elections and violence.

One year after the revolution, Egypt has a new parliament, one that was elected more freely and fairly than ever before. More than two-thirds of its members are Islamists, who now hold as many seats as the former state party, the NDP, once held. There are eight women in this parliament, 13 former NDP members and only a handful of young revolutionaries. Together, they are charged with drafting a constitution, and at the end of June, when the president has been elected, the military council is slated to transfer power to a civilian government. That, at least, is the plan.

It is a double experiment, and the outcome will have an impact throughout the entire Arab world. Can a country, and an Islamic one at that, find its way to democracy through free elections alone? Or does it need a second revolution to sweep aside all corrupt institutions, including the police, state-run television and government agencies that still operate according to the old rules?

If the members of parliament join forces, and if, with the support of the people, they exert pressure on the military council, the generals will hardly be able to resist. But if they prefer to push their own agendas and reach an accommodation with the military to that end, the parliament could remain what it always was: a place where representatives of the people have met for 146 years without ever actually representing the people.

The revolution is now in the hands of the delegates. El-Eleimy, a social democrat, is one of them, a man who is conscious of his own power and filled with the desire to bring about change. But there are also men like Khaled Hanafi, 50, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who has waited almost 20 years for a seat in parliament. And then there is the Salafist Ahmed Khalil, 33, who was not allowed to teach at his own private school because of his beard.

They have nothing in common, except for the fact that all three demonstrated on Tahrir Square, and yet they must now define important issues together: What kind of a country do we want? And what do we understand as democracy?

So, that’s just a few stories that I dug out.  Hard to find much these days because there appears to be so few things that attract the press outside of football and the Newt/Willard battle.  Oh well, hopefully you can add some more.  What’s on your reading and blogging list this morning?

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