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Week of
February 10, 2012 | | CONTROVERSY Intentionally or not, the White House has fired up a host of its liberal followers with the administration’s ruling that Catholic institutions must provide birth-control coverage for employees. President Obama has kept the tone conversational, with spokesman Jay Carney saying Wednesday that the president “wants to find a way to implement it that can allay some of the concerns that have been expressed.” Those concerns have come from Republicans, who have said that the president is weighing a war against religious rights. Meanwhile, Democrats have fired back by saying that it is an issue of women’s reproductive rights. A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that a majority of Americans (55 percent) agree with requiring employers to provide health-care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost. Eleanor Clift examines whether the Obama Administration meant to pick a fight. MILITARY Women in the U.S. armed forces have some new job opportunities: the Pentagon is relaxing its restrictions on women in combat to allow females to serve in non-infantry battalion jobs. The positions put women closer to the action in positions like radio operators, intelligence analysts, medics, and tank mechanics, but they will still be barred from front-line infantry and special-ops forces. The change is expected to open up about 14,000 jobs to female soldiers, and it came as a result of a Pentagon study of women in combat. To get involved, go to the American Women Veterans Foundation. MY TURN The former Alaska governor voices support for Rick Santorum’s decision to leave the campaign trail while his daughter was hospitalized with pneumonia, writing, “It’s a sacrifice every parent and caregiver of a child with special needs sympathizes with.” Palin’s youngest son, Trig, has Down syndrome, and when she first heard the diagnosis, she was so scared that she did not discuss her pregnancy for months, she reveals in a Newsweek exclusive. But she now says, “At the end of the day, I wouldn’t trade the relative difficulties for any convenience or absence of fear. God knew what he was doing when he blessed us with Trig.” RIGHT-WING HERO? The political ramifications of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure battle with Planned Parenthood might be an ongoing headache for the Komen foundation, but could actually be a good thing for the former vice president of public policy, Karen Handel, who resigned on Tuesday. Handel made an unsuccessful bid to be the Republican candidate for governor in Georgia in 2010, but was docked points by conservatives for not having a hard enough anti-abortion stance. Handel was viewed by many as the driving force behind the push for the foundation to defund Planned Parenthood (the group later reversed that move following public backlash) and now can use the her resignation as a platform for standing up for the pro-life community, particularly if she chooses to run for office again. Handel also turned down a severance package from the Komen foundation, meaning she avoided any sort of don’t-speak-out clauses and has already set up her own website and Twitter account. PROGRESS A landmark law passed Wednesday night in Libya’s National Transitional Council guarantees women at least 40 seats on the new 200-member Constituent Assembly—a 20-percent representation. That’s better than the current U.S. Congress, which has 93 women in 541 seats—a 17-percent representation. The initial law would have guaranteed 10 percent of seats to women, but the provision was later dropped to favor the final version, which requires parties to allocate 40 seats to women in the assembly. The assembly, once put in place, will draft the country’s new constitution. | | 
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