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.

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New York Times Editorial Board: Help for Victims of Crooked Schools

State attorneys general have long served on the front lines of the struggle to control and discipline predatory for-profit colleges that saddle students with crippling debt while granting them useless degrees, or no degrees at all. On April 9, nine of them who know firsthand how people can be deceived and bled dry sent a letter to the Department of Education, asking it to provide restitution – and help fix the problem – by forgiving the federal student loans of people harmed by crooked schools. The letter makes a strong case for prompt action.

The problem of for-profit schools received national exposure last year when Corinthian Colleges, one of the nation’s largest operators of for-profit colleges and trade schools, collapsed in the midst of a federal investigation. The company agreed to shut down or sell about 100 campuses. Earlier this week, the Department of Education fined Corinthian $30 million for misrepresenting job placement rates in one of the chains it owns, saying that the company had “violated students’ and taxpayers’ trust.”

Paul Krugman: That Old-Time Economics

America has yet to achieve a full recovery from the effects of the 2008 financial crisis. Still, it seems fair to say that we’ve made up much, though by no means all, of the lost ground.

But you can’t say the same about the eurozone, where real G.D.P. per capita is still lower than it was in 2007, and 10 percent or more below where it was supposed to be by now. This is worse than Europe’s track record during the 1930s.

Why has Europe done so badly? In the past few weeks, I’ve seen a number of speeches and articles suggesting that the problem lies in the inadequacy of our economic models – that we need to rethink macroeconomic theory, which has failed to offer useful policy guidance in the crisis. But is this really the story? [..]

The point is that it’s wrong to claim, as many do, that policy failed because economic theory didn’t provide the guidance policy makers needed. In reality, theory provided excellent guidance, if only policy makers had been willing to listen. Unfortunately, they weren’t.

John Nichols: If Clinton is Serious About Economic Populism, She Should Come Out Against Fast Track

Hillary Clinton has backed NAFTA-style “free-trade” agreements and she has opposed NAFTA-style “free-trade” agreements. Like other prominent Democrats, she has been inconsistent in her support of what is best for workers, the environment and human rights.

But Clinton has a chance to get trade policy right when it matters.

And when it matters is now.

As she launches a 2016 presidential campaign in which she seems to be interested in grabbing the banner of economic populism-going so far as to complain in her announcement video about how “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top”-Clinton can and should stake out a clear position in opposition to granting President Obama Trade Promotion Authority to negotiate a sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Jocelyn Sominson: Let citizens film the police! It’s the only way we learned what really happened to Walter Scott

Police-worn body cameras should be everywhere, but they’re no substitute for a civilian with a cellphone

We almost never saw the Walter Scott video. Feidin Santana, who recorded the April 4 shooting of Scott on his cellphone, nearly deleted the recording out of fear for his own safety. Santana had good reason to be scared – police officers across the United States have been known to retaliate against those who film them, using methods that range from blocking cameras and erasing recordings, to physical intimidation, violence and arrests for interference.  Such conduct by police officers is often in violation of established police procedures and constitutional rules regarding police conduct.  But it persists nonetheless.  In Washington, D.C, for example, an officer arrested someone for filming just one day after his police department issued a formal – and well-publicized – regulation regarding the filming of the police.

Although politicians across the country – from North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey to NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio – have reacted to the shooting of Walter Scott by calling for more police-worn body cameras, such calls for reform pass over the important issue of protecting civilian recording of the police.  Filming of the police by civilians serves a different purpose than police-worn cameras.  Cellphone footage, shot from the point of view of the civilian spectator, remains in control of the people rather than the police.  Videos can immediately become part of the public discussion, an antidote to the monopoly that police officers usually possess over official narratives surrounding police-citizen interactions.  Moreover, when filming is done by organized groups, often called [Copwatching http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa… recording of the police becomes a form of power-building that gives purpose and momentum to movements for change.

George Zornick: Now Congress Is Fast-Tracking the TPP Fast Track

After months of back-room negotiations, key congressional negotiators are finally ready to unveil legislation that would fast-track approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The bill would prohibit Congress from amending the trade deal, and would require a simple-majority vote for passage, but would in exchange set a variety of negotiating parameters.

If the architects of the legislation – Senators Ron Wyden and Orrin Hatch and Representative Paul Ryan – are at all worried that members of Congress will feel fast-track leaves them out of the process, they are doing a pretty terrible job of addressing those concerns.

A Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday morning featured top US trade officials-but occurred before the legislation was even unveiled, and was called with almost no notice. This drew some unusual and strong rebukes from Democrats on the Finance Committee over an unfair process.

Michael Eric Dyson: Racial Terror, Fast and Slow

IN the past two years, this country has held events commemorating 50 years since the triumphs and key struggles of the civil rights movement: the March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act and, most recently, the “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Ala.

Yet the glory of the past runs up against the gory details of the present.

The killing this month of Walter L. Scott by Officer Michael T. Slager highlights two interlocking truths: Social protest forces us to see realities we would rather avoid, and blacks live in mortal fear for our lives in a manner that most whites don’t see or understand.

Americans are bad at viewing race in real time; we prefer rose-tinted lenses and slow-motion replays in which we can control the narrative and minimize our complicity in the horrors of our history. The racial present is messy, and upends bland racial optimism about how far we’ve come.