Tag: Politics

Jun 26 2011

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”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: This week’s guest are Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn (D-SC).

On the roundtable George Will, former White House communications director Anita Dunn, Thomson Reuters’ Chrystia Freeland and ABC’s senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl discuss the debt limit. A second roundtable will examine the Afghan withdrawal wit George Will, ABC News’ senior foreign affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz and professor of international politics at Tufts University Vali Nasr.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:Mr. Schieffer’s guest will be Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

The Chris Matthews Show: This Week’s Guests Norah O’Donnell, David Ignatius, The Washington Post Columnist, Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor and Helene Cooper The New York Times White House Correspondent who will discuss the Afghan withdrawal and the dilemma for the Tea Party if either Romney or Huntsman is nominated.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Gusets are New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Armed Services Committee members Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA).

Roundtable: Decision 2012 and more with the BBC’s Katty Kay, The NYT’s Matt Bai and David Brooks

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Guests are Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, Bill Burton, former deputy press secretary for President Obama, and Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush..

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: A world-wide exclusive with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, PIMCO’s CEO Mohamed El-Erian and CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

Now you can all go back to bed or celebrate Gay Marriage in New York

Maureen Dowd: Why Is He Bi? (Sigh)

HE was born this way.

Bi.

Not bisexual. Not even bipartisan. Just binary.

Our president likes to be on both sides at once.

In Afghanistan, he wants to go but he wants to stay. He’s surging and withdrawing simultaneously. He’s leaving fewer troops than are needed for a counterinsurgency strategy and more troops than are needed for a counterterrorism strategy – and he seems to want both strategies at the same time. Our work is done but we have to still be there. Our work isn’t done but we can go.

On Libya, President Obama wants to lead from behind. He’s engaging in hostilities against Qaddafi while telling Congress he’s not engaging in hostilities against Qaddafi.

Mark Weisbrot: European Authorities Risking Financial Contagion in Greek Showdown; Where Is the U.S. Government?

The US had better be ready for the economic shock

The European authorities are playing a dangerous game of “chicken” with Greece right now. It is overdue for US members of Congress to exercise some oversight as to what our government’s role is in this process, and how we might be preparing for a Greek debt default. Depending on how it happens, this default could have serious repercussions for the international financial system, the US economy and, indeed, the world economy.

New York Times Editorial: Whose Stimulus?

Big businesses are telling Washington that they are willing to do their bit for the economy – if the price is right. Multinational companies say they could repatriate hundreds of billions in foreign profits and pump them into domestic investment and hiring, but only if Congress and the White House agree to cut the tax rate on those profits to 5.25 percent from 35 percent. They call their plan “the next stimulus.” Sounds more like extortion.

In the last five years American businesses have kept abroad more than $1 trillion worth of foreign earnings, according to government data. An article by David Kocieniewski in The Times last week noted that Microsoft has $29 billion offshore, Google has $17 billion and Apple has $12 billion.

Robert Naiman: Kucinich: Ensure Safety of U.S. Citizens on The Audacity of Hope

In many arenas of human endeavor, there is no plausible way to convince someone through abstract argument that an endeavor that appears to be incredibly difficult is nonetheless not impossible. There’s nothing for it but to create an example.

Efforts to get Members of Congress to do anything related in any way to the basic human rights of Palestinians that is not slavishly pro-Likud is a prime example of this phenomenon. Many are convinced – not without evidence that makes their position seductive – that it is an immutable law of the universe that all Members of Congress must always express fealty to right-wing views on this topic.

Frank Bruni: To Know Us Is to Let Us Love

IN the mid-1980s, when I was in college, what concerned and frustrated my peers and me was how few states had basic statutes forbidding discrimination against gay men and lesbians: laws that merely prevented someone from being denied a job or apartment on the basis of whom he or she loved. At that point only Wisconsin and the District of Columbia provided such protection. The decade would end with just one addition, Massachusetts, to that meager list.

Same-sex marriage? I don’t recall our talking – or dreaming – much about that. We considered ourselves realists. Sometimes idealists. But never fantasists.

John Nichols: Wisconsin Governor Walker’s Chief Judicial Ally Accused of Physically Attacking Jurist Who Defended Rule of Law

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, who mentored controversial Governor Scott Walker when both served as Republican legislators, has positioned himself as the primary defender of Walker’s radical anti-labor and anti-local democracy agenda on the court.

And it appears that the justice, whose unstable behavior and violent language has been highlighted in media reports, is willing to go to any length to protect Walker from legal accountability.

Justice Prosser, who retained his seat on the court only after the recount of results from an April statewide election that saw charges of fraud and political abuse aimed at the justice’s campaign, now stands accused of physically attacking a justice who disagreed with his push to make the high court an amen corner for the governor.

Jun 25 2011

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”.

Nancy Goldstein: Not Exactly a Profile in Courage: New York Finally Passes Gay Marriage

Hurrah! New York has, at long last, decided to join the twenty-first century and recognize the right of same-sex couples to civil marriage.

Make no mistake: this is a Big Deal. With the exception of Iowa, New York is the first state outside of the New England region to marry queers; it’s also the most populous. What a relief to end this embarrassing episode in history, when the Sodom and Gomorrah of the world lagged behind Catholic strongholds like Portugal, Mexico City, Spain, Argentina and Brazil in supporting marriage equality.

Gred Sargent: Marriage equality is set to become law in New York, and history marches on

In a big step forward for the human race, the marriage equality bill just passed the New York state senate, 33-29. New York is on the verge of becoming the sixth and most populous state to enshrine marriage equality into law, a huge victory for the national gay rights movement, and a huge victory for equality itself.

This is another major defeat for those self-described “conservatives” who hate government except when it’s enforcing a form of legalized discrimination that comports with their prejudices. But this isn’t about them. It’s about everyone but them.

John Nichols: House Refuses to Authorize Obama’s Libya War, but Agrees to Fund It

House Speaker John Boehner, whose incoherent approach to the constitutional mandate that Congress check and balance presidential war-making has so served the interests of the Obama administration’s Libya project, steered the House into conflict with itself Friday.

Boehner advanced two proposals (under the sponsorship of the speaker’s close allies) relating to the president’s decision to involve US forces in an ongoing, if largely dysfunctional, NATO led assault on Libya.

One proposal would have authorized the president’s war of whim.

The other would have cut funding for Obama’s latest war, thus bringing the initiative to a swift conclusion.

New York Times Editorial: An Unfair Burden

For all of the economic hardship of the last several years, there was reason to hope that the nation could avoid a crushing increase in the number of Americans living in poverty. That hope is fading fast.

In 2008, amid a deepening recession, a Census Bureau measure showed that the number of poor Americans rose by 1.7 million to nearly 47.5 million. In 2009, thanks in large part to the Obama stimulus, the rise in poverty was halted – a significant accomplishment at a time of worsening unemployment. When data for 2010 are released in the fall, poverty is expected to have stayed in check because the stimulus, including aid to states and bolstered unemployment benefits, was still in effect last year.

Charles M. Blow: Them That’s Not Shall Lose

“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

James Baldwin penned that line more than 50 years ago, but it seems particularly prescient today, if in a different manner than its original intent.

Baldwin was referring to the poor being consistently overcharged for inferior goods. But I’ve always considered that sentence in the context of the extreme psychological toll of poverty, for it is in that way that I, too, know well how expensive it is to be poor.

Steve Rattner: The Great Corn Con

FEELING the need for an example of government policy run amok? Look no further than the box of cornflakes on your kitchen shelf. In its myriad corn-related interventions, Washington has managed simultaneously to help drive up food prices and add tens of billions of dollars to the deficit, while arguably increasing energy use and harming the environment.

Even in a crowd of rising food and commodity costs, corn stands out, its price having doubled in less than a year to a record $7.87 per bushel in early June. Booming global demand has overtaken stagnant supply.

Ari Melber: Van Jones Returns, Launches Liberal Alternative to The Tea Partyn

Over one thousand liberal activists gathered in Manhattan on Thursday night, in a bid to counter the Tea Party and elevate a progressive who can tangle with the Becks and Bachmanns that dominate today’s outraged populism.  The event launched “Rebuild the Dream,” a MoveOn-backed effort to organize around economic issues.

The crowd that filed into Town Hall in midtown Manhattan was a mix of progressives old and young, in work clothes and casual attire. While they mingled and waited for music by The Roots, a second event was staged in a nearby press room. There reporters and bloggers heard from the would-be leader of a liberal Tea Party — the attorney, author and former Obama official Van Jones.  Bowing to the lexicon of today’s Left, however, it was clear that Jones was not announcing a “campaign,” (despite the flashy website, social media strategy and PR campaign). He was not launching a lobbying “coalition,” either, (even though the effort was backed by MoveOn, labor unions, USAction, TrueMajority and “many others to be announced”).   The event promised the beginning of a movement.

Jun 25 2011

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

If you do not get Current TV you can watch Keith here:

Watch live video from CURRENT TV LIVE Countdown Olbermann on www.justin.tv

Jun 24 2011

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”.

New York Times Editorial: Their Temper Tantrum

Congressional Republicans, who played a major role in piling up the government’s unsustainable debt in the first place, have thrown a tantrum and walked out of the debt limit talks. This bit of grandstanding has brought the nation closer to the financial crisis that Republicans have been threatening for weeks. But, at least now, their real goals are in sharp focus.

The two Republicans in the talks, Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, and Senator Jon Kyl, the minority whip, had no intention of actually negotiating. Negotiations require listening to those on the other side and giving them something they want in exchange for some of your goals.

There are those of us who knew all along that they weren’t negotiating in good faith. Now get Obama to realize that fact.

Robert Sheer: Bill Clinton’s Legacy of Denial

Does Bill Clinton still not grasp that the current economic crisis is in large measure his legacy? Obviously that’s the case, or he wouldn’t have had the temerity to write a 14-point memo for Newsweek on how to fix the economy that never once refers to the home mortgage collapse and other manifestations of Wall Street greed that he enabled as president.

Endorsing the Republican agenda of financial industry deregulation, reversing New Deal safeguards, President Clinton pursued policies that in the long run created more damage to the American economy than any other president since Herbert Hoover, whose tenure is linked to the Great Depression. Now, in his Newsweek piece, Clinton has the effrontery to once again revive his 1992 campaign mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid,” as the article’s title without any sense of irony, let alone accountability. But that has always been the man’s special gift-to rise above, and indeed benefit from, the messes he created.

Paul Krugman: Facing Political Barriers, Fed Candidate Opts Out

Nobel laureate Peter Diamond had a depressing Op-Ed in The New York Times on June 5, withdrawing himself from contention as a member of the Federal Reserve board in the face of Republican opposition.

snip

What you need to know about Mr. Diamond is not just that he’s a very great economist, but that he’s an economist’s economist – someone who is a deeply respected theorist, not at all someone who made his way as an ideologue. His work is basically apolitical.

Except that these days everything is political.

Willaim Rivers Pitt: Clarence Thomas Must Go

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.

– Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart

For the sake of full disclosure, I will tell you that I do not like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In my opinion, he has no business sitting on the high court after the reprehensible treatment he forced Anita Hill to endure, and has been a disgrace to the bench lo these last twenty years. Anthony Weiner, one of Clarence Thomas’ most ardent critics, was just run out of Washington DC on a rail for behavior far less offensive; Mr. Thomas is lucky there was no such thing as Twitter when he was sexually harassing Hill, or he’d be chasing ambulances outside of muni court like the hack he is. He sits up there like a lump, never speaking or offering questions to petitioners, and has not had an original thought since his shameful Senate approval.

But his vapid intellectual presence on the bench is only a small part of the story. Mr. Thomas has, by all appearances, turned his position on the court into a license to print money for himself, his family, and a few choice friends.

Eugene Robinson: Why does the Afghanistan war go on?

Some heard a declaration of victory, others an admission of defeat. The many contradictions in President Obama’s speech about Afghanistan Wednesday night were perhaps intended to obscure the bottom line: Tens of thousands of American troops will remain for at least three more years, some of them will be maimed or killed, and Obama offered no good reason why.

The only debate within the administration, it appears, was whether to bring home the troops far too slowly or not at all. Obama decided on the too-slowly option.

Michael Prysner: Obama’s speech means nothing to us and our families

President Barack Obama said in his speech on June 22, “This has been a difficult decade for our country.”

But it has not been difficult for everyone in the United States. It has not been difficult for the defense contractors, with their billion-dollar contracts churning out an endless supply of missiles to be fired and armored vehicles to be blown up. It has not been difficult for the oil giants, making record profits and getting access to new, untapped corners of the most resource-rich region of the world. It has not been difficult for the politicians, most of them millionaires themselves, getting fatter with lobbying money, whose sons and daughters do not die in combat, who smile and say they “support the troops” while they limit funding for veterans to mere scraps from the table.

Gareth Porter: Obama Leaves Door Open to Long-Term U.S. Afghan Combat

President Barack Obama’s speech announcing that the 33,000 “surge” troops in Afghanistan will be withdrawn by “summer” 2012 indicates that he has given priority to the interests of the military and the Pentagon over concerns by key officials in his administration over the impact of the war’s costs on domestic socioeconomic needs.

And in a section of the speech that must be interpreted in the context of his past policy decisions on Iraq, Obama appeared to support the desire of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General David Petraeus to keep a substantial number of combat troops in Afghanistan beyond the publicly announced “transition” in 2014.

Jun 24 2011

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

If you do not get Current TV you can watch Keith here:

Watch live video from CURRENT TV LIVE Countdown Olbermann on www.justin.tv

Jun 23 2011

Cantor Temper Tantrum: No Taxes, No, No, No (Up Date)

Up Date below the fold

Call a Wahmbulance for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor as he quits the debt ceiling talks with Vice President Joe Biden:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, said Thursday that he was quitting  the debt ceiling negotiations being led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. because of an impasse over the role of taxes in any final deal.

“I believe that we have identified trillions in spending cuts, and to date, we have established a blueprint that could institute the fiscal reforms needed to start getting our fiscal house in order,” Mr. Cantor said in a prepared statement.

“That said, each side came into these talks with certain orders, and as it stands the Democrats continue to insist that any deal must include tax increases. There is not support in the House for a tax increase, and I don’t believe now is the time to raise taxes in light of our current economic situation. Regardless of the progress that has been made, the tax issue must be resolved before discussions can continue.”

David Kurtz at Talking Point Memo says this may not be such a big deal:

The read we’re getting is that this could be merely an indication that the emissaries to the talks have gotten as far as they can get and that the remaining heavy lifting is going to have be done by the principals: President Obama and Speaker Boehner.

Meanwhile, Speaker John Boehner doesn’t sound to pleased that he will now have to defend the Republican stand that tax increases are off the table:

“I understand his frustration, I understand why he did what he did, but I think those talks could continue if they’re willing to take the tax hikes off the table,” he said.

One possible interpretation of Cantor’s pullout was that he needed Boehner’s authority to negotiate revenue increases necessary to complete a far-reaching deal with Democrats, but Boehner made repeatedly clear on Thursday that he had not budged at all on the issue.

“Tax hikes are off the table,” he said. “First of all, raising taxes is going to destroy jobs….second, a tax hike cannot pass the US House of Representatives — it’s not just a bad idea, it doesn’t have the votes and it can’t happen. And third, the American people don’t want us to raise taxes. They know we have a spending problem.”

(emphasis mine)

Boehner may be correct on point two but he is so wrong on one and three that is totally laughable and flat out lies that the press refuses to counter. Americans know we have a revenue problem because of the Bush/Obama tax cuts and loop hole in the tax code. Americans overwhelmingly support tax increases on millionaires. I don’t think Boehner is stupid, I think he is a tool of his corporate masters.

My only question now is where the hell is the Democratic leadership to counter this? Why aren’t the Democrats out in front of the cameras pointing out how wrong the Republicans are? The Democrats need to listen to the people, too and take Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid off the table as well.  

Jun 23 2011

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”.

Eugene Robinson: What Obama didn’t say about leaving Afghanistan

There was almost a pro-forma air to President Obama’s speech tonight.

He touched all the right bases – at times with specificity, at times with platitudes – but there was no sense, for me, that anything had fundamentally changed.

It was informative to learn that 10,000 U.S. troops will come home from Afghanistan this year and another 23,000 or so by the summer or fall of 2012. I am sure this announcement gives comfort and joy to the families of those young men and women who, fairly soon, will be homeward bound.

But that means nearly 70,000 troops will remain beyond next year – nearly twice as many as were in the country when Obama took office.

Dana Mibank: ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style

There was no banner, no naval cheering section, no aircraft-carrier landing and – thank heavens – no flight suit. But make no mistake: President Obama gave his own version of a “mission accomplished” speech Wednesday.

The policy itself was no triumph, just a split-the-difference compromise between the slower troop withdrawal from Afghanistan sought by the generals and the faster one many congressional Democrats and a majority of the public desired. But Obama packaged it nicely, wrapped it with a bow and declared, perhaps prematurely, that his “surge” in Afghanistan had been a success.

The New York Times: The Way Out?

Americans are impatient – and increasingly despairing – about the war in Afghanistan. After 10 years of fighting, more than 1,500 American lives lost and $450 billion spent, they need to know there is a clear way out.

On Wednesday night, President Obama announced that American troops will soon begin to withdraw, but at a size and pace unlikely to satisfy many Americans.

He said that 10,000 of the 33,000 troops from the “surge” would come home before the end of this year, with the rest out by next summer. He vowed that reductions would continue “at a steady pace” after that, and that “the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security” by sometime in 2014.

David K. Shipler: Free to Search and Seize

THIS spring was a rough season for the Fourth Amendment. The Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to allow GPS tracking of vehicles without judicial permission. The Supreme Court ruled that the police could break into a house without a search warrant if, after knocking and announcing themselves, they heard what sounded like evidence being destroyed. Then it refused to see a Fourth Amendment violation where a citizen was jailed for 16 days on the false pretext that he was being held as a material witness to a crime.

In addition, Congress renewed Patriot Act provisions on enhanced surveillance powers until 2015, and the F.B.I. expanded agents’ authority to comb databases, follow people and rummage through their trash even if they are not suspected of a crime.

Dean Baker: Blognote in Honor of Thomas Friedman: Spending on the Commerce Department Is Going to Bankrupt the Country

The United States has to cut back spending on the Commerce Department or it will bankrupt the country. Okay, I have no evidence for this and it really doesn’t make any sense. The Commerce Department’s budget is about $10 billion a year, less than 0.3 percent of total spending, but this note is written in the spirit of Thomas Friedman.

Just as Thomas Friedman can tell readers that Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting the country with no evidence, in my blognote I get to blame the Commerce Department. The reality of course is that Social Security is fully funded by its own dedicated tax revenue through the year 2036, meaning the program on net imposes no burden on the government.

E. J. Dionne, Jr. Is Jon Huntsman too moderate for the GOP?

Here are the key questions about Jon Huntsman’s presidential candidacy: Is he the American version of David Cameron? And is the Republican Party ready for a Cameron moment?

What does a British prime minister have to do with the 2012 Republican primaries? If Huntsman is lucky, quite a lot. The British Conservative Party chose Cameron as its leader in 2005 because it was sick of losing elections and realized it could no longer present itself as an old, cranky, right-wing party. Cameron was Mr. Nice, Mr. Modern, Mr. Moderate and Mr. New. And now he’s in power.

Jeff Biggers: FOX and Republicans Rerun Mexicans, Lies and Videotape, As Arizona Becomes Grand Canyon State Again

As Interior Secretary Ken Salazar joined Havasupai tribal elders and Congressman Raul Grijalva for a historic announcement at the Grand Canyon National Park on Monday, Republicans across Arizona scurried to create their own roadside attraction.

And relying on information from a widely denounced anti-immigrant extremist, FOX News and other media outlets have been right behind them to fan the flames of Arizona’s right-wing discontent this summer.

Jun 23 2011

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

If you do not get Current TV you can watch Keith here:

Watch live video from CURRENT TV LIVE Countdown Olbermann on www.justin.tv

Jun 22 2011

Afghanistan Withdrawal: Not Fast Enough (Up Date)

Up Date: The President’s speech with a link to the transcript is below. As expected, not big enough or fast enough nor will all the troops ever be withdrawn.

Only 10,000 troops from the last surge of 33,000 are to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2012 the end of next summer. Seriously, another 18 15 months. There are 100,000 service men and women serving in Afghanistan alone. Leaving the money aside, what about the them? How many more killed, maimed and psychologically scarred? For what? A war that is not winnable where the US is doing more harm than good and is not wanted. I haven’t even mentioned the cost and suffering of Afghan civilians.

No, Mr. Obama, this is not good enough.

Cost of Wars a Rising Issue as Obama Weighs Troop Levels

WASHINGTON – President Obama will talk about troop numbers in Afghanistan when he makes a prime-time speech from the White House on Wednesday night. But behind his words will be an acute awareness of what $1.3 trillion in spending on two wars in the past decade has meant at home: a ballooning budget deficit and a soaring national debt at a time when the economy is still struggling to get back on its feet.

I’m not alone in my anger and frustration with the president’s policy. Since last year the vast majority of Americans are opposed to the war in Afghanistan. That number is now two thirds, two of every three Americans.

A new poll from the Washington Post shows American have turned decisively against our military engagement in Afghanistan. Nearly two-thirds oppose the war, and even larger percentage believes in a considerable withdrawal from the region

US Mayors meeting last week in San Francisco called for the president to “bring the war dollars home” and invest in America.

That resolution will now become official policy of the mayors’ organization — a small symbol of growing opposition to the war in Afghanistan. The mayors are asking that money spent on wars abroad be used in the United States to develop cities and towns. The last time the conference approved a resolution like this was during the Vietnam War.

Nor will there be any discussion about the 865 foreign bases that the US has scattered around the world that eat up precious tax dollars:

President Obama may claim he’s got to go slow in drawing down U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan but what’s his excuse for keeping open 268 U.S. bases in Germany? Is he expecting an attack by the Red Army? There are folks living well on those 268 bases at public expense as well as the military contractors supplying them.

No other nation begins to operate even a tiny fraction of the 865-plus bases the Pentagon runs overseas to, depending on your viewpoint, (a) protect America from dangerous potential enemies who are lurking everywhere, or (b) to dominate the rest of the world. And since 95% of all overseas bases located in somebody else’s country are operated by the USA, millions of people suspect (b) is the answer; indeed, foreigners fear Uncle Sam might subjugate them.

Democrats in congress are getting impatient as well

On Tuesday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), one of the most conservative Democrats in the chamber, sent Obama a letter urging a change of course in the war and an acceleration of the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“After 10 years and $443 billion, I believe it is time [to] focus our resources on rebuilding America, not on rebuilding Afghanistan,” he wrote. “It is time for the Afghan people to decide their destiny and take responsibility for governing themselves. … It is my hope that by redefining the mission in Afghanistan away from nation-building, you will pursue significant troop reductions immediately and end the scope of our current mission well before the 2014 deadline.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) is calling for a minimum withdrawal of 15,000 troops:

“In my judgment, a minimum of 15,000 reduction in troops would be needed for this to be a significant reduction, and since the president has committed himself a few months ago to a significant reduction, I think that’s what will happen,” Levin told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

When asked how he came up with that number, Levin replied, “It’s based on what would it take to let the Afghans know the significance of the importance of shifting the responsibility — the principal responsibility to them for the security of their own country.”

Americans and Afghans will be paying dearly for years even after the last service person is gone from both Afghanistan and Iraq. This cannot happen fast enough for all our sakes.

Up Date: Obama spoke tonight about the troop withdrawal. 10,000 troops will leave by the end of this year. By the end summer in 2012, the other 23,000 will have left. By 2014, all combat troops will have departed but a residual force of about 25,000 will remain, forever and ever. The rest was pure political rhetoric. You can read the transcript to spare yourself the vision of another lie.  

Jun 22 2011

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”.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day

Michelle Chen: Too Big to Sue? High Court Thwarts Wal-Mart Gender Discrimination Case

As legions of Walmart workers shuffled into work on Monday, the Supreme Court smacked down a major class-action lawsuit that might potentially have shifted the legal landscape on women’s rights in the workplace.

The gender-discrimination lawsuit against the world’s most notorious retail giant had been pending for years. Now the Court’s majority opinion has declared that, in light of “Walmart’s size and geographical scope,” the plaintiffs could not provide “significant proof that Wal-Mart operated under a general policy of discrimination. That is entirely absent here.”

And with that, Justice Antonin Scalia rendered perhaps hundreds of thousands of working women absent from the discussion on gender discrimination in today’s sink-or-swim economy. The split in the most significant part of the judgment, the class-action aspect, was five to four, putting all the female justices in the minority. The division ironically suggested a lack of self-reflection on how structural gender discrimination works in powerful institutions.

Amy Goodman: Japan’s Meltdowns Demand New No-Nukes Thinking

New details are emerging that indicate the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan is far worse than previously known, with three of the four affected reactors experiencing full meltdowns. Meanwhile, in the U.S., massive flooding along the Missouri River has put Nebraska’s two nuclear plants, both near Omaha, on alert. The Cooper Nuclear Station declared a low-level emergency and will have to close down if the river rises another 3 inches. The Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant has been shut down since April 9, in part due to flooding. At Prairie Island, Minn., extreme heat caused the nuclear plant’s two emergency diesel generators to fail. Emergency-generator failure was one of the key problems that led to the meltdowns at Fukushima.

In May, in reaction to the Fukushima disaster, Nikolaus Berlakovich, Austria’s federal minister of agriculture, forestry, environment and water management, convened a meeting of Europe’s 11 nuclear-free countries. Those gathered resolved to push for a nuclear-free Europe, even as Germany announced it will phase out nuclear power in 10 years and push ahead on renewable-energy research. Then, in last week’s national elections in Italy, more than 90 percent of voters resoundingly rejected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s plans to restart the country’s nuclear-power-generation plans.

Deborah Weinstein: Paving the Road to a Hungrier, Unhealthier, and Less-Educated Nation

Massive spending cuts will make the future bleaker for millions of Americans.

The number of poor children had already grown by 2.1 million in 2009 over pre-recession levels, with continuing high joblessness among parents raising concerns that poverty will continue to worsen for some time. Since kids who spend more than half their childhood in poverty earn on average 39 percent less than median income as adults, we can expect lasting costs that will hurt the nation’s future economic growth.

And yet, a majority of House lawmakers want to narrow the deficit by making things worse for today’s kids.

Sarah Azaransky: Wal-Mart Ruling Erodes Rights of Women of Color

The Supreme Court’s ruling to throw out the sex discrimination class action lawsuit against Wal-mart undermines employment rights of women of color.

First to the ruling. The Court ruled that women did not show that Wal-Mart had a policy of discrimination. Since each Wal-Mart supervisor has discretion over pay and promotion, Justice Scalia concluded there was no “glue holding the alleged reasons for all those decisions together.”

Justice Ginsburg, joined by the Court’s three liberal justices, dissented on this point.  Citing evidence that “gender bias suffused Wal-mart company culture,” Ginsburg affirmed, “managers, like all humankind, may be prey to biases of which they are unaware.”

While all the plaintiffs in the case were women, thirty five percent were women of color and Betty Dukes, the case’s namesake and employee of the Pittsburg, CA store, is African American.

Laura Flanders: Walmart: Too Big to Sue?

The Roberts court decision to block the class action lawsuit for sex discrimination effectively defines Walmart as ‘too big to sue’

Let’s get this right: the world’s biggest boss, supported by companies as diverse as Altria, Bank of America, Microsoft and General Electric and backed up by the godfather of big business (the US Chamber of Commerce) has persuaded the US supreme court that thousands of women workers can’t possibly share enough of an interest to constitute a class?

It’s hard to know which part of the court’s decision in Dukes v Walmart hurts equity most: the assault on class-action jurisprudence generally, at a time of shrinking tools for workers seeking redress, or the defeat of history’s biggest gender-based claim before a court that, for the first time, includes two women, one of whom (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) made her reputation in sex discrimination law.

Maryam Al-Zoubi: Source of Missing Jobs in America Found: Forced Laborers

With unemployment at a near historic high in the United States, could you imagine any American company bringing in foreign workers to work for them below the minimum wage and with no benefits? Most people would say no. But can you imagine those same Americans forcing foreign workers to stay here, with no pay, and constant abuse? That is actually happening in this country today.

Forced labor is a real phenomenon in the United States agriculture business. Without awareness and investigation into where our supplies come from and who businesses are hiring, the American people become unwitting complicit supporters of labor trafficking.

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