“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.
The Sunday Talking Heads:
This Week with Christiane Amanpour: David Axelrod talks to “This Week” anchor Christiane Amanpour about the fall elections and whether Democrats can hold the House. And revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book about the president’s conduct of the war in Afghanistan raises questions about what role politics played in crafting the war policy. Also, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell comes to “This Week” for an exclusive interview.
Christiane sits down with Queen Rania of Jordan in another exclusive interview. With the U.N. General Assembly meeting this week to renew its pledge for the Millennium Development Goals, Christiane talks to Queen Rania about her work on global poverty, women’s health and education. They’ll also discuss the Middle East peace talks and the battle against extremism.
The Roundtable with George Will, Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile, former Bush political strategist Matthew Dowd and Ron Brownstein of the National Journal who has a comprehensive look at the Republicans running for Senate and why he believes they are the most ideologically cohesive group of candidates that a party has ever fielded.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:Joining Mr. Scheiffer this Sunday will be Marco Rubio, Republican Candidate for Florida Senate, Ken Buck, Republican Candidate for Colorado Senate and Sal Russo, Chief Strategist, Tea Party Express.
The Chris Matthews Show: Mr. Matthews will join John Heilemann, New York Magazine
National Political Correspondent, Norah O’Donnell, MSNBC Chief Washington Correspondent, Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Columnist and Michael Gerson, The Washington Post Columnist. They will discuss “Can Barack Obama Get the Magic Back?” and “Was Obama Boxed In By the Brass on Afghanistan?”
Meet the Press with David Gregory: Mr. Gregory’s guest will be Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN)
Chair, House Republican Conference, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
Chair, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, Michelle Rhee, Chancellor, DC Public Schools, Robert Bobb, Emergency Financial Manager, Detroit Public Schools and Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers.Topics will be the “new” Republican “Pledge to America” campaign agenda and kick off of NBC’s week-long “Education Nation” with an in-depth look at reforming our education system
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State of the Union with Candy Crowley: This Sunday… three different perspectives. The battle for Congress heats up with just 37 days until the November midterms. What is the Democrats’ strategy? And with the economy stalled even some of the President’s most fervent admirers are starting to lose hope. What does it mean for control of Congress… we’ll ask Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL).
Then, as Republicans unveil a new “Pledge to America”, will it be déjà vu of the 1994 elections? Will conservatives embrace the Republican “Pledge”? Is it enough to overcome the anti-establishment Washington sentiment prevailing across the country. We’ll talk to two Senior Republicans: Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA).
Finally, the Independent view with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on all this and more.
Fareed Zakaris: GPS: Unavailable at the time of this diary’s publication
Bill Maher: New Rule: Rich People Who Complain About Being Vilified Should Be Vilified
New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It’s so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being “rich”, or what tax rate is “too much.” But I’ve done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole.
And let’s be clear: that’s 3.6% only on income above 250 grand — your first 250, that’s still on the house. Now, this week we got some horrible news: that one in seven Americans are now living below the poverty line. But I want to point you to an American who is truly suffering: Ben Stein. You know Ben Stein, the guy who got rich because when he talks it sounds so boring it’s actually funny. He had a game show on Comedy Central, does eye drop commercials, doesn’t believe in evolution? Yeah, that asshole. I kid Ben — so, the other day Ben wrote an article about his struggle. His struggle as a wealthy person facing the prospect of a slightly higher marginal tax rate. Specifically, Ben said that when he was finished paying taxes and his agents, he was left with only 35 cents for every dollar he earned. Which is shocking, Ben Stein has an agent? I didn’t know Broadway Danny Rose was still working.
Robert Reich: The Super Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Gets Poorer, and the Democrats Punt
The super-rich got even wealthier this year, and yet most of them are paying even fewer taxes to support the eduction, job training, and job creation of the rest of us. According to Forbes magazine’s annual survey, just released, the combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans climbed 8% this year, to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members of the list, while 85 saw a decline.
For example, Charles and David Koch, the energy magnates who are pouring vast sums of money into Republican coffers and sponsoring tea partiers all over America, each gained $5.5 billion of wealth over the past year. Each is now worth $21.5 billion.
Wall Street continued to dominate the list; 109 of the richest 400 are in finance or investments.
From another survey we learn that the 25 top hedge-fund managers got an average of $1 billion each, but paid an average of 17 percent in taxes (because so much of their income is considered capital gains, taxed at 15 percent thanks to the Bush tax cuts).
The rest of America got poorer, of course. The number in poverty rose to a post-war high. The median wage continues to deteriorate. And some 20 million Americans don’t have work.
Rep. James E. Clyburn: GOP Agenda Is a Plague on Americans
As we head towards the midterm elections, the choice facing the American people that will shape the future of our country could not be clearer. Will we chose to go back to the policies that led to the worst recession since the Great Depression, the loss of eight million jobs, exploded our deficit after years of record surpluses, and put the financial security of our nation’s seniors in jeopardy?
President Obama has likened the management of the economy by my Republican colleagues and President Bush to having driven a car into the ditch, and then asking for the keys back. Well, while the driver got off scot-free, some of the passengers suffered blunt force trauma, and for the last two years we’ve been trying to stabilize them with various remedies, some of them unprecedented.
Now that our economy is showing signs of life, the Republicans want to go back to those “exact same” failed policies that drove our economy into the ditch in the first place. They have unveiled a new Republican pledge to America — filled with the same old ideas. And I am convinced that if their plan is implemented it would be a plague on America.
Dr, Andrew Weill: Fortunately, ‘Corn Sugar’ Has Become a Sticky PR Mess
Recently, Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times interviewed several food-quality activists, including me, about a Sept. 14 petition by the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) to change the name of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to “corn sugar.”
Her question: What new name would you suggest?
I thought all of the responses had merit – for example, writer Michael Pollan offered “enzymatically altered corn glucose” which has an appropriately frankenfoodish ring about it – but my vote was to disallow any change. My reasoning: the name as it stands is accurate, and the industry should not be allowed to circumvent the well-earned distrust HFCS has engendered. (Putting aside my concern that HFCS may be metabolically worse than table sugar – I think the research behind that notion is debatable – my main worry is that the syrup’s cheapness, due to corn subsidies, allows manufacturers to sweeten a huge percentage of the American food supply. I believe that’s been a significant contributor to the obesity-diabetes epidemic.)
Now, several days after the petition to the FDA, what remains striking to me about this whole episode is how public, how incredibly visible, this attempted subterfuge has become. The CRA clearly hoped to do this quietly – as it might have in, say, 1994, when the story might have garnered only a few inches of type buried deep in the Times’ gray pages.
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