“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
Glenn Greenwald: The Radically Changing Story of the U.S. Airstrike on Afghan Hospital: From Mistake to Justification
When news first broke of the U.S. airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, the response from the U.S. military was predictable and familiar. It was all just a big, terrible mistake, its official statement suggested: an airstrike it carried out in Kunduz “may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.” Oops: our bad. Fog of war, errant bombs, and all that. [..]
But there’s something significantly different about this incident that has caused this “mistake” claim to fail. Usually, the only voices protesting or challenging the claims of the U.S. military are the foreign, non-western victims who live in the cities and villages where the bombs fall. Those are easily ignored, or dismissed as either ignorant or dishonest. Those voices barely find their way into U.S. news stories, and when they do, they are stream-rolled by the official and/or anonymous claims of the U.S. military, which are typically treated by U.S. media outlets as unassailable authority.
In this case, though, the U.S. military bombed the hospital of an organization – Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)) – run by western-based physicians and other medical care professionals. They are not so easily ignored. Doctors who travel to dangerous war zones to treat injured human beings are regarded as noble and trustworthy. They’re difficult to marginalize and demonize. They give compelling, articulate interviews in English to U.S. media outlets. They are heard, and listened to.
Paul Krugman: Enemies of the Sun
Does anyone remember the Cheney energy task force? Early in the George W. Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney released a report (pdf) that was widely derided as a document written by and for Big Energy – because it was. The administration fought tooth and nail to keep the process by which the report was produced secret, but the list of people the task force met was eventually leaked, and it was exactly what you’d expect: a who’s who of energy industry executives, with environmental groups getting a chance to make their case only after the work was essentially done.
But here’s the thing: by the standards of today’s Republican Party, the Cheney report was enlightened, even left-leaning. One whole chapter was devoted to conservation, another to renewable energy. By contrast, recent speeches by Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio – still the most likely Republican presidential nominees – barely address either topic. When it comes to energy policy, the G.O.P. has become fossilized. That is, it’s fossil fuels, and only fossil fuels, all the way.
If there really is a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, its fate in Congress is highly uncertain given the narrow margin by which trade authority passed this summer, the concessions made to get a deal, and growing congressional and public concerns about the TPP’s threats to jobs, wages, safe food and affordable medicines and more. The intense national battle over trade authority was just a preview of the massive opposition the TPP will face given that Democratic and GOP members of Congress and the public soon will be able to see the specific TPP terms that threaten their interests.
With congressional opposition to TPP growing and the Obama administration basically up against elections cycles in various countries, this ministerial was extended repeatedly because this was the do or die time but it’s unclear if there really is a deal or this is kabuki theatre intended to create a sense of inevitability so as to insulate the TPP from growing opposition.
Trevor Timm: The Yemen crisis is partly our fault. We can no longer facilitate this war
While the crisis in Syria continues to garner front-page headlines and ample television coverage, the media has largely turned a blind eye to the other travesty unfolding in the Middle East: Yemen has turned into a humanitarian disaster, where thousands of bombs are being dropped, 1.5 million people are displaced and more than 90% of the population is in need of assistance. The major difference? In Yemen, the US is one of the primary causes of the problem.
The United States and the United Kingdom are actively aiding and abetting Saudi Arabia while the country indiscriminately kills thousands of civilians in Yemen in what amounts to war crimes by almost anyone’s definition. The two western powers, who often purport to care about democracy and human rights, are also helping the Saudi monarchy – one of the most repressive regimes on the planet – cover up those crimes at the UN. These actions are abhorrent, and it’s shameful the brewing scandal has hardly received any attention from the US political establishment or television news.
Michael Waldman: What Obama Can Do About Dark Money in Elections Right Now
The spectacle of the 2016 election is riveting, that’s for sure. But behind the gaffes and rallies — and hair — there is something different, and deeply disturbing, about this election.
To a degree unseen since the Gilded Age over a century ago, money will come from a handful of donors giving once unimaginable sums. Many want something from government.
And many of these donors will operate undisturbed — their identities secret from the public, if not from the grateful politicians. It’s called “dark money.”
Since 2010’s Citizens United decision, outside groups that conceal all of their funding sources from the public have spent more than $600 million to influence elections. We don’t know where the money comes from. And we don’t know what the donors hope to get in return.
With a stroke of his pen, President Obama can help address one particularly troubling area of dark money spending. He can issue an Executive Order requiring major companies that are awarded federal contracts to disclose all of their political donations.
Leo W. Gerard: More Free Stuff for Corporations
Republicans and the rich guys who imposed 35 years of stagnant wages on American workers now offer a prescription for easing this pain!
Their solution for robber-baron-level income inequality is not the obvious: Give workers raises. They don’t want to increase the minimum wage, which would eventually push up pay for everyone else as well. They don’t intend to provide paid sick leave or decent pensions or fewer unstable contract jobs. They have no intention of strengthening unions so workers can collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions.
Instead of any of those straightforward measures, rich guys and corporate-owned Republicans assert that the solution is more free stuff for corporations! The government, they say, should provide that free stuff. The government, the very organization they deride and despise and denounce as incompetent and deserving of nothing but cutting and shrinking and destroying! Yes, they actually contend that very same government should take the taxes paid by workers and give that money to corporations to improve worker wages and working conditions!
Recent Comments