“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”.

Mike Lux: The Heart of Darkness

Democrats are still reeling from our political losses, and the DC political class is still obsessed with the re-positioning dance, but at the heart of everything else, at the center of everything that matters, are these bleak economic facts driving our politics. The sooner Democrats stop worrying about being center or left, and start focusing on how to get the middle class out of its economic black hole, the sooner our politics start getting fixed. Period. End of story. The heart of our political darkness is the heart of the middle class’ economic darkness.

Valerie Plame Wilson: START Treaty Must Not Be Derailed

For me, the most bittersweet moment watching the new movie Fair Game comes when it shows my clandestine CIA work involving nuclear counterproliferation. I remain passionate about the issue of preventing rogue states and terrorist organizations from ever procuring a nuclear weapon. Since resigning from the agency however, I realize that much of what I had been doing may only have served to delay the inevitable. My thinking on proliferation has therefore evolved considerably, and I now believe that the best way to ensure our national security for the long term is to move to achieve the goal of total, global elimination of nuclear weapons.

Laura Flanders: Solving the Irish Crisis

The financial crisis in Ireland is leading to a political crisis on the heels of a bailout and more “austerity measures.” The coalition that currently rules is falling apart, the Green Party detaching from the prime minister’s Fianna Fail party, and elections loom.

But just as in colonial days, the “Irish problem” is really a problem from outside. Ireland wouldn’t need “help” if it hadn’t been robbed by multinationals.

To be fair, its own government turned over its pockets to be picked. Ireland’s corporate tax rates are some of the lowest in the EU and its loopholes allow foreign companies to use Ireland’s well-educated and health-insured workforce, while giving the least possible back. Americans are linked to the problem — every time we GOOGLE we’re using a company that’s avoiding taxes at home in the United States and in other, higher-rate European countries by setting up in Ireland, and shuttling profits in and almost tax-free out.

John Nichols: Chalmers Johnson and the Patriotic Struggle Against Empire

With one word, “blowback,” Chalmers Johnson explained the folly of empire in the modern age.In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, true American patriots-as opposed to the jingoists and profiteers whose madness and greed would steer a republic to ruin-needed a new language for a new age.

They got it from Johnson. His 2000 book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Macmillan), gave currency to the old espionage term-which referred to the violent, unintended consequences of covert (and sometimes not so covert) operations that are suffered even by superpowers such as the United States-and became an essential text for those who sought to explain the attacks and to forge sounder and more responsible foreign policies for the furture.

Johnson, who has died at age 79, was no liberal idealist. He was the an old Asian hand who had chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California-Berkeley from 1967 to 1972 and then served as president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute. In other words, he was a man of the world who knew how the world worked. And what he tried to explain, to political leaders and citizens, was that the old ways of empire building (and maintaining) no longer worked in an age of instant communications, jet travel and doomsday weaponry.

Bob Herbert: A Gift From Long Ago

Kennedy’s great gift was his capacity to inspire. His message as he traveled the country was that Americans could do better, that great things were undeniably possible, that obstacles were challenges to be overcome with hard work and sacrifice.

I don’t think he would have known what to make of the America of today, where the messages coming from the smoldering ruins of public life are not just uninspiring, but demeaning: that we must hack away at the achievements of the past (Social Security, Medicare); that we cannot afford to rebuild the nation’s aging infrastructure or establish a first-class public school system for all children; that we cannot bring an end to debilitating warfare, or establish a new era of clean energy, or put millions of jobless and underemployed Americans back to work.

Richard Cohen: Attack on Michelle Obama shows Palin’s ignorance of history

Sarah Palin teases that she might run for president. But she is unqualified – not just in the (let me count the) usual ways, but because she does not know the country. She could not be the president of black America nor of Hispanic America. She knows more about grizzlies than she does about African Americans – and she clearly has more interest in the former than the latter. Did she once just pick up the phone and ask Michelle Obama what she meant by her remark? Did she ask about her background? What it was like at Princeton? What it was like for her parents or her grandparents? I can offer a hint. If they were driving to Washington, they slowed down and stopped where the sign said “colored” – and the irritated Palins of the time angrily hit the horn and went on their way.

Mark Ruffalo: When Truth Is Scarier Than Fiction

It sounds like a crazy conspiracy — too extreme to be true. Flaming tap water, dead animals, secret chemical formulas, mysterious illnesses afflicting whole communities, and people afraid to speak up.

The November 11th episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation brought viewers to a small town taken over by — industrial gas drilling. The storyline in “Fracked” follows the investigators as they attempt to uncover the truth behind two murders, but end up discovering a much bigger crime: an industry destroying people’s lives with no accountability.

Although the story told on CSI is fictional, the parallels to real life are stark. In Colorado, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and several other states, the method of gas drilling called hydraulic fracturing has wreaked havoc on people’s lives.  Across the country hydraulic fracturing has been linked to many cases of water so polluted with gas that you can actually light it on fire.

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.

November 24 is the 328th day of the year (329th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 37 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1859, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England. Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called “natural selection.” In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species.

Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. For the sixth edition of 1872, the short title was changed to The Origin of Species. Darwin’s book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. It presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent[ through a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(science) branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had gathered on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation.

Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology. There was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England, while science was part of natural theology. Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, unrelated to animals. The political and theological implications were intensely debated, but transmutation was not accepted by the scientific mainstream.

The book was written for non-specialist readers and attracted widespread interest upon its publication. As Darwin was an eminent scientist, his findings were taken seriously and the evidence he presented generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. The debate over the book contributed to the campaign by T.H. Huxley and his fellow members of the X Club to secularise science by promoting scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution, with a branching pattern of common descent, had occurred, but scientists were slow to give natural selection the significance that Darwin thought appropriate. During the “eclipse of Darwinism” from the 1880s to the 1930s, various other mechanisms of evolution were given more credit. With the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s, Darwin’s concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to  modern evolutionary theory, now the unifying concept of the life sciences.

 380 – Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople.

1429 – Joan of Arc unsuccessfully besieges La Charite.

1542 – Battle of Solway Moss: The English army defeats the Scots.

1639 – Jeremiah Horrocks observes the transit of Venus, an event he had predicted.

1642 – Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen’s Land (later renamed Tasmania).

1835 – The Texas Provincial Government authorizes the creation of a horse-mounted police force called the Texas Rangers (which is now the Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

1850 – Danish troops defeat a Schleswig-Holstein force in the town of Lottorf, Schleswig-Holstein.

1859 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.

1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Lookout Mountain – Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant capture Lookout Mountain and begin to break the Confederate siege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg.

1906 – The Canton Bulldogs-Massillon Tigers Betting Scandal, the first major scandal in professional American football.

1922 – Author and Irish Republican Army member Robert Erskine Childers is executed by an Irish Free State firing squad for illegally carrying a revolver.

1932 – In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.

1935 – The Senegalese Socialist Party holds its second congress.

1940 – World War II: Slovakia becomes a signatory to the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis Powers.

1941 – World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.

1943 – World War II: The USS Liscome Bay is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks with nearly 650 men killed.

1944 – World War II: Bombing of Tokyo – The first bombing raid against the Japanese capital from the east and by land is carried out by 88 American aircraft.

1950 – The “Storm of the Century”, a violent snowstorm, paralyzes the northeastern United States and the Appalachians, bringing winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures. Pickens, West Virginia, records 57 inches of snow. 323 people die as a result of the storm.

1962 – The West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany forms a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin.

1963 – Lee Harvey Oswald is murdered by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters. The shooting is broadcast live on television.

1963 – Vietnam War: Newly sworn-in US President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam both militarily and economically.

1965 – Joseph Desire Mobutu seizes power in the Congo and becomes President; he rules the country (which he renames Zaire in 1971) for over 30 years, until being overthrown by rebels in 1997.

1966 – A Bulgarian plane with 82 people on board crashes near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.

1966 – New York City experiences the smoggiest day in the city’s history.

1969 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 command module splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon.

1971 – During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (AKA D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.

1973 – A national speed limit is imposed on the Autobahn in Germany due to the 1973 oil crisis. The speed limit lasted only four months.

1974 – Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed “Lucy” (after The Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”), in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia’s Afar Depression.

1992 – A China Southern Airlines domestic flight in the People’s Republic of China, crashes, killing all 141 people on-board.

2007 – Australians elect the centre-left Australian Labor Party at a federal election; the outgoing prime minister, John Howard, becomes the first since 1929 to lose his own seat.

Holidays and observances

* Christian Feast Days:

    o Andrew Dung-Lac and other Vietnamese Martyrs

    o Chrysogonus (Roman Catholic Church)

    o Colman of Cloyne (Roman Catholic Church)

    o Flavian of Ricina (Roman Catholic Church)

    o Mercurius (Eastern Church)

    o November 24 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

   * Evolution Day (Secular)

   * Lachit Divas (Assam)

   * Teacher’s Day or Ogretmenler Gunu (Turkey)

   * The first day of Brumalia, celebrated until the winter solstice. (Roman empire)

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Now that we are done with cooking directions for the big day, time to pick the beverage that will not just accompany this spectacular meal but compliment the main course, the sides and deserts.

My usual choices for the wine is to have choices, serving both reds and whites. Cabernets and Sauvignon Blanc can be respectively too heavy and too acidic while the Chardonnays can be too oaky.

Don’t be afraid to ask the your wine merchant for suggestions. There are many very fine wines for those on a budget. Here are some of my suggestions:

Beaujolais Nouveau is the “first wine of the harvest” and the 2010 has just been released, This is a very “young” wine that spends little time in the cask between picking  and bottling. It is traditionally released on November 21 with great fan fare among wine around the world. It is light and fruity, should be served chilled. It goes well with not just the turkey but  everything from the appetizer cheese course to sweet potatoes and dressing to that pesky once a year veggie, Brussel Sprouts, not an easy feat. It is also inexpensive at less than $10 a bottle, the magnum is usually even more economical.

Pinot Noir is another good choice but not easy to find one that has some flavor and can be a little “pricey”, although there good ones in the $10 range.

For the whites there are two that I choose from Pinot Grigio or a slightly sweeter Riesling.

Pinot Grigio or Pinto Gris is a young fruity wine and depending on the region can be full bodied and “floral” to lighter, “spritszy” and a little acidic. I suggest the former and fond that the Pinot from Barefoot Cellars fits the bill and the pocketbook.

Riesling can be found in the German section and look for a Gewurztraminer or a slightly sweeter Spätlese.

The there is beer for those who prefer some foam and fizz. These are the suggestions from the Brewers Association:

   * Traditional Turkey – Amber ale or a lager like Oktoberfest, brown ale or a strong golden ale like triple

   * Smoked Turkey – a hoppy brown ale, Scotch ale or porter

   * Pumpkin pie – Spiced ale, winter warmer or old ale

Your last chance to vote against Bristol.  Mostly premiers.

To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place… It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses, whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. Now, there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewel was beaten – savagely, by someone who led exclusively with his left. And Tom Robinson now sits before you having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses… his RIGHT. I have nothing but pity in my heart for the chief witness for the State. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance. But my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man’s life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say “guilt,” gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She’s committed no crime – she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But what was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was to her a daily reminder of what she did. Now, what did she do? She tempted a Negro. She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that, in our society, is unspeakable. She kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong, young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards. The witnesses for the State, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption… the evil assumption that all Negroes lie, all Negroes are basically immoral beings, all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women. An assumption that one associates with minds of their caliber, and which is, in itself, gentlemen, a lie, which I do not need to point out to you. And so, a quiet, humble, respectable Negro, who has had the unmitigated TEMERITY to feel sorry for a white woman, has had to put his word against TWO white people’s! The defendant is not guilty – but somebody in this courtroom is. Now, gentlemen, in this country, our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system – that’s no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality! Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review, without passion, the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision and restore this man to his family. In the name of GOD, do your duty. In the name of God, believe… Tom Robinson.

• ABC Family– Aladdin
• Disney– Ratatouille
• Discovery– Dirty Jobs, Auction Kings (premiers)
• ESPN– College Hoopies
• ESPN 2– College Throwball, Temple @ Miami (Ohio), AND Hoopies
• FX– What Happens in Vegas
• Sci Fi– Stargate Universe (premier)
• Speed– Monster Jam
• TBS– Family Guy, Glory Daze (premier)
• Turner Classic– Atticus Finch, Boys Town
• TNT– The Bucket List
• Toon– The School of Rock, Tower Prep (premier)
• Vs.– Point Break

Later-

• AMC– Inside Man
• Food– Private Chefs of Beverly Hills (premier)
• Sci Fi– Stargate Universe (Instapeat), The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb
• Turner Classic– Sounder
• USA– Psych, Burn Notice (this week’s)

Dave hosts Jerry Seinfeld and Colin Firth.  Jon and Stephen in repeats, 11/17 and 11/9.  Conan hosts Christina Applegate, Patton Oswalt, and Maroon5.

Boondocks– The Invasion of the Katrinas

The 11 Commandments–

1. Inertia shall prevail.
2. Nothing is sacred.
3. Hate thy neighbor.
4. No good ever comes from helping one’s fellow man.
5. Worship a higher power.
6. Look to the past for inspiration.
7. Death be not bad.
8. Work hard at not working.
9. No reason is too trivial for ending a relationship.
10. A short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man can be a chick magnet.
11. The craziest person is the sanest of all.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Irish PM fights for survival as euro fears resurface

by Loic Vennin and Andrew Bushe, AFP

2 hrs 40 mins ago

2 Irish bailout triggers election

by Loic Vennin and Andrew Bushe, AFP

Mon Nov 22, 5:43 pm ET

3 Ireland in chaos after bailout triggers election

by Loic Vennin and Andrew Bushe, AFP

Tue Nov 23, 9:09 am ET

4 Ireland in chaos as bailout triggers election

by Loic Vennin and Andrew Bushe, AFP

Tue Nov 23, 5:02 am ET

5 Putin warns tigers ‘close to catastrophe’

by Olga Nedbayeva, AFP

Tue Nov 23, 11:22 am ET

6 Fed slashes US growth forecasts

by Andrew Beatty, AFP

1 hr 34 mins ago

7 Greece ordered to cut deeper to get past debt ‘crossroad’

AFP

Tue Nov 23, 8:01 am ET

8 Controversial pope book already selling fast

by Michele Leridon, AFP

28 mins ago

9 Cambodia festival stampede leaves nearly 380 dead

by Michelle Fitzpatrick, AFP

Tue Nov 23, 8:46 am ET

10 Robot setback dims hopes for trapped New Zealand miners

by Chris Foley, AFP

Mon Nov 22, 7:42 pm ET

11 ‘Bleak’ outlook for trapped New Zealand miners

by Chris Foley, AFP

Tue Nov 23, 4:59 am ET

12 New AIDS cases fall by one fifth in a decade: UN

by Agnes Pedrero, AFP

Tue Nov 23, 8:18 am ET

13 Conservative fever builds for Palin book tour

by Mira Oberman, AFP

Tue Nov 23, 7:24 am ET

14 Dalai Lama ‘to retire’ from government-in-exile role

by Adam Plowright, AFP

Tue Nov 23, 5:56 am ET

15 Myanmar’s freed Suu Kyi reunited with younger son

by Hla Hla Htay, AFP

Tue Nov 23, 5:50 am ET

16 EU urges feuding Irish not to delay budget

By Gilbert Reilhac and Jodie Ginsberg, Reuters

Tue Nov 23, 12:51 pm ET

17 Black Friday lures include price cuts, Sing-A-Ma-Jig

By Brad Dorfman, Reuters

Tue Nov 23, 12:36 pm ET

18 Pope words on condoms bolster AIDS fight in Africa

By Mark John, Reuters

Tue Nov 23, 12:48 pm ET

19 Vatican broadens case for condoms to fight AIDS

By Philip Pullella, Reuters

Tue Nov 23, 1:07 pm ET

20 Afghan election body to release final result Wednesday

By Hamid Shalizi, Reuters

2 hrs 4 mins ago

21 Afghan Taliban "leader" in reports a fake: report

Reuters

Tue Nov 23, 5:02 am ET

22 China says it is world’s top greenhouse gas emitter

By Chris Buckley, Reuters

Tue Nov 23, 4:23 am ET

23 Ireland hoists "For Sale" sign over stricken banks

By Steve Slater, Reuters

Tue Nov 23, 12:27 pm ET

24 Qantas to resume A380 flights but on limited basis

By Balazs Koranyi and Narayanan Somasundaram, Reuters

Tue Nov 23, 1:47 am ET

25 TSA: Some gov’t officials to skip airport security

By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press

32 mins ago

26 Vatican shifts ground on condoms, HIV, conception

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON and NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

33 mins ago

27 UK imposes new permanent immigration quota

By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press

34 mins ago

28 Study: AIDS pill helps gay men avoid HIV infection

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer

35 mins ago

29 3rd eye: NYU artist gets camera implanted in head

By ULA ILNYTZKY, Associated Press

5 mins ago

30 TSA chief: Resisting scanners just means delays

By RAY HENRY, Associated Press

Tue Nov 23, 8:58 am ET

31 Feds turn up heat on Wall St., raid 3 hedge funds

By DANIEL WAGNER and LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

2 hrs 46 mins ago

32 AP-Petside.com poll: Pets make cut on family trips

By SUE MANNING, Associated Press

Tue Nov 23, 11:40 am ET

33 Terry Collins introduced as Mets’ manager

By HOWIE RUMBERG, AP Sports Writer

39 mins ago

34 Cambodia doesn’t know what set off deadly stampede

By MIKE ECKEL and SOPHENG CHEANG, Associated Press

2 hrs 56 mins ago

35 Auto industry success a hard sell for White House

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

Tue Nov 23, 6:40 am ET

36 Feds say glasses with lead are kids’ products

By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press

Tue Nov 23, 6:40 am ET

37 Conviction in Chandra Levy case overcame long odds

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press

14 mins ago

38 Former NC Gov. Easley guilty of 1 finance charge

By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press

40 mins ago

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Doing away with the cap on Social Security tax would allow the Social Security trust fund to continue in the black indefinitely and the nation would never need to confront the fact that this peoples’ trust is the one debt elected officials don’t want to pay. It could also raise benefits and there might even be enough left over to lower instead of raise the retirement age.

But with the direction of the national debate, getting high income Americans to pay on a larger portion or their entire income is a pipe dream. I would like to point out a diary written by fake consultant, Social Security: If The Rich Paid Taxes Like You And Me…Problem Solved.

A diary not about the more sensible but unobtainable goal of getting the rich to pay in support of the rest of the nation. Instead of removing the tax cap to support the middle class, remove the cap and increase the benefit schedule. This does not shore up Social Security as much but it could get another class of people interested, people with influence.      

Cross-posted at DailyKos.

At the level of the press and as presented by our elected officials this national debate on American’s safety net is going poorly. It sounds like class warfare and it sounds like we may lose, again! So how about a push that could get some of the winners on the side of the people?

Really not as far fetched as it sounds, a means of softening the battle lines in the class warfare. Something fresh to explore in this endless assault on Social Security. Since we already have logic on the side of the masses and softening the disparity between the rich and the middle class working American is popular, we could use another pump.

It’s sort of like Uncap and Trade. Someone who makes around $400,000 a year and is writing letters in strong support of keeping the Social Security cap in place might just feel differently if it means about $72,000 per year in secure income from the government when that high wage earner turns 65. Not all of course but stereotyping the rich as wanting every penny to invest in hedge funds and having little to no interest in the well-being of less affluent workers is unfair.

Perhaps adjusting the cap on benefits to adjust the cap on Social Security tax in nothing more than a topic that would be limited to a few progressive bloggers. It would be a massive undertaking to get the topic into Americans living rooms and perhaps impossible to get such an idea addressed by elected officials.

Obviously the Republicans, masters of the red herrings, would scream about socialism but only if they were forced to address the topic. If a means of getting the rich interested in investing in Social Security did enter the national debate and then got off the ground, then this sentence in fake consultant’s diary is food for thought.

Imagine, if you will, just how easy it would be to launch a political attack on a government program that pays $162,000 a year to rich people…and if you can imagine that, you can probably imagine just how much political trouble this approach could cause.

This endless assault on Social Security must stop and presenting people who mark their calendars with a Social Security tax freedom day the alternative of a higher Social Security income could be just the thing. It could get several high wage earners in the nation to start saying “You know that Pete Peterson is one heartless bastard.”  

Sadly as the debate continues with the false claim that Social Security is the problem, it seems obvious that our elected officials only listen to the highest wage earners. We could use a few of them on our side.      

Fact Sheet: Know Your Passenger Rights on TSA Opt-Out Day

By: Jane Hamsher Monday November 22, 2010 9:42 am

The idea of an Opt-Out day has been picking up steam, and many airline passengers will be refusing to submit to the TSA’s whole body imaging scanners on Wednesday, November 24.  But in the wake of conflicting messages coming out of the TSA, travelers are going to be confused about what to expect at TSA security checkpoints. So FDL has put together  a handy flier about the scanners and the “enhanced” patdown procedures, which explains your risks and rights in the airport:

I’ve talked at other sites about a Serf Strike and while I don’t want to inflict any personal inconvenience on you I equally urge non-violent direct action of the type Martin Luther King practiced–

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

Now I’ll never fly again unless absolutely necessary, simply because even before 9/11 I found it an unpleasant and tedious waste of time.  I can only imagine how horrible it is today.  And it’s not that I flatter myself that I have much of an audience, yet I’m irresistibly tempted to encourage this endeavour simply because of the Versailles Villagers begging people not to.

Incoming House Transportation chief against ‘Opt-Out’ Day in TSA protest

By Kevin Bogardus, The Hill

11/21/10 10:25 AM ET

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) urged airline passengers Sunday to not purposefully slow down airport security lines by refusing to go through body scanners.

Likely the next House Transportation Committee chairman, Mica said he could not support what has become known as National “Opt-Out” Day. During the busy Thanksgiving travel period, passengers may opt-out of the body scanners, which take naked body images, and instead choose to go under invasive pat-downs as an act of protest. That will then likely slow down security lines.

Good.  That’s what it’s supposed to do.

John Pistole, TSA Chief, Pleads With Travelers Against Full-Body Scan Boycott

RAY HENRY, Associated Press

11/22/10 11:13 PM

ATLANTA – The nation’s airport security chief pleaded with Thanksgiving travelers for understanding and urged them not to boycott full-body scans on Wednesday, lest their protest snarl what is already one of the busiest, most stressful flying days of the year.

Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole said Monday that such delaying actions would only “tie up people who want to go home and see their loved ones.”

…

“Just one or two recalcitrant passengers at an airport is all it takes to cause huge delays,” said Paul Ruden, a spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents, which has warned its more than 8,000 members about delays. “It doesn’t take much to mess things up anyway.”

Well, since it’s coming up on Thanksgiving Day anyway-

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints.  And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say “Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.”.  And walk out.  You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him.  And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization.  And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out.  And friends they may think it’s a movement.

And that’s what it is , the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come’s around on the guitar.

With feeling.

“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”.

Jim White: Douthat Stumbles Upon, Discards Truth to Promote Conservative Myth on Irish Economic Woes

Poor little Ross Douthat, this analysis gig of his is so hard, especially while the fantasy world of conservatism continues crashing all around him when his primary job is to keep that fantasy alive, at great cost to the real world. Today we find little Ross taking on the crash of the Irish economy. In flailing about for an explanation of what has happened to this former poster-child of Chicago economics run wild, Douthat briefly flirts with an accurate explanation of what went wrong, but then pays proper homage to his overlords by discarding the painfully obvious truth in favor of yet another conservative talking point that is easily demonstrated to be false.

When examining Ireland’s rapid economic growth just prior to the collapse, Douthat of course rushes immediately to tout conservatives’ wet dreams about growth. . .

Yup, it’s that nasty move toward “one world government” represented by the EU that is really to blame for Ireland’s woes. Poor little Ross can’t trouble himself with considering that if this explanation were true, all of the EU would be suffering just as badly as Ireland. So where are the staggering government debts in those EU countries that didn’t slash their taxes? Where are the failing banks in the EU countries that maintained more regulation? Maybe Ross can get back to us on those points.

Joe Conason: On Earmarks

It isn’t the earmarks, stupid.

Bullying Republican Senate leaders into a “voluntary” ban on earmarks may represent a political triumph for the tea party movement, but as a measure to reduce the federal deficit it is a meaningless substitute for real action. The facts about earmarks — and the deficit, for that matter — are so simple that even the dumbest birther should be able to understand.

Funds directed to specific projects by legislators — which is what earmarks are — account for around 1 percent of any annual budget, so they represent far too little money to substantially reduce the budget. Besides, banning earmarks won’t reduce the budget (or the deficit) anyway, because they are drawn from funds that have already been appropriated. . . .

It isn’t the stimulus, stupid. And it isn’t the bailouts, either. . . .

Proposals to reduce the deficit by impoverishing seniors, punishing middle-class families, and neglecting infrastructure and education will do more harm than good. The deepest problem in the U.S. economy is the gross tilt of income and wealth toward the very top and the distortion of policy to favor financial manipulation rather than real growth.

Perhaps it is time to listen again to the only president in recent memory who balanced four budgets and left a surplus for the Republicans to squander. He achieved those goals not by cutting spending, shutting down the government or ending welfare, but raising taxes on the wealthy in his first budget. There will be no progress toward fiscal balance and economic sanity until we acknowledge those facts — and stop listening to stupid.

Thom Hartmann: Michael Chertoff, Bend Over, Please…

During the time you’re reading these words, somewhere in the world somebody is getting onto or off an airplane with a few ounces of cocaine, heroin, or diamonds packed into a condom and stuffed up their rear.

The cocaine, heroin, or diamonds could just as easily be enough C4 plastic explosive to blow out the side of a plane, easily molded to fit into a condom.

Easily removed in an airplane lavatory and detonated. . . .

As Benjamin Franklin famously wrote on February 17, 1775 in his notes to the Pennsylvania Assembly, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

If we are serious about stopping Middle Eastern zealots from attacking us, instead of blowing up our own Fourth Amendment right to be secure in our persons, let’s stop blowing up Middle Eastern countries.

When the Obama administration pulls our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and works hard to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian crisis, then I’ll believe our government really cares about our safety.

Until then, it’s just theatre – with a few millions in profit for Chertoff and his friends.

David Swanson: The New War Congress: An Obama-Republican War Alliance?

To understand just how bad the 112th Congress, elected on November 2nd and taking office on January 3rd, is likely to be for peace on Earth, one has to understand how incredibly awful the 110th and 111th Congresses have been during the past four years and then measure the ways in which things are likely to become even worse.

Oddly enough, doing so brings some surprising silver linings into view.The most silvery of possible silver linings here may lie in the possibility of a reborn peace movement.  George W. Bush’s new memoir actually reveals the surprising strength the peace movement had achieved by 2006.  In that year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who was publicly denouncing any opposition to war, privately urged Bush to bring troops out of Iraq before the congressional elections.  But that was the last year in which the interests of the peace movement were aligned with those of groups and funders that take their lead from the Democratic Party.

In November 2008, the last of the major funders of the peace movement took their checkbooks and departed.  Were they at long last to take this moment to build the opposite of Fox News and the Tea Party, a machine independent of political parties pushing an agenda of peace and justice, anything would be possible.

Robert Kuttner: Saving Progressivism From Obama

My audacious hope is that progressives can move from disillusion to action and offer the kind of political movement and counter-narrative that the President should have been leading.

I doubt that it makes sense to run a left candidate against Obama in 2012. The history of these efforts is one of failure that only weakened the Democratic nominee, whether we recall Ted Kennedy’s doomed primary challenge to incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980, or Ralph Nader’s run in 2000.

The closest that the progressive movement came to realizing this strategy was of course in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson decided to abdicate in the face of mass protest. But in that tumultuous year, we had a surfeit of anti-war candidates and a real movement. Even so, we ended up with Richard Nixon. This year, it is hard to think of a plausible candidate (Howard Dean? Russ Feingold?) who could unseat Obama without further weakening the Democrats in the general election.

So our task is to step into the leadership vacuum that Obama has left, and fashion a compelling narrative about who and what are destroying America. Our movement needs the passion and single mindedness of the Tea Party movement, and it helps that we have reality on our side. If we do our jobs, we can move public opinion, discredit the right, and elect progressives to office. Even Barack Obama might embrace us, if only as a last resort.

E.J. Dionne, Jr.: Calling the Bluff on Deficits

Ronald Reagan (bless his sense of humor) loved to say that the problem with his administration was that the right hand didn’t know what the far right hand was doing.

Something of that sort is happening among conservatives on the supposed urgency of closing the federal budget deficit.

On the near right is the preliminary proposal of the co-chairs of the president’s deficit commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. It is a deeply conservative document that would make sharp reductions in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while also cutting and flattening income tax rates. As is, it would do a lot of harm, but at least it takes the deficit seriously.

Then there are Republicans in Congress whose top priority is to force through legislation making the Bush-era tax cuts for the best-off Americans permanent, thus expanding the deficit by about $700 billion over the next decade.

So on the one hand, we have to cut, cut, cut because fiscal catastrophe is looming. On the other, we have to make the problem worse by shoveling more money to the rich because … well, because taking care of those with tidy incomes is contemporary conservatism’s highest purpose.

Dean Baker: Compromise on Social Security and Medicare? Why My Center-Left Friends Are Wrong

In recent days several center-left blogger/columnists have suggested that progressives should be happy to cut a deal now on Social Security and other issues related to the budget. The argument is that the cuts being put forward by the commissions are not that onerous, they don’t involve privatization, and we could be facing much worse in the future.

While politics always requires compromise, this position misreads the economic and political landscape in four important ways.

1) The problem of the moment is unemployment. This really is a disaster for large segments of the population. That is not just a talking point.

2) The bad guy in this story is Wall Street. The financial sector is a cancer on the economy. This is precisely the moment when we should be on the attack, not running for shelter.

3) Health care costs are the real problem. This is not cheap rhetoric; health care is what needs to be fixed.

4) The overwhelming majority of the non-pundit population agrees with us.

The current economic situation really is a disaster for tens of millions of people across the country.

Ralph Nader: Bush’s Friend Barack

After nearly two years out, I can imagine George W. Bush writing his successor the following letter:

Dear President Obama:

As you know I’ve been peddling my book Decision Points and while doing interviews, people ask me what I think of the job you’re doing. My answer is the same: He deserves to make decisions without criticism from me. It’s a tough enough job as it is. But their inquiries did prompt me to write you to privately express my continual admiration for the job you are doing. Amazing! I say “privately” because making my sentiments public would not do either of us any good, if you know what I mean. . . . .

You have been such a great president-backing me on so many things-keeping most tax cuts and shelters, support for my oil and gas buddies (my base), big loan guarantees for nukes, keeping Uncle Sam from bargaining down pharma, expanding free trade, not going tough on China (my Daddy especially liked this one), avoiding class struggle rhetoric and so on.

You want to know how confident I am about you? Even though you called waterboarding “torture,” I proudly admitted approving its use to protect our country and its freedoms. Isn’t that really what the Presidency is all about, along with honoring our troops and the entire national defense efforts?

Semper fi-

George W. Bush

Wendall Potter: My Apologies to Michael Moore and the Health Insurance Industry

n advance of my appearance with Michael Moore on Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight on MSNBC (8 and 11 p.m. ET), I would like to offer an apology to both Moore and his archenemy, the health insurance industry, which spent a lot of policyholder premiums in 2007 to attack his movie, Sicko.

I need to apologize to Moore for the role I played in the insurance industry’s public relations attack campaign against him and Sicko, which was about the increasingly unfair and dysfunctional U.S. health care system. (I was head of corporate communications at one of the country’s biggest insurance companies when I left my job in May 2008.) And I need to apologize to health insurers for failing to note in my new book, Deadly Spin, that the front group they used to attack Moore and Sicko — Health Care America — was originally a front group for drug companies.

APCO Worldwide, the PR firm that operated the front group for insurers during the summer of 2007, was outraged — outraged, I tell you — that I wrote in the book that the raison d’être for Health Care America was to disseminate the insurance industry’s talking points as part of a multi-pronged, fear-mongering campaign against Moore and his movie. An APCO executive told a reporter who had reviewed the book that I was guilty of one of the deceptive PR tactics I condemned: the selective disclosure of information to manipulate public opinion.

(1 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

By now you should have defrosted that frozen turkey and it should be resting comfortably in the back of you refrigerator. If you haven’t, getteth your butt to the grocery store and buy a fresh one because even if you start defrosting today, your bird might not be defrosted in time. I discussed the how to cook your bird to perfection in a conventional oven, now for a method that’s a little daring, deep frying.

Alton Brown, is one of my favorite TV cooks. Good Eats funny and informative, plus, his recipes are easy and edible. I’ve done fried turkey and while I don’t recommend it for health reasons, once a year probably wont hurt. Alton’s “how to” videos are a must watch on safety tips, how to choose a turkey fryer, equipment and, finally, cooking directions. If you decide to try this, please follow all directions carefully and take all the safety precautions.

Below the fold are recipes and more safety tips.

Ingredients

   * 6 quarts hot water

   * 1 pound kosher salt

   * 1 pound dark brown sugar

   * 5 pounds ice

   * 1 (13 to 14-pound) turkey, with giblets removed

   * Approximately 4 to 4 1/2 gallons peanut oil*

   * *Cook’s Note: In order to determine the correct amount of oil, place the turkey into the pot that you will be frying it in, add water just until it barely covers the top of the turkey and is at least 4 to 5 inches below the top of the pot. This will be the amount of oil you use for frying the turkey.

Directions

Place the hot water, kosher salt and brown sugar into a 5-gallon upright drink cooler and stir until the salt and sugar dissolve completely. Add the ice and stir until the mixture is cool. Gently lower the turkey into the container. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure that it is fully immersed in the brine. Cover and set in a cool dry place for 8 to 16 hours.

Remove the turkey from the brine, rinse and pat dry. Allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes prior to cooking.

Place the oil into a 28 to 30-quart pot and set over high heat on an outside propane burner with a sturdy structure. Bring the temperature of the oil to 250 degrees F. Once the temperature has reached 250, slowly lower the bird into the oil and bring the temperature to 350 degrees F. Once it has reached 350, lower the heat in order to maintain 350 degrees F. After 35 minutes, check the temperature of the turkey using a probe thermometer. Once the breast reaches 151 degrees F, gently remove from the oil and allow to rest for a minimum of 30 minutes prior to carving. The bird will reach an internal temperature of 161 degrees F due to carry over cooking. Carve as desired.

For the internal turkey brine:

   * 3/4 cup chopped onion

   * 3/4 cup chopped celery

   * 3 to 6 tablespoons chopped garlic

   * 4 tablespoons unsalted butter

   * 2 tablespoons (or more) chopped hot peppers from pepper vinegar

   * 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

   * 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt

   * 1 tablespoon cayenne

   * 1 tablespoon black pepper

   * 1 cup chicken stock

For the turkey:

   * 1 recipe for internal turkey brine

   * 1 14-pound turkey

   * 1 tablespoon of cayenne or favorite Cajun spice

   * 5 gallons of peanut oil or lard (approximately)

Preparation

1.

   Eight to 24 hours in advance, make the brine by sauteing onion, celery and garlic in butter until tender. Add hot peppers and Worcestershire, then stir in the salt, cayenne and black pepper. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil.

2.

   Strain into a bowl, pressing the solids to extract as much juice as possible, to yield about 1 1/2 cups.

3.

   With monster hypodermic, inject the turkey’s breast in five places and each leg in one place.

4.

   With your bare hands, rub the cayenne into the turkey’s breast under the skin. Omit if you don’t like the flavor — though it’s very mild in this quantity.

5.

   Refrigerate, uncovered, for 8 to 24 hours. Or if you prefer, you may fry the bird immediately.

6.

   On the day you plan to eat it, remove the turkey from the refrigerator, place it in the empty fryer pot and cover with water. Then empty the pot, measuring the water to find out how much oil you’ll need (usually about 5 gallons for a 14 pounder).

7.

   Fill pot with the same amount of oil or lard, attach the extra-long thermometer and heat the oil to 350 to 375 degrees. Just before lowering the bird, turn off the flame to make absolutely sure that Mr. Peanut’s essence won’t start a fire. Then pierce the turkey with its holder and lower slowly into the oil. Boil for 49 minutes or longer (3 to 3 1/2 minutes per pound).

8.

   Remove the turkey, drain excess oil and rest it on a platter for 10 to 30 minutes. Slice and dive in!

YIELD: 8 servings

Da Vinci worked in oils. Rodin worked in bronze and marble. I work in deep-fried turkeys.

In fact, I cooked two yesterday at Gillette Stadium before the Colts-Patriots game. Did a little tailgate Thanksgiving dinner for some friends and business partners from my other life at Cold, Hard Football Facts. There’s one of the bronzed beauties right there in the photo.

It’s a lot of fun and a great party trick that gets a lot of attention and “oohs” and “ahhs” from friends and passers-by in the parking lot. Makes you a culinary rock star, at least for a day. And it creates a darn tasty bird, too. So I break out deep-fried turkeys several times a year when entertaining.

And, of course, a lot of folks try the deep-fried turkey route for the first time on Thanksgiving.

But there is one problem: deep-frying turkeys is very, very dangerous! Especially for first timers. A lot of things can go wrong with a big pot full of 3 gallons of bubbling oil.

Though Brian Cowen and his Fianna Fail (great name dude) Party soon will.

Irish Debt Crisis Forces Collapse of Government

By LANDON THOMAS Jr., The New York Times

Published: November 22, 2010

DUBLIN – The Irish government faced imminent collapse on Monday, only a day after it signed off on a $100 billion bailout, setting the stage for a new election early next year and injecting the threat of political instability into a European financial crisis that already has markets on edge.

Confronted with high-level defections from his governing coalition, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said he would dissolve the government after passage of the country’s crucial 2011 budget early in December.

His announcement capped a grim day for Ireland, as protesters tried to storm the Parliament building in Dublin, and Moody’s Investors Service, the ratings agency, lowered the rating on Irish debt by several notches.

In summary form, Fianna Fail controls the Irish Parliament by a very thin majority.  The Green Party, currently in coalition to provide that majority with 6 seats of its own has officially announced that they’ll vote No Confidence after the signature of the bailout agreement and passage of the new austerity budget.

However up to 5 Fianna Fail members have announced that they won’t wait that long and don’t plan on voting for either the bailout or the budget.

Voter sentiment in Ireland is similar to that in Iceland which was forced to repudiate many offers made by the banksters to safeguard their balance sheets and opposition party leaders are strongly calling for snap elections as a referendum on the government, its policies, the bailout agreement, and austerity.

If elections are held they’ll likely win in a landslide.  It’s not certain Fianna Fail can even continue to survive as a party.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.  You sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas.

Of course the banksters are making threats-

EU warns Ireland over snap election

By Bruno Waterfield in Dublin, The Telegraph

10:00AM GMT 23 Nov 2010

The European Union has warned the Irish government that snap elections would be “very irresponsible” as post-bail-out turmoil continues to rock Ireland’s political establishment.

Vital to his staying on in power, were EU warnings that Ireland’s £77 billion bail-out would be jeopardised if the government fell Ireland, a situation that would spark a euro zone debt crisis and lead to the value Irish bonds being wiped out by global markets.

…

“From our perspective, it is important that the government is able to represent Ireland in the talks,” said another EU source. “It would be very unpleasant if there was no one to talk to. That would be very irresponsible.”

…

The turmoil means there are question marks over whether the government can pass a four year austerity later this week and a 2011 budget next month, both are preconditions of the EU and IMF rescue programme.

…

Declan Ganley, the leader of the successful 2008 Irish No campaign against the Lisbon Treaty, before the vote was overturned last year, accused the EU of destroying Ireland’s political class by pressuring it into an unpopular bail-out to preserve the euro.

“The Irish political class has been sacrificed on the altar of expediency by those they thought were their friends in Brussels, Berlin and Paris,” he said.

Yes, more like that please.  I hope you starve just like the workers you betrayed you arrogant idiots.