Run, Mama, Run -- Cook County, Illinois Judicial Candidate Abbey Romanek

It might not seem like election season -- maybe some of you are just now recovering from 2008 election fatigue! -- but races for local offices are in full swing and worthy of our attention as much as the big races!

One Democratic mother who's decided to run for Cook County Judge in Illinois is the latest woman we'd like to feature in the MOMocrats' "Run, Mama, Run" segment -- Abbey Fishman Romanek! I met someone involved in Abbey's campaign at a conference earlier this year, and thought it would interesting to profile someone running for an office that we don't often think is an elective one (depending on where you live!)  Abbey took some time out from her campaign to talk a little bit about her decision to jump into the world of elective politics:

Q: How many children do you have and what are their ages? 

A: I have three very active and busy boys. Josh is 15, Mikey is 14 and Ricky is 12.  

Q: What prompted you to decide to run for office?  Why did you decide to run for a judgeship as opposed to another office?

Fem2.0-MOMocrats Live Chat: Feminism is Where You Are/What You Do

Moderators: Jaelithe Judy, Julie Pippert, Joanne Bamberger & Cynematic of MOMocrats

Fem2.0 Twittercast: Feminism is Where You Are/What You Do
Sunday, May 24, 2009, 10 PM EST
We'll be using Cover-it-Live to live chat (more than 140 characters allowed, hurray!) and also pull in tweets from Twitter tagged #fem2.

Today, we're joining up with the folks at Fem2.0 to continue the discussion from last week, which started with the discussion of feminism, moms who blog, the feminist blogosphere, and what intersection there is among all three.

To start the conversation, we have a beautiful post by a GrandMOMocrat (who happens to be MOMocrat Jaelithe's mother). Please read the lovely essay by Diana Harvestmoon-Stewart about combining motherhood, feminism, and activism.

It may shed new light on the previous Fem2pt0 conversation, which was framed here: "Mommies and Feminists: the Great Divide."

Here's how we've framed the Fem2pt0 chat for this week:

Cynematic says: No matter where we are in our respective life cycles–raising children or choosing to be childfree, a young adult or older woman, mother to boys or girls, caretaker of the generations before you–if you’re a feminist, you’ve probably brought that sensibility with you to your activism.

We want to turn the question on end a little. What are you active in, and how does that inform your feminism? Where are you geographically, so you can connect with others on the chat? What do you need to do your work? How would your work be different if there was a critical mass of feminists there? Or is that already the case?

Let’s move off labels, identities, and the preconceptions that can come attached to those. Let’s find as many different feminisms as we can through the kinds of way it’s practiced.

More food for thought: feminisms in the context of family or community, Naomi Wolf

Is Release of Torture Photos Necessary? The MOMocrats Debate Obama's Decision.

Last Wednesday, under the advice of Pentagon officials, President Obama reversed a decision to comply with an appeals court's May 28th deadline for the public release of dozens photos depicting acts of abuse and torture perpetrated on detainees in U.S. custody by U.S. military personnel. The President now argues the public release of the photos should be withheld from public view because the situations depicted in the photos have already been investigated by the Pentagon, and some of the U.S. personnel who perpetrated the abuses have already been punished. Obama said in a May 13 press statement:

[. . .] this is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action. Rather, it has gone through the appropriate and regular processes. And the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken.

It's therefore my belief that the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.

Moreover, I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse. And obviously the thing that is most important in my mind is making sure that we are abiding by the Army Manual and that we are swiftly investigating any instances in which individuals have not acted appropriately, and that they are appropriately sanctioned. That's my aim and I do not believe that the release of these photos at this time would further that goal.

Now, let me be clear: I am concerned about how the release of these photos would be -- would impact on the safety of our troops. I have made it very clear to all who are within the chain of command, however, of the United States Armed Forces that the abuse of detainees in our custody is prohibited and will not be tolerated.

When we at MOMocrats discussed President Obama's decision to fight the court-ordered release of these photos, we discovered that our writers held a range of views on the pros and cons of the President's new position. Here is what six of the MOMocrats had to say about whether or not more photos of U.S. troops abusing and torturing prisoners should be publicly released:

Speak Now For Kids!

The PunditMom household is lucky when it comes to health insurance. Even though we pay the "full freight" for the policy we have, the coverage is pretty good and I never have to worry about whether PunditGirl's health care will be covered. But even as secure as Mr. PunditMom's job seems to be, I do wonder what would happen if the luxury of health care went away? Would I be so quick to consult the pediatrician for a nine-year-old's fever or complaint of a sore throat, let alone well visits?

That's right, I said luxury. How wrong is that -- to live in America and view good health care as a luxury? But that's exactly what it is for millions of families.

President Obama promised as a candidate that revamping our flawed health care system would be a priority. As Congress and the Obama administration move forward this month with plans to reform how families are insured in our country, I assumed that children, naturally, would be at the forefront of those efforts.

Of course, Obama has signed a law that increased funding for the SCHIP program, but wouldn't it be great if we could just assume that our country would, as a matter of policy, would insure children without having to show their families' incomes met certain requirements?

Health care for children no matter what.

BREAKING NEWS: Arlen Specter Leaving GOP for Democrats

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has announced that he is leaving the GOP to become a Democrat, and will run as a Democrat in his upcoming re-election bid in 2010. CNN has reported that constituents who were visiting Specter on an unrelated matter in his Washington, D.C. office burst into applause when he told them about his decision.  (What does that say about the state of the GOP??)

I wonder if this is why Chris Matthews decided not to run for that seat. Maybe Matthews has a little inside info he was keeping to himself? And, if so, was it a conflict for him not to report it as news???

And poor Al Franken. This can only mean the GOP will really throw their resources into keeping him out of the Senate, because if (when? fingers crossed!) he gets seated, the Dems will have reached the magic filibuster-proof number of 60!

I guess I can forgive Specter now for being a little rude to me on that Amtrak train last year when I said hello and told him my parents live in his state.

New EEOC Guidance on Caregiver Discrimination

My word of the day is "irony."

I was supposed to attend the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hearing about updated guidance on caregiver discrimination in the workplace for a live blog. Then my nine-year-old daughter got sick and was home from school, so I couldn't attend. Fortunately, there are other ways to skin a cat, and the EEOC made sure I got the links to their documents and the testimony.

The updated EEOC guidance is in response to the ever-increasing numbers of jobs being lost in this tight economy and the fear that employers may, in times of needing to cut jobs, use inappropriate and illegal criteria when it comes to working parents and other caregivers. There might be instances when job cuts can't be helped, but using care giving responsibilities as an excuse is often prohibited by federal law in a variety of circumstances.

10 Reasons Mothers are More Political in 2009

As I discovered last year by reading a lot of blogs, and from the wonderful essays all that Mothers of Intention contributors wrote at my place, moms are a lot more political than the we get credit for. Politicians think they know us and give us labels that make it easier for them to find pat stump speeches they are convinced will appeal to the stereotype they've devised.

If politicos and future candidates really want to know how to get our votes, it's not rocket science. Instead of yammering at us, take a minute to read and to listen. I know that's not their forte, so I'm going to make it easy for those establishment types.

In one convenient post, here are ten reasons mothers have become more political in 2009:

1. Issues are important, but there are still plenty of us invested in seeing a woman president before we die. Really. But she has to be qualified.

2. We're tired of candidates who mix religion and politics. Please don't pander. Some of us are devout and others are still sorting out our spiritual lives. But we're smart enough to know when you cross the line and try to combine the two.

3. We want all mothers to have quality, affordable child care. You're not giving it to us and we will elect people who feel the same way we do.

4. We want you to know we really do pay attention to the candidates' positions and who they are as people.

5. We've got well thought out opinions and we want you to pay attention to them instead of just giving us a virtual pat on the head and taking our votes for granted.

Five Imagined Confessions of Elisabeth Hasselbeck

You're not going to find me talking about uber-conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck much here at MOMocrats. We don't exactly see eye-to-eye with her on anything in the political realm!

But I thought it was interesting that high profile mom Hasselbeck announced recently on The View that she has taken advantage of baring some of her more embarrassing motherhood moments at Truu Confessions (formerly True Mom Confessions), a place for women to share and bond over the secrets of their lives. If you haven't been to the site, some random examples of confessions from anonymous posters include:

"Having a baby destroyed my body and I hate that. If I had known this would happen, I would have had way higher self esteem about my body before!"

and

"I love my daughter, but I don't always enjoy being a mother. I have little interest in playing with her. I dread the weekends because I know I have to entertain her for two whole days."

This is the kind of stuff so many of us think (and we know others do, too), but we don't dare say out loud for fear of being called a bad mommy. So it's nice to have a space to get stuff like this out in the open without fear of judgment.

While Hasselbeck "confessed" that there have been a few times when she's posted at Truu Confessions, she didn't go into any details of what she had to get off her chest.

Dear AIG, I've Solved Your Bonus Problem!

I don't practice law anymore, but after having contract law in my head for over 15 years, there are still a few tidbits bouncing around in there. Maybe I'd be better off if that wasn't the case, because then this whole crapola story about AIG not being able to get out of paying $165 million in bonuses to its employees wouldn't keep me up at night.

As a recovering attorney, I know full well people break contracts every day -- that's why lawyers have jobs! It's not a question of whether you can break the deal or not, it's a matter of whether one is prepared to live with the consequences of breaching a contract. So if AIG just said, 'We know we agreed under other circumstances that we'd pay big bonuses, but we're not paying because things are drastically different,' what then?

Poor AIG says it has no alternative. Woe to the insurance giant. It's stuck.

Or they're crying wolf.

Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele and a 14-Year-Old Walk Into a Bar

Yes, I know the fourteen-year-old wouldn't be able to get into the bar, but it just sounds like there's a really good joke there. I'm hoping that the joke is on the GOP.

It's quite a cast of characters that seem to be leading the way for GOP 3.0. First, there's Rush Limbaugh. What can I say about Limbaugh that won't get me sued? Well, I'll just take a few tidbits from his Wikipedia entry -- he's a college drop-out, and he's pretty much been a radio talk show host since then. Not that there's anything wrong with either of those things, but I hardly think it qualifies him to browbeat the GOP and the new RNC chairman, Michael Steele.

Not that I have any love lost for Michael Steele. When he was chosen to be the running mate of former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich, he had no political experience -- he'd been an attorney and later started a consulting business. Not especially the stuff that great political careers are made of.

Then, there's the 14-year-old. I'm not sure who's been brainwashing Jonathan Krohn, but I saw him on CNN after he spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (yes, you heard me right) and he sure does have the talking points down to an art.

Now, I am a political geek from WAY back and my interest in politics did start in my teens, but I've never met a 14-year-old who really understand the minutiae of the conservative movement or Constitutional intricacies. He's written a book they're all hot about, Define Conservatism. He's upset that people don't understand. And he does? At 14?

Krohn is being touted as the next big thing among conservatives, Steele wants to remake the GOP and Limbaugh is being treated as the de facto head of the party. If Limbaugh, Steele and Krohn are all they've got, I'm going to sleep a little better in my progressive household for the next four years.

Cross-posted from Joanne's place, PunditMom.