“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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Paul Krugman: The Biggest Losers
The pundit consensus seems to be that Republicans lost in the just-concluded budget deal. Overall spending will be a bit higher than the level mandated by the sequester, the straitjacket imposed back in 2011. Meanwhile, Democrats avoided making any concessions on Social Security or Medicare. Call this one for Team D, I guess.
But if Republicans arguably lost this round, the unemployed lost even more: Extended benefits weren’t renewed, so 1.3 million workers will be cut off at the end of this month, and many more will see their benefits run out in the months that follow. And if you take a longer perspective – if you look at what has happened since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010 – what you see is a triumph of anti-government ideology that has had enormously destructive effects on American workers. [..]But the larger picture is one of years of deeply destructive policy, imposing gratuitous suffering on working Americans. And this deal didn’t do much to change that picture.
Jenn Toppper: The End of the Internet As We Know It
Unless the FCC protects net neutrality, the biggest Internet providers will run amok.
The Internet is the world’s largest shopping mall, library, video store, post office and town square. When you turn on your computer, you’re in the driver’s seat, choosing what you want to read, watch, and hear.
We owe everything we love about the Web to net neutrality, the principle that the Internet is an open platform and service providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner can’t dictate where you go and what you do online.
Without net neutrality, the Web would look a lot like cable, with the most popular content available only on certain tiers or with certain providers. (Imagine AT&T as the exclusive home of Netflix and Comcast as the sole source of YouTube.)
In 2010, the Federal Communications Commission tried to establish concrete rules to protect net neutrality. But the agency ended up caving to pressure from the biggest phone and cable companies and left huge loopholes standing in the way of a truly open Internet.
And now Verizon is in court challenging those rules – and the FCC’s authority to draft and enforce them to protect consumers and promote competition. That’s because under the Bush administration, the FCC decided to give away much of its authority to oversee our broadband networks. The current FCC could fix the problem by reclaiming this authority, but it hasn’t yet.
Tough talk is coming from some Members of Congress who oppose the new international agreement to limit the Iran nuclear program and want to plow ahead with additional sanctions, even though that vote could jeopardize the agreement and lead America into another Mid-East War.
The deal was negotiated between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — including the United States — plus Germany. [..]
When the polling firm Hart Research read this description of the deal to a random sample of American voters, 63 percent said they supported it, and only 24 percent were opposed. Thirteen percent said they were undecided. When the polling firm Hart Research read this description of the deal to a random sample of American voters, 63 percent said they supported it, and only 24 percent were opposed. Thirteen percent said they were undecided. [..]
Regardless, there are some in Congress who are intent on passing new sanctions right away, even if it would threaten the entire negotiation.
Those Members need to read further in the Hart poll. Sixty-seven percent say they would agree more with a Member of Congress who wants to give the new agreement and further negotiations a chance to work before deciding on any additional economic sanctions. Only 25 percent prefer that Congress pass new sanctions on Iran now, even if it puts the new agreement and further negotiations at risk.
Laura W. Murphy: The NSA’s Winter of Discontent
The summer of Snowden is fast becoming the NSA’s winter of discontent.[..]
There’s a reason why the NSA is concerned about the growing chorus of concern from every facet of society–both here and abroad–about its dragnet surveillance programs: change looks inevitable, particularly as bipartisan congressional support continues to grow for the USA FREEDOM Act. Currently, 130 members of Congress have co-sponsored the legislation, and just yesterday Sen. Leahy held a hearing on his legislation and NSA reform. And with pressure intensifying in the House for a vote, the USA FREEDOM Act should hit the floor sometime in the new year–a vote the Obama administration and the NSA will no doubt lobby hard against.
Here’s hoping the NSA’s winter of discontent becomes a democratic spring. Innocent Americans should never have to worry their government’s awesome surveillance capabilities are intercepting, filtering, collecting, analyzing, and storing the intimate details of their lives. Appallingly, they do.ere’s a reason why the NSA is concerned about the growing chorus of concern from every facet of society–both here and abroad–about its dragnet surveillance programs: change looks inevitable, particularly as bipartisan congressional support continues to grow for the USA FREEDOM Act. Currently, 130 members of Congress have co-sponsored the legislation, and just yesterday Sen. Leahy held a hearing on his legislation and NSA reform. And with pressure intensifying in the House for a vote, the USA FREEDOM Act should hit the floor sometime in the new year–a vote the Obama administration and the NSA will no doubt lobby hard against.
Here’s hoping the NSA’s winter of discontent becomes a democratic spring. Innocent Americans should never have to worry their government’s awesome surveillance capabilities are intercepting, filtering, collecting, analyzing, and storing the intimate details of their lives. Appallingly, they do.
E. J. Dionne. Jr.: The Inadequate, Necessary Budget Deal
It’s a sign of how far to the right House Republicans have dragged governance in our country that the very conservative budget deal reached by Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray will need many liberal and Democratic votes to pass.
The agreement leaves the jobless out in the cold, because it doesn’t extend unemployment benefits, and provides little room for new initiatives to combat rising inequality and declining upward mobility-the very problems that President Obama and most Democrats believe are the most important facing the country. [..]
To say this is a very conservative outcome is not to knock Murray or her negotiating approach. Democrats had two major goals going into the talks, and she made progress on both of them. As a general matter, Murray’s side wanted to lighten the burden on the recovery from the automatic budget cuts known as the “sequester.” And it sought to protect Head Start and other education programs, scientific and medical research, and some infrastructure spending.
Harvey Wasserman: Japan’s Deadly New ‘Fukushima Fascism’
New secrecy law may make Japan’s democracy a relic of its pre-Fukushima past.
Fukushima continues to spew out radiation. The quantities seem to be rising, as do the impacts.
The site has been infiltrated by organized crime.
There are horrifying signs of ecological disaster in the Pacific and human health impacts in the U.S.
But within Japan, a new State Secrets Act makes such talk punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Taro Yamamoto, a Japanese legislator, says the law “represents a coup d’etat” leading to “the recreation of a fascist state.” The powerful Asahi Shimbun newspaper compares it to “conspiracy” laws passed by totalitarian Japan in the lead-up to Pearl Harbor, and warns it could end independent reporting on Fukushima.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been leading Japan in an increasingly militaristic direction. Tensions have increased with China. Massive demonstrations have been renounced with talk of “treason.” Fukushima continues to spew out radiation. The quantities seem to be rising, as do the impacts.
The site has been infiltrated by organized crime.
There are horrifying signs of ecological disaster in the Pacific and human health impacts in the U.S.
But within Japan, a new State Secrets Act makes such talk punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Taro Yamamoto, a Japanese legislator, says the law “represents a coup d’etat” leading to “the recreation of a fascist state.” The powerful Asahi Shimbun newspaper compares it to “conspiracy” laws passed by totalitarian Japan in the lead-up to Pearl Harbor, and warns it could end independent reporting on Fukushima.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been leading Japan in an increasingly militaristic direction. Tensions have increased with China. Massive demonstrations have been renounced with talk of “treason.”
On this day in 1642, 
New Zealand is one of the most recently settled major landmasses. The first known settlers were Eastern Polynesians who, according to most researchers, arrived by canoe in about AD 1250-1300. Some researchers have suggested an earlier wave of arrivals dating to as early as AD 50-150; these people then either died out or left the islands. Over the following centuries these settlers developed into a distinct culture now known as Maori. The population was divided into iwi (tribes) and hapu (subtribes) which would cooperate, compete and sometimes fight with each other. At some point a group of Maori migrated to the Chatham Islands where they developed their distinct Moriori culture.
Not that I’m surprised about this considering that here in the US many Americans seem adverse to drinking water from the tap, preferring to drink it from non-biodegradable disposable plastic bottles and line the pockets of international conglomerates like Nestle. It is just another sign that our government is serves these multinationals.
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