“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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Trevor Timm: The shroud of secrecy around US drone strikes abroad must be lifted
It’s been over two years since President Obama promised new transparency and accountability rules when it comes to drone strikes, yet it’s become increasingly clear virtually no progress has been made. The criteria for who gets added to the unaccountable ‘kill list’ is still shrouded in secrecy – even when the US government is targeting its own citizens.
We know because a Texas-born man named Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh recently captured overseas was arraigned in federal court this week, but he’s actually lucky to be able to have his day in court. It turns out, as the Times reported, that in 2013 “his government debated whether he should be killed by a drone strike in Pakistan.” [..]
Despite the Attorney General’s aversion to constitutional due process when it comes to killing Americans overseas, at least he was able to hold strong in this particular instance. Keeping the military from launching strikes, even with such guidelines, isn’t easy. Former Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson told 60 Minutes last week about that, when it comes to approving or rejecting the military’s request for drone strikes, “to say no is like stepping in front of a 90-car freight train.”
An important new report released by the Open Society Justice Initiative this week also shows that – despite the Obama administration’s internal requirements for drone strikes that supposedly require a “near certainty” that civilians won’t get killed – the government quite often just disregards its own rules, which has led to the death of dozens of civilians in Yemen in the past two years.
Dean Baker: Bonanza for the Super Rich: The Fund Managers’ Tax Break
The reason most of us have seen little gain from economic growth over the last three decades is that the rich have rigged the rules to ensure that money flows upward. Through their control of trade policy, Federal Reserve Board policy, and other key levers of government, they have structured the market to weaken the bargaining power of ordinary workers and benefit the CEOs and Wall Street crew. As a result, the typical worker has seen almost none of the gains from economic growth over the last four decades.
Most of this rigging comes in before-tax income. The big gains to the rich have not been primarily because they have become better at avoiding taxes than they were four decades ago, but there are some notable exceptions. At the top of this list is the fund managers’ tax break (a.k.a. the carried interest tax deduction). As tens of millions of people prepare to file their tax returns this week, it is a good opportunity to celebrate this tax deduction which gives billions of dollars every year to some of the richest people in the country for no reason whatsoever.
On April 15, perhaps as you’re reading these words, working people in 200 American cities will rally for a $15 dollar base wage and the right to form a union. Solidarity demonstrations are planned in more than 30 cities on six continents, and have already taken place in Switzerland, the Philippines, South Korea, New Zealand, and Japan. The “fight for $15” matters — because the lives of working people matter, and because the success of this effort will help strengthen the American economy for everyone.
But the significance of April 15’s action runs even deeper than that. [..]
As our world continues to change, we will continue to face new challenges. We will need new movements, new alliances, and new ideas. But behind them will remain an idea as old as the labor movement itself: that all working people have the right to a decent life. That means a living wage, and time to live your life. It means knowing you’ll be financially secure decades from now, and knowing that your work hours have been scheduled for the next week so that you can arrange for child care.
Labor movements are a symbol of our values and an expression of our renewed hope. The Fight for $15 is a fine cause on its own merits. But its greatest importance may lie in the fact that it represents the return of the “vanishing worker” — which in the end means the return of our friends, our families, and our neighbors — to the American political stage.
Mary Bottari: Hotel Industry Spins Wage Hikes as ‘Extreme’ While CEOs Rake in Millions
Hotels are making a killing. Occupancy rates are exceeding pre-recession highs, and are expected to reach record levels in 2016. Profits per room are up over 11 percent this April compared to April 2014 and the average daily rate for a room is almost 13 percent higher than it was a year ago. Executive salaries have skyrocketed.
But the little-known trade association representing this robust $163 billion dollar industry is a major force fighting behind the scenes on Capitol Hill and in statehouses and courtrooms across the country to keep workers wages low.
On Wednesday, April 15, the same day that hundreds of thousands of working people in over 200 cities are expected to participate in the largest-ever mobilization of underpaid workers, the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) which represents the 1.8 million-employee U.S. lodging industry will join forces with the National Restaurant Association to ask Congress to block a federal minimum wage increase, shrink the number of workers eligible for employer-provided health care insurance, and challenge the National Labor Relations Board ruling protecting the rights of franchise workers.
Frank Clemente: Repeal of Estate Tax Rewards Billionaires, Punishes Working Americans
Who deserves a break more these days: a struggling working family, or the heir to a billion-dollar fortune? According to the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, it’s the billion-dollar baby.
Recently, the House voted for a budget that would end tax credits for many working families that put $1,000 a year in their pockets, on average. The Republican budget also would cut $5 trillion in funding for benefits and services that make groceries, health care and college more affordable, pay for road improvements, and invest in scientific research.
Adding insult to injury, House conservatives plan to eliminate the estate tax, which is paid only by multi-millionaires and billionaires. An estate has to be worth at least $5.4 million before a dime in taxes gets paid. If the estate is passed on by a couple, it has to be worth nearly $11 million.
Repeal would hand elite households a $3 million tax break, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).
Simon Jenkins: Cuba has shown us that sanctions don’t work – so why keep using them?
Sanctions have become as sacred to western armouries as nuclear bombs were 50 years ago. No one dares question them for fear of being thought a dove or a wimp. They cost little to the aggressor but make them feel good. They repress trade rivals. They attract macho adjectives, such as tough, meaningful, targeted and smart. They are chiefly aimed at domestic consumption. Only the poor (and a handful of rich) in the victim states suffer.
Influencing policy in foreign countries short of war is a mug’s game. It is realistic only where it takes the form of diplomatic, trade and cultural exchange, and strengthens the professional and merchant class from which brave criticism of authoritarian government tends to emerge. Yet sanctions suppress such groups and drive them into exile, as now in Russia and Iran.
The idea that economic warfare would ever cause Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, or Libyans against Gaddafi, or Cubans against Castro, was always daft. The idea that it will turn Russia against Putin is beyond absurd. Yet such warfare remains British government policy. And in Labour’s manifesto, sanctions are no more questioned than nuclear weapons. Stupid still rules.
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