September 2012 archive

Sep 05 2012

The Great Latino Hope

Marco Rubio As Aired

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.

Sep 05 2012

2012 Democratic National Convention: Day 2

Michelle’s dress looked really nice.

The Troubling Myths of Opportunity and Mobility in the Democratic Convention

By: David Dayen Wednesday September 5, 2012 9:40 am

That hasn’t been true for a while, I’m sad to say. American social mobility is among the lowest in the industrialized world. We like to tell ourselves these stories about rising from hardscrabble beginnings – indeed, it was the theme of BOTH the Republican and Democratic conventions – but there’s a selection bias involved. The people telling the stories can always reach back as far as they need in their history to find some poorer ancestor whose courage and confidence led to where they are today. The poor ancestors who had just as much courage, just as much confidence, but didn’t get the same breaks, whose progeny didn’t rise above a certain level regardless of their ability? They don’t get talked about because their descendants don’t have the microphone.

…

We have a drastically unequal society, and that makes it all the harder to the vast numbers who grow up in poverty and below the middle class to make it to the top. When you only hear from the strivers, it can sound differently, that new people and new faces can always have a chance to rise, if government just gives them the opportunity.

…

But that’s simply not how it works in America. The door has been slammed shut to those who don’t have the benefits bestowed on the rich and powerful. To some, it’s unseemly to say that, I guess. But it’s true; the economy has ceased to work to reinforce this myth of getting ahead through hard work and realizing potential. And what’s also true is that equality of opportunity is not enough. The meritocracy doesn’t even work this way; it pulls up the ladder rather than extending it down a rung.

…

I don’t think the speeches reflected that, not because America isn’t ready to hear the message, but because those who benefited from the current system cannot conceive of a different one.

5 – 6 p.m.

  • Call to Order: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa
  • Invocation: Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, 10th Episcopal District
  • Presentation of Colors
  • Pledge of Allegiance
  • National Anthem: musician Branford Marsalis
  • Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez of Illinois
  • Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado
  • John A. Pérez, speaker of the California State Assembly
  • Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino
  • Rep. Judy Chu of California
  • Steve Westly, former state controller and CFO of California
  • An Economy Built to Last video: Small Business
  • Rep. John Larson of Connecticut
  • Deputy Sheriff Ken Myers, Carroll County, Iowa

6 – 7 p.m.

  • Richard Trumka, president, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
  • Rep. Steve Israel of New York
  • Sen. Patty Murray of Washington
  • Pedro R. Pierluisi, non-voting member of U.S. House, resident commissioner of Puerto Rico
  • An Economy Build to Last video: Energy
  • Tom Steyer, co-founder of Advanced Energy Economy
  • Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York
  • Rep. Karen Bass of California
  • Rep. Al Green of Texas
  • Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri
  • Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy

7 – 8 p.m.

  • Denise Juneau, superintendent of the Montana Office of Public Instruction
  • House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California
  • Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
  • Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
  • Education Secretary Arne Duncan
  • Progress for People video: Education
  • American Voices: Johanny Adames
  • Former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt
  • Video: in memoriam
  • Harvey B. Gantt, former mayor of Charlotte, N.C.
  • Live performance: singer/songwriter Jessica Sanchez

8 – 9 p.m.

  • Stronger Together video: Women’s Health
  • American Voices: Elizabeth Ann “Libby” Bruce
  • Cecile Richards, president, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
  • Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland
  • Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts
  • American Heroes video: Veterans
  • American Voices: Ed Meagher
  • Gen. Eric Shinseki
  • Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter
  • Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper
  • Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Roman Catholic Social Justice Organization, NETWORK
  • Delaware Gov. Jack Markell

9 – 10 p.m.

  • Karen Mills
  • Progress for People video: Small Business
  • American Voices: Bill Butcher
  • California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris
  • Stronger Together video: Immigration
  • Benita Veliz, DREAM Act activist
  • Cristina Saralegui, journalist, actress and talk show host
  • Sandra Fluke, attorney and women’s rights activist
  • Austin Ligon, co-founder and former CEO of CarMax Inc.
  • An Economy Build to Last video: Auto Industry
  • American Voices: Karen Eusanio
  • UAW President Bob King
  • Randy Johnson, Cindy Hewitt and David Foster: former employees at companies controlled by Romney’s Bain Capital
  • Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland

10 – 11 p.m.

  • Jim Sinegal, co-founder and former CEO of Costco
  • Elizabeth Warren, candidate for Senate in Massachusetts
  • Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, chair of the 2012 Democratic National Convention Committee
  • Former President Bill Clinton
  • Roll call vote: Alice Germond, secretary of the Democratic National Committee
  • Benediction: Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple, Los Angeles
  • Retire Colors
  • Recess

Because I’m such an incredible chauvinist I have to shout out my homes John Larson and Dannel Malloy from the Nutmeg State where we’ll sell you a piece of wood and call it nutmeg.  Elizabeth Warren and Bill Clinton are the real entertainment.

They will be having the official Roll Call tonight and I’d be surprised at a single dissenting vote.  They may or may not indulge in a round of passes to allow a selected State to put the delegate count over the top and end with a motion for unanimous acclamation which would be kind of old school.

Sep 05 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Change We Can Believe In, 2.0

At this week’s convention, we’ll be reminded that elections matter-and they do. But electoral victories, though necessary, are never sufficient. Uprooting inequality and restoring prosperity will require much more. Last week, we got an important reminder of the importance of grassroots organizing. It came from the president of the United States.

During an “Ask Me Anything” session with readers of the website Reddit, President Obama lent his personal support to the effort to amend the Constitution to reverse the Supreme Court’s devastating Citizens United decision. [..]

Obama’s support for an amendment puts him on the right side, with over a hundred municipalities who’ve moved to amend, and against the plutocrats who want to buy our elections. It sharpens the contrast between a president committed to “We the people” and a challenger convinced that “corporations are people.” [..]

But Obama’s statement also raises the question, Given that the president gets how social movements make change happen, why does he only sometimes act like it?

Joan Walsh: Trolling Bill Clinton

Republicans and reporters are pretending the former president’s speech poses political risk and drama to Obama

Hello from Charlotte, where the diversity of the Democratic Party is an immediately obvious and welcome contrast with Tampa (even if the weather is not). Where the Republican convention seemed a blur of white hair, white faces and red, white and blue outfits, the crowd milling around downtown in the pouring rain Monday looked like America, not only in racial diversity but in class and age as well.  This is a younger party, which bodes well for its future. [..]

My favorite non-story so far involves the alleged danger President Clinton poses to Obama with his still-unvetted convention speech scheduled for Wednesday night. Some of the coverage tries to make Clinton sound like he could be the Democrats’ Clint Eastwood – an old celebrity gunslinger who might not be able to shoot straight anymore. But most of it is straight from the 2008 playbook: The two presidents don’t really like one another. Bill’s still mad about Hillary’s loss. He might even prefer a Romney win, since it could set up a 2016 Clinton candidacy.

Maureen Dowd The Comeback Vegan

I remember the first time I realized that Barack Obama was not going to be another Bill Clinton. Everyone assumed that the Secretariat from Illinois was the natural heir to the Secretariat from Arkansas. But Barry was only out of the gate for a day in 2007 before it became apparent that, while the senator had a bouquet of talents and several virtues that Clinton would never possess, he was not quite Bill’s match as a political natural.  [..]

It’s not a bromance, like Romney and Paul Ryan. It’s a transaction. Obama needs his Democratic predecessor to reassure jittery voters that the future can look like the past, with a lower deficit, plenty of jobs and the two parties actually talking. In return, Bill will have the capital to try to ensure that the past can look like the future, with Hillary as Obama’s successor.

What a wild twist. Instead of ushering in the post-Clinton era, as intended, Obama has ushered in the pre-Clinton era.

Amanda Marcotte: In 2012 Campaign Season, Anti-Choicers Show Their True Colors

Anti-choicers know that their official line is that they’re not in this because they have backwards views on gender or that they’re afraid of female sexuality. Sure, they do have these beliefs, but we are expected to pretend that there’s no connection between their “traditional” views on women generally and their opposition to abortion rights. People who fail to play along with these expectations and insist on pointing out connections get paid in screaming, yelling, and playing-the-victim antics from anti-choicers. Considering how much knowledge anti-choicers have that their backwards views on gender hurt their cause, you’d think they wouldn’t be messing it up and letting the cat out of the bag as often as they do lately.

Indeed, showing their true colors has been a theme of anti-choicers this campaign season, from Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment to Mike Huckabee’s extolling the virtues of rape as a baby delivery system to Paul Ryan minimizing rape by calling it a “method of conception.” But even beyond making comments indicating that they don’t really think rape is a big deal—it’s not like raping uterus vessels is the same as violating people, right?—it just seems generally like anti-choicers are getting weary of play-acting like this is about “life.” The urge to say what they actually mean, to shame women for being sexual and for being independent, is just becoming too great. Decades of pretending has worn thin. Now the seams are showing, and the misogynist comments are coming out.

Marjorie Cohn: No Accountability for Torturers

The Obama administration has closed the books on prosecutions of those who violated our laws by authorizing and conducting the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody. Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that his office would investigate only two incidents, in which CIA interrogations ended in deaths. He said the Justice Department “has determined that an expanded criminal investigation of the remaining matters is not warranted.” With that decision, Holder conferred amnesty on countless Bush officials, lawyers and interrogators who set and carried out a policy of cruel treatment. [..]

Amnesty for torturers is unacceptable. General Barry McCaffrey declared, “We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the CIA.” Major General Anthony Taguba, who directed the Abu Ghraib investigation, wrote that “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” Holder has answered Taguba’s question with a resounding “no.” [..]

There are two federal criminal statutes for torture prosecutions-the U.S. Torture Statute and the War Crimes Act; the latter punishes torture as a war crime. The Torture Convention is unequivocal: nothing, including a state of war, can be invoked as a justification for torture.

By letting American officials, lawyers and interrogators get away with torture – and indeed, murder – the United States sacrifices any right to scold or punish other countries for their human rights violations.

Daphne Wisham; The Six Stages of Climate Grief

I have discovered a new sixth stage, beyond acceptance of the truly depressing climate science: doing The Work.

Now that the hottest summer on record is drawing to a close, are we any closer to admitting that climate change is upon us? If not, why not?

It might have something to do with the five stages of grief. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified these stages as denial, then anger, followed by bargaining, depression, and acceptance. With record drought killing our cattle and our corn, West Nile virus sweeping the country, and Arctic ice sheets melting away, it’s no surprise that millions of people are responding to these frightening signs of environmental decline in stages.

Nobel Laureate Steve W. Running first proposed this frame for understanding the popular response to climate change in 2007. I’d like to go one step further and suggest a sixth stage: The Work.

Sep 05 2012

We Built Your Uterus

What do you mean I can’t lie to get sex?  Then I wouldn’t get any sex!

All your uteri are belong to us.

They hate us, they really hate us.

How many times had he stood calmly back there on the duckboards and listened to respectable-looking people talk about raping the hotel penguins?

Sep 05 2012

On This Day In History September 5

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

September 5 is the 248th day of the year (249th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 117 days remaining until the end of the year..

On this day in 1882, the first Labor Day was celebrated in NYC with a parade of 10,000 workers. The Parade started at City Hall, winding past the reviewing stands at Union Square and then uptown where it ended at 42nd St where the marcher’s and their families celebrated with a picnic, concert and speeches. The march was organized by New York’s Central Labor Union and while there has been debate as to who originated the idea, credit is given to Peter McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor.

It became a federal holiday in 1894, when, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland  put reconciliation with the labor movement as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. The September date was chosen as Cleveland was concerned that aligning an American labor holiday with existing international May Day celebrations would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair. All 50 U.S. states have made Labor Day a state holiday.

Sep 05 2012

Honesty

Jon

Stephen

In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

Sep 04 2012

2012 Democratic National Convention: Day 1

Just as with the Republicans, all the real business (except for the nominations) takes place with the acceptance of the temporary officers of the Convention and the reports of the Credentials, Rules, and Platform committees.  Since there was no alternative primary candidate the votes themselves are likely to be uncontentious, but that doesn’t mean the polices are-

Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats are delaying the release of daily schedules until 10 pm the previous night.  I hate it because it puts more deadline pressure on me and I hate to tell you how much time I’m already spending on the orchids Archie.

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM

  • Call to Order Debbie Wasserman Schultz Chair of the Democratic National Committee Member of the US House of Representatives, Florida
  • Invocation His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas Bishop of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Detroit
  • Presentation of Colors Disabled American Veterans, The Stanly County Chapter 12 Honor Guard
  • Pledge of Allegiance 3rd Grade Class, W.R. O’Dell Elementary School Concord, North Carolina
  • National Anthem Amber Riley
  • Remarks Stephen J. Kerrigan Chief Executive Officer of the Democratic National Convention Committee
  • Welcome Video
  • Presentation of Credentials Committee Report from Co-Chairs Bishop Vashti McKenzie African Methodist Episcopal Church, Julian Castro Mayor of San Antonio, Texas
  • Presentation of Rules Committee Report from Co-Chairs Kamala D. Harris Attorney General of California, Martin O’Malley Governor of Maryland
  • Appointment of Convention Officers
  • Gaveling-in of Permanent Chair Antonio R. Villaraigosa Chair of the 2012 Democratic National Convention Committee Mayor of Los Angeles, California
  • Remarks Steny Hoyer Parliamentarian of the 2012 Democratic National Committee Convention Democratic Whip and Member of the US House of Representatives, Maryland, Andrew Tobias Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, Alice Germond Secretary of the Democratic National Committee
  • Roll Call for Attendance

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM

  • Platform Committee Remarks Barbara Lee Member of the US House of Representatives, California Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy (Retired) First woman to reach rank of three-star general in the US Army
  • Platform Video and Remarks Cory A. Booker Mayor of Newark, New Jersey
  • Remarks Bev Perdue Governor of North Carolina
  • American Hero Video: Education
  • American Voices Remarks Ryan Case
  • Remarks Mary Kay Henry International President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
  • Remarks from Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Charles Gonzalez Member of the US House of Representatives, Texas Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Nydia M. Velazquez Member of the US House of Representatives, New York
  • Remarks Pat Quinn Governor of Illinois
  • Remarks Doug Stern Cincinnati, Ohio Firefighter
  • Remarks Tim Kaine Candidate for the US Senate, Virginia Former Governor of Virginia Former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee

7:00 PM – 8:00 PM

  • Remarks Anthony R. Foxx Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina
  • Harry Reid Democratic Majority Leader and Member of the US Senate, Nevada
  • An Economy Built to Last Video: Education
  • Women of the US House of Representatives
  • Jimmy Carter Video
  • Remarks Ken Salazar
  • Kennedy Family Tribute Video
  • Remarks Joe Kennedy III Candidate for the US House of Representatives, Massachusetts
  • Live Performance Ledisi
  • Remarks Robert Wexler President of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace Former Member of the US House of Representatives, Florida

8:00 PM – 9:00 PM

  • Remarks R.T. Rybak Mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota Jared Polis Member of the US House of Representatives, Colorado
  • Stronger Together Video: Reproductive Choice
  • American Voices Remarks Maria Ciano
  • Remarks Nancy Keenan President of the National Abortion Rights Action League – Pro-Choice America (NARAL)
  • Progress for People Video: American Veterans
  • American Voices Remarks Nate Davis
  • Remarks Tammy Duckworth Candidate for the US House of Representatives, Illinois Former Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs
  • Lincoln Chafee Governor of Rhode Island
  • James E. Clyburn Assistant Democratic Leader and Member of the US House of Representatives, South Carolina
  • Progress for People Video: Health Care
  • American Voices Remarks Stacey Lihn
  • Remarks Xavier Becerra Democratic Caucus Vice Chair and Member of the US House of Representatives, California

9:00 PM – 10:00 PM

  • Ted Strickland Former Governor of Ohio
  • Kathleen Sebelius
  • Rahm Emanuel Mayor of Chicago, Illinois Former White House Chief of Staff
  • Remarks Kal Penn Actor/Producer Former Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement
  • Remarks Craig Robinson and Maya Soetoro-ng Brother of Mrs. Obama and Sister of President Obama
  • Stronger Together Video: Equal Pay
  • Remarks Lilly Ledbetter Women’s equality leader and namesake of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
  • Deval Patrick Governor of Massachusetts

10:00 PM – 11:00 PM

  • Martin O’Malley Governor of Maryland
  • Introduction of Keynote Speaker Julian Castro Joaquin Castro Brother of Mayor Julian Castro Candidate for the US House of Representatives, Texas
  • Keynote Address Julian Castro Mayor of San Antonio, Texas
  • Michelle Obama Video and Remarks Elaine Brye
  • Remarks Michelle Obama First Lady of the United States
  • Benediction Jena Lee Nardella Founder and Executive Director of Blood: Water Mission

I’d say the highlights are Robert Wexler, Lincoln Chaffee, and Michelle Obama.  A variation TheMomCat noted is that Michelle Obama will be scheduled after the keynote, minimizing Chris Christie comparisons.

In looking at the agenda it seems the Democrats are putting more emphasis on pre-recorded contentent.

A Jim Blaine story-

I helped produce a folly of the myth of Persephone, a deeply symbolic piece about a young girl’s coming of age with incense and readings and a world beat sound track with live dancing and acting.

Performed by a cast of whomever we could scrape together and subject to 2 or 3 hours of make up and costume and choreography.

How to create this silk purse?  Pre-recording.  Teleprompters are for wimps.  Dual cassettes with live cast and 8 hours in the studio later you end up with something you hope the fireworks will distract from.

“Ok, now at the end of this song you all end up in a circle around Persephone.  Dragon?  Where’s the Dragon?  I need the Dragon on Stage now.”

The point?  There never was a bullier old ram…  oh.  Well, simply that while it may seem like a lot when you read it, the Republican convention was full of it too.

I removed all the “The Honorables” because none of them are.

Sep 04 2012

Corporate Welfare Has Not Created Jobs

The 2012 Democratic National Platform talks big about job creation and rebuilding the middle class which has been taking hits since the Reagan tax cuts in 1984. While it touts the fact that the private sector has created jobs and the manufacturing sector is growing, its not enough. Most of the jobs that have been created are low paying. The Democratic Party has done little to debunk the lie that the wealthy corporations and individuals are job creators. By rubber stamping the past policies of giveaways to corporations and extending the Bush/Obama tax cuts, the Democrats have made the problems for the ever shrinking middle class even worse.

In two articles at Common Dreams, writers Paul Buchheit and John Atcheson debunk the “job creators fraud” and lay out the real problem ailing the economy, “corporate welfare”. In Mr. Buchheit’s article, he concisely cuts through the “job creator” nonsense with the facts.

Based on IRS figures, the richest 1% nearly tripled its share of America’s after-tax income from 1980 to 2006. That’s an extra trillion dollars a year. Then, in the first year after the 2008 recession, they took 93% (pdf) of all the new income.

He also notes that the wealthiest 10% own 83% of the financial wealth (pdf) and only pay 15% tax under the premise that they would create jobs. Instead they put that wealth into tax fee accounts overseas (pdf).

Mr. Atcheson breaks it down noting that the 15% tax rate allows the wealthy to avoid some $59 billion in taxes per year and by sheltering profits off shore, “(c)orporations are given $58 billion a year in tax breaks (pdf).” Hedge fund managers are given a tax break that allows them to pay only 15% on their earnings, avoiding at least $2.1 billion in taxes a year. Yet, as he further points out:

We spend $59 billion on social welfare programs, but more than $92 billion on corporate subsidies.  According to the Environmental Law Institute, fossil fuel industries alone get more than $70 billion in subsidies, with most going to the oil and gas sector.  Yeah, we certainly can’t afford to deprive Exxon of its record profits just to give money to needy kids.

Add to that $1.2 trillion the $9 trillion in low interest and no interest loans from the Federal Reserve and $700 billion bank bailout that these corporations and banks are making huge profits on and paying no taxes. You have, Mr. Buchheit notes, “$10 trillion in misdirected dollars.  Just 1/10 of that would create 25 million jobs, one for every unemployed or underemployed worker in America. Or a $45,000 a year job for every college student in the United States.”

These are the facts that Mr. Buchheit’s lays out:

The Wall Street Journal noted in 2009 that the Bush tax cuts led to the “worst track record for jobs in recorded history.” 25 million people remain unemployed or underemployed, with 30 to 50 percent of recent college graduates in one of those categories. Among unemployed workers, nearly 43 percent have been without a job for six months or longer.

For the jobs that remain, most are low-paying, with the only real employment growth occurring in retail sales and food preparation. A recent report by the National Employment Law Project confirms that lower-wage occupations (up to about $14 per hour) accounted for 21 percent of recession losses and 58 percent of recovery growth, while mid-wage occupations (between $14 and $21 per hour) accounted for 60 percent of recession losses and only 22 percent of recovery growth.

The minimum wage is shamefully low, about 30% lower (pdf) than the inflation-adjusted 1968 figure. And the tiny pay can’t be blamed on small business. Two-thirds of America’s low-wage workers, according to another National Employment Law Project (pdf) report, work for companies that have at least 100 employees.

All these job woes persist while productivity has continued to grow, with an 80% increase since 1973 as median worker pay has stagnated. [..]

With the bulk of their assets buried in “low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, and real estate”, the wealthy are not creating jobs:

… Only 3 percent of the CEOs, upper management, and financial professionals were entrepreneurs (pdf) in 2005, even though they made up about 60 percent of the richest .1% of Americans. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. They come from the middle class.

There is ample evidence that more jobs were created when the top marginal tax rates were high.

Instead of cutting our social safety net, as President Obama has agreed to do in his “Grand Bargain”, we need to end the corporate welfare programs and put an end to the lie that if we tax the wealthy less they’ll create jobs.

Sep 04 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Robert Kuttner; What Bernanke Couldn’t Quite Say

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke used his much-anticipated Friday speech at the Fed’s annual end-of-summer conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to sound almost like the last Keynesian.

As he put it: “Monetary policy cannot achieve by itself what a broader and more balanced set of economic policies might achieve; in particular, it cannot neutralize the fiscal and financial risks that the country faces.”

Commentators made much of the fact that Bernanke said that he considered the economy dangerously soft; that unemployment was far too high for this stage of a recovery; that housing continued to be a major drag, as well as state and local budget cuts.

The New York Times: Mr. Bernanke’s Next Task

It will be another week – at a meeting of the Federal Reserve policy-making committee on Sept. 12 and 13 – before anyone knows for sure what Ben Bernanke thinks the Fed should do, if anything, to stimulate the weak economy. What is known is that, without more help, the economy is likely to remain weak, or grow weaker, through the rest of this year.

In his speech on Friday at the annual meeting on monetary policy in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Mr. Bernanke said that past Fed interventions had been a plus for the economy, raising growth enough to add an estimated two million jobs, but that economic conditions are still “obviously far from satisfactory.” Then he said that more help would be forthcoming “as needed.”

But, by his own analysis, help is needed now.  

Joseph Stiglitz: Mitt Romney’s Tax Avoidance Weakens Bonds of American Society

If politicians and those around them do not pay their fair share of taxes, how can we expect that anyone else will?

Mitt Romney’s income taxes have become a major issue in the American presidential campaign. Is this just petty politics, or does it really matter? In fact, it does matter – and not just for Americans.

A major theme of the underlying political debate in the United States is the role of the state and the need for collective action. The private sector, while central in a modern economy, cannot ensure its success alone. For example, the financial crisis that began in 2008 demonstrated the need for adequate regulation.

Moreover, beyond effective regulation (including ensuring a level playing field for competition), modern economies are founded on technological innovation, which in turn presupposes basic research funded by government. This is an example of a public good – things from which we all benefit, but that would be under-supplied (or not supplied at all) were we to rely on the private sector.

Conservative politicians in the US underestimate the importance of publicly provided education, technology, and infrastructure. Economies in which government provides these public goods perform far better than those in which it does not.

Bob Herbert: How We Can Bring Millions of Americans to the Middle Class

The United States needs to be reimagined. A recent study from the Pew Research Center tells us that in economic terms the middle class “has suffered its worst decade in modern history.” It’s shrinking.

With jobs scarce, wages declining and the nation’s wealth concentrating ever more intensely at the top, the middle class has shrunk in size for the first time since World War II. [..]

What we’re experiencing is nothing less than an historic generational decline in living standards. We’ve obviously been doing something very wrong.

Laura Flanders; Labor Day Message: We Can’t Labor Without Our Lives

“Every culture lives within its dream,” wrote Lewis Mumford in 1934:

   “It is reality – while the sleep lasts. But, like the sleeper, a culture lives within an objective world that…sometimes breaks into the dream, like a noise, to modify it or to make further sleep impossible.”

This Labor Day it’s conventional wisdom to say the American dream is broken. For those who ever dreamed it, that dream featured all that typically fills the fantasies of capitalist cultures: if not heaven, then at least happiness here on earth, built from stuff and standing acquired through human sweat and toil; Americans sold themselves (and others) another fancy too, a fair shake, in a “city upon a hill” nation replete with opportunity. (The facts of slavery, land theft and genocide notwithstanding.)

For many who were sleeping soundly previously, the noise that’s broken in is that of millions of Americans living without enough to eat (46 million, including one in five of all children); the racket of rampant ill-health, the half-of-all jobs that barely lift families out of poverty ($34,000 or less) and the kicker: less social mobility than exists in most of Old World Europe.

Joe Nocera: They’re Not What They Used to Be

What did I miss while I was away? Ah, yes, the Republican National Convention. I hear the Republicans nominated Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for president and vice president. Imagine that. [..]

As usual, journalists vastly outnumbered the delegates. As usual, the thing was so finely scripted, Eastwood aside, that there wasn’t a whole lot of genuine news to report. As Jeremy Peters put it in The Times, “Today’s media labor to enliven coverage of what typically are endless hours of preordained events.” The decision by the major networks to cut back coverage to an hour a night is not irrational. [..]

On the other hand, old-style conventions, for all their flaws, demanded compromise that is essential for governing. Nor were the party bosses willing to throw their weight behind candidates who were too far outside the mainstream.

The primary system has allowed the two parties to be captured by their more extreme elements. Compromise is now a dirty word. Centrism is for losers. Conventions now enforce the views of the hard-liners.

Sep 04 2012

Michael Steele

As Aired

Part 1

Part 2

In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to keep from Losing Completely.

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