Tag: Politics

Oct 03 2015

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

Henry A. Giroux: Murder, USA: Why Politicians Have Blood on Their Hands

Ten people were killed and seven wounded recently in a mass shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon. Such shootings are more than another tragic expression of unchecked violence in the United States, they are symptomatic of a society engulfed in fear, militarism, a survival-of-the-fittest ethos, and a growing disdain for human life. Sadly, this shooting is not an isolated incident. Over 270 mass shootings have taken place in the US this year alone, proving once again that the economic, political, and social conditions that underlie such violence are not being addressed. [..]

Gun violence in America is inextricably tied to economic violence and the violence reproduced by politicians who would rather support the military-industrial-gun complex than address the most basic needs and social problems faced by the American people. When violence becomes an organizing principle of society, the fabric of a democracy begins to unravel suggesting that America is at war with itself.  When politicians refuse out of narrow self and financial interests to confront the conditions that create such violence, they have blood on their hands.

Bill Sher: Will Any Presidential Candidate Support Banning Handguns?

If you want to reduce the number of gun deaths in America, the conclusion is inescapable: ban handguns, along with assault rifles.

Politicians generally avoid proposing handgun bans because the position doesn’t fit into the frame of exempting “responsible gun owners” from new regulations. No one needs an assault rifle to hunt or to protect themselves. But plenty of Americans keep handguns thinking that it will protect them from harm. Politicians are loathe to advocate that the government “take their guns away.”

However, the reality is, as physicist David Robert Grimes put it, “actually owning and using a firearm hugely increases the risk of being shot.”

Of course, this is a political impossibility for the foreseeable future. The current Republican Congress won’t even pass an expansion of background checks, and a previous Republican Congress allowed the Clinton-era assault weapons ban to expire. A handgun ban also could run afoul of the Supreme Court, as it is currently constituted.

But will any presidential candidate be willing to push the envelope, shake up the debate, and put a handgun ban on the table?

Ralph Nader: In the Public Interest: Monsanto and its Promoters Vs. Freedom of Information

The super-secretive Monsanto has stated, regarding the FOIAs, that “agenda-driven groups often take individual documents or quotes out of context in an attempt to distort the facts, advance their agenda, and stop legitimate research.”

Advocates with the venerable Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) do worry that the FOIA can be abused to harass scientists for ideological reasons. This is true; for example, human-caused global warming deniers have abused the FOIA against climate scientists working at state universities like Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University. [..]

The proper response to abuses of the FOIA is not, however, to advocate blocking citizens or reporters from using the FOIA. [..]

The use of the FOIA by citizens, journalists, and others to expose scandals is essential to ensure honest scientific inquiry and is critical to developing protective public health and environmental standards. Scientific research should not be contaminated by the inevitable biases and secrecy that come with corporate contracts at public universities.

The FOIA is a valuable tool to help citizens uncover corruption and wrongdoing, and to vindicate our right to know what our own governments are doing.

Eugene Robinson: Bernie Sanders’ Money Haul Should Make Hillary Clinton Nervous

First came the big crowds, now comes the big money. At this point, anyone who doesn’t take Bernie Sanders seriously must not be paying attention.

Sanders’ campaign announced that it raised an eye-bugging $26 million in the third quarter-essentially matching the $28 million raised during those three months by Hillary Clinton, long considered the presumptive Democratic nominee. If that doesn’t make Clintonistas nervous, they need defibrillation. [..]

What explains Sanders’ appeal? Much is made of his “authenticity,” and it’s certainly true that there is a refreshing lack of artifice about him. But tousled hair alone isn’t enough to explain his rock-star status in college towns and other liberal redoubts.

I believe his success to date is due to insight and ideology. Sanders was perceptive enough to frame a message that is perfect for the zeitgeist: The system is rigged to benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else. And having identified the problem, he offers clear and internally consistent remedies.

Joe Conason: Hunting Hillary: Dim Speaker-to-Be Reveals Select Committee’s Partisan Goal

Ever since House Speaker John Boehner unveiled yet another committee to investigate Benghazi-the eighth congressional panel to investigate that September 2012 tragedy, along with a State Department Accountability Review Board-suspicions have festered that its purpose was purely partisan and political.

Even Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace sounded skeptical when he interviewed the speaker last February:

Wallace: “Finally, you have set up a select committee to investigate what happened in Benghazi, even though there have been about a half dozen investigations; the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee basically said there was no there there-like this last year. Some people have questioned: Is all of this an effort to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign?”

Boehner: “No, Chris, it’s-the idea here is to get the American people the facts about what happened.”

But on the evening of Sept. 29, the amiably dim Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., fully vindicated those original suspicions during an interview on Fox with Sean Hannity. Attempting to defend the departing Boehner, whom he is touted to succeed as Speaker, McCarthy highlighted what he considers the outstanding achievement of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

Oct 02 2015

They Need to Do More Than Pray

The mass shooting yesterday at a small community college in Roseberg, Oregon, took the lives of nine people and the gunman, despite the fact that there were students in nearby classrooms who were carrying guns themselves. Despite arguments by gun activists, that didn’t deter or stop the shooter until police arrived. This has become routine in the United States to the point that it should be considered an epidemic. This latest mass murder is the 994th since the mass murder of 26 students and teachers in Sandy Hook, Connecticut in December, 2012. There have been nearly 300 shooting that have taken four or more lives, the FBI criteria for a mass shooting, so far in this year alone. In the face of these horrific statistics what have our government representatives done? Nothing except pray and criticize anyone calling for better gun control laws as politicizing the lives of the victims.

It is not just mass shootings that are the problem:

While conservatives are busying trying to shutdown any debate on gun control following the 45th school shooting this year by yelling about Chicago’s murder rates – apparently unaware that Chicago is the third largest city in the country but not even in the top five cities with the highest murder rate per capita – and reflexively decrying any mention of gun control as a “gun grab,” what if we just entertained their wildest conspiracy theories for just a bit?

A 2015 study found that when guns are used to kill people in the United States, they are overwhelmingly used for murder rather than self-defense. That study found that in 2012, there were only 259 justifiable homicides, or what is commonly referred to as self-defense, compared to 8,342 criminal firearm homicides. In 2008-2012, the report says, guns were used in 42,419 criminal homicides and only 1,108 justifiable homicides.

We are told by pundits and politicians that nothing can be done because of the Second Amendment. That is pure nonsense. Laws requiring strict licensing and ban on ownership of certain weapons, such as semi-automatic assault type weapons, have been on the books in cities like New York for years and have withstood court challenges. Tightening the sale of guns at guns shows and by individuals without adequate regulation and background checks of the buyers needs to be made federal law. Requiring a person to demonstrate that they are qualified to own the weapon they are buying by showing that they have attended classes in safety and handling by a certified instructor would go a long way in curbing some of the accidental incidents as well.

The idea pushed by the NRA and gun manufacturers that better and smarter gun laws won’t make a difference is a myth. Just look what Australia did after a mass shooting that took 35 lives in 1996. They passed 12 new gun laws and regulations within days after the shooting:

The National Firearms Agreement and Buyback Program, as the package of legislation was called, prohibited the sale of shotguns as well as semiautomatic and self-loading rifles. Waiting periods and safety courses became mandatory for new gun owners and limits on the sale of ammunition were imposed.

Most importantly, perhaps, the legislation allocated $250 million for a gun buyback program, allowing for newly outlawed rifles and shotgun to be destroyed by the Australian government. Ultimately more than 640,000 firearms were either purchased by the Australian government or voluntarily handed in.

And it worked.

In the years after the Port Arthur massacre, gun-related homicides decreased 7.5 percent per year while suicide by gun dropped by a whopping 80 percent (pdf) until the the risk of dying by gunshot in Australia fell by more than 50 percent in the decade following the attacks.

It didn’t completely stop the incidents but there have only been six people killed in mass shooting since the laws were passed.

America could do the same if we demand it of our elected officials but first end Americas obsession with guns to debunk the myths of the NRA and gun nuts that guns keep us safer. They don’t.

Full disclosure: I am a licensed gun owner.

Oct 02 2015

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: Voodoo Never Dies

So Donald Trump has unveiled his tax plan. It would, it turns out, lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit.

This is in contrast to Jeb Bush’s plan, which would lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit, and Marco Rubio’s plan, which would lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit.

For what it’s worth, it looks as if Trump’s plan would make an even bigger hole in the budget than Jeb’s. Jeb justifies his plan by claiming that it would double America’s rate of growth; The Donald, ahem, trumps this by claiming that he would triple the rate of growth. But really, why sweat the details? It’s all voodoo. The interesting question is why every Republican candidate feels compelled to go down this path.

You might think that there was a defensible economic case for the obsession with cutting taxes on the rich. That is, you might think that if you’d spent the past 20 years in a cave (or a conservative think tank). Otherwise, you’d be aware that tax-cut enthusiasts have a remarkable track record: They’ve been wrong about everything, year after year.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: The Political Power of Takin’ it to the States

After one government shutdown and a rally cry from the GOP for another, this progressive think tank is bringing progressive policy changes back to the state level.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote in 1932 that US states should serve as “laborator[ies],” where local politicians could try “novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country”-or where, as Esquire‘s Charles Pierce skeptically puts it, “the real work of governmentin’ goes on.” [..]

Unfortunately, progressives historically have not paid enough attention to the state-level governmentin’, and, as usual, Republicans control the majority of state assembly chambers – that’s more power at the state level, in fact, than they’ve enjoyed since the 1920s. Republicans hold both the governorship and a legislative majority in 23 states, while the Democrats control both in just 7.

Gary Young: America’s gun massacre blues seem to play on an endless loop

Within the American polity there is a cyclical requiem in the wake of each mass shooting – a predictable collective lament for a calamity that ostensibly everyone regrets and nobody can resolve. Profiles of the victims emerge as reporters opine in front of police tape, wringing every last detail from tear-stained survivors. Gradually facts about the shooter emerge, followed by endless speculation about his (they are almost always men) motives before the president calls for prayer and healing.

Everybody knows their lines. With 45 mass shootings already this year they have rehearsed them often enough. Indeed, the tragedy lies not only in the trauma of the victims but in the apparent helplessness of the political class and the hopelessness that the deathly cycle might be broken. [..]

To the outside world the solution seems straightforward: less guns, more gun control. With roughly 90 guns for every 100 inhabitants, America has far more guns per capita than any other nation and fewer controls on how many guns you can buy, how you buy them, who can own them. Nowhere else in the world has this kind of problem on this kind of scale. This is one example of American exceptionalism few are keen to emulate.

Sen. Barbara Boxer: A GOP Pattern of Vicious Attacks on Planned Parenthood

Almost 100 years after the founder of Planned Parenthood was arrested for distributing birth control information, Republicans are attacking the group in an unprecedented fashion.

This week, the GOP members of a congressional committee subjected Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, to more than five hours of outrageous accusations — repeatedly interrupting her, grilling her on her salary, disrespecting her and making very clear that their true intent is to turn back the clock on women’s rights and women’s health.

Those Republicans did prove one thing: they are clueless about women’s health.

Republican after Republican badgered Richards about the lack of mammography equipment at Planned Parenthood clinics, even though that is the norm.

Antony Loewenstein: Disaster capitalism is everywhere

A plethora of private companies are profiting from natural or man-made crises – abroad and at home

When an earthquake struck Nepal in April, thousands of locals died in the carnage. But many foreigners had far more luck as members of Global Rescue, a company committed to rescuing its clients from dangerous environments. “Why shouldn’t we be able to hire private armies to ensure our safe return home from vacation?” posed a recent article in Wired, headlined “The tricky ethics of the lucrative disaster rescue business.”

Global Rescue is booming, opening offices in Pakistan, Thailand and beyond. There’s nothing illegal about its operations, and its mandate makes a certain amount of sense: Anybody in the middle of a natural disaster would want to be helped immediately. But the corporation’s interests aren’t humanitarian – they’re profit-driven, with an annual membership costing approximately $700. In Nepal, limited numbers of helicopters were fought over to transport injured foreigners, while the vast majority of Nepalese had no choice but to wait for help from overwhelmed relief services. “It’s beyond our scope” to assist those locals trapped on snowy mountains, said Drew Pache, a Global Rescue employee and former U.S. special forces operative.

Ari Berman: Alabama, Birthplace of the Voting Rights Act, Is Once Again Gutting Voting Rights

It was Alabama that brought the country the Voting Rights Act (VRA) because of its brutality against black citizens in places like Selma. “The Voting Rights Act is Alabama’s gift to our country,” the civil-rights lawyer Debo Adegbile once said.

And it was a county in Alabama-Shelby County-that brought the 2013 challenge that gutted the VRA. As a result of that ruling, those states with the worst histories of voting discrimination, including Alabama, no longer have to approve their voting changes with the federal government.

After the Shelby County decision, Alabama’s strict voter ID law, passed by the GOP legislature in 2011, was allowed to go into effect without federal approval. And now Alabama is making it much tougher to obtain the government-issued ID required to vote by closing 31 DMV locations in the state, many in majority-black counties.

Oct 01 2015

The Elephant is Out of the Bottle

Like many of the past GOP gaffs, the truth about the real purpose of the House’s latest House Benghazi investigation as exposed when prospective Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told that the Fox News’ Sean Hannity Benghazi investigation was intended to damage the presidential campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

McCarthy said Tuesday that Clinton would have remained “unbeatable,” had it not been for the committee.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee, what are her numbers today?” McCarthy told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “Her numbers are dropping, why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened.”

 

He then reiterated that to CNN’s Jake Tapper that the committee was part of a “strategy to fight and win”.  

“I’m willing to fight but I want to fight to win,” McCarthy said when asked about the call by some Republicans to force a government shutdown fight in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood.

McCarthy said he supports a “bottom-up” approach to leading, where Republicans first put forward their policies and plans, use committees to do the groundwork, and then let that effort result in winning a vote on a policy.

He pointed to the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while in office — which has at times overshadowed her presidential campaign — as an example of how the process can work.

“When you look at the poll numbers of Hilary Clinton — they’ve dropped. Unfavorable is pretty high because people say they don’t trust her,” McCarthy said. “They don’t trust her because what they found out about the server and everything else. Would you ever have found that out had you not gathered the information from Benghazi Select Committee? So if we really want to be able to show what this Planned Parenthood has done … have the select committee get all the information, all the hearings. Win the argument to win the vote.”

The fall out from the Democratic side was immediate with demands that present Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) disband the committee:

In the letter, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other Democrats said that McCarthy, who is in line to replace Boehner after the speaker retires, had revealed that the panel’s true purpose was political.

“We are writing to ask you to disband the House Select Committee on Benghazi after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s recent comments admitting that the Select Committee was put together to serve the political purpose of defeating Secretary Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential elections by hurting her in the polls, rather than conducting a serious investigation into a terrorist attack that killed four Americans,” wrote Reid, who was joined by Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Patty Murray (Wash.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.).

“We should not disrespect their sacrifice by further politicizing this tragedy,” they continued.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow spoke with Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) about why the committee should be disbanded and a possible boycott by the Democrats on the committee.

Following Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s spilling truth , the Republicans are scrambling to deny it

Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said McCarthy should apologize, saying the California Republican made an “absolutely inappropriate statement.”

Speaker John Boehner, who is set to retire at the end of the month, sought to provide cover for McCarthy on Thursday. In a statement, he denied that the committee has anything to do with politics.

“This investigation has never been about former Secretary of State Clinton and never will be,” Boehner said. [..]

“I might have said it differently,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, told CNN. “Any ancillary political activity that comes out of it is, in fact, not the goal of the committee and is not what the committee is seeking to do.”

Added Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, “I totally disagree with those comments.” Asked if they could jeopardize his bid for speaker, the conservative Amash said: “I think it should be a concern.”

This is an elephant they aren’t going to get back in the bottle.  Everyone knows this charade has always been political. Republicans using the deaths of four Americans for political gain is bereft of any human decency.

Oct 01 2015

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

Trevor Timm: The ‘Athens Affair’ shows why we need encryption without backdoors

Revelations about the hack that allowed Greek politicians to be spied on in 2004 come at a time when the White House is set to announce its encryption policy

Just as it seems the White House is close to finally announcing its policy on encryption – the FBI has been pushing for tech companies like Apple and Google to insert backdoors into their phones so the US government can always access users’ data – new Snowden revelations and an investigation by a legendary journalist show exactly why the FBI’s plans are so dangerous.

One of the biggest arguments against mandating backdoors in encryption is the fact that, even if you trust the United States government never to abuse that power (and who does?), other criminal hackers and foreign governments will be able to exploit the backdoor to use it themselves. A backdoor is an inherent vulnerability that other actors will attempt to find and try to use it for their own nefarious purposes as soon as they know it exists, putting all of our cybersecurity at risk.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Sanders vs. Clinton: Who Has the Best Plan for America’s College Students?

The differences between the college financing plans offered by Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are important – both for their impact on the middle class, and for what they tell us about the candidates and their governing philosophies. [..]

We know that our current system is broken. It has left more than 41 million Americans owing more than $1.3 trillion in student debt. That burden is holding back an entire generation of Americans and is harming the economy as a whole.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have had fundamentally different responses to this crisis. While those differences have been papered over by some in the media, as well as some progressive groups, they are real – and they are significant.

David Cay Johnston: Trump’s tax plan should be titled ‘The Art of the Con’

Such obvious deceptions and bogus thinking would get him fired on ‘The Apprentice’

If you believe that the $18.1 trillion federal debt should be much bigger, that the rich don’t have nearly enough, and that corporations need a tax-rate cut of 57 percent, then Donald Trump has just what you are looking for.

The real estate mogul and reality TV star who wants to be president put out a document he called a tax plan. Like many of his business deals, it is long on boastfulness and short on money to pay the inevitable bills.

Trump told “60 Minutes” that his plan will work because “overall, it’s going to be a tremendous incentive to grow the economy and we’re going to take in the same or more money … We’re gonna grow the economy so much.”

He would cut the top tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent, cut the corporate rate from 35 percent to 15 percent and eliminate the estate tax so the children of billionaires inherit tax-free. (Most of the estate tax falls on economic gains that have never been taxed, as I showed in my book “Perfectly Legal”.) That sounds like more of the tried and failed Republican tax policies of the past 35 years.

Chandra Bozelko: A criminal justice reform bill that doesn’t end mandatory minimums isn’t enough

Too often we forget that our judicial branch is supposed to be a criminal justice system, not a criminal sentencing system: sometimes convictions do not have to be made and sometimes punishments do not have to be severe (depending on the particular facts of the case) in order to achieve justice. But, though we might be moving away from the War on Drugs, it seems that we will continue our war on justice.

On Thursday, the US Senate announced the results of its agreement on a comprehensive reform bill called the Criminal Justice Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. Despite its name, and the growing consensus that such provisions impede rather than improve justice, the bill allows many mandatory minimum sentences to remain in effect – and even adds mandatory minimums for other crimes. But the backstory of a crime can contain complexities, and mandatory minimums don’t allow sentences to be tailored to the circumstances of the situation.

Terry O’Neill: Why the Attacks on Planned Parenthood Keep Failing

When Republican leaders in Washington don’t feel like governing, they attack women’s health care and abortion rights. That’s what happened this week, as a focus on defunding Planned Parenthood jumped to the head of the line in legislative priorities for the House of Representatives. That, and launching vicious personal attacks on Cecile Richards, the organization’s CEO.

But Planned Parenthood is not going down, far from it. In fact, I predict the organization will be both better understood and more admired over the coming months. It’s already starting: a new poll shows not only Planned Parenthood enjoying widespread and deep support, but also politicians who support the organization. [..]

In 1969, during the debate over the law that became Title X, which expanded federal government funding for family-planning services for low-income women, President Nixon said,

   It is clear that the domestic family planning services supported by the Federal Government should be expanded and better integrated. It is my view that no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Sep 30 2015

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

Amanda Marcotte: The GOP’s Great Mammogram Farce Of 2015

The word of the day: “Mammogram.”

Over and over during the farce that was supposed to be a hearing on Planned Parenthood, Republican representatives attacked Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards because her organization does not provide mammograms as part of its core set of services. (They do sometimes pair with organizations for programs that offer them to low-income women.) Over and over again, the fact that Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer mammograms was held out as some kind of proof that the organization doesn’t provide women’s health care. Apparently, Republicans are under the impression that women are Barbie dolls, with big breasts and nothing between our legs but a flat surface.

Breasts are a part of women’s bodies, so to the uninformed, the idea that Planned Parenthood doesn’t perform this particular kind of women’s health care might sound like a profound gotcha, indeed. But in reality, there’s no reason for them to have mammogram machines on premises. Most gynecologists don’t do them on premises, but refer women out to another location for a mammogram, because mammogram facilities are accredited by the American College of Radiology. I did a quick search in my area and found that nearly all available mammogram facilities were radiology centers or hospitals.

Vanessa Williamson: Trump’s ‘Populist’ Tax Plan Is Nothing But A Bush-Era Giveaway To The Rich

We’ve been here before. A frontrunner for the Republican nomination announces a tax plan, which is immediately lauded as “populist” but is actually a massive and unpaid-for tax cut for corporations and the wealthy. Earlier this month, it was Jeb Bush. This week, it is Donald Trump, who seems to have taken Jeb Bush’s plan, given every number a haircut, and submitted it as his own work. So much for being the anti-Establishment candidate.

Put simply, Trump’s plan offers an immense tax cut for the rich, a small tax cut for everyone else, and a multi-trillion dollar hole in the budget. It is as standard-issue Republican fare as the last major Republican tax cut, under George W. Bush, with the same money-for-nothing promises.

Trump’s plan is being promoted as all about closing loopholes. And it does. But the revenue increased from closing loopholes is far outweighed by the revenue lost by lowering tax rates. That’s the fundamental problem with his plan, and why it ends up being a huge boon to high earners.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Listen to the pope, not the armchair warriors

In his historic visit to the United States, Pope Francis spoke frequently about the importance of peace and of negotiation and cooperation. His words clashed with a U.S. presidential debate marked by the bellicose postures of candidates in both parties. Francis speaks from a religious, not a political, frame, but ironically, he may have a greater grasp on American public opinion than many of those seeking to lead this country.

Francis opened his visit by praising President Obama for “efforts which were recently made to mend broken relationships and to open new doors to cooperation,” clearly a reference to the opening to Cuba and the nuclear weapons deal with Iran. In his address to Congress, he emphasized the importance of “dialogue and peace,” of being “truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world.” He called for an end to the arms trade, driven, he argued, simply by “money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood.” At the United Nations, Francis decried war as “the negation of all rights,” calling on leaders to “work tirelessly to avoid war between nations and between peoples.”

Zoë Carpenter: [John Boehner’s Downfall Had Nothing to Do With His Position on Abortion]

Let’s get one thing clear about John Boehner: His problem was not that his position on abortion was too liberal.

Boehner’s resignation as Speaker of the House and from his congressional seat, which he announced to his Republican colleagues on Friday morning, is intimately tangled up in the squabble over federal funding for Planned Parenthood-though Boehner has clashed with the conservative wing of his caucus repeatedly since the Tea Party takeover that brought him to power in 2010. Buoyed by a series of undercover videos taken by anti-abortion activists, conservative members of the GOP have been pressing Boehner to tie a measure stripping funds from the healthcare organization into a must-pass budget bill. […]

 By resigning, Boehner appears to have succeeded in kicking the shutdown can down the road. The Washington Post reports that the Freedom Caucus, which is made up by the most conservative members of the GOP in the House, has agreed to support a short-term funding bill that does not affect funding for Planned Parenthood. But the issue will probably come up in a few months when Congress is again tasked with passing a spending bill. By that time the GOP will have installed a new Speaker, one that hard-liners hope will be more sympathetic to their tactical choices. Practically, it’s hard to imagine how the next leader could surpass Boehner’s legacy in seeking to restrict choice, though surely they’ll try.

Michelle Chen: In America, the Poorer You Are, the Poorer Your Children Will Be

When people talk about “balancing work and family,” they’re usually talking more about the workplace than what’s going on at home. Now we’re starting to get data on what the workaday life looks like from a kid’s eye view, and it doesn’t look good.

When debating the issue of work-life balance, arguments over unlimited vacation and employment discrimination center around women’s barriers to opportunity-the perennial glass ceiling that Anne Marie Slaughter and Sheryl Sandberg rage at when lamenting not “having it all.” For working-class folks crushed by on-call schedules or poverty wages, it’s often hard to find any life outside work, let alone to balance work and family lives. But centering the conversation not on career ambition but the life course of a family helps put the false dichotomy of work vs. life in perspective.

Katha Politt: Illegal Abortion Is Dangerous, Birth Control Works, and Other Inconvenient Truths for Pro-Lifers

Ross Douthat, the New York Times columnist and anti-choice conservative Catholic, has responded at some length on his blog (parts one and two) to my postelection column, in which I posed some pointed questions for pro-lifers. My format gives me much less space, but I’m going to try to take up his major points here. Then we can move on, which most of you have probably already done. [..]

 I myself do not believe that poverty is the only reason most low-income women who have abortions choose to do so. Middle-class and wealthy women have abortions, too. Having a child affects every aspect of a woman’s life, not just her pocketbook: her prospects, her relationships, her family, her dreams and ambitions, her physical and psychological well-being. We should get rid of poverty to make people’s lives better, not to justify more forced births. We should ban job discrimination against pregnant women and mothers, too-something abortion opponents rarely discuss. Low-income women are much more likely to have unplanned pregnancies, though, and that is something we can fix. We should provide birth control to all-not as a grudging trade-off against abortion rights, but to give girls and women more freedom to shape their lives.

I wish I felt Douthat cared about that freedom.

On the web, I’ll reply to Douthat’s other arguments, including that legal abortion and birth control aren’t prerequisites for women’s equality. Irish feminists beg to differ.

Sep 29 2015

Elizabeth Warren Said What We Needed To Hear

In an address at Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston, established by her late predecessor, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) got to the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement and what everyone should be doing to end racial inequality.

Transcript for the speech as it was written can be read here

Sep 29 2015

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”.

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Dean Baker: Janet Yellen Shows the Need for a 4 Percent Unemployment Target

In a speech last week, Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen inadvertently told us why Congress should set a 4 percent unemployment target for the Fed in its conduct of monetary policy, as is proposed in a new bill put forward by Michigan Representative John Conyers. The context was Yellen’s dismissal of such a target. [..]

The 4.0 percent target was not pulled out of the air. The United States, in fact, had a 4.0 percent unemployment rate as a year-round average in 2000, following two and a half years in which the unemployment rate was less than 5.0 percent. There is little evidence of any increase in the inflation rate as a result of this prolonged period of low unemployment. The increase in bargaining power from a strong labor market did allow tens of millions of workers at the middle and the bottom of the wage ladder to achieve strong gains for the only time in the last 40 years.

This is why low unemployment matters so much. It is not just about getting people jobs, as important as that is. It is also about allowing tens of millions to be able to share in the benefits of economic growth.

David Dayen: John Boehner’s ouster: The Trans-Pacific Partnership is in danger

We have heard so little about the Trans-Pacific Partnership over the past couple of months that you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Obama administration simply abandoned it. But tomorrow, representatives from the 12 TPP nations assemble in Atlanta for a two-day meeting designed to produce a final agreement.

Previous “final” talks in Maui revealed multiple hurdles, from dairy markets to auto parts manufacturing to the length of prescription drug patents. But this Atlanta meeting was abruptly put together, suggesting progress on the sidelines. While nobody thought TPP could conclude before Canada’s parliamentary campaign ends Oct. 19, the New Zealand prime minister said Canada is “negotiating as if there’s no election.”

But even if negotiators work out a tentative agreement this week, the biggest announcement on TPP may have already happened. That would be last Friday’s resignation of House Speaker John Boehner.

John Nichols: On Climate Change, Listen to Pope Francis, Not Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush may not be very good at running for president. But he has a remarkable talent for wedging his foot in his mouth.

The former front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination-who struggles to get above single digits in the polls-has frequently played the fool on the 2016 campaign trail.

But he will have a hard time topping his argument against accepting Pope Francis’ counsel on the need to fight climate change. After the pontiff urged members of Congress to engage with the rest of the world in “courageous actions and strategies” to combat global warming, Bush declared that the pope’s call should be disregarded.

Why? Because, Bush announced, “He’s not a scientist, he’s a religious leader.”

Bush, who is Catholic and who has attended mass with Pope Francis, needs to study up on the pontiff’s background in science. And on the rigorous research that underpins the pope’s advocacy on climate-change issues.

David Swanson: Bernie Sanders Gets a Foreign Policy

After 25,000 people asked, Senator Bernie Sanders added a few words to his presidential campaign website about the 96% of humanity he’d been ignoring.

He did not, as his spoken comments heretofore might have suggested, make this statement entirely or at all about fraud and waste in the military. He did not even mention Saudi Arabia, much less declare that it should “take the lead” or “get its hands dirty” as he had been doing in interviews, even as Saudi Arabia bombs Yemeni families with U.S. cluster bombs. While he mentioned veterans and called them brave, he also did not turn the focus of his statement toward glorification of troops, as he very well might have.

All that to the good, the statement does lack some key ingredients. Should the United States be spending a trillion dollars a year and over half of discretionary spending on militarism? Should it cut that by 50%, increase it by 30%, trim it by 3%?  [..]

And which of today’s battles would Sanders like to end? Drones are not mentioned. Special forces are not mentioned. Foreign bases are not mentioned. The only hint he gives about future action in Iraq or Syria suggests that he would continue to use the military to make things worse while simultaneously trying other approaches to make things better:

E. J. Dionne: John Boehner’s Impossible Task

John Boehner was a deal-maker who took over the House speakership at a moment when making deals had, for many Republicans, become a mortal sin.

He was thoroughly conservative in a Republican Party that had moved the goal posts on what constituted conservatism. He could never be conservative enough for his critics on the right.

His tea party antagonists call themselves “constitutionalists,” but they seem to ignore the part of the Constitution that provides the president-in this case, a president from the other party-with veto power.

The GOP’s most ardent conservatives thought they had won the right to run the country when they took control of the House in 2010. They felt this even more strongly after gaining a Senate majority in 2014. Democrats who controlled one or both houses of Congress when Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were in the Oval Office never presumed they had such power. But the standards Boehner was held to were more exacting.

Eugene Robinson: Carly Fiorina Is Too Mad to See Straight

How angry is Carly Fiorina? So angry she can’t see straight. That’s the only explanation for the yawning gulf between what she says and the plainly visible facts.

Fiorina stands out among the Republican presidential candidates not just because she is a woman but also because she has adopted a strategy of breathing fire. She presents herself as mad about everything, and she never gives an inch on anything she says, no matter how demonstrably untrue. Unhappily for our democracy, this approach has vaulted her into the upper tier of the multitudinous GOP field. [..]

Is she really, truly so filled with rage? Probably not. When she ran unsuccessfully against Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., in 2010, she was a moderate, pro-business Republican. That erstwhile profile would get her nowhere in this year’s presidential race, however, when everyone is scrambling to get to the right of everyone else and “moderate” is a dirty word.

One has to wonder if the showy posture of ultraconservative anger isn’t the biggest lie of all.

Sep 28 2015

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, a.k.a. the Republican Party

John Boehner was a terrible, very bad, no good speaker of the House. Under his leadership, Republicans pursued an unprecedented strategy of scorched-earth obstructionism, which did immense damage to the economy and undermined America’s credibility around the world.

Still, things could have been worse. And under his successor they almost surely will be worse. Bad as Mr. Boehner was, he was just a symptom of the underlying malady, the madness that has consumed his party. [..]

John Boehner was a terrible, very bad, no good speaker of the House. Under his leadership, Republicans pursued an unprecedented strategy of scorched-earth obstructionism, which did immense damage to the economy and undermined America’s credibility around the world.

Still, things could have been worse. And under his successor they almost surely will be worse. Bad as Mr. Boehner was, he was just a symptom of the underlying malady, the madness that has consumed his party.

For me, Mr. Boehner’s defining moment remains what he said and did as House minority leader in early 2009, when a newly inaugurated President Obama was trying to cope with the disastrous recession that began under his predecessor.

Dean Baker: The ongoing epidemic of corporate crime

Volkswagen is just the latest scandal from an epic decade of white-collar criminality

Even those who have little respect for the state of corporate ethics must have been surprised by the news from Volkswagen. It turns out that the largest car company in world deliberately designed software to allow its cars to deceive emissions testing in the United States. [..]

We may never know the details of how the top brass at Volkswagen thought it would be a good idea to cheat on emissions tests, but they obviously decided that the savings from going this route was worth the risk of detection and the potential punishment. And if the only punishment is a stretch of unemployment for people who have spent years in high-paying jobs, they are probably right.

The fate of the Volkswagen executives responsible for this fraud is likely to rest largely in the hands of the German legal system, but it is unlikely that they would face serious consequences if they were in the U.S. legal system. Corporate crime is rarely taken seriously, even when it results in avoidable deaths, whether they are caused by excess emissions because of Volkswagen’s decision to circumvent the law or by GM’s cover-up of faulty ignition switches or by Toyota’s cover-up of faulty floor mats that made cars accelerate.

Larry Beinhart: [How journalism helps lunacy become reality

If the US is to return to a ‘fact-based world,’ reporters need to recommit to objective reality

After the second prime-time Republican presidential debate on Sept. 16, The New York Times published an astonishing editorial. It said the candidates must be “no longer living in a fact-based world” and described what they said as “a collection of assertions so untrue, so bizarre that they form a vision as surreal as the Ronald Reagan jet looming behind the candidates’ lecterns.”

It was about time that someone as authoritative as The New York Times editorial board said it as bluntly as that.

One of the things that made the editorial so striking is that the news coverage of the same events, in the same paper as well as in the rest of the media, treated what the candidates said as almost entirely unremarkable.

That prompts interesting questions. Why was this only an editorial? Why wasn’t it in the news? Shouldn’t it be newsworthy that the leading contenders for the Republican nomination are “no longer living in a fact-based world” and that what they say is “untrue … bizarre … surreal”?

Robert Kuttner: Et Tu, Janet Yellen?

Barely a week after Fed Chair Janet Yellen cheered her many admirers by fending off pressures to raise interest rates in a weak recovery, Yellen reversed course. In a long, dense, technical lecture at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on Thursday, Yellen concluded by indicating that the Fed is likely to raise rates by the end of 2015 after all.

So what’s at work here? Obviously, economic conditions did not change between September 17 and September 24. Workers’ wages continue to be flat, despite a gradual reduction in the official unemployment rate. The inflation rate continues to be well below the Fed’s official target of 2 percent, with indications that it will go lower. Economic conditions outside the United States continued to be soft and getting softer in Europe, China, and much of South America, suggesting a drag on growth.

Why, then, does it make sense not to raise rates in September but to hike them in December, when a rate increase three months from now is just as likely to slow the recovery?

Robert Reich: Why We Must End Upward Pre-Distributions to the Rich

You often hear inequality has widened because globalization and technological change have made most people less competitive, while making the best educated more competitive.

There’s some truth to this. The tasks most people used to do can now be done more cheaply by lower-paid workers abroad or by computer-driven machines.

But this common explanation overlooks a critically important phenomenon: the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs.

Charles M. Blow: Jeb Bush, ‘Free Stuff’ and Black Folks

At a campaign event in South Carolina on Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was asked how he planned to include black people in his campaign and get them to vote for him.

Bush responded, “Our message is one of hope and aspiration.” But he didn’t stop there. He continued: “It isn’t one of division and get in line and we’ll take care of you with free stuff. Our message is one that is uplifting – that says you can achieve earned success.” [..]

The problem isn’t refusal to work, but inability to find work that is stable and pays a living wage, thereby pushing them out of need and eligibility.

Bush’s comment also hints at the role of black men without acknowledging the disastrous toll racially skewed patterns of mass incarceration have taken on the fortunes of black families by disproportionately ensnaring black men.

All history and context are cast aside in support of a specious argument: That the black community is plagued by pathological dependence and a chronic, self-defeating posture of victimization.

Sep 27 2015

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: Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson; U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power; Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA); and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA).

The roundtable guests are: ABC News contributor Matthew Dowd; Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard; Democratic strategist Donna Brazile; and Robert Costa, The Washington Post.

Face the Nation: Host John Dickerson’s guests are: House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH); Republican presidential candidate Gov. John Kasich (R-OH); and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-VT).

His panel guests are: CBS News Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes; Kim Strassel, Wall Street Journal; Ed O’Keefe, The Washington Post; and Susan Page, USA Today.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on Sunday’s “MTP” are: Democratic presidential candidate Hillery Clinton; Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina; and author George Weigel.

The discussion guests are: David Brooks, The New York Times; Andrea Mitchell, NBC contributor; Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post; and Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times.

State of the Union with Jake Tapper: Mr. Tapper’s guests are: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); Democratic presidential candidate former Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD); and Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson.

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