“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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New York Times Editorial Board: Political Dark Money Just Got Darker
As untold millions of dollars pour into the shadowy campaign troughs of the presidential candidates, voters need to be reminded of the rosy assumptions of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that legitimized the new spending frenzy. {..]
In the new budget bill, Republicans inserted a provision blocking the Internal Revenue Service from creating rules to curb the growing abuse of the tax law by thinly veiled political machines posing as “social welfare” organizations. These groups are financed by rich special-interest donors who do not have to reveal their identities under the tax law. So much for effective disclosure at the I.R.S.
In another move to keep the public blindfolded about who is writing big corporate checks for federal candidates, the Republicans barred the Securities and Exchange Commission from finalizing rules requiring corporations to disclose their campaign spending to investors. It was Citizens United that foolishly envisioned a world in which: “Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.”
John NIchols: The Dickensian Politics of Trump and His Fellow Scrooges
The most Dickensian moment of 2015 came in November, when the Republicans who would be president gathered to debate in Milwaukee.
Outside the debate hall, crowds of actual working people marched for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights.
Inside, moderator Neil Cavuto asked billionaire Donald Trump, “As the leading presidential candidate on this stage.… are you sympathetic to the protesters’ cause, since a $15 wage works out to about $31,000 a year?”
“I can’t be, Neil,” responded Trump.
With “wages too high,” the billionaire complained, “we’re not going to be able to compete against the world.” [..]
Trump was simply saying, as one of the richest men in the world, that he was not ready to embrace the ancient principle that a fair day’s work ought to be compensated with a fair day’s pay. Like so many of his Republican compatriots, the billionaire cannot muster the generosity of spirit—and economic common sense—required to support modest policy changes that would extend a measure of equity to Americans who work full time but still live in poverty. For these political misers, policies that might improve the lot of the poor are not their business.
Dave Zirin: Why the Movie ‘Concussion’ Spells Trouble for the NFL—and Moral Angst for the Rest of Us
Why do I believe the film Concussion will deliver a teeth-rattling blow to the NFL? Why am I sure this Christmas-release Oscar hopeful will raise far-reaching questions about the price we collectively pay for loving football? Why can I guarantee it will it even further erode the already-subterranean reputation of league commissioner Roger Goodell? Because Concussion has something most “message films” do not possess: It’s expertly paced and one hell of a film. If you didn’t really give a damn about the tobacco industry but found yourself riveted by Michael Mann’s The Insider, then this is your film—whether you watch football or not. The pacing, the acting, the kinetic athletic sequences, the use of familiar names, stories, and uniforms, give Concussion an accessible verisimilitude that does not only educate. It shocks. [..]
We have the right to know the costs of imbibing this game. See this film, and learn who has stymied our access to this truth. You will learn something from seeing this film, but Concussion is a triumph precisely because it doesn’t beat you over the head. Instead, it goes right to your other nerve centers, as you reel from thrills to disgust to tears to anger. For many of us, some of that anger will be directed at ourselves.
Katha Pollitt: In the So-Called ‘Abortion Wars,’ Only One Side Is Murdering the Other
It’s been a while since a journalist set the world straight on this whole abortion thing. Dana Milbank did it a few years ago in his Washington Post column—if only “both sides” would stop grandstanding and endorse contraception! David Frum had some thoughts about it, and so, way back in time, did abortion opponents Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan. Usually these people find abortion disturbing/wrong/immoral. Usually they don’t know much about the subject and are just parachuting in. And yes, usually these people are men.
“I am opposed to abortion,” Kurt Eichenwald begins his Newsweek cover story “America’s Abortion Wars (and How to End Them).” “I am opposed to abortion. I believe women have the right to choose. This is not a contradiction.” Well, okay. Most Americans would sort of agree with him on that—they don’t like abortion, but they want it to stay legal. “Opposed” is a strong word, though, and Eichenwald never bothers to explain why he is against abortion, or why his opinion matters, or what it means. Would he urge a wife, a lover, a child, a friend to keep an unwanted pregnancy? Would he support efforts to persuade others that abortion is wrong? His statement just hangs there, demonstrating his impartiality and seriousness, as part of his overall strategy of equating pro-choice and anti-choice movements. We’re “a country torn apart by absolutists.” “Both arguments are infused with hypocrisy, and consequences often go unconsidered while bumper-sticker logic prevails.” On the one hand, “Male commentators are frequently—and often rightfully—accused by pro-choice advocates of ‘mansplaining.’” On the other, “anyone broaching the other side of the argument is deemed a baby killer.” According to Eichenwald, accusing a man of “telling women what to think” is like accusing an abortion provider of murdering children. Really? As the blogger Choice Joyce asked, “When’s the last time you heard about a deranged feminist going on a murderous shooting rampage against mansplainers?”
Jim Hightower: The Trans-Pacific Trade Scam
Last spring, President Barack Obama got downright crabby about people criticizing the mammoth Trans-Pacific Partnership he’s trying to sell to Congress and the public.
More and more Americans are learning that the TPP would undermine America’s very sovereignty, giving multinational corporations direct access to secretive tribunals that could roll back any consumer, labor, or environmental laws that global corporate giants don’t like.
Yet an irked Obama denies that this is true: “They’re making this stuff up,” he cried. “No trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.”
Perhaps he was misinformed. Perhaps he hasn’t actually read the deal he’s pushing. Or — dare we say it? — perhaps he’s lying.
In unmistakable language, the TPP does indeed create the private, corporate-run mechanism for changing our laws. Moreover, surely Obama knows that foreign corporations are already doing this indirectly.
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