“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: G.O.P. Assault on Environmental Laws
President Obama has announced or will soon propose important protections for clean water, clean air, threatened species and threatened landscapes. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and other Republicans in Congress are trying hard not to let that happen – counterattacking with a legislative blitz not seen since Newt Gingrich and his “Contract With America” Republicans swept into office after the 1994 midterm elections bent on crippling many of the environmental statutes enacted under Presidents Johnson and Nixon. Bill Clinton threatened or used vetoes to block that assault. Mr. Obama should be prepared to do the same.
The usual complaints about “executive overreach” and “job-killing regulations” have been raised. But beneath all the political sound bites lies a deep-seated if unspoken grievance that Mr. Obama is actually trying to realize the promise of laws that Congress passed years ago but wouldn’t stand a chance with today’s Congress. The nonsense about regulatory overkill has also infected the presidential campaign, the latest manifestation being a batty suggestion from Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin to shift the functions of the Environmental Protection Agency to the states. Mr. Walker presumably hopes to please business, but it would be hard to think of anything more unsettling to executives than the prospect of having to operate in 50 states with 50 different sets of rules – or anything more harmful to the evenhanded enforcement of federal environmental laws.
Paul Krugman: Fighting the Derp
When it comes to economics – and other subjects, but I’ll focus on what I know best – we live in an age of derp and cheap cynicism. And there are powerful forces behind both tendencies. But those forces can be fought, and the place to start fighting is within yourself.
What am I talking about here? “Derp” is a term borrowed from the cartoon “South Park” that has achieved wide currency among people I talk to, because it’s useful shorthand for an all-too-obvious feature of the modern intellectual landscape: people who keep saying the same thing no matter how much evidence accumulates that it’s completely wrong.
The quintessential example is fear mongering over inflation. It was, perhaps, forgivable for economists, pundits, and politicians to warn about runaway inflation some years ago, when the Federal Reserve was just beginning its efforts to help a depressed economy. After all, everyone makes bad predictions now and then.
But making the same wrong prediction year after year, never acknowledging past errors or considering the possibility that you have the wrong model of how the economy works – well, that’s derp.
Smart economic growth should be an ally of those fighting against climate change
Many environmentalists believe that there is an inherent contradiction between a capitalist system that is predicated on growth and the limits imposed by a finite planet. They point not only to the devastation from climate change, but also to the increasing scarcity of water and other resources, and argue that we can’t continue on our current course.
True, business as usual is no longer sustainable. But the question is whether growth is the enemy or whether the problem is the specific course that growth has taken. I would argue that the problem is the latter and it is important to have clear thinking on the topic if we are to address both the immediate environmental crisis facing the world and the real economic problems facing billions of the world’s people.
When people hear the term “growth,” they tend to think of physical objects such as houses, cars and refrigerators. Growth can mean more of these products. While more cars and refrigerators are growth, this does not fully define the term as it applies to economics.
Newer and better treatments for cancer and other diseases are also growth. So is an increase in the number of people going to college or other getting other types of education. Better software is also growth. More and better performances of music, plays, and other types of live entertainment are also growth.
Robert Reich: Anticipatory Bribery
Washington has been rocked by the scandal of J. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker in the history of the U.S. House, indicted on charges of violating banking laws by paying $1.7 million (as part of a $3.5 million agreement) to conceal prior misconduct, which turns out to have been child molestation.
That scandal contains another one that’s received less attention: Hastert, who never made much money as a teacher or a congressman, could manage such payments because after retiring from Congress he became a high-paid lobbyist.
This second scandal is perfectly legal but it’s a growing menace.
Sen. Ron Wyden: Fixing the DMCA, Step 1: The Breaking Down Barriers to Innovation Act
Right now the U.S. Copyright Office is deciding whether Americans will be able to unlock phones and other devices they’ve paid for, whether farmers can repair their own tractors and whether Americans with disabilities will be able to access e-books and other electronic media.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed in 1998, prohibits these activities when they involve breaking a technological “lock” that protects a copyrighted work (check out a primer on the DMCA here). However, digital locks prevent these and many other legitimate activities.
Every three years, the Copyright Office considers whether to grant exceptions to the blanket restriction against circumventing software that locks down access to copyrighted works. It wrapped up hearings last week on 27 exemption requests. [..]
Modern technology is in constant flux, and the DMCA’s process isn’t keeping up.
That’s why I introduced the Breaking Down Barriers to Innovation (BDBI) Act to fix some of these major flaws.
Jason Edward Harrington: TSA’s failures start long before screeners fail to detect bombs in security tests
The agency fails covert tests 95% of times because it’s full of poor managers who can’t maintain a balance between security needs and passenger wait times
The recent news of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents missing 95% of covert tests by the Red Team – the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) group that purposely tries to sneak explosives past security – reveals a lot about the TSA, but it doesn’t mean your flight is in any more danger than it’s ever been.
In a statement that drew a lot of sarcastic fire from commentators, DHS secretary Jeh Johnson remarked that the test failure numbers “never look good out of context.” After living in fear of the dread Red Team for six years, allow me to give you that context: the Red Team tests are highly theoretical – like failing a postmodern philosophy exam – but the failure points to a deeper, systemic problem that needs to be addressed.
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