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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

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Trevor Timm: It ain’t over til it’s over: America’s wars drag on no matter what officials say

In all three of the countries where the Obama administration declared US wars “over” in the past few years – Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya – the US military is expanding its presence or dropping bombs at an ever-increasing rate. And the government seems to be keeping the American public in the dark on the matter more than ever. [..]

What’s troubling about all of this is that it is happening with little debate in Congress and almost no input from public. The US is ramping up its war efforts across the Middle East and now North Africa. They want to increase drone strikes, continue to spend billions to train Afghanistan and Iraqi troops, despite the fact that the last decade of “training” has been a disaster where whole armies have deserted and billions of dollars in US weapons are now in the hands of Isis. And of course, the specter of adding more US ground troops always lurks in the background.

There is growing realization from experts that we’re not going to be able to bomb our way out of this. Is there no one in charge in Washington who is willing to admit that doubling down yet again on military force is only going to keep making matters worse?

Steven W. Thrasher: Cameras aren’t stopping police misconduct. Exhibit A: Sandra Bland

Until this summer, we haven’t much seen or heard police abusing black women’s bodies with the visual clarity of video. We have witnessed the worst of police abuse on video a lot with black men, from Rodney King back in 1991 to Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Walter Scott and Eric Harris just in the past year. But until last month, we have mostly only seen agents of the state abusing black women recreated in fiction, on shows like Orange is the New Black. [..]

Depressingly, though, bringing this long-standing treatment into stark visibility might not be enough outrage to end the terror.There was great hope by social scientists that police body cams could de-escalate officer encounters and mitigate the level of violence. But with their increasing use, alongside citizens taking videos of arrests, police killings have not slowed in this past year of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Nor, as some of the most recent videos suggest, are cops prone to act with much more humanity, whether they’re unwittingly on camera or knowingly so. I know the “well, if she’d just been more obedient!” crowd will justify Encinia’s abusive treatment of her, disregarding that the chain of events leading to her death could have been stopped by him.

And I am quite simply terrified that this latest pornographic video will visually reinforce the American misnomer that black women’s bodies are there for the taking – and that’s just the way things are.

Rep. Keith Ellison and Van Jones: Pollution isn’t colorblind: environmental hazards kill more black Americans

Thanks to people’s movements like Black Lives Matter and the Fight For 15, the call for racial and economic justice is getting louder and stronger. But while we are out on the streets fighting for equality, our kids are being poisoned by the air they breathe. Environmental injustices are taking black lives – that’s why our fight for equality has to include climate and environmental justice too.

African-Americans are more likely to live near environmental hazards like power plants and be exposed to hazardous air pollution, including higher levels of nitrogen oxides, ozone, particulate matter and carbon dioxide than their white counterparts. The presence of these pollutants increases rates of asthma, respiratory illness and cardiovascular disease. It puts newborn babies at risk. It causes missed days of work and school. We can’t afford this. Black kids already have the highest rate of asthma (pdf) in the nation, and our infant mortality rate is nearly double the national rate.

Dean Baker: Will the Fed ruin presidential candidates’ job plans?

If the Fed is committed to stopping job creation, there’s little a president can do

As we complete the fields for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations, most of the leading contenders are putting forward plans to create jobs. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and her leading rival, Bernie Sanders, are pushing plans for increased infrastructure investment. This would generate jobs in the short term directly by increasing demand. In the longer term, improved infrastructure should make the economy more productive, which would increase wages and make more people want to work. [..]

Whatever the merits of these various proposals, the argument that they would create more jobs depends on the assumption that the Federal Reserve Board will allow more jobs to be created. If that sounds strange, then you haven’t been paying attention to the Federal Reserve Board.

The Fed has an enormous impact on the economy, primarily through its control of interest rates. During the recession, the Fed was trying to boost growth and job creation by pushing down interest rates as low as possible. It pushed the federal funds rate, the short-term interest rate that is directly under its control, to zero and has held it there since early 2009.

As the economy continued to languish, the Fed tried to provide a further boost with its policy of quantitative easing. This meant buying up trillions of dollars in government bonds and mortgage-backed securities in order to put more direct downward pressure on mortgage rates, car loans and other long-term interest rates.

With the economy recovering, the Fed has backed away from its quantitative easing policy, ending bond purchases last year. It is now preparing to raise the short-term interest rate for the first time since before the recession. The explicit goal is to slow the economy and the rate of job creation out of a fear that the economy could overheat, meaning that too many people have jobs.

Robert Reich: Why Progressives Must Stay United

Poverty rates are nearly double among African-Americans and American Indians. Problems are most severe in South and Southwest. Particularly troubling is a large increase in the share of children living in poor communities marked by poor schools and a lack of a safe place to play.

Which brings me to politics, power, and the progressive movement.

The main event at the Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix, Arizona last weekend was a “Presidential Town Hall” featuring one-on-one discussions between journalist and undocumented American Jose Antonio Vargas and presidential candidates Governor Martin O’Malley and Senator Bernie Sanders.

It was upstaged by ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter activists who demanded to be heard.

It’s impossible to overcome widening economic inequality in America without also dealing with the legacy of racial inequality.

And it is impossible to overcome racial inequality without also reversing widening economic inequality.

They are not the same but they are intimately related.

Poverty rates are nearly double among African-Americans and American Indians. Problems are most severe in South and Southwest. Particularly troubling is a large increase in the share of children living in poor communities marked by poor schools and a lack of a safe place to play.

Which brings me to politics, power, and the progressive movement.

The main event at the Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix, Arizona last weekend was a “Presidential Town Hall” featuring one-on-one discussions between journalist and undocumented American Jose Antonio Vargas and presidential candidates Governor Martin O’Malley and Senator Bernie Sanders.

It was upstaged by ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter activists who demanded to be heard.

It’s impossible to overcome widening economic inequality in America without also dealing with the legacy of racial inequality.

And it is impossible to overcome racial inequality without also reversing widening economic inequality.

They are not the same but they are intimately related.

David Cay Johnston: The housing recovery favors high-end homes

The wealthy and big banks are winning, but the rest of America is struggling to buy homes, thanks to government policies

The housing market is slowly recovering, more than seven years after the economy collapsed into a pit of toxic mortgages. But look closely at the recovery and you can see another story: how government policy helps the affluent, not the desperate.

House prices are rising, home sales are increasing, and new building permits in May were up 30 percent from a year earlier, though that just restored them to 1994’s level. And while America has enjoyed a record 64 straight months of job growth, wages barely budged for most workers, making housing costs for many Americans a continuing struggle.

By contrast, the recovery has been much faster for the big banks, where many top executives remain in charge who got rich issuing mortgages that they knew were unlikely to ever be repaid.