“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”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Paul Krugmsn: Errors and Lies
Surprise! It turns out that there’s something to be said for having the brother of a failed president make his own run for the White House. Thanks to Jeb Bush, we may finally have the frank discussion of the Iraq invasion we should have had a decade ago.
But many influential people – not just Mr. Bush – would prefer that we not have that discussion. There’s a palpable sense right now of the political and media elite trying to draw a line under the subject. Yes, the narrative goes, we now know that invading Iraq was a terrible mistake, and it’s about time that everyone admits it. Now let’s move on.Well, let’s not – because that’s a false narrative, and everyone who was involved in the debate over the war knows that it’s false. The Iraq war wasn’t an innocent mistake, a venture undertaken on the basis of intelligence that turned out to be wrong. America invaded Iraq because the Bush administration wanted a war. The public justifications for the invasion were nothing but pretexts, and falsified pretexts at that. We were, in a fundamental sense, lied into war.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: Obama’s Trade War Against Warren Wounds His Party — and His Legacy
Well, this is awkward. A few days ago President Obama literally laughed off Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s concern that his so-called “fast track” provision, which would limit Congressional power regarding trade deals for the next six years, endangers 2010’s Dodd/Frank financial reforms. [..]
Just four days later, Canada’s finance minister used a similar trade deal to challenge the “Volcker rule,” a key provision of Dodd/Frank. “I believe — with strong legal basis — that this rule violates the terms of the NAFTA agreement,” Joe Oliver told a banking conference.
As we were saying: awkward. [..]
In fact, the White House appears to be playing word games when it insists that, as paraphrased by [Politico In fact, the White House appears to be playing word games when it insists that, as paraphrased by Politico’s Ben White, “the fast-track bill currently before Congress includes language that expressly forbids changing U.S. law without congressional action.” That may technically be true. But, by lowering the bar for Senate ratification of trade deals, it makes it easier to pass provisions which would change U.S. law.]‘s Ben White, “the fast-track bill currently before Congress includes language that expressly forbids changing U.S. law without congressional action.” That may technically be true. But, by lowering the bar for Senate ratification of trade deals, it makes it easier to pass provisions which would change U.S. law.
Reporters need freedom to do their jobs, even if it means contacting unsavory characters
The U.S. National Security Agency placed an Al Jazeera journalist on a terrorist watch list on the basis of contacts he made with sources, according to an Intercept report published last week. The story should alarm the public about government threats to journalists and misuses of raw intelligence data.
Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, Al Jazeera’s Islamabad bureau chief, was identified as a member of both Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood by an NSA software program called Skynet that analyzes communication metadata such as phone contacts and location. On the basis of whom Zaidan telephoned, who called him and where the calls took place, Skynet labeled him a member of both organizations. The Intercept reported these findings on May 8 based on analysis of one of the numerous documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
One of those documents, an NSA PowerPoint slide listing Zaidan’s imagined affiliations, would be ridiculous if it weren’t so serious. This is how America’s intelligence apparatus with its massive funding, cutting-edge computers and armies of big-brained analysts identifies enemies of the state? Is it any wonder that so many civilians have been accidentally killed in drone attacks?
Robert Kuttner: Grand Theft Automated
The day after the New York Times published its stunning two-part exposé of labor conditions in New York City’s nail salons, New York governor Andrew Cuomo, nobody’s idea of a radical, discovered that he was sitting on power that he didn’t know he had. Cuomo ordered a crackdown against a broad pattern of thefts of wages that were hidden in plain view, had he bothered to look.
Cuomo’s new efforts will collaborate with an enforcement initiative by New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio, two officials who don’t like each other and seldom work together. [..]
What’s occurring, belatedly, is growing recognition that America’s working people are getting cheated, whether retail and fast food workers earning too little to feed a family or immigrants being exploited in nail salons.
The press can help shed light on these abuses and government can use its executive power to crack down. But the pendulum won’t swing back because of some law of physics. A true transformation will require a broad social movement with the power to bring government back on the side of working families.
Michael Brenner: Osama Bin Laden — The Truth Be Told
Sy Hersh’s revelations about the systematic misrepresentation by the Obama administration of how it brought Osama bin-Laden to bay are causing a stir. Justifiably so. For they puncture the carefully constructed myth of how America revenged itself and renewed itself through this act of righteous justice. Moreover, the account of unsavory chicanery in high places once again spotlights the deceit that now is the hallmark of how our government works. [..]
The claim that the official U.S. version provides an honest, forthright accounting is no longer sustainable. The version offered by Zero Dark Thirty went a step further in substituting pulp fiction — of the mythological kind — for truth. It satisfies a gnawing hunger; it meets a powerfully felt need. It allows us to avoid coming to terms with how America went off the rails after 9/11. It fosters the juvenile in us.
The instinctive denial mechanism at work in the response to Hersh’s revelations tells us that we indeed are politically immature.
Andy Powell: The Arctic is Shell’s New Corporate Crisis
Twenty years ago, the oil giant Shell was plunged into a corporate crisis after it was internationally criticised for trying to dump the redundant Brent Spar oil platform in the North Sea and for being complicit in the murder of the acclaimed Nigerian activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa.
As Shell recoiled from the intense public scrutiny and criticism of these two events, the oil giant spent millions rebranding and rebuilding its image. It would take years for Shell to recover.
Since then, Shell has tried to argue that it is a responsible energy company, which is walking the tight-rope of sustainability on the one hand and society’s short-term energy needs on the other, which includes fossil fuels.
Its critics have always maintained that Shell has acted deeply irresponsibility over the last two decades, missing a golden opportunity to lead the oil majors into a clean energy era.
Recent Comments