This Week on MOMochat: NARAL's Nancy Keenan Weighs in on the GOP "War on Women"

We'll be holding our weekly MOMochat podcast at a special time this week, so we can talk with NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan: about the Tea Party wave that purported to be about fiscal responsibility but turned out to be a mob focused on eliminating reproductive freedom for women.

Keenan is a former Montana state legislator and superintendent of public instruction. In 2000, she was her district's Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives. As President of NARAL, she helped elect a new slate of pro-choice legislators in 2008. The last round of mid-term elections was a setback, but as the NARAL site points out, "In 2010, 31 NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC-endorsed congressional candidates won their races. Choice played a key role in the re-election of Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Barbara Boxer of California, Patty Murray of Washington, and others." 

Listen to MOMocrats MOMochat live tomorrow morning at 10:30 a.m. Eastern/7:30 Pacific and pick up the podcast here. Brought to you by BubbleGenius.

Join NARAL Pro-Choice America and 150 students, activists and community leaders at the Power of Choice Summit on Thursday, September 15, 2011 in Los Angeles. Featuring engaging speakers and interactive presentations, summit attendees will walk away with up-to-date information about reproductive rights and the tools they need to make a difference in their community. Find out more here.

Too Little Too Late (about Too Much Too Soon)

While the entire eastern seaboard was obsessed with Irene, Gretchen Morgenson wrote in the New York Times this weekend about the Federal Reserve efforts to save the financial sector during the Great Recession, at enormous cost to the taxpayers and little benefit to Main Street.  Talk about burying the lede!

Based on information generated by Freedom of Information Act requests and its longstanding lawsuit against the Federal Reserve board, Bloomberg reported that the Fed had provided a stunning $1.2 trillion to large global financial institutions at the peak of its crisis lending in December 2008.

The money has been repaid and the Fed has said its lending programs generated no losses. But with the United States economy weakening, European banks in trouble and some large American financial institutions once again on shaky ground, the Fed may feel compelled to open up its money spigots again. (emphasis added)

This is NOT the TARP money bailout that was publicly debated and ultimately Congressionally approved, but additional amounts of money that were lent by the Federal Reserve to large banks (including foreign banks) largely in secret and at minimal interest rates in order to make sure that these banks could meet their minimum liquidity requirements so as to avoid bankruptcy. 

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: 91 Years Later, We All Have To Carry The Torch

It was 91 years ago today that women finally won the right to vote with the enactment of the 19th amendment, which states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

In an era when women occupy corner offices, serve as Supreme Court justices and travel the world representing America as our Secretary of State, it is easy to forget that it’s been less than a century since we won this right.

So, today, as we look back and celebrate this victory, I am inspired by the extraordinary women who waged the battles to end slavery and for women’s suffrage. From Sojourner Truth, to Susan B. Anthony, Jeannette Rankin, Shirley Chisholm, Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Sonia Sotomayor – women have always blazed a path for the next generation to carry the torch further.

Which is why I created Off The Sidelines, an initiative to urge more women to get involved in the political process and to make their voices heard. Off The Sidelines is about raising awareness for the need for a reinvigorated modern women’s movement so that more women become a part of the debate and are at the table when decisions that impact us every day are made.

I hope you’ll join me.

The fact is, we still have a long way to go until women have full equality. Currently, in the US, women make on average 78 cents for every dollar a man makes; even though women make up 51% of the population, we hold just 17% of seats in Congress and only 6 governorships; and as a result of the 2010 election, for the first time in 30 years, the percentage of women in Congress actually declined. This is unacceptable.

If we’re going to turn this around, more women must engage on the issues they care about. There are extraordinary women’s groups and activists, like EMILY’s List, Women's Campaign Forum, ERLC, Emerge America and many others, that are doing amazing work every day fighting the battles that must be waged. But they can’t do it alone.

The fact remains that too many women are sitting on the sidelines and we must get them involved. It can be as simple as registering to vote, writing a letter to the editor, giving money to a female candidate who shares your values or running for office yourself. There are so many ways we can get more women involved in the political process.

For me, getting off the sidelines means women making a difference by letting their voices be heard on the issues they care about. I hope you’ll sign up at Off The Sidelines and tell me in one sentence what getting off the sidelines means to you.

In nine short years we will mark a full century since women won the right to vote. This next decade will be crucial not only for the future of women but for the future of America. I know we can and will do more because we have to. We are the solution.

Together, we can work toward full equality for women by urging our friends and our family to get off the sidelines and get engaged.

Because only when every woman and girl fulfills her God given potential can America achieve hers.

Women's Equality Day - 2011

Today, August 26, is Women's Equality Day in the United States, enacted 40 years ago in commemoration of the passage of the 19th amendment. 

Full equality for women will remain a dream until we get a new amendment which hard wires it into the Constitution. The ERA was passed in 1972 and ratified by 35 states -- just three short of what was needed to make it the law of the land.

It was derailed by the forerunners of today's Tea Party. 

Earlier this year, new ERA ratification bills were introduced in Congress, and on February 11, Virginia took a step closer to being the 36th state when its Senate passed a resolution ratifying the ERA. However, its companion bill in the House of Delegates never came to a vote.

The right to vote was earned after a long, hard fight, so we should not be surprised that full equality will be just as hard won. Use the rights you have wisely. 

This Week on MOMochat: Not Equal Yet

In 1971, at the behest of New York Rep. Bella Abzug, Congress designated August 26 "Women's Equality Day." The date was chosen to commemorate the passage of the 19th amendment, finally granting women a constitutional right to suffrage.

It's been 91 years since that historic day and 40 years since the creation of our own holiday commemorating it.  We've made some strides -- but as evidenced by the stalling of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the recent Wal-Mart ruling, we are still not equal. We still only make 77 cents to the dollar, make up just 17% of legislators in Congress and just 15.2% of the Fortune 500 corporate boards. And working women who are also mothers have additional hurdles to jump. 

On this week's MOMocrats MOMochat podcast, Cynematic, Julie Pippert and Donna Schwartz Mills welcome Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner, co-founder of MomsRising.org and author ofThe Motherhood Manifesto and The F-Word: Feminism in Jeopardy. Listen live on Wednesday, August 24 at 12 noon Eastern/9 a.m. Pacific time, or download and stream the podcast here.

 

Portrait of a MOMocrat: Reader Survey Results

Earlier this month, we asked our blog readers, newsletter subscribers and Facebook fans to participate in our first-ever reader survey. This was in anticipation of our first official in-person business meeting since the 2008 election.

We'd never actually queried our readers before, and thought it was about time we found out who  you are, what you think of us, why you read us, and what we could be doing better.

Fifty-one of you responded to our survey. It's a small sample, but not a bad one when you consider that we only posted it a few days before our meeting. Here's a summary of what you told us:

	Of the 51 respondents, 50 of you were female.
	Seven of our readers self-identified themselves as "of color" in some way, whether it was naming the color of their skin but not specifying a "race," or embracing "Native American/Latino" or some other identifier, the rest were "Caucasian/white."

What Happens at BlogHer Rarely Stays at BlogHer: PunditMom Speaks

Several of the MOMocrats enjoyed a rare reunion in San Diego last week, at the sixth annual BlogHer conference. We recapped some of what we heard on yesterday's edition of MOMochat. And our own Joanne Bamberger (Pundit Mom), was interviewed by GenConnect's Randi Zucker:

Joanne Bamberger is the author of "Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media Are Revolutionizing Politics in America."

EMILY's List: All Eyes on Wisconsin

Our friends at EMILY's List have been on the ground in Wisconsin, where five of the six Democratic candidates vying to replace Governor Scott Walker's cronies are women. Here's a first-hand report from WOMEN VOTE! director Denise Feriozzi (UPDATED 2:20 PM Pacific Time)

 

Tonight, all eyes will be on Wisconsin. Today, it’s all hands on deck.

Since Friday I’ve been here in Milwaukee, where EMILY’s List is on the ground to get out the vote for Sandy Pasch in what may be the closest election in the Wisconsin recall races. But it’s not just EMILY’s List—we’ve been working in tandem with an amazing mix of volunteers from the community as well and groups who've all come together in common purpose, from Planned Parenthood and the League of Conservation Voters to AFSCME, WI AFL-CIO, SEIU, and WEAC. If we win tonight, it will be because we all did this as one effort. 

As the director of our WOMEN VOTE! program, I’ve been training volunteers who come in to help with this race, including some of the great Team EMILY members who've been out knocking on doors. Rarely in my career have I seen such an impressive on-the-ground operation, and never have I witnessed so much political activity in such a small area.

We know that a strong field operation can make a couple of points difference, and in close races like these are, that could be the margin! This is hand-to-hand combat to get our voters out to the doors, and it’s going to all come down to what we’re able to accomplish today. The TV ads have already been run, the debates have happened—now it’s all up to us.

 We're also staying vigilant and making sure that Republicans don't try any of the shenanigans we've seen them attempt in the past. And while many voters are being asked to show identification at the polls, we're making sure folks know that they aren't yet required to do so (the new Republican voter ID law is not yet in effect), and shouldn't feel intimidated from voting.

With just hours until the polls close at 8pm Central Time, we'll be working hard until the very last minute.

2008 Redux?

Following Standard & Poor’s cutting its rating on US long-term debt late Friday from AAA to AA+, the US stock market fell significantly today: the Dow Jones industrial average had a one-day decline of more than 600 points (over 5 percent) and the Nasdaq dropped close to 200 points (nearly 7 percent).

Let's take a deep breath.  Some refreshers:

• S&P is only one of the three big credit ratings agencies.  The other two, Moody's and Fitch, did not downgrade US debt (though they did change their outlooks to "negative").  However, remember that the ratings agencies played a significant role in their overly optimistic ratings of structured debt securities which were instrumental in the 2008 crash.  It's arguable that having been caught with their pants down, S&P is reacting rashly in the opposite direction, seeing danger where there is none.  But ratings are as much a dart game as they are a science and have been called, among other things, "substandard and porous."
• However, because of the interconnectedness of the US financial sector, the downgrade of US debt will have (and has had) direct follow-on effects: specifically, the downgrade today of the debt of Fannie and Freddie Mac, and of DTCC, the central depository for United States securities, all of which rely significantly on the US government. 
• Downgrades are significant because many "safe" investment vehicles (such as money market funds and low risk pension funds) have mandated investment rules, which may include, for example, a rule that such funds invest only in AAA rated securities.  The downgrade of US debt (and subsequent downgrade of other US backed securities as well as the as-yet-unseen ancillary effects of the downgrade) may lead to massive sell-offs by these funds, fueled by nothing but their mandates.
• Despite all of the above, IF investors are genuinely worried about default by the US government (which is what a downgrade signals), then the interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds should be soaring (because the likelihood that the US government will continue to honor its debt in 10 years should have just deteriorated significantly).  Instead, that interest rate has actually edged down today. 
• What happened today is generally being seen as a flight from securities to "safe havens" (which includes US Treasuries and gold, which broke all-time highs again today).
• The fear is most likely driven by a renewed sense that the global economic outlook is bleak.  Most are speculating that the continued deterioration of Eurozone sovereign debt is the main driver of this fear, but the botched debt deal (see below) and the S&P downgrade are likely contributing to an overall sense that a double dip is imminent.
• There is definitely an element of psychological fear in today's market gyrations.  Volatility, measured via the VIX (or fear index) was off the chart today.
• But in the end, it may be helpful to remember that the stock market is not the economy.

Even if the main driver for the market gyrations these past few days lies squarely in Europe, the US government is far from blameless.  There are real, grown-up ways to deal with the continued economic instability, and real steps that could have been taken to fortify our domestic economic situation while we brace for the inevitable from Europe.  And yet, Congress has consistently shied away from taking such steps over the past 3+ years.  One view, from the Economist:

[The US government's] prescription for a weak economy [through the debt deal] is a large slug of austerity. Thanks to the expiry of a payroll-tax credit and extended jobless benefits in December, the United States is on course for a fiscal contraction of some 2% of GDP next year, the biggest of any large economy—and enough to drag a weak economy into recession.

The debt deal, which implies only modest new spending cuts in the short term, is not directly responsible for this. But Congress could, and should, have stopped this potentially ruinous trajectory. There was a deal to be had: keep up spending in the short term, with a stress on much-needed infrastructure investment, as well as extending the temporary tax cuts, in exchange for a big medium-term reduction in the deficit, centred on entitlements and tax reform. Congress did precisely the opposite, failing to support the economy now and failing to find enough cuts over the next decade to stabilise America’s debt.

Worse, the poisonous politics of the past few weeks have created new sorts of uncertainty. Now that the tea-partiers have used default successfully as a political weapon, it will surely be used again. The refusal to compromise, rapidly becoming a point of honour for both parties, is wreaking damage ... At best, the politicians will have slowed a sputtering expansion; at worst they will have killed off the recovery and inflicted lasting harm on the world’s most impressive prosperity machine. (emphasis added)

Kady is back from a self-imposed sabbatical and may be persuaded to occasionally pop back on her other blog.

MOMocrats Readers: Tell Us Who You Are Survey

After nearly torpedoing the world economy with the manufactured debt ceiling crisis, the Tea Party House of Representatives has decided to take a three-week break. (Never mind that they leave the FAA floundering without a budget; if I were them I'd consider taking the train back home to my district -- it's kind of hard to enforce airline safety when the government stops paying the workers).

The MOMocrats also have summer plans, which include a reunion in San Diego this week for the BlogHer conference. Unfortunately, not all of us are able to be there -- but enough MOMos from around the country will be in attendance to allow us to have an extended, in-person meeting. This is fitting, because Elizabeth Edwards' keynote at BlogHer was the inspiration for the MOMocrats site back in 2007. It will be something like a homecoming.

It will also be our first opportunity for a quorum of MOMos to make plans about where we want to take the site in 2012. We've changed a lot since '07, and we suspect our readers have, too. But those are only suspicions. We invite you to do us the favor of taking a short survey, to help us determine what our priorities will be. 

We're hoping for as many readers as possible to participate by 3:00 PM Pacific Time tomorrow (August 3), so we can use it as a framework in our planning session.

And if you're going to be at BlogHer, we hope you look us up!