“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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Richard H. Pildes: At the Supreme Court, a Win for Direct Democracy
IN 2000, voters in Arizona adopted a state constitutional amendment that created an independent commission to draw congressional districts. But the commission immediately faced a legal challenge: the United States Constitution gives the power to state legislatures (and to Congress) to regulate national elections – not to the voters. Can the word “legislature” in the Constitution mean voters themselves?
That question eventually came before the Supreme Court, which on Monday ruled, in a 5-to-4 decision, that the Constitution permits states to let their voters use “direct democracy” – popular votes on ballot measures, known as voter initiatives – to regulate the rules for national elections. [..]
The Supreme Court often surprises critics who see it in simplistically ideological terms. As this term and this decision confirm, the current court remains a pragmatically minded institution that interprets legal language with an eye toward the problems that language was created to address. As a result, direct democracy will remain available to constrain partisan gerrymandering and other ways legislatures seek to manipulate democratic purposes for self-serving reasons.
Scott Lemieux: If execution by torture isn’t ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment, what is?
You might think that the Eighth Amendment, which forbids “cruel and unusual” punishments, clearly prohibits death penalty regimes like those currently in effect in Oklahoma: unqualified and inexperienced personnel trying experimental drug regimes that have a substantial likelihood of inflicting serious pain before death. But, if you know anything about the Roberts Court, you won’t be surprised to discover that they disagree. In a 5-4 decision written by Justice Samuel Alito (appropriately, as he’s the current justice with the very worst record on civil liberties) the US supreme court gave the green light to Oklahoma’s method of death (pdf).
Late last year, Oklahoma horrifically botched its execution of Clayton Lockett, effectively torturing him for 40 minutes before he died (and blocking him from view from observers midway through). Its system for lethal injection relies on a three-drug cocktail, the formula invented (entirely arbitrarily) by the Sooner State itself in 1977: two of the drugs stop the heart but, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in her dissent to the majority ruling, “they do so in a torturous manner, causing burning, searing pain.” The first drug, then, is supposed to be a barbiturate that renders the condemned prisoner unable to feel pain (although, since the second drug is generally a paralytic, it’s not really possible to tell if it works). Oklahoma, however, has been unable to obtain any of its usual drugs for the first step of the process, and has thus resorted to an alternative that carries the substantial risk of producing death by torture.
Nonetheless, to a bare majority of the court, Oklahoma’s system is good enough for the Eighth Amendment, based on a series of scientifically weak defenses offered for the protocol by a single witness and the argument that the condemned prisoners themselves are required to offer the state a less risky method for their own executions. The state can, under Alito’s reasoning, torture people to death as long as it cannot procure the drugs needed for a safer, less torturous method.
The fall of the Confederate flag is the latest step in a progressive wave of reforms
Bigotry is suddenly on the run in America.
It is as if a giant dam thrown up to block human progress has begun to spill over the top, the outpouring growing until the dam collapses, a flood of decency, fairness and respect washing the stains of discrimination, exploitation and oppression.
Before June 17, many Americans were already feeling revulsion towards our country’s legacy of white supremacy after seeing numerous cellphone videos of police attacking innocent blacks. Then Dylann Roof massacred nine worshippers at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Suddenly and unexpectedly the vile nature of the Confederate battle flag, waved with pride by Roof in several photos released after the shooting, became obvious to so many people that within a week Southern politicians scurried away from that symbol of racist hatred.
This is just the beginning. We will see more positive change in the near future as those who solicit votes through fear and denunciation watch America move toward its founding ideals: that all people are created equal with inalienable rights and that America does best when our government follows the six noble purposes of our Constitution, especially promoting the general welfare.
Joseph Stiglitz: Europe’s Attack on Greek Democracy
The rising crescendo of bickering and acrimony within Europe might seem to outsiders to be the inevitable result of the bitter endgame playing out between Greece and its creditors. In fact, European leaders are finally beginning to reveal the true nature of the ongoing debt dispute, and the answer is not pleasant: it is about power and democracy much more than money and economics. [..]
It is startling that the troika has refused to accept responsibility for any of this or admit how bad its forecasts and models have been. But what is even more surprising is that Europe’s leaders have not even learned. The troika is still demanding that Greece achieve a primary budget surplus (excluding interest payments) of 3.5% of GDP by 2018.
Economists around the world have condemned that target as punitive, because aiming for it will inevitably result in a deeper downturn. Indeed, even if Greece’s debt is restructured beyond anything imaginable, the country will remain in depression if voters there commit to the troika’s target in the snap referendum to be held this weekend.
Alexis Goldstein and Luke Herrine: Higher education reform should start with for-profit schools
Presidential candidates should recognize that the government’s education policy is rife with conflicts of interest
As the presidential campaign season heats up, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are talking about debt-free or tuition-free college. Using student debt as an issue to damage Republicans and to energize young voters is a smart strategy. But to make the case for why higher education should be free in the United States, 2016 candidates need look no further than the current crisis in the for-profit college industry. The government’s deep conflicts of interest as both the regulator meant to protect students and the banker profiting off student debt has led to an unmitigated disaster – one that, so far, has stuck students with the bill.
For decades, for-profit colleges have run an outrageously profitable scam: They have devoured more than a quarter of all federal student loan money and used it to lure first-generation college students into career training programs that lead to few, if any, real prospects. These schools often spend more money on marketing (pdf) than on instruction. As a result, employers laugh at for-profit college degrees. [..]
For-profit colleges perfectly illustrate why the privatization of public goods doesn’t work. It turns public servants into the guardians of private interests, and students are left behind as collateral damage. Politicians on both sides of the aisle proclaim education as the civil rights issue of our time. If that’s the case, it’s time to move past the model of individual indebtedness, which falls most heavily on poor and minority students, and show we value education for more than just talking points.
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