Tag: TMC Politics

Dec 02 2013

Punting the Pundits

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

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

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Better Pay Now

‘Tis the season to be jolly – or, at any rate, to spend a lot of time in shopping malls. It is also, traditionally, a time to reflect on the plight of those less fortunate than oneself – for example, the person on the other side of that cash register.

The last few decades have been tough for many American workers, but especially hard on those employed in retail trade – a category that includes both the sales clerks at your local Walmart and the staff at your local McDonald’s. Despite the lingering effects of the financial crisis, America is a much richer country than it was 40 years ago. But the inflation-adjusted wages of nonsupervisory workers in retail trade – who weren’t particularly well paid to begin with – have fallen almost 30 percent since 1973.

So can anything be done to help these workers, many of whom depend on food stamps – if they can get them – to feed their families, and who depend on Medicaid – again, if they can get it – to provide essential health care? Yes. We can preserve and expand food stamps, not slash the program the way Republicans want. We can make health reform work, despite right-wing efforts to undermine the program.

And we can raise the minimum wage.

New York Times Editorial Board: Debt and Taxes

The debacle of the housing bust is not over. In addition to 10 million borrowers who have already lost their homes, nearly nine million still owe some $500 billion more on their mortgages than their homes are worth and, of them, 2.3 million are in or near foreclosure.

Making matters worse, help is about to get even harder to come by. Unless Congress acts soon, a debt-relief law – the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, enacted in 2007 – will expire at the end of 2013, leaving homeowners without the legal protection they need to manage their overwhelming mortgage debt. [..]

If the relief act is not renewed, the potential tax bill on many such modifications will force hard-pressed homeowners to turn down the help. As a result, the aid will flow to higher-income borrowers who can afford the taxes, leaving lower-income borrowers to face foreclosure.

Glen Ford: Obama’s Ludicrous Afghanistan Declarations

“Since when has the U.S. voluntarily left anyplace it has forcibly occupied?”    

The most ridiculous actor in the fictitious U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is not President Hamid Karzai, the hustler the U.S. installed as its puppet after the American invasion in 2001. The real clowns in this charade are those Americans that pretend to believe President Obama when he says the U.S. war in Afghanistan will end on the last day of next year. Obama is, of course, lying through his teeth. The United States and its NATO allies plan to keep 10,000 to 16,000 troops in the country, occupying nine bases, some of them set aside for exclusive American use – and would remain there at least ten years, through 2024. Shamelessly, Obama claims these troops – including thousands from the Special Operations killer elite – will have no “combat” role. It’s the same lie President Kennedy told in 1963, when he called the 16,000 U.S. troops then stationed in Vietnam “advisors,” and the same bald-faced deception that Obama, himself, tried to pull off, unsuccessfully, in Iraq – until the Iraqis kicked the Americans out.

Barack Obama has arrogated to himself the right to redefine the very meaning of war, having two years ago declared that the 7-month U.S. bombing campaign against Libya was not really a war because no Americans were killed. In Afghanistan, Obama waves his semantic magic wand

to transform the past 12 years of war into 10 more years of not-war, simply by changing the nomenclature. This is hucksterism from Hell.

Nafeez Ahmed: The War on Democracy

How Corporations and Spy Agencies Use ‘Security’ to Defend Profiteering and Crush Activism

A stunning new report compiles extensive evidence showing how some of the world’s largest corporations have partnered with private intelligence firms and government intelligence agencies to spy on activist and nonprofit groups. Environmental activism is a prominent though not exclusive focus of these activities.

The report by the Center for Corporate Policy (CCP) in Washington DC titled Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage against Nonprofit Organizations draws on a wide range of public record evidence, including lawsuits and journalistic investigations. It paints a disturbing picture of a global corporate espionage programme that is out of control, with possibly as much as one in four activists being private spies.

Dec 01 2013

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:

Up with Steve Kornacki: Steve’s guests list for this Aunday was not published.

This Week with George Stephanopolis: On Sunday’s “This Week” the guests are: former Obama national security adviser Tom Donilon; and  U2 lead singer Bono.

Guests at the political roundtable are:  Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK); Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN); Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan;, and former Obama White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe, now an ABC News and Bloomberg News contributor.

A special panel tackles the impact of concussions on the game of football. For that debate the guests are ABC News Chief Health and Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser; USA Today columnist and ABC News consultant Christine Brennan; ESPN investigative reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada; former Buffalo Bills offensive lineman and Pro Football Hall of Fame member Joe DeLamielleure.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ): Ranking Member Bob Corker (R-TN); Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker; William Kristol of The Weekly Standard; and former White House Chief of Staff under President Obama, Bill Daley.  

On a special holiday panel on Thanksgiving books and authors show. the author guests are: Doris Kearns Goodwin; A. Scott Bergand and Peter Baker.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Te guests this Sunday on MTP are: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; former Healthcare Adviser to President Obama Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel; Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Ranking Member of the Budget Committee Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).

At the roundtable are New York Times Columnist David Brooks; Democratic Mayor of Baltimore Stephanie Rawlings-Blake; NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell; and Political Director & Chief White House Correspondent for NBC, Chuck Todd.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are  Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum; Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Mike Rogers.

Joing her on a discuaaion panel are: CNN Contributors Kevin Madden and Donna Brazile plus Corey Dade of TheRoot.com.

Nov 30 2013

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

Eugene Robinson: A Pope’s Pointed Message

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”

That passage is not from some Occupy Wall Street manifesto. It was written by Pope Francis in a stunning new treatise on the Catholic Church and its role in society-and it is a powerful reminder that however tiresome the

New York Times Editorial Board: What You Don’t Know About Mortgages

Thanks largely to new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, taking out a mortgage is not the risky business it was during the bubble. But it is still the largest and most complex financial transaction in the lives of most people. And it still involves inherent imbalances in expertise between lenders and borrowers, including the use of intermediaries who may or may not be trustworthy. In short, conditions for abuse still exist.

That is why the bureau’s new and long-awaited mortgage disclosure forms are important. It is also why they are disappointing. Required by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the new forms use an easy-to-read format to disclose complex terms; in addition to clear entries of principal, interest and closing costs, there is information on prepayment penalties and other complicated loan features. But the forms fall short in the crucial task of helping consumers assess and compare the total cost of various loans. Without that information, it is difficult for borrowers to know whether they are getting the best deal.

Senator Tom Harkin: The Framers Never Envisioned a 60 Vote Supermajority

In the wake of Senate action last week to restore the Senate practice that nominees receive an up or down vote, there has been a great deal of hyperventilating about whether the rules change is consistent with the intent of the Founders and what it means for the future of the Senate.

Some have called it “tyranny.” Others, a “naked power grab.” In reality, the action taken by the Senate last week is consistent with both the Constitution and the Senate rules and two centuries of Senate tradition, and is fully aligned with the intent of the Founders as well. [..]

That is exactly what the Senate did. In fact, the original Senate rules placed no time limit on debate, but also allowed any Senator to make a motion “for the previous question,” which permitted a simple majority to halt debate on the pending question and bring the matter to an immediate vote. This motion for the previous question was eliminated in 1806 at the suggestion of Vice President Aaron Burr, largely because it was deemed superfluous.

Sadhbh Walshe: Walmart and Downton Abbey: Rampant Inequality and Detachment from Reality

We’re enthralled by the TV series and its ‘simpler time’. But the Walton family’s modern day aristocracy is anything but charming

I’m not exactly sure what it is about the hit British TV series, Downton Abbey, that has enthralled so many of us. The scenery is great, Lady Mary’s wardrobe is just fabulous, but there are plot holes so huge one could drive Lady Edith’s car through them. I suspect the fascination it provokes has something to do with nostalgia – a hankering for a simpler time, when everyone knew their place and where the classes, though separate and unequal, were at least able to be polite to one other. Whatever it is that we find so charming about the series, however, we should try to keep in mind that the rampant inequality it celebrates is not something we should be hankering after.

America has its own real-life upstairs/downstairs thing going on at the moment, best embodied by the Walton clan, who own the lion’s share of Walmart Stores, Inc. Walmart is the single largest private employer in America with a work force of some 1.3 million. Each of the four Walton’s who have an interest in the stores increased their net worth by $7bn last year alone. Meanwhile, the company’s sales associates, who make up the bulk of the work-force, earn an average of $8.81 per hour – less than the federal poverty level for a family of four.

Bob Burnett: Polarization: Worse Than You Think

Recent polls made it clear that Americans are fed up with acrimony and gridlock in Washington. Voters may blame Republicans more than Democrats but they’re not happy with either Party. Some political observers believe that if we only had competitive elections throughout the country — if most congressional districts weren’t gerrymandered — then we would have more moderates in Congress and, therefore, less polarization. Think again. Polarization is the new normal. [..]

So, what’s the problem?

If you’re a Republican, you’re likely to contend it’s the fault of Barack Obama — he’s very unpopular with the GOP rank-and-file, the majority of whom routinely blame him for everything that goes wrong.

If you’re a Democrat, you’re likely to argue it’s the fault of a small political group, Tea Party activists, who have taken control of the Republican Party and moved it savagely to the right. You blame the people who stand behind the Tea Party, a cabal of rich Republicans.

Both these stances are wrong.

Nov 29 2013

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: Government in Slow Motion

Last week, in a fit of fury after they lost the ability to filibuster President Obama’s nominees, several Congressional Republicans threatened to retaliate by slowing things down on Capitol Hill. Democrats “will have trouble in a lot of areas because there’s going to be a lot of anger,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, specifically warning that a United Nations disability treaty was now in danger of being rejected for the second time. [..]

The most immediate priority for Congress is to reach a budget agreement by mid-December, to relieve the sequester cuts that have decimated so many important programs and now threaten the Pentagon’s readiness beginning next year. Negotiators from both chambers have had more than a month to come up with a solution, but Representative Paul Ryan, the House budget chairman, has resisted the most obvious one: ending a group of tax loopholes for the very rich and using the money to replace the worst aspects of the sequester. Instead, he simply wants to make other cuts, or raise fees on purchases like airline tickets and duck stamps that affect many people of modest means, thereby protecting high-end tax shelters.

Paul Krugman: Obamacare’s Secret Success

The law establishing Obamacare was officially titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. And the “affordable” bit wasn’t just about subsidizing premiums. It was also supposed to be about “bending the curve” – slowing the seemingly inexorable rise in health costs.

Much of the Beltway establishment scoffed at the promise of cost savings. The prevalent attitude in Washington is that reform isn’t real unless the little people suffer; serious savings are supposed to come from things like raising the Medicare age (which the Congressional Budget Office recently concluded would, in fact, hardly save any money) and throwing millions of Americans off Medicaid. True, a 2011 letter signed by hundreds of health and labor economists (pdf) pointed out that “the Affordable Care Act contains essentially every cost-containment provision policy analysts have considered effective in reducing the rate of medical spending.” But such expert views were largely ignored.

So, how’s it going? The health exchanges are off to a famously rocky start, but many, though by no means all, of the cost-control measures have already kicked in. Has the curve been bent?

The answer, amazingly, is yes. In fact, the slowdown in health costs (pdf) has been dramatic.

Richard Kirsch: We’re Not Broke – We’ve Been Robbed

Slashing government spending now is just going to make our nation poorer

With the Friday the 13th December deadline for a federal budget deal, the cries of “we’re broke,” and “we can’t afford to keep spending,” are ringing again. But we’re not broke and acting like we are is making us poorer.

One of the biggest common misunderstandings is that governments are like households, which need to tighten their spending when times are tough. Actually, governments and households work in opposite ways.

Governments can and should spend more when times are tough. Government spending makes up for lack of spending by families and businesses, and it helps get the economy moving by getting people back to work, putting money in their pockets, and contracting with businesses.

Harold A. McDougall: The Democrats Need a Tea Party

The Tea Party pushes the Republicans to the right. The Democrats need a party to push them to the left. Not the old left of big government and high taxes on the middle class, but a new left of participatory democracy, economic cooperatives, and diversity, not just of race and lifestyle, but of income, class and culture as well. This new party would be based in neighborhoods and workplaces, and steer clear of fat-cat funding.

By “the Democrats,” I mean people who vote Democratic, not the Democratic Party establishment. Beginning with DNC Chair Tony Coelho’s “Right Turn” in the 1980s, executed to bring in more campaign dollars, the Democratic Party establishment has moved further to the right, into an unholy alliance with big business–banks, multinationals, military contractors, insurance and drug companies–enabling these interests to feed on the middle class and the working class, while the rich get richer.

Dave Johnson: Corporations Owe Hundreds of Billions of Taxes But GOP Goes After Federal Employees

Congress is again fighting over the budget with Republicans now demanding cuts in federal employee benefits. Is this really about the budget? Or is it about destroying government? Meanwhile hundreds of billions of taxes owed by corporations remain uncollected.

The recent Republican shutdown of the government ended with the can being kicked down the road, and the budget still in sequester and unresolved. The temporary funding runs out mid-January, and negotiators are trying to come up with a compromise. But Republicans insist that only cuts will be allowed, and that the sequester spending levels are the new normal.

Robert C. Koehler: Trivializing Peace

What goes around comes around . . . and around, and around.

Last month, the day after I left Santa Rosa, Calif., a 13-year-old boy carrying a toy replica of an AK-47 was shot and killed on the outskirts of that town by a Sonoma County deputy sheriff with a reputation for being trigger-happy. The officer had ordered the boy to drop the “gun,” then in a matter of two or three seconds opened fire, giving him no chance to comply.

This is not an isolated incident, which is why it’s yet one more tragedy I can’t get out of my mind – one more logical consequence of the simplistic militarism and mission creep that’s eating us alive. This is gun culture running unchecked from boyhood to manhood, permeating national policy both geopolitically and domestically. This is the trivialization of peace. It results in the ongoing murder of the innocent, both at home and abroad, at the hands of government as well as criminals and terrorists.

Nov 28 2013

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

Richard (RJ) Eskow: A Walmart Thanksgiving, by Charles Dickens

“A pretty high energy day” for employees. That’s how a Walmart executive described Thanksgiving after the corporation announced that this year’s “Black Friday” would begin on Thursday evening, leaving many of its workers unable to spend the holiday with family or friends.

Walmart’s wages and employment practices can rightfully be described as “Dickensian.” What, we wondered, would the Victorian author make of this latest development?

It was the night before Thanksgiving. Walmart’s top brass had assembled in the executive boardroom for a last celebration before heading home to their families. Amidst the din of laughter and chatter, nobody noticed the thin figure silhouetted in their doorway.

“I am a Walmart Associate,” the figure finally called out, “and I beg your pardon for the intrusion.”

The revelers stared in amazement. “A Happy Thanksgiving to you all!” added the shadowy Associate.

“Happy Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving?!?” came an answering voice from inside the boardroom. “What right have you to be happy? Why would you be be happy? You’re poor.

Marian Wright Edelman: Preventable Hunger in Our Land of Plenty

While many American families gather around the Thanksgiving table this week, some of us combining this year’s traditional dinners with Hanukkah feasts, a too quiet group will be left out of the national celebration. The nearly 49 million Americans — including nearly 16 million children — living in food insecure households will be struggling to afford the food they need. These families won’t be choosing between apple or pumpkin pie this holiday season but will face choices about paying for groceries or rent, heat, electricity, medicine or clothing for their children as they do each month — choices no family should have to make in our nation with the largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world. Congress will be choosing how many of these desperate families and children in need to cut from life-giving and life-sustaining federal nutrition programs. In the middle of this season of gratitude for plenty, Congress has put the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, often called food stamps) on the chopping block while leaving largely intact subsidies for rich farmers and even some non-farmers.

Heidi Moore: Pope Francis Understands Economics Better Than Most Politicians

Inequality is the biggest economic issue of our time. It’s only surprising it took so long for a globally prominent figure to say it

Pope Francis is a pontiff who has constructively broken all the rules of popery – so far to widespread acclaim. He’s faulted the Catholic church for its negative obsession with gays and birth control, and now he has expanded his mandate to economics with a groundbreaking screed denouncing “the new idolatry of money”. [..]

The pope’s screed on “the economy of exclusion and inequality” will disappoint those who considers themselves free-market capitalists, but they would do well to listen to the message. Francis gives form to the emotion and injustice of post-financial-crisis outrage in a way that has been rare since Occupy Wall Street disbanded. There has been a growing chorus of financial insiders – from the late Merrill Lynch executive Herb Allison to organizations like Better Markets – it’s time for a change in how we approach capitalism. It’s not about discarding capitalism, or hating money or profit; it’s about pursuing profits ethically, and rejecting the premise that exploitation is at the center of profit. When 53% of financial executives say they can’t get ahead without some cheating, even though they want to work for ethical organizations, there’s a real problem.

Unlike Occupy, which turned its rage outward, Pope Francis bolstered his anger with two inward-facing emotions familiar to any Catholic-school graduate: shame and guilt, to make the economy a matter of personal responsibility.

Ralph Nader: Can Right and Left Rally Against Walmart?

One of the most profitable corporations in America is having a holiday food drive. Sounds good-it’s the least Corporate America can do for those struggling to make ends meet while big companies rake in record profits and give so little back. But wait… there’s a catch. The food drive is for the company’s own underpaid, poverty-stricken workers. You really can’t make this stuff up. [..]

Earlier this week, it was reported that a Walmart store in Canton, Ohio is asking for food donations for its own employees. Photos of the food donation bins circulated online showing signs that read: “Please donate food items here so associates in need can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.” (That’s if they even have a chance to-Walmart stores are open on Thanksgiving and are beginning their “Black Friday” deals at 6 PM on Thanksgiving Day to get a jump on the holiday shopping madness.)

Walmart is America’s largest employer with a workforce consisting of 1.3 million “associates.” The company made nearly $17 billion in profit last year.  So why can’t Walmart afford to pay its own store workers enough for them to enjoy a holiday meal with their families?  The answer is Walmart doesn’t really care about its workers.

Jim Hightower: This Thanksgiving, Let’s Celebrate AgriCULTURE, Not AgriBUSINESS

In December 1972, I was part of a nationwide campaign that came tantalizingly close to getting the U.S. Senate to reject Earl Butz, Richard Nixon’s choice for secretary of agriculture. [..]

The 51 to 44 Senate vote was so close because we were able to expose Butz as … well, as butt-ugly – a shameless flack for big food corporations that gouge farmers and consumers alike. We brought the abusive power of corporate agribusiness into the public consciousness for the first time, but we had won only a moral victory, since there he was – ensconced in the seat of power. It horrified us that Nixon had been able to squeeze Butz into that seat, yet it turned out to be a blessing. [..]

The whirling horror of Butz, however, spun off a blessing, which is that innovative, freethinking, populist-minded and rebellious small farmers and food artisans practically threw up at the resulting Twinkieization of America’s food.

Jared Berstein: Pesky Brother-in-Law: Thanksgiving 2013

Another Thanksgiving. Family, friends, food, and hopefully some time off to sleep off your turkey-induced tryptophan daze.

And yes, that pesky brother-in-law who’s especially revved up this year for an aggressive incoming attack well before the gravy boat reaches you. So, let’s see if I can once again come to your aid with a bit of Q&A. [Links to earlier versions below.]

Now remember, he (or she — there’s lots of pesky aunts, sisters, even spouses) is loaded for bear coming off of the ugly healthcare.gov rollout, and the whole way up the interstate he’s been getting increasingly excited about batting you about with this one.

But you know my methods: we stroke, we kick. We concede the truth and provide the context. We are fact based. We never get nasty. We love our misguided bros et al — while we may get a touch acerbic, our goal is never to humiliate nor put down. It is to guide them back to the enlightened path, no matter how far they’ve strayed.

Nov 27 2013

Punting the Pundits

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

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

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Katrina vanden Heuvel: The impoverished Republican poverty agenda

What are Republicans for? We know they are against health-care reform. They voted en masse against it, shut down the government to stop it and have voted nearly 50 times to defund it. We know they are against government spending. They’ve voted for House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s draconian budgets, which would slash spending so deeply that even some Republicans are in increasingly open revolt. But those budgets don’t go anywhere. So what do Republicans propose that actually addresses the challenges facing the nation or its people?

Republican leaders are clearly concerned that their policy house is largely vacant. In his dissection of the lost 2012 campaign, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus noted that Republicans suffer a “major deficiency” – the “perception that the GOP does not care about people.” He urged a renewed effort to become “the champion of those who seek to climb the economic ladder.”

Zoë Carpenter: Will Congress Wreck the Nuclear Deal with Iran?

or the first time in three decades, Iran and the United States appear to have established a meaningful diplomatic relationship that disrupts the cycle of escalation towards armed conflict. The interim agreement reached in Geneva on Saturday freezes much of Iran’s nuclear program and exposes the country to extensive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency in exchange for modest relief from some economic sanctions. Ultimately, the deal opens the door for a long-term resolution to derail Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

This may be the last, best shot for a diplomatic alternative to a nuclear Iran. Before the deal, Iran could have produced weapons-grade fuel in as little as a month. If Iran upholds its end of the bargain it will lose its stocks of uranium enriched above 5 percent, setting its capabilities back. The chance that Iran will renege on the agreement is real-but so is the risk that US lawmakers will undermine it by passing new sanctions.

Deborah Cramer: A Bird Whose Life Depends on a Crab

GLOUCESTER, Mass. – HORSESHOE CRABS have been around for 475 million years, making them among earth’s oldest animals. They emerge from waters along the Eastern Seaboard during the high tides of full and new moons each May and June to spawn and lay their eggs on sandy beaches. The world’s largest population is concentrated in the Delaware Bay off the coasts of New Jersey and Delaware.

Arriving not far behind the crabs are thousands of small russet-colored shorebirds, known as red knots. They show up just in time to feast on the abundance of crab eggs before resuming their 9,300-mile journey from Tierra del Fuego to the Canadian Arctic. More than half of the red knots along the Western Atlantic flyway converge at this crucial springtime refueling stop, our own avian Serengeti.

But the number of horseshoe crabs has declined over the years. We’d been catching too many to use as bait to snag other sea creatures. That has meant trouble not only for red knots, whose numbers in the Delaware Bay have plummeted by 70 percent since the early 1980s, but for us.

Jessica Valenti: Birth Control Coverage: It’s the Misogyny, Stupid

Today the Supreme Court announced it will hear two cases concerning the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that companies’ insurance plans cover birth control. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties claim the mandate violates their belief against certain kinds of contraception-pitting female employees’ right to a nondiscriminatory health plan against a company’s religious freedom. (I also fervently hope these companies are fighting as hard to ensure that their unmarried male employees don’t have access to sin-pills like Viagra.) [..]

There’s also an incredibly slippery slope here-if employees’ health plans have to adhere to company owners’ religious beliefs, what happens if your boss doesn’t believe in vaccinations? Or as Guardian columnist Jill Filipovic tweeted, “What if your blood transfusions violate your employer’s religious beliefs? No surgery coverage?” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America said in a statement, “Allowing this intrusion into personal decisions by their bosses opens a door that won’t easily be shut.”

Laura Gottesdiener: The Empire Strikes Back: How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme — Again

You can hardly turn on the television or open a newspaper without hearing about the nation’s impressive, much celebrated housing recovery. Home prices are rising! New construction has started! The crisis is over! Yet beneath the fanfare, a whole new get-rich-quick scheme is brewing.

Over the last year and a half, Wall Street hedge funds and private equity firms have quietly amassed an unprecedented rental empire, snapping up Queen Anne Victorians in Atlanta, brick-faced bungalows in Chicago, Spanish revivals in Phoenix. In total, these deep-pocketed investors have bought more than 200,000 cheap, mostly foreclosed houses in cities hardest hit by the economic meltdown.

Wall Street’s foreclosure crisis, which began in late 2007 and forced more than 10 million people from their homes, has created a paradoxical problem. Millions of evicted Americans need a safe place to live, even as millions of vacant, bank-owned houses are blighting neighborhoods and spurring a rise in crime. Lucky for us, Wall Street has devised a solution: It’s going to rent these foreclosed houses back to us. In the process, it’s devised a new form of securitization that could cause this whole plan to blow up — again.

Ellen Brown: Monsanto, the TPP, and Global Food Dominance

“Control oil and you control nations,” said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. “Control food and you control the people.”

Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed diversity with GMO (genetically modified) seeds that are distributed by only a few transnational corporations. But this agenda has been implemented at grave cost to our health; and if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our food but our health, our environment and our financial system will be in the hands of transnational corporations.

According to an Acres USA interview of plant pathologist Don Huber, Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, two modified traits account for practically all of the genetically modified crops grown in the world today. One involves insect resistance. The other, more disturbing modification involves insensitivity to glyphosate-based herbicides (plant-killing chemicals). Often known as Roundup after the best-selling Monsanto product of that name, glyphosate poisons everything in its path except plants genetically modified to resist it.

Nov 26 2013

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: A Glimmer of Sense on Guantánamo

The Senate, in a little-noticed but positive move, voted last Tuesday to give President Obama new leeway to move toward closing the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. [..]

An amendment to the military authorization bill offered by Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican, would have extended the transfer restrictions that required the defense secretary to go through a cumbersome process to proceed with transfers to foreign countries, barred transfers to Yemen and extended the ban on transfers to the United States. Her measure got just 43 votes. [..]

Even if the Senate approves the defense measure when Congress returns in December, it will be a struggle to preserve the Guantánamo provisions in negotiations on a final bill with the Republican-led House. For now, it is important to applaud the Senate’s good sense. Even if the Senate approves the defense measure when Congress returns in December, it will be a struggle to preserve the Guantánamo provisions in negotiations on a final bill with the Republican-led House. For now, it is important to applaud the Senate’s good sense.

Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Martin Heintich: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

A Senate reform bill doesn’t go far enough

THE framers of the Constitution declared that government officials had no power to seize the records of individual Americans without evidence of wrongdoing, and they embedded this principle in the Fourth Amendment. The bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records – so-called metadata – by the National Security Agency is, in our view, a clear case of a general warrant that violates the spirit of the framers’ intentions. This intrusive program was authorized under a secret legal process by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, so for years American citizens did not have the knowledge needed to challenge the infringement of their privacy rights.

Our first priority is to keep Americans safe from the threat of terrorism. If government agencies identify a suspected terrorist, they should absolutely go to the relevant phone companies to get that person’s phone records. But this can be done without collecting the records of millions of law-abiding Americans. We recall Benjamin Franklin’s famous admonition that those who would give up essential liberty in the pursuit of temporary safety will lose both and deserve neither.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: A Nuclear End to Denial

Those who lament the Senate Democrats’ vote to end filibusters for presidential nominations say the move will escalate partisan warfare and destroy what comity is left in Congress. Some also charge hypocrisy, since Democrats once opposed the very step they took last week.

In fact, seeing the world as it is rather than pining for a world that no longer exists is a precondition for reducing polarization down the road. With their dramatic decision, Senate Democrats have frankly acknowledged that the power struggle over the judiciary has reached a crisis point and that the nature of conservative opposition to President Obama is genuinely without precedent.

Robert Sheer: Heroic Diplomacy: How Barack Obama Finally Earned That Peace Prize

Finally, Barack Obama may prove deserving of his Nobel Peace Prize by joining with England, France, China, Russia and Germany in negotiating an eminently sensible rapprochement with Iran on its nuclear program. Following on his pullback from war with Syria and instead, successfully negotiating the destruction of that country’s supply of chemical weapons, this is another bold step to fulfill the peacemaking promise that got him elected president in the first place.

As Obama reminded his audience at an event Monday in San Francisco, he was fulfilling the pledge from his first campaign to usher in a “new era of American leadership, one that turned the page on a decade of war.” As a candidate in 2007, he committed to engage in “aggressive personal diplomacy” with Iran’s leaders, and he has now done just that.

Bill Blum: Meet the Worst Judge in America

Now that Senate Democrats have deployed the so-called nuclear option and many of the president’s judicial nominations finally will move forward, the question arises: From a progressive perspective, who is the worst sitting federal judge in America today?

To some, the answer may seem a no-brainer. The worst judge has to be one whose last name is Scalia, Thomas or Alito-the three jurisprudential horsemen of the right-wing apocalypse unfolding term by term at the Supreme Court.

To others, the search for the worst may extend beyond the nation’s highest tribunal to the lower rungs of the national judiciary.

Norman Solomon: Overplaying Its Hand, Israel Still Holds Plenty of US Cards

More than ever, Israel is isolated from world opinion and the squishy entity known as “the international community.” The Israeli government keeps condemning the Iran nuclear deal, by any rational standard a positive step away from the threat of catastrophic war.

In the short run, the belligerent responses from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are bound to play badly in most of the U.S. media. But Netanyahu and the forces he represents have only begun to fight. They want war on Iran, and they are determined to exercise their political muscle that has long extended through most of the Washington establishment.

While it’s unlikely that such muscle can undo the initial six-month nuclear deal reached with Iran last weekend, efforts are already underway to damage and destroy the negotiations down the road. On Capitol Hill the attacks are most intense from Republicans, and some leading Democrats have also sniped at the agreement reached in Geneva.

Nov 26 2013

The Agreement with Iran: How the US Finally Got There

The agreement reached early Sunday morning in Switzerland with Iran over its nuclear program is nothing short of historic. It will expand inspections of nuclear sites and loosen some of the sanctions, worth some $7 billion to Iran. It also signals a shift in American foreign relations from military might to diplomacy, something that candidate Barack Obama had said he was going to do.

(T)he flurry of diplomatic activity reflects the definitive end of the post-Sept. 11 world, dominated by two major wars and a battle against Islamic terrorism that drew the United States into Afghanistan and still keeps its Predator drones flying over Pakistan and Yemen.

But it also reflects a broader scaling-back of the use of American muscle, not least in the Middle East, as well as a willingness to deal with foreign governments as they are rather than to push for new leaders that better embody American values. “Regime change,” in Iran or even Syria, is out; cutting deals with former adversaries is in.

For Mr. Obama, the shift to diplomacy fulfills a campaign pledge from 2008 that he would stretch out a hand to America’s enemies and speak to any foreign leader without preconditions. But it will also subject him to considerable political risks, as the protests about the Iran deal from Capitol Hill and allies in the Middle East attest.

“We’re testing diplomacy; we’re not resorting immediately to military conflict,” Mr. Obama said, defending the Iran deal on Monday in San Francisco. “Tough talk and bluster may be the easy thing to do politically,” he said earlier that day, “but it’s not the right thing for our security.”

The deal has been the reactions have been hailed by many as good move for the region and the world but it has it’s critics on both sides of the political aisle.

University of Michigan Mideast scholar Juan Cole argues on his blog, Informed Comment, that “the decade-long Neoconservative plot to take the United States to war against Iran appears to have been foiled” by the deal. Unsurprisingly, congressional Iran hawks on both sides of the aisle aren’t pleased, according to Bernie Becker at The Hill. Critics accuse the administration of “capitulation,” which The Daily Beast‘s Peter Beinhart says is a gross misreading of history. Siobhan Gorman reports for The Wall Street Journal that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has indicated that Congress may try to impose even more sanctions, which the White House calls a path to war. [..]

Saeed Kamali Dehghan reports for The Guardian that the Iranian public appears to be very happy about the deal. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is outraged by the deal, but Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg writes in The American Prospect that his reaction says more about him than the deal itself. And at 972 Magazine, Larry Derfner notes that the Israeli security community is a lot more optimistic about the deal than the country’s elected officials. The BBC taps its extensive network of reporters to bring mixed reactions from around the region. And Mark Landler reports for The New York Times that the deal could “open the door” to diplomatic solutions of other regional issues.

As Juan Cole points in his article at Informed Consent, the agreement is actually an agreement to negotiate and build confidence between all the parties for the hard bargaining to come. It also is a good history of how we got from post 9/11 to now.

In 2003, the Neocon chickenhawks, most of whom had never worn a uniform or had a parent who did, joked that “everyone wants to go to Baghdad; real men want to go to Tehran.” When people have to talk about being “real men,” it is a pretty good sign that they are 98-pound weaklings.

The “everyone” who wanted to go to Baghdad was actually just the Neocons and their fellow travelers. Most of the latter were hoodwinked by the Neocon/Cheney misinformation campaign blaming Saddam Hussein of Iraq for 9/11. A majority of Democratic representatives in the lower house of Congress voted against the idea of going to war. The Iraq War, trumped up on false pretenses and mainly to protect the militant right wing in Israel from having a credible military rival in the region and to put Iraqi petroleum on the market to weaken Saudi Arabia, cost the United States nearly 5000 troops, hundreds more Veterans working as contractors, and probably $3 or $4 trillion- money we do not have since our economy has collapsed and hasn’t recovered except for wealthy stockholders. Perhaps George W. Bush could paint for us some dollars so that we can remember what they used to look like when we had them in our pockets instead of his billionaire friends (many of them war profiteers) having them in theirs. [..]

The irony is that in early 2003, the reformist Iranian government of then-President Mohammad Khatami had sent over to the US a wide-ranging proposal for peace. After all, Baathist Iraq was Iran’s deadliest enemy. It had invaded Iran in 1980 and fought an 8-year aggressive war in hopes of taking Iranian territory and stealing its oil resources. Now the US was about to overthrow Iran’s nemesis. Wouldn’t it make sense for Washington and Tehran to ally? Khatami put everything on the table, even an end to hostilities with Israel.

The Neoconservatives threw the Iranian proposal in the trash heap and mobilized to make sure there was no rapprochement with Iran. David Frum, Bush’s speech-writer, consulted with eminence grise Richard Perle (then on a Pentagon oversight board) and Irv Lewis “Scooter” Libby (vice presidential felon Richard Bruce Cheney’s chief of staff), and they had already inserted into Bush’s 2002 State of the Union speech the phrase the “axis of evil,” grouping Iran with Iraq and North Korea. Iran had had sympathy demonstrations for the US after 9/11, and, being a Shiite power, feared and hated al-Qaeda (Sunni extremists) as much as Washington did. But the Neoconservatives did not want a US-Iran alliance against al-Qaeda or against Saddam Hussein. Being diplomatic serial killers, they saw Iran rather as their next victim.

In many ways, Washington politics is still stuck in that neoconservative world.

MSNBC’s All In host Chris Hayes discusses the agreement with several guests  Iranian-American journalist and author, Hooman Majd, Ambassador Christopher Hill and Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY).

In another segment, Chris and his guest Matt Duss, Middle East policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, discuss how diplomacy with Iran is just the latest blow to the neoconservatives.

When George W. Bush was appointed as president in 2001, there was a moderate government in Iran. If it had not been for the Supreme Court, this would have been resolved 10 years ago and so many would not have needlessly died.

Nov 25 2013

“Machinery of Social and Civil Death”

Author and scholar, Henry Giroux joined Bill Moyer, to discuss his book Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism which describes how [our current system is informed by a “machinery of social and civil death” that chills “any vestige of a robust democracy.”

Giroux explains that such a machine turns “people who are basically so caught up with surviving that they become like the walking dead – they lose their sense of agency, they lose their homes, they lose their jobs.”

What’s more, Giroux points out, the system that creates this vacuum has little to do with expanding the meaning and the substance of democracy itself. Under “casino capitalism,” the goal is to get a quick return, taking advantage of a kind of logic in which the only thing that drives us is to put as much money as we can into a slot machine and hope we walk out with our wallets overflowing.

Henry Giroux on Zombie Politics



The full transcript can be read here

Henry Giroux: Well, for me democracy is too important to allow it to be undermined in a way in which every vital institution that matters from the political process to the schools to the inequalities that, to the money being put into politics, I mean, all those things that make a democracy viable are in crisis.

And the problem is the crisis, while we recognize in many ways is associated increasingly with the economic system, what we haven’t gotten yet is that it should be accompanied by a crisis of ideas, that the stories that are being told about democracy are really about the swindle of fulfillment.

The swindle of fulfillment in that what the reigning elite in all of their diversity now tell the American people if not the rest of the world is that democracy is an excess. It doesn’t really matter anymore, that we don’t need social provisions, we don’t need the welfare state, that the survival of the fittest is all that matters, that in fact society should mimic those values in ways that suggest a new narrative.

I mean you have a consolidation of power that is so overwhelming, not just in its ability to control resources and drive the economy and redistribute wealth upward, but basically to provide the most fraudulent definition of what a democracy should be.

I mean, the notion that profit making is the essence of democracy, the notion that economics is divorced from ethics, the notion that the only obligation of citizenship is consumerism, the notion that the welfare state is a pathology, that any form of dependency basically is disreputable and needs to be attacked, I mean, this is a vicious set of assumptions.

Bill Moyers: Are we close to equating democracy with capitalism?

Henry Giroux: Oh, I mean, I think that’s the biggest lie of all actually. The biggest lie of all is that capitalism is democracy. We have no way of understanding democracy outside of the market, just as we have no understanding of how to understand freedom outside of market values.

Nov 25 2013

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

Kofi Anan: Climate Crisis: Who Will Act?

Geneva – The last-minute deal at the United Nations Climate Conference in Warsaw keeps hopes for a comprehensive successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto protocol alive. But let us be clear: Much more decisive action will be needed if we are to stand any chance at fending off the dangers of climate change.

We now have just one more shot, next year in Peru, to make more substantive progress toward a successor agreement before the crucial 2015 Paris conference. Even before then, it will be crucial for governments to put aside narrow national interests in order to ensure that the pledges made at the 2009 Copenhagen conference – to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to pre-industrial levels – are met.

Paul Krugman: California, Here We Come?

It goes without saying that the rollout of Obamacare was an epic disaster. But what kind of disaster was it? Was it a failure of management, messing up the initial implementation of a fundamentally sound policy? Or was it a demonstration that the Affordable Care Act is inherently unworkable?

We know what each side of the partisan divide wants you to believe. The Obama administration is telling the public that everything will eventually be fixed, and urging Congressional Democrats to keep their nerve. Republicans, on the other hand, are declaring the program an irredeemable failure, which must be scrapped and replaced with … well, they don’t really want to replace it with anything.

At a time like this, you really want a controlled experiment. What would happen if we unveiled a program that looked like Obamacare, in a place that looked like America, but with competent project management that produced a working website?

Well, your wish is granted. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you California.

Jared Bernstein: Will Things Economic Soon Be Looking Up?! Sorry, I Don’t See It…

Hmmm… you’ve got Bernanke saying the U.S. economy is getting better and, as per incoming data, the Fed will at some point slowly start to pull back support. And you’ve got the OECD doing what all forecasters do these days: marking down their estimates for future growth and warning of various headwinds.

Meanwhile, mixed in with all this near-term analysis, many in my world are mulling over Larry Summers’ warning that whatever the cycle is doing, the underlying problem is one of structural slog.

What does it all mean? With the mild caveat that no one knows, I’ll take a stab.

Paul Rieckhoff: Broken Senate Delays Military Sexual Assault Reform

Senate gridlock and dysfunction has reared its ugly head again — and this time it’s survivors of military sexual assault who will pay the price.

There is an unclear path forward for the critical Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA), legislation that would support survivors of military sexual assault and strengthen our military. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is stalled in the U.S. Senate. After parliamentary tricks, the Senate left for its Thanksgiving vacation Thursday night after Senate leaders failed to reach an agreement to move forward with the defense bill, a vehicle for the MJIA.

So far, 53 senators have signed on to support the Military Justice Improvement Act. It’s a group of Senators that rarely join together. How often do you see Senators Rand Paul and Al Franken supporting the same bill? Or Senators Ted Cruz and Senator Dick Durbin? The historic nature of this bi-partisan coalition underscores the growing momentum for the change we need in the military justice system.

Robert Kuttner: Filibuster Reform: The Stakes for 2014

The Senate Democrats’ lond-deferred success in reforming the filibuster rule for executive branch and judicial appointments will have reverberations that are only gradually being appreciated. Not only will 76 long-blocked appointments — a record — now go forward in short order. Obama, if he chooses, will be able to appoint more robust progressives.

In the past, especially on court appointments, prospective Obama nominees were pre-cleared with Republicans to make confirmation more likely. The result of this White House strategy was not only to slow the process of nominations but to place a premium in coming up with centrists rather than liberals. [..]

Filibuster reform has restored a measure of democracy to the Senate. To make that reform durable and meaningful, it’s necessary to restore democracy to the process of exercising the even more fundamental right to vote.

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