“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: A New Start for Libya
After 42 years of erratic dictatorship, it would be unrealistic to expect a smooth transition in the early days of Libya’s post-Qaddafi era. There have been water and fuel shortages, episodes of vigilante justice, and power struggles among the victorious rebel forces. There are also signs of progress on military, diplomatic, economic and political fronts.
The last bastions of the regime are under assault, while Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi remains unaccounted for. Foreign governments have begun releasing billions of dollars of Libyan assets that were frozen during the fighting. Plans have been drafted for electing a constitutional assembly by early next year. Technicians are assessing damage to the oil wells and pipelines that account for 98 percent of the country’s annual revenues, though full production may not be restored for months or even longer. Considering the situation six months ago, there is reason to be encouraged.
Jon Walker: Obama is Coming to Cut Medicare
I don’t want to be entirely cynical about President Obama’s jobs speech yesterday. Some of the ideas in his proposal, like the money to fix up old schools, are great. He is finally at least putting his rhetorical focus on the issue the American people actually wanted him to be talking about this whole time. If the package Obama outlined last night was actually a compromise that Obama got the Republican Congressional leadership to agree to, I might even consider this fairly poorly designed plan a decent deal.
The problem, though, is that this jobs package isn’t going to pass, so this speech wasn’t about policy, it was about messaging. Seen from that perspective, the speech was very scary to me as a progressive, because in the middle of what should have been a speech about getting Americans back to work, Obama very publicly endorsed putting Medicare and Medicaid on the deficit-reduction chopping block. Most important, Obama signaled he supports reducing Medicare spending that “some in his party” won’t like.
Watchdogs slept through a decade of rollback
When the USA Patriot Act* was rushed into law after the September 11 attacks, the erosion of civil liberties the Act represented-the broad powers it gave law enforcement to spy on people, and the creation of the dangerously ill-defined crime of “domestic terrorism”-met with little detailed scrutiny or principled challenge from major media.
Typical at the time was a Today show segment (NBC, 10/27/01) in which anchor Soledad O’Brien grilled a concerned legal advocate, “But, certainly, isn’t there a sense in wartime that you have to give up some of your privacies, especially when you’re talking about terrorists who exploited the free-doms that America offers in order to perpetuate their terrorist acts?”
When provisions of the Patriot Act were extended in May 2011, most people didn’t hear even a lopsided debate. NBC Nightly News (5/27/11), for one, focused its report on the presidential autopen used to sign the legislation.
Joe Nocera: Mr. Banker, Can You Spare a Dime?
Not long ago, I received an e-mail from David Rynecki, an old friend and former colleague who left journalism a half-dozen years ago to become a small businessman. David’s firm, Blue Heron Research Partners, does research for investment professionals; he was writing to share his frustration in trying to build a business in the aftermath of the recession.
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His problem was – and is – the same one facing millions of small businesspeople. With lending standards extraordinarily tight in the wake of the financial crisis, banks simply aren’t making small business loans, not even to perfectly creditworthy people like David. Which means he can’t expand – and hire – the way he would like to. Yes, he said, he could continue to plow his cash flow into the business and grow it slowly. But to get the firm to the next plateau, he needs a bank loan.
George Zornick: How To Really Win the Future
President Obama appeared before Congress on Thursday and urged members to pass the American Jobs Act, a $447 billion package that includes more unemployment benefits, an extended payroll tax cut, money for repairing schools and crumbling infrastructaure, rehiring teachers and first responders, job training for the long-term unemployed and tax breaks for companies that hire new workers.
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But the American Jobs Act falls short in two paradoxical ways: the plan is still too ambitious for Congressional Republicans, and at the same time doesn’t go far enough. Despite Boehner’s kind words, it still probably won’t pass the Republican House of Representatives. And even if it did, many economists say it still wouldn’t be enough to spur a true economic recovery.
Katha Politt: The Poor: Still Here, Still Poor
What ever happened to poor people? Even on the left, Cornel West and Tavis Smiley’s Poverty Tour was an exception. Mostly, the talk is of the “middle class”-its stagnant wages, foreclosed houses, maxed-out credit cards and adult kids still living in their childhood bedrooms. The New York Times’s Bob Herbert, the last columnist who covered poverty consistently and with passion, is gone. Among progressive organizations, Rebuild the Dream, a new group co-founded with much fanfare by Van Jones and MoveOn, is typical. It bills its mission as “rebuilding the middle class”-i.e., the “people willing to work hard and play by the rules.” (What are those rules? I always wonder. And do middle-class people really work all that hard compared with a home health aide or a waitress, who cannot get ahead no matter how hard she works and how many rules she plays by?) The ten steps in its “Contract” contain many worthy suggestions-invest in America’s infrastructure, return to fairer tax rates, secure Social Security by lifting the cap on Social Security taxes. There’s nothing wrong with any of this as far as it goes-middle-class people have indeed suffered in the current recession. But let’s not forget that the unemployment rate for white college grads is 4 percent, and every single one of them has been written up in Salon. It’s who’s missing that troubles me: poor people.
Matthew Rothchild: Obama’s Speech Inspiring and Annoying
Whenever Barack Obama gets around to making an affirmative case for government action, he is at his most inspiring. So it was on Thursday night. He talked about this nation being made up not just of “rugged individuals” but of people who understand that “we are all connected.”
In an almost direct rebuttal to the libertarian nonsense that spilled forth from the Republican debate 24 hours earlier, Obama made the case for public goods. He talked about the value of public high schools, of our research universities, of our community colleges, of the GI Bill, and of Social Security and Medicare.
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