“Pondering 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 Dayen: The Fed needs a revolution: Why America’s central bank is failing — and how we can make it work for us
One reality hanging over the presidential election and our politics in general is this: No matter what terrific plan a politician has for creating jobs and boosting wages, it must contend with the Federal Reserve’s ability to unilaterally counteract it. If the Fed decides higher wages risk inflation, they can raise interest rates and deliberately strangle economic growth, reversing the wage effect. Why come up with ways to grow the economy, then, if the Fed will react by intentionally slowing it?
The reason the Fed operates as a wet blanket on the economy has to do with who really controls the institution. If the desires of bankers and the rich outweigh the desires of laborers, then their fear of inflation (which cuts into their profits) will always take precedence over full employment. Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke unwittingly gave a perfect example of that yesterday. Talking about how the Fed could institute “helicopter drops” of money to supplement federal spending and jump-start the economy, he stated from the outset, “no responsible government would ever literally drop money from the sky.” Who sets the boundaries of what’s “responsible” matters a great deal here.
Jill Abramson: HBO’s Confirmation shows how women were treated in Washington. Has anything changed?
The tableau of the lone woman testifying before a congressional committee of white men has become iconic. It is the dominant image in Confirmation, the gripping HBO film about Anita Hill’s testimony in the Clarence Thomas hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991, which premiers on Saturday. [..]
Although those hearings were a generation ago, Confirmation brought to mind more recent congressional proceedings with a lone woman witness facing a mainly white, male set of inquisitors, and another striking outfit, this time dark purple. Hillary Clinton was the star of this show trial, the Benghazi hearings last fall. [..]
What Confirmation reminds us is that Washington DC has rarely been a place that respected women’s words, or their authority. Perhaps this is the year that finally changes.
Amanda Marcotte: Bernie Sanders must accept that Pope Francis isn’t a friend to the left: The pontiff can’t be a true humanitarian with his anti-woman and anti-LGBT views
In an already weird election season, things have gotten even stranger as Bernie Sanders vies heavily and openly for Pope Francis to meet with him. Sanders admires the pope so much that he is leaving the campaign trail for a couple of days, something even some allies question the wisdom of, to speak at the Vatican and, he hopes, get a chance to meet Francis and (of course), get a picture with him.
“I believe that the pope has been an inspirational figure in raising public consciousness about the kind of income and wealth inequality we are seeing all over this world,” Sanders told The Washington Post, explaining his decision.
This decision has raised controversy, with Clinton supporters noting that the history of the Catholic church getting involved in elections where there was what you might call concern that women might secure powerful leadership positions, something expressly forbidden within the church. But both critics and supporters of Sanders openly courting the Vatican seem to believe that it’s a good move for him politically, that Pope will cast a glow on Sanders and charm more voters to his side.
If so, that’s a real shame, because it shows yet again that liberals and progressives really need to get it into their heads: The Pope is not your friend. And he’s not really a friend to the poor, because half of them (probably more) are women.
Michael Winship: Panama Papers Offer More Evidence That Free Trade Isn’t Really Free
You might wonder what the connection is between a friendly game of golf last summer in Martha’s Vineyard and the Panama Papers. Read on.
As anyone who hasn’t been in a cave – or otherwise away from the Internet — knows, last week the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, working with more than a hundred publications around the world, broke news of the biggest data leak in history, from an anonymous source tapping into the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
Using 11.5 million documents sent to them via encrypted files, the reporters are revealing the dark secrets of offshore tax havens and phony shell companies favored by the mega-rich and powerful — from plutocrats and politicians to movie stars and professional athletes — who use them to hide and hoard their fortunes, even as billions live and die in poverty.
Wiliam J. Astore: What’s the Meaning of Failure?
The dishonesty of words illustrates the dishonesty of America’s wars.
Since 9/11, can there be any doubt that the public has become numb to the euphemisms that regularly accompany U.S. troops, drones, and CIA operatives into Washington’s imperial conflicts across the Greater Middle East and Africa? Such euphemisms are meant to take the sting out of America’s wars back home. Many of these words and phrases are already so well known and well worn that no one thinks twice about them anymore.
Here are just a few: collateral damage for killed and wounded civilians (a term used regularly since the First Gulf War of 1990-1991). Enhanced interrogation techniques for torture, a term adopted with vigor by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of their administration (“techniques” that were actually demonstrated in the White House). Extraordinary rendition for CIA kidnappings of terror suspects off global streets or from remote badlands, often followed by the employment of enhanced interrogation techniques at U.S. black sites or other foreign hellholes. Detainees for prisoners and detention camp for prison (or, in some cases, more honestly, concentration camp), used to describe Guantánamo (Gitmo), among other places established offshore of American justice. Targeted killings for presidentially ordered drone assassinations. Boots on the ground for yet another deployment of “our” troops (and not just their boots) in harm’s way. Even the Bush administration’s Global War on Terror, its label for an attempt to transform the Greater Middle East into a Pax Americana, would be redubbed in the Obama years overseas contingency operations (before any attempt at labeling was dropped for a no-name war pursued across major swathes of the planet).
Michael Wiesbrot: Brazilian Coup Threatens Democracy and National Sovereignty
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is now threatened with impeachment, but there is no evidence that she is linked to the “Lava Jato“ scandal, or any other corruption. Rather, she is accused of an accounting manipulation that somewhat misrepresented the fiscal position of the government — something that prior presidents have done. To borrow an analogy from the United States, when the Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling in the U.S. in 2013, the Obama administration used a number of accounting tricks to postpone the deadline at which the limit was reached. Nobody cared.
The impeachment campaign — which the government has correctly labelled a coup — is an effort by Brazil’s traditional elite to obtain by other means what they have not been able to win at the ballot box for the past 12 years. Former president Lula is accused of receiving money from corporations for speeches, and for renovations to a property that he claims he did not own. But even if these accusations are true, there is no evidence of a crime or even a link to corruption. The alleged events took place after Lula left the presidency — and again, as in the U.S., former officials can legally get paid for speeches. Yet Judge Sergio Moro, who is leading the investigation, has led a well-executed smear campaign against Lula. He had to apologize to the Supreme Court for releasing wiretapped phone conversations between Lula and Dilma, Lula and his attorney, and even Lula’s wife and their children.
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