“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: Occupying the Home Front: Veterans Deploy With the 99%
This Veterans Day has a certain numerical resonance. World War I ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Today, we recall the end of that horrific conflict, and those that have followed it, on the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year of a new century.
Unfortunately, World War I was not the “war to end all wars.” American soldiers continue to be thrust into unnecessary conflicts, fighting and dying in recent years in the undeclared wars of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States has not learned much about avoiding unwarranted wars.
And if has not learned much about respecting the veterans of wars.
Just as in the aftermath of World War I veterans were abused when they made reasonable demands for economic justice at home, so veterans are today abused when they make the same sort of demands.
After World War I, veterans seeking bonuses they had been promised were shot in the streets of Washington.
This fall, veterans were who survived the fighting in Iraq were wounded on the streets of Oakland, as they joined protests inspired by the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.
Paul Krugman: Paul Krugman to Paul Ryan: “The Truth Hurts”
During a recent speech, Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, expressed outrage over what President Obama has been saying lately.
“Just last week, the president told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are in favor of, quote, ‘dirtier air, dirtier water and less people with health insurance,’ ” Mr. Ryan said at a gathering at The Heritage Foundation on Oct. 26. “Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care?”
Just for the record: Why is this petty? Why is it anything but a literal description of Republican proposals to weaken environmental regulation and repeal the Affordable Care Act?
The Karl Rove-backed super PAC, Crossroads GPS, has made the first major ad buy in the Massachusetts Senate contest between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren, attacking Warren for her support of Occupy Wall Street.
It’s no surprise that Rove and his ilk are attacking Warren. She’s a major threat to the Republican Party and its allied corporate backers for two reasons.
Number one: she’s running even with Brown in a race that may very decide control of the Senate.
Number two: her reformist background and brand of progressive populism is deeply resonant right now. Unlike so many in Washington, she’s taken on the banks and their allies, is not beholden to them, and is not afraid of them. That makes her dangerous to the political establishment in both parties. No wonder Tim Geithner didn’t want her running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Karl Rove doesn’t want her in the Senate.
E. J. Dionne, Jr.: The Right Wing’s 2011 Shellacking
This week’s elections around the country were brought to you by the word “overreach,” specifically conservative overreach. Given an opportunity in 2010 to build a long-term majority, Republicans instead pursued extreme and partisan measures. On Tuesday, they reaped angry voter rebellions.
The most important was in Ohio, where voters overwhelmingly defeated Gov. John Kasich’s bill to strip public employee unions of essential bargaining rights. A year ago, who would have predicted that standing up for the interests of government workers would galvanize and mobilize voters on this scale? Anti-labor conservatives have brought class politics back to life, a major threat to a GOP that has long depended on the ballots of white working-class voters and offered them nothing in return.
Dave Zirin; Penn State and Berkeley: A Tale of Two Protests
Last night, two proud universities saw student demonstrations that spiraled into violence. On the campus of Penn State University in State College Pennsylvania, several hundred students rioted in anger after the firing of legendary 84-year-old head football coach Joe Paterno. At the University of California at Berkeley, 1,000 students, part of the Occupy USA movement, attempted to maintain their protest encampment in the face of police orders to clear them out.
At Penn State, students overturned a media truck, hit an ESPN reporter in the head with a rock and made every effort at arson, attempting to set aflame the very heart of their campus. They raised their fists in defense of a man fired for allegedly covering up the actions of a revered assistant who doubled as a serial child rapist. The almost entirely male student mob was given the space by police to seethe and destroy without restraint.
At Berkeley, the police had a much different response. Defenseless students were struck repeatedly with batons, as efforts were made to disperse their occupation by Sproul Hall, the site of the famed Mario Savio-led free speech battles of the 1960s.
Two coasts and two riots: a frat riot and a cop riot. Each riot, an indelible mark of shame on their respective institutions.
Timothy Egan: Ascent of a Woman
SEATTLE – Crawling along a ledge leading to the 13,775-foot summit of Grand Teton two months ago, Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, paused for an instant at the crux of the climb. The gap between her and the next solid footing was nearly half a vertical mile of thin Rocky Mountain air.
“The guide said there was no room for mistakes,” said Cantwell. “So I just never looked down.”
Having mastered a technical and demanding route up the central spire of the Teton range, Cantwell is back at sea level taking on a more elusive target – Wall Street. She has been after the lords of big finance for almost a decade, and is furious now that reforms intended to rein in the kind of car-bomb speculation that brought down the global economy have been seriously diluted. Wall Street has not changed its ways.
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