“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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New York Times Editorial: A Defense Secretary, Blocked by Politics
For the last four years, Senate Republicans have used the power of the filibuster to block legislation, bottle up nominees to courts and government departments, and strangle federal agencies, even though they are in the minority. On Thursday, they hit a new low. They successfully filibustered Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for defense secretary, the first time a cabinet nominee for this post has been prevented from receiving an up-or-down vote.
The Constitution says the Senate must give or withhold its consent to presidential nominees; it does not give minority blocs the power to determine the outcome. The Senate could have restored the power of a majority last month if Mr. Reid had agreed to a proposal to reduce this abuse, but he did not. Though Republicans are determined to turn cabinet nominations into tortuous ordeals, Democrats gave them the power to do so.
Paul Krugman: Rubio and the Zombies
The State of the Union address was not, I’m sorry to say, very interesting. True, the president offered many good ideas. But we already know that almost none of those ideas will make it past a hostile House of Representatives.
On the other hand, the G.O.P. reply, delivered by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, was both interesting and revelatory. And I mean that in the worst way. For Mr. Rubio is a rising star, to such an extent that Time magazine put him on its cover, calling him “The Republican Savior.” What we learned Tuesday, however, was that zombie economic ideas have eaten his brain.
When Republican presidents Nixon, Reagan and Bush waged secret wars based on mountains of lies and deceit, they were nearly impeached, but in each case Democrats in control of Congress could not pull the trigger. As a result, the Obama White House basks in a presidential culture of murderous arrogance and lawless impunity. [..]
But in the end, none of these Republican warmongers were impeached while in office or indicted afterward because Democrats, in control of Congress every time, could never bring themselves to pull the trigger. So Tricky Dick Nixon stepped down. Reagan doddered off to the ranch, and Dubya’s at home right now watching American Idol. Barack Hussein Obama may be a different color and from a different party but he inherits their arrogance, their immunity, their impunity.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: The Great Wage Robbery
Two important events took place this week. One was the President’s call for a higher minimum wage, which got a lot of attention. The other was a new report which showed just how much of our nation’s wealth continues to be hijacked by the wealthiest among us.
That didn’t get much attention.
There’s a Great Robbery underway, although most of its perpetrators don’t see themselves as robbers. Instead they’re sustained by delusions that protect them from facing the consequences of their own actions.
Bill Boyarsky; Christopher Dorner and the Lines That Divide Us
Fault lines of class, gender, generation, geography and race split society, observed the late newspaper editor Robert Maynard. The racial division, clear almost two decades ago during the O.J. Simpson murder trial, has emerged again in the public discourse over the case of Christopher Dorner, a dismissed African-American cop accused of killing four people before apparently losing his life in a gunfight with police and subsequent fire.
Maynard, who was also African-American, was editor and publisher of The Oakland Tribune and co-founder of the Institute for Journalism Education. His fault line theory was inspired by the earthquake faults that underlie California and the societal faults that periodically rip the nation, his state and his city of Oakland.
Al Gore: False Spontaneity of the Tea Party
A new study by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Medicine reveals that the Tea Party Movement was planned over a decade ago by groups with ties to the tobacco and fossil fuel industries. The movement was not a spontaneous populist uprising, but rather a long-term strategy to promote the anti-science, anti-government agenda of powerful corporate interests.
The two organizations mentioned in the report, Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks, used to be a single organization that was founded by the Koch brothers and heavily financed by the tobacco industry. These organizations began planning the Tea Party Movement over ten years ago to promote a common agenda that advocated market fundamentalism over science and opposed any regulation or taxation of fossil fuels and tobacco products.
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