“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.
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David Cay Johnston: Davos billionaires should salute Oxfam
Oxfam is out with its newest report showing the widening chasm between the richest human beings and everyone else. Just 62 people have more wealth than the bottom half of human beings, about 3.6 billion people, the international anti-poverty organization estimates. And the top 1 percent now have as much wealth as the bottom 99 percent.
Oxfam released its report just ahead of the annual gathering of billionaires at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a ski resort in the heart of a long-time favored haven of the exploitive superrich, Switzerland. But expecting the billionaires to take the lead in reducing inequality makes as much sense as expecting toddlers think about their long-term best interests. And therein lies the problem with the mere documenting of income and wealth inequality, which I’ve been doing for more than two decades.
In fact, bankers the world over, from Davos to Hong Kong, should lift flutes of Cristal, a favorite of oligarchs and kings, to toast Oxfam for severely understating just how much the richest of the rich have stashed away untaxed.
Zephyr Teachout: 6 Years of Citizens United
Six years ago today, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Citizens United vs. FEC. It is not a happy anniversary. I remember waiting for the ruling and opening it up on my computer: when I finally read it, I didn’t want to believe that the Court had gone as far as it had and been so careless with our democracy.
Citizens United was bad history, bad logic, bad law. It was a major overreach on the part of the Court (the issue hadn’t even been raised initially). In his majority decision that day, Justice Kennedy allowed billionaires and big corporations to spend limitless amounts of money to influence politicians. His description of politics was pretty out of touch. Basically, the Court held that unless there is an explicit, open deal — “here’s $5 million for a vote against banking reform” — there’s no corruption. Nobody with any common sense thinks that huge corporate expenditures don’t corrupt politics, but the Court left common sense behind that day.
One good thing came out of it: it has led to an extraordinary, community-by-community grassroots effort to reclaim our democracy.
Curt Guyette: As the Flint water crisis grows, we must demand more emails from Rick Snyder
Governor Rick Snyder wants Michigan’s citizens to believe he is being transparent and honest. After his administration shamefully mishandled the Flint water crisis and betrayed the public’s trust, the desire now is to repair that relationship. But the steps he has taken thus far are woefully inadequate.
Snyder, following through on a promise made on Tuesday, has released emails from 2014 and 2015. That, however, is not nearly enough. If he truly does desire to be transparent – in a state where the governor (and legislature) are exempt from the state’s Freedom of Information Act law that other officials and state employees are subject to – he must release all of the emails.
The public needs to know what his office’s role, if any, was in the decision to use the dangerously corrosive Flint river in 2014 as the sole water supply for a city of 100,000 people, a majority of whom are African American, and many of whom are desperately poor.
Every time the administration is asked about that role, Snyder’s people keep trying to sidestep it. The question is, why?
Dana Milbank: Rahm Emanuel ducks his demons
Embattled Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, grappling with a police shooting that could destroy his mayoralty, has lamented the “code of silence” around police brutality.
But now the famously outspoken Emanuel seems to be adopting his own code of silence.
The former congressman and top official in the Obama and Clinton administrations was listed as a featured panelist at the opening plenary luncheon of the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting. The topic: “Reducing Violence and Strengthening Police/Community Trust.”
This took some guts: Emanuel was, before a national audience, going to address head-on the crisis that has engulfed him since the release almost 60 days ago of video showing a Chicago policeman shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times as McDonald appeared to be walking away. Emanuel’s administration had resisted having the video of the killing released, and emails show involvement of the mayor’s office in how to deal with the PR problem. Now there are accusations of a coverup and calls for his resignation.
E. J. Dionne, Jr.: The monumental fall of the Republican Party
The fixed smile on Donald Trump’s face as Sarah Palin unleashed her free-association, who-knows-what-she’ll-say-next harangue endorsing him on Tuesday sent its own message. “How long do I have to stand here?” it seemed to say. But of all the developments in the astonishing Republican presidential contest, this moment told us what we need to know about the state of a once-great political party.
Consider the forces that brought Palin to the national stage in the first place. In 2008, John McCain, running behind Barack Obama in the polls, wanted to shake up the contest by picking a moderate as his running mate. His first choice was then-Sen. Joe Lieberman, and he also liked former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge.
But McCain won the nomination against the will of the Republican right as more-conservative candidates had fractured their side’s vote. “He is not the choice of conservatives, as opposed to the choice of the Republican establishment — and that distinction is key,” said Rush Limbaugh, using language that is now oh-so-familiar. The establishment, Limbaugh charged, had “long sought to rid the party of conservative influence.”
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