“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: Guests are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Guests are Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)
The Chris Matthews Show: This weeks panel guest are Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst, Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor, David Ignatius, The Washington Post Columnist and Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent.
Meet the Press with David Gregory: Guests are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is getting around. Other guests are Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Politicians pushing right-wing positions assume they can say anything about economics with little scrutiny.
Politicians pushing right-wing positions in public debate now operate with the assumption that they can get away with saying anything without getting serious scrutiny from the media. That is why right-wing politicians repeatedly blame government regulation for the failure of the economy to generate jobs. Even though there is no truth whatsoever to the claim, right-wing politicians know that the media will treat their nonsense respectfully in news coverage.
If political reporters did their job, they would make an effo to determine the validity of the regulation-killing-jobs story and expose the politicians making the claim as either ignorant or dishonest, just as if a politician was going around claiming that September 11th was an inside job. However, today’s reporters are either too lazy or incompetent to do their homework. What follows is a bit of a how-to manual to make reporters’ jobs easier.
Paul Krugman: Greenspan Blames the Victims of Europe’s Woes
Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, has written another deeply misleading, destructive op-ed. Also, the sun rose in the east.
In a commentary article for The Financial Times headlined “Europe’s Crisis Is All About the North-South Split,” published on Oct. 6, Mr. Greenspan writes: “Northern Europe in effect has been subsidizing southern European consumption from the onset of the euro on January 1, 1999. It is not a recent phenomenon.”
Mr. Greenspan is quickly establishing himself as the worst ex-Fed chairman of all time. But since he has introduced a brand new fallacy into the debate, it’s worth taking on.
Robert Reich: The Flat-Tax Fraud, and the Necessity of a Truly Progressive Tax
Herman Cain’s bizarre 9-9-9 plan would replace much of the current tax code with a 9 percent individual income tax and a 9 percent sales tax. He calls it a “flat tax.”
Next week Rick Perry is set to announce his own version of a flat tax. Former House majority leader Dick Armey — now chairman of Freedom Works, a major backer of the Tea Party funded by the Koch Brothers and other portly felines (I didn’t say “fat cats”) — predicts this will give Perry “a big boost.” Steve Forbes, one of America’s richest billionaires, who’s on the board of the Freedom Works foundation, is delighted. He’s been pushing the flat tax for years.
The flat tax is a fraud. It raises taxes on the poor and lowers them on the rich.
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