Tag: TMC Politics

“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 guest on this Sunday’s “This Week” is House Budget Committee Chair Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI.

The roundtable guests are Democratic strategist and ABC News Contributor Donna Brazile; ABC News Political Analyst Matthew Dowd, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman; and Republican strategist and ABC Contributor Ana Navarro.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA); President Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough; former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (R); and New Jersey State Assembly Transportation Committee, John Wisniewski (D).

His panel guests are David Gergen of Harvard University; Michael Gerson on the Washington Post; Kimberly Stassel of the Wall Street Journal; and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: This guests on MTP are White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC); New York Times‘ Alan Schwarz; and New Jersey State Assembly Transportation Committee, John Wisniewski (D).

The roundtable guests are National Review Editor Rich Lowry; Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs; PBS NewsHour‘s Co-Anchor and Managing Editor Gwen Ifill; Presidential Historian Doris Kearns-Goodwin; and NBC’s Chuck Todd.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Jake Tapper interviews President Barack Obama and Ms. Crowley interviews Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA).

Her panel guests are former Congressman Artur Davis; CNN Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein; and former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn.

Steve Kornacki’s guests share the things they learned this week.

Share with us what you have learned this week.

“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

Michael Mann: Approving Keystone XL Could Be the Biggest Mistake of Obama’s Presidency

A State Department report fails to take into account the full climate impacts of Keystone XL. Who is Obama protecting?

I have made my position on the Keystone XL pipeline quite clear. Approving this hotly debated pipeline would send America down the wrong path. The science tells us now is the time that we should be throwing everything we have into creating a clean 21st century energy economy, not doubling down on the dirty energy that is imperiling our planet. [..]

The only truly accurate examination of the pipeline would include a full cost accounting its environmental footprint. It needs to take into account how much energy is consumed in refining and transporting the crude from oil sands. It must acknowledge that the pipeline would lower the cost and raise the convenience of extracting and exporting the incredibly carbon-intensive deposits of gas. [..]

Most importantly, protecting us from Keystone XL would protect our atmosphere from one of the most carbon-intensive fuels ever discovered.

If the president won’t protect us, who is he protecting?

New York Times Editorial Board: The Economic Road Ahead

Economists, politicians and investors gave the latest economic growth report, released on Thursday, a generally warm reception: The estimated annual growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2013, a decent 3.2 percent, could bode well for further growth this year. But there are, on balance, more reasons for caution than for optimism.

Republican intransigence on spending will continue to impede growth. It will not do as much damage as last year, when budget cuts and the government shutdown trimmed nearly a percentage point from growth in the fourth quarter alone. But Republicans’ refusal to renew expired federal unemployment benefits will hurt, as will their expected opposition to a higher minimum wage and other policies.

It has long been known that Major League Baseball is exempt from anti-trust laws. But did you know that, along with the Professional Golfers Association Tour, the National Hockey League, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and the National Football League, they were also a tax exempt non-profit organization? They gave up that exemption switching to a for-profit limited liability corporation in 2007. However, the other organizations have not and have recently come under fire from Congress, especially the NFL. An article in Forbes explains:

The National Football League takes in more than $9.5 billion per year and is exempt from Federal taxes. As a nonprofit, it earns more than the Y, the Red Cross, Goodwill, the Salvation Army or Catholic Charities – yet it stands as one of the greatest profit-generating commercial advertising, entertainment and media enterprises ever created.

For the love of Richard Sherman, how can this be?

An arcane tax code change that eased the 1966 merger of the NFL with the old American Football League landed the new combined entity in section 501(c)6 of the tax code, designated as an industry association. The designation actually covers “chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade, and professional football leagues.” This does not cover the league’s 32 individual franchises, which also rake in billions.

Now a national survey by Fairleigh Dickinson University is shining a light on this strange situation, and perhaps getting Americans to check off that nonprofit coverage faster than Peyton Manning can shout “Omaha!” [..]

The survey found that people are both surprised by the NFL’s tax-exempt status – and generally opposed to it. Only 13 percent correctly identified the league as not-for-profit.

Talk about a tax loop hole but this has not gone unnoticed by some congress members:

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, is teaming up with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in a push to strip the National Football League of its tax-exempt status.

King announced Wednesday he’s co-sponsoring Coburn’s Properly Reducing Overexemptions for Sports Act, which would affect the NFL and other wealthy professional sports leagues currently enjoying 501(c)(6) tax-exempt status. [..]

“For every dollar that goes out in a case like this, that’s a dollar my constituents have to pay in income taxes,” King tells U.S. News. “When I talk to people about the NFL being a non-profit tax-exempt organization they’re just astounded.”

Several senators seem sympathetic to the bill, King says, and he believes the proposal stands a good shot at become law – although he considers it possible a larger tax policy bill will envelop it.

In a letter to colleagues this week, Coburn and King said the bill would add $10 million a year to federal coffers. Major League Baseball voluntarily abandoned its tax-exempt status in 2007, the letter says, but the PGA Tour and the National Hockey League continue to avail themselves of the tax break.

The PRO Sports Act would specifically bar professional sports organizations with annual revenues of more than $10 million from 501(c)(6) status. That section (pdf) of the tax code is intended to assist trade groups.

Among the reasons King decided to join Coburn is the sky-high salary of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who was paid nearly $30 million in 2011, according to non-profit tax filings.

Over at Huffington Post, there was a very educational info-grafic illustrating by how tax payers are being ripped off not only by the NFL but by the teams themselves.

Click on image to enlarge

In 2012, the NFL raked in $9.5 billion and gave $23 million back to the community in 2013.

In an interview on CNN, Sen. Coburn said: “This is a directed tax cut that to the league office, which means every other American pays a little bit more every year because we give  the NFL league office a tax break and call them a non-profit. In fact, they’re not.”

On the other side of the Capitol building in the House, Tea Party Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) is also ready to strip the NFL and NHL of their non-profit tax status. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, agrees.

It’s time to sack the NFL.

The Koch brothers must be thrilled. Late this afternoon, the US State Department released its environmental impact study on the Keystone XL pipeline that, if approved, will carry the dirtiest oil in the world from Canada, across the US heartland to the Gulf Coast where it will be sent to China and other foreign markets.

In the final review, the study concludes that the pipeline would have little environmental impact, and would likely have no significant effect on carbon emissions. This fits the criteria that President Barack Obama has said that he would need to approve the construction.

The State Department, in Friday’s report, essentially concluded that Keystone would have little material effect on greenhouse gas emissions and that Canada would continue to develop and ship tar sands crude with or without the pipeline. [..]

The review included models suggesting that transporting oil by rail would generate even more greenhouse gas emissions than a pipeline, and also discussed measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the pipeline. [..]

The campaign against Keystone XL has become a national movement over the last three years, with environmental activists, Nebraska landowners and hedge fund managers all coming out against the project. In 2012, Obama, under pressure from landowners concerned about underground water sources and sensitive prairie, rejected the first proposed route for the pipeline across Nebraska. [..]

The State Department had conducted two earlier environmental reviews of the project. Last March, it found that if Obama rejected the pipeline Alberta crude would go to market by rail or other pipelines. But it revisited the issue under criticism from the Environmental Protection Agency, which said the early reviews had not been broad enough.

There is one more report to be released on an investigation by the State Department Inspector General of allegations that that a contractor’s review was biased because of connections to TransCanada and the oil industry.

The accusations stem from the release of unredacted documents submitted to the State Department by Environmental Resources Management (ERM), the consultant hired to perform the environmental review. Those documents, released by Mother Jones in May, show that analysts who worked on the Keystone report had previously worked for TransCanada and “other energy companies poised to benefit from Keystone’s construction.” [..]

In July, Friends of the Earth and the Checks and Balances Project, another advocacy group, said they uncovered publicly available documents online that show TransCanada, ERM, and an ERM subsidiary have worked together at least since 2011 on a separate pipeline project in Alaska. Last week, Bloomberg Businessweek posted a 2010 document in which ERM lists TransCanada as a client.

If true, the department would have to conduct another study.

The battle to keep the grease in the ground is not over.

Sign the petition and tell President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to Protect the Earth’s Future and Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

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

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Talking Troubled Turkey

O.K., who ordered that? With everything else going on, the last thing we needed was a new economic crisis in a country already racked by political turmoil. True, the direct global spillovers from Turkey, with its Los Angeles-sized economy, won’t be large. But we’re hearing that dreaded word “contagion” – the kind of contagion that once caused a crisis in Thailand to spread across Asia, more recently caused a crisis in Greece to spread across Europe, and now, everyone worries, might cause Turkey’s troubles to spread across the world’s emerging markets.

It is, in many ways, a familiar story. But that’s part of what makes it so disturbing: Why do we keep having these crises? And here’s the thing: The intervals between crises seem to be getting shorter, and the fallout from each crisis seems to be worse than the last. What’s going on? [..]

So Turkey seems to be in serious trouble – and China, a vastly bigger player, is looking a bit shaky, too. But what makes these troubles scary is the underlying weakness of Western economies, a weakness made much worse by really, really bad policies.

The New York Times Editorial: Football, Pain and Marijuana

The National Football League prohibits the use of marijuana as part of its broader, longstanding program to prevent substance abuse. It also imposes stiff penalties on players caught breaking the rules.

In the lead-up to the Super Bowl, in which it so happens both teams hail from states that recently legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, pressure is mounting on the league to reconsider its ban. A group called the Marijuana Policy Project has even bought space on five billboards in New Jersey, where the game will take place on Sunday, asking why the league disallows a substance that, the group says, is less harmful than alcohol. [..]

Players, of course, have access to other painkillers, including prescription drugs. Yet as former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders has argued, “marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day.” As public opinion and state laws move away from strict prohibition, it’s reasonable for the N.F.L. to do the same and let its players deal with their injuries as they – and their private doctors – see fit.

“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

Gary Younge: The State of the Union confirmed only that our union is in a state

The major themes of Obama’s address – inequality, support for the troops and bipartisan compromise -were all too familiar

A state of the union address in the sixth year of a presidency is inevitably buffeted by the crosswinds of time. The president has been in power long enough that their record has already eclipsed their potential. But they have too long remaining to start openly making an appeal for their place in history.

Rhetorically, they can neither be too florid nor too timid. Nobody wants to hear about their pipe dreams – if they were that good they would have heard them already. And yet to talk in too much detail about the work they are going to do is too small bore for such a big occasion.

And so they walk the narrow line between being practical and predictable, utopian and utilitarian. What was most striking about this address was that in most important ways it could have been written at almost any time since Obama took office. The major themes of inequality, support for the troops, bipartisan compromise, climate change, healthcare, international diplomacy, world-class education, tax loopholes were familiar – there was precious little that was new here.

Laura Vecsey: Has American exceptionalism been replaced by sheer bullying?

Threats and brute bluster have become the new norm in American political culture. And Michael Grimm exemplifies it

I’m certain that threats, dirty deals and abuses of power have been part of the political and governmental process going back to Caligula – or Zeus. But some of us prefer our titans of intemperance to be historical figures, dressed up in hyperbole and embellished with mythic meaning, not some 21st century, Tea Party-abetted congressman from Staten Island whose nickname is “Mikey Suits” – like, straight out of Goodfellas or The Sopranos.

Then again, maybe in 300 years, long after the fall of the American empire, when all three of the remaining polar bears have found the last ice floe and Jeff Bezos has set up a small colony of Asperger’s Anonymous to live with their moon-beam powered Kindles on Mars, US Representative Michael Grimm will have earned an enduring place in the pantheon of bullies, crooks and ego-maniacal gods.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

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

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Katrina vanden Heuvel: The Promise of Transpartisanship

On Tuesday, Americans will tune in to watch President Obama’s fifth State of the Union Address. The annual ritual, with its pomp and circumstance, has become an almost grotesque visual of a gridlocked Washington. The president’s party will cheer. The opposition will jeer. A Supreme Court justice might sneer. Since President Obama took office, the partisan rancor has only intensified, reaching its ugliest point in 2009, when Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted at the president, “You lie!”

Things have gotten so distasteful that some members have taken to symbolic gestures, including crossing the aisle to sit together or wearing orange lapel pins as part of the bipartisan so-called “Problem Solvers Caucus,” sponsored by the nonprofit group No Labels.

But if lawmakers really want to reassure cynical Americans, whose disdain for Congress is well documented, they could highlight the genuine cooperation among them. This collaboration is happening across a number of issues, but it’s not bipartisanship; it’s “transpartisanship.” Unlike bipartisanship, which often takes two existing viewpoints and, effectively, splits the difference, transpartisanship encourages solutions that can align with many viewpoints.

April Glaser: Why the FCC Can’t Actually Save Net Neutrality

Network neutrality-the idea that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks equally-is a principle that EFF strongly supports. However, the power to enforce equal treatment on the Internet can easily become the power to control the Internet in less beneficent ways. Some people have condemned last week’s court decision to reject the bulk of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Open Internet Order as a threat to Internet innovation and openness. Others hailed it as a victory against dangerous government regulation of the Internet. Paradoxically, there is a lot of truth to both of these claims.

Violations of network neutrality are a real and serious problem: in recent years we have seen dozens of ISPs in the U.S. and around the world interfere with and discriminate against traffic on their networks in ways that threaten the innovative fabric of the Internet.

At the same time, we’ve long doubted that the FCC had the authority to issue the Open Internet rules in the first place, and we worried that the rules would lead to the FCC gaining broad control over the Internet. The FCC in particular has a poor track record of regulating our communications services. We are not confident that Internet users can trust the FCC, or any government agency, with open-ended regulatory authority of the Internet.

The other day the Wall Street Journal saw fit to post a now infamous screed by a Silicon Valley billionaire, Tom Perkins, who compared progressive political speech to Kristallnacht, the night of religious violence that led to the death of 91 Jews and paved the way politically for the Nazi Reich and the Holocaust. At Huffington Post, Richard (RJ) Eskow noted that in his rant, Mr, Perkins made some curious efforts to attack the San Fransisco Chronicle in defense of his ex-wife, “bodice ripper” author Danielle Steele. He apparently objected to some criticism that was made about a hedge, specifically this hedge:

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Now granted that is one humongous hedge. however, the objection that was made by the Chronicle was that it was obstructing the view of a historic landmark building that just happens to be the residence of Ms. Steele. There was no disparaging comments about her in the article which is barely a paragraph long but according to Mr. Perkins view it was “libelous and cruel attacks” at the orders of those damned lefties of Occupy Wall Street. He later admitted that the hedge issue sparked his poutrage. The fact that this triggered a spurious rant that the 1% are being attacked and tantamount to one of histories worst events casts serious some doubt about Mr. Perkins’ perspective. Just how did someone who is control of billions get this stupid? Too much rarefied air of places like Davos?

I agree with Mr, Eskow who wrote:

Even as global financial leaders fret over inequality at Davos, Tom Perkins is using extremist rhetoric to shut down such talk among his social inferiors. After an ugly screed, inspired in part by a gardening dispute, one hesitates to imagine what Perkins has in mind for more progressive-minded one-percenters like those at Davos and Kleiner Perkins — a Night of the Long Pruning Shears, perhaps?

Perkins may not like to hear it, but rising wealth inequality is shattering our society, as San Francisco’s plight so amply demonstrates. There is no room left for middle-class life in a society dominated by excessive wealth. Perkins may choose to become outraged over trivial as well as serious offenses, but he’s in the process of losing the one treasure which money can’t guarantee yet: the respect of others.

Problem is, I don’t think Mr. Perkins cares if we respect him. We don’t occupy his world.

 

Since the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that corporations are people and protected under the First Amendment, the flood gates of private money from billionaires to shape the future of politics everywhere from Washington, DC to state and local local elections. Two of the biggest sources of this money are the Koch brothers, Charles and David, who have a combined wealth of $34 billion. The brothers are the founders of Americans for Prosperity that financed the ironically named, Tea Party. They initially denied their involvement but you can run but you can’t hide from some intrepid journalists determined to keeping the public informed.

As a matter of fact, they get quite upset about it when their attempts to manipulate the political stage are exposed, often sending nasty letters. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has been one of the most intrepid journalists who has dug into the vast network of Koch-funded groups and initiatives to show their influence on conservative politics, undeterred by nasty letters.

The Koch Party

By The Editorial Board of The New York Times

Only a few weeks into this midterm election year, the right-wing political zeppelin is fully inflated with secret cash and is firing malicious falsehoods at supporters of health care reform.

As Carl Hulse of The Times reported recently, Democrats have been staggered by a $20 million advertising blitz produced by Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group organized and financed by the Koch brothers, billionaire industrialists. The ads take aim at House and Senate candidates for re-election who have supported the health law, and blame them for the hyped-up problems with the law’s rollout that now seem to be the sole plank in this year’s Republican platform. [..]

In 2012, as The Washington Post reported, the Koch network raised $407 million, which was secreted among 17 groups with cryptic names and purposes that were designed to make it impossible to figure out the names of donors the Kochs worked with. As one tax expert told The Post, “it’s designed to make it opaque as to where the money is coming from and where the money is going.” [..]

The clandestine influence of the Kochs and their Palm Springs friends would be much reduced if they were forced to play in the sunshine.

The Internal Revenue Service and several lawmakers are beginning to step up their interest in preventing “social welfare” organizations and other tax-sheltered groups from being used as political conduits, but they have encountered the usual resistance from Republican lawmakers. Considering how effectively the Koch brothers are doing their job, it’s easy to see why.

Koch World 2014

By Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico

If the Koch brothers’ political operation seemed ambitious in 2010 or 2012, wait for what’s in store for 2014 and beyond.

The billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch are convening some of the country’s richest Republican donors on Sunday at a resort near Palm Springs, Calif., to raise millions of dollars for efforts to shape the political landscape for years to come.

It’s the cash that can possibly kick Democrats out of the Senate majority this fall and shape the philosophy and agenda of the GOP conference – not to mention the 2016 presidential field.

The Koch political operation has become among the most dominant forces in American politics, rivaling even the official Republican Party in its ability to shape policy debates and elections. But it’s mostly taken a piecemeal approach, sticking to its sweet spots, while leaving other tasks to outsiders, or ad hoc coalitions of allies.

That’s changing. This year, the Kochs’ close allies are rolling out a new, more integrated approach to politics. That includes wading into Republican primaries for the first time to ensure their ideal candidates end up on the ticket, and also centralizing control of their network to limit headache-inducing freelancing by affiliated operatives.

The shift is best illustrated in the expansion of three pieces of the Koch political network expected to be showcased or represented at the three-day meeting in Palm Springs, whose evolving roles were described to POLITICO by several sources.

The Koch’s agenda to influence politics needs more than sunshine, it needs bleach.