“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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Glen Ford: The Sequestration Tango: Obama and GOP Dance Through the Graveyard of the New Deal
The Obama regime has been remarkably successful – in pushing forward a Republican agenda. Obama, especially, has “moved with such elegance and poise, his fans forgot that he was dancing with a partner: the GOP.” Together, they have starved the federal beast and forged a consensus on the inevitability of austerity. Let the gruesome-twosome take a bow.
Barack Obama’s mission has always been to destroy the left wing of the Democrats in order to consummate a grand bargain – a melding – of the corporatists in both major parties. He entered national politics as a newly-minted member of the Democratic Leadership Council, which dispensed corporate campaign money to business-friendly candidates and incumbents. Ten years later, President Obama has succeeded beyond our worst fears. Black politics is in utter ruin, and the collapse of the Democratic Party’s left wing is all but complete. Austerity is the order of the day, and no one is more responsible for that catastrophe than Obama, who has waged war on so-called entitlement programs since the polls closed in 2008.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: A President Who’ll Cut Social Security – And Liberals Who Love Him Too Much
The spectacle of a supposedly liberal President repeatedly and needlessly trying to cut Social Security is enough to bring a reasonable, economically literate person to the point of existential despair. To see leading liberal lights like Rachel Maddow and Ezra Klein chuckle indulgently at those foolish Republicans in Congress over the subject – Don’t they know he’s already giving them what they want? – is to risk plunging into the depths of that despair.
This week the President hosted a dinner for Republicans leaders where he worked to sell his budget proposal, including his harmful plan to cut benefits through the “chained CPI.” National Security was the main course and Social Security was the dessert. And guess who wasn’t coming to dinner: The elderly, the disabled, or any policy experts who understand the disastrous implications of the chained CPI.
The February employment report shows some notable improvements that, if sustained, would herald a real recovery. Partly boosted by increased employment in the construction industry, the number of new jobs jumped to 236,000 last month, continuing a gradual upward trend.
Unfortunately, there are many reasons to believe that the improvements will not be sustained. If Congressional Republicans have their way – insisting that all deficit reduction be achieved by spending less without any tax increases – the automatic cuts that began on March 1 will continue. That will cost the economy an estimated 750,000 jobs by the end of this year and reduce economic growth by about half a percentage point. [..]
Without adequate demand, there will be no upsurge in business investment. The Fed cannot turn things around on its own. And the automatic budget cuts, on top of it all, will only make things worse.
Michael Winship: Jack Lew, Citigroup and the Ugland Truth
Along with its sandy beaches and quality snorkeling, the Cayman Islands’ reputation as an offshore tax haven for corporations, banks and hedge funds has become so well-known its financial institutions now are featured in travel brochures as yet another tourist attraction.
So as we traveled across the Caribbean this week – including a stretch paralleling the south coast of Cuba past Guantanamo Bay and the Sierra Maestra mountains, where Castro and his revolutionaries once hid out – we made a stop in George Town on Grand Cayman Island. A short walk along the shore took us to 335 South Church Street, a location made famous by Barack Obama a few years ago and more recently, Jack Lew, during his confirmation hearings to become Secretary of the Treasury.
Gail Collins: Senators Bearing Arms
Whenever talk turns to gun control in Congress, lawmakers feel compelled to mention their love of weaponry. [..]
People, do you think Congress is actually going to do anything about gun violence in the wake of the Newtown shootings? Judiciary is going to vote on two big proposals next week: a ban on assault weapons and an expansion of gun purchase background checks. If the Democrats stick together, the bills can pass on a party-line vote. But to go any further, they need Republican support, and there wasn’t a whole lot of it in evidence this week.
Ryan Goodman: The Drone Question Obama Hasn’t Answered
THE Senate confirmed John O. Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday after a nearly 13-hour filibuster by the libertarian senator Rand Paul, who before the vote received a somewhat odd letter from the attorney general. [..]
The senator, whose filibuster had become a social-media sensation, elating Tea Party members, human-rights groups and pacifists alike, said he was “quite happy with the answer.” But Mr. Holder’s letter raises more questions than it answers – and, indeed, more important and more serious questions than the senator posed. [..]
But is it well past time for the United States government to specify, precisely, its views on whom it thinks it can kill in the struggle against Al Qaeda and other terrorist forces? The answer is yes.
The Obama administration’s continued refusal to do so should alarm any American concerned about the constitutional right of our citizens – no matter what evil they may or may not be engaged in – to due process under the law. For those Americans, Mr. Holder’s seemingly simple but maddeningly vague letter offers no reassurance.
1 comments
going along to get along and not rocking the boat.
at least the whacks on the right WANT everything to go to hell AND are armed to the teeth for it – what are all the weenie libs going to do when the consequences of austerity wash into their nice leafy hoods?
hand out Kennedy School of Gov’t 400 page tomes explaining why all the sell outs were compromises?
rmm.