Saturday Round Up: Obama Sees Women's Economic Power in Jobs Speech

 

The big presidential “Jobs Speech” has been delivered, and Obama’s now on the road to garner support.

Expectations were high for this speech. The most important takeaway from my perspective was that Obama’s passion had returned, and his energy was higher than we’ve seen in a long while. Finally, after years of tossing the agenda setting responsibility to a Congress functionally unable to lead, he presented a specific proposal and exhorted Congress in no uncertain terms: “Pass this jobs bill.” Thank goodness. Even the Republicans responded with a more respectful and measured rhetoric afterward. This week’s Round Up offers a selection of pieces that respond to the speech. What did you think about it? Please share…

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Will Obama’s jobs plan work?

What’s your opinion of the president’s speech? Please post below. Here’s mine:

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Arena Asks: President Barack Obama on Thursday proposed a $447 billion jobs package composed of tax cuts, aid to states and infrastructure spending, challenging a joint session of Congress to shut down the “political circus” and pass what he dubbed the American Jobs Act as soon as possible.

Will President Obama’s jobs plan work? And can any president really “create jobs”?

My Answer: Passion! What a relief to see President Cool Obama express some passion. I think the whole nation, regardless of political persuasion, breathed differently when at last, he energetically, definitively, told Congress what he wanted: “Pass the bill.”

I hope they do pass the bill, and soon…

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POLITICO Arena: What would you ask the candidates?

Get into the act! What question do you want to ask the candidates? Post your comments here.

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Arena Asks: Eight Republican presidential hopefuls are gearing up to take the stage tonight for the POLITICO/NBC News debate – the first major faceoff as campaign season kicks into high gear.

If you were a moderator at tonight’s debate, what would you ask the candidates and why?

My Answer: You see government as the problem. Yet you want to be not just part of it but to lead it…

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She's Doing It: Barbara Strachan Gives Girls of Incarcerated Moms Hope

FBI Director Robert Mueller presents GSACPC’s Barb Strachan with the Community Leadership Award.I still have my Girl Scout badge sash and a newspaper article about the year my father chaired the cookie sale in Temple, TX. I was in junior high school and looked pretty dorky in the photo, wearing my full green regalia. Daddy–never one to do anything in a small way–bought 12 dozen boxes of cookies. The freezer was packed with Thin Mints and those butter cookies I love with tea, and my friends knew what they’d be having for snacks at my house for the next year.

But enough of that. Today’s Girl Scouts are doing much more interesting things. “She’s Doing It” this week features Barbara Strachan, the Program Director of Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB) for the Arizona Cactus-Pine Girl Scout Council

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Friday Round Up: Good News About Women and Power Edition

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jws-zl7q-0[/youtube]Yesterday afternoon I went to the Women’s Media Center office in New York to do a short video interview about the future of feminism. This set me to thinking once again about how much unused power women have in our hands, as I continue my search for the practical power tools and tips that can help us get past our resistance to power…

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The Joys (and Occasional Challenges) of Mentoring and Sponsoring

A “Heartfeldt” THANK YOU to everyone who read and commented on my virgin column on leadership at BlogHer Career. Your lively responses, challenges, and questions affirm that leadership issues are high on the agenda.

[caption id="attachment_5338" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Fork in the Road courtesy of Debra Condren, author of "Ambition Is Not a Dirty Word""][/caption]

Hands down the hottest topic in questions this past two weeks was mentoring. Such as:

What’s the relationship between mentoring and fostering leadership capacity in women? Mentoring compared to sponsorship? How do you get a mentor and cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship? How to lead, mentor, and retain high performing employees? How to get a mentor or be a mentor when you’re a consultant or an entrepreneurial business of one?

Great questions all, threading into two major categories around which there are many stories and studies to share:

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Should voters consider candidates’ religious beliefs?

Don’t get me wrong: I think religious literacy, as in knowing the history and beliefs of various religions including one’s own, is important for every citizen. And in answer to the question of whether voters should consider candidates’ religious beliefs, I should have added that people need to understand what each of the candidates’ religious beliefs are so as to understand better how that individual might govern. Beyond that…well, read on and let me know what you think.

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Arena Asks: Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, writes that the religious beliefs of Republican presidential candidates should be a factor in voters’ decisions. Does Keller have a point? Or does this view, as conservative radiotalk show host Hugh Hewitt suggests, “stoke the fires of religious intolerance by turning this presidential campaign into the occasion for an inquisition into all of the Republicans’ religious beliefs?”

My Answer: I do not care what people believe. I care what they do…

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She’s Doing It: Madge and LaKeisha

Madge WoodsMadge Woods was a mediator and at a networking event, a woman asked her if she would like to mentor a parolee. The program was called “VIP Volunteers in Parole” and was then funded through the California State Bar Association. While Madge is not a lawyer, she was told they wanted her anyway and she agreed.

Her first parolee, in her words was “a disaster” and eventually after three years Madge “learned her lesson and moved on” and then she met LaKeisha Burton.

As I wrap up my next HeartFeldt Leadership BlogHer column on this very same subject, it is their touching story written by Madge I’m honored to share on this week’s She’s Doing It.

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Is Rick Perry dumb?

When you have Kinky Friedman, shame on him, lauding Rick Perry’s charms, you must believe with perfect faith that the Politico Arena question of the day can only be answered one way. Read on please and tell me what your answer would have been.

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Arena Asks: Doubts about Gov. Rick Perry’s intellect have hounded him since he was first elected as a Texas state legislator nearly three decades ago.While Texas loyalist reject the suggestion, Perry seems to almost welcome the low bar, even cracking on the campaign trail that there were few differences between he and former President George Bush. Does Perry’s attitude threaten to derail his presidential race if he continues to compare himself to Bush?

My Answer: Dumb like a fox…

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Friday Round Up on Saturday: Women’s Equality Day Edition

“Men, their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less.” ~ Susan B. Anthony, 19th Century Women’s Rights and Suffrage Leader

In celebration and in reflection of Women’s Equality Day, this week’s Round Up collects some wonderful reading about it. Not only about the time when women achieved the right to vote via the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26th, 1920 but also frank and honest discussions about where women are today in this journey and about the work ahead. Here’s a great timeline from the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership, headed until her untimely death last week by my friend and dedicated leader for women’s equality, Nora Bredes.

PANELPanel at the University of Rochester’s Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership. With Susan B. and Elizabeth Cady Stanton pictured in the background, and the late Nora Bredes at the podium moderating panelists Jennifer Lawless (Director of the American University Women and Politics Institute), Allida Black (Founder of the Eleanor Roosevelt Project) and me (in my Susan B Anthony costume–she always wore black with a red scarf) in October, 2010.

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