Tag: Punting the Pundits

The vitriol is worse is worse than I ever recall. Worse than the Palin-induced smarmy 2008. Worse than the swift-boat lies of 2004. Worse, even, than the anything-goes craziness of 2000 and its ensuing bitterness.

It’s almost a civil war. I know families in which close relatives are no longer speaking. A dating service says Democrats won’t even consider going out with Republicans, and vice versa. My email and twitter feeds contain messages from strangers I wouldn’t share with my granddaughter. [..]

To be sure, we endured 9/11, we’ve gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we suffered the Great Recession. But these did not not bind us as we were bound together in the Great Depression and World War II. The horror of 9/11 did not touch all of us, and the only sacrifice George W. Bush asked was that we kept shopping. Today’s wars are fought by hired guns – young people who are paid to do the work most of the rest of us don’t want our own children to do. And the Great Recession split us rather than connected us; the rich grew richer, the rest of us, poorer and less secure.

So we come to the end of a bitter election feeling as if we’re two nations rather than one. The challenge — not only for our president and representatives in Washington but for all of us — is to rediscover the public good.

Kevin M. Kruse: The Real Loser: Truth

THE director Steven Spielberg, whose “Lincoln” biopic opens Friday, recently said he hoped the film would have a “soothing or even healing effect” on a nation exhausted after yet another bitter and polarizing election.

But there’s one line attributed to Lincoln that Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays the president, doesn’t utter in the film: “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.”

The omission makes sense. Not only is the line probably apocryphal, but also, this Election Day just might demonstrate that you really can fool all of the people – or at least enough of them – in the time it takes to win the White House.

Josh Horwitz: On Eve of Election, Pro-Gunners Suggest Building IEDs for War With U.S. Government

With Election Day upon us, it is worth remembering that voting is one of the great freedoms we enjoy as Americans, a pillar of our democracy. Our Founders fought a Revolutionary War in order to gain legislative representation. Their sacrifices should never be forgotten.

We should also never forget another pillar of our democracy: The ability of the United States government to transfer power and negotiate legislative differences in a peaceful and orderly fashion (the one notable exception in our history being the bloody Civil War). Regardless of what happens tomorrow, once every vote gets counted we must all respect the results of our election, even if we wished things had turned out differently. That doesn’t mean that the losing side has to sit idly by during the important policy debates to come — far from it. But the “loyal opposition” must be just that. It must engage in the political process in a manner bound by laws and hopefully even respect. Americans saw a great example of that recently in the working relationship between President Barack Obama and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Unfortunately, not all Americans accept these principles. Some insist they have a “right” to use political violence to influence public policy.

I had my first sit-down with Barack Obama in his Senate office. The sun was streaming in. He came around from behind his desk with that beaming smile, his tie loosened. He sat in a deep chair, his feet up on the coffee table. I was taken with his confidence, talent, grasp of the issues and buoyant charm: the real deal.

That was early in 2007.

Later that year I sat down with Mitt Romney on the Republican primary-season campaign trail. I had interviewed him years earlier, at his suburban Boston home. He hadn’t changed a bit: chilly smile, wary but gracious, well informed, a mix of a steely mind, ferocious ambition and earnest Mormon good will: a class act.

Today I ask: where did those two men go? Or were they mirages? The way both have campaigned this year makes me wonder. Is there something about the presidency–or the pursuit of it–that attacks the character of men and women under its spell?

Robert Kuttner: Notes for a Manifesto

The enormity of last week’s super-storm is just beginning to sink into political consciousness. Hurricane Sandy should transform what Americans expect from their government, and give the party of government activism new force.

As soon as the election is behind us, the country faces a major struggle over what the super-storm portends and requires. But that struggle will be as much within the Democratic Party as between Democrats and the right, because of the deadweight of austerity politics.

E. J. Dionne: The Gilded Age vs. the 21st Century

The 2012 campaign began on Aug. 2, 2011, when President Obama signed the deal ending the debt-ceiling fiasco. At that moment, the president relinquished his last illusions that the current, radical version of the Republican Party could be dealt with as a governing partner. From then on, Obama was determined to fight-and to win.

It was the right choice, the only alternative to capitulation. A Republican majority both inspired and intimidated by the tea party was demanding that Obama renounce every principle dear to him about the role of government in 21st-century America. And so he set out to defeat those who threatened to bring back the economic policies of the 1890s.

Now, it’s up to the voters.

John Nichols: Lies, Damned Lies and Paul Ryan Lies

Paul Ryan is really upset with Barack Obama about that auto bailout.

Which means that Ryan is upset with himself.

In a campaign where the standard for what constitutes the “big lie” keeps getting adjusted upward, Ryan is trumping even Mitt Romney by attacking President Obama and Vice President Biden for backing policies that Ryan backed.

Picking up on the Romney campaign’s closing claim that the moves taken to rescue General Motors and Chrysler somehow damaged the auto industry-despite the fact that GM and Chrysler say different-Ryan has been banging away on the bailout. [..]

In the final days of a campaign that has taken the shine off his “golden boy” status, Ryan was going all-in on the Republican ticket’s biggest lie: a claim that Obama’s policies had somehow endangered the sprawling Jeep plant in Toledo, a critical battleground in the critical battleground state of Ohio.

That’s not true.

With Election Day on the horizon, most voters have settled on their choice for the oval office. But let’s not forget about the all the other choices on the ballot, many of which will have a great affect on the lives and livelihoods of Americans — Congressional and State representatives, local officials, and referenda.

It’s no secret that the majority of voters simply vote the party line, never examining the various candidates on their ballot beyond the D or R next to their name. And, the mass media is not your friend when it comes to electoral choices, rarely holding candidates feet to the fire on their specific proposals or calling them out on their deceptions, or what they ignore. As a result, politicians can flood the airwaves with misleading information, empty promises, and vapid slogans. I like to call this political tactic the “three F’s” — keeping voters flattered, fooled and flummoxed just long enough to secure their vote. The three F’s are the very reason so many voters, who do not do their political homework, end up regularly voting against their own self-interests.

So how does one avoid the trap of the three F’s? Here are three suggestions to become a more informed and more principled “expert voter.”

Liz Winstead: Abortion Is a Medical Procedure

Lately, the conversation surrounding abortion has been extreme; very rape focused, very life of the mother focused.

It’s probably because so many of the politicians who have been bringing abortion into the public forum have some cave-dwelling, anti-science beliefs that belong nowhere in a discussion about reproductive health, and who don’t believe abortion should be legal even in those cases.

The opposite of what sane people believe.

The opposite of what I believe.

I also believe abortion should be legal in every other case.

Like in the case of “The future of the mother,” or “The age of the mother,” or “The financial situation of the mother.” In other words, in the case of the life of the mother. Whatever life she chooses to have that doesn’t involve being pregnant at that moment.

Robert Sheer: Non-Kenyan White Men for Romney

Let’s look at the bright side of this interminable and essentially superficial election process. I’m hoping that, even if Mitt Romney wins, the upside will be that I get to be taxed at the same rate he has enjoyed as one of the nation’s most skillful hedge fund hustlers.

I’m not asking for the super-low rate that he probably paid during the many years of tax returns he has refused to publicly disclose. Nothing that extreme — I can’t afford his ingenious accountants. But I am hoping that Romney will set the top rate at the 14 percent that he was willing to admit to having paid on his $13.7 million in income in 2011 when he knew his tax records would have to be revealed to the public because he was running for tax-collector-in-chief.

George Zornick: Getting Progressive Candidates on the Record Against Safety Net Cuts

Politico has a very interesting story this morning that gave voice to what a lot of progressives in Washington have been nervously worrying about: the possibility that a freshly re-elected President Obama could sell his base down the river only weeks after the election during fiscal cliff negotiations. (Liberals fear grand bargain betrayal if President Obama wins.)[..]

But ultimately, Obama cannot implement a deal alone. He has to get members of his own party to vote for it in Congress-so regardless of the president’s disposition, there are many pressure points in Congress for progressives who want to keep Democrats from cutting the safety net.

Onkar Ghate: A Liberal Ayn Rand?

It’s no secret that the right is awash in Ayn Rand. Tea Partiers carry signs like “Who is John Galt?” and, astonishing for a novel published 55 years ago, sales of Atlas Shrugged topped 445,000 last year.

All of this has prompted researchers like Yale historian Beverly Gage to wonder, “Why is there no liberal Ayn Rand?” Good question. Liberals today, Gage observes, have no long-term goals or vision, no big ideas, no canon.

Here’s a radical thought. Instead of liberals dismissing Rand’s appeal to the American spirit of individualism and independence, as President Obama recently did in his Rolling Stone interview, why don’t liberals make Rand part of a new canon? Why let conservatives monopolize her?

Junk bonds – debt issued by companies with low credit ratings – are growing junkier by the day, with ever weaker companies issuing bonds for ever riskier purposes. The bonds’ falling quality and rising risk, described recently in The Times by Nathaniel Popper, show gaps in investor protection. They also revive concerns about how private equity owners of companies that issue the bonds are using that money. [..]

No one is predicting that today’s increasingly risky junk bonds will blow up anytime soon. But risky business, unchecked, has a way of doing so eventually.

Timothy Egan: Nature Votes Last

A catastrophic storm has no feelings, no fury, no compassion and certainly no political position. Hurricanes may sound like bridge partners at the Boca community center – Sandy, Irene and Katrina – until they land and become monsters. The mistake, perhaps, is trying to anthropomorphize them.

But that doesn’t mean that a fatal blow from Mother Nature will not alter the course of human nature. When the seas rose earlier this week, swamping the world’s greatest city and battering a helpless state, the turbulence of the elements washed away the sand castles of politics.

Ralph Nader: Waiting for Obama, Democrats Will Lose the House

Will the Congressional Democrats recover the House of Representatives from the clutches of the cruelest, most corporately monetized, anti-people Republican Party since 1858? Amazingly, the answer, less than a week before the election, is no, according to veteran House Democrats, pollsters and the Washington D.C. punditry. In fact, that negative prediction has been consistent for at least 8 months.

Two more years of Reps. John Boehner, Eric Cantor and their gang blocking Barack Obama (if he gets elected), should he want to champion any significant legislation. Why can’t the Democrats landslide these Republicans as FDR, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson would surely havev done?

The answers lie in the grotesque unmentioned ways that the incumbent Democrats have tied themselves up in knots that spell centralized paralysis. The following highlights how they have made themselves dysfunctional.

Suevon Lee: Where Romney and Obama Stand on the Supreme Court: A Guide

The Supreme Court has remained a largely unspoken topic on the campaign trail – even though the Court plays a critical function in Americans’ lives. (This past June’s Affordable Care Act ruling, anyone?)

The next president could very well appoint one or two new justices. And who steps down first could also depend on who’s elected. [..]

Legal challenges to such key social issues as same-sex marriage, gun rights, immigration and separation of church and state are likely to be heard by the Supreme Court in the coming years. One justice is all it may take to tip the scale in these cases.

So what exactly have the candidates said, and why hasn’t the Supreme Court been a bigger issue? Let’s take a look.

It is no secret that political candidates are capable of doing awful things when they are reach the desperate final days of an election campaign.

But trying to scare American workers into believing that a government initiative that saved their industry was some sort of secret scheme to shutter major plants and offshore jobs is more than just creepy. It’s economic fear-mongering of a sort that is destructive to the spirit of communities and to the very future of the republic as an industrial force.

George Romney, who led the remarkable American Motors Company project that would eventually produce the Jeep, never in a political career that saw him win election as governor of Michigan and seek the Republican nomination for president would have engaged in such calumny.

But George Romney’s ne’re-do-well son, a very different sort of businessman who devoted his career to taking apart American companies and offshoring jobs, is trying to resurrect his presidential candidacy with a big lie.

Bill McKibbenSandy Forces Climate Change on US Election Despite Fossil Fuel Lobby

Such is Big Energy’s hold on DC, neither Obama nor Romney talk about climate change. But Americans are joining the dots

Here’s a sentence I wish I hadn’t written – it rolled out of my Macbook in May, part of an article for Rolling Stone that quickly went viral:

  “Say something so big finally happens (a giant hurricane swamps Manhattan, a megadrought wipes out Midwest agriculture) that even the political power of the industry is inadequate to restrain legislators, who manage to regulate carbon.”

I wish I hadn’t written it because the first half gives me entirely undeserved credit for prescience: I had no idea both would, in fact, happen in the next six months. And I wish I hadn’t written it because now that my bluff’s been called, I’m doubting that even Sandy, the largest storm ever, will be enough to make our political class serious about climate change. [..]

If we’re going to change the political equation, we’re going to do it by going after the fossil fuel industry. They deserve it. As that Rolling Stone article of mine laid out, they’re planning to burn literally five times more carbon than the most conservative government on earth thinks is safe. They’ve turned into a rogue force.

Nicholas D. Kristof: Will Climate Get Some Respect Now?

President Obama and Mitt Romney seemed determined not to discuss climate change in this campaign. So thanks to Hurricane Sandy for forcing the issue: Isn’t it time to talk not only about weather, but also about climate?

It’s true, of course, that no single storm or drought can be attributed to climate change. Atlantic hurricanes in the Northeast go way back, as the catastrophic “snow hurricane” of 1804 attests. But many scientists believe that rising carbon emissions could make extreme weather – like Sandy – more likely. [..]

Democrats have been AWOL on climate change, but Republicans have been even more recalcitrant. Their failure is odd, because in other areas of national security Republicans pride themselves on their vigilance. Romney doesn’t want to wait until he sees an Iranian nuclear weapon before acting, so why the passivity about climate change?

David Morris: A Stormy Reminder of Why We Need Government

A job well done, from the local 911 switchboard to the White House

If this election is a referendum on the benefit of government then superstorm Sandy should be Exhibit A for the affirmative. The government weather service, using data from government weather satellites delivered a remarkably accurate and sobering long range forecast that both catalyzed action and gave communities sufficient time to prepare. Those visually stunning maps you saw on the web or t.v. were largely based on public data made publicly available from local, state and federal agencies. [..]

Seven years ago, Katrina showed the tragic consequences when government fails its duty to respond to natural disasters. But that was the exception that proves the rule. When disasters hit, the government is the only agent with the authority and capacity to marshal and mobilize resources sufficient to the undertaking. It can coordinate across jurisdictions and with both the public and private sectors. That’s because its mission is not to enhance its balance sheet but to preserve the well being of its citizens. And in October 2012 it has shown how effectively it can perform that task.

It is no secret that political candidates are capable of doing awful things when they are reach the desperate final days of an election campaign.

But trying to scare American workers into believing that a government initiative that saved their industry was some sort of secret scheme to shutter major plants and offshore jobs is more than just creepy. It’s economic fear-mongering of a sort that is destructive to the spirit of communities and to the very future of the republic as an industrial force.

George Romney, who led the remarkable American Motors Company project that would eventually produce the Jeep, never in a political career that saw him win election as governor of Michigan and seek the Republican nomination for president would have engaged in such calumny.

But George Romney’s ne’re-do-well son, a very different sort of businessman who devoted his career to taking apart American companies and offshoring jobs, is trying to resurrect his presidential candidacy with a big lie.

Bill McKibbenSandy Forces Climate Change on US Election Despite Fossil Fuel Lobby

Such is Big Energy’s hold on DC, neither Obama nor Romney talk about climate change. But Americans are joining the dots

Here’s a sentence I wish I hadn’t written – it rolled out of my Macbook in May, part of an article for Rolling Stone that quickly went viral:

  “Say something so big finally happens (a giant hurricane swamps Manhattan, a megadrought wipes out Midwest agriculture) that even the political power of the industry is inadequate to restrain legislators, who manage to regulate carbon.”

I wish I hadn’t written it because the first half gives me entirely undeserved credit for prescience: I had no idea both would, in fact, happen in the next six months. And I wish I hadn’t written it because now that my bluff’s been called, I’m doubting that even Sandy, the largest storm ever, will be enough to make our political class serious about climate change. [..]

If we’re going to change the political equation, we’re going to do it by going after the fossil fuel industry. They deserve it. As that Rolling Stone article of mine laid out, they’re planning to burn literally five times more carbon than the most conservative government on earth thinks is safe. They’ve turned into a rogue force.

Nicholas D. Kristof: Will Climate Get Some Respect Now?

President Obama and Mitt Romney seemed determined not to discuss climate change in this campaign. So thanks to Hurricane Sandy for forcing the issue: Isn’t it time to talk not only about weather, but also about climate?

It’s true, of course, that no single storm or drought can be attributed to climate change. Atlantic hurricanes in the Northeast go way back, as the catastrophic “snow hurricane” of 1804 attests. But many scientists believe that rising carbon emissions could make extreme weather – like Sandy – more likely. [..]

Democrats have been AWOL on climate change, but Republicans have been even more recalcitrant. Their failure is odd, because in other areas of national security Republicans pride themselves on their vigilance. Romney doesn’t want to wait until he sees an Iranian nuclear weapon before acting, so why the passivity about climate change?

David Morris: A Stormy Reminder of Why We Need Government

A job well done, from the local 911 switchboard to the White House

If this election is a referendum on the benefit of government then superstorm Sandy should be Exhibit A for the affirmative. The government weather service, using data from government weather satellites delivered a remarkably accurate and sobering long range forecast that both catalyzed action and gave communities sufficient time to prepare. Those visually stunning maps you saw on the web or t.v. were largely based on public data made publicly available from local, state and federal agencies. [..]

Seven years ago, Katrina showed the tragic consequences when government fails its duty to respond to natural disasters. But that was the exception that proves the rule. When disasters hit, the government is the only agent with the authority and capacity to marshal and mobilize resources sufficient to the undertaking. It can coordinate across jurisdictions and with both the public and private sectors. That’s because its mission is not to enhance its balance sheet but to preserve the well being of its citizens. And in October 2012 it has shown how effectively it can perform that task.

Who would have thought that a late-season hurricane would sweep up the East Coast of the United States on the eve of one of the closest election contests in the country’s history?

Not, presumably, Mitt Romney. [..]

Romney says he “absolutely” wants to decrease the role of FEMA in particular, and the federal government in general, when it comes to dealing with natural disasters. Specifically, he wants to shift more responsibility for responding to storms to the states-despite the fact that, as Hurricane Sandy well illustrates, storms do not respect political jurisdictions. And he appears to be enthusiastic about the idea of substantial privatization of relief initiatives.

Paul Greenberg: An Oyster in the Storm

DOWN here at the end of Manhattan, on the border between evacuation zones B and C, I’m prepared, mostly. My bathtub is full of water, as is every container I own. My flashlights are battery-ed up, the pantry is crammed with canned goods and I even roasted a pork shoulder that I plan to gnaw on in the darkness if ConEd shuts down the power.

But as I confidently tick off all the things that Governor Andrew M. Cuomo recommends for my defense as Hurricane Sandy bears down on me, I find I’m desperately missing one thing.

I wish I had some oysters.

I’m not talking about oysters to eat – although a dozen would be nice to go with that leftover bottle of Champagne that I really should drink if the fridge goes off. I’m talking about the oysters that once protected New Yorkers from storm surges, a bivalve population that numbered in the trillions and that played a critical role in stabilizing the shoreline from Washington to Boston.

Sarah Anderson and Scott Klinger: 10 Filthy-Rich, Tax-Dodging Hypocrites Pushing Disastrous Austerity on America

The Fix the Debt coalition is using the so-called “fiscal cliff” to push the same old corporate agenda of more tax breaks while shifting the burden on to the rest of us.

Brace yourself for one of the most aggressive corporate lobbying campaigns of all time. And one of the most hypocritical.

“Fix the Debt” is a coalition of more than 80 CEOs who claim they know best how to deal with our nation’s fiscal challenges. The group boasts a $60 million budget just for the initial phase of a massive media and lobbying campaign.

The irony is that CEOs in the coalition’s leadership have been major contributors to the national debt they now claim to know how to fix. These are guys who’ve mastered every tax-dodging trick in the book. And now that they’ve boosted their corporate profits by draining the public treasury, how do they propose we put our fiscal house back in order? By squeezing programs for the poor and elderly, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Michael T. Klare: Romney’s Extremist Energy Plan and the Systematic Plundering of America

As he seeks the support of undecided voters in key swing states, Mitt Romney is portraying himself as a centrist at heart-not as the “severely conservative Republican” he said he was during the hard-fought GOP primaries. This kinder, gentler Romney was very much on display in his televised debates with President Obama. But a close examination of his energy plan, released on August 23, reveals no such moderation; rather, it is a blueprint for the systematic plunder of America’s farm and wilderness areas, coupled with a neocolonial invasion of Canada and Mexico. [..]

Read between the lines, however, and the predatory nature of his vision becomes evident. Essentially, the plan is intended to remove most impediments to the exploitation by US energy firms of untapped oil, gas and coal fields in the United States, Canada and Mexico, regardless of the consequences for national health, safety or the environment. In particular, the plan has five key objectives: eliminating federal oversight of oil and gas drilling on federal lands; eviscerating all environmental restraints on domestic oil, gas and coal operations; eliminating curbs on drilling in waters off Florida and the east and west coasts of the United States; removing all obstacles to the importation of Canadian tar sands; and creating an energy consortium with Canada and Mexico allowing for increased US corporate involvement in-and control over-their oil and gas production.

There’s a lot we don’t know about what Mitt Romney would do if he won. He refuses to say which tax loopholes he would close to make up for $5 trillion in tax cuts; his economic “plan” is an empty shell.

But one thing is clear: If he wins, Medicaid – which now covers more than 50 million Americans, and which President Obama would expand further as part of his health reform – will face savage cuts. Estimates suggest that a Romney victory would deny health insurance to about 45 million people who would have coverage if he lost, with two-thirds of that difference due to the assault on Medicaid.

So this election is, to an important degree, really about Medicaid. And this, in turn, means that you need to know something more about the program.

Juan Cole: Candidates Flee East Coast as Frankenstorm Takes Revenge for their Ignoring Climate Change

Mitt Romney and Joe Biden have canceled campaign events planned for this weekend at Virginia Beach as a massive storm bears down on the east coast of the US. The candidates are fleeing from the East Coast, even though they won’t talk about the key environmental issue of our time.

The candidates in this year’s presidential election completely ignored climate change in their debates and their campaigning, even thought it is the most deadly issue facing this country and all humankind. Human beings are dumping massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning coal, natural gas and petroleum at feverish rates. They have already increased temperatures significantly since 1750, and are on track to put up the average surface temperature of the earth by 5 degrees C. or 9 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, enough to turn everyplace on earth over time into a sweating tropics, melt all surface ice, and, over the long term, submerge a third of the current land mass. A global state of emergency would be necessary to keep the temperature increase to 2 degrees C. or less, but the window is rapidly closing for this curbing of disaster.

Tony Norman: [And Now, a Word from Mr. Mourdock’s God And Now, a Word from Mr. Mourdock’s God]

God’s metaphorical ears must be burning these days. On Tuesday night Richard Mourdock, a Republican Senate candidate from Indiana, did something that would have given pause to even the medieval scholastics who speculated about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

With less than two weeks left in a contentious and hotly contested election, Mr. Mourdock speculated about what God’s will would be if a woman became pregnant as the result of rape. [..]

Over the years, we’ve heard about a deity who countenances the invasion of Muslim countries and the forced conversion of its leaders from the likes of “believers” like Ann Coulter. We’ve heard about the god who hates abortion but loves capital punishment. We hear that he even gives absolution to the killers of abortion doctors even though they’re effectively murdering full-grown fetuses.

Michelle Chen: World Bank’s Anti-Labor Index Is a Dirty Business

It’s a 2012 campaign mantra: On Day One, the new president will reboot the economy by spurring businesses to grow and thrive. Both mainstream candidates have vowed to achieve this, in part by eliminating onerous regulations to “unleash” the long-suppressed power of American industry.

The story is surprisingly similar across the pond. The financial giants of Europe’s troika pummel Greece and other struggling Eurozone countries with a blitzkrieg of kamikaze deregulation, conditioning financial “rescue” on giving markets free rein to work their magic, unencumbered by law. The flipside of this celebration of the Invisible Hand is, inevitably, a merciless beatdown on labor, stripping protections like unemployment aid and wage standards.

The World Bank has taken the extremely dubious science of deregulation one step further by creating a guide, known as the Doing Business report, that quantifies the regulatory “burden” that investors may face in various countries. The 2013 report was released this week.