“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.
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Bil Boyarsky: Eisenhower’s Warning Ignored, Presidential Power Has Risen to Sinister Level
By following a warlike path-and getting a free pass from too many progressives-President Barack Obama is making sure that foreign policy will remain in the hands of the military-industrial complex.
Hardly discussed in the presidential campaign is how Obama personally picks targets on a kill list, hugely has increased drone attacks, and wages cyberwarfare against Iran. If these actions had occurred under Bush-Cheney, liberals would have taken to the streets. Instead, the practices are accepted as facts of life, barely worth comment.
The truth is that in the last half century, this kind of presidential power, backed by the military and the arms industry, has been enshrined as permanent policy. And it will continue no matter who wins in November or in future elections. Whoever is in charge, the military, the intelligence spooks and the war industries always seem to co-opt the president.
John Nichols: Darrell Issa Shows Contemptible Disregard for the Constitution
The system of checks and balances works best when the separate branches of government are inherently and proudly adversarial toward one another. But that can’t happen when partisanship defines when and how accountability moments play out.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa — the headline-hungry California Republican who on Wednesday engineered a committee vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt — forgot that essential rule. [..]
Issa’s actions undermined not just his own credibility but any sense that he and his allies might be acting in defense of — or with any regard for — the Constitution.
Horror of horrors, say the banks.
“If JPMorgan overseas operates under different rules than our foreign competitors,” warned Jamie Dimon, chair and CEO of JP Morgan, Wall Street would lose financial business to the banks of nations with fewer regulations, allowing “Deutsche Bank to make the better deal.”
This is the same Jamie Dimon who chose London as the place to make highly-risky derivatives trades that have lost the firm upwards of $2 billion so far – and could leave American taxpayers holding the bag if JPMorgan’s exposure to tottering European banks gets much worse.
Jim Hightower: Super PACs and Secret Money Destroying America’s Democracy
Leave it to Bill Moyers, one of America’s most useful citizens, to sum up our country’s present political plight in a succinct metaphor: “Our elections have replaced horse racing as the sport of kings. These kings are multibillionaire corporate moguls who by divine right – not of God, but (of the Supreme Court’s) Citizens United decision – are now buying politicians like so much pricey horseflesh.”
Pricey, indeed. In its disgraceful, democracy-crushing judicial edict of January 2010, the Court took the big advantage that America’s corporate elite already had in politics – and super-sized it. This is the first presidential election to be run under the rigged rules invented by the Court’s five-man corporatist majority, and we can see the effects of this ruling.
Sen. Bernie Sanders: Label Genetically Engineered Food
In 49 countries around the world, including all of Europe, people have the opportunity of knowing whether or not they are eating food which contains genetically engineered ingredients. In the United States, we don’t. That is why I have introduced, along with Sen. Barbara Boxer, an amendment to the agriculture bill which will give states the right to require labels on food products which are genetically engineered.
All over this country people are becoming more conscious about the foods they eat and serve their kids. When a mother goes to the store and purchases food for her child, she has the right to know what she is feeding her family.
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