“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”.
Wednesday is Ladies’ Day.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Katrina vanden Heuvel: The appalling GOP
There really isn’t any other word. Congressional Republicans are simply appalling. They have absolute control of the House. They set the agenda. They decide what comes to the floor. They decide what passes on to the Senate.
They know that extreme legislation isn’t going to be enacted into law. The Democratic majority in the Senate and the Democratic president stand in the way. So the legislation they choose to pass is a statement of their own values. It is simply designed to proclaim, “This is where we stand.” And for the vast majority of Americans, what they proudly proclaim is simply beyond the pale. [..]
Eisenhower was a conservative and frugal president who insisted on balancing the budget. He put a lid on Pentagon spending. He defended Social Security and labor laws, while building the interstate highways and funding the national education defense act. He was re-elected in a landslide.
Now it looks like the “stupid” wing of the Republican Party has taken over. Our nation suffers as a result. And Republicans are likely to pay the price for that.
Nozomi Hayase: Edward Snowden, True Hope for Change
Amid shock waves from the revelations of mass global NSA spying, the US government reaction to leaker Edward Snowden took a dramatic turn. From media smearing to overcharging him with espionage, this followed the predictable pattern of Obama’s war on whistleblowers; shooting the messengers by demonizing and discrediting them in order to kill the message or distract people from it. [..]
The US government’s recent manhunt for Snowden went too far in that it tried to intimidate a number of sovereign countries who were defending the universal right to asylum. A prime example was seen in the recent ‘jet aggression‘ of stopping the Bolivian president Evo Morales’ plane, followed by the hacking of the emails of senior authorities in Bolivia. This desperate action showed the true colors of the Obama administration. It exposed to the world the real viciousness of this regime and their disdain for international law and basic human rights. Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan ‘Yes We Can’ scammed the American people with the secret practice of Stasi 2.0, ‘Yes, We Scan’.
The SEC already reached a ‘no fault’ settlement with Goldman Sachs, so how can it bring down Tourre for the same non-crime?
Monday sees the opening of the trial of a colorful former Goldman Sachs trader, Fabrice Tourre: a made-for-TV Wall Streeter, a Frenchman with a quick wit who dubbed himself “Fabulous Fab” even as he worked on mortgage deals which, it is alleged, he knew would fail.
The trial is sure to be entertaining. It is also certain to add nothing to the sum of human knowledge; nor will it create any kind of catharsis or sense of justice for the mortgage crisis.
First, some quick background: the deal for which Tourre is on trial is known as Abacus. It was a set of sure-to-fail subprime mortgage securities that Goldman Sachs created exclusively for rich investor John Paulson. Paulson wanted to bet against subprime, but he was having trouble: mortgage securities are mashed-together bundles of all kinds of mortgages, some of good quality, some of excellent quality, and some of subprime quality. Paulson wanted a purely subprime product so that he could bet against it. Goldman Sachs created such a product for him.
Eunice Hyon Min Rho: Photo ID Law on Trial in Pennsylvania: What’s at Stake for Our Democracy
Margaret Pennington, a 90-year-old Chester County resident and lifelong voter, votes by going to her polling place two blocks away. She also no longer drives and depends on her daughter to take her around. She lives about 25 miles away from the nearest PennDOT office, Pennsylvania’s equivalent of a DMV office. For Pennington to obtain a photo ID to vote, her daughter would have to close her small retail business and lose a day’s work.
Pennington is just one of the hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians who will not be able to vote if the state’s photo ID law remains in place. Many are elderly, some have disabilities, some are low-income; all take seriously their responsibility to vote on Election Day.
Today the ACLU is back in court to ask that the photo ID law be blocked permanently, as it is an unnecessary and unjustifiable burden on the fundamental right to vote guaranteed under the Pennsylvania State Constitution. We will show that not only does the state photo ID law fall far short of the constitutional promise that elections be “free and equal,” but it also fails to pass the common sense test.
Joan Walsh: Hey, Newt, this is not a “lynch mob”!
Newt Gingrich insists Trayvon Martin protesters were “prepared to be a lynch mob.” Here’s a little history lesson
Every day this year brings another 150thanniversary of an epochal Civil War event, some more important than others. A big one that’s getting little attention is the days-long New York City Draft Riots, when hundreds of furious Irish immigrants took to the streets to protest Civil War conscription, which began July 13, 1863. Against the backdrop of mostly peaceful protests against the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin, many people are remembering the history of white rage, and white race riots – Tulsa, Okla., Rosewood, Fla. – but I’ve seen no one mention the draft riots, though the Zimmerman verdict came down on the 150th anniversary of their start.
With the ludicrous Newt Gingrich (who claims to be a historian) insisting the peaceful Trayvon Martin protesters were “prepared to be a lynch mob,” it’s worth remembering that devastating eruption of white mob violence 150 years earlier, when at least 11 black men were actually lynched.
Jessica Valenti: Fear and Consequences: George Zimmerman and the Protection of White Womanhood
My first week of college, I had a heated debate about abortion with two new friends-both were white, and one, Nancy, was extremely pro-life. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for having such an “adult” conversation-we disagreed, but everyone was being respectful. Then my other pro-choice friend asked Nancy what she would do with a pregnancy if she was raped. I will never forget what Nancy said: “I think it would be cute to have a little black baby.” When we expressed outrage at her racism, Nancy shrugged. It never occurred to her a rapist would be anyone other than a black man. (DOJ statistics show that 80 to 90 percent of women who are raped are attacked by someone of their own race, unless they are Native women.) When this young woman imagined a criminal in her mind, he wasn’t a faceless bogeyman.
I hadn’t thought of this exchange in years, not until I was reading the responses to George Zimmerman’s acquittal-particularly those about the role of white womanhood. When I first heard that the jurors were women, I naïvely hoped they would see this teenage boy shot dead in the street and think of their children. But they weren’t just any women; most were white women. Women who, like me, have been taught to fear men of color. And who-as a feminist named Valerie pointed out on Twitter-probably would see Zimmerman as their son sooner than they would Trayvon Martin.
Recent Comments