“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”.

New York Times Editorial: Targeting the Unemployed

The latest Republican plan might extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, but it would do so at the expense of vulnerable Americans.

The House Republican leadership managed to get one thing right in its bill to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits. The bill does, indeed, extend the payroll tax cut for another year, but, beyond that, there is a lot to dislike. To help pay for the package, for instance, the bill would cut social spending more deeply than is already anticipated under current budget caps without asking wealthy Americans to contribute a penny in new taxes.

It also holds the expiring provisions hostage to irrelevant but noxious proposals to undo existing environmental protections. Worse, it would make unemployment compensation considerably stingier than it is now.

Michael Hudson: Europe’s Transition From Social Democracy to Oligarchy

The easiest way to understand Europe’s financial crisis is to look at the solutions being proposed to resolve it. They are a banker’s dream, a grab bag of giveaways that few voters would be likely to approve in a democratic referendum. Bank strategists learned not to risk submitting their plans to democratic vote after Icelanders twice refused in 2010-11 to approve their government’s capitulation to pay Britain and the Netherlands for losses run up by badly regulated Icelandic banks operating abroad. Lacking such a referendum, mass demonstrations were the only way for Greek voters to register their opposition to the €50 billion in privatization sell-offs demanded by the European Central Bank (ECB) in autumn 2011.

The problem is that Greece lacks the ready money to redeem its debts and pay the interest charges. The ECB is demanding that it sell off public assets – land, water and sewer systems, ports and other assets in the public domain, and also cut back pensions and other payments to its population. The “bottom 99%” understandably are angry to be informed that the wealthiest layer of the population is largely responsible for the budget shortfall by stashing away a reported €45 billion of funds stashed away in Swiss banks alone. The idea of normal wage-earners being obliged to forfeit their pensions to pay for tax evaders – and for the general un-taxing of wealth since the regime of the colonels – makes most people understandably angry. For the ECB, EU and IMF “troika” to say that whatever the wealthy take, steal or evade paying must be made up by the population at large is not a politically neutral position. It comes down hard on the side of wealth that has been unfairly taken.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.a

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 18 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1642, Abel Tasman discovers New Zealand.

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island), and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Maori language name for New Zealand is Aotearoa, commonly translated as land of the long white cloud. The Realm of New Zealand also includes the Cook Islands and Niue (self-governing but in free association); Tokelau; and the Ross Dependency (New Zealand’s territorial claim in Antarctica).

The majority of Zealand’s population is of European descent; the indigenous Maori are the largest minority. Asians and non-Maori Polynesians are also significant minority groups, especially in urban areas. The most commonly spoken language is English.

New Zealand is a developed country that ranks highly in international comparisons on many topics, including lack of corruption, high educational attainment and economic freedom. Its cities also consistently rank among the world’s most liveable.

Elizabeth II, as the Queen of New Zealand, is the country’s head of state and is represented by a Governor-General, and executive political power is exercised by the Cabinet of New Zealand.

Polynesian settlers

New Zealand is one of the most recently settled major landmasses. The first known settlers were Eastern Polynesians who, according to most researchers, arrived by canoe in about AD 1250-1300. Some researchers have suggested an earlier wave of arrivals dating to as early as AD 50-150; these people then either died out or left the islands. Over the following centuries these settlers developed into a distinct culture now known as Maori. The population was divided into iwi (tribes) and hapu (subtribes) which would cooperate, compete and sometimes fight with each other. At some point a group of Maori migrated to the Chatham Islands where they developed their distinct Moriori culture.

European explorers

The first Europeans known to have reached New Zealand were Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman and his crew in 1642. Maori killed four of the crew and no Europeans returned to New Zealand until British explorer James Cook’s voyage of 1768-71. Cook reached New Zealand in 1769 and mapped almost the entire coastline. Following Cook, New Zealand was visited by numerous European and North American whaling, sealing and trading ships. They traded European food and goods, especially metal tools and weapons, for Maori timber, food, artefacts and water. On occasion, Europeans traded goods for sex.

The potato and the musket transformed Maori agriculture and warfare, beginning in the frequently visited north then spreading southwards. The resulting Musket Wars encompassed over 600 battles between 1801 and 1840, killing 30,000-40,000 Maori, although introduced diseases would play an even greater role in the Maori population’s decline to around 40% of its pre-contact level during the 19th century. From the early 19th century, Christian missionaries began to settle New Zealand, eventually converting most of the Maori population, although their initial inroads were mainly among the more disaffected elements of society.

Well worth the 50 minutes.

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes writer Glenn Greenwald for a discussion of his new book, “With Liberty and Justice for Some.” Greenwald traces his intellectual odyssey; analyzes the relationship between principle, power, and law; and describes the erosion of the rule of law in the United States. Highlighting the degree to which the legal system frees the powerful from accountability while harshly treating the powerless, Greenwald describes the origins of the current system, its repudiation of American ideals, and the mechanisms which sustain it. He then analyzes the media’s abdication of its role as watchdog role. He concludes with a survey of the the record of the Obama administration in fulfilling its mandate, argues for an alternative politics, and offers advice for students as they prepare for the future. Series: “Conversations with History”

h/t Michael Kwiatkowski @ Progressive Independence

“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”.

Paul Krugman: Depression and Democracy

It’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression. True, it’s not a full replay of the Great Depression, but that’s cold comfort. Unemployment in both America and Europe remains disastrously high. Leaders and institutions are increasingly discredited. And democratic values are under siege.

On that last point, I am not being alarmist. On the political as on the economic front it’s important not to fall into the “not as bad as” trap. High unemployment isn’t O.K. just because it hasn’t hit 1933 levels; ominous political trends shouldn’t be dismissed just because there’s no Hitler in sight.

Robert Reich: The Remarkable Political Stupidity of Wall Street

Wall Street is its own worst enemy. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it’s busily shredding new regulations and making the public more distrustful than ever.

The Street’s biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading.

For years Wall Street has speculated like mad in futures markets – food, oil, other commodities – causing prices to fluctuate wildly. The Street makes bundles from these gyrations, but they have raised costs for consumers.

In other words, a small portion of what you and I pay for food and energy has been going into the pockets of Wall Street. It’s just another hidden redistribution from the middle class and poor to the rich.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

December 12 is the 346th day of the year (347th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 19 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1787, Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the Constitution, by a vote of 46 to 23. Pennsylvania was the first large state to ratify, as well as the first state to endure a serious Anti-Federalist challenge to ratification.

Pennsylvania drafted the most radical of the state constitutions during the War for Independence. By excluding Quakers and all other pacifists unwilling to take oaths of allegiance to the Revolutionary cause, a fervently anti-British and anti-Indian Scots-Irish faction had seized power for the first time in the remarkably diverse state. Only when pacifists were again able to exercise the franchise in peacetime was it conceivable that the more conservative U.S. Constitution might pass in Pennsylvania. Large states had the most to lose by joining a strengthened union. James Wilson’s genius in describing the nature of layered sovereignty in a federal republic, using the solar system as an analogy, was invaluable in convincing Pennsylvanians to ratify. Anti-Federalists found themselves in the hypocritical position of criticizing the federal Constitution for failing to codify the freedom of religious practice they had actively denied their fellow citizens during the War for Independence.

The politically motivated decision to block the sale of Plan B Emergency Contraception to under seventeen year old women without a prescription by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that was blessed by President Obama has outraged women’s groups, doctors and, yes, the FDA.

Amanda Marcotte expressed her views on Obama using politics to trump science, common sense and good parenting:

No one wants 11-year-olds to have sex, of course, but that concern shouldn’t play a role in this. In a press release addressing Sebelius’s decision, the Guttmacher Institute, a nonpartisan research institute that studies sexual health, noted that fewer than 1 percent of 11-year-olds are sexually active, but almost half of teenage girls are having sex by age 17. There’s no evidence to suggest that making Plan B available to all teenagers will somehow push younger teenagers to start having sex in greater numbers. If Sebelius actually had concerns about the effect of this drug on the behavior of younger teenagers, she could have looked to Canada, where Plan B is sold over the counter without age restrictions, with no discernible outbreaks of promiscuity in junior high school. Meanwhile, the United States still has a teen birth rate three times that of Canada’s, which easy access to Plan B could help curb.

Over the past decade, more than 70 medical organizations, the bulk of the FDA’s review committees, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research have all endorsed selling Plan B over the counter with no age restrictions. The only person left standing against the switch is a career politician with a background of lobbying on the behalf of trial lawyers, whose job depends on her boss getting re-elected. Sebelius’s claim that she’s standing up for better science instead of pandering to American fears about teenage sexuality sounds hollow. As hollow as all those Republicans who flaunt the experts to deny climate change.

Why Obama’s ‘Plan B’ Decision Is Wrong

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has stunned the women’s health community by halting the implementation of over-the-counter sales of the Plan B morning after emergency contraceptive pill to girls under the age of 17. Now, President Obama has come out saying that – as a father of two girls – he supports Sebelius’ common sense move. But was it a common sense move, Mr. President? Offering Plan B over the counter would have helped stem the tide of teenage pregnancies in America. Sure, Plan B is currently available to younger girls with a prescription, but many girls won’t or can’t get to a doctor in the first 72 hours after having unprotected sex. And sometimes those who do are running into activist doctors who refuse to write a prescription or activist pharmacists who won’t fill it, leaving girls out in the cold having to face a much more invasive abortion to terminate a potential pregnancy. And it’s not like plan B is a dangerous drug, it’s simply got a stronger dose of the hormone progestin than what’s found in regular birth control. If it’s a safety issue, there are far more dangerous things a 13 year old girl could walk into Rite Aid and buy. Any fear that the wider availability of the pill would increase sexual promiscuity ignores the fact that the pill isn’t cheap, plus a lot of stores would keep them in those locked cabinets with the condoms so kids couldn’t easily steal them.

The truth of the matter is that science and common sense clearly pointed in one direction, but the politics of the situation in an election year pointed in the other. It’s just a shame that the Obama administration chose what’s politically convenient over what’s really best for the nation’s daughters–making sure they don’t put their lives on the slow track by having a baby at age 14, 15, or 16. If you agree with me, help spread this message.

The Food and  Drug Administration approved the Plan B morning after contraceptive pill to be sold over the counter. But on Wednesday the Obama administration overruled the decision. Dr. Susan Wood, former FDA Assistant Commissioner for Women’s Health, joined Chris Hayes and his panel to talk about the controversial intervention.

Jon Walker summed up that this is what pro-choice groups and pro-choice women legislators in the House get for not fighting Obama’s alliance with Bart Stupak over restricting access to abortion in the ACA bill and, again, when Republicans prevented the District of Columbia from using city money to pay for abortion:

During the health care reform fight the women’s reproductive rights groups and legislators were basically sold out. President Obama decided to cut a deal with Bart Stupak’s Gang. He assumed that the pro-choice and women legislators in the House and pro-choice groups would just fall in line, and they did with very little fighting. [..]

Today Obama did it again. Obama’s Secretary of HHS, in a blatant, politically motivated move, took the almost unheard of step of going against FDA recommendations regarding Plan B. Science, common sense and women’s reproductive rights were all disregarded in what clearly appears to be an attempt to appease conservatives.

This is what happens when you don’t fight the first time.  This is what happens when there is no political cost for crossing you. People learn that they can walk all over you, and they do so whenever possible.

Because of what he calls his “deep and abiding interest in the matter of corporate rights,” Mr. Colbert approached the South Carolina Democrats, and on Tuesday the party chairman, Richard Harpootlian, filed a petition asking for a re-hearing.

“Trust me, this was a measure of last resort,” Mr. Colbert said in a statement. “I’ve always thought Democrats had only one skill: simultaneously being atheists and holier-than-thou. But apparently they also have legal standing in this case.”

In Autumn, the appearance in grocery stores of stacks of candied fruit and mountains of nuts in all their wonderful variety is a sure sign of the approach of the holidays. As the days grow short and the nights grow cool preparations for a joyous time of baking begins.

My daughter is the bread baker but Sugarplum Bread is the one I enjoy making, too. This sweet bread studded with candied fruit is not as heavy as fruit cake. It is topped with a white icing glaze and decorated with red and green cherries to look like clusters of berries. It is a treat for breakfast or in the afternoon with tea. I make small ones baked in large muffin tins, decorated and wrapped in colored plastic wrap tied with ribbon as gifts for guests.

The following recipe is a rich dough flavored with nutmeg, candied fruit and peel, and raisins

Candied fruit would have melted in the summer heat and its sweetness would attract ants but it keeps well in the freezer. After the holidays, when the price is reduced for clearance, if you have space in your freezer buy a supply. It assures that you’ll have candied fruit on hand in the months when it can’t be found in the market.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

December 11 is the 345th day of the year (346th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 20 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1946, In the aftermath of World War II, the General Assembly of the United Nations votes to establish the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), an organization to help provide relief and support to children living in countries devastated by the war.

After the food and medical crisis of the late 1940s passed, UNICEF continued its role as a relief organization for the children of troubled nations and during the 1970s grew into a vocal advocate of children’s rights. During the 1980s, UNICEF assisted the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. After its introduction to the U.N. General Assembly in 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child became the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, and UNICEF played a key role in ensuring its enforcement.

Of the 184 member states of the United Nations, only two countries have failed to ratify the treaty–Somalia and the United States. Somalia does not currently have an internationally recognized government, so ratification is impossible, and the United States, which was one of the original signatories of the convention, has failed to ratify the treaty because of concerns about its potential impact on national sovereignty and the parent-child relationship.

In 1953, UNICEF became a permanent part of the United Nations System and its name was shortened from the original United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund but it has continued to be known by the popular acronym based on this old name. Headquartered in New York City, UNICEF provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries.

UNICEF relies on contributions from governments and private donors and UNICEF’s total income for 2006 was $2,781,000,000. Governments contribute two thirds of the organization’s resources; private groups and some 6 million individuals contribute the rest through the National Committees. UNICEF’s programs emphasize developing community-level services to promote the health and well-being of children. UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 and the Prince of Asturias Award of Concord in 2006.

Most of UNICEF’s work is in the field, with staff in over 190 countries and territories. More than 200 country offices carry out UNICEF’s mission through a program developed with host governments. Seven regional offices provide technical assistance to country offices as needed.

Overall management and administration of the organization takes place at its headquarters in New York. UNICEF’s Supply Division is based in Copenhagen and serves as the primary point of distribution for such essential items as vaccines, antiretroviral medicines for children and mothers with HIV, nutritional supplements, emergency shelters, educational supplies, among others. A 36-member Executive Board establishes policies, approves programs and oversees administrative and financial plans. The Executive Board is made up of government representatives who are elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, usually for three-year terms.

Following the reaching of term limits by Executive Director of UNICEF Carol Bellamy, former United States Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman became executive director of the organization in May 2005 with an agenda to increase the organization’s focus on the Millennium Development Goals. She was succeeded in May 2010 by Anthony Lake.

UNICEF is an inter-governmental organization and thus is accountable to governments.

Besides shifting the conversation in the media from budget cuts, deficits and austerity to jobs, jobs, jobs, the Occupy Wall Street movement has also brought more attention to how Wall St., banks and, especially mega-corporations control the two parties and influence politics. Follow the money. Since the Supreme Court ruling that corporations are people and money talks, some politicians, organizations and a few in the media have been examining ways to get money out of politics and put government back in the hands of the governed. One of those means is a constitutional amendment as proposed by Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders:

Sanders’s amendment, S.J.Res. 33 (pdf), would state that corporations do not have the same constitutional rights as persons, that corporations are subject to regulation, that corporations may not make campaign contributions and that Congress has the power to regulate campaign finance.

While the Citizens United case affected corporations, unions and other entities, the Sanders amendment focuses only on “for-profit corporations, limited liability companies or other private entities established for business purposes or to promote business interests.”

Sanders said he has never proposed an amendment to the Constitution before, but said he sees no other alternative to reversing the Citizens United decision.[..]

The Sanders amendment is co-sponsored by Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), and a similar amendment has been proposed in the House by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.).

On December 3, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support such a constitutional amendment:

The resolution was backed by Move to Amend, a national coalition working to abolish corporate personhood and overturn U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling. The decision gave corporations and unions the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, so long as their actions are not coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.

“Move to Amend’s proposed amendment would provide the basis for overturning the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,” stated Mary Beth Fielder, Co-Coordinator of LA Move to Amend. “The Supreme Court has no legitimate right to grant people’s rights to corporations. We must clearly establish that it is we, The People, who are meant to rule.”

Move to Amend hopes to get ballot initiatives put on the ballots in cities and states for the 2012 election to help voters show their representatives that they are serious about reigning corporate influences in elections:

“These are how American amendments move forward from the grassroots when Americans say enough is enough.  We’re very proud to come together and send a message but more than that, this becomes the official position of the City of Los Angeles, we will officially lobby for this.  I also chair a group which oversees all the Democratic mayors and council members in the country and we’re going to share this with all our 3,000 members and we hope to see this start here in the west and sweep the nation until one day we do have a constitutional amendment which will return the power to the people.”

There is some bipartisan agreement between Democrats and true conservative Republicans. Former Louisiana governor, congressman and candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, Buddy Roemer, agrees with Sen. Sanders on getting money out of politics when he appeared with Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC. You won’t hear Roemer in any of the debates that are being run by Fox, CNN but he has been getting exposure on the talk show rounds. Roemer believes, like Sanders, that “Washington is being bought and sold like a sack of potatoes”

Like the LA City Council, Occupy Wall Street, Sen. Sanders and Gov. Roemer, we agree that this is the best solution. It will be fought by the corporations and those they control and like any fight it starts with first steps. Lets hope it grows. The survival of democracy in America depends on it.

Contrary to the will of special interests, Buddy wants to see Washington reform that includes full disclosure of campaign contributions, 48 hour electronic reporting of campaign contributions, the elimination of the Super PACs that keep the GOP’s top contenders at the top, limiting PAC donations to same amount of money that individuals can contribute, prohibiting lobbyists from participating in fundraisers, and imposing criminal penalties on those that violate the rules of campaign finance.

These changes seem to be what most Republican voters are looking for, but without a Super PAC to fund him, Roemer is unable to throw the millions of dollars the big spenders like Romney, Perry and even Ron Paul shell out on publicity. And Americans cannot expect those taking money from special interest groups to protect citizens from those very same special interest groups. [..]

Buddy also wants to end corporate welfare. Corporations are big spenders when it comes to campaign contributions. While big oil companies no longer need government money to survive, since they earn billions in profits selling overpriced gasoline and oil to consumers, they are willing to shell out large amounts of campaign money to ensure the politicians that will push their agendas are elected.