“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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Gaius Publius: What’s Going On With Oil Prices? Triads & Consequences
As most people know – certainly everyone with a car – oil prices have plunged in the last six months. [..]
At the same time, the dollar – by many accounts a “petrocurrency” in two solid senses – has been strong. Normally, when your currency is pegged to something and that something goes down, your currency goes down as well. Yet the dollar is strong, and among the currencies in the tank is the Russian ruble. Are these things connected?
At the other same time, the money-center “too big to fail” (TBTF) banks have gotten Obama, almost all Republicans, and most Democrats to whip for and approve the “Citigroup rider” – an amendment written by Citigroup itself – to put taxpayers back on the hook for that portion of their derivatives “plays” (bets) that the Dodd-Frank bill disallowed. Are these things connected?
What’s going on? No one knows for sure, but this certainly gets your attention, doesn’t it?
This piece is an attempt to wrangle many of the puzzle parts into some semblance of order. We’ll adjust our thinking as events evolve, so stay tuned. For now though, these are the dots I think are currently connected. They are many.
Seumas Milne: Paris is a warning: there is no insulation from our wars
The official response to every jihadist-inspired terrorist attack in the west since 2001 has been to pour petrol on the flames. That was true after 9/11 when George Bush launched his war on terror, laying waste to countries and spreading terror on a global scale. It was true in Britain after the 2005 London bombings, when Tony Blair ripped up civil liberties and sent thousands of British troops on a disastrous mission to Afghanistan. And it’s been true in the aftermath of last week’s horrific killings at Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris.
In an echo of Bush’s rhetoric, the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy declared a “war of civilisations” in response to attacks on “our freedoms”. Instead of simply standing with the victims – and, say, the vastly larger numbers killed by Boko Haram in Nigeria – the satirical magazine and its depictions of the prophet Muhammad have been elevated into a sacred principle of western liberty. The production on Wednesday of a state-sponsored edition of Charlie Hebdo became the latest test of a “with us or against us” commitment to “our values”, as French MPs voted by 488 votes to one to press on with the military campaign in Iraq. To judge by the record of the past 13 years, it will prove a poisonous combination, and not just for France.
The president will deliver his State of the Union speech next Tuesday amid a new flurry of Republican attacks on Social Security. Will he stand firm and defend the popular program, or step aside and let the attacks continue? [..]
At a minimum, the president must take a firm stand against the Republicans by drawing a line in the sand and opposing any cuts to Social Security.
That’s not to say he will. He may remain silent on the issue, forgoing an opportunity to draw a sharp distinction between the parties. Or he may offer Republicans a new “Grand Bargain.” But that could create a rift with members of his own party, and would further weaken the once-striking political advantage his party once enjoyed on this issue.
Social Security is a critical issue for Americans. The Republicans’ unexpectedly fierce attacks on it offer the president an opportunity to set the political tone for the next two years. Next Tuesday we’ll see whether he seizes that opportunity.
Peter van Buren: America Is Open for Business in Iraq
The current American war in Iraq is a struggle in search of a goal. It began in August as a humanitarian intervention, morphed into a campaign to protect Americans in-country, became a plan to defend the Kurds, followed by a full-on crusade to defeat the new Islamic State (IS, aka ISIS, aka ISIL), and then… well, something in Syria to be determined at a later date. [..]
In the meantime, Washington’s rallying cry now seems to be: “Wait for the spring offensive!” In translation that means: wait for the Iraqi army to get enough newly American-trained and
armed troops into action to make a move on Mosul. That city is, of course, the country’s second largest and still ruled by the new “caliphate” proclaimed by Islamic State head Abu Bakr alBaghdadi. All in all, not exactly inspiring stuff.You can’t have victory if you have no idea where the finish line is. But there is one bright side to the situation. If you can’t create Victory in Iraq for future VI Day parades, you can at least make a profit from the disintegrating situation there.
Michael Winship: You Have the Right to Remain Obnoxious
Here in New York City, the past few weeks have been fraught. First, in early December, protesters took to the streets to protest a Staten Island grand jury’s decision not to indict a policeman involved in the choking death of African-American Eric Garner. The police were attempting to place Garner under arrest for selling loose cigarettes.
The protests made cops angry, especially because of certain anti-police chants and an assault during one of the demonstrations against two police lieutenants on the Brooklyn Bridge. But their anger escalated into fury on December 20 when two officers were gunned down in their patrol car by a seemingly deranged assailant from out-of-town who may have thought he was exacting revenge for police killings of African-American men. [..]
The homicides and the Brooklyn Bridge assault are serious crimes. But here’s the thing: The right of free speech the police are angry about when it comes to the demonstrators is precisely the same right of free speech they’re using to harass de Blasio. And it’s that same ideal of free speech, no matter how noxious it might seem, for which those police in Paris died last week.
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