“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”.
Jeff Cohen: Obama, Sarkozy and Taxing Wall Street
With U.S. media obsessing on the fight here at home among conservatives vying to become president, most of them missed some big news about France, which already has a conservative president. This week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that he would take the lead – even go it alone within Europe, if need be – in introducing and pushing a Financial Transaction Tax in his country.
That’s right – the conservative president of France wants to tax the financial traders and speculators.
Referring to the tax as a “moral issue” and blaming deregulation and speculation for the global economic meltdown, Sarkozy has said that traders must “repay for the damage they have caused.”
What does it tell us about U.S. politics that the conservative president of France – on this issue and others – is way to the left of President Obama? The U.S. president has not publicly promoted a Wall Street transaction tax (even though US financial institutions, not the French, were largely responsible for the global financial crisis).
Michael Ratner: Guantánamo at 10: The Defeat of Liberty by Fear
The unprecedented executive powers assumed by both presidents since 9/11 have crippled America’s body politic
On 11 January 2002, the United States began showing major signs of what I call “Guantánamo syndrome”, after one of the ailment’s first and most enduring symptoms. That was the day when the Bush administration transferred the first 20 detainees to Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after being assured by its Department of Justice that the location placed detainees outside of US legal jurisdiction.
But the first hint of our national illness appeared earlier, in the weeks following the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers, when the Bush administration took the lid off unlimited executive power. This is the lid that nobles, who had endured centuries of rulers imprisoning anyone who ticked them off and holding them indefinitely without having to state or prove any kind of case, affixed in 1215 with the Magna Carta. It’s the lid that the original framers tightened to the specifications of the United States when they ratified the Constitution in 1790.
Pakistan’s civilian governments are typically short-lived and cast aside by military coups. This disastrous pattern could be repeating itself as the current civilian government comes under increasing pressure from the army and the Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, the standoff hardened when Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani fired his defense secretary, Naeem Khalid Lodhi – a retired general and confidante of the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani – and replaced him with a civilian, Nargis Sethi. Infuriated military officials said they might refuse to work with the new secretary and warned vaguely of “serious ramifications with potentially grievous consequences” after Mr. Gilani publicly criticized them in an interview.
Eugene Robinson: Two-For-Two and Game On
MANCHESTER, N.H.-It’s going to be mean and dispiriting, this campaign. We’ll be assailed with talk of “European socialism” and “vulture capitalism”-not “hope” and “change”-and the months between now and November will seem an eternity.
There’s no use trying to gainsay or belittle Mitt Romney’s victory here Tuesday. Yes, he might have hoped for a bigger turnout. Yes, he would have been happier to win with at least 40 percent of the vote, rather than 39-point-whatever. And yes, given that he’s a part-time resident of New Hampshire, he was always expected to dominate the contest.
None of this is likely to matter. Romney is the first non-incumbent Republican to open two-for-two, winning both Iowa and New Hampshire. Exit polls show him with decent support among all the GOP’s diverse constituencies-and no glaring weaknesses. It’s true that most Republicans would prefer someone else, but there’s no agreement on who that someone else might be. By the time the anti-Romney forces get organized, he’ll be giving his acceptance speech.
E. J. Dionne, Jr.: What Kind of Capitalist Was Romney?
Thanks to Mitt Romney and such well-known socialist intellectuals as Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, the United States is about to have the big debate on the nature of modern capitalism that should have started back in 2008. The focus will be on whether some kinds of capitalism are bad for the system as a whole.
As a political matter, the discussion will be a classic test of an old Karl Rove theory that the best way to undercut an opponent is to attack him in his area of perceived strength. Romney’s central claim is that his business experience prepares him to be the nation’s great job creator. That message runs into some difficulty if he is seen instead as a job destroyer.
Ralph Nader: Iran: The Neocons Are At It Again
he same neocons who persuaded George W. Bush and crew to, in Ron Paul’s inimitable words, “lie their way into invading Iraq” in 2003, are beating the drums of war more loudly these days to attack Iran. It is remarkable how many of these war-mongers are former draft dodgers who wanted other Americans to fight the war in Vietnam.
With the exception of Ron Paul, who actually knows the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, the Republican presidential contenders have declared their belligerency toward Iranian officials who they accuse of moving toward nuclear weapons.
The Iranian regime disputes that charge, claiming they are developing the technology for nuclear power and nuclear medicine.
Dave Zweifel: High Court Opened Door to Legalized Bribery
Remember the 2010 State of the Union address when President Obama spoke directly at the Supreme Court justices sitting in the front row and “lectured” them about their Citizens United decision?
“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama told the justices, as the glare of the cameras focused on them. “Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests.”
The court, by a 5-4 vote, had just declared that corporations are, in effect, people when it comes to First Amendment rights and, therefore, their “free speech” can’t be limited by campaign spending laws.
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