“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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Gore Vidal: America the Great … Police State
The following was first published July 28, 2009.
For those of us who had hoped that the Obama administration would present us with a rebirth of the old republic that was so rudely erased a few years ago by that team of judicial wreckers, Bush and Gonzales, which led, in turn, to a recent incident in Cambridge, Mass. that inspired a degree of alarm in many Americans. But what was most alarming was the plain fact that neither the president nor a “stupid” local policeman seemed to understand the rules of behavior in a new America, where we find ourselves marooned as well as guarded (is that the verb?) by armed police who have been instructed that they are indeed, once armed, the law and may not be criticized verbally or in any other way and are certainly not subject to any restrictions as to whom they arrest or otherwise torment.
This is rather worse than anyone might have predicted, even though the signs have been clear for some years that ours is now a proto-fascist nation and there appears to be no turning back; nor, indeed, much awareness on the part of our ever-alert media. Forgive me if you find my irony heavy, but I too get tired of carrying it about in “the greatest nation in the country,” as Spiro Agnew liked to say.
New York Times Editorial: A Pernicious Drive Toward Secrecy
In response to recent news media disclosures about the so-called kill list of terrorist suspects designated for drone strikes and other intelligence matters, the Senate Intelligence Committee has approved misguided legislation that would severely chill news coverage of national security issues
Drafted in secret without public hearings, the provisions are part of the intelligence authorization bill for fiscal 2013. If enacted, the bill would undermine democracy by denying Americans access to information essential to national debate on critical issues like the extent of government spying powers and the use of torture.
Under the measure, only the director, deputy director and designated public affairs officials of intelligence agencies would be permitted to “provide background or off-the-record information regarding intelligence activities to the media.” Briefings on sensitive topics by lower-level or career officials, who are not quoted by name, would be prohibited, shutting off routine news-gathering and exchanges that provide insight into government policies. None of these traditional press activities compromise the nation’s safety. There is no exception carved out for whistle-blowers or other news media contacts that advance the public’s awareness of government operations, including incidents of waste, fraud and abuse in the intelligence sphere.
There has been plenty to criticize about President Obama’s handling of the economy. Yet the overriding story of the past few years is not Mr. Obama’s mistakes but the scorched-earth opposition of Republicans, who have done everything they can to get in his way – and who now, having blocked the president’s policies, hope to win the White House by claiming that his policies have failed.
And this week’s shocking refusal to implement debt relief by the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency – a Bush-era holdover the president hasn’t been able to replace – illustrates perfectly what’s going on.
Some background: many economists believe that the overhang of excess household debt, a legacy of the bubble years, is the biggest factor holding back economic recovery. Loosely speaking, excess debt has created a situation in which everyone is trying to spend less than their income. Since this is collectively impossible – my spending is your income, and your spending is my income – the result is a persistently depressed economy.
Amy Goodman: The Obama Administration Torpedoes the Arms Trade Treaty
Quick: What is more heavily regulated, global trade of bananas or battleships? In late June, activists gathered in New York’s Times Square to make the absurd point, that, unbelievably, “there are more rules governing your ability to trade a banana from one country to the next than governing your ability to trade an AK-47 or a military helicopter.” So said Amnesty International USA’s Suzanne Nossel at the protest, just before the start of the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which ran from July 2 to July 27. Thanks to a last-minute declaration by the United States that it “needed more time” to review the short, 11-page treaty text, the conference ended last week in failure.
There isn’t much that could be considered controversial in the treaty. Signatory governments agree not to export weapons to countries that are under an arms embargo, or to export weapons that would facilitate “the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes” or other violations of international humanitarian law. Exports of arms are banned if they will facilitate “gender-based violence or violence against children” or be used for “transnational organized crime.” Why does the United States need more time than the more than 90 other countries that had sufficient time to read and approve the text? The answer lies in the power of the gun lobby, the arms industry and the apparent inability of President Barack Obama to do the right thing, especially if it contradicts a cold, political calculation.
John Nichols: A Presidential Candidate Willing to Get Arrested to Fight Foreclosure Abuse
It is not quite true that a third-party presidential candidate has to get arrested to get attention from the media. Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s nominee for the presidency this year, has gotten her share of attention-in part because she is a genuinely impressive contender, in part because her campaign has been strikingly focused and professional in its approach.
But Stein got a good deal of attention Wednesday for a good reason. She was busted with fellow Greens and activists from the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign outside the Philadelphia office of Fannie Mae, the government-backed mortgage lender that is foreclosing on precisely the people it is supposed to help.
Most politicians avoid saying-let alone doing-anything of consequence regarding the foreclosure crisis. But Stein, her vice presidential running-mate (Cheri Honkala, who last year mounted a campaign for sheriff in Philadelphia as part of an anti-foreclosure fight), labor lawyer James Moran and Sister Margaret McKenna of the Medical Mission Sisters were arrested after attempting to gain access to the Fannie Mae office through an adjacent financial institution on Philadelphia’s “Bankers Row.”
The charge was one that any activist would be proud of: “defiant trespassing.”
Jodi Jacobson: Ninth Circuit Court Blocks Arizona’s Extreme Abortion Ban
As women across the country celebrate the first day of coverage without co-pays of a wide range of preventive care services, including contraception without a co-pay, health and rights groups are fighting in the courts to maintain access to safe abortion care at the state level.
And yesterday afternoon, they won a battle in that fight.
On Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit blocked enforcement of Arizona’s 20-week abortion ban, signed into law earlier this year by Governor Jan Brewer. On Monday night, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union filed an emergency appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court seeking an injunction blocking the law from going into effect tomorrow, after a district court judge refused to do so.
The bill is considered by many to be the most restrictive ban in the nation, and may present a direct challenge to Roe. Based on false claims that a fetus at 20-weeks’ gestation can feel pain, it criminalizes virtually all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and contains only narrow exceptions for medical emergencies, forcing a physician caring for a woman with a high-risk pregnancy to wait until her condition poses an immediate threat of death or major medical damage before offering her the care she needs.
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