“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.
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Robert Kuttner: Safe and Free
The emerging history of Dzohkahr Tsarnaev suggests that while the much-expanded national security establishment has been largely successful at thwarting organized assaults by terrorists, it cannot prevent a one-off attack by an extremist-influenced sociopath.
To do so would require turning our country into a police state.
When I was a graduate student, a refugee professor once told the class, “I grew up in Nazi Germany. It was a very safe place to walk the streets. Unless you were perceived to be an enemy of the state.”
How many more of us will have to be presumed enemies of the state in order for the rest of us to be safe from random bombers? After an attack like this, national security ratchets up, and never seems to ratchet back down. And some trade-offs are truly difficult.
Dean Baker: Deficits Are Bad and the Sun Goes Around the Earth
Most of us accept that the earth goes around the sun. This is impressive since we can look up in the sky and see the sun going around the earth. We believe the opposite because we have been told about the research of astronomers over the centuries showing that what we can see with our own two eyes is wrong. Instead we accept that the motion of the stars and planets can be much better explained by the earth going around the sun.
Suppose for a moment that astronomers and people who write on astronomy did not agree on earth or solar orbits. Imagine that a substantial group of these people, including many of the most prominent astronomers, insisted that the sun goes around the earth, as anyone can plainly see. In that case there would likely be huge numbers of people who refused to accept that the earth goes around the sun. This is the state of modern economics.
Our country has been shaken by the events coming out of Boston in the past week. First, of course, there was the tragedy and loss of life and injuries from the Marathon bombing, and the fear of not knowing what would happen next. Then the alleged perpetrators were found, and we now face a debate about whether the surviving suspect, a naturalized American citizen, will be read his Miranda rights or afforded the full protections guaranteed by the Constitution. [..]
In our democracy — a nation of immigrants — the thing that binds us together is not a common language or race or religion, but our commitment to certain inalienable rights. The right to remain silent. The right to confront your accuser in a court of law. The right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Self-evident truths. It all began in Boston — when a group of brave colonists resisted the yoke of a despotic king and sought freedom. Protecting Tsarnaev’s constitutional rights is the best tribute we could give to the storied legacy of that great city where our freedoms and rights first took hold.
Les Leopold: America’s New Math: 1 Wall Street Hour = 21 Years of Hard Work For the Rest of Us
The new Rich List is out — yet another example of financial pornography. While nearly 15 million Americans still can’t find jobs due to the 2008 Wall Street-created crash, the top hedge manager, David Tepper, earned $1,057,692 an HOUR in 2012 — that’s as much as the average American family makes in 21 years!
America’s new math: one Wall Street hour = 21 years of hard work for the rest of us. [..]
It’s not just that these financial gurus are filthy rich. It’s that they are the richest of the rich and we don’t even know what they do. Overall, hedge fund managers make 50 to 100 times more than our top athletes, movie stars, CEOs, lawyers, writers, doctors and celebrities. Yet, their activities are treated like state secrets.
Lee Fang: How the Climate Reform Effort Was Poisoned From the Inside
On this Earth Day, we are three years out from the last window of opportunity to pass a climate bill in America. Harvard University’s Theda Skocpol has done the best job so far in diagnosing why, at the outset of the Obama administration with large Democratic majorities in Congress, progressives failed to enact a law regulating or pricing carbon pollution. Her conclusion is that reformers spent too much resources on an “inside game” of lobbyists and dealmakers and not enough on grassroots campaigning, and that reformers failed to make the case about the dangers of global warming.
She’s right, but here’s another reason: The guys who managed the campaign were also secretly working alongside the opposition.
John Nichols: What ‘The Boston Globe’ Got Right and Why It Should Change How Papers Think
When editors at The Boston Globe recognized that their city had been bombed by suspected terrorists who were still at large, they immediately mustered a substantial and experienced newsgathering team to cover one of the most tragic, frightening and unsettling moments in the long history of a great American city.
They got the story, from the epic photos of the heroism of emergency workers last Monday to the remarkable announcement on Friday night of the apprehension of the second suspect in the bombing attack. [..]
And the Globe’s coverage was something else: Free. [..]
The readers came. On the day the paywall came down, the paper attracted 1.2 million unique visitors-six times the normal amount. Of course, dramatic events drew readers; of course, many of the new readers were from outside the Boston area. But the numbers were way, way higher-locally, nationally and even internationally-because readers did not have to jump through digital hoops and type in credit card numbers.
So dropping the paywall made sense from a standpoint of civic responsibility and from the classic journalistic standpoint of wanting to get new information and ideas to the broadest possible audience.
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