“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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Katrina vanden Heuvel: Today’s GOP is out of sync with Cuban Americans
“I probably have six Cuban grandmothers, and ten Cuban mothers,” joked then-Florida governor Jeb Bush at the Cuban Liberty Council’s annual dinner 10 years ago, where he was the guest of honor. “You can always count on me to do what I can to make sure that the cause of a free Cuba is front and center in Washington.”
This was in 2004, not long after the first millennials became eligible to vote. Back then, the “cause of a free Cuba,” as Bush described it, was clear to the Cuban American community: No lifting of the embargo. No normalizing of relations. No reconciliation.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising, then, that after stepping back onto the political stage so many years later, Bush’s position on Cuba has changed not at all. “We’re not a step closer to freedom in Cuba because of the steps the president is taking,” he said last week. Nor should it be of note that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a Cuban American who grew up in the Florida Republican establishment during the 2000s, would declare soon after announcing his own campaign that he planned to “reverse every single one of the decisions [the president] has made” with regard to Cuba.
Nothing has changed, except for one thing: the Cuban American community itself. The political ground has shifted radically in the past decade, something neither Bush nor Rubio seem to have noticed.
Zoë Carpenter: In 1970, Environmentalism Was Poised to ‘Bring Us All Together.’ What Happened?
Louisiana is not a place that usually inspires hope for the environment. Nearly a century of oil and gas activity has cut the state’s swamps and bayous into vanishing ribbons. Hundreds of millions of gallons of oil have been spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. Underground caverns hollowed out by petrochemical companies are collapsing and creating sinkholes, some swallowing entire communities. Industry has fouled state politics, too, such that elected leaders reward corporations with $1.8 billion a year in subsidies and tax breaks, while starving healthcare, education, and other public services.
Several months ago I had a surprising conversation with a Louisianan named Mike Schaff. He identifies himself as a Tea Party Republican, and won’t call himself an environmentalist, but he’s angry enough about what petrochemical companies have done to the land he loves that he joined a coalition called the Green Army, which is mounting localized challenges to the dominance of the industry in the state. “Our state is kind of looking the other way, saying that’s the cost of doing business in Louisiana,” he told me. “We say ‘bullshit’ to that. It doesn’t need to happen.”
he American people, the journalist Gene Marine argued in The Nation in 1970 (pdf), “are waiting for someone to notice that ecology is an issue that brings us all together.”
The exploitation of a precious natural resource by multinational companies is degrading the environment. Consumers shouldn’t fall for it
Thanks to consumer culture it’s entirely possible to give the Earth a surreptitious kicking on a daily basis. So using face scrubs full of plastic microbeads or disposable wipes just make you look like you’re time efficient and keen to exfoliate (no mention that you’re irreversibly polluting the ocean).
Perhaps the most egregious of all these behaviours is our ongoing commitment to bottled water.
There’s an obvious idiocy here. In the UK our hydration needs can be met from a source that is rigorously tested by the Drinking Water Inspectorate and operates in a supremely low-carbon way (the common carriage of water mains is comparatively efficient and uses little energy). You call it a tap, or a faucet, and it’s one of those shiny things that augments the kitchen sink. Try it. You might like it.
I fear I’m fighting a losing battle. The multinationals invested in bottled water represent some of the biggest companies on earth. We’re sitting ducks. When the market for sugar-sweetened carbonated soft drinks began to decline in the late 1990s giants such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo knew their future lay in flogging water.
Katie McDonough: Women lose out – again: Why the Senate’s human trafficking compromise is nothing to celebrate
Senate leadership announced a deal to advance the anti-trafficking bill. Once again, women became bargaining chips
Senate leadership announced Tuesday that a deal had been reached over the anti-abortion language in an otherwise bipartisan anti-human trafficking bill. The agreement means that the measure will advance, and clears the way for a long delayed confirmation vote on attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the vote on Lynch in order to force action on the Justice for Victims of Human Trafficking Act after a dispute over a provision that would have expanded the Hyde Amendment stalled the process. Minority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that the compromise “rejects the expansion of the Hyde language… where it didn’t apply before,” according to a report from U.S. News & World Report. [..]
While disagreement over the Hyde language – an amendment would have prohibited a victims compensation fund from being used for abortions, the first time Hyde would have applied to non-taxpayer revenue – clouded the bill’s prospects, many victims’ advocates had other issues with the bill and urged Congress to do better.
Kate D’Adamo, national policy advocate at the Urban Justice Center’s Sex Workers Project, told Emily Crockett at RH Reality Check that while she supports the provisions of the measure establishing a federal advisory council made up of trafficking survivors and expanding a federal victims support initiative, these positive elements are stuck in a “rotten apple” of a bill.
Amanda Marcotte: [10 egregious myths the religious perpetuate about atheists, debunked ]
Nonbelievers do not lack a basic moral code — despite what the likes of David Brooks might have you believe
In a regular poll conducted by political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell on American political attitudes, atheists recently lost their spot as as the most disliked group in America to the Tea Party. Still, number two is simply way too high in the unpopularity rankings for a group of people who just happen to spend Sunday mornings in bed instead of in church. Polling data shows that nearly half of Americans would disapprove if their child married an atheist and nearly 40 percent of Americans don’t see atheists as sharing their vision of American society, numbers that outstripped similar prejudices toward Muslims and African Americans.
Of course, the real reason atheists are so hated has little to do with jealousy for all their free time, but largely because most Americans are better acquainted with myths than with the realities of atheists’ lives. Unfortunately, atheists often have these myths tossed in their faces, usually by believers who would rather talk about what they heard atheists are like rather than uncomfortable subjects such as the lack of proof for any gods.
These myths do more than hurt atheists. They also harm the basic religious freedoms of all Americans, regardless of their beliefs. Religious freedom and tolerance don’t mean much if they can’t be expanded to include those without religion. With that in mind, here’s 10 of the ugliest myths about atheists, debunked:
Jessica Valenti: Republicans who limit what medical students can learn doom us to stupid doctors
Some legislators want to keep women from having abortions by prohibiting anyone from teaching doctors how to perform one
Most people expect their physicians to be smart – skillful, schooled and, perhaps above all else, knowledgable. So it’s somewhat baffling (and entirely infuriating) that some Republicans want to keep important medical knowledge from soon-to-be doctors.
A North Carolina bill introduced this month would prevent state medical school departments from allowing employees to perform abortions or to “supervise the performance of an abortion”. Essentially, the bill’s sponsors and supporters wants to make teaching how to perform an abortion – a safe, legal and necessary medical procedure – illegal. As The New Republic’s Jamil Smith wrote, if passed, the bill would “produce less intelligent doctors.”
But the more a doctor knows and learns, the more people they can help throughout her career – and no one would choose a doctor who bragged about skipping class. Bills like this must be defeated – and every medical student in the country with a obstetrical and gynecological (OBGYN) focus should be taught how to perform abortions.
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