If you can’t stand the pitiful coverage by networks and cable, there is always the alternative to shut off the TV. On the other hand if you’re addicted to finding out who won, there are alternatives. There is Al Jezeera English and Current that are carried by some cable providers. Then there is the Internet. Again Al Jazeera English and Russia Today are both live streaming. RT is embeddable.
Tag: Politics
Nov 06 2012
The Last Debate
And you thought we were all done with debates. This is the last until about 2014. This debate was supposed to take place October 30 in Washington, DC but Super hurricane Sandy had other plans. It is the second of two debates that was sponsored by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation and it is between Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. They were the winners of an on line poll that was taken after the first debate on October 23 which included Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson and Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode.
The final debate was moderated by Tom Hartman, host of RT News‘ “Big Picture,” and Christina Tobin from the Free and Equal Elections Foundation.
You can read the summery of topics that the candidates debated here
Nov 06 2012
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
New York Times Editorial: The Battle for the Senate
For Republicans intent on unraveling President Obama’s accomplishments, electing Mitt Romney has been only one part of the equation. Almost as important was installing a Republican majority in the United States Senate, where 50 votes (plus the vice president) would be necessary to repeal much of health care reform, roll back tax increases on the rich and gut social welfare programs.
The party’s hopes, however, have been severely damaged in recent weeks. Republican candidates who are crucial to regaining a majority in the Senate have tumbled, according to a variety of polls, and Democrats are now considered likely to retain control. The reason for this is clear: Primary voters chose several unappealing or ideologically driven candidates who repelled general-election voters once they began speaking their minds.
Dean baker: Romney’s Global Warming Joke Should Haunt Him
When Gov. Romney gave his acceptance speech at the Republican convention he quipped that President Obama wants to slow the rise of the oceans and that he, by contrast, wanted to help American families. It would be interesting to see if Romney would care to repeat this line today.
Perhaps he wants to tell the people of New York and New Jersey who have seen their homes — and in some cases lives — destroyed by the rise of the oceans, how silly President Obama is for taking steps to counter global warming. These people will surely get a good chuckle from the Governor’s sense of humor as they wait to have to electricity restored or their home rebuilt. [..]
Anyone who thinks all this is funny should be disqualified from being taken seriously, not only as presidential candidate, but from holding any responsible position in public life. We can debate the best path for dealing with global warming, and there will certainly be grounds for dispute over the merits of any specific policy or project, but serious people do not ignore the threat posed by human-caused global warming.
Robert Reich: We the People, and the New American Civil War
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.
Nov 05 2012
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: Sandy Versus Katrina
As Sandy barreled toward New Jersey, there were hopeful mutters on the right to the effect that it might become President Obama’s Katrina, with voters blaming him for the damage, and that this might matter on Tuesday. Sorry, guys: polls show overwhelming approval for Mr. Obama’s handling of the storm, and a significant rise in his overall favorability ratings.
And he deserves the bump. For the response to Sandy, like the success of the auto bailout, is a demonstration that Mr. Obama’s philosophy of government – which holds that the government can and should provide crucial aid in times of crisis – works. And conversely, the contrast between Sandy and Katrina demonstrates that leaders who hold government in contempt cannot provide that aid when it is needed.
New York Times Editorial; Desperate for Civility
What sounds like a tall order for Capitol Hill – civility – is being increasingly invoked now that actual bipartisanship seems as distant as Pluto. Senator Olympia Snowe, for one, is ending her 34 years on Capitol Hill by becoming a board member of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, a nonpartisan advocacy group founded after the Arizona shooting last year that killed six people and gravely wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords. [..]
The public can only hope that after this election something both civil and creative might be possible in Congress. Note that Congress actually has a Civility Caucus, though it has gathered only 14 members in seven years. This is rather embarrassing, considering there are 200-plus members in the Congressional Wine Caucus, a group that might arguably offer stronger elixir for the gridlock on Capitol Hill.
Howard Feinman: Race to the Bottom
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.
Nov 05 2012
Correcting America’s Democracy
We have other choices this Election Day. This is Chris Hedges’ choice and his rational explanation why he is not voting for either Obama or Romney.
by Chris Hedges
The November election is not a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is not a battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It is a battle between the corporate state and us. And if we do not immediately engage in this battle we are finished, as climate scientists have made clear. I will defy corporate power in small and large ways. I will invest my energy now solely in acts of resistance, in civil disobedience and in defiance. Those who rebel are our only hope. And for this reason I will vote next month for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, although I could as easily vote for Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. I will step outside the system. Voting for the “lesser evil”-or failing to vote at all-is part of the corporate agenda to crush what is left of our anemic democracy. And those who continue to participate in the vaudeville of a two-party process, who refuse to confront in every way possible the structures of corporate power, assure our mutual destruction.
All the major correctives to American democracy have come through movements and third parties that have operated outside the mainstream. Few achieved formal positions of power. These movements built enough momentum and popular support, always in the face of fierce opposition, to force the power elite to respond to their concerns. Such developments, along with the courage to defy the political charade in the voting booth, offer the only hope of saving us from Wall Street predators, the assault on the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry, the rise of the security and surveillance state and the dramatic erosion of our civil liberties. [..]
The flimsy excuses used by liberals and progressives to support Obama, including the argument that we can’t let Romney appoint the next Supreme Court justices, ignore the imperative of building a movement as fast and as radical as possible as a counterweight to corporate power. The Supreme Court, no matter what its composition, will not save us from financial implosion and climate collapse. And Obama, whatever his proclivity on social issues, has provided ample evidence that he will not alter his servitude to the corporate state. For example, he has refused to provide assurance that he will not make cuts in basic social infrastructures. He has proposed raising the eligibility age for Medicare, a move that would leave millions without adequate health care in retirement. He has said he will reduce the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security, thrusting vast numbers of seniors into poverty. Progressives’ call to vote for independents in “safe” states where it is certain the Democrats will win will do nothing to mitigate fossil fuel’s ravaging of the ecosystem, regulate and prosecute Wall Street or return to us our civil liberties.
“There is no state out there where either Obama or Romney offers a way out of here alive,” Stein said. “It’s up to us to create truly safe states, a safe nation, and a safe planet. Neither Obama nor Romney has a single exit strategy from the deadly crises we face.”
Nov 05 2012
The Disenchanted Election
by Chris Hedges
I learned at the age of 10, when I was shipped off to a New England boarding school where the hazing of younger boys was the principal form of recreation, that those who hunger for power are psychopathic bastards. The bullies in the forms above me, the sadistic masters on our dormitory floors, the deans and the headmaster would morph in later life into bishops, newspaper editors, college presidents, politicians, heads of state, business titans and generals. Those who revel in the ability to manipulate and destroy are demented and deformed individuals. These severely diminished and stunted human beings-think Bill and Hillary Clinton-shower themselves, courtesy of elaborate public relations campaigns and an obsequious press, with encomiums of piety, patriotism, devoted public service, honor, courage and vision, not to mention a lot of money. They are at best mediocrities and usually venal. I have met enough of them to know.
So it is with some morbid fascination that I watch Barack Obama, who has become the prime “dominatrix” of the liberal class, force us in this election to plead for more humiliation and abuse. Obama has carried out a far more egregious assault on our civil liberties, including signing into law Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), than George W. Bush. Section 1021(b)(2), which I challenged in federal court, permits the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military facilities. U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest struck down the law in September. The Obama administration immediately appealed the decision. The NDAA has been accompanied by use of the Espionage Act, which Obama has turned to six times in silencing whistle-blowers. Obama supported the FISA Amendment Act so government could spy on tens of millions of us without warrants. He has drawn up kill lists to exterminate those, even U.S. citizens, deemed by the ruling elite to be terrorists. [..]
The only recognizable basis for moral and political authority, in the eyes of the elite, is the attainment of material success and power. It does not matter how it is gotten. The role of education, the elites believe, is to train us vocationally for our allotted positions and assure proper deference to the wealthy. Disciplines that prod us to think are-and the sneering elites are not wrong about this-“political,” “leftist,” “liberal” or “subversive.” And schools and universities across the country are effectively stomping out these disciplines. The elites know, as Canetti wrote, that once we stop thinking we become a herd. We react to every new stimulus as if we were rats crammed into a cage. When the elites push the button we jump. It is collective sadomasochism. And we will get a good look at it on Election Day.
by Glenn Greenwald
Where do the abuses of the last decade from Bush and Obama rank when compared to prior assaults in the name of war?
The following interesting question arose yesterday from what at first appeared to be some petty Twitter bickering: who was the worst president for civil liberties in US history? That question is a difficult one to answer because it is so reliant upon which of many valid standards of measurement one chooses; it depends at least as much on the specific rights which one understands the phrase “civil liberties” to encompass. That makes the question irresolvable in any definitive way, but its examination is nonetheless valuable for the light it sheds on current political disputes.
It’s worthwhile first to set forth the context in which the question arose. At their Lawfare blog, Ritika Singh and Benjamin Wittes posted an excerpt of an essay they wrote for a new book on the War of 1812; their essay pertains to the impact of that war on civil liberties and executive power. The two Brookings writers note that despite intense domestic opposition to the war, President Madison “eschewed the authority to detain American citizens in military custody or try them in military tribunals, and more generally, declined to undertake the sorts of executive overreaches we have come to expect – and even encourage – from our presidents in war.” [..]
But in terms of the role played by war in enabling civil liberties assaults, at least the exploited wars are usually real. In the case of the “War on Terror”, it is far more illusory and frivolous than real. That – along with their permanence – is a major factor in determining where the civil liberties erosions of the last decade, and the presidents responsible for them, rank in history.
Nov 04 2012
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:
Up with Chris Hayes: Joining Chris are Sasha Issenberg (@sissenberg), author of “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns,” Slate.com columnist and Washington correspondent for Monocle; Evan Wolfson (@evanwolfson), founder and president of Freedom to Marry; Mason Tvert, executive director of SAFERChoice.org; Kim Barker (@Kim_Barker), reporter for ProPublica.org; Katrina vanden Heuvel (@katrinanation), editor and publisher of The Nation magazine; Joy Reid (@TheReidReport), MSNBC contributor, managing editor of TheGrio.com; Josh Barro (@jbarro), Bloomberg View columnist; Bob Herbert (@BobHerbert), Demos.org distinguished senior fellow; and Suman Raghunathan, director of policy and strategic partnerships for the non-partisan Progressive States Network.
This Week with George Stephanopolis: This Sunday’s guests are White House senior adviser David Plouffe and Romney campaign senior adviser Ed Gillespie.
The roundtable gives its final take before Election Day, including their own election predictions, with ABC News’ George Will, Cokie Roberts, Donna Brazile, Matthew Dowd, and Ronald Brownstein of National Journal.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Two panels will break down what to expect from the campaigns over the next three days. On the first panel roundtable gives its final take before Election Day, including their own election predictions, with ABC News’ George Will, Cokie Roberts, Donna Brazile, Matthew Dowd, and Ronald Brownstein of National Journal.
Then on the second panel guests Anna Greenberg, Leslie Sanchez, Stuart Rothenberg, Larry Sabato, and Anthony Salvanto take a look at the numbers behind a 2012 victory.
The Chris Matthews Show: This Week’s Guests
Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst; John Heilemann, New York Magazine
National Political Correspondent; Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post Senior Political Editor and Joy Reid The Grio/ MSNBC
Meet the Press with David Gregory: On MTP this Sunday are White House Senior Adviser and architect of President Obama’s 2008 campaign, David Plouffe and House Majority Leader and representative from key battleground state Virginia, Rep. Eric Cantor (R).
The roundtable guests are Mayor Cory Booker(D-Newark); MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough; GOP strategist Mike Murphy; TODAY co-host Savannah Guthrie; and NBC Special Correspondent, Tom Brokaw.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are former White House Chief of Staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the key Romney adviser, Ohio Senator Rob Portman.
Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf, CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash, and PBS’ Gwen Ifill join in discussing the presidential campaign and the down ballot races
Nov 04 2012
What We Now Know
Up with Chris Hayes host, Chris Hayes (@chrishayes) discusses what we have learned this week with his guests John Nichols (@NicholsUprising), Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine, associate editor of The Capital Times (Madison, WI); Michael Moynihan (@mcmoynihan), cultural news editor for Newsweek and The Daily Beast; Betsey Stevenson (@BetseyStevenson), columnist for Bloomberg View, assistant professor of business and public policy at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor (2010-2011); and Esther Armah (@estherarmah), host of WBAI-FM’s “Wake Up Call.”
Bro: House candidate Bentivolio ‘mentally unbalanced’
by Kate Nocera at Politico
The brother of Kerry Bentivolio says the Michigan congressional candidate, who’s favored to win on Tuesday, is “mentally unbalanced” and could end up in jail.
“I’ve never met anyone in my life who is conniving and dishonest as this guy,” Phillip Bentivolio said, according to the Michigan Information and Research Service (subscription required). “He’s my brother so it’s hard to talk about this, but I believe that if he gets elected, he’ll eventually serve time in prison.” [..]
Kerry Bentivolio is a Santa Claus impersonator and reindeer farmer. He made headlines after old court documents surfaced quoting him saying he had a “problem figuring out which one I really am, Santa Claus or Kerry Bentivolio.” He’s running against Democrat Syad Taj.
Democrats Press Rivals to Give Source of Akin Ad Funds
by Kathleen Hunter and Greg Giroux at Bloomberg Businessweek
The Republican campaign committee announced it wouldn’t spend money to support Akin after he said Aug. 19 that “legitimate rape” rarely results in pregnancy. Akin is trying to defeat first-term Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, and Republican leaders abandoned his campaign after his remark about rape. [..]
The source of the funds hasn’t been disclosed. NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh declined to comment on whether the national Republican campaign organization provided money to the state party to help pay for the ads. Akin on the same day spent $300,000 of his campaign money on new ads.
The Artwork That Infuriated Big Coal
by Michelle Nijhuis at Slate
“Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around” was installed on the U.W. campus in late 2011. Funded by an anonymous donor and by the state Cultural Trust Fund, it consisted of a 36-foot-wide circle of logs from beetle-killed trees, arranged in a whirlpool pattern around a pile of coal. Drury hoped the sculpture would be left in place until it disintegrated, and the director of the campus art museum said there were “no plans to uninstall it.” It was, Drury said, intended to inspire a conversation.
In May 2012, however, just after most students left campus, Carbon Sink quietly disappeared.
When University of Wyoming graduate Joe Riis inquired about the fate of Carbon Sink, a university vice-president told him that it had been removed due to water damage. But emails recently obtained by Irina Zhorov, an enterprising reporter at Wyoming Public Media, tell a different story. After the university announced the installation of Carbon Sink, Marion Loomis, the president of the Wyoming Mining Association, wrote to a university official and asked: “What kind of crap is this?” Both industry representatives and state legislators weighed in on the sculpture, some threatening the university’s funding in no uncertain terms.
Nov 03 2012
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
Michelle Chen: In Sandy’s Wake, New York’s Landscape of Inequity Revealed
The shock of Sandy is still rippling across the northeastern United States. But in the microcosm of New York City, we can already see who’s going to bear the brunt of the damage. As Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, floodwaters have a way of exposing the race and class divisions that stratify our cities.
Though some bus and subway service is returning, many neighborhoods dependent on public transportation remain functionally shuttered. Not surprisingly, recent surveys show that Metropolitan Transit Authority ridership consists mostly of people of color, nearly half living on less than $50,000 a year in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
It’s true that Sandy’s path of destruction was to some extent an equal opportunity assault, pummeling the trendiest downtown enclaves and blighted neighborhoods alike. But residents’ levels of resilience to the storm–the capacity to absorb trauma–will likely follow the sharp peaks and valleys of the city’s economic landscape.
Robert Reich: More Jobs, Lousy Wages, and the Desertion of Non-College White Men From the Democratic Party
The two most important trends, confirmed in today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are that (1) jobs slowly continue to return, and (2) those jobs are paying less and less.
Today’s report showed 171,000 workers were added to payrolls in October, up from 148,000 in September. At the same time, unemployment rose to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent last month. The reason for the seeming disparity: As jobs have begun to return, more people have been entering the labor force seeking employment. The household survey, on which the unemployment percentage is based, counts as “unemployed” only people who are looking for work.
Ralph Nader: Be an Expert Voter
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?
Nov 02 2012
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: The Blackmail Caucus
If President Obama is re-elected, health care coverage will expand dramatically, taxes on the wealthy will go up and Wall Street will face tougher regulation. If Mitt Romney wins instead, health coverage will shrink substantially, taxes on the wealthy will fall to levels not seen in 80 years and financial regulation will be rolled back.
Given the starkness of this difference, you might have expected to see people from both sides of the political divide urging voters to cast their ballots based on the issues. Lately, however, I’ve seen a growing number of Romney supporters making a quite different argument. Vote for Mr. Romney, they say, because if he loses, Republicans will destroy the economy.
O.K., they don’t quite put it that way. The argument is phrased in terms of “partisan gridlock,” as if both parties were equally extreme. But they aren’t. This is, in reality, all about appeasing the hard men of the Republican Party.
Bruce A. Dixon: Is This Really The Most Important Election Ever? If So, Then Where Are Our Issues?
It’s hard to see how an election is so darn important for black America when the candidates aren’t talking about the issues. Which one is the candidate that wants to roll back the prison state, or stop the drug war, or question gentrification? Is there a candidate who wants full funding of public education? A candidate who will cut off troops and military aid to Africa? If not, what are we voting for? [..]
The current black political class, and its array of candidates from the president down do not believe in social justice. There are big problems, but they fear big and truthful answers. They don’t want to roll back the prison state. They just want to stick around awhile longer. They want to be on TV and collect honorariums. They don’t know how to address joblessness or gentrification. That’s your issue. They just know how to get paid.
New York Times Editorial: The Junk Is Back in Junk Bonds
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.
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