Tag: Politics

Jun 07 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: GOP presidential candidate Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; and  retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

The roundtable guests are: Democratic strategist Donna Brazile; ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; and former Clinton Labor secretary Robert Reich.

Face the Nation with John Dickerson: John Dickerson takes over as host. His guests are: potential GOP presidential candidate NJ Gov. Chris Christie; GOP presidential candidate former TX Gov. Rick Perry; Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

His panel guests are Susan Page, USA Today Jamelle Bouie, Slate; Ron Fournier, National Journal and CBS News Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd This Sunday’s guests are never eas to find and I’m too busy to look. Watch at your own risk.

State of the Union with Jake Tapper: CNN is another site that keeps you in the dark about who the guests are. Good Luck.

I’m still traveling and on a bit of a deadline. Enjoy your Sunday

Jun 06 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 Kruman: Lone Star Stumble

Remember the Texas economic miracle? In 2012, it was one of the three main arguments from then-Gov. Rick Perry about why he should be president, along with his strong support from the religious right and something else I can’t remember (sorry, couldn’t help myself). More broadly, conservatives have long held Texas up as a supposed demonstration that low taxes on the rich and harsh treatment of the poor are the keys to prosperity.

So it’s interesting to note that Texas is looking a lot less miraculous lately than it used to. To be fair, we’re talking about a modest stumble (pdf), not a collapse. Still, events in Texas and other states – notably Kansas and California – are providing yet another object demonstration that the tax-cut obsession that dominates the modern Republican Party is all wrong.

The facts: For many years, economic growth in Texas has consistently outpaced growth in the rest of America. But that long run ended in 2015, with employment growth in Texas dropping well below the national average and a fall in leading indicators (pdf) pointing to a further slowdown ahead. In most states, this slowdown would be no big deal; occasional underperformance is just a fact of life. But everything is bigger in Texas, including inflated expectations, so the slowdown has come as something of a shock.

New York Tiimes Editorial Board: Hillary Clinton, Voting Rights and the 2016 Election

A basic fact often gets lost in the propaganda that swirls around voting laws in this country: between one-quarter and one-third of all eligible voters – more than 50 million Americans – are not registered.

That alarming statistic is the backdrop to efforts by Republicans in recent years to pass state laws that restrict ballot access, a recent Democratic campaign to push back against those laws, and a bold set of proposals that Hillary Rodham Clinton laid out Thursday afternoon in a speech at Texas Southern University, a historically black college in Houston. [..]

Making voting easier for all eligible voters should be the epitome of a nonpartisan issue. Unfortunately, stopping people from voting has become a key part of the modern Republican playbook.

The 2016 election will be about many important issues, from income inequality to immigration to health care to education, but at its core it will be a test of two ideas of what it means to be a democracy. One is currently embodied by what Mrs. Clinton called “a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other.”

The other, as Mrs. Clinton put it, is that, “We should do everything we can to make it easier for every citizen to vote.”

Norman Solomon: The USA Freedom Act Is a Virtual Scam

Some foes of mass surveillance have been celebrating the final passage of the USA Freedom Act, but Thomas Drake sounds decidedly glum. The new law, he tells me, is “a new spy program.” It restarts some of the worst aspects of the Patriot Act and further codifies systematic violations of Fourth Amendment rights.

In Oslo as part of a “Stand Up For Truth” tour, Drake warned at a public forum on Wednesday that “national security” has become “the new state religion.” Meanwhile, his Twitter messages were calling the USA Freedom Act an “itty-bitty step” — and a “stop/restart kabuki shell game” that “starts with restarting bulk collection of phone records.”

Jun 05 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

Edward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance

TWO years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents revealing that democratic governments had been monitoring the private activities of ordinary citizens who had done nothing wrong.

Within days, the United States government responded by bringing charges against me under World War I-era espionage laws. The journalists were advised by lawyers that they risked arrest or subpoena if they returned to the United States. Politicians raced to condemn our efforts as un-American, even treasonous.

Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our privileged lives at risk for nothing – that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations.

Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: Turn Left on Main Street

Congressman John K. Delaney, what the hell are you talking about?

In a recent Washington Post op-ed piece, headlined, “The last thing America needs? A left-wing version of the Tea Party,” the Democratic congressman from Maryland scolds progressives and expresses his worry “about where some of the loudest voices in the room could take the Democratic Party.”

He writes, “Rejecting a trade agreement with Asia, expanding entitlement programs that crowd out other priorities and a desire to relitigate the financial crisis are becoming dominant positions among Democrats. Although these subjects may make for good partisan talking points, they do not provide the building blocks for a positive and bold agenda to create jobs and improve the lives of Americans.”

Rep. Delaney even implies that a freewheeling, open discussion of “these subjects” could lead to the election of a Republican president.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: The GOP’s Anti-Elderly, Pro-Billionaire Agenda

Few political advisors would suggest running on a platform of open hostility toward the elderly. Most families include an older person, after all, and everyone who lives long enough will become older themselves someday.

Seniors vote in greater numbers, too.

That may be why the GOP isn’t openly presenting itself as the “anti-elderly party.” But how else are we to interpret its deeds and actions? Its leading presidential candidates are pushing cuts to Social Security, while its congressional budgets would end Medicare as we know it.

Most older Americans would lose out under these proposals. But billionaires would make out very well indeed.

Robert Reich: Making the Economy Work for the Many, Not the Few: #8 Raise the Estate Tax on the Very Rich

At a time of historic economic inequality, it should be a no-brainer to raise a tax on inherited wealth for the very rich. Yet there’s a move among some members of Congress to abolish it altogether.

If you’re as horrified at the prospect of abolishing the estate tax as I am, I hope you’ll watch and share the accompanying video.

Today the estate tax reaches only the richest two-tenths of one percent, and applies only to dollars in excess of $10.86 million for married couples or $5.43 million for individuals.

That means if a couple leaves to their heirs $10,860,001, they now pay the estate tax on $1. The current estate tax rate is 40%, so that would be 40 cents.

Yet according to these members of Congress, that’s still too much.

Robert Parry: NYT’s New Propaganda on Syria

As the New York Times continues its descent into becoming an outright neocon propaganda sheet, it offered its readers a front-page story on Wednesday alleging – based on no evidence – that the Syrian government is collaborating militarily with the Islamic State as the brutal terror group advances on the city of Aleppo.

Yet, while the Times played up those unverified allegations from regime opponents, the newspaper has either ignored or downplayed much more significant evidence that Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have been providing real assistance to Sunni jihadists who dominate the Syrian rebel movement, especially Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front.

Jun 04 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

Dean Baker: The Federal Reserve Board’s Payroll Tax on our Children

The deficit hawks appear to be making a comeback, at least in the media, if not among the public at large. This isn’t surprising since we have billionaires prepared to spend large chunks of their money to scare people about the deficit, regardless of how unimportant it might be as an economic concern.

The latest storyline is that the deficit may not be a problem now, but it is projected to grow in size over the next decade. In particular, as interest rates rise we will be forced to divert an increasing portion of government spending to interest payments and away from things we might really care about like improving infrastructure and education.

There are many things wrong with this analysis, most obviously that even if interest payments rise as projected, relative to the size of the economy they will still be less in 2025 than they were in the early 1990s. And the interest burden in 1990s didn’t prevent us from having a decade that ended with four years of broadly shared wage growth and low unemployment. So the horror story here doesn’t look quite so frightening.

Trevor Timm: Snowden’s leaks forced NSA reform on Congress. The US would still jail him

The catalyst for Congress’ historic vote on NSA reform on Tuesday – the same person who led to a federal court to rule that NSA mass surveillance of Americans was illegal – remains exiled from the United States and faces decades in jail. The crime he’s accused of? Telling the American public the very truth that forced Congress to restrict, rather than expand, the spy agency’s power for the first time in over forty years.

The passage of the USA Freedom Act is quite simply a vindication of Edward Snowdenand it’s not just civil libertarians who have noticed: he’s forced even some of the most establishment-friendly commentators to change their opinions of his actions. But it’s a shame that almost everyone nonetheless ignores the oppressive law under which Snowden was charged or the US government’s outrageous position in his case: that if he were to stand trial, he could not tell the jury what his whistleblowing has accomplished.

The White House told reporters on Thursday that, despite the imminent passage of NSA reform, they still believe Edward Snowden still belongs in prison (presumably for life, given his potential charges), while at the same time, brazenly taking credit for the USA Freedom Act passing, saying that “historians” would consider it part of Obama’s “legacy.” Hopefully historians will also remember, as Ryan Lizza adeptly documented in the New Yorker, that Obama was handed every opportunity to reform the NSA before Edward Snowden, yet behind the scenes repeatedly refused to do so. Instead, the Obama administration was dragged kicking and screaming across the finish line by Snowden’s disclosures, all while engaging in fear-mongering that would make Dick Cheney proud.

Rashad Robinson: The US government could count those killed by police, but it’s chosen not to

For centuries, black communities in America have faced physical abuse and unjustified deadly force at the hands of law enforcement. Modern policing even originated in slave patrols and night watches that captured people who tried to escape slavery. According to the most recent FBI data, local police kill black people at nearly the same rate as people lynched in the Jim Crow-era – at least two times a week. The Guardian’s latest count for the first five months of 2015 puts that number at around once per day.

But the verifiable impact on black lives of racially discriminatory policing remains largely unknown. Despite federal law authorizing the US attorney general to collect nationwide data on police use of force, there remains no federal database on how often police kill civilians, let alone abuse their authority.

According to Guardian’s The Counted, police killed 464 people in the first 5 months of 2015, including 135 black people. Their data shows that, in 2015 so far, the black people killed by the police are twice as likely to be unarmed as the white people. According to a recent Washington Post analysis, at this rate, police will fatally shoot nearly 1,000 people by the end of year. The federal government has no way to confirm or disprove this data, though they’ve long had the authority to compile it themselves.

Leo W. Gerard: Trade Enforcement Failure

It’s all the rage now for Republican presidential candidates to spurn the Royal Romney approach and, instead, fawn over workers.

When former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum announced his presidential bid last week, he did it from a factory floor and called for increasing the minimum wage. Former New York Gov. George Pataki, who also launched his candidacy last week, named as his political inspiration Teddy Roosevelt, a corporate trust-buster and working-class hero. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, who entered the race in April, said that to win elections, “you’ve got to get the people who work for the people who own businesses.”

That is true – if the businesses are in America. There’s not much point in American candidates soliciting votes from workers at factories that U.S. corporations closed here and moved overseas with the help of free-trade agreements (FTAs). Decade after decade of free trade, presidents promised workers that the deals set the highest standards for labor. And decade after decade, the federal government failed at enforcement, placing Americans in competition with child laborers, underpaid and overburdened foreign workers and victims of human trafficking.

Robert Reich: Ten Ways To Make The Economy Work For The Many, Not The Few: #7 Strengthen Unions And Preempt States “Right To Work” Laws

One big reason America was far more equal in the 1950s and 1960s than now is unions were stronger then. That gave workers bargaining power to get a fair share of the economy’s gains – and unions helped improve wages and working conditions for everyone.

But as union membership has weakened – from more than a third of all private-sector workers belonging unions in the 1950s to fewer than 7 percent today – the bargaining power of average workers has all but disappeared.

In fact, the decline of the American middle class mirrors almost exactly the decline of American labor union membership.

So how do we strengthen unions?

John Nichols: 2 Million Americans Petition Congress to Reject Fast Track

There are a lot of reasons Americans, even Americans who are generally supportive of President Obama, don’t want Congress to grant him Trade Promotion Authority to “fast-track” negotiations and the approval process for a sweeping new Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. For instance, the president wants Congress to surrender its ability to make amendments to this deal and to agreements negotiated by the next president-even amendments that seek to lock in protections for labor rights, human rights, and the environment. The administration wants Congress to give up its power to hold a meaningful debate before voting on this and future deals. Yet, even as it seeks fast-track authority, the administration refuses to share the details of the agreement as it now stands with Congress.

Presidents always seek maximum flexibility.

But Congress does not have to grant it.

The Senate has, after a good deal of wrangling, bent to the White House’s fast-track demand. But the House, where trade debates are always more intense, could still say “no.”

Revelations about what’s being proposed in global-trade negotiations point to why this is the wrong time for Congress to surrender oversight authority.

Jun 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.

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

Katrina vanden Heuvel: The dangerous ‘red-state model’

“My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, ‘See, we’ve got a different way, and it works,’ ” Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said in 2013.

Brownback was talking about the massive supply-side tax cuts at the center of his policy agenda, which he had promised would provide “a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.” Instead, it led to a deep hole in the state budget, a downgrade in the state’s credit rating and weak economic growth compared with neighboring states. As top income earners and business owners pocketed their tax cuts, Kansas’s poverty rate went up. [..]

However, Kansas’s budget woes have overshadowed another important element of Brownback’s red-state experiment: his refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. In the latest issue of The Nation, features editor Kai Wright reports on the devastating consequences of that decision.

Zoë Carpenter: How Edward Snowden Sparked a Librarians’ Quarrel

From the Cold War to the Patriot Act, librarians have fought to defend privacy against the intrusions of the security state. This resistance, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, has come both from individual librarians like Zoia Horn, and from the American Library Association, which lobbies on legislative issues in Washington and advocates broadly for intellectual freedom.

However, there is also a serious debate within the profession about whether the ALA is doing enough to put its privacy and intellectual freedom principles into action. That long-simmering controversy spilled over in the summer of 2013, shortly after documents leaked by Edward Snowden made their way into the pages of The Guardian, The Washington Post, and other outlets.

At its meeting in late June of that year, the ALA’s governing council considered a resolution to recognize Snowden as “as a whistleblower who…has performed a valuable service in launching a national dialogue about transparency, domestic surveillance, and over classification.” The resolution passed easily, by a vote of 105 to 39. “It had more resonance than anything else we had done,” recalled Al Kagan, a member of the ALA council who represents the Social Responsibilities Roundtable (SRRT), a progressive unit with the ALA.

Michelle Chen: How the Retail Industry Keeps People of Color in Poverty

The second-largest source of jobs for black people in the country is also one of the worst industries to work in. Although big retailers tout their “entry level” positions as a path to the middle class, retail work is built on dead-end jobs that perpetuate racial inequality.

A new report by the think tank Demos and the NAACP shows that the retail industry, a leading source of employment in the post-recession “recovery,” is creating many more bad jobs than good ones-and blacks and Latinos are stuck in the lowest-paid positions with the least opportunity for advancement.

Some leading retailers have faced legal challenges in recent years over racial or gender discrimination against workers, but the most harmful forms of racial bias operate just below the surface. Bad retail jobs compound the deeper economic and social barriers that disproportionately affect blacks and Latinos. Though black workers don’t differ greatly from whites in terms of education level or the age of the workforce, Demos reports, “Black and Latino retail workers are more likely to be working poor, with 17 percent of Black and 13 percent of Latino retail workers living below the poverty line, compared to 9 percent of the retail workforce overall.”

Joan Walsh: White progressives’ racial myopia: Why their colorblindness fails minorities – and the left

Increasingly, though, black and other scholars are showing us that racial disadvantage won’t be undone without paying attention to, and talking about, race. The experience of black poverty is different in some ways than that of white poverty; it’s more likely to be intergenerational, for one thing, as well as being the result of discriminatory public and private policies.

Ironically, our first black president has exhausted the patience of many African Americans with promises that a rising economic justice tide will lift their boats. President Obama himself has rejected race-specific solutions to the problems of black poverty, arguing that policies like universal preschool, a higher minimum wage, stronger family supports and infrastructure investment, along with the Affordable Care Act, all disproportionately help black people, since black people are disproportionately poor.

At the Progressive Agenda event last month, I heard activists complain that they’d been told the same thing: the agenda will disproportionately benefit black people, because they’re disproportionately disadvantaged, even if it didn’t specifically address the core issue of criminal justice reform. (De Blasio later promised the agenda would include that issue.) But six years of hearing that from a black president has exhausted people’s patience, and white progressives aren’t going to be able to get away with it anymore.

Heather Digby Parton: Hillary Clinton’s toughest adversary: The world-historic narcissism of the political press

After he ended his long and storied career with CBS last Sunday with his final appearance as the host of Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer went on Fox News and spoke to Howard Kurtz. And if the old trope that a “gaffe” is when someone accidentally tells the truth, then Schieffer committed one last gaffe on his way out the door. Kurtz, king of the leading question, asked Schieffer if the media gave Barack Obama an incredibly easy ride in 2008 and Schieffer replied ” I don’t know, maybe we were not skeptical enough. It was a campaign.”

He did catch himself and quickly added that it is the role of the opponents to “make the campaign.” He said, “I think, as journalists, basically what we do is watch the campaign and report what the two sides are doing.”

Except when they’re not being “skeptical enough” or giving them an “easy ride.”

He sort of gave the game away, didn’t he? The press wasn’t skeptical enough. Of what? Has President Obama subsequently been accused of scandal? Is he corrupt? Compared to other recent administrations (ahem), the Obama White House has been downright saintly. Is he unusually unpopular? No, the country is divided along party lines; but he is just as popular with the people who voted for him as he ever was. So what should the press have been more skeptical about? It must be his policies, which apparently Howard Kurtz and Bob Schieffer don’t like and believe should have been more thoroughly challenged. That’s a long way from “We watch the campaign and report what the two sides are doing.”

Jun 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

Dean Baker: The Federal Reserve Board’s Payroll Tax on our Children

The deficit hawks appear to be making a comeback, at least in the media, if not among the public at large. This isn’t surprising since we have billionaires prepared to spend large chunks of their money to scare people about the deficit, regardless of how unimportant it might be as an economic concern.

The latest storyline is that the deficit may not be a problem now, but it is projected to grow in size over the next decade. In particular, as interest rates rise we will be forced to divert an increasing portion of government spending to interest payments and away from things we might really care about like improving infrastructure and education.

There are many things wrong with this analysis, most obviously that even if interest payments rise as projected, relative to the size of the economy they will still be less in 2025 than they were in the early 1990s. And the interest burden in 1990s didn’t prevent us from having a decade that ended with four years of broadly shared wage growth and low unemployment. So the horror story here doesn’t look quite so frightening.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Is Jeb’s Social Security Flub the Worst Bush Gaffe Yet?

George W. Bush: His policies brought untold harm, but at least his gaffes offered some occasional lighthearted moments. Now his brother Jeb may have outdone him in the faux pas department — but there’s nothing funny about it.

The former Florida governor has been running on a platform which includes cutting Social Security benefits, so he’s been talking about raising the retirement age. But, as it happens, he doesn’t even know what the retirement age is.

When he was asked about it, Jeb responded in the tortured syntax characteristic of his clan: “We need to look over the horizon and begin to phase in, over an extended period of time, going from 65 to 68 or 70.”

Except that the retirement age isn’t 65, and hasn’t been for some time. The current retirement age is 66, and it will continue to rise. People born in 1959 won’t be able to retire until they are 67 years old.

If you’re going to cut a program which affects the lives of most Americans, the least you can do is get the facts right. Jeb didn’t. That’s worse than a candidate getting the price of bread or milk wrong, or a president’s wonderment at the fact that grocery stores have scanners.

Bill George: Soccer’s FIFA Is Morally Bankrupt — Corporations Should Suspend Sponsorships Until Blatter Resigns

The fish rots from the head, and this is undoubtedly the case with FIFA and its leader, Sepp Blatter.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s indictment of 14 senior FIFA officials confirms what we all knew. FIFA is a deeply corrupt organization. Lynch, who collaborated with the police in Switzerland to arrest seven FIFA officials, detailed at least $150 million in corrupt payments over 24 years. At week’s end, Justice Department officials said they were preparing additional indictments. [..]

Leaders are responsible for creating a moral climate in their organizations, and ensuring that its business affairs are carried out with integrity. Of course, there will always be individuals who deviate from company policy, in which case high integrity leaders move swiftly to terminate them and take appropriate follow-up action to prevent repeat incidents.

The vast majority of today’s business leaders do precisely that. The exceptions, such as Blatter, give a poor name to all who view leadership as a higher calling. High integrity leaders must support firm action against those who destroy important enterprises like world soccer.

C. Robert Gibson: The Democratic Party needs a swift kick in the ass

The Democratic Party’s official symbol is a jackass – and that’s exactly how the party is perceived by the American electorate right now. Only 18 states have Democratic governors, and Democrats hold a majority in both legislative houses in just 11 states. As the New York Times noted, the party hasn’t had this little power since Herbert Hoover was president. And Democrats will continue to get their asses kicked in every election until grass-roots movements organize to oust the party’s corporate-backed incumbents, make a mockery of state party bosses and take the helm once they’ve all been driven out.

Of America’s two major political parties, the Republicans have become the party of extremists determined to privatize the commons, neuter the government’s ability to police polluters and corporate tax avoiders and redistribute wealth to the rich. The Democrats, on the other hand, have simply failed to stand for anything other than a watered-down version of what Republicans are proposing. State Democratic Party chairpeople, committee members, top-level elected officials and check writers have made it clear they have no interest in changing course in their embrace of policies that disenfranchise the middle class, nor are they listening to the grass-roots movements demanding economic, environmental and racial justice. Even as the country moves further to the left, Democrats continue to lose. The 2014 midterm election cycle was a perfect example.

Bill Boyarsky: Undercutting the Patriot Act Is a Major Win for Rand Paul and Edward Snowden

While its successor may be full of ways for intelligence agents and law enforcement to invade privacy, the demise of the Patriot Act’s bulk collection of phone records is a major accomplishment for Sen. Rand Paul, for Americans suspicious of government intrusion and, above all, for Edward J. Snowden.

It is Snowden who deserves most of the credit for the expiration of the act’s most onerous provisions, which went out of effect at midnight Sunday. Now in self-exile in Russia and facing espionage charges at home, Snowden revealed how the National Security Administration was scooping up enormous masses of the private records of ordinary citizens under the guise of fighting terrorism. President Barack Obama and many other politicians, along with intelligence officials, denounced that courageous act by the onetime NSA contractor, but the disclosure resonated strongly with Americans who harbor a suspicion of government that dates back to before the American Revolution.

E.J.Dionne, Jr.: Understanding the Importance of Bernie Sanders’ Candidacy Requires Revisiting Santa Claus Politics

How is it that Democrats forgot about the joys Santa Claus can bring? How is it that Republicans managed to steal the Santa idea from the party of FDR and never let go?

Understanding why Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy is important requires revisiting the politics of St. Nick. The senator from Vermont has little chance of defeating Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. But he is reminding his party of something it often forgets: Government was once popular because it provided tangible benefits to large numbers of Americans.

At a time of rising inequality and short-circuited social mobility, Sanders is unapologetic about taking some wealth and income away from those who have a lot of both to ease the path upward for those who don’t. He has proudly called himself a democratic socialist, but he doesn’t spin abstract Marxist theories. He wants government to do stuff, and the sort of stuff he has in mind is potentially quite popular.

Jun 01 2015

The Patriot Act Ain’t Dead Yet

While the Senate failed to pass the USA Freedom Act during Sunday’s emergency session, it did get past a cloture vote to continue debate and consider amendments that could either weaken or strengthen the already inadequate reform of the controversial Section 215 of the Patriot Act. So for the moment, the most egregious parts of the act which violate the Fourth Amendment have expired. So what next? There is no chance to renew the Patriot Act, as the Senate Republican leadership would prefer. Amending the US Freedom Act would necessitate the bill being returned to the House for another vote or hash out the details in a conference committee. None of this looks good for a resolution anytime soon, which is not entirely a bad thing.

McConnell introduced a handful of amendments Sunday evening on behalf of himself and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.). Paul and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has also attempted to bring up amendments of their own, but they were blocked.

Paul’s opposition will push votes on both those amendments and the final bill back to Tuesday at the earliest, and potentially Wednesday.

The House would then either need to vote on the new bill or hash out the details in a conference committee.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) – an NSA critic – warned senators against adding amendments to the legislation that could potentially weaken the bill in the eyes of its supporters.

“On the House side, there’s not support for a more watered down version of the Freedom Act,” he said. “If they want to get something passed through the House, they need to make it better not worse.“

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald gave his reaction to the expiration of the act and the fear mongering that will ensue to Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman’



Transcript can be read here

The internecine GOP politics surrounding this are quite a maze since it involves not just Sen. Paul’s candidacy for president in 2016, but power fights between the House and Senate leaderships. Sen. McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) are not exactly best of friends.

The game is now in the Senate and could mean the permanent end of Section 215. Let’s keep our fingers crossed they screw this up.  

Jun 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 Ti,,: The NSA can’t surveil Americans’ every phone call – at least for now

Today is a landmark day for Americans’ privacy: you can finally make a telephone call in the United States without the NSA automatically keeping a record of who you called, when, and for how long. It’s been more than a decade since that was the case. Now the only question is: will it last?

After the Senate voted down an extension of the Section 215 of the Patriot Act in a rare Sunday evening session, the dreaded law authorizing the mass surveillance of Americans expired at the first stroke of midnight and, with that stroke, one of the NSA’s most controversial and invasive surveillance program exposed by Edward Snowden was reportedly shut down. But what powers the NSA will have by the end of the week – the details of which is still up in the air and changing by the hour – is anyone’s guess. [..]

The rhetoric about the NSA in the last week from surveillance state supporters has been so dishonest, it’s bordered on farcical, so there’s not much hope that its defenders won’t simply plant an 11th-hour knife in the back of NSA reformers despite their apparently new-found willingness to pass the USA Freedom Act.

Paul Krugman: That 1914 Feeling

U.S. officials are generally cautious about intervening in European policy debates. The European Union is, after all, an economic superpower in its own right – far too big and rich for America to have much direct influence – led by sophisticated people who should be able to manage their own affairs. So it’s startling to learn that Jacob Lew, the Treasury secretary, recently warned Europeans that they had better settle the Greek situation soon, lest there be a destructive “accident.”

But I understand why Mr. Lew said what he did. A forced Greek exit from the euro would create huge economic and political risks, yet Europe seems to be sleepwalking toward that outcome. So Mr. Lew was doing his best to deliver a wake-up call. [..]

The thing is, it’s pretty clear what the substance of a deal between Greece and its creditors would involve. Greece simply isn’t going to get a net inflow of money.

New York Times Editorial Board: Who’s Willing to Fight for Iraq?

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s recent assessment of Iraqi security forces was impolitic and true, and rarely voiced by senior officials. After the devastating loss of the Iraqi city of Ramadi to the Islamic State in May, he told CNN that while Iraqi troops vastly outnumbered the brutal extremists, they “just showed no will to fight.” [..]

After the Ramadi debacle exposed more weaknesses in the regular Iraqi security forces, American officials say they will have to rely more heavily on a combination of elite Iraqi units, Kurdish forces, the Sunni tribes and some Shiite militias to fight ISIS.

The Iraqi state has been fragile since the Americans overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, in part because the Shiites have excluded Sunnis from a fair share of the country’s political and economic power and fostered grievances that extremists exploit. Now, under the new threat of ISIS, the politically dysfunctional state is under more strain, and may be in greater danger than ever of splitting apart into Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni sectors. That would make defeating Islamic State forces even harder.

Robert Reich: State of Disaster

As extreme weather marked by tornadoes and flooding continues to sweep across Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has requested — and President Obama has granted — federal help.

I don’t begrudge Texas billions of dollars in disaster relief. After all, we’re all part of America. When some of us are in need, we all have a duty to respond.

But the flow of federal money poses a bit of awkwardness for the Lone Star State.

After all, just over a month ago hundreds of Texans decided that a pending Navy Seal/Green Beret joint training exercise was really an excuse to take over the state and impose martial law. And they claimed the Federal Emergency Management Agency was erecting prison camps, readying Walmart stores as processing centers for political prisoners.

There are nut cases everywhere, but Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott added to that particular outpouring of paranoia by ordering the Texas State Guard to monitor the military exercise. “It is important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed upon,” he said. In other words, he’d protect Texans from this federal plot.

Rep. Sandy Levin: Is TPP the Most Progressive Trade Agreement in History? Not If You Need Access to Affordable Medicines

In 2007, House Democrats insisted on changes to four pending trade agreements with Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea. Those changes, among other things, created the most progressive medicines provisions in U.S. trade agreements. Unfortunately, TPP is currently failing to live up to that standard.

Millions of people in developing countries currently lack access to life-saving medicines. According to an expert commissioned by the United Nations, improving access to existing medicines could save 10 million lives each year.

Generic medicines can improve access by dramatically lowering costs. For example, a decade ago, a year of antiretroviral treatment for HIV infections cost approximately $10,000 — roughly two or three times the per capita income in Peru. Once generic alternatives became available, the average cost of treatment dropped dramatically. Today, the cost can be as low as $200 per patient in developing nations with access to these low-cost generic drugs.

Gary Younge: The US can’t keep track of how many people its police kill. We’re counting because lives matter

The question of who counts and whom is counted is not simply a matter of numbers. It’s also about power; the less of it you have the less say you have in what makes it to the ledger and what form it takes when it gets there. Collecting information, particularly about people, demands both the authority to gather data and the capacity to keep and transmit it. Those who have both the authority and the capacity need to feel that the people on whom they are keeping tabs on matter.

The Guardian has, through its new investigative project The Counted, developed the capacity to count the number of people killed by the police. We think it matters; the debate that has ensued on the issue of police killings and has been forced on to the national agenda through popular protest will be better informed for having easily accessible data.

We think those who have been killed matter; a handful of these deaths make national headlines while the rest barely make a ripple beyond their own families and communities. The data is important. But they are not statistics; they are people. To record their deaths, particularly when the circumstances of those deaths are in dispute, marks a small but important step in the attempt to restore their humanity – albeit posthumously.

May 31 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: Democratic presidential candidate former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley; GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson; potential GOP candidate Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates.

The roundtable guests are: Republican strategist and pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson; Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson; and Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, managing editors of Bloomberg Politics .

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: This is Mr. Schieffer’s last show. His guests are: Potential GOP candidate former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; and CIA Director John Brennan.

His panel guests are: Peggy Noonan,The Wall Street Journal; Dan Balz, Washington Post; David Ignatius Washington Post; and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson, who will take over the reins at “Face The Nation” next week.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on Sunday’s “MTP” are: former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA); Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT); former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA); Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) and Nuala O’Connor, President & CEO, The Center for Democracy and Technology.

The panel guests are: Chris Matthews, Host of MSNBC’s “Hardball“; Manu Raju, POLITICO; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report and Sara Fagan, former White House Political Director for President George W. Bush

State of the Union with Jake Tapper: GOP presidential candidate former NY Gov. George Pataki; Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT); and Sen. Angus King (I-ME).

May 31 2015

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Migration?

The migration of refugees from conflict torn Libya has become a huge humanitarian crisis for European nations, especially Italy. But the solution to stemming the tide of thousands fleeing the region by vessels used by human traffickers isn’t the way.

EU to launch Mediterranean naval mission to tackle migrant crisis

EU ministers have agreed to launch a sea and air mission that could in its later phases destroy vessels used by human traffickers, which have carried an estimated 1,800 migrants to their deaths in the Mediterranean this year.

An intelligence-gathering operation will herald the mission’s first phase, with the UK expected to offer drones and surveillance equipment as a partial riposte to calls for it to take in more refugees.

In later phases, hostile vessels suspected of harbouring migrants could be boarded, searched, seized or disposed of in Libyan territory or international waters – as long as a chapter 7 UN resolution to authorise the use of force to do so is obtained first. [..]

The mission’s rules of engagement have still to be thrashed out and one diplomat described the deployment of such forces as “the next step in terms of operational details”. The level of collateral damage considered acceptable would also be discussed after the mission was up and running, he said.

The operation will have its headquarters in Rome and be run by an Italian rear admiral, Enrico Credendino, with an initial year-long mandate.

Concerns about the militarisation of the migrants issue will probably be raised at the UN, though, with Libya already describing the mission as very worrying, citing concerns over its potential to mistakenly target fishermen’s boats.

Refugee rights groups fear that bombing the escape routes of people fleeing for their lives from Syria, Eritrea and west Africa – where most migrants begin their journeys – will simply lead to more deaths, away from the public spotlight.

During his interview with Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman in London’s Ecuadoran Embassy, Wikileaks’ founder Julina Assange revealed that Wikileaks has released documents that detail the EU plans for the military intervention against “refugee boats” in Libya and the Mediterranean

Today, WikiLeaks is releasing two classified EU documents, outlining the planned military intervention against boats travelling from Libya to Italy. The more significant of the two documents was written by the combined military defence chiefs of the EU member states. The plan was formally approved by representatives from all 28 countries on 18 May 2015.

Importantly, one of the documents acknowledges that “the political End State [of the military intervention] is not clearly defined” and recommends that the European Commission issue further guidance.

The documents lay out a military operation against cross-Mediterranean refugee transport networks and infrastructure. It details plans to conduct military operations to destroy boats used for transporting migrants and refugees in Libyan territory, thereby preventing them from reaching Europe. The EU member states’ military chiefs advice is that there is a need to:

   “[draw] on the full range of surveillance, intelligence and information capabilities available to MS [member states] and Partners, and supported by Brussels (inter alia EEAS [European External Action Service] Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity – SIAC)“.

The plan also acknowledges the possibility of EU military use of force against groups such as ISIL “within the Libyan sovereign area”:

   “the threat to the force should be acknowledged, especially during activities such as boarding and when operating on land or in proximity to an unsecured coastline, or during interaction with non-seaworthy vessels. The potential presence of hostile forces, extremists or terrorists such as Da’esh [ISIL] should also be taken into consideration“.

The documents mark a departure from previous EU military strategy in its overt targeting of civilian infrastructure in Libya. Numerous EU countries, including Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom participated in NATO-led air strikes on Libya in 2011.



Transcript can be read here

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