“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: Obama’s speech reminded Americans that the war with Isis is still illegal
If you listened closely during Barack Obama’s speech to the nation on Sunday night, you would have heard him reference the fact that the US war against Isis – which is well over a year old at this point – is illegal and unconstitutional.
He didn’t phrase it like that of course, but he did remind Americans that Congress has not authorized any military action against Isis despite the fact that we have been dropping bombs on multiple countries in an effort to stop Isis since August of 2014, and despite the fact that such military authorization is required by both the law and the US constitution. [..]
For the past year and four months, the administration has been pretending that the 2001 Authorization for Military Force (AUMF), which made it legal to wage war against those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, somehow makes it OK to wage a indefinite, worldwide war against Isis. But Isis did not exist in 2001, and has been enemies with al-Qaida (the group that committed 9/11) for years. Still, the 2001 AUMF is being used to fight Isis in Iraq and Syria, despite the fact that al-Qaida was almost exclusively operational in Afghanistan when Congress first authorized military action.
It makes no logical sense to claim that the authorization to engage in military action against al-Qaida in Afghanistan in 2001 applies to Isis in Syria in 2015, yet that is supposed argument to which the White House lawyers are clinging.
Dean Baker: Republicans attempt to weaken consumer financial protections
Earlier this fall we had some high-stakes combat in Washington over passing the budget and raising the debt ceiling. On both issues President Barack Obama and the Republican Congress reached compromises that resolved the immediate standoff. However, these compromises still required specific appropriation bills in several major areas of the budget. It turns out that the passage of these bills is providing more grounds for conflict.
While there is agreement on the amount of money to be included in these bills, the contention stems from Republican plans to include extraneous issues, referred to as riders, as provisions of the appropriation bills. These riders can cover a vast range of topics. We are virtually certain to see riders that would eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood as well as ones that call for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Obama will certainly veto these bills, but doing so would prevent the commitment of a stream of funding and create a risk of shutdowns of some departments and agencies.
Financial regulation is one of the areas drawing considerable attention from Republicans and a likely topic of one or more riders. In particular, the Republicans are likely to include riders weakening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and blocking a Labor Department regulation on financial advisers.
Jon Soltz: Trump Helps ISIS, But It Is Larger Than That
It is a central tenet of counterinsurgency, and what all of us sent to Iraq were taught: Do not insult the religion of Islam.
This isn’t coming from hippies, or folks oversensitive to political correctness. Our very own military teaches every one of its soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and sailors deployed to Muslim nations that when we insult Islam, we make it harder to gain allies and friends on the ground, and give our enemies the recruiting poster that they need.
When word got around that soldiers at Bagram Air Force Base had burned Qurans, it set off a wave of violent protests, which resulted in the deaths of American troops.
When Donald Trump says that we need to end all entry into the United States, by any Muslim, he helps the enemy, and makes us less secure.
Robert Reich: Look Who’s Buying American Democracy
According to an investigation by the New York Times, half of all the money contributed so far to Democratic and Republican presidential candidates — $176 million — has come from just 158 families, along with the companies they own or control.
Who are these people? They’re almost entirely white, rich, older and male — even though America is becoming increasingly black and brown, young, female, and with declining household incomes. [..]
These people are, after all, are living in their own separate society, and they want to elect people who will represent them, not the rest of us.
How much more evidence do we need that our system is in crisis? How long before we make it work for all of us instead of a handful at the top? We must not let them buy our democracy. We must get big money out of politics. Publicly-finance political campaigns, disclose all sources of campaign funds, and reverse “Citizens United.”
Rebecca Solnit: Oil fuels war and terrorists like Isis. The climate movement can bring peace
Greed for petroleum has produced plenty of war. War can be defined narrowly, as conflict between nations, or broadly, as large-scale violence in pursuit of gain. This is why so many see the climate movement as a peace movement – especially after the recent massacres in Paris.
In the fossil-fuel era, some oil corporations became powers equal to states, and some states became petroleum corporations in drag, and both were eager to fight horrific wars over resource control. The abuse of power and the destruction go all the way back to the early history of the petroleum industry in particular (though coal and natural gas extraction and industries have plenty of ugly achievements of their own). [..]
There is no monopoly on sun and wind, so it’s hard to imagine wars over those resources. The dispersal of power generation as wind and sun and other renewable sources replace fossil fuels correlates nicely to the dispersal of political power –which is what we mean by democracy.
Recognizing that should give more impetus to the climate change conference and the climate change movement. Whether the attackers in Paris had the climate conference in their sights is not clear, but the conference participants and the activists outside should have the oil wars in their own. Because someday we must be able to look back on this era as one of inhuman corporate powers and destructive pursuit and use of fossil energy.
Recent Comments