“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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Robert Creamer: Stop Congress From Eliminating Dodd-Frank Provision That Prevents Bail Outs of Too-Big-To-Fail Banks
The audacity is breathtaking. It is just six years after their orgy of speculation in so called “credit default swaps” caused the collapse of the World economy and precipitated the Great Recession.
Undaunted, the big banks have told Republican leaders to include a provision in the “must pass” bill to fund the government that eliminates provisions of the Dodd-Frank law that prevent them from doing exactly the same thing all over again. [..]
But the big banks think that limits their ability to make zillions in huge speculative plays. In their view nothing should stand in the way of their ability to make money – certainly not something as trivial as the well being of the World economy. So they want Congress to eliminate these “onerous” restrictions.
This is the kind of measure that could never pass on its own in the light of day. After all, what Member of Congress wants to explain to the voters why they supported a law that opens the door to another Great Recession or taxpayer bank bail out?
Dan Froomkin: For CIA, Truth About Torture Was an Existential Threat
For the CIA officials involved in torture, one thing was clear from the very beginning: The only way they would be forgiven for what they did was if they could show it had saved lives.
It was the heart of their rationale. It was vital to public acceptance. It was how they would avoid prosecution. [..]
Specifically, they pointed out: “states may be very unwilling to call the U.S. to task for torture when it resulted in saving thousands of lives.”
And so, when the tragically predictable sequence of events began to unfold — and torture, as it always has, produced false confessions and little to no intelligence of value — admitting that it had failed was not even an option.
Instead, those involved made up stories of success.
It’s been six years since Wall Street’s recklessness and criminal fraud caused trillions of dollars in economic damage and nearly shattered the global economy. The 2008 financial crisis opened millions of Americans’ eyes to the widespread corruption and mismanagement in the financial industry, and built public support for stronger bank oversight. Initial steps were taken in that direction, primarily in the Dodd/Frank financial reform bill, and more remains to be done.
But today Wall Street is on the offensive. Banks are expanding their political influence, fighting to roll back the measures already in place and working to block further reforms. In our money-driven political system, they have plenty of ammunition with which to wage their battle. [..]
This week its allies were trying to kill a Dodd/Frank provision designed to reduce the need for future big-bank bailouts. Negotiators seeking to avert a government shutdown had inserted a provision into the compromise agreement that would once again allow the country’s too-big-to-fail banks to gamble on derivatives — the exotic financial instruments that helped precipitate the last crisis — with funds that are insured by taxpayers.
Bill Boyarsky: We Have to Change the Way We Report on Rape
One of the important questions raised by Rolling Stone’s University of Virginia rape story is how journalists write about the victims. [..]
One day, we may know more about what happened at the University of Virginia. Investigations, lawsuits and persistent journalists will probably make sure of that.
But what won’t be settled is how journalists should approach rape victims and write about them as we enter a time when their stories are no longer automatically dismissed.
These are ordinary people who normally are not in the news and who may never have encountered a reporter. A practiced reporter knows how to get them to talk, how to use the tricks of the journalism trade.
Smile. Look understanding. Be friendly. Or, if you sense weakness, be intimidating. Explain to them that they’ll help others by telling their stories. Or that it’s their chance to get their side out to a skeptical world, to clear their name. Appeal to their vanity, to their desire for even a brief whirl at celebrity.
But what we don’t do is warn these innocents of how dangerous it can be to talk to us.
Sandeep Jauhar: Don’t Homogenize Health Care
IN American medicine today, “variation” has become a dirty word. Variation in the treatment of a medical condition is associated with wastefulness, lack of evidence and even capricious care. To minimize variation, insurers and medical specialty societies have banded together to produce a dizzying array of treatment guidelines for everything from asthma to diabetes, from urinary incontinence to gout. [..]
But the effort to homogenize health care presumes that we always know which treatments are best and should be applied uniformly. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The evidence for most treatments in medicine remains weak. In the absence of good evidence recommending one treatment over another, trying to stamp out variation in care is irrational.
Even in my field, cardiology, a paragon of evidence-based medicine, most treatment recommendations are based on expert opinions, not randomized controlled trials. Rarely is there one best option.
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