Punting the Pundits

“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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

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Trevor Timm: Banning all encryption won’t make us safer, no matter what David Cameron says

Prime Minister David Cameron has quite literally called for the end of privacy on the Internet as we know it: in a radical speech on Monday he said that, since threats of terrorism existed in the world, there should be no “means of communications” that the UK “cannot read.” He appears to be suggesting that he’s in favour of outlawing the use of end-to-end encryption – which, in turn, could ban some of the most popular texting messaging apps in the world, including WhatsApp and iMessage.

We all knew it was only a matter of time before the world’s governments started using the tragedy at Charlie Hebdo, a rallying cry for free speech rights, to justify more censorship and speech-chilling surveillance. It’s particularly galling, though, that Cameron and other world leaders are leading the charge so swiftly after the historic unity rally in Paris over the weekend. You remember it: the one that was supposed to show solidarity with the murdered cartoonists’ devotion to press freedom.

New York Times Editorial Board: Choke First, Ask Questions Later

The policy couldn’t be clearer: “Members of the New York City Police Department will NOT use chokeholds,” says section 203-11 of the department’s Patrol Guide. But as last July’s fatal police assault on Eric Garner showed, reality is messier than the rule book – and more dangerous for civilians.

A new report from the department’s inspector general, released Monday, suggests that this much-reviled, supposedly disavowed tactic has never gone away; that officers sometimes use it as a first, not last, resort against those who verbally resist them; and that systems set up to investigate and punish those who abuse their power are unreliable and ineffective.

For a citizenry that rightly demands professionalism and accountability from its armed officers, this is not reassuring.

Dean Baker: Idea for Tackling Inequality #27,653: Stop Subsidizing It

It’s rare that a week goes by in Washington without some major conference on inequality. This usually involves some prominent people, who get six or even seven figure paychecks, speculating on why inequality has grown and what we can do about it. These exercises illustrate the basic problem.

Most of the discussion assumes that inequality is something that happened. By contrast, the more obvious story is that inequality is something that was done; it was the result of policies that had the effect of redistributing income upward.  [..]

But economists get really confused when they’re asked about free trade in professional services. They apparently only studied policies that lower the wages of less-educated workers.

The same story applies to the Federal Reserve Board and its plans to raise interest rates this year. The point of raising interest rates is to slow the economy and keep people from getting jobs. This deliberate weakening of the labor market not only hurts the people who are unable to get jobs, it also hurts all of those who are already working by reducing their bargaining power.

Chris Weigant: Petraeus Must Be Prosecuted

The New York Times disclosed over the weekend that federal prosecutors have recommended that the Justice Department bring charges against former general and CIA director David Petraeus. Unless President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder (or his successor) want to be seen as flaming hypocrites, Petraeus must now be prosecuted.

Another president might have had some leeway. If this revelation had been made two weeks after President Hillary Clinton or President Jeb Bush got sworn in, they’d have a range of options to plausibly consider, which would include refusing to prosecute. Obama, as a result of his own administration’s actions, doesn’t really have this option available to him.

What Petraeus is accused of is leaking classified documents to a journalist. That’s a very specific crime, falling under the Espionage Act of 1917. Since that law’s passage almost a century ago, a total of 11 people have been prosecuted for doing exactly the same thing that Petraeus is accused of. Of those 11, seven have been prosecuted by the Obama administration. In other words, in the first 92 years of the law, four people were charged, but since 2009 seven more have faced (and received, in some cases) jail time for leaking classified documents to journalists.

Rep. Alan Grayson: Our Trade Policy Is Insane

Trade is a simple concept. You sell me yours, and I’ll sell you mine.

That’s not what’s happening.

What’s happening is that day after day, month after month, and year after year, Americans are buying goods and services manufactured by foreigners, and those foreigners are not buying goods and services manufactured by Americans. We are creating millions — no — tens of millions of jobs in other countries with our purchasing power, and we are losing tens of millions of jobs in our country, because foreigners are not buying our goods and services.

What are they doing? They’re buying our assets.

So we lose twice. We lose the jobs, and we are driven deeper and deeper into national debt — and, ultimately, national bankruptcy. That is the end game.

This is not free trade; it’s fake trade. We have fake trade.

Kasia Lipska: When Diabetes Treatment Goes Too Far

One of my elderly patients has Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. He takes a number of medications, including insulin to control his blood sugar levels. A few years ago, he was driving when his blood sugar suddenly dropped. He felt lightheaded for a moment, and then ran into a tree.

There are roughly 11 million Americans over age 65 with diabetes. Most of them take medications to reduce their blood sugar levels. The majority reach an average blood sugar target, or “hemoglobin A1C,” of less than 7 percent. Why? Early studies showed that this can reduce the risk of diabetes complications, including eye, kidney and nerve problems. As a result, for more than a decade, medical societies, pharmaceutical companies and diabetes groups have campaigned with a simple, concrete message – to get below seven. Many patients carry report cards with their scores to clinic appointments. Doctors are often rewarded based on how many of their patients hit the target.

All of this sounds great. But, at least for older people, there are serious problems with the below-seven paradigm.