“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: Continuing Salmonella Outbreaks
Months after salmonella-contaminated chicken distributed by a California company sickened people, the dangerous food is still being sold around the country. This disturbing situation is the result of weak federal regulatory powers and the company’s irresponsibility. [..]
Aaron Lavallee, a spokesman for F.S.I.S., said that under statutes and case law, the agency cannot compel a recall in the Foster Farms case with the current evidence. Congress should hold hearings to determine if the Agriculture Department and its food safety service need more power to protect the public from potentially serious harm.
Charles Pierce: The Reign Of Morons: The Presidenting
Was it just me, or was that as pissed-off as we’re likely to see the president in public? Oh, he was still maddeningly vague about who really was behind the Reign Of Morons, all that talk about “the other side,” without using the words, “Republicans,” “conservatives,” or “raving nutballs,” and all that talk about the dangers of “the extremes,’ as though Bernie Sanders was as relevant to the events of the past two weeks as Ted Cruz was. I resemble that remark, sir, and my seconds will be calling on you. And what was that crack conflating “bloggers” with “radio talking-heads” I resemble that remark, sir, and my seconds will be calling on you.
More important, he’s still arguing for an economic compromise in the context of continuing austerity. He talked about tax reform without tax increases. He talked about jobs without mentioning stimulus. And what he said about “entitlements” sent a cold chill down my spine since it was exactly what Paul Ryan would say. Which is what happens when you conclude that ” creating a budget” is not an “ideological exercise.” [..]
Nevertheless, the president made it plain that, if “the other side” wants to deal, it’s up to them to wring the crazy out of their rag in one quick hurry.
The Congress, that polls show the American people would like to replace in its entirety, has “kicked the can down the road” again, putting off the government shutdown until January 15 and another debt ceiling showdown until February 7. [..]
There is another story about how all this gridlock came to be, fronted by the question: “Why didn’t the Democrats landslide the cruelest, most ignorant, big-business-indentured Republican Party in its history during the 2010 and 2012 Congressional elections? (See “The Do Nothing Congress: A Record of Extremism and Partisanship”)
There are a number of answers to this fundamental political question. First and most obvious is that the Democrats are dialing for the same commercial campaign dollars, which beyond the baggage of quid pro quomoney, detours the party away from concentrating on their constituents’ needs, in a contrasting manner with the GOP.
Mark Gongloff: 4 Ways The Shutdown Deal Helps The Tea Party, Hurts Everyone Else
With the government back open and the hellstorm of a U.S. debt default delayed, you’re probably feeling pretty good about things, right? Like maybe we’ve thwarted the Tea Party’s quest to destroy the U.S. economy? Sadly, no.
Although House Republicans seem to have failed miserably to ransom the economy over Obamacare or “spending” or “disrespect” or whatever the last three weeks of idiocy and terror were about, they actually won, Bloomberg Businessweek points out in its latest cover story. The deal Congress struck to get the government back to work and raise the debt ceiling maintains a Tea Party pogrom happening since at least 2010, slashing spending at the fastest rate since the end of World War II, according to Businessweek. Rather than helping the economy, the latest debt deal is another disaster for it in four very specific ways: [..]
Dylan Ratigan: Those Who Nominate Dictate
Power, whether in an electoral system or a corporate boardroom, originates with the people who control the nomination of candidates — not with those who “vote” after this process is complete.
This is why the best-run companies consider a wide variety of potential nominees and include as many people as they can in the nomination process. This creates the highest possibility of hiring the best candidates. [..]
The extraordinary power of those who control the nominating process is not lost on power-hungry corporate board members. Why else would Carl Icahn risk billions to simply acquire board seats in hopes of introducing his nominees?
This strategy is definitely not lost on those who finance and nominate our political aspirants.
Henry A. Giroux: The Ghost of Authoritarianism in the Age of the Shutdown
In the aftermath of the reign of Nazi terror in the 1940s, the philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote:
National Socialism lives on, and even today we still do not know whether it is merely the ghost of what was so monstrous that it lingers on after its own death, or whether it has not yet died at all, whether the willingness to commit the unspeakable survives in people as well as in the conditions that enclose them.
Adorno’s words are as relevant today as they were when he first wrote them. The threat of authoritarianism to citizen-based democracy is alive and well in the United States, and its presence can be felt in the historical conditions leading up to the partial government shutdown and the refusal on the part of the new extremists to raise the debt ceiling. Adorno believed that while the specific features and horrors of mid-century fascism such as the concentration camps and the control of governments by a political elite and the gestapo would not be reproduced in the same way, democracy as a political ideal and as a working proposition would be under assault once again by new anti-democratic forces all too willing to impose totalitarian systems on their adversaries.
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