“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”.
The Sunday Talking Heads:
This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Ms. Amanpour will have an exclusive with Rep. Ron Paul (R-WI) and her round table guests will be ABC News’ George Will, Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post, former Reagan budget director David Stockman, and Chrystia Freeland of Thomson-Reuters debating the Ryan plan and what the country needs to do to get back on firm financial footing.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr Schieffer’s guests Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ), Gov. Robert Bentley, (R-AL), Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson and
Georgetown University’s Michael Eric Dyson will discuss the Alabama storms, Syria and Obama’s birth certificate.Sheesh, the MSM needs to stop talking about CT’s.
The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post Senior Political Editor, Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent, Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst and Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune Columnist who will discuss:
Is Racism Behind Attacks On President Obama’s Qualifications?
How Has President Obama Changed The Job Description?
Meet the Press with David Gregory: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) grant exclusive interviews. Virginia Governor and Vice-Chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association, Bob McDonnell (R-VA), and Former White House Senior Advisor, David Axelrod discuss the 2012 Republican Presidential candidates. Head Writer for Saturday Night Live, Seth Meyers, sat down with David to talk about hosting the White House Correspondents Dinner and the power of political parodies.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: This Sunday Republican Sen. John Barrasso and Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen discuss the debt ceiling, gas prices and stuff. Former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and a former ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, former Rep. Jane Harman will speculate on the national security shuffle. Ms. Crowley will host a education panel debating why are our kids falling behind in the classroom? Joining her will be former superintendent of Denver public schools, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet; the former U.S. Secretary of Education, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander; CNN education contributor and the founder of the Capitol Preparatory Magnet School, Steve Perry; and the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten.
Go back to bed
Dear Media:
Since you have been busy this week with non-stop coverage of the royal wedding and the spectacle that is Donald Trump, I thought I would take it upon myself to fill you in on the less newsworthy items that you missed. Clearly, the royal wedding of a country that is not your own, in addition to the frantic rantings of an ego obsessed real state tycoon, take priority over middle east turmoil, vicious attacks on labor, and deadly tornadoes ripping through the country.
I assume you haven’t heard-since there has been little to no coverage-that Wikileaks has released the Guantanamo Files, which include classified files on more than 700 past and present Guantanamo detainees. These documents shed new light on the six-year long persecution of a journalist because he worked for Al-jazeera, the unreliable evidence used to justify due-process free detentions, and the capture of children and men as old as 89. Of course, I wouldn’t expect such large and important outlets to be bothered with such silly, insignificant revelations.
Michelle Chen: Anti-Union Forces Try to Knock Out New York City’s Hard Hats
On Thursday, construction workers held hard hats in thick hands in the glow of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. In honor of International Workers’ Memorial Day, they solemnly honored the sacrifices of fellow workers who had been injured or killed on the job. The scene embodied the heavy legacy of the city’s building trades: the labor that sculpted gotham’s majesty, muscular but embattled, angled precariously against the city’s powers that be.
Historically, the building trades unions have been known as shrewd political players and a formidable counterweight to developers and the city’s bureaucracy. But now, a civic organization and the real estate industry have teamed up to try to dismantle the construction unions’ political clout.
The Regional Plan Association has issued an extensive report (which as of this writing seems to have been taken down from the RPA’s home page and was only retrievable in cached form), which argues that the pending expiration of 30 city union construction contracts provides an opportunity to roll a little disaster capitalism down 5th Avenue.
Saul Landau and Jack Willis: Same Old from the Nuclear Gang after Fukushima
Wishful thinking about energy generation has apparently induced both temporary blindness and long-term amnesia.
The nuclear industry has promised the world cheap, safe, and clean energy for over 60 years.
As the Japanese government continues to extend its nuclear evacuation zone around the Daiichi nuclear complex in Fukushima, the pushers of nuclear power–including President Barack Obama–still demand that Congress approve ever-larger subsidies for new reactors.
Wishful thinking about energy generation has apparently induced both temporary blindness and long-term amnesia about the history of nuclear “mishaps.”
In 2009, the government subsidized the nuclear industry with $18.5 billion in loan guarantees, which failed to anticipate the total costs of “the next generation of plants.” The Nuclear Energy Institute–the industry’s lobbying group–now wants $20 billion more in loan guarantees to get the so-called “nuclear renaissance” underway.
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