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Quote of the day. "It's cool now to be an active, involved father. Overall, men being more active fathers is starting to become more of the norm and less of the anomaly." Aaron Rochlen, associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas-Austin, on new attitudes in 21st century fatherhood. (USA Today)
Health care reform. Debate on Health-Care Reform Gets Started With Delay “The debate over a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health-care system got off to a rocky start in the Senate yesterday as lawmakers delayed action on one key bill and engaged in partisan sniping over another.” Partisan Ire Surfaces as Senators Start Work on Health Bill “Partisan anger flared Wednesday as senators began the public drafting of legislation to remake the health care system. By day’s end, lawmakers had settled in for a long, hard slog that may not fit with President Obama’s goal of signing a bill within four months.” Some common ground emerges in health battle “At the same time partisan divisions over health care are becoming increasingly stark, Democrats and Republicans in Congress are finding consensus on ideas that ultimately could be included in a final plan.”
Hard times for children. Children Suffer as States Cut Health Budgets “As the recession forces more hospitals and doctors to pare costs and services, the cutbacks are hitting one group of patients especially hard: children." Job losses hurting child support “Child-support payments are falling as parents lose their jobs. States report that more parents are failing to pay and more are going to court to reduce their obligations. Some custodial parents are asking for higher payments because their income is down.”
Financial regulation. Some Lawmakers Question Expanded Reach for the Fed “No sooner had President Obama proposed a new regulatory road map for the country’s financial system on Wednesday than senior lawmakers expressed reservations about one of the plan’s central elements — to broadly expand the reach of the Federal Reserve to regulate financial risk across the entire system.” Wall Street isn't buying Obama's reform plan “At its core, President Obama's overhaul of regulations for the financial industry seeks a fundamental change: Make the federal bureaucracy work for consumers, not just Wall Street. And Wall Street, not surprisingly, doesn't like it.” Obama Defends Financial Overhaul “President Obama introduced his plan to reform financial regulations yesterday as a key to reviving the economy, setting up an intense battle over the particulars that is likely to rage on Capitol Hill for the rest of the year.” How Obama's regulation plan aims to fix what went wrong “President Barack Obama's proposed overhaul of financial regulations aims to eliminate a number of the loopholes that contributed to the recession. Here's a summary of what went wrong and how his proposals would try to fix it.”
Older Army recruits. Older Recruits Challenge Army and Vice Versa “And while the number of such recruits, more than 3,800, is small by Army standards, the pace of over-35 enlistment jumped sharply in the first months of this year. Motives vary, from a yearning for midlife adventure to a desire to serve their country. But rising unemployment is also a major reason …”
Guns to Mexico. Gun flow south is a crisis for two nations “The United States lacks a coordinated strategy to stem the flow of weapons smuggled across its southern border, a failure that has fueled the rise of powerful criminal cartels and violence in Mexico, a government watchdog agency report has found.”
Iran. Protesters Defy Iranian Efforts to Cloak Unrest “Iranians angry at the results of last week’s election pushed their protest forward on Wednesday, from tens of thousands who again flooded the streets here to six soccer players on the national team who wore opposition green wristbands at a World Cup qualifying game.” Iran elections: mass arrests and campus raids as regime hits back “Iran's government sought today to decapitate the opposition movement by rounding up hundreds of activists, journalists and intellectuals. A total of 500 were reported to have been detained across the country, including well-known political figures from the 1979 Islamic revolution.” Iran body to hear vote complaints “Iran's most senior legislative body has said that it will meet the three defeated candidates from Friday's presidential election to discuss their complaints about the poll.” Iran probes 646 poll complaints “Iran's top legislative body says it is investigating 646 complaints from the three defeated presidential candidates over last week's election.” U.S. Struggling for Right Response to Iran “The political unrest in Iran presents the Obama administration with a dilemma: keep quiet to pursue a nuclear deal with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, or heed calls to respond more supportively to the protesters there -- and risk alienating the Shiite cleric.”
Darfur. Sudan's 'Coordinated' Genocide in Darfur Is Over, U.S. Envoy Says “President Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, said Wednesday that the Sudanese government is no longer engaging in a 'coordinated' campaign of mass murder in Darfur, marking a shift in the U.S. characterization of the violence there as an 'ongoing genocide.'” U.N. rapporteur says Sudan still carrying out strikes against Darfuris “The U.N. human rights investigator for Sudan said on Tuesday that Khartoum's forces continue to carry out land and air attacks on civilians in Darfur, and arrest and torture activists and aid workers there.”
Pakistan. Air raid 'kills nine' in Pakistan “Pilotless U.S. drone aircraft are thought to have carried out the attack in which missiles were fired at a house near the town of Wana on the Afghan border.” Pakistan tries to turn tribesmen against Taliban leader with trade blockade “Pakistan has imposed an economic blockade on the mountain stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, in an effort to turn his tribesmen against him and encourage civilians to flee before a planned ground offensive.” Pakistan’s ‘Invisible Refugees’ Burden Cities “Pakistan is experiencing its worst refugee crisis since partition from India in 1947, and while the world may be familiar with the tent camps that have rolled out like carpets since its operation against the Taliban started in April, the overwhelming majority of the nearly three million people who have fled live unseen in houses and schools.”
Zimbabwe. Rights in Zimbabwe 'precarious' “Zimbabwe is still suffering 'persistent and serious' human rights violations, Amnesty International says.”
Profile. In Finland, a Man of Politics, Without His Cloth “By conventional lights, the Rev. Mitro Repo’s candidacy for the European Parliament never should have succeeded. As a Finnish Orthodox priest, he was bucking his superiors, who have strict rules about the mixing of politics and piety. As a Social Democrat, he was bucking the political tides sweeping Europe after the financial crisis.”
Opinion. With Iran, Think Before You Speak (John Kerry, New York Times) “The grass-roots protests that have engulfed Iran since its presidential election last week have grabbed America’s attention and captured headlines — unfortunately, so has the clamor from neoconservatives urging President Obama to denounce the voting as a sham and insert ourselves directly in Iran’s unrest.” Too Poor to Make the News (Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times) “But the outlook is not so cozy when we look at the effects of the recession on a group generally omitted from all the vivid narratives of downward mobility — the already poor, the estimated 20 percent to 30 percent of the population who struggle to get by in the best of times. This demographic, the working poor, have already been living in an economic depression of their own.” Bipartisan Heavy Lifters for Team Up for Health Care Reform (David S. Broder, Washington Post) “Now [Tom] Daschle and [Bob] Dole, along with another former Republican leader, Howard Baker, have come together with a report outlining the provisions of a possible bipartisan health bill and strong recommendations on how to pass it.” Bipartisanship Is a Worthy Goal, But Health Care Reform Is More Important (E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post) “Where did we get the idea that the only good health-care bill is a bipartisan bill? Is bipartisanship more important than whether a proposal is practical and effective? And if bipartisanship is a legitimate goal, isn't each party equally responsible for achieving it?”
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