Tag: Politics

Mar 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.

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

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board: Stronger Dollar in a Weak Global Economy

In the last several months, the dollar has strengthened tremendously against other currencies like the euro, the pound and the yen. This largely reflects the realization among investors that the American economy will do much better than other major economies in the coming months. [..]

For the United States, a stronger dollar will serve to dampen growth, though by how much nobody can accurately predict because the relative values of currencies are hard to forecast. Some American manufacturers have said they are losing orders or seeing their profits decline as they are forced to cut prices to compete with the lower prices offered by European and Japanese businesses.

The appreciation of the dollar is a good reason for the Federal Reserve to hold off on raising interest rates this summer. But more than anything else, the stronger dollar serves as a reminder that the world is still far too reliant on the United States, which itself has not yet fully recovered from the financial crisis. That does not augur well for sustainable global growth.

David Cay Johnston: No, the estate tax isn’t destroying family farms

The latest pitch for an estate-tax repeal repeats a long-discredited lie

Congress is voting this week on whether to repeal the estate tax. The step would be a huge boon to billionaires and others whose fortunes would forever escape taxation, creating an even larger dynastic class of inheritors who owe their riches to their skill at picking their parents.

But that’s not what was heard at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week. Instead the theme was how the tax was eviscerating American farmers. [..]

The fact is that any claim that the estate tax is killing family farms is a lie.

How many of America’s 2.2 million farms have been sold to pay estate taxes? None. [..]

We need to reform the estate tax system. I would start by changing the code to tax capital gains at death, as Canada does, and to limit the estate tax to huge concentrated fortunes – say, of $1 billion or more. But we should all agree to reform it on the basis of facts, not lies.

Dean Baker: The sharing economy needs a public option

The public doesn’t need a middleman for sharing-economy services, but it does need to make sure they are regulated

So-called “sharing economy” companies such as Uber, Airbnb and Task Rabbit are posing policy headaches for governments around the world. Their argument that they should be exempt from existing regulations because their services are ordered over the web does not make much sense, but it provides an adequate fig leaf for politicians seeking campaign contributions from these highly capitalized newcomers.

For those who have missed the hype, “sharing economy” refers to a wide variety of companies that use the web to connect consumers and providers. While there is not reliable data on its size, in part because it is not well defined, Airbnb now boasts far more room listing that Hilton or Marriot, and Uber has quickly grown to be the largest taxi service in the world.

Part of the response to the innovations associated with these sharing economy companies should be to modernize regulations. It is reasonable to regulate taxi services in ways that ensure that cars are safe and drivers are competent and responsible. It is also reasonable to regulate rented rooms to ensure they are not fire traps. Similarly, both should be regulated in ways that ensure access to the handicapped and prevents discrimination. In addition, employees in these companies should be covered by workers compensation and protected by minimum wage and overtime rules.

Mark Weisbrot: Destroying the Greek economy in order to save it

European authorities are using dirty tactics to bring Greece to heel

There is a tense standoff right now between the Greek government and the so-called troika – the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). ECB President Mario Draghi went so far this week as to deny that his institution is trying to blackmail the Greek government.

But blackmail is actually an understatement of what the troika is doing to Greece. It has become increasingly clear that they are trying to harm the Greek economy in order to increase pressure on the new Greek government to agree to their demands. [..]

The amounts of money involved are quite trivial for the ECB. The government has to come up with approximately 2 billion euros of debt payments in April. The ECB has recently shelled out 26.3 billion euros to buy eurozone governments’ bonds as part of its 850 billion euro quantitative-easing program over the next year and a half. The ECB’s excuses for causing this cash crunch in Greece ring hollow. For example, it argues that banks under the previous government didn’t have to have the limit that the ECB is imposing on banks now, because the prior government had committed to a reform program that would fix its finances. But so has this one.

It could hardly be more obvious that this is not about money or fiscal sustainability, but about politics. This is a government that European authorities didn’t want, and they wish to show who is boss. And they really don’t want this government to succeed, which would encourage Spanish voters to opt for a democratic alternative – Podemos – later this year.

Robert Kuttner: 5 Radical Ideas Hillary Should Support

The repositioning of candidate Clinton has already begun. One of the fascinating indicators is a report of a commission on inclusive prosperity organized and released in January by the Center for American Progress. The report, co-authored by Larry Summers (!), sounds more like something Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute or Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz might have written.

Among other things, the report calls for much more public investment, more help for trade union organizing, full employment, disdain for fiscal austerity, taxation of the rich, and lots of other good stuff usually associated with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.  [..]

So while it’s good that Clinton is positioning herself as more of a progressive, I think she needs to be even more radical, both to generate real enthusiasm and to address America’s real problems.

Robert Naiman: Schumer’s Choice: To Succeed Reid, He Must Back Iran Deal

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has announced that he will not run for re-election. Reid has endorsed Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to succeed him as Democratic leader.

But in order to succeed Reid as Senate Democratic leader, Schumer is going to have to pay a price: he’s going to have to back President Obama’s multilateral diplomacy with Iran, which Bloomberg reports could produce a “framework agreement” this weekend. Some of Senator Schumer’s New York constituents might not like that, but as the soldiers say, they’ll just have to “embrace the suck.” Senate Republicans may think it’s ok for them to try to undermine a diplomatic agreement. But the prospective leader of Senate Democrats isn’t allowed to do that. [..]

Schumer will have to make a choice. If he maintains his support for the Corker bill, he would help kill the talks. But then he would never be the leader of Senate Democrats. If he wants to be leader of Senate Democrats, Schumer will have to support President Obama on Iran diplomacy.

Mar 29 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: former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley; and Victoria Kennedy, the wife of late Sen. Edward Kennedy.

The roundtable guests are: ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd; former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm; ABC News contributor and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol; and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are: CBS News aviation consultant Capt. Sully Sullenberger; Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC); Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA); possible Republican candidate Mike Huckabee; Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD); former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME).

His panel guests are: Dan Balz of the Washington Post; Manu Raju of Politico; Scott Conroy of the Huffington Post; and CBS News Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on Sunday’s “MTP” are a deep, dark secret this week.

State of the Union: Dana Bash is this week’s host. Her guests are:  House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH); Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX); former NTSB investigators Charley Pereira and Dr. Alan Diehl; Kevin Madden and Ben LaBolt.

Mar 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

Trevor Timm: The FBI used to recommend encryption. Now they want to ban it

The FBI wants to make us all less safe. At least that’s the implication from FBI director Jim Comey’s push to ban unbreakable encryption and deliberately weaken everyone’s security. And it’s past time that the White House makes its position clear once and for all.

Comey was back before Congress this week – this time in front of the House Appropriations Committee – imploring Congressmen to pass a law that would force tech companies to create a backdoor in any phone or communications tool that uses encryption. [..]

The idea that all of a sudden the FBI is “going dark” and won’t be able to investigate criminals anymore thanks to a tiny improvement of cell phone security is patently absurd. Even if the phone itself is protected by a passphrase that encrypts the device, the FBI can still go to telecom companies to get all the phone metadata they want. They can also still track anyone they choose by getting a cell phone’s location information 24 hours a day, and of course they can still wiretap the calls themselves. Let’s not forget that with a four digit passcode – like iPhones come with by default – can easily broken into by the FBI without anyone’s help anyways. So a vast majority of this debate is already moot.

Beyond a few vague hypotheticals, Comey wouldn’t give any specific examples at the hearing about where this has tripped up the FBI before, but the last time the FBI did, what they said was immediately debunked as nonsense.

Eugene Robinson: The Mark of Terror

We don’t need to know the political or religious views of Germanwings copilot Andreas Gunter Lubitz to call his crashing of a crowded airliner into a mountainside an act of terrorism. And we don’t need any further evidence to recognize a cruel irony: Legitimate fear of potential terrorist attacks apparently made this tragedy possible. [..]

Terrorism is often defined as violence committed for a political or religious purpose, and no one can say yet what the pilot had in mind. But no one does something like this without intending to make a statement. We may not yet know what it means – and I suppose it’s possible that we may never know. Murder of this kind, on this scale and in this chilling manner is terrorism.

It’s possible, I suppose, that Lubitz was profoundly delusional. But if this were the case, how could he have passed the airline’s annual medical exams? How could he have worked in such close quarters with fellow pilots, flight attendants and other personnel, day after day, without anyone noticing behavior that suggested a problem?

It looks as if Lubitz wasn’t just trying to end his life because he was depressed. He apparently decided to end 149 other lives as well because he wanted to tell us something. Tragically, this is precisely the kind of thing that terrorists do.

Roxane Gay: Indiana is not protecting religious freedom but outright zealotry

Religious freedom in the United States is protected by the Constitution. It’s strange to have to state the obvious, but the Indiana legislature and Governor Mike Pence seem to need a refresher on basic civics. On 26 March, Pence signed SB 101 into law, a bill which supposedly protects religious freedom, though in this instance, that freedom largely applies to business owners who want the right to refuse service to customers they disapprove of. As with the Supreme Court decision on Hobby Lobby, the state of Indiana is giving businesses the same rights as people. Mitt Romney would be so proud of what he hath wrought. [..]

Of course, Indiana is not alone in drafting such legislation. There are 19 other states with similar laws on the books. The ongoing fight for marriage equality and feminism are probably to blame. There are pesky people all across the country simply wanting the freedom to live their lives; they clearly must be stopped.

But let’s talk about what’s really going on here. Indiana is not protecting religious freedom. They are protecting a very specific brand of zealotry. They are protecting bigotry. Though they won’t admit it, SB 101 is a knee jerk response to marriage equality becoming law in Indiana in late 2014. In some ways, the passage of this law offers comfort. Small-minded people are more plainly revealing themselves for who and what they are.

Steven W. Thrasher: Uganda faced a backlash for its homophobic legislation. Will California?

After years of efforts by American evangelical missionaries in collusion with pandering local politicians, Uganda passed a law in 2014 which made homosexual acts punishable by life in prison (an improvement on its 2013 “kill the gays” legislation). But though Uganda’s high court later overturned the law on a technicality, America quickly cut aid to the nation and calls for a trade boycott in Britain were swift, before the law was considered again.

So will the State of California face the threat of similar federal sanctions for its own proposed “kill the gays” referendum?

In attempting to put the Sodomite Suppression Act (pdf) – which allows “any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification” to “be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method” – on the ballot in California, attorney Matt McLaughlin has made it clear that too many people in the United States are no better than those in Uganda who earned our country’s opprobrium.

Alison Rose Levy: Oregonians Are ‘Mad as Hell’ About Trade Deals That Threaten Their Food Supply

In the 1976 film “Network,” a news anchor, played by the late actor Peter Finch, urges his television audience to open their windows and shout the infamous phrase, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

According to people I’ve talked to on the ground in Oregon, that may be something close to what many residents there are feeling right now. But instead of shouting out the window, Oregonians are petitioning and phoning their senator, Ron Wyden, to ask him to oppose granting so-called fast track authority to President Obama. [..]

Fast track-expected to be introduced in the Senate when Congress returns on April 11-is legislation that would give Obama the ability to sign international trade agreements without public or congressional disclosure and without giving lawmakers the ability to debate or amend the agreements. If fast track passes, the passage of the two trade agreements is widely regarded as a done deal.

All of this troubles Oregonians concerned about food, health and the environment because Wyden is being heavily wooed by the finance committee chairman, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, to co-sponsor the fast track bill. According to Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch, the bill can be sold as bipartisan if Wyden supports it, a point that the president is likely to use as leverage to sway recalcitrant House Democrats.

One obstacle to this well-orchestrated attempt to bypass democracy is Wyden’s own constituency.

Thor Benson: Why Wikimedia Just Might Win Its Lawsuit Over NSA Surveillance

The National Security Agency and the Department of Justice are being sued by Wikimedia, the nonprofit organization that runs Wikipedia-the online encyclopedia whose articles can be written or edited by anyone.

Wikimedia claims that the U.S. government’s mass surveillance programs are threatening its ability to spread free, open and honest information and that the way the NSA collects data violates the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. The organization is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and is joined in the suit by eight other plaintiffs, including the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA and The Nation.

The suit is specifically challenging the NSA’s use of “upstream surveillance,” which taps directly into the Internet’s backbone-the network of cables and routers that makes the Web possible-and intercepts all the traffic that goes across it.

Mar 27 2015

Alternative Choices for 2016

The day after the 2012 elections, the Democratic and Republican Parties started gearing up for the 2016 presidential election. The Democrats seemed determined to anoint another corporatist, war hawk with Hillary Clinton while the Republicans, true to form, have loaded the bus with just about every extreme right wing clown who, so far, are battling for the position of who is the most unelectable. As is in 2012, there are alternatives to the parties of the same evils. One of them is the Green Party. Their nominee, Dr. Jill Stein scared the Democrats and Republicans so much that they had her and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, arrested to keep them out of the debate venue. They were disqualified by the Bipartisan Campaign Commission because, even though they were on 85% of the state ballots, the Green Party candidates had not garnered at least 15% in national polls in order to participate. Dr. Stein is currently thinking of running again in 2016 and has formed an exploratory committee and hired a communications director.

On Real News Network’s Reality Asserts Itself, Dr. Stein discussed building The Green Party with host Jay Paul

It’s good to have choices. Stay informed

Mar 27 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

New York Times Editorial Board: [Reducing Risks After the Germanwings Crash Reducing Risks After the Germanwings Crash]

There is a lot we still don’t know about the tragic crash of the Germanwings plane in France. But what we do know suggests that airlines can take steps to reduce the risk of pilots deliberately or inadvertently crashing a plane.

French investigators believe the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, was conscious, but we may never know for sure. We do know that things might have turned out differently had there been another person in the cockpit. The chief executive of Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, said on Thursday that European regulators do not require two people to be in the cockpit at all times. [..]

No safety policy will ever anticipate every situation. But requiring two people to be in the cockpit during flight is a sensible step to reduce the risk that comes with leaving the lives of dozens or hundreds of people in the hands of just one pilot.

Sen Sheldon Whitehouse: The GOP Budget: Every Tax Loophole Is Sacred

Every tax loophole is sacred.

That’s the prime guiding principle of the budget Republicans are trying to push through the Senate. Republicans claim to be concerned with reducing the federal deficit, which their Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) described as a “dangerous financial crisis.” But are they willing to sacrifice a single tax loophole to solve the problem? No. And that’s telling about their real priorities. [..]

But for all its smashing and slashing of programs low- and middle-income families depend on, it would keep in place each and every tax deduction, exclusion, and credit that benefits wealthy individuals and big corporations. This Republican budget is a clear confession that the so-called “dangerous financial crisis” is actually less important to them than protecting special tax treatment for the rich and powerful.

John Nichols: This Is What a ‘People’s Budget’ Looks Like

A proper budget is a moral document, which well expresses the values and aspirations of a civil society.

As such, the measure of any budget is its combination of fiscal and social responsibility.

By this measure, there was only one proper budget proposal floated in the current Congress. And it did not get very far.

Only ninety-six House Democrats voted Wednesday for the People’s Budget, as it was proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The budget was opposed by 330 House members, including eighty-six shame-on-them Democrats and 244 Republicans.

The record of Wednesday’s roll call is worth reviewing, especially because it identifies the Democrats who got this most important vote wrong.

Of course, no one expected the People’s Budget to be enacted. But that is not a poor reflection on the CPC plan, which better met the tests of fiscal and social responsible than any of the other official or alternative proposals that are currently in play. It is a reflection on this Congress, which cannot get anything right, and on a political process that is now so flawed-because of gerrymandering, big money and failed media-that the United States ends up with, well, this Congress.

Despite the fact that if it was not expected to prevail, the People’s Budget was serious.

Amy Goodman: The Costs of War, the Price of Peace

What price would you pay not to kill another human being? At what point would you commit the offenses allegedly perpetrated by Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was charged Wednesday with desertion and “misbehavior before an enemy?”

Bowe Bergdahl was a private when he left his post in Afghanistan, under circumstances that are still unknown to the public, and was captured by the Taliban. They imprisoned him for five years, until he was released in a controversial prisoner swap negotiated by the Obama administration. Five Taliban members who were held for years at Guantanamo Bay were released to house arrest in Qatar in exchange for Bergdahl. He now faces a court-martial and potentially life in prison. Meanwhile, the architects of the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remain untried, while a new report asserts that up to 1.3 million people have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the first 10 years of the so-called war on terror.

The report is called “Body Count” and is published in the U.S. by Physicians for Social Responsibility. “It has been politically important to downplay Allied forces’ responsibility for the massive carnage and destruction in the region,” writes San Francisco doctor Robert M. Gould in the report’s foreword. He told me: “We need to take full responsibility for the true cost of war as we are preparing to continue our involvement in Afghanistan and deepen our involvement in Syria and Iraq. There’s great anger throughout the region about our involvement and the underplaying here of what the true costs are in terms of death and destruction.”

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Tell the Election Success Stories, Too

“I had a college degree, a decade of experience, and the only job I could get was making $8 an hour at the local convenience store in my neighborhood,” Maine state Representative Diane Russell (D) said in January, recalling her unlikely path to public office. “I have no business being in politics. I was not groomed for this. But thanks to public financing, I have a voice. And thanks to public financing, a gal who takes cash for the convenience store for selling sandwiches can actually talk about the stories that she’s learned from behind the counter.” Russell was speaking at an event on the fifth anniversary of the Citizens United ruling that set off an avalanche of money in politics. After her state’s “clean elections” system propelled Russell into office in 2008, she quickly became a force in Maine politics. Her progressive record of defending voting rights and workers, for example, led The Nation to recognize her as its “Most Valuable State Representative” in 2011. [..]

These stories are undeniably important, as are the long-term battles to overturn the Citizens United decision, pass a constitutional amendment on campaign finance reform and eliminate the corrosive influence of money in politics. But there is another story being written that deserves our attention, too, in which progressive activists and lawmakers are working to make our elections more democratic-a story less about containing the influence of billionaires and corporations than empowering small donors and unlikely candidates-candidates like Diane Russell.

Alastair Cooke: Why the Conflicts in Tikrit and Yemen Signal a New Middle Eastern War

With the Iranian involvement against the Islamic State in the assault on Tikrit, and the Saudi invasion of Yemen to stem the tide of Iranian influence, we have entered a new Middle Eastern war.

Tikrit has become something of an augury and symbol of ISIS’ prospective fate. The suggestion in much of the commentaries is that the Iranian-directed offensive in Tikrit has stalled. Indeed one can detect a certain pleasurable rubbing of hands at the very prospect of an Iranian setback.

“If this leads to the Iranians forced to concede defeat, that would be a satisfactory outcome,” one U.S. defense official told the The Daily Beast. An ISIS victory, then, is “satisfactory” to the U.S.? [..]

If Tikrit was the precursor, then the fall of Aden was the trigger.

“The Saudi default position on Yemen,” Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy writes, “can be best described as paranoia.” And thus we have a new Middle Eastern war — one which will complicate the region greatly.

Mar 26 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; It’s OK to leak government secrets – as long as it benefits politicians

It is hypocritical that some leaks will land you in jail, while others just lead to a slap on the wrist

When it comes to classified information, some leaks are more equal than others. If you are a whistleblower like Edward Snowden, who tells the press about illegal, immoral or embarrassing government actions, you will face jail time. But it’s often another story for US government officials leaking information for their own political benefit.

Two stories this week perfectly illustrate this hypocrisy and how, despite their unprecedented crackdown on sources and, the Obama administration – like every administration before it – loves to use leaks, if and when it suits them.

Scott Ritter: Espionage, by Any Other Name

Recent reporting by the Wall Street Journal that Israel has spied on U.S. negotiators who are crafting a deal with Iran that would limit that nation’s ability to enrich uranium in exchange for an easing of economic sanctions has raised alarms within the White House. As the Wall Street Journal noted, the issue that rankles the Obama administration the most isn’t the fact that Israel spied on the United States — Israel has long topped the list of “friendly” nations that actively collect intelligence on the American target — but rather that the Israelis have used information so gathered to enable a program of directed political action in Washington, DC designed to undermine the policies of the United States. Israel accomplished this by feeding the “take” back to Republican lawmakers in Congress in order to facilitate legislation intended to derail the ongoing international negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. [..]

Congress has every right — even a duty — to oppose the policies of the Executive Branch where there is legitimate disagreement. This can even extend to articulating strong pro-Israeli positions when it comes to Iran and its nuclear program. But it does not permit the kind of coordination that transpired between Speaker John Boehner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to selectively leak classified U.S. negotiating positions and strategies in an effort to derail the ongoing talks between the United States and Iran. In fact, there is little difference between the role played by John Boehner and his fellow Republicans in Congress in doing the bidding of Israel today and the role played by Alger Hiss and other members of the so-called “Ware Group” working on behalf of the Soviet Union back in the 1940’s. Hiss and his fellow travelers sought to influence U.S. policy on behalf of their masters in Moscow; Boehner and his cohorts seek to do the same on behalf of their masters in Tel Aviv.

Nancy Altman: The Wrong Math

“It’s simple math,” is the refrain often uttered by those seeking to explain why cutting, not expanding, Social Security is the choice to make. A variation of that phrase, “arithmetical realities of an aging society,” appeared in Fred Hiatt’s recent opinion piece (“Never-Compromise Wins Again,” Washington Post, 3/23/15). The math is simple, but Mr. Hiatt gets it wrong. [..]

The appropriate measure to assess affordability, one that takes into account productivity, is the percentage of our Gross Domestic Product–the total value of all goods and services–represented by Social Security. Currently, Social Security represents about five percent of GDP. In the future, at its most expensive, it will represent about 6.2 percent. Many other industrialized countries spend a much higher percentage of their GDP on their counterpart programs right now than we will at Social Security’s most expensive. Compared to that 6.2 percent of GDP, for example, Austria today spends 11.9 percent, Germany, 10.7 percent, and Japan, 9.8 percent.

The question of whether Social Security should be expanded, fully funded at its current level of scheduled benefits, or scaled back is not one of math or demographics, but one of values- how we choose to spend our combined wealth. Confusing this question is some other wrong math.

Richard (RJ) Escow: Hillary’s Challengers – and the Anti-Wall Street Wave

Former governor Martin O’Malley and former senator Jim Webb spoke at a firefighters’ union event earlier this month. Both are the subject of renewed press interest as they contemplate entering the presidential race. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been publicly weighing a run. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is being encouraged to enter the race.

All four have criticized Wall Street’s unethical practices and undue political influence. Leading contender Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has not.

Should that worry Democrats? [..]

The Clinton team might prefer to see this challenge go away, but that’s not likely to happen. That means she has a choice: she can offer her own strategy for reining in Wall Street, or run the risk of allowing others to define her position on this issue – in ways that could harm both her prospects and her party’s.

Earl Otari Hutchinson: Stephen A. Smith’s GOP Delusion Is Nothing New

ESPN host Stephen A. Smith has gotten quite a reputation for being a controversial tell-it-like-he-sees-it guy. That’s fine in sports punditry. He’s an ex-jock, and in that world pretty much any inanity will fly. But when Smith pursed his lips and ventured outside sportsdom to quip that blacks should vote GOP at least one election go round he proved once again that sports and entertainment personalities that venture opinions about politics more often than not embarrass themselves. If we want to be more charitable, the best that can be said is that Smith is just the latest in a long line to peddle the delusion that the GOP can change its ways and become an open-arms party for blacks. Those who routinely peddle that are usually a handful of GOP would-be presidential contenders such as Rand Paul, an infinitesimal and politically inconsequential handful of GOP elected officials, and an always dependable core of conservative media and think tank contracted black conservatives.

Before, during and after every national election, they kick into high gear and contend that getting more blacks to jump political ship will be a major seismic jolt to the Democrats and be a start toward breaking the lock that the Democrats have on the black vote. Smith, as with the rest that spout this fantasy, grab a headline or two, and get plenty of airtime on conservative talk radio and TV.

Rene Denfeld: Why we execute people is the big question, not how

“There’s no nice way to kill someone,” a man facing execution once told me, raising heavy eyes.

From my work as a licensed death penalty investigator, I know this too, which is why Utah’s decision to reinstate the firing squad for executions doesn’t trouble me the way it might trouble others.

Attorneys hire me to find out the truth. I’m the one who ferrets out long-lost witnesses, digs into dusty basements to unearth ancient records, and finds the evidence that exonerates, or – more often – explains.

I love my job, because I am the one person who gets to understand why.

Why do people do such terrible things to each other? Why is our country so enthralled with murder that we bookend one death with another?

Mar 25 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

Susan Greenbaum: GOP’s plan to shred the safety net in 2016

Republicans intend to inflict more painful austerity on those who can least withstand it

The GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress have crafted their 2016 budget proposals, newly confident about fulfilling promises to cut spending, reduce taxes and shrink the government. Although inequality has reached Gilded Age levels, austerity continues to dominate their internal debates. Never mind that drastic spending cuts have harmed, not helped, the struggling economies of the eurozone, where mounting evidence eviscerates the theory that austerity can spur growth.

The latest tax reform proposal from Sens. Marco Rubio and Mike Lee is a full-blown version of supply-side economics, to the tune of $4 trillion in revenue loss over a decade that would have to be offset by spending cuts. The plan targets programs that benefit the poor the most: Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps). On all sides and in both chambers, the Republicans appear determined to inflict more painful austerity on those who can least withstand it.

Winnie Byanyima: Another World Is Possible, Without the 1%

Activists from around the world will defy the terrorists to attend the World Social Forum in Tunis on March 25, determined to make the occasion a beacon for free speech, justice and equality. I am proud to join the leaders of Greenpeace, ActionAid, Civicus and the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) in highlighting the urgent need to tackle the vested interests of the 1 percent, in order to build a better world for all of humanity.

If you are in the top 1 percent of the global wealth stakes, our economic system works exceptionally well. Since the financial crisis in 2008, most of the wealth created in the world has ended up in your bank accounts. By next year, you could own more wealth than the rest of the world put together.

This is not just a global phenomenon. The growing gap between rich and poor is a reality for seven out of ten people on the planet. Last week the World Bank calculated that ten Africans own more wealth than half the continent. Statistics like these are actually a cold shower on people’s natural, positive aspirations to improve their lot – they’re telling us the 99 percent won’t get there, or anywhere close.

Amanda Marcotte: Political Lobby for Frats Wants to Make It Harder to Enforce Title IX

The political arm of the national fraternity system-known as the Fraternity & Sorority Political Action Committee (FratPAC)-is getting involved in the campus rape debate. Sadly, it seems they want to make it as hard as possible for schools to discipline students who sexually abuse or harass each other. [..]

The sentiment may sound fair-minded; it’s anything but. FratPAC is singling out sexual assault as the only crime they want universities to handle in this way. Underage drinking, drug dealing, burglary, assault-all of these actions break both school rules and the law, but FratPAC is not asking universities to wait for the criminal courts to adjudicate these crimes before punishing the students for breaking their corresponding school rules. In the situation they’re proposing, a school could punish a student for stealing from another student without waiting for the courts to adjudicate the matter; but if a student rapes another student, the school couldn’t act.

Joan Walsh: GOP innovation paralysis: How Jeb Bush sucks the oxygen out of Republican “reform”

While some governors practice genuine policy innovation, Bush’s fundraising juggernaut keeps them on the sidelines

I feel for Ohio Gov. John Kasich. He can’t get traction as a potential 2016 GOP presidential nominee with anyone so far – except political journalists. He sits around 1 percent in polls (that bother to mention him) and yet he’s been the focus of two long, laudatory profiles, touting his potential presidential appeal, in the last 18 months.

The New York Times’s Trip Gabriel found Kasich to be a maverick who “defies GOP with defense of safety net.” Now Yahoo Politics’s Andrew Romano asks if he could be “the GOP’s secret weapon in 2016?” He answers, archly, “John Kasich thinks so,” but the sympathetic profile suggests Romano agrees. Kasich seems eternally poised on the brink of defining a new way for the GOP – Compassionate Conservatism 2.0 – but is stymied by his inability to a) raise big money and b) get taken seriously (beyond Ohio and the national media), at least partly because he seems a tiny bit loopy and c) get past the boys of the Bush dynasty. [..]

The moderate establishment wing of the GOP, by contrast, seems content to let Jeb Bush be its standard bearer, charged with figuring out how much to cave to his party’s far-right base during the primaries, while trusting him to course correct in time for the general election. The campaign is unlikely to feature a genuine debate about a GOP economic growth agenda – a debate that a Kasich candidacy might catalyze. That’s a loss not just for Kasich, if indeed he skips a run, but for the country.

Julia Harumi Mass: FBI Ordered to Disclose its Surveillance Tactics on Communities

On Monday, a federal district court in San Francisco issued an important ruling for government transparency and accountability. Judge Richard Seeborg disallowed the FBI’s attempt to use a “law enforcement exemption” in the Freedom of Information Act to shield from public disclosure details of the agency’s surveillance programs. [..]

This ruling well upholds the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act and its limited law enforcement exemption. As the FBI has expanded its activities to include generalized monitoring and surveillance, unconnected to any suspected criminal activity, it is critical that records related to those broad surveillance programs be available for public scrutiny.

Mar 24 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

Chris HedgesL Journalism as Subversion

The assault of global capitalism is not only an economic and political assault. It is a cultural and historical assault. Global capitalism seeks to erase our stories and our histories. Its systems of mass communication, which peddle a fake intimacy with manufactured celebrities and a false sense of belonging within a mercenary consumer culture, shut out our voices, hopes and dreams. Salacious gossip about the elites and entertainers, lurid tales of violence and inane trivia replace in national discourse the actual and the real. The goal is a vast historical amnesia. [..]

As the mass media, now uniformly in the hands of large corporations, turn news into the ridiculous chronicling of pseudo-events and pseudo-controversy we become ever more invisible as individuals. Any reporting of the truth-the truth about what the powerful are doing to us and how we are struggling to endure and retain our dignity and self-respect-would fracture and divide a global population that must be molded into compliant consumers and obedient corporate subjects. This has made journalism, real journalism, subversive. And it has made P. Sainath-who has spent more than two decades making his way from rural Indian village to rural Indian village to make sure the voices of the country’s poor are heard, recorded and honored-one of the most subversive journalists on the subcontinent. He doggedly documented the some 300,000 suicides of desperate Indian farmers-happening for the last 19 years at the rate of one every half hour-in his book “Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories From India’s Poorest Districts.” And in December, after leaving The Hindu newspaper, where he was the rural affairs editor, he created the People’s Archive of Rural India. He works for no pay. He relies on a small army of volunteers. He says his archive deals with “the everyday lives of everyday people.” And, because it is a platform for mixed media, encompassing print, still photographs, audio and film, as well as an online research library, it is a model for those who seek to tell the stories that global capitalism attempts to blot out.

Katrina vnaden Heuvel: Adolescents Do Not Belong in the Adult Legal System

Currently, only New York and North Carolina automatically treat 16- and 17-year-old offenders as adults in the criminal-justice system. This means that New York is one of just two states in the country that has failed to recognize what research and science have confirmed-namely, that adolescents are children, and that placing them in the adult criminal-justice system doesn’t work for them and doesn’t work for public safety. Not only is it immediately cruel to incarcerate children along with hardened adult offenders, it also destroys their future prospects: children who go through the adult system are more likely to reoffend and less likely to go on to a productive life.

Acknowledging New York’s exacerbation of the problem, Governor Cuomo included in his 2015-16 Executive Budget juvenile justice reform recommendations from his Commission on Youth, Public Safety & Justice. In a comprehensive plan that would reform New York’s system, Governor Cuomo outlined reforms that will ensure that the state’s legal process provide children with age-appropriate consequences and treatment and thereby improve outcomes for youth, communities and the criminal-justice system as a whole. He must get this proposal passed in the budget this week. There is no time to waste.

Gary Younge: Who’s Accountable for Ferguson’s Crimes? No One, It Seems

Here’s another reminder that “personal responsibility” is a principle relevant only to the poor and the black.

In the wake of the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner, Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly had some advice for black America: “Don’t abandon your children. Don’t get pregnant at 14. Don’t allow your neighborhoods to deteriorate into free-fire zones. That’s what the African-American community should have on their T-shirts.” (That’s either a very big garment or very small lettering.)

Whenever black kids get shot, black parents get lectured about personal responsibility. If you raised your kids better, goes the conservative logic, we wouldn’t have to shoot them. Arguments about systemic discrimination and racist legacies are derided as liberal excuses for bad behavior. Neither history nor economics nor politics made Mike Brown grab Darren Wilson’s gun-that was his choice. Individuals, we are told, are responsible for their own actions and must be held accountable for them.

The vehemence with which this principle is held is eclipsed only by the speed with which it is abandoned when it becomes inconvenient. Discussions about choices and accountability change tenor when we shift from talking about the black and the poor to the powerful and well-connected.

Paul Buccheit: How Privatization Degrades Our Daily Lives

The Project on Government Oversight found that in 33 of 35 cases the federal government spent more on private contractors than on public employees for the same services. The authors of the report summarized, “Our findings were shocking.”

Yet our elected leaders persist in their belief that free-market capitalism works best. Here are a few fact-based examples that say otherwise. Broadcast Journalist Edward R. Murrow in 1955: Who owns the patent on this vaccine?

Polio Researcher Jonas Salk: Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?

We don’t hear much of that anymore. The public-minded sentiment of the 1950s, with the sense of wartime cooperation still in the minds of researchers and innovators, has yielded to the neoliberal winner-take-all business model. [..]

Privatization places profits over people. Average Americans are the products, and few of us see any profits.

Juan Cole: All the Wars and Coups of President Ted Cruz

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, one of three Cuban-Americans in the Senate, is throwing his hat into the ring for the 2016 presidential race today. Cruz has made a career out of slamming President Obama for being weak and presiding over the collapse of countries like Yemen (as though Cruz could have done anything about that if he had been president. I figure if you total them all up, Cruz has called for six or seven strong US interventions abroad, whether in the form of invasions, air strikes, or covert coups d’etat. It is hard to tell exactly, since he doesn’t typically demonstrate any detailed knowledge of the situation and just wants to take a “strong posture” rather than detailing any practical steps. [..]

In a way the most dangerous Ted Cruz war of all is on the earth’s environment, since he favors increasing the carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere by humans burning fossil fuels and is a global warming denialist. Given that humanity has only a couple of decades to make the changes necessary to keep warming in the 3.5 degrees F. range (already pretty bad), a Cruz presidency would probably be enough in and of itself to drive us to a five degree increase.

Robert Fisk: Stephen Harper Should Arrest Himself

And while he’s at it, he can lock up all the other Western leaders who have savaged the Muslim world too

Is Stephen Harper off his rocker? Forget his trip to Jerusalem last year when the Canadian prime minister said that criticism of Israel was a “mask” for anti-Semitism. Ignore his utter failure to bring home to Canada al-Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy, whose retrial was staged by the Egyptian government to give him the chance to leave for his country of adoption. Cast aside Harper’s Blair-like contention that the Islamist murders of Canadian soldiers had nothing – absolutely zilch – to do with his decision to send Canada’s F-18 jets against Isis.

Now Harper, the man with the choir-boy good looks whose pro-Israeli policies might win him a seat in the Knesset, is about to push a truly eccentric piece of legislation through parliament in Ottawa. It’s called – and I urge readers to repeat the words lest they think it’s already April Fool’s Day – the “Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act”. Yup, when I first read the phrase “Barbaric Cultural Practices Act”, I felt sure it was a joke, a line from the “Big Bang Theory” or a Channel 4 mockudrama about Nigel Farage’s first premiership.

Nope. It’s all real. But let me quickly explain that the “Barbaric Cultural Practices” in question are polygamy, “gender-based” family violence, “honour-killing” and forcing children under 16 to leave Canada for marriages abroad. I’ve no problem with legislation against this, of course. Nor have most Canadians.

Mar 23 2015

Robbing the Poor: #ShutDownTheF**kBarrel

Debtors prisons were supposedly banned in the United States under federal law in 1853 and in 1983, the US Supreme Court rule unanimously ruled that only “willful” non-payers (those with the means to pay who refuse to) could be incarcerated for nonpayment. The recent report from the Department of Justice on the city of Ferguson, Missouri revealed a pattern of abusive use of municipal fines that put a heavy burden on the poor and black population of the city. It resulted in the resignation of municipal court Judge Ronald Brockmeyer and the transfer of all the city’s cases to the St. Louis County circuit court. It also put the spotlight on the modern version of debtor’s prisons run by states and cities around the country.

Help John Oliver #ShutDownTheF**kBarrel

By Ed Nazza, The Huffington Post

Fees from traffic tickets and other minor offenses are often a major source of revenue for many communities. But what happens when you can’t afford to pay even a small penalty?

In some cases, you don’t work off the fine with community service. Instead, you could find yourself trapped inside what John Oliver calls “the fuck barrel.” [..]

We cannot have a system where committing a minor violation can end up putting you in — and I’m going to use a legal term of art here — the fuck barrel,” Oliver said. “We can’t have that. And it might be time that we all stood up and said so.”

Check out the clip above to learn more and to see the stirring ad Oliver’s team created to push the effort to #ShutDownTheFuckBarrel.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Municipal Violations

If you have money, committing a municipal violation may pose you a minor inconvenience. If you don’t, it can ruin your life.

“Most Americans drive to work,” he explained. “If you can’t do that, you’ve got a problem. In New Jersey, a survey of low-income drivers who had their license suspended found that 64 percent had lost their jobs as a result, which doesn’t help anyone. You need them to pay their fine but you’re taking away their means of paying it. That’s the most self-defeating idea since gay conversion camp!”

For-Profit Company Threatened To Jail People For Not Paying Traffic Fines, Lawsuit Says

By Ben walsh, The Huffington Post

The pitch is simple: For no cost, a private company will help collect fines and fees owed to cities. These for-profit firms, called probation services companies, don’t charge cities anything.

Instead, these companies put citizens who can’t afford to pay fines, such as traffic tickets, on payment plans that slam them with exorbitant fees, and then illegally threaten people with jail time if they fail to make payments, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The lawsuit alleges that an Atlanta-based company called Judicial Correction Services (JCS) and the city of Clanton, Alabama, violated federal racketeering law and Alabama state law by putting citizens on what is known as “pay-only probation” — basically, threatening citizens with jail time if they can’t pay fees and fines. [..]

Municipal use of private companies to collect the fines appears to be on the rise due to many cities’ increasing strapped finances. Smaller budgets can mean that when cities look to raise funds, they don’t have the resources to collect those fines themselves. Overall, however, strong historical data about the use of these practices does not exist because these private probation companies largely deal with city or county courts and are generally not transparent with their business practices.

The number of individual cases assigned to private probation services companies by those court systems is staggering. The New York Times’ Thomas Edsall noted that the HRW report found that in “Georgia in 2012, in ‘a state of less than 10 million people, 648 courts assigned more than 250,000 cases to private probation companies.'”

Not only does this system destroy the lives of people who are struggling to just survive, it also costs tax payers thousands of dollars to incarcerate them. So what is the purpose of these contracts, other than line the pockets of private debt collection agencies and private prison company executives. So yes, let’s #ShutDownTheF**kBarrel.

Mar 23 2015

Espionage: It’s OK If You’re a White General

There is a double standard when it comes to the Obama administration prosecuting individuals for leaking information under the Espionage Act of 1917. If you’re a general in the US military leaking information to a reprter or head of the CIA having an affair, it’s fairly safe to say that you won’t be prosecuted for espionage. The sweetheart deal that was given former CIA director and retired General David Petraeus is a prime example, not a day in jail and he is still in good graces with the White House. I guess when you know where all the bodies are buried you can get away with anything. But that doesn’t excuse the Obama administrations fervor for prosecution the whistleblowers who outed crimes and constitutional violations.

Obama’s war on whistleblowers leaves administration insiders unscathed

By Spencer Ackerman and Ed Pilkington, The Guardian

Five key political players enjoy ‘virtual impunity’ – while four lower-level figures are in prison or facing time

Since Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, his government has waged a war against whistleblowers and official leakers. On his watch, there have been eight prosecutions under the 1917 Espionage Act – more than double those under all previous presidents combined.

And yet other apparent leaks have gone entirely unpunished or have been treated, as in the case of General David Petraeus, as misdemeanors. As Abbe Lowell, lawyer for one of the Espionage Act eight, Stephen Kim, has argued in a letter to the Department of Justice, low-level officials who lack the political connections to fight back have had the book thrown at them, while high-level figures have been allowed to leak with “virtual impunity”.

Lawyers for CIA Leaker Cite Selective Prosecution After Petraeus Plea Deal

By Peter Maas, The Intercept

Lawyers for Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA official convicted earlier this year of leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter, have requested a reconsideration of his conviction because two former generals, David Petraeus and James Cartwright, have received far more lenient treatment for what they call similar offenses. [..]

In January, Sterling was convicted by a jury on nine criminal counts, including violations of the Espionage Act, for leaking classified information to Times reporter James Risen about a CIA effort to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. Sterling is to be sentenced in April and faces a maximum sentence of decades in jail. In a statement after the verdict was announced, Attorney General Eric Holder called the guilty verdict a “just and appropriate outcome.”

But the government is coming under increasing criticism for its uneven prosecution of leakers.

Earlier this month, Petraeus, who led U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and was the director of the CIA, reached an agreement with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information when he gave his lover and authorized biographer, Paula Broadwell, eight notebooks filled with highly-classified information about military plans and secret programs, covert agent names, and confidential discussions he had with senior officials including President Obama. Petraeus, who resigned from the CIA when his affair with Broadwell was revealed, also admitted to lying to the FBI, but he was not charged for that. The plea agreement calls for two years probation and a $40,000 fine but no jail time.

No charges have been filed against Cartwright even though it has been reported that federal prosecutors believe he leaked highly classified information to Times reporter David Sanger about a joint effort by the U.S. and Israel to cripple Iran’s nuclear centrifuges through a cyber-attack with a computer worm called Stuxnet. According to The Washington Post, the FBI has interviewed Cartwright on at least two occasions but has stopped short of indicting him.

National Security & Human Rights director Jesselyn Radack, who is also the lawyer for whistleblowers Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake and John Kiriakou, spoke with Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman and Aaron Maté about the White House’s double standard.



The full transcript can be read here

It’s OK if you’re a white general and know where all the bodies are.

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