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: Poverty and Recovery

In 2008, the first year of the Great Recession, the number of Americans living in poverty rose by 1.7 million to nearly 47.5 million. While hugely painful, that rise wasn’t surprising given the unraveling economy. What is surprising is that recent census data show that those poverty numbers held steady in 2009, even though job loss worsened significantly that year.

Clearly, the sheer scale of poverty – 15.7 percent of the country’s population – is unacceptable. But to keep millions more Americans from falling into poverty during a deep recession is a genuine accomplishment that holds a vital lesson: the safety net, fortified by stimulus, staved off an even more damaging crisis.

Congress should take a good look at those numbers, and consider that lesson carefully, before it commits to any more slashing and burning.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Reversing ‘Citizens United’

It will be a year this week since Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative activist colleagues on the Supreme Court joined together in a dramatic assault on American democracy. Their decision in the Citizens United case overturned more than a century’s worth of precedent by awarding corporations the rights of citizens with regard to electioneering. The court did away with limits on when corporations can spend on elections, how much they can spend and how they can spend their money, allowing unlimited contributions from corporate treasuries to flood the electoral landscape.

As The Nation noted in the days after the case was decided, “This decision tips the balance against active citizenship and the rule of law by making it possible for the nation’s most powerful economic interests to manipulate not just individual politicians and electoral contests but political discourse itself.”

Glenn Greenwald: The Vindication (by Barack Obama) of Dick Cheney

In the early months of Obama’s presidency, the American Right did to him what they do to every Democratic politician:  they accused him of being soft on defense (specifically “soft on Terror”) and leaving the nation weak and vulnerable to attack.  But that tactic quickly became untenable as everyone (other than his hardest-core followers) was forced to acknowledge that Obama was embracing and even expanding — rather than reversing — the core Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism.  As a result, leading right-wing figures began lavishing Obama with praise — and claiming vindication — based on Obama’s switch from harsh critic of those policies (as a candidate) to their leading advocate (once in power).

As early as May, 2009, former Bush OLC lawyer Jack Goldsmith wrote in The New Republic that Obama was not only continuing Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, but was strengthening them — both because he was causing them to be codified in law and, more important, converting those policies from right-wing dogma into harmonious bipartisan consensus.  Obama’s decision “to continue core Bush terrorism policies is like Nixon going to China,” Goldsmith wrote.  Last October, former Bush NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden — one of the most ideological Bush officials, whose confirmation as CIA chief was opposed by then-Sen. Obama on the ground he had overseen the illegal NSA spying program — gushed with praise for Obama: “there’s been a powerful continuity between the 43rd and the 44th president.”  James Jay Carafano, a homeland-security expert at the Heritage Foundation, told The New York Times’ Peter Baker last January: “I don’t think it’s even fair to call it Bush Lite.  It’s Bush.  It’s really, really hard to find a difference that’s meaningful and not atmospheric.“

Ari Melber: Why Roger Ailes Watches Fox News on Mute

“There are no parties that I want to go to, and I didn’t go to Columbia journalism school.”

Those are Roger Ailes’ qualifications to be one of the most important people in media, according to Roger Ailes.  The Fox News chief volunteered his opposition to parties and professors in an interview with Tom Junod, an Esquire reporter who just penned a sprawling, personality-mirroring profile of the most successful media strategist in American politics. Beyond the machinations of mere campaigns – where he also logged some time – Ailes led and continues to personify modern conservatives’ mastery of TV.  Good television is made of good stories, of course, and Ailes has his down pat.  It was one year and one week ago, in fact, when he told the New York Times why he was fit to run Fox News:  “My first qualification is I didn’t go to Columbia Journalism School. There are no parties in this town that I want to go to.”

At least the shtick is consistent.

John Nichols: Big Media Gets a Whole Lot Bigger as Obama’s FCC and Justice Department OK Comcast/NBC Merger

As brutal ironies go, it will be tough to beat this one.

On the same day that President Obama launched a drive to identify what he referred to as “excessive” regulation of business, the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice-both of which are defined by his appointments-effectively abandoned more than a century of antitrust principles and approved one of the biggest corporate mergers in American history.

Instead of regulating the telecommunications industry, the FCC’s vote to approve Comcast’s proposed acquisition of a majority stake in NBC Universal-creating a conglomerate that will be the largest cable provider, the largest Internet provider and one of the largest producers of content in the United States-represents the ultimate surrender to the demands of corporate America. traditional protections against media monopoly are abandoned.

Laura Flanders: Cutting Taxes Is Breaking the Economy

It scored the cover of The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Paul Krugman’s feature, “Can Europe Be Saved?” And a quick read may have left American readers feeling reassured. At least Americans aren’t in the Europeans’ fix with their common currency, enduring safety net, shared responsibilities and all that socialisty stuff.

Focus tightly enough on Europe and it’s just possible to ignore what’s really making business news. Namely us. Last week the World Bank warned of “serious tensions and pitfalls” ahead in the global economy, and less than 3 percent growth for the United States. That came on the heels of the news that the United States could lose its triple-A credit rating if the national debt keeps going up.

Dean Baker: Making Social Security More Progressive: The Games They Play in Washington

The Washington insiders may not be very honest in their efforts to cut Social Security, but they deserve some sympathy. After all, on policy grounds they have no case.

Social Security is an incredibly effective program. It provides a core retirement income to tens of millions of people, while insuring almost the entire workforce against disability or early death. And, it does this at an administrative cost that is about one-tenth as high as private insurers charge. In addition, it is fully solvent long into the future.

They have an even harder time with the politics. Social Security is enormously popular across the political spectrum from the left-wing of the Democratic Party to the devout Tea Party faithful.

In short, those who want to cut Social Security must overcome the fact that they have no argument on policy grounds and their scheme faces enormous political opposition. As a result, the Washington insiders have no choice. If they want to cut Social Security they will have to lie, cheat and steal. And the Washington insiders are very good at these tactics.

Josh Silver: Comcastrophe: Comcast/NBC Merger Approved

Today, the Federal Communications Commission blessed the merger of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable and residential Internet provider, with NBC-Universal. The Justice Department is expected to follow suit right away, removing the last obstacle to the unprecedented consolidation of media and Internet power in the hands of one company.

You should be afraid and mad as hell.

The new Comcast will control an obscene number of media outlets, including the NBC broadcast network, numerous cable channels, two dozen local NBC and Telemundo stations, movie studios, online video portals, and the physical network that distributes that media content to millions of Americans through Internet and cable connections.