“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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Laura Flanders: We Need a Robin Hood Tax-Not Cuts in Food Stamps
I saw a man dressed as Robin Hood on Halloween and I almost begged him to stay around.
We need Robin Hood and his merry band of wealth redistribution specialists not just on Halloween but every day, and this year in particular we need him on November 1.
That’s when $332 million in cuts to the food stamp or SNAP program go into effect. Three point one million low-wage workers, seniors, veterans and children are losing urgently needed aid. And that’s just the cuts the President and Congress enacted in 2010. We need Robin Hood because Congress is talking about taking $39 billion more. And we need Robin because while 1.2 million poor children are going to be eating even less, 400 already rich Americans are enjoying even more.
Take a look at the Forbes 400 List. While the working poor have taken cut after cut, the richest Americans have seen their wealth double in the last ten years.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Strange silence on success in removing Syria’s chemical weapons
Last week, buried beneath banner headlines blaring about Obamacare hearings, National Security Agency surveillance revelations and the Boston Red Sox’ World Series win, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) quietly reported that Syria “has completed the functional destruction of critical equipment for all of its declared chemical weapons production facilities and mixing/filling plants, rendering them inoperable.”
On the heels of winning the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, the unglamorous but undeniably effective OPCW, using saws, sledgehammers and cutting torches in the middle of a war zone, defied predictions by meeting the Nov. 1 deadline to disable Syria’s chemical weapons program. The bombshell was that there was no bombshell – at least, not of the unconscionable chemical kind. [..]
That the story made few waves was all the more surprising considering that when Secretary of State John Kerry first – and, as was widely presumed, mistakenly – suggested this path to disarmament, the perceived gaffe was thoroughly covered, parsed and even parodied.
Last night the Senate voted 61-30 to consider a law barring employers nationwide from discriminating against gay and transgender workers. Seven Republicans joined Democrats in support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), marking the first time the Senate has taken up workplace protections for transgender Americans, and the chamber’s first consideration of legal rights for gay workers since 1996, when a version of ENDA was defeated 50-49.
Although the bill is expected to pass the Senate later this week behind overwhelming popular support, ideological resistance from House Republicans may keep it from becoming law. On Monday, Speaker John Boehner indicated that he will refuse to bring ENDA up for a vote. “The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,” said a spokesman.
Aura Bogado: Immigration Activists Continue to Fight on All Fronts
October was a busy month on the streets for comprehensive immigration reform backers-but it was quiet in on the floor of the House. While pro-immigrant lawmakers and their supporters keep putting pressure on Congress to pass overhaul legislation, record-setting numbers of detentions and deportations of immigrants continue. But so do actions that challenge the way immigrant communities are targeted.
Thousands of people in about 150 cities participated in mobilizations on October 5, calling for Republicans to move forward on the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill. That was followed by a civil disobedience in Washington, D.C. on October 8, in which 200 people were arrested-including eight members of Congress. President Obama has also spent a good amount of time talking about immigration: Immediately after the debt crisis was averted in October, the president made clear, through a series of statements and interviews, that immigration was once again a priority. And time and time again, Obama has squarely put the onus on the House Republicans that he says won’t give comprehensive immigration reform a chance to go through.
Medea Benjmin: Drones Have Come Out of the Shadows
At each of the over 200 cities I’ve traveled to this past year with my book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, I ask the audience an easy question: Have they ever seen or heard from drone strike victims in the mainstream US press? Not one hand has ever gone up. This is an obvious indication that the media has failed to do its job of humanizing the civilian casualties that accompany President Obama’s deadly drone program.
This has started to change, with new films, reports and media coverage finally giving the American public a taste of the personal tragedies involved.
On October 29, the Rehman family-a father with his two children-came all the way from the Pakistani tribal territory of North Waziristan to the US Capitol to tell the heart-wrenching story of the death of the children’s beloved 67-year-old grandmother. And while the briefing, organized by Congressman Alan Grayson, was only attended by four other congresspeople, it was packed with media.
Hazel Henderson: New Policies Beyond Austerity and Stimulus
It is time to move the global policy debate beyond the binary options of “austerity” versus “stimulus.” Both these macroeconomic policies have caused untold harm to millions and produced dangerous policy stalemates in Europe and the U.S., Japan and other countries.
The experiments in Europe to impose austerity have not only caused unemployment, falling growth rates and quality of life but also rising extremism and political polarization.
Europeans have learned that debts can’t be paid by more borrowing. And the U.S. Congress is succumbing to mob rule by 50 Republicans who shut down the government. These self-inflicted crises are damaging U.S. credibility and its currency.
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