“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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James Risen is out of chances. It’s time for the government to stop harassing a journalist for doing his job
If you blinked at the end of June, you may have missed one of the best pieces of journalism in 2014. The New York Times headline accompanying the story was almost criminally bland, but the content itself was extraordinary: A top manager at Blackwater, the notorious defense contractor, openly threatened to kill a US State Department official in 2007 if he continued to investigate Blackwater’s corrupt dealings in Iraq. Worse, the US government sided with Blackwater and halted the investigation. Blackwater would later go on to infamously wreak havoc in Iraq.
But what makes the story that much more remarkable is that its author, journalist James Risen, got it published amidst one the biggest legal battles over press freedom in decades – a battle that could end with the Justice Department forcing him into prison as early as this fall. It could make him the first American journalist forced into jail by the federal government since Judith Miller nearly a decade ago. [..]
If there’s one issue journalists can unabashedly support without fear of being labeled as “biased”, it’s cases like this that strike at the heart of their own rights as reporters.
Tell the Justice Department to live up to its pledge: Stop pursuing James Risen. Period.
Dean Baker: The Entitlement of the Very Rich
The very rich don’t think very highly of the rest of us. This fact is driven home to us through fluke events, like the taping of Mitt Romney’s famous 47 percent comment, in which he trashed the people who rely on Social Security, Medicare, and other forms of government benefits.
Last week we got another opportunity to see the thinking of the very rich when Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, complained at a summit with African heads of state and business leaders that there is even an argument over the reauthorization of Export-Import Bank. According to the Washington Post, Immelt said in reference to the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization, “the fact that we have to sit here and argue for it I think is just wrong.”
To get some orientation, the Ex-IM Bank makes around $35 billion a year in loans or loan guarantees each year. The overwhelming majority of these loans go to huge multi-nationals like Boeing or Mr. Immelt’s company, General Electric. The loans and guarantees are a subsidy that facilitates exports by allowing these companies and/or their customers to borrow at below market interest rates.
They say that one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one Politico story certainly doesn’t make a campaign season. But if a recent article there is correct – if the Democratic Party’s strategy this year really is “Running as a Dem (while) sounding like a Republican” – then the party may be headed for a disaster of epic but eminently predictable proportions.
“It’s one thing for Democrats running in red parts of the country to sound like Republicans on the campaign trail,” writes Alex Isenstadt. “It’s another when Democrats running in purple or even blue territory try to do so. Yet that’s what’s happening in race after race this season.”
Red DemsCertainly this isn’t true of every race. Populist Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been brought in to help with Senate contests in several red states, for example. And a recent commentary (in Politico, come to think of it) argued that “an ascendant progressive and populist movement … is on the verge of taking over the party.”
So which is it? Are Dems tacking left or veering right? The answer isn’t clear yet. But Isenstadt offers some worrisome anecdotes. He points to several Democratic candidates who are recycling Republican rhetoric, even in districts that went for Barack Obama in the 2012 election.
Barry Ritholtz: Celebrating Greenspan’s Legacy of Failure
On this day in 1987, Alan Greenspan became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. This anniversary allows us to take a quick look at what followed over the next two decades. As it turned out, it was one of the most interesting and, to be blunt, weirdest tenures ever for a Fed chairman.
This was largely because of the strange ways Greenspan’s infatuation with the philosophy of Ayn Rand manifested themselves. He was a free marketer who loved to intervene in the markets, a chief bank regulator who seemingly failed to understand even the most basic premise of bank regulations.
The stock market was having a scorching year in 1987, up 44 percent during the first seven months of the year. Stocks peaked within weeks of Greenspan being sworn in. He was still settling into the job when Black Monday came along and U.S. markets plummeted 23 percent on Oct. 19.
Welcome to Wall Street, Mr. Chairman.
The contradictions between Greenspan’s philosophy and his actions led to many key events over his career. The ones that stand out the most in my mind are as follows:
Pamela Merritt: Ferguson is not a war zone. We need to talk about more than just Mike Brown
The tragic events here in Missouri could be the beginning of something. But we need to build a path toward reconciliation
A neighborhood just north of my home – Ferguson, Missouri – has been under siege by its own police force. Maybe it’s hard to imagine what that means if you’re not here … but it’s actually harder to come to grips with if you are.
The unrest, the vandalism and the looting that you’ve heard about from local, national and international newspeople? That happened to businesses that are part of the Ferguson community. The show of force that you saw on the news the other night? That all went down in neighborhoods where many of my friends work and live. Since Sunday, the afternoons and evenings of the mostly-black residents of Ferguson have been filled with protests and vigils in response to 18-year-old Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a police officer on Saturday, and they’ve endured long nights filled with shouting police and riot gear, with wooden bullets and teargas – and, early Wednesday morning, with a second man shot by a cop.
People I know faced down police dogs to participate in a peaceful protest outside of the Ferguson police department on Saturday. A friend spent hours trying to help young people get home Monday night after buses stopped running – and she ended up letting several stay overnight for fear that they may be targeted for violence if they remained outside. Major cleanup efforts are scheduled for Wednesday.
Michelle Chen: Even bright young immigrants don’t buy Obama’s executive action fail
Whatever unilateral intervention the president may take, it isn’t nearly enough to offset systematic betrayal
With an out-of-session Congress deadlocked over immigration reform and right-wing lawmakers hell-bent on “sealing the border”, the White House faces intense pressure to do something – anything – about immigration, after years of burying a civil rights crisis in a mire of political tone-deafness and jingoistic bombast.
Activists hope that President Obama will expand an existing program to shield undocumented youth from deportation and grant reprieves to their family members. But whatever unilateral action Obama may take, it won’t be nearly enough to offset the systematic betrayal of immigrant communities over the past six years, as the White House has dangled vague promises of reform while denying justice to millions of undocumented people and their families.
Even the young people who have obtained temporary protection aren’t necessarily comforted by the prospect of more executive intervention from Obama. After watching their communities get ripped apart by incarceration and deportation, they’re now not only pressing for relief, but demanding long overdue justice.
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