(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

With the imminent shut down of the Federal government looming and the past couple of week’s news dominated by Japan’s nuclear crisis and the Libyan revolt, here are a few of the background bits and pieces that make you go hmmmmmm

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Not that I was ever in but I was willing to give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt once he was elected but since kicking his base supporters off the bus in the middle of the desert, I can’t even hold my nose to vote for him. As was pointed out in a Raw Story article, these are just a few of the reasons:

1. Health care for all

If you’re an American making less than $30,000 a year, chances are you still have trouble seeing a doctor, despite the passage of President Obama’s health care reform plan. In 2007, then-Senator Obama said he wanted to make sure no American is without access to vital medical attention and proposed using revenues from the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts to fund it. When the campaign laid out their specific plans in 2008, they included a “public option” that would be paid for by the public at large and made available to anyone who could not obtain coverage through their employer or other public program.

We all know how well that turned out, a massive sell out to the health insurance  and pharmaceutical industry and a cave ro extending the Bush (er, Obama) tax cuts. Yes, the consumer is forced to buy an inadequate insurance policy and still not have access to a doctor but hey, they’re insured. Now the Republicans are attacking Medicare and Medicaid so the government can fund more imperial wars and buy bigger and better weapons while giving the wealthy even more tax cuts.

2. Close Guantanamo

As a symbol of everything that liberals thought to be wrong with the Bush-era, closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba should have been an easy target for the new and popular president and his Democratic super-majority in Congress — and, in fact, then-candidate Obama promised to do just that. But as he soon found out, strategic and political calculations have made it almost impossible to shuck.

Now we have even bigger and better military tribunals, no trials in civilian courts for those scary men in Guantanamo and for 47 of them, the possibility no trial ever and the rest of their lives in detention all in the name of the never ending War on Terror (On wait, we don’t call it that any more).

3. Defend labor rights

“Understand this,” Obama said during a campaign rally in 2007. “If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America.” (Watch.)

He can’t find his comfy shoes? Michelle must have tossed them when they moved into the executive mansion. Truthfully, at this  point, it’s is best he stay away and silent.

4. Reform the Patriot Act

Contrary to popular belief, Obama has never actually argued for a repeal of the Bush administration’s sweeping, post-9/11 security initiatives, which were passed with a mandatory “sunset” clause to overrule the concerns of civil libertarians at the time. Instead, Obama has consistently said he favors enhanced judicial oversight and a pullback from some warrantless searches — like the provisions that allow the FBI to access library records without a warrant.

Obama “reformed” it all right. Besides defending it in court, he got it extended even for even longer than the Republicans wanted without any changes. This extends the governments ability to spy on every private citizen until 2013, a non-election year, when it comes up for renewal again.

5. End the wars

Even as a candidate, Obama maintained that Afghanistan should be “the focus” of Bush’s terror war, and he pledged to make it so. But the president was also swept into power on a wave of anti-war fervor behind his calls to end the occupation of Iraq. Iraq has calmed down quite a bit as U.S. troops steadily stream out of the country, but Afghanistan is more violent than ever amid Obama’s own “surge.”

The US will have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for years. But, but, his loyalist supporters say, they aren’t “combat troops”. I hate to tell them but ALL troops are “combat troops”. Not only this, now there is the bombardment of Pakistan, Yemen and Libya.

One day after announcing his bid for reelection, Obama’s poll numbers show less than half the country believes President Obama deserves reelection, with disaffected liberals now a fast growing demographic and independents split. Would the country have been better off with McCain or Hillary as President is useless speculation. All that is important now is Dick Cheney is pleased.

“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”

Dana Milbank: Paul Ryan’s dogmatic budget

“This is not a budget,” Paul Ryan said as he introduced the Republicans’ 10-year budget plan. “This is a cause.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

The document released by the chairman of the House Budget Committee isn’t a serious budget proposal because it fails at the central mission of ending the deficit and taming the debt.

Without question, Ryan makes some severe cuts: Taking hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, ending the Medicare entitlement, and slashing planned spending on transportation, energy, education, veterans benefits, agriculture payments, counterterrorism and more.

Robert Reich: Paul Ryan’s Plan, the Coming Shutdown, and What’s Really at Stake

I was in Washington in 1995 when the government closed because of a budget stalemate. I had to tell most of the Labor Department’s 15,600 employees to go home and not return the next day. I also had to tell them I didn’t know when they’d next get a paycheck.

There were two shutdowns, actually, rolling across the government in close succession, like thunder storms.

It’s not the way to do the public’s business.

Dean Baker: The Real Story Behind Job Creation

When the labour department announced that the US economy had created 216,000 jobs in March, it set off a round of celebrations throughout Washington policy circles. The word in the New York Times, the Washington Post and other major news outlets was that the economy was back on course; we were on the right path.

Those who know arithmetic were a bit more sceptical. If the economy sustained March’s rate of job growth, it will be more than seven years before we get back to normal rates of unemployment. Furthermore, some of this growth likely reflected a bounceback from weaker growth the prior two months. The average rate of job growth over the last three months has been just 160,000. At that pace, we won’t get back to normal rates of unemployment until after 2022.

Amy Goodman: One Guantanamo Trial That Will Be Held in New York

On the same day President Barack Obama formally launched his re-election campaign, his attorney general, Eric Holder, announced that key suspects in the 9/11 attacks would be tried not in federal court, but through controversial military commissions at Guantanamo. Holder blamed members of Congress, who he said “have intervened and imposed restrictions blocking the administration from bringing any Guantanamo detainees to trial in the United States.” Nevertheless, one Guantanamo case will be tried in New York. No, not the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any of his alleged co-conspirators. This week, the New York state Supreme Court will hear the case against John Leso, a psychologist who is accused of participating in torture at the Gitmo prison camp that Obama pledged, and failed, to close.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: Should Obama have engaged earlier on the shutdown?

A Washington Post poll published today contains, at best, marginally good news for President Obama and the Democrats. At worse, it suggests that the president may have engaged too late on the budget fight.

Democrats had hoped that if the government shut down, Republicans would bear the blame. And considering how much ground Democrats have already given, Republicans should get the blame if they don’t take the deal that Obama has put forward through the Senate Budget Committee in ongoing negotiations. (Whatever Speaker John Boehner may say, those negotiations have been active and ongoing.)

Laura Flanders: Bonuses for Bosses at Killer Corporations?

Eleven workers dead, untold volumes of sea-life poisoned and more than 200 million gallons of oil spilled into the sea.  If that’s what an historically good year for safety looks like at TransOcean, I’d hate to see a bad year.

Most people know the name TransOcean only because  of the explosion on the company’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico and the spill that followed — the largest offshore oil spill in US history.  A  presidential commission investigating that disaster declared that lax standards caused the deadly mess. Despite that, TransOcean executives are receiving safety bonuses.

In a filing Friday, Transocean said, “Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record.” In fact, the company says it was the best year in safety performance in the company’s history -which has to make you wonder about other years.

Kristen Breitweiser: The Sad Defeat of Our Constitution

Today I was given two hours of “advance notice” regarding DOJ’s decision to not prosecute the remaining alleged 9/11 conspirators in an open court of law. According to DOJ’s statement, the remaining individuals will be sent to military tribunals.

I recognize that there are many, many other things for Americans to be upset with today, but I hope everyone can take a second to contemplate this decision and recognize what it says about President Obama, the Department of Justice, and the United States.

As for the Department of Justice, it shows their inability to prosecute individuals who are responsible for the death of 3,000 people on the morning of 9/11. Apparently our Constitution and judicial system — two of the very cornerstones that make America so great and used to set such a shining example to the rest of the world — are not adequately set up to respond to or deal with the aftermath of terrorism. To me, this is a startling and dismal acknowledgment that perhaps Osama Bin Laden did, in fact, win on the morning of 9/11. And chillingly, I wonder whether it wasn’t just the steel towers that were brought down and incinerated on 9/11, but the yellowed pages of our U.S. Constitution, as well.

As I’ve explained before I am not now nor have I ever been a member of any military service, my closest encounters being an notably unsuccessful stint in the Boy Scouts and a hazy night with two Navy recruiters.  But I am an avid war gamer (or as the more pacifistic among us prefer to be called- ‘gamer’) and am a particular fan of Larry Bond’s Harpoon.

Now in the game it’s easy to load up your nuclear powered supercarrier task force with all the planes it will carry (more than most country’s entire airforce) and with your Alderan slagging Deathstar power roll over your opposition as if they hardly even exist, but in fact that’s not how they’re deployed.  Most real life groups only have a fraction of their nominal order of battle on station and are ramped up in response to perceived threats and changes in mission.  Not only that, but combat and training stress the equipment and produce maintenance failures which is probably the reason we lost that F-15E over Benghazi.

Gamers and Washington Warmongers have a tendency to ignore these inconvenient truths which is why it’s interesting and instructive to read articles like this-

Nato lacking strike aircraft for Libya campaign

US withdrawal of attack planes puts pressure on European countries, especially France, to offer more strike capability

Ian Traynor in Brussels and Richard Norton-Taylor, guardian.co.uk

Tuesday 5 April 2011 16.49 BST

Nato is running short of attack aircraft for its bombing campaign against Muammar Gaddafi only days after taking command of the Libyan mission from a coalition led by the US, France and Britain.

…

Nato officials insisted the pace of the air operations was being maintained. But it has emerged that the US and the French, who have been the two biggest military players until now, are retaining national control over substantial military forces in the Mediterranean and refusing to submit them to Nato authority.

The French have the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, two escorting frigates and 16 fighter aircraft, none of which are under the Nato command and control which was announced last Thursday.

Until last week, President Nicolas Sarkozy was the loudest opponent of handing over the operations to Nato control. Nonetheless, the French are not only taking part in the Nato campaign, but are the biggest non-US contributors, with 33 aircraft, double Britain’s 17. Not all of these are strike aircraft.

Until Monday, the Americans had performed most of the attacks on ground targets, with the French executing around a quarter and the British around a 10th. Given the US retreat, Nato is seeking to fill the gap, but only the British have pledged more.

(h/t Chris in Paris @ Americablog)

And this-

Libyan Rebels Demanding More NATO, US Support

By: David Dayen Wednesday April 6, 2011 6:25 am

The Libyan opposition, feeling entitled to direct military operations despite assurances that the mission would not be used in that fashion, is angrily demanding more and better airstrikes on Gadhafi’s troops.

…

This is the danger of this kind of intervention. The opposition side of the civil war now relies on outside help and is demanding more and more of it. NATO actually did undertake airstrikes in the area of Brega yesterday, but the rebels still retreated under rocket fire. It won’t be too long before they say that NATO and the US must give them weapons, or provide trainers. Or maybe they’ll just want the West to enforce a partition for a binational state. Or maybe they will want special forces, and then, just ground troops. And blood will be on the hands of the international community if they hesitate.

“So what should I think about [the war in Libya]? If it had been my call, I wouldn’t have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I’d literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he’s smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted.”

—Kevin Drum, Friday, in Mother Jones

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.

April 6 is the 96th day of the year (97th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 269 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1896, the Olympic Games, a long-lost tradition of ancient Greece, are reborn in Athens 1,500 years after being banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I. At the opening of the Athens Games, King Georgios I of Greece and a crowd of 60,000 spectators welcomed athletes from 13 nations to the international competition.

The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, was a multi-sport event celebrated in Athens, Greece, from April 6 to April 15, 1896. It was the first international Olympic Games held in the Modern era. Because Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, Athens was perceived to be an appropriate choice to stage the inaugural modern Games. It was unanimously chosen as the host city during a congress organized by Pierre de Coubertin, a French pedagogue and historian, in Paris, on June 23, 1894. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was also established during this congress.

Despite many obstacles and setbacks, the 1896 Olympics were regarded as a great success. The Games had the largest international participation of any sporting event to that date. The Panathinaiko Stadium, the only Olympic stadium used in the 19th Century, overflowed with the largest crowd ever to watch a sporting event. The highlight for the Greeks was the marathon victory by their compatriot Spiridon Louis. The most successful competitor was German wrestler and gymnast Carl Schuhmann, who won four events.

After the Games, Coubertin and the IOC were petitioned by several prominent figures including Greece’s King George and some of the American competitors in Athens, to hold all the following Games in Athens. However, the 1900 Summer Olympics were already planned for Paris and, except for the Intercalated Games of 1906, the Olympics did not return to Greece until the 2004 Summer Olympics, some 108 years later.

Reviving the Games

During the 18th century, several small-scale sports festivals across Europe were named after the Ancient Olympic Games. The 1870 Olympics at the Panathenaic stadium, which had been refurbished for the occasion, had an audience of 30,000 people. Coubertin adopted Dr William Penny Brooke‘s idea to establish a multi-national and multi-sport event-the ancient games were in a sense international, because various Greek city-states and colonies were represented, but only free male athletes of Greek origin were allowed to participate. In 1890, Coubertin wrote an article in La Revue Athletique, which espoused the importance of Much Wenlock, a rural market town in the English county of Shropshire. It was here that, in October 1850, the local physician William Penny Brookes had founded the Wenlock Olympian Games, a festival of sports and recreations that included athletics and team sports, such as cricket, football and quoits. Coubertin also took inspiration from the earlier Greek games organized under the name of Olympics by businessman and philanthropist Evangelis Zappas in 1859, 1870 and 1875. The 1896 Athens Games was funded by the legacies of Evangelis Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos Zappas and by George Averoff who had been specifically requested by the Greek government, through crown prince Constantine, to sponsor the second refurbishment of the Panathinaiko Stadium. This the Greek government did despite the fact that the cost of refurbishing the stadium in marble had already been funded in full by Evangelis Zappas forty years earlier.

On June 18, 1894, Coubertin organized a congress at the Sorbonne, in Paris, to present his plans to representatives of sports societies from 11 countries. Following his proposal’s acceptance by the congress, a date for the first modern Olympic Games needed to be chosen. Coubertin suggested that the Games be held concurrently with the 1900 Universal Exposition of Paris. Concerned that a six-year waiting period might lessen public interest, congress members opted instead to hold the inaugural Games in 1896. With a date established, members of the congress turned their attention to the selection of a host city. It remains a mystery how Athens was finally chosen to host the inaugural Games. In the following years both Coubertin and Demetrius Vikelas would offer recollections of the selection process that contradicted the official minutes of the congress. Most accounts hold that several congressmen first proposed London as the location, but Coubertin dissented. After a brief discussion with Vikelas, who represented Greece, Coubertin suggested Athens. Vikelas made the Athens proposal official on June 23, and since Greece had been the original home of the Olympics, the congress unanimously approved the decision. Vikelas was then elected the first president of the newly established International Olympic Committee (IOC).

 46 BC – Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) in the battle of Thapsus.

402 – Stilicho stymies the Visigoths under Alaric in the Battle of Pollentia.

1199 – King Richard I of England dies from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder.

1320 – The Scots reaffirm their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath.

1327 – The poet Petrarch first sees his idealized love, Laura, in the church of Saint Clare in Avignon.

1385 – John, Master of the Order of Aviz, is made king John I of Portugal.

1453 – Mehmed II begins his siege of Constantinople (Istanbul), which falls on May 29.

1580 – One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in the history of England, Flanders, or Northern France, takes place.

1652 – At the Cape of Good Hope, Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp that eventually becomes Cape Town .

1667 – An earthquake devastates Dubrovnik, then an independent city-state.

1776 – American Revolutionary War: Ships of the Continental Navy fail in their attempt to capture a Royal Navy dispatch boat.

1782 – Rama I of Siam (modern day Thailand) founds the Chakri dynasty.

1793 – During the French Revolution, the Committee of Public Safety becomes the executive organ of the republic.

1808 – John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company, eventually leading him to become America’s first Millionaire.

1812 – British forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington assault the fortress of Badajoz. This would be the turning point in the Peninsular War against Napoleon led France.

1814 – Nominal beginning of the Bourbon Restoration – anniversary date that Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba. (Rule by the Bourbon’s was delayed a few weeks, though allies held most key locales of France.)

1830 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is organized by Joseph Smith, Jr. and others at Fayette or Manchester, New York.

1860 – The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints-later renamed Community of Christ-is organized by Joseph Smith III and others at Amboy, Illinois

1861 – First performance of Arthur Sullivan’s debut success, his suite of incidental music for The Tempest, leading to a career that included the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Shiloh begins – in Tennessee, forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant meet Confederate troops led by General Albert Sidney Johnston.

1865 – American Civil War: The Battle of Sayler’s Creek – Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia fights its last major battle while in retreat from Richmond, Virginia.

1866 – The Grand Army of the Republic, an American patriotic organization composed of Union veterans of the American Civil War, is founded. It lasts until 1956.

1869 – Celluloid is patented.

1888 – Thomas Green Clemson dies, bequeathing his estate to the State of South Carolina to establish Clemson Agricultural College.

1893 – Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dedicated by Wilford Woodruff.

1895 – Oscar Wilde is arrested in the Cadogan Hotel, London after losing a libel case against the John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry.

1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I.

1903 – The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev (Bessarabia) begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Israel and the Western world.

1909 – Robert Peary and Matthew Henson allegedly reach the North Pole.

1917 – World War I: The United States declares war on Germany (see President Woodrow Wilson’s address to Congress).

1919 – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi orders a general strike.

1923 – The first Prefects Board in Southeast Asia is formed in Victoria Institution, Malaysia.

1926 – Varney Airlines makes its first commercial flight (Varney is the root company of United Airlines).

1929 – Huey P. Long Governor of Louisiana is impeached by the Louisiana House of Representatives.

1930 – Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.” beginning the Salt Satyagraha.

1936 – Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak: Another tornado from the same storm system as the Tupelo tornado hits Gainesville,

Georgia, killing 203.

1941 – World War II: Nazi Germany launches Operation 25 (the invasion of Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and Operation Marita (the invasion of Greece).

1945 – World War II: Sarajevo is liberated from the German and Croatian Nazis by the Yugoslav Partisans.

1947 – The first Tony Awards are presented for theatrical achievement.

1957 – Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis buys the Hellenic National Airlines (TAE) and founds Olympic Airlines.

1962 – Leonard Bernstein causes controversy with his remarks from the podium during a New York Philharmonic concert featuring Glenn Gould performing Brahms’ First Piano Concerto.

1965 – Launch of Early Bird, the first communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit.

1965 – The British Government announces the cancellation of the TSR-2 aircraft project.

1968 – In Richmond, Indiana’s downtown district, a double explosion kills 41 and injures 150.

1970 – Newhall Incident: Four California Highway Patrol officers are killed.

1972 – Vietnam War: Easter Offensive – American forces begin sustained air strikes and naval bombardments.

1973 – Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft.

1973 – The American League of Major League Baseball begins using the designated hitter.

1982 – Estonian Communist Party bureau declares “fight against bourgeois TV” – meaning Finnish TV – a top priority of the propagandists of Estonian SSR

1984 – Members of Cameroon’s Republican Guard unsuccessfully attempt to overthrow the government headed by Paul Biya.

1994 – The Rwandan Genocide begins when the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down.

1998 – Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of reaching India.

1998 – Travelers Group announces an agreement to undertake the $76 billion merger between Travelers and Citicorp, and the merger is completed on October 8, of that year, forming Citibank.

2004 – Rolandas Paksas becomes the first president of Lithuania to be peacefully removed from office by impeachment.

2005 – Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani becomes Iraqi president; Shiite Arab Ibrahim al-Jaafari is named premier the next day.

2009 – A 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes near L’Aquila, Italy, killing 307.

2010 – Maoist rebels kill 76 CRPF officers in Dantewada district, India.

Holidays and observances

   Chakri Day, commemorating the reign of the Chakri Dynasty. (Thailand)

   Christian Feast Day

       * Brychan

       * Peter of Verona

       * Marcellinus of Carthage

       * Pope Celestine I

       * Bl. Catherine of Pallanza

       * Ethelwold of Winchester

       * St. Eutychius

       * Prudentius of Troyes

       * Notker the Stammerer

       * Bl. Paul Tinh

       * Pierina Morosini

       * William of Ebelholt

       * April 6 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Muse in the Morning by Robyn
• Six In The Morning by mishima

Featured Essays for April 5, 2011-

• Vote! by ek hornbeck
• The MSM Notices Foreclosure Fraud by TheMomCat
• Where The Money Is by ek hornbeck
• Cartnoon by ek hornbeck
• Psychology of Activism: 2011 by jeffroby
• US Libya Intervention Is Aggression by Edger
• Other Thoughts about the movie "The Town" by mplo

DocuDharma

NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament 2011

Well you can hardly be more wrong than I was on Sunday.  Never let it be said I’m unwilling to admit it when I am.

Sunday’s Results

Now TheMomCat has expressed a preference for the Aggies while I am sticking with my Big East obsession.

This is the 24th and final entry in this year’s coverage, though I do have some meta points to make after I recover from the ordeal.

The Final

Follow the 2011 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament on The Stars Hollow Gazette.

If you don’t like squeeky shoes you can look for alternate programming here-

• Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

If you like a more traditional bracket try this NCAA one, they also have a TV schedule.

Once again I’ll be hosting the Evening Edition while ek hornbeck sets up for tonight’s Women’s Final of the NCAA Championship Tournament on CBS at 9 PM.

Herr Doktor Professor

The Threat Within

In 2005, the de facto Democratic leader was Nancy Pelosi. And she never bought into either the crisis-mongering or the Beltway desire to prove oneself “serious” by courageously agreeing to hurt ordinary Americans to make the nation safe for high-end tax cuts. She maintained a steely resolve: this privatization shall not pass.

Pelosi is still there. But Barack Obama is now the party’s leader. And let’s be frank: Obama still, after all that has happened, seems devoted to the dream of transcending partisanship, a dream he tries to serve by being nice to Republican ideas no matter how terrible those ideas are.

…

The great danger now is that Obama – with the help of a fair number of Senate Democrats – will kill Medicare in the name of civility and outreach.

“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: Cowardice Blocks the 9/11 Trial

Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. described a federal court trial for the self-professed mastermind of Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as “the defining event of my time as attorney general.” On Monday, Mr. Holder’s dream for demonstrating the power of the American court system crumbled when he announced that the trial would take place not in New York City or anywhere in the United States but before a military commission at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp.

That retreat was a victory for Congressional pandering and an embarrassment for the Obama administration, which failed to stand up to it.

Dean Baker: It’s Time for Representative Ryan to Man Up

Congressman Paul Ryan is the new darling of both the Republican Party and the major media outlets. He has put forward bold plans for dismantling Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. In Washington policy circles, this passes for courage. Congressman Ryan is prepared to tell tens of millions of workers that they can no longer count on a secure retirement and decent health care in their old age. In Washington policy circles, this passes for courage.

Outside of Washington, people have a different conception of bravery. After all, over the last three decades the policies crafted in Washington have led to the most massive upward redistribution in the history of the world. The richest 1 percent of the population has seen its share of national income increase by close to 10 percentage points. This comes to $1.5 trillion a year, or as Representative Ryan might say, $90 trillion over the next 75 years. That’s almost $300,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

Chris Hedges: This Is What Resistance Looks Like

The phrase consent of the governed has been turned into a cruel joke. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. Civil disobedience is the only tool we have left.

We will not halt the laying off of teachers and other public employees, the slashing of unemployment benefits, the closing of public libraries, the reduction of student loans, the foreclosures, the gutting of public education and early childhood programs or the dismantling of basic social services such as heating assistance for the elderly until we start to carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience against the financial institutions responsible for our debacle. The banks and Wall Street, which have erected the corporate state to serve their interests at our expense, caused the financial crisis. The bankers and their lobbyists crafted tax havens that account for up to $1 trillion in tax revenue lost every decade. They rewrote tax laws so the nation’s most profitable corporations, including Bank of America, could avoid paying any federal taxes. They engaged in massive fraud and deception that wiped out an estimated $40 trillion in global wealth. The banks are the ones that should be made to pay for the financial collapse. Not us. And for this reason at 11 a.m. April 15 I will join protesters in Union Square in New York City in front of the Bank of America.

Robert Shetterly: Remarks Given at the Hall of Flags, State House, Augusta, Maine, April 4, 2011

“I think the job of the artist is to remind people of what they have chosen to forget.”  Those are the words of Arthur Miller, the great American playwright, author of Death of a Salesman, the Crucible, and All my Sons.

Judy Taylor’s mural has fulfilled Arthur Miller’s definition of the artist’s job — and now, being censored by this governor, it succeeds, ironically, more than ever. We need reminding of the nobility and courage in our history that confronted exploitation so we might be challenged to do the same today. How wonderful it is that an artist like Judy is there to remind us.

Jeremy Scahill: The Changing US Tune on Yemen

Over the weekend of April 2-3 in Yemen, the death toll of anti-government protesters continued to rise as security forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh reportedly shot dead twelve people and injured hundreds of others in the southern city of Taiz. Amid the violence, news broke late Sunday night that the Obama administration has quietly begun to withdraw its support for Saleh’s regime. Over the past two months of violence in Yemen, the United States has continued to back Saleh despite his violent response to widespread nonviolent protests against his regime.

Citing US and Yemeni officials, the New York Times reports: “The United States, which long supported Yemen’s president, even in the face of recent widespread protests, has now quietly shifted positions and has concluded that he is unlikely to bring about the required reforms and must be eased out of office.” The report adds, “For Washington, the key to his departure would be arranging a transfer of power that would enable the counterterrorism operation in Yemen to continue.”

Ben Barber: Can we spread democracy?

The crowds screaming for the downfall of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, etc. all shout out the same magical mantra: We want Democracy.

And the United States has been pushing – since the time of John F. Kennedy and before – to support similar aspirations for democracy – in Western Europe and Japan after World War II; in the failed but well-intentioned efforts to block communism from South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; in foreign aid to the former Socialist bloc after the collapse of communism; and in scores of Third World (Developing) countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Some of our democracy aid has worked well but some has failed.

Andres Oppenheimer : To improve education, help Hispanic students

If President Obama really wants to raise U.S. education standards, he should focus on the 50-million strong U.S. Hispanic population – we are by far the worst-performing ethnic group in American schools.

Consider some of these alarming figures released by the White House in recent days:

One of every four American children today is Hispanic, but less than half of U.S. Hispanic children are enrolled in early childhood education programs, which are considered a key to children’s future performance in school.

Only about 50 percent of Hispanic students earn their high school diplomas on time.