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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Dana Milbank: Obama answers Trump’s dangerous demagoguery

President Obama’s final State of the Union address Tuesday night wasn’t a speech to Congress. It was a sermon to the nation.

It wasn’t about policy prescriptions, really, or even about Obama’s record in office. It was a speech about one man whose name the president never uttered in the House chamber — Donald Trump — and the fear the nativist billionaire is stoking across the land in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Obama’s address was an extraordinary — and welcome — departure from the staid and ritualistic State of the Union format, and it showed how this president has grown in office. [..]

This was presidential leadership as it should be, and as Obama was reluctant to do early in his term: Using the power of his office to deliver a forceful moral message. Some may have thought it petty or unseemly that Obama was devoting a State of the Union address to the message of a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. But in the current environment, there is nothing more important than answering the dangerous demagoguery that has arisen.

Dean Baker: The real state of the union: Economy

Last week the Labor Department reported the economy added 292,000 jobs in December, bringing the total jobs added for the year to more than 2.7 million. The unemployment rate at the end of the year was 5.0 percent, almost down to the lows hit in 2007. We even saw substantial growth in real wages in the last year, as plunging oil prices held inflation under 1.0 percent in 2015.

So why isn’t everyone happy?

The main story here is that we still have a long way to go before we get out of the hole the economy fell into when the housing bubble crashed in 2008 and 2009. While the White House would like us all to be thankful we escaped the Second Great Depression, the reality is the economy has recovered far more slowly than was generally predicted. As a result, workers are paying a huge price in terms of fewer jobs, less job security and lower wages.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Jeremy Corbyn talks common sense on nuclear weapons

The new leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has sparked a political firestorm by challenging the myths around nuclear weapons and Cold War deterrence. Corbyn announced that he would never use a nuclear weapon. He followed that apostasy by declaring that he opposed renewal of the British nuclear Trident submarine program.“I am opposed to the use of nuclear weapons. I am opposed to the holding of nuclear weapons. I want to see a nuclear-free world. I believe it is possible,” Corbyn declared.

Several Labour shadow ministers suggested they might resign if that became Labour’s policy. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and the right-wing British press have been pillorying Corbyn as a threat to national security for his heresy.

Corbyn’s aides argue this is not a new version of the debate over unilateral disarmament that wracked Labour in the 1980s. Rather, they insist the question is whether renewing the fleet is worth the money. Corbyn’s doubts are shared by some current and retired military officers. The British fleet of four Trident submarines is slated for retirement in the late 2020s. It will take almost that long to develop a successor. Renewing and operating the Trident program will cost an estimated 167 billion British pounds over the next four decades. The Army has already been reduced to below 82,000 soldiers, the lowest number since the 1700s. Renewing the Trident fleet would likely force more cuts.

Catherine Rampell: Jeb Bush’s welfare reform plan would only make life worse for America’s poor

Jeb Bush claims that, unlike that charlatan Donald Trump, he’s a proven political leader.

How has he chosen to illustrate such brave leadership? By joining the storied tradition of ducking responsibility for tough decisions.

Last Friday, Bush unveiled his grand welfare reform plan. He promises it will reduce waste, fraud and abuse while simultaneously empowering millions of poor people to stop being poor.

His magic formula: completely destroy established anti-poverty programs such as food stamps, cash welfare payments, rent subsidies and public housing. He’d then replace them all with “Right to Rise” grants (yes, named after his super PAC). These would be lump sums of federal money that states could apply for, assuming states would even be willing to create entirely new social safety nets out of whole cloth.

Bush isn’t the first to suggest this particular silver bullet — known as “block-granting” — for overhauling the social safety net.