Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

New York Times Editorial: Can You Trust the Market?

The stock market was up in the first week of 2011 – following rallies in 2009 and 2010 – but many investors are still wary. According to the Investment Company Institute, a mutual funds trade group, 2010 was the fourth year in a row that individual investors withdrew more money than they added to funds that invest in American stocks. Some $80 billion was withdrawn in 2010, on top of nearly $240 billion in the three years before that.

Why the retreat? One explanation is reasonable doubt about the economy. Of late, profits, and related stock-market gains, have been fueled not by increased revenues but by layoffs and other cuts – an unsustainable pattern. Another explanation is a loss of faith in financial markets. The Dodd-Frank reform law could help restore that faith, but the new Republican majority in the House has vowed to try to block the law’s implementation, including regulations to make deal-making by banks more transparent. Some Democrats may join in.

Paul Krugman: Climate of Hate

When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?  

Put me in the latter category. I’ve had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the final stages of the 2008campaign. I remembered the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 – an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again. The Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion: in April 2009 an internal report (pdf file) warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence.

Conservatives denounced that report. But there has, in fact, been a rising tide of threats and vandalism aimed at elected officials, including both Judge John Roll, who was killed Saturday, and Representative Gabrielle Giffords. One of these days, someone was bound to take it to the next level. And now someone has.

E.J. Dionne, Jr.: Turning the Tables on Health Care

Rule One of politics: When you have the advantage, don’t allow your opponents to turn the tables.

House Republicans violated this rule when they decided to make repeal of the health care law their first major act in the 112th Congress. The mistake will haunt them for years.

It was a surprising error from a leadership that showed shrewd judgment and exceptional discipline during President Barack Obama’s first two years. John Boehner is now speaker of the House because he and his party focused on demonizing everything Obama did and winning the public argument over both the health care plan and the stimulus. . . .

Already, that impending vote had forced the GOP to fudge its pledge to respect the minority’s rights, since the leadership ruled out any amendments to its bill. The inconsistency led Boehner to produce one of the lamest sound bites of his career. “Well, listen, I promised a more open process,” he said. “I didn’t promise that every single bill was going to be an open bill.”

In other words, he was for an open process before he was against it, and it depends on what the meaning of the word open is. Not a good start.

Ralph Nader: Tea Party Republicans May End Party Discipline

The hot question buzzing through Washington is: What impact will the many faces of the Tea Party have on congressional Republicans, now in charge of the House of Representatives?

Republicans under Mitch McConnell in the Senate and John Boehner in the House have been almost 100 percent unified — a feat that has given them many victories over the Democrats. Any fracturing of that discipline can weaken the Republican Party on Capitol Hill and give new headaches for business interests.

The Tea Party phenomenon is really composed of three layers of political energy. First are the Tea Party people who range from pure libertarian Ron and Rand Paul types to defenders of plutocracy. They are mostly from the long-neglected conservative wing of the Republican Party that dislikes both the corporate Republicans such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as well as the Democrats like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

The second layer is those new members of Congress who owe their election, many over incumbent Democrats, to the fund- raising energy and voter turnout of grassroots Tea Partiers.

While the third layer is composed of incumbent Republicans such as Representatives Steve King of Iowa and Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, and Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who have declared their fealty to the Tea Party, though what that specifically means isn’t clear.

John Dickerson: The Paucity of Hope

After the Arizona shootings, can Obama, or anyone, bring America back from the brink?

Who will be the Daniel Hernandez of this political moment? In the chaos that followed the shots outside an Arizona supermarket on Saturday, the young intern calmly sought out his boss and held her upright, pressing her wound and probably saving the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The political conversation could use that combination of wisdom and action. So far, the voices have been defensive, accusatory or noncommittal. The first two are unhelpful and the third is ineffective.

Who will be the Daniel Hernandez of this political moment? In the chaos that followed the shots outside an Arizona supermarket on Saturday, the young intern calmly sought out his boss and held her upright, pressing her wound and probably saving the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The political conversation could use that combination of wisdom and action. So far, the voices have been defensive, accusatory or noncommittal. The first two are unhelpful and the third is ineffective.

Emily Bazelon: Anchors Aweigh

If conservatives want to deny “anchor babies” U.S. citizenship, they’ll have to change the Constitution.

“Anchor babies” are back in the news: Be prepared for another round of railing against the granting of automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. There was a burst of this last summer, when Sen. Lindsey Graham rumbled about pregnant Mexican women crossing the border to give birth and win American citizenship for their babies-which he inelegantly called “drop and leave”-and how it was necessary to change the Constitution to stop them. Now Rep. Steve King of Iowa promises to end automatic birthright citizenship through legislation, and conservative legislators from five states are talking about excluding kids from a new thing called state citizenship, and also creating distinct (second-class) birth certificates for these kids.

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