Tag: Politics

Aug 25 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Wrong Way Nation

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is running for president again. What are his chances? Will he once again become a punch line? I have absolutely no idea. This isn’t a horse-race column.

What I’d like to do, instead, is take advantage of Mr. Perry’s ambitions to talk about one of my favorite subjects: interregional differences in economic and population growth.

You see, while Mr. Perry’s hard-line stances and religiosity may be selling points for the Republican Party’s base, his national appeal, if any, will have to rest on claims that he knows how to create prosperity. And it’s true that Texas has had faster job growth than the rest of the country. So have other Sunbelt states with conservative governments. The question, however, is why.

Robert Kuttner: Trade Deals from Hell

The latest reports from Europe indicate that the continent is slipping back into recession. The U.S. is doing only slightly better, with positive economic growth but scant progress on the jobs front, and no growth in the earnings of the vast majority of Americans.

Meanwhile, global climate change continues to worsen, producing unprecedented policy conundrums of how to reconcile the very survival of the planet with improved living standards for the world’s impoverished billions and for most Americans, whose real incomes have declined since the year 2000.

Amid all of these serious challenges, what common strategies are top U.S. and European leaders pursuing? Why, a new trade and investment deal modeled on NAFTA, to make it harder for governments to regulate capitalism.

Dave Johnson: Austerity Has Made Europe’s Depression Longer Than In The 1930s

Europe’s economic depression has now lasted longer than the Great Depression of the 1930s. Meanwhile, America’s “Great Recession” also drags on thanks to cutbacks in government spending since the stimulus.

Europe’s leaders somehow were convinced that austerity – “deficit reduction” through cutbacks in government – would somehow lead them out of their economic doldrums. They believed that taking money out of the economy would help the economy. The result has been terrible. The Washington Post’s Wonkblog calls Europe’s austerity-lengthened depression “one of the biggest catastrophes in economic history.”

To top it off, Europe’s governments are learning that cutting back on spending not only worsens the economic picture, causing terrible unemployment, poverty and human misery, but the worsened economic picture means less revenue coming in, thereby increasing deficits instead of lowering deficits. In other words, austerity cutbacks to fight deficits have instead made deficits worse and hurt people.

Ralph Nader: Corporations Spy on Nonprofits With Impunity

Here’s a dirty little secret you won’t see in the daily papers: Corporations conduct espionage against U.S. nonprofit organizations without fear of being brought to justice.

Yes, that means using a great array of spycraft and snoopery, including planned electronic surveillance, wiretapping, information warfare, infiltration, dumpster diving and so much more.

The evidence abounds.

For example, six years ago, based on extensive documentary evidence, James Ridgeway reported in Mother Jones on a major corporate espionage scheme by Dow Chemical focused on Greenpeace and other environmental and food activists.

Greenpeace was running a potent campaign against Dow’s use of chlorine to manufacture paper and plastics. Dow grew worried and eventually desperate.

David Mitchell: Trust us, say the online giants – we won’t make you think for yourself

Are eBay and Facebook trying to protect users from their own stupidity with their nannying tactics? It’s more sinister than that

We’ve got it covered… Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in California, January 2012. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

Here’s a tip for the dynamic go-getter on a time and money budget who’s determined to live the luxurious dream: when eating your lunchtime Pot Noodle, try putting on a CD of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. It’ll make everything seem so posh. Just close your eyes and each chemical forkful will be transformed to caviar as it crosses your tongue. Or, if not quite caviar, maybe a high-end ready meal. Or some toast made from expensive bread. At the very least, it’ll elevate your perception of the quality of any jam you happen to be eating. How much probably depends on you, but on average it’s 5%.

This is one of the key findings of a survey published last week: that classical music isn’t just good for discouraging teens from loitering around tube stations – it also makes shoppers overrate a product’s quality by about a twentieth. The purpose of the study was to find out how our purchasing choices are affected by sounds.

Aug 24 2014

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” are: House Homeland Security Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX); and  Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO).

The roundtable guests are: Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD); Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol; Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan; and former Obama White House senior adviser David Plouffe.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are: Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH); Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI); Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr. (D-MO); and actor and disabled veterans activist Gary Sinise.

His panel guests are: Nia-Malika Henderson, the Washington Post; David Rohde, Reuters; Susan Page, USA Today; CBS News State Department correspondent Margaret Brennan; and CBS News Homeland Security Correspondent Bob Orr.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: Chuck “I don’t fact check” Todd takes over mike from David “the dance master” Gregory who is off writing a book.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley:Ms. Crowley’s guests are: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI); Great Britain’s ambassador to the United States, Peter Westmacott; and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon (D).

Her panel guest are: Thomas Manger, Chief of Police in Montgomery County Maryland and Vice President of the Police Executive Research Forum; Malik Aziz, Deputy Chief of Police in Dallas and Chair of the National Black Police Association; and James Craig, Chief of Police in Detroit.

Aug 23 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Glenn Greenwald: Should Twitter, Facebook and Google Executives be the Arbiters of What We See and Read?

There have been increasingly vocal calls for Twitter, Facebook and other Silicon Valley corporations to more aggressively police what their users are permitted to see and read. Last month in The Washington Post, for instance, MSNBC host Ronan Farrow demanded that social media companies ban the accounts of “terrorists” who issue “direct calls” for violence.

This week, the announcement by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo that the company would prohibit the posting of the James Foley beheading video and photos from it (and suspend the accounts of anyone who links to the video) met with overwhelming approval. What made that so significant, as The Guardian‘s James Ball noted today, was that “Twitter has promoted its free speech credentials aggressively since the network’s inception.” By contrast, Facebook has long actively regulated what its users are permitted to say and read; at the end of 2013, the company reversed its prior ruling and decided that posting of beheading videos would be allowed, but only if the user did not express support for the act. [..]

The question posed by Twitter’s announcement is not whether you think it’s a good idea for people to see the Foley video. Instead, the relevant question is whether you want Twitter, Facebook and Google executives exercising vast power over what can be seen and read.

David Sirota: Journalists on the Government’s Blacklist

As states move to hide details of government deals with Wall Street, and as politicians come up with new arguments to defend secrecy, a study released earlier this month revealed that many government information officers block specific journalists they don’t like from accessing information. The news comes as 47 federal inspectors general sent a letter to lawmakers criticizing “serious limitations on access to records” that they say have “impeded” their oversight work.

The data about public information officers was compiled over the past few years by Kennesaw State University professor Dr. Carolyn Carlson. Her surveys found that 4 in 10 public information officers say “there are specific reporters they will not allow their staff to talk to due to problems with their stories in the past.”

“That horrified us that so many would do that,” Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review, which reported on her presentation at the July conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Ari Paul: No mo’ Cuomo

Corruption and austerity collide to make the governor unworthy of the office

New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is usually defined in cold partisan terms. Fox News host Sean Hannity recently cited the governor’s support of gay marriage as the kind of cultural liberal intolerance that would drive religious conservatives like him out of the state. Cuomo also faces complaints from the left, on the grounds that he has implemented a strictly right-wing economic agenda that involves tax breaks for the wealthy and fighting state unions.

The contrasting views would seem to paint him as a deft political player who knows how to find electoral safety in the center. But the late New York City Mayor Ed Koch, speaking on the night of Cuomo’s election as governor in 2010, described him differently: “He is a schmuck.” Koch was convinced that during his 1977 mayoral campaign against Mario Cuomo, it was his opponent’s son Andrew Cuomo who was responsible for the hateful slogan “Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo.”

Cuomo’s current problems are not of a partisan nature but of the kind of vain disregard for playing by the rules that caused Koch to hold such a grudge.

Robert Parry: Behind Obama’s ‘Chaotic’ Foreign Policy

President Barack Obama’s foreign policy has been disjointed and even incoherent because he has – since taking office in 2009 – pursued conflicting strategies, mixing his own penchant for less belligerent “realism” with Official Washington’s dominant tough-guy ideologies of neoconservatism and its close cousin, “liberal interventionism.”

What this has meant is that Obama often has acted at cross-purposes, inclined to cooperate with sometimes adversaries like Russia on pragmatic solutions to thorny foreign crises, such as Syria’s chemical weapons and Iran’s nuclear program, but other times stoking these and other crises by following neocon demands that he adopt aggressive tactics against Russia, Syria, Iran and other “enemies.”[..]

Eugene Robinson: Spousal Secrets No More

How far would you go to stay out of jail? Would you publicly humiliate your wife of 38 years, portraying her as some kind of shrieking harridan? Would you put the innermost secrets of your marriage on display, inviting voyeurs to rummage at will?

For Robert McDonnell, the former Virginia governor on trial for alleged corruption, the answers appear to be: “As far as necessary,” “Hey, why not?” and “Sounds like a plan.”

McDonnell’s testimony this week in a Richmond federal courtroom about his wife Maureen’s psychological turmoil has been both cringe-worthy and compelling. It has been clear for some time that McDonnell’s strategy for winning acquittal amounted to what could be called the “crazy wife” defense. But only when he took the stand did it become apparent how thoroughly he intended to humiliate the “soul mate” he still claims to love.

McDonnell disclosed Thursday that he moved out of the family’s home shortly before the trial began. “I knew there was no way I could go home after a day in court and have to rehash the day’s events with my wife,” he testified.

I guess not. Anyone who said such things in public about his or her spouse would be advised to clear out.

Aug 22 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Yves Smith: The “Holder Doctrine”: Bank “Settlements” With No Prosecutions

Even though there is tacit acceptance, or perhaps more accurately, sullen resignation, about regulators’ failure to make serious investigations into financial firm misconduct (probes on specific issues don’t cut it), occasionally a pundit steps up to remind the public of the farce that passes for bank enforcement.

William Cohan tore into Attorney General Eric Holder, and by implication the Administration, for its raft of bank “settlements” which have come is a sudden spurt, no doubt intended to boost the Democrat’s flagging standing in the runup to the Congressional midterms. We’ve pointed out that the comparatively few commentators who have looked past the overhyped Department of Justice press releases into the details of the agreements have been appalled at the embarrassing lack of detail, meaning the almost total absence of any admission of wrongdoing. It’s critical to understand why this silence is important. It means that regulators have accepted as a condition of the settlement that they are to protect the bank from private suits by remaining as silent as possible about precisely what horrible things were done. The absurd part is that regulators and prosecutors could easily call the banks’ bluff by threatening to go a few rounds in court: “Would you rather have us start discovery and see what we can get in the record, or would you rather make some admissions right now?”

But of course, the dirty secret here is the Administration is not just protecting the banks. It now also needs to hide how cronyistic its behavior has been.

Paul Krugman: Hawks Crying Wolf

According to a recent report in The Times, there is dissent at the Fed: “An increasingly vocal minority of Federal Reserve officials want the central bank to retreat more quickly” from its easy-money policies, which they warn run the risk of causing inflation. And this debate, we are told, is likely to dominate the big economic symposium currently underway in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

That may well be the case. But there’s something you should know: That “vocal minority” has been warning about soaring inflation more or less nonstop for six years. And the persistence of that obsession seems, to me, to be a more interesting and important story than the fact that the usual suspects are saying the usual things. [..]

Even monetary doves like Janet Yellen, the Fed chairwoman, generally acknowledge that there will come a time to take the pedal off the metal. And maybe that time isn’t far off – official unemployment has fallen sharply, although wages are still going nowhere and inflation is still subdued.

But the last people you want to ask about appropriate policy are people who have been warning about inflation year after year. Not only have they been consistently wrong, they’ve staked out a position that, whether they know it or not, is essentially political rather than based on analysis. They should be listened to politely – good manners are always a virtue – then ignored.

Michael Winship: Ferguson Is About Net Neutrality, Too

The tragedy and ensuing crisis in Ferguson, Missouri, have shown the ability of social media to get the story told. David Carr wrote in The New York Times that, “Twitter has become an early warning service for news organizations, a way to see into stories even when they don’t have significant reporting assets on the ground. And in a situation hostile to traditional reporting, the crowdsourced, phone-enabled network of information that Twitter provides has proved invaluable.”

Also contemplating the situation in Ferguson, Zeynep Tufekci, a fellow at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy noted, “It seems like a world ago in which such places, and such incidents, would be buried in silence, though, of course, residents knew of their own ignored plight. Now, we expect documentation, live-feeds, streaming video, real time Tweets.”

Which is a reason why the new generation of civil rights leaders – despite opposition from legacy groups like the NAACP that have received significant funding from the media and telecommunications conglomerates – recognizes that maintaining an Internet accessible to all is crucial. “…Keep in mind, Ferguson is also a net neutrality issue,” Tufekci writes. “… How the Internet is run, governed and filtered is a human rights issue.”

Bradford Betz: The Same Hashish They Give Out

As the public release of the Senate’s report on a four-year investigation into the CIA’s torture program approaches, John Brennan, the agency’s director, is in an uncomfortable spotlight. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is responsible for overseeing the CIA, has accused the agency of abusing its power. [..]

The ease with which Brennan lies about spying domestically and killing civilians abroad is quite disturbing. If John Brennan remains in power, furtherdisaster lies in wait.

While the CIA continues to operate beyond the bounds of legality, the smoke they create will blemish our integrity around the world. If the United States’ reputation can be rehabilitated, we must neither lie about nor trivialize what we are doing or what we have done.

“If I did something wrong,” Brennan said in an interview with Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, “I will go to the president, and I will explain to him exactly what I did and what the findings were. And he is the one who can ask me to stay or to go.”

Perhaps it is time for the president to take Brennan up on his offer.

Patrick Cokburn: Why Washington’s War on Terror Failed

There are extraordinary elements in the present U.S. policy in Iraq and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq, the U.S. is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The U.S. would presumably do the same if ISIS surrounds or attacks Baghdad. But in Syria, Washington’s policy is the exact opposite: there the main opponent of ISIS is the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds in their northern enclaves. Both are under attack from ISIS, which has taken about a third of the country, including most of its oil and gas production facilities. [..]

The reality of U.S. policy is to support the government of Iraq, but not Syria, against ISIS. But one reason that group has been able to grow so strong in Iraq is that it can draw on its resources and fighters in Syria. Not everything that went wrong in Iraq was the fault of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as has now become the political and media consensus in the West. Iraqi politicians have been telling me for the last two years that foreign backing for the Sunni revolt in Syria would inevitably destabilize their country as well.  This has now happened.

By continuing these contradictory policies in two countries, the U.S. has ensured that ISIS can reinforce its fighters in Iraq from Syria and vice versa. So far, Washington has been successful in escaping blame for the rise of ISIS by putting all the blame on the Iraqi government. In fact, it has created a situation in which ISIS can survive and may well flourish.

Joe Sexton: Paying Jabbar Collins $10 Million Doesn’t Address Problems With Prosecutors

The dollar figure was so large and the public statements of vindication and concession so harmonious, one might have been tempted to think the system had actually worked.

A wrongly convicted Brooklyn man had won his freedom when a federal judge called out a local prosecutor for misconduct. And then, this week, with the help of an able lawyer, the freed man won a $10 million settlement from New York City, gaining possible financial security for life.

But ProPublica’s reporting over the last two years suggests that any such temptation to think the system worked in the case of Jabbar Collins should be resisted.

The system for identifying and punishing misconduct by prosecutors is badly broken, our reporting shows, and with the Collins case settling, a crucial channel for exposing systemic problems and ensuring they don’t recur may close as well.

So many shortcomings spotlighted by the Collins case remain unresolved.

Aug 22 2014

Ferguson’s War on Freedom of the Press

Reporting the events by the news media in Ferguson, MO has become very problematic with the police limiting not only the press access to the demonstrations on the ground but the Federal Aviation Administration has created an unprecedented “no fly zone” over the town. The excuse is “to provide a safe environment for law enforcement operations.” The same reasoning was given repeatedly by Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson who has also threatened and ordered arrests of reporters.

The situation was so bad last week that on August 14 the ACLU sued the town and county and won a court order from a judge telling police that they cannot bar journalists from reporting which was promptly ignored.

Why is this happening? Of course the police excuse is that they are “protecting” the reporters and have also made the unsubstantiated accusation that the press is interfering with police operations. The real reason is they don’t want a free press to record any brutality on the part of the police in containing the demonstrators, peaceful or otherwise. Nor do they want the entrapment tactics, like blocking egress at both ends of the streets refusing to allow protestors to exit, then arresting them when they try to pass through to go home.

The bogus press conference that Capt. Johnson held in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, displaying a Molotov cocktail and other items confiscated from alleged “agitators,” was contrived to justify the use of tear gas, smoke bombs, rubber bullets and other military type weapons. It was fairly obvious from a trained observer that the way the “evidence” was handled – no gloves – and displayed – not bagged and tagged – that these were just props in the side show. Yes, capt Johnson, I call you on your preprocessed bovine waste (thank you, John Oliver).

Published on Aug 21, 2014

With 11 journalists arrested thus far, Truthout.org investigative reporter Mike Ludwig describes how Ferguson police are using intimidation tactics against journalists.



Transcript can be read here

Restricting and harassing the free press is a cover up of police criminality of the first order and it is being aided and abetted by the state government of Missouri and Federal government.  

Aug 21 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Dean Baker: What does the Fed have to do with Social Security? Plenty

Fed policies directly affect the future of Social Security’s finances

Most of the people who closely follow the Federal Reserve Board’s decisions on monetary policy are investors trying to get a jump on any moves that will affect financial markets. Very few of the people involved in the debate over the future of Social Security pay much attention to the Fed. That’s unfortunate because the connections are much more direct than is generally recognized.

The basic story of Social Security’s finances is that, while the program is entirely sound for the near future, the program is projected to face a shortfall in the 2030s. Under current law, at that point it will be necessary to reduce benefits from their scheduled level unless additional revenue can be raised.

Of course, the answer from those on the right is to cut benefits, the sooner the better. Progressives, along with most of the public overall, would like to see current benefit levels maintained and possibly increased. Most workers are approaching retirement with little other than Social Security to support them, which means that cuts from currently scheduled benefit levels would mean serious hardship for many.

Bob Herbert: The Fire This Time

I remember the stunned reaction of so many Americans back in the summer of 2005 when legions of poor black people in desperate circumstances seemed to have suddenly and inexplicably materialized in New Orleans during the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.

Expressions of disbelief poured in from around the nation: “How can this be  [..]

It was ever thus: Some tragic development occurs; the media spotlight homes in on black people who had previously been invisible; instant experts weigh in with their pompous, uninformed analyses; and commitments as empty as deflated balloons are made. This time it’s Ferguson, Missouri, in the spotlight. And you can bet the mortgage that this time will be no different.

George Zornick: For Many Politicians, Ferguson Isn’t Happening

Representative Paul Ryan’s response to the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri, police was fairly straightforward: say nothing, do nothing. “We should take a deep breath, let’s have some sympathy for the family and the community, and let’s not prejudge anything, and let’s let the investigation take its course and hope that justice is served appropriately,” he told Fox News on Tuesday. “But what I don’t want to do as a political leader is try to graft my policy initiatives or my preferences onto this tragedy.”

It was not a great moment in the Republican Party’s alleged outreach to minority communities, which Ryan has been championing, but this silence is a bipartisan affair. Many politicians on both sides of the aisle, with a few valuable exceptions, have by and large avoided what’s happening in Missouri entirely.

Most of the candidates likely to contend for the presidency in 2016 have been silent. Hillary Clinton, who has been eager in recent weeks to opine extensively on national issues as she embarked on a book tour, has acted as if the situation isn’t happening.

Anna Feigenbaum: The National Guard protects Ferguson’s police, not its people

Backing a militarized police force with civilian soldiers makes a mockery of the right to protest

On August 16, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon called National Guard troops into Ferguson to “ensure the safety and welfare of the citizens.” This call came amid international debate over the militarized police response to protests that were sparked by the police killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. Commentators have questioned why, on top of heavily armed riot teams, the governor needs the National Guard?

Rarely deployed to deal with civilian unrest, in most instances National Guard troops lay sandbags and hand out bottles of water. But as troops turned up in Ferguson on Monday clad in military fatigues and equipped with rifles, they aroused memories of America’s past.

In Ferguson these civilian soldiers were clearly not there to just hand out water. As Monday night’s imagesof excessive force showed, the National Guard was called in to protect the police, not the people. Through wafts of tear gas, with guns ready, these troops provided military backup to an already militarized police force. For many, this is like rubbing salt in a community’s wounds. And as a closer look at the history of National Guard deployments makes clear – from Kent State to the Los Angeles riots – its presence often serves to justify police violence.

Robert Reich: The Disease of American Democracy

Americans are sick of politics. Only 13 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, a near record low. The president’s approval ratings are also in the basement.

A large portion of the public doesn’t even bother voting. Only 57.5 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the 2012 presidential election.

Put simply, most Americans feel powerless, and assume the political game is fixed. So why bother?

A new study scheduled to be published in this fall by Princeton’s Martin Gilens and Northwestern University’s Benjamin Page confirms our worst suspicions.

Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence on them of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups, and average citizens.

Their conclusion: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

Clay Calvert: Honor Journalist James Foley: Don’t Watch the Video

If the early reports are correct and journalist James Foley was, in fact, executed by ISIS, you can honor him — and not play into the terroristic hands of that organization — simply by not watching the video of his murder.

Video voyeurism of the worst variety exists when we feast on the death of journalists who strive, through their reporting, to keep our society free. Resist the temptation to take even the briefest of looks.

A dozen years have passed since Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was killed by terrorists in Pakistan. The images from that tragedy are still haunting today. [..]

It’s been a tough enough stretch of days for journalists being arrested in Ferguson, Mo., but Foley’s apparent execution even puts those arrests into perspective when it comes to the dangers of being a journalist.

And if the reports of his death are wrong, then that would be the very best news to report.

Aug 20 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Heather Digby Parton: Ferguson brings the libertarians: Why a new coalition has everyone confused

After Mike Brown’s shooting, an alliance of left and right emerged to demilitarize police. But here’s what it’s not

One of the most misunderstood elements of American politics has to be the fact that legislative coalitions are very different from voting coalitions. The most obvious case in point is the erroneous assumption that the coalition that often forms around civil liberties, featuring elements of the most ideologically committed members of the left and the right, means that these groups are in agreement as to the goals they wish to obtain. It’s not essential that everyone who signs on to a bill is doing so for the same reason, but it’s vitally important that people not misinterpret the joint action as a sign that we are entering a moment of bipartisan kumbaya that will heal the nation’s wounds and bring us together once and for all. [..]

The fact is that defending civil liberties almost always requires strange bedfellows for the simple reason that it rests on the principle that they must protect everyone, even people who say and do things you do not like. Especially people who say and do things you do not like. It does not mean there is a meaningful alliance on goals or a meeting of the minds beyond the basic rules of the road, which require us to respect each other’s freedom. There is no hope for an ideological alignment that “breaks the two party system ” and liberals will not be singing the same tune as Larry Pratt and his gun-toting extremists any time soon.

When it comes to civil liberties it’s often the case that civil libertarians of the left will find themselves holding hands with the far right (as well as their noses) to ensure that the Bill of Rights is kept safe for both of them. And then they’ll go back to fighting each other with everything they have. It’s not a perfect system but it’s all we’ve got.

Joan Walsh: Down goes Perry! The GOP’s “deep bench” just completely fell apart

Pity the billionaire Republican donors, trying to choose among Christie, Walker and now-indicted Rick Perry for ’16

There was a time, long ago, when the Beltway media had a comforting narrative for Republicans, as they faced the loss of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in 2012. And it was: Unlike the Democrats, who were relying on flawed hero Hillary Clinton, the GOP had a “deep bench” of candidates for 2016, one that was especially thick with pragmatic governors.

But that bench has been splintering for a while, and now it’s a small pile of wood shavings that might be used as tinder for a fire that could ignite in 2020 or later – or not. Actually, it’s probably not even that useful. [..]

Imagine being a billionaire Republican donor: What would you do, surveying the GOP field, if you wanted to avoid the extremism of Sen. Ted Cruz and the eccentric, occasionally libertarian stylings of Sen. Rand Paul, two relative electoral neophytes. You’d likely be crossing Rick Perry off your list tonight, even if you sympathize with his political troubles. “Indicted, but not convicted” isn’t the best slogan for a presidential candidate. There are better slogans for Republicans; Dave Weigel jokingly suggests “Romney 2016: Still not indicted.” I’m not sure that’s the winner, either, but Romney is more likely to be nominated than Rick Perry right now.

 

Zoë Carpenter: Why Protesters in Ferguson Can’t Stay Home at Night

In the ten days since Brown was killed, law enforcement have tried to quell protests with rubber bullets and tear gas, with at least four different police forces, with a charismatic captain, with a curfew, by forcing protesters to walk, not stand, and finally with the National Guard. On Tuesday, Johnson said police would again try a “different operational plan,” which seemed to amount to “hoping that protesters will stay home” at night.

There’s been a lot of talk about trust, and its absence, in Ferguson and elsewhere. “In too many communities around the country, a gulf of mistrust exists between local residents and law enforcement,” President Obama said Monday. The mistrust in Ferguson is rooted in history, but it’s also being deepened in real time. History tells us that justice is unlikely to be served in this case; the conduct of the local officials charged with investigating Brown’s death only signals to the community that this time will not be different. In that context, not staying home at night seems like the only way to ensure that it will be.

Michelle Goldberg: Tear Gas Is an Abortifacient. Why Won’t the Anti-Abortion Movement Oppose It?

A couple of years ago, when I was newly pregnant and reporting in the West Bank, some of my local colleagues insisted that I skip covering a protest at an Israeli checkpoint. At first, I was resistant to letting pregnancy stand in the way of my work, but they knew from experience that there might be tear gas, and tear gas, they said, causes miscarriages. [..]

This means it’s likely that police in Ferguson, Missouri, have been spraying abortion-causing chemicals on crowds of civilians. Recently at TheNation.com, Dani McClain wrote about the killing of black youth as a reproductive justice issue, one that goes to the heart of the rights of parents to raise their children in peace, safety and dignity. She’s correct, of course, but if the anti-abortion movement were actually concerned about the well-being of the unborn, then the violence in Ferguson would be a pro-life issue as well.

Arwa Mahdawi: Satire is dying because the internet is killing it

Facebook’s [satire] tag may prevent people believing Kim Jong-un was voted the sexiest man alive, but the damage is done

Forget self-driving cars or virtual reality nano-technology algorithms, the newest innovation to emerge from Silicon Valley is square brackets. Facebook is testing a “satire tag” that will clearly label fake news stories from well-known satire sites like the Onion as satire]. No longer will you need to rely on outdated technology such as common sense to realise that content like [Area Facebook User Incredibly Stupid is [satire], the square brackets will do it for you.

It should perhaps be noted that Facebook isn’t introducing the satire tag because it thinks we’re all morons, but rather because it knows we’re all morons. In a statement, the social network explained that it had “received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others”.

Aug 19 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Dennis J. Kucinich: Militarized Police and the Threat to Democracy

As a former big city mayor of a racially diverse city, Cleveland, Ohio, I can understand the cross currents sweeping through Ferguson, Missouri.

We are at a moment of national crisis in the way our domestic law enforcement is being conducted. The killing of an unarmed civilian by a law enforcement officer is, sadly, not unique. But the police response to the protests has provided a powerful cautionary moment for America. The militarization of local police has led to the arrival today in Ferguson of the actual military, the National Guard. [..]

An unarmed, African-American teenager was shot and killed by a policeman. As people protested, the Ferguson police response evoked images of an occupying army come home.

The show of military-style force in an American city has created a huge backlash because the underlying concerns for justice have not been addressed. Moreover, Americans don’t want armies patrolling their streets, attempting to stifle public dissent.

There is something deep in the American psyche which resents and resists military-style force in our neighborhoods. The hard-edged military pose of armored vehicles, heavy duty weaponry, and sound cannons, which can permanently damage hearing, may seem like modern crowd control to some law enforcement officials. But to the people in the community who are on the receiving end, it is an escalation of violence, in real terms and by the law.

Dean Baker: Robert Rubin and Martin Feldstein Discover Bubbles

Last week Martin Feldstein and Robert Rubin made their case for the gold medal in the economic policy category of the “show no shame” contest. Their entry took the form of a joint op-ed in the Wall Street Journal warning that the Fed needs to take seriously the risk of asset bubbles growing in financial markets.

Those familiar with Feldstein and Rubin will instantly appreciate the bold audacity of this entry. They are, respectively, the leading intellectual lights of the Republican and Democratic Party economic policy establishments. [..]

Given their enormous stature, Feldstein and Rubin undoubtedly expected their joint bubble warning to have considerable weight in economic policy circles. Of course this raises the obvious question, why couldn’t Feldstein and Rubin have joined hands to issue this sort of bubble warning 10 years ago in 2004 about the housing bubble? If they used their influence to get a column about the dangers of the housing bubble in the Wall Street Journal in the summer of 2004 it might have saved the country and the world an enormous amount of pain.

John Nichols: Defend Journalism That Speaks Truth to Power: From Ferguson to Washington

“A popular government, without popular information, or the mean of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both,” declared James Madison, the author and champion of the Bill of Rights. “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

This is still the essential truth of an American experiment that can only be advanced toward the equal and inclusive justice that did not exist in Madison’s time by a broadly informed and broadly engaged citizenry. When journalists are harassed, intimidated, threatened and detained, the basic premise of democracy-that the great mass of people, armed with information and perspective, and empowered to act upon it, will set right that which is made wrong by oligarchs-is assaulted. [..]

What is at stake is a free and open society; and it is not enough that the most egregious wrongs have been identified and decried. The culture, the climate, in which those wrongs occur so frequently, must change. It must change because the journalism that goes to places like Ferguson, the gets behind the façade of institutions like the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, that demands accountability from street cops and presidents, is much more than an exercise in information gathering. It is the vital link that gives citizens the information they need to bend the arc of history toward justice. There is no middle ground in this regard. Americans are either going to defend speak-truth-to-power journalism and vibrant democracy-as part of a broad reassertion of First Amendment rights-or they are going to have to settle for propaganda and oligarchy.

David Cay Johnston: Highest earners making less, Social Security data show

The news should create common cause for custodians and CEOs to push for economic growth

It is getting much harder to earn big bucks in America, my new analysis of official wage data shows. [..]

Now why should the typical worker care about this trifecta of bad news for high earners? After all, just one worker in about 4,100 makes this kind of money. What does it possibly matter to ordinary Americans that bosses who make as much in a year as they may earn for a lifetime of labor are squeezed a bit?

It matters because falling pay at the top can become a powerful tool for change. U.S. representatives and senators may not care much what a typical constituent thinks, but they do care about what the highest-paid Americans think, because they donate to campaigns.

If those at the top come to see that they share the travails of most other Americans, it increases the prospect of government policy changes that will grow our economy. We need to invest in the future of America for our economy can grow, which will make everyone, from custodians to CEOs, better off.

Alex S. Vitale: How to End Militarized Policing

We can undo the policies facilitating police violence in Ferguson.

In the last week, the ACLU, Color of Change and even libertarian Senator Rand Paul have demanded that militarized policing in the United States be dialed back. While it is essential that major reductions in the high-tech military presence of police be enacted, real changes in the way communities of color are policed require much deeper shifts in the core mission and function of American police. [..]

Ultimately, what underlies most of these militarized forms of policing is a cynical politics of race that has perverted criminal justice policies; they are no longer about crime or justice, but instead the management of poor and non-white populations through ever-more-punitive practices. Michelle Alexander, in The New Jim Crow, describes how modern criminal justice policy was driven by a Republican effort to appeal to white voters in the South and then by Democrats hoping to inoculate themselves against charges (i.e., the notorious Willie Horton smear) of being soft on crime.

Eugene Robinson: The Ones Left Behind

The fire this time is about invisibility. Our society expects the police to keep unemployed, poorly educated African-American men out of sight and out of mind. When they suddenly take center stage, illuminated by the flash and flicker of Molotov cocktails, we feign surprise.

The proximate cause of the rioting in Ferguson, Mo., is the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was stopped, a witness has said, by a white policeman for walking in the street rather than on the sidewalk. Officer Darren Wilson shot Brown at least six times, according to a private autopsy and, reportedly, one conducted by the county medical examiner. Two of those bullets struck him in the head.

There we have the familiar narrative: another unarmed black man unjustly killed. Brown thus joins a long, sad list-Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, etc.-that seems to have no end.

This storyline is unassailable. Anyone who thinks race is not a factor in these fatal encounters should have to cite examples of unarmed young white men being killed by trigger-happy police or self-appointed vigilantes. Names and dates, please.

Aug 19 2014

“Take the ‘F*cking Toys’ Away from the Police”

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Ferguson, MO and Police Militarization

My one disagreement with John, the cops shouldn’t get these “toys” back no matter how well they might behave.

Aug 19 2014

Amnesty International Arrives In Ferguson

In an unprecedented move, Amnesty International has sent a group of thirteen observers to observe the situation in Ferguson, MO in the aftermath of the shooting of an unarmed, black teenager, Michael Brown by a white police officer.

Amnesty decided to send a delegation to the city last week – a day after Amnesty International USA’s Executive Director Steven Hawkins sent a letter to law enforcement officials there (pdf) expressing “deep concern” about Brown’s death and the way in which the police responded to protesters in the following days.

On Saturday, Hawkins criticized Nixon’s decision to impose a mandatory midnight-to-5 a.m. curfew on Ferguson. Nixon on Monday rescinded the curfew, following another night of violence on Sunday and his decision to deploy the Guard. [..]

Jasmine Heiss, an Washington-based campaigner for Amnesty International, was part of the delegation that traveled to Ferguson. Her previous deployment? Palestine.

“What was unprecedented and is unprecedented,” Heiss said of Ferguson, “is the scope of Amnesty’s] mission.” Amnesty’s response in Ferguson, she added, was more akin to the organization’s work during the [2013 protests in Turkey than it was to any previous action the group has taken in the United States.

Amnesty is now calling for a full investigation of police tactics in Ferguson

Amnesty International USA is calling for:

   A prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown. Brown’s family must be kept informed throughout the investigation. Under international law, police officers suspected of having committed unlawful acts must be held to account through effective investigation, and where warranted, prosecuted.

   All police departments involved in policing the ongoing protests in Ferguson in response to Michael Brown’s death must act in accordance with international human rights standards. Any human rights abuses in connection with the policing of protests must be independently and impartially investigated, and those responsible held accountable.

   A thorough review of all trainings, policies and procedures with regards to the use of force and the policing of protests should be undertaken.

“Moving forward, we must seize this moment to bring about a wide-ranging review of all trainings, policies and procedures with regard to the use of force and the policing of protests in Ferguson and around the country,” added Hawkins. “This is a moment for people around the country – and around the world – to join the Ferguson community in raising concerns about race and policing, and about the impact of militarization on our fundamental right to peacefully assemble.”

Amnesty’s Executive Director, Stephen Hawkins spoke with Democracy Now‘s Amy Goodman about the protests and the police tactics



The transcript can be read here.

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