“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
Trevor Timm: Republicans hate the Iran nuclear deal because it means we won’t bomb Iran
As soon as President Obama announced the historic nuclear agreement between the US and Iran on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidates raced to see who could get out the most hyperbolic, foaming-at-the-mouth condemnation of the potential for peace. [..]
For Republicans, the Iran nuclear negotiations have never been about getting “a good deal” for the US. They’ve simply wanted to preserve their ability to kill people in the Middle East whenever they want, and continue to indulge their fetish of American superpower. It doesn’t matter to Republicans whether bombing Iran virtually guarantees that actually will pursue a nuclear bomb (which, again, right now they’re not), or that a deal will hurt the hardliners in Iran that Republicans profess to hate. It only matters that they continue to have an enemy to bomb in the Middle East, and a President to criticize here at home.
Robert Reich: Hillary Clinton’s Glass-Steagall
Hillary Clinton won’t propose reinstating a bank break-up law known as the Glass-Steagall Act — at least according to Alan Blinder, an economist who has been advising Clinton’s campaign. “You’re not going to see Glass-Steagall,” Blinder said after her economic speech Monday in which she failed to mention it. Blinder said he had spoken to Clinton directly about Glass-Steagall.
This is a big mistake.
It’s a mistake politically because people who believe Hillary Clinton is still too close to Wall Street will not be reassured by her position on Glass-Steagall. Many will recall that her husband led the way to repealing Glass Steagall in 1999 at the request of the big Wall Street banks.
It’s a big mistake economically because the repeal of Glass-Steagall led directly to the 2008 Wall Street crash, and without it we’re in danger of another one.
epublican lawmakers never pass up the opportunity to preempt access to abortion, even if that means hurting breast cancer sufferers. Thus, a vote on a bipartisan House bill that would have greenlit commemorative coins for breast cancer research – through donations to Susan G Komen for the Cure and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation – was shelved Tuesday and amended on Wednesday to exclude Komen entirely, because GOP members opposed the fact that Komen donates money to Planned Parenthood.
Let’s go over that again: a potential $8m fundraiser for the nation’s second-most fatal cancer in women was sidelined and then completely altered because one of the two proposed beneficiaries has given relatively small grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings, and Planned Parenthood spends about 3% of its resources on abortions. Apparently, some lawmakers aren’t above also penalizing breasts in the anti-abortion movement’s ongoing attempt to control the nation’s uteruses.
Jason Nichols: Latinos and black Americans have an enemy – and it is not each other
The need for political unity between African-Americans and Latinos is compelling, not least because the futures of African-Americas and Latinos are inextricably linked. We often live in close proximity to one another and both struggle with issues like mass incarceration, racial profiling, police brutality, educational achievement gaps, health disparities, poverty, food deserts and housing discrimination.
There are examples of where political unity between the two groups has yielded desired results, from the election of Harold Washington in Chicago, Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles, and most recently, Barack Obama. Dr King knew and supported the work of Cesar Chavez, and met with many other leaders in the Chicano Movement. We cannot afford to allow trumped up (pun intended) scare tactics to divide us.
Michael Brenner: The Iran Big Deal
For more than a decade, Iran’s nuclear program has been near the top of the United States’ Middle East agenda. To be more accurate, Iran has been near the top of the United States’ Middle East agenda. That is to say, the nuclear issue has been vastly inflated — in part as a logical extension of the prevailing view of the IRI as a rogue state driven by demonic impulse; in part, because it was crucial to an all-out campaign to crimp Iran, to deny it the normal prerogatives of a sovereign state, and ideally to topple the current regime. This view prevails to this day — indeed, the representation of Tehran by Washington as the source of disorder in the region has intensified over time. The nuclear accord has changed nothing in the rhetoric of President Obama and his senior officials. In fact, he has taken several steps to align the United States with the Sunni cause against a purportedly Iranian-organized and directed Shi’ite bloc in Islam’s incipient sectarian war. The most extreme, and logically unsupportable, example is participation in the Saudi-led air campaign against the Houthis (and civilians) in Yemen.
Recent Comments