“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”.
Eugene Robinson: To Be Black in America …
For every black man in America, from the millionaire in the corner office to the mechanic in the local garage, the Trayvon Martin tragedy is personal. It could have been me or one of my sons. It could have been any of us.
How many George Zimmermans are out there cruising the streets? How many guys with chips on their shoulders and itchy fingers on the triggers of loaded handguns? How many self-imagined guardians of the peace who say the words “black male” with a sneer?
We don’t yet know every detail of the incident between Martin and Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., that ended with an unarmed 17-year-old high-school student being shot dead. But we know enough to conclude that this is an old, familiar story.
Deborah James: Change is Gonna Come? Global Health Expert Nominated by US for World Bank Presidency
For the very first time, the U.S. government has nominated a qualified candidate to be the President of the World Bank. In order to maintain control of the institution by donors, rather than those impacted by its decisions, the U.S. and EU share a tacit agreement that the World Bank president has always been the American nomination – just as the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is always a European (although one that Washington approves of). This job’s previous occupants included several top U.S. military brass (including Robert McNamara after the Vietnam War debacle, and most recently Paul Wolfowitz) as well as top bankers from Chase, Bank of America, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
On Friday, however, President Obama nominated Korea-born Jim Yong Kim as the US candidate for the position. Dr. Kim is a co-founder, with Paul Farmer, of Partners In Health. In an email to supporters, Farmer and another PIH co-founder, Ophelia Dahl, said that “Jim is an inspired choice to lead the World Bank. Having seen him work in settings from inner-city Boston to the slums of Peru, from Haiti to Rwanda to the prisons of Siberia, we know that for three decades Jim has committed himself to breaking the cycle of poverty and disease. This has been his goal as a physician, a teacher, a policy maker, and a university president; it was ever his goal as a founder and director of Partners In Health, which now operates in more than a dozen countries.”
How did this seismic shift occur?
Marian Wright Edelman:
It’s Past Time to Protect Children Not Guns
Thousands of people across the country have poured into the streets — from New York to Sanford, Florida — to demand justice for Trayvon Martin. Hundreds of thousands more stepped up to protest online. In response to the public outcry, the Sanford chief of police has temporarily stepped down and the state prosecutor has stepped aside. But nearly one month after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was stopped, stalked, shot and killed while walking home from a convenience store, armed only with a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea, his killer, George Zimmerman, has not been arrested. Today, the Children’s Defense Fund released its new report, Protect Children, Not Guns 2012, dedicated to the memory of Trayvon Martin and the thousands of children and teenagers killed by guns in America, including the 5,740 children killed in 2008 and 2009 according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Where is the outrage over every single one of the thousands of children and teens killed by guns — too many by gun slinging Americans unrestrained by common sense gun control laws. Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, also known as the “shoot first, ask questions later” law, is now under national scrutiny. But will it and others be changed to protect children rather than gun owners and sellers?
Richard (RJ) Eskow: The Dumbest ‘Bipartisan’ Move Since Repealing Glass-Steagall
Here we go again. Once again the ‘bipartisan’ consensus in Washington, fueled by an intoxicating brew of conventional wisdom laced with campaign cash, has repealed some of those ‘cumbersome regulations’ that do nothing of value — nothing, that is, except prevent catastrophes. There will be celebrating on both sides of the aisle when the President signs this bill.
And when disaster strikes a few years from now, as it inevitably will, they’ll all say “Nobody could have seen it coming.” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même crap. Creationism can’t disprove the theory of evolution – but a little time in Washington will make you think twice.
Here we are, surrounded by still-smoldering financial wreckage, and almost everyone in Washington is falling over themselves to repeat exactly the same kinds of actions that got us into this mess. Last time around it was the repeal of Glass-Steagall, introduced by Republican Sen. Phil Gramm and enthusiastically signed by President Clinton in the presence of Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
Johns Nichols: Marco Rubio Stands His Ground for Deadly ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush was not the only prominent Florida official to back Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, despite repeated warnings that it would be seen as a “license to kill” by gunmen like the Sanford, Florida, neighborhood watchman who stands accused of slaying teenager Trayvon Martin.
The rising Republican star of Florida legislature at the time, a young state representative from West Miami who in the next session would become the speaker of the state House, actively supported the “Stand Your Ground” proposal.
That legislator, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, is now being boomed by Jeb Bush for a place on the Republican ticket as the party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee.
Rubio served in the legislature as an ally of the National Rifle Association and a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the shadowy group funded by the Koch brothers to craft and promote passage of measures such as the “Stand Your Ground” law. In reviewing Rubio’s tenure, the Miami Herald noted: “Rubio had an ‘A’ rating by the National Rifle Association. Rubio voted for major NRA priorities such as a 2005 ‘castle doctrine’ law allowing people to use deadly force if attacked in their home or any place a person ‘has a right to be.’ Rubio also supported a 2008 law allowing most employees to bring guns to work, as long as they held a concealed weapons license and kept the gun in their cars.”
Greg Kaufman: This Week in Poverty: Paul Ryan’s Focus on Dignity
“Promoting the natural rights and the inherent dignity of the individual must be the central focus of all government.”
That’s what Congressman Paul Ryan wrote earlier this month in an exclusive commentary for Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. This week, he revealed exactly where his laser-like focus on dignity would lead this nation. He released his budget proposal, as clear a statement of one’s principles and priorities as there is in politics.
Here are the results, and they’re not pretty. Nation readers with young children should probably ask them to leave the room before reading onward.
John F. Timoney: Florida’s Disastrous Self-Defense Law
THE very public controversy surrounding the killing on Feb. 26 of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, by a crime watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, was predictable.
In fact, I, along with other Florida chiefs of police, said so in a letter to the Legislature in 2005 when we opposed the passage of a law that not only enshrined the doctrine of “your home is your castle” but took this doctrine into the public square and added a new concept called “stand your ground.”
Use-of-force issues arose often during my 41-year policing career. In fact, officer-involved shootings were the No. 1 problem when I became Miami’s police chief in January 2003. But after we put in place new policies and training, officers went 20 months without discharging a single bullet at a person, while arrests increased over 30 percent.
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