“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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Katrina vanden Heuvel: Christie’s broken promise
Last week, as news circulated of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s weight-loss surgery, so did a video in which Christie parodied his own brand – and the fleece he wore day and night during the Hurricane Sandy crisis. In the video, he asks everybody from Morning Joe to Jon Bon Jovi if they’ve seen his now-missing fleece, without which he is powerless, like Iron Man without his suit.
The governor may be able to poke fun at the absurdity of, among other things, his rising star, rumored ambitions and “relentless” fleece, but his real shortcomings are no laughing matter. [..]
Christie’s refusal to engage on climate change is all the more surprising because of the significant environmental commitments he made while campaigning for his first term – commitments that garnered him the coveted endorsement of the New Jersey Environmental Federation.
Laura Flanders: FEMA Denies Aid To Housing Co-Ops after Sandy
According to New York’s Office of Housing Recovery Operations, some 120 co-op buildings, with 13,000 apartments, and 368 condominiums, with 7,000 units, sustained flooding and damage after Hurricane Sandy blew through town.
Many now need extensive repairs, but people who live in housing co-ops are considered small businesses under federal law and as such they’re ineligible for federal hurricane relief. Instead of relief, they’re being advised to apply for a “small business” loan even though they are essentially nonprofit entities set up by property owners.
That’s what many New Yorkers have been discovering to their surprise, as they’ve been turned down for FEMA aid. Even though the FEMA assistance is finally coming through, people who live in co-ops just can’t get it. And that hits low income co-op households especially hard, according to the executive director of an organization that helps low income New Yorkers turn distressed city properties into co-operatively owned and operated homes.
Congress has a long road ahead on immigration reform. The Senate Judiciary Committee has started to consider some 300 amendments challenging the nearly 900-page bill crafted by the Gang of Eight. Lawmakers are hopeful that legislation will pass both houses by the end of summer. But from now until then, the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants may continue full force. A group of advocates is now making a renewed call on President Obama to suspend deportations of those people who would gain status in the bill’s final version later this year. [..]
Obama met with representatives from more than a dozen progressive unions and business leaders in February, and declined a similar request to halt deportations at that time. Advocates point out that this time is different, because the bipartisan Gang of Eight has moved forward, and the move to suspend deportations would work around the current proposal. In February, Obama stated that he didn’t want to start a controversy that could derail the bill in Congress. But by his not heeding the voices of the families whose loved ones have been removed, the controversy of record high deportations continues.
Jenny Brown and Stephanie Seguin: We Won’t Stop Until the Morning After Pill Is Available to All, Regardless of Age
For a decade, we have protested and battled in court for Plan B access. Enough with the Obama administration’s delays
We have been fighting for a decade for something so basic: for women in America to have easy access to safe and affordable birth control, including the “morning-after pill” (sometimes referred to by the specific drug name of Plan B).
We won a key victory when a federal judge ordered the Obama administration to make the morning-after pill available other over-the-counter – in other words, to make it available without a prescription. Unfortunately, our fight didn’t end there as the administration tried to delay, but last week the courts again ruled on the side of women’s access to birth control, regardless of age.
Lauren Carsick: As the UN Evades Responsibility for the Cholera Epidemic, Haitians Continue to Suffer
Advocates for over 5,000 victims of cholera in Haiti put the UN on notice that they intend to file suit in a national court if the UN continues its refusal to provide compensation for its negligence in introducing cholera to the country. Haiti’s first cholera epidemic in over a century compounded the misery in a country reeling from the devastating 2010 earthquake that ravaged its already vulnerable health and sanitation system. As of this month, the epidemic has caused incalculable suffering – the death toll from cholera exceeds 8,100, and over 654,000 Haitians have been sickened. Despite multiple scientific studies that have consistently attributed the cause of the outbreak of cholera in Haiti to UN troops from Nepal and the UN’s negligent waste disposal system, the UN is claiming that it is immune from claims.The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and theBureau des Avocats Internationauxsubmitted a claim on behalf of cholera victims for relief and reparations to the UN on November 3, 2011,requesting that the UN upgrade the national water and sanitation infrastructure, provide compensation to victims for their losses, and issue a public apology
Suzanne York: Koalas: The Canary in Australia’s Coal Mine?
The news of late out of Australia has not been the most encouraging.
For starters, the country continues to mine coal at a rapid pace, upping its exports of the dirty fuel. It is the world’s biggest coal exporter. A recent report found that if the expected expansions of Australia’s coal exports continue as planned, global carbon dioxide emissions could increase by 1.2 billion metric tons a year. [..]
And one last news item of note has been the worsening plight of koalas, the unofficial symbol of Australia. Climate change is amongst the many concerns facing the marsupials, where more occurrences of extremes in weather pose a threat to the koala population.
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