“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: Mr. de Blasio’s Call for Harmony
First, do no harm. That principle applies to those who command the public’s attention at this moment of heightened tension in New York City.
Two families in Brooklyn – and the larger family of New Yorkers and the New York Police Department – are mourning the deaths of two officers who were shot in ambush by a criminal on Saturday. His deranged act has inflamed rifts between the police and Mayor Bill de Blasio and between the police and the public, and it posed a grave test of Mr. de Blasio’s leadership.
So the mayor’s plea on Monday for everyone to stand down, to put aside protests and bitter words, at least until the funerals are done, was an understandable bid for civic calm. Fair enough. Anything that even briefly silences the police union leader Patrick Lynch, whose response to the killings has been to slander Mr. de Blasio as a bloody-handed accomplice to murder, is worth supporting.
But the moment for discussion and argument will soon return. And that moment will demand forceful truth-telling, to counter the lies and distrust that have clouded this tragedy.
Dean Baker: The Trade Agreement Pinatas
In recent weeks many labor, environmental and consumer groups have stepped up their criticisms of the Obama administration’s plans for pushing fast-track trade negotiating authority. The purpose of fast-track is to allow the administration to negotiate to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP) and then hand both deals to Congress on a take it or leave it basis.
Under the fast-track rules there would be no opportunity for amendments or delays. The deal must be voted up or down in a narrow time-frame. The idea is that with the bulk of the business community promising large campaign contributions to supporters and threatening to punish opponents, most members of Congress would find it difficult to vote no. [..]
Since many traditional Democratic constituencies strongly oppose these deals it is reasonable to ask why the Obama administration is so intent on pushing them. The answer is simple: money.
Two weeks before New York Senator Charles Schumer once again delivered for Wall Street with the omnibus budget deal, he gave a major speech in which he sounded like a progressive champion. Schumer offered a stirring defense of government as the only force that can stand up to the private sector’s attack on the middle class, and argued that for Democrats to “roll to victory in 2016… First, we must convince Americans that government can be on their side and is not just a tool of special interests.” [..]
Unfortunately, Schumer embodies the contradictions that will tear the Democratic Party apart over the next two years. He understands the need to embrace a populist, progressive narrative and program, but his ties to Wall Street and big money lead him to blunt any real moves by Democrats to take a bold stand for working people against corporate power.
The budget proposal to allow more government bailouts of banks that gamble with their depositors’ money was a huge lost opportunity for Democrats to paint Republicans as being on the side of the big banks that wrecked the economy. That opportunity was negated by President Obama’s pushing for the budget and Senator Schumer’s stealth maneuvers (widely known in Congress) to keep the Wall Street deal intact. As a result, the leaders of both parties demonstrated, as they’ve done before, that government is in fact on the side of the rich and powerful.
Jeff Biggers: Dear media: Stop using the phrase ‘clean coal’
Journalists are enabling a deadly industry
You’d think the filing of a class action lawsuit last month by the families of the 78 coal miners killed in the 1968 Farmington, West Virginia, mine explosion – a disaster that led to the establishment of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act – would serve as a painful reminder that coal isn’t clean.
But familiar headlines about “clean coal” endeavors – the coal industry’s still experimental carbon capture and storage operations – continue to roll off the newswires. [..]
“Clean coal” is an industry marketing term. Failing to enclose it in quotes, which the AP Stylebook does not require, and instead presenting it as a demonstrable fact is inaccurate and lazy – and offensive. It also makes a mockery of the miners and journalists who employ the term.
Coal is dirty, costly and deadly. It’s time all media venues stop using the phrase “clean coal” as though it were truthful reporting – because by touting the PR-speak of energy companies, the media are enabling a deadly and outlaw industry.
Joe Nocera: Shale and the Falling Price of Oil
Six years ago, the price of oil went on an incredible roller-coaster ride. In January 2008, oil hovered around $90 a barrel. By July, it had reached $147 a barrel. By the end of the year, it had plunged to under $35 a barrel. [..]
We tend to think of OPEC as a cartel whose goal is to set the price of oil – and set it high. But stability is also an important goal. Without a cartel controlling supply, oil can be the most volatile of commodities. [..]
And then, of course, there is the effect of the shale revolution in the United States, where oil production has nearly doubled, to nine million barrels a day from five million a day, in the space of six years. The conventional wisdom holds that the Saudis “fear” the influx of shale oil onto the market – as The Wall Street Journal put it on Monday – and that they want to see the price go down in order to drive out some of that shale production.
But the Saudis don’t really fear shale oil. “I’ve heard officials in Saudi Arabia call shale a blessing,” said Robert McNally, the founder and president of The Rapidan Group, who is also affiliated with the Center on Global Energy Policy. “Shale oil is light,” he added. “Saudi oil is medium and heavy, and their real competitors are the Iraqis and the Iranians.” The Saudis can adjust to shale oil more easily than many other countries.
Jacob Heilbrunn: The Real Threat to Hillary Clinton: Jim Webb
THE conventional wisdom is that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be almost impossible to dislodge from the Democratic presidential nomination and that even if she does encounter some hiccups, they will come from her left flank on economic policy. But if Mrs. Clinton runs, she may face a serious and very different threat: her own foreign policy record. While she can pretty much split the difference with any primary opponents on economic policy, the divisions over foreign affairs could be a lot harder to paper over for Mrs. Clinton, who has been tacking to the right on Iran, Syria and Russia in anticipation of Republican assaults during the general election.
This is why it isn’t really the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren who should worry the Clinton camp. It’s the former Virginia senator Jim Webb, a Vietnam War hero, former secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, novelist and opponent of endless wars in the Middle East. Late last month, Mr. Webb formed an exploratory committee. “He’s a very long shot,” Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, told me. “He has to become a serious candidate. At that point she would find him much more complex than dealing with liberals. He’s not a liberal, but a lot of what he says might appeal to liberals. He does not get carried away by humanitarian intervention.”
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