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”.

John Nichols: After Deficit Panel Deadlock, Progressives Must Promote the Alternative to Austerity

National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform failed to produce a mandate for assaulting Social Security, undermining Medicare and Medicaid and generally balancing the budget on the backs of working Americans.

But that hasn’t stopped its co-chairmen from claiming a sort of victory for their plan to make Main Street pay for Wall Street’s failures.

Their goal is obvious. Commission co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles want to spin a win they did not achieve in order to foster the false impression that their ominously titled ” Moment of Truth” proposal is the only real alternative to fiscal ruin. That’s not the case. There are better proposals-such as the detailed to austerity outlined by commission member Jan Schakowsky. But this is a critical juncture, and progressives need to be conscious that an effort will be made to narrow the range of options and impose key elements of a bad plan that failed to gain required support.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: A Real Jaw Dropper at the Federal Reserve

At a Senate Budget Committee hearing in 2009, I asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to tell the American people the names of the financial institutions that received an unprecedented backdoor bailout from the Federal Reserve, how much they received, and the exact terms of this assistance. He refused. A year and a half later, as a result of an amendment that I was able to include in the Wall Street reform bill, we have begun to lift the veil of secrecy at the Fed, and the American people now have this information.

It is unfortunate that it took this long, and it is a shame that the biggest banks in America and Mr. Bernanke fought to keep this secret from the American public every step of the way. But, the details on this bailout are now on the Federal Reserve’s website, and this is a major victory for the American taxpayer and for transparency in government.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky: Why I Voted Against the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Reduction Plan

While I cannot support the Simpson-Bowles plan, I thank the co-chairmen for their dedication to our difficult task over the last eight months, and I agree with them that the work was constructive despite our inability to get fourteen votes.

I offered my own plan to achieve the goal outlined by the President to achieve primary budget balance by 2015 with one very different assumption. I believe that we can do it without further eroding the middle class in America.

It pays to remember that just 10 years ago we had a budget surplus and the debt was rapidly decreasing. During the Bush years, those surpluses disappeared and huge debt accumulated due to two unfunded wars, two unfunded tax cuts that mainly enriched the already wealthy, and a blind eye to the recklessness of Wall Street which caused 8 million Americans to lose their jobs and millions more to lose their savings, the value of their homes and the homes themselves.

Jane Goodall: Cancún climate change summit: Protect our forests to protect people too

We must consider setting an explicit time frame for protecting forests and halting their rapid degradation

The rate at which species are disappearing from Planet Earth is horrifying. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural rate of extinction. This is largely due to human activity. The United Nations declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity to raise awareness of the critical role that biological diversity plays in sustaining life.

At the same time, nations are grappling with thorny questions of how to slow climate change. The UN is currently convening its 16th climate change conference in Cancún, Mexico, where bold steps may be taken to protect forests as a means of lowering carbon emissions.

Robert Reich: The American Jobs Emergency Requires Action

This is not a recovery. It’s a continuing jobs emergency and it demands action.

We learned this morning that unemployment rose to 9.8 percent in November and employers added only 39,000 jobs. Private employers added 50,000 — the smallest gain since January. Government employment continued to shrink.

We’re heading in the wrong direction. In October, the jobless rate was 9.6 percent, and employers added 172,000 jobs. Private-sector job growth totaled 160,000. At this rate unemployment won’t return to its pre-recession level for more than a decade, if ever.

James Moore: WikiLeaks and the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity

“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” ~ Henry Anatole Grunwald

There is a very simple reason WikiLeaks has sent a furious storm of outrage across the globe and it has very little to do with diplomatic impropriety. It is this: The public is uninformed because of inadequate journalism. Consumers of information have little more to digest than Kim Kardashian’s latest paramour or the size of Mark Zuckerberg’s jet. Very few publishers or broadcasters post reporters to foreign datelines and give them time to develop relationships that lead to information. Consequently, journalism is atrophying from the extremities inward and the small heart it has will soon become even more endangered.

So, long live WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. And if Pfc. Bradley Manning is the leaker, he deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

James K. Galbraith: Casting Light on “The Moment of Truth”

The report of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, issued on December 1, 2010 by Chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, is entitled “The Moment of Truth.” The words appear in block caps on the second page, weighty and portentous. They reappear in the first paragraph of the preamble: “Throughout our nation’s history, Americans have found the courage to do right by our children’s future. Deep down, every American knows that we face a moment of truth once again.”

These sentences set the tone. The first is a bald-faced lie, as a Westerner like Senator Simpson knows perfectly well. To the contrary, we have often fallen under the sway of robber barons, water barons, oil barons, bison-killers, clear-cutters and strip-miners, hell-bent on maximum pillage in the shortest time. Only occasionally have a few heroes like Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and Harold Ickes Sr. emerged to battle for the most precious physical elements of our heritage — and then only with limited success. In the next paragraph, the Commission states the threat: “Our challenge is clear and inescapable. America cannot be great if we go broke.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein: Millionaires Don’t Need Tax Cuts

I don’t know a single millionaire who needs a tax cut right now. But I know plenty of middle class Americans who desperately need every extra dollar in these tough economic times.

That’s why I strongly support the “Middle Class Tax Cuts Act” to give permanent tax relief to the struggling families that need it most. The economic turmoil of the last three years has left many Americans cash-strapped and struggling to stay afloat. And make no mistake, extending the current tax rates for the middle class is crucial to encourage economic growth.

By extending current tax rates for 98 percent of taxpayers, we provide certainty and security for hard-pressed, working-class Americans.

Howard Fineman: Fly Away, Air Force One

WASHINGTON — Sometimes there are days here that sum up the state of politics and the condition of the country.

Today is one: While Democrats in Congress fight a rear-guard action against $700 billion in new tax cuts for the rich, and the city frets over the $14 trillion national debt, and officials announce that the unemployment rose to 9.8 percent, President Obama is gone — off in Afghanistan bucking up troops in an admittedly unwinnable war that is now the longest and costliest (perhaps $2 trillion, depending on your math) in our history.

No one moment has more vividly demonstrated the predicament the president is in as a result of having accepted the basic fiscal and military parameters of the presidency that preceded him.