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”.

Ari Berman: Senate Priority #1: Fix the Filibuster

Last night, Rachel Maddow ran a very interesting segment on the broken nature of the US Senate, which I’m posting below.

We’ve become accustomed to reading headlines like “DADT Repeal Fails in Senate, 57 to 40,” but that doesn’t make them any less surreal. Only in the Senate does winning by 17 votes constitute defeat. That’s because Republicans now require that every piece of legislation in the body receive 60 votes before it even comes up for a formal vote, let alone becomes law. The incessant misuse of the filibuster has turned the Senate into an increasingly dysfunctional body where, quite frankly, it’s miraculous that anything ever gets done.

John Nichols: After Overwhelming House Vote Against Bigotry, Will Senate Finish the Job of Ending DADT?

After the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and allow the openly gay and lesbian Americans serve in the military, it fell to Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank to bang the gavel that closed the vote.

Then Frank had a message for Senate Republicans: It is “delusional” to claim that there has not been enough debate about gays and lesbians serving in the military.

Responding to Republican demands that the Senate vote be delayed until further hearings, committee reviews and debates can be held, Frank noted that the repeal measure had already been approved by by the full House and the Senate Armed Services Committee and said the Congress has followed the proper order of business.

“We’ve gone through triple regular order,” said Frank, after the 250-175 vote.

E.J. Dionne, Jr.: Labels Aren’t the Problem

The “No Labels” group that held its inaugural meeting this week in the name of the political center fills me with passionate ambivalence. My attitude is moderately supportive and moderately critical-accented by a moderate touch of cynicism.

Who can disagree with a call to put aside “petty partisanship” and embrace “practical solutions”? Let’s cheer the group’s insistence on “fact-based discussions.” Too much political talk these days is utterly disconnected from what’s actually true. Fact-based always beats fantasy-based.

. . . . . so what’s my problem with these neo-restive-majority types?

The basic difficulty arises from a false equivalence they make between our current “left” and our current “right.” The truth is that the American right is much farther from anything that can fairly be described as “the center” than is the left.

“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”.

Robert Reich: Why America’s Two Economies Continue to Drift Apart, and What Washington Isn’t Doing About It

America’s two economies are getting wider apart.

The Big Money economy is booming. According to a new Commerce Department report, third-quarter profits of American businesses rose at an annual record-breaking $1.659 trillion – besting even the boom year of 2006 (in nominal dollars). Profits have soared for seven consecutive quarters now, matching or beating their fastest pace in history.

Executive pay is linked to profits, so top pay is soaring as well.

Higher profits are also translating into the nice gains in the stock market, which is a boon to everyone with lots of financial assets.

And Wall Street is back. Bonuses on the Street are expected to rise about 5 percent this year, according to a survey by compensation consultants Johnson Associates Inc.

But nothing is trickling down to the Average Worker economy. Job growth is still anemic. At October’s rate of only 50,000 new private-sector jobs, unemployment won’t get down to pre-recession levels for twenty years. And almost half of October’s new jobs were in temporary help.

Meanwhile, the median wage is barely rising, adjusted for inflation. And the value of the major asset of most Americans – their homes – continues to drop.

Why are America’s two economies going in opposite directions?

Eugene Robinson: A Wiki Hornets Nest

Washington – The most important legacy of the WikiLeaks affair will almost surely be the rapidly escalating cyberwar that the group’s renegade disclosures have sparked. If you think you’re unaffected by unseen “battles” fought with keystrokes instead of bullets, you’re wrong.

At stake are issues of free speech, censorship, privacy, piracy, sovereignty and corporate power. We may know what we think about these concepts, but applying real-world logic to the Internet leads to unacceptable conclusions — such as sympathy for the goons in Iran or China who suppress anti-government political speech. This is, of course, out of the question. Which means sympathy for WikiLeaks nihilists who don’t deserve it.

Megan Tady: Mere Hours Left to Save Net Neutrality

I don’t want to be overly dramatic here, but there are just hours left to save the Internet.

Tomorrow, the FCC stops taking meetings and accepting official comments on its proposed Net Neutrality rules. But until then, we’re using every minute we have to remind the FCC that the public overwhelmingly wants real Net Neutrality, not a fake compromise with the phone and cable companies that will effectively kill free speech and innovation online.

Earlier this month, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski released a proposal that is Net Neutrality in name only. While details are still scarce, the Genachowski proposal reportedly would not offer the same protections to wireless Internet users as it would to those using wired connections.

Moody’s Investors Service said in a Monday report that the tax-cut deal hammered out between President Obama and congressional Republicans jeopardizes the Aaa credit rating enjoyed by U.S. Treasury bonds. The package could add $900 billion to the national debt, if it is made permanent, and this increases the chances the U.S. would one day default on its debt.

“From a credit perspective, the negative effects on government finance are likely to outweigh the positive effects of higher economic growth. Unless there are offsetting measures, the package will be credit negative for the US and increase the likelihood of a negative outlook on the US government’s Aaa rating during the next two years,” Moody’s analyst Steven Hess writes.

Hess writes that the higher economic growth from the tax cuts and unemployment benefits might be substantial, but the effect of the growth on budget deficits will be less than the effect of the foregone revenue and increased spending.

He notes that the Congressional Budget Office has found that the package would raise the ratio of debt-to-gross domestic product from 61.6 percent to 68.5 percent by 2012.

Remember that housing/mortgage/fraud crisis?  Well, it’s still here and now getting worse.

Home Prices Falling Fast, Eroding American Wealth And Threatening Recovery

Plunging home prices hammered household finances in the third quarter, eroding homeowners’ wealth and making them more vulnerable to foreclosure. As prices are expected to continue falling, the economic recovery could face a major stall.

Millions of homeowners saw their most valuable asset decay between July and September, according to recently released data from the Federal Reserve, as they lost a portion of the stake they can claim in their homes. A series of new reports reflects home prices are continuing to decline, increasing the pressure on America’s tepid housing market. Until the market finds a bottom, the foreclosure epidemic will feed upon itself, analysts say, as foreclosed properties drive home values down. With the unemployment rate hovering near 10 percent, and with companies showing historic reluctance to hire, the housing drag poses a significant impediment to an economic recovery.

Today Dan Froomkin wrote this at the Watchdog Blog:

Time For Real-Estate Watchdogs To Start Howling Again

You might not know it from reading the news, but the nation’s housing prices are in free fall again.

For the many Americans who have (or had) most of their wealth tied up in their homes, the consequences of this will be profound. The effect on nationwide consumption will inevitably be severe. In fact, there are some not inconceivable scenarios in which the housing market could just take the economy down with it again. . . . .

Despite the fact that the nation is officially in a period of economic recovery, the latest data show that home prices are diving. One recent survey pegged the decline at 0.7 percent per month; another found prices down 5.8 percent between August and October.

One analysis found  home values will likely drop more than $1.7 trillion this year, on top of the $1.05 trillion drop in 2009. That would bring the loss in wealth to $9 trillion since the June 2006 market peak, when the housing stock was valued at about $24 trillion.

And many market analysts expect prices to drop 10 percent or more in 2011.

The sudden decline starting this past summer is traced in part to the end of the home-buyer’s tax credit, in April. But the real problem is the huge downward pressure caused by the the record number of homes being foreclosed.

Foreclosures depress prices directly –  foreclosed homes are currently selling at a percent discount. They also depress prices indirectly, by creating urban (and in some cases suburban) blight.

“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”.

Dean Baker: The Tax Deal and the Apocalypse

The proponents of the tax deal that President Obama and the Republicans negotiated last week have gotten out their TARP and Iraq War hysterics. All the important people are now telling us that if Congress doesn’t approve the package, it will be the end of the world!

To be an important person in Washington these days requires a solid record of failure. That is why we have 25 million people unemployed, underemployed or out of the labor force altogether. And those who got us into this disaster are still overwhelmingly the ones calling the shots. So, people who want a realistic assessment of what the defeat of this tax package means for the economy may not want to rely on the usual suspects.

As I have noted before, the major risk of this deal is that it would undermine Social Security. The deal temporarily lowers the Social Security tax by 2 percentage points. In principle, the tax rate will go back to its current rate after the end of next year.

However, several prominent Republicans have already made it clear that they will call the expiration of this tax cut a tax increase. And they will point out that it is an extremely regressive tax increase that disproportionately hits low- and moderate-income workers.

Naomi Wolf: J’Accuse: Sweden, Britain, and Interpol Insult Rape Victims Worldwide

How do I know that Interpol, Britain and Sweden’s treatment of Julian Assange is a form of theater? Because I know what happens in rape accusations against men that don’t involve the embarrassing of powerful governments. . . .

(But) for all the tens of thousands of women who have been kidnapped and raped, raped at gunpoint, gang-raped, raped with sharp objects, beaten and raped, raped as children, raped by acquaintances — who are still awaiting the least whisper of justice — the highly unusual reaction of Sweden and Britain to this situation is a slap in the face. It seems to send the message to women in the UK and Sweden that if you ever want anyone to take sex crime against you seriously, you had better be sure the man you accuse of wrongdoing has also happened to embarrass the most powerful government on earth.

Keep Assange in prison without bail until he is questioned, by all means, if we are suddenly in a real feminist worldwide epiphany about the seriousness of the issue of sex crime: but Interpol, Britain and Sweden must, if they are not to be guilty of hateful manipulation of a serious women’s issue for cynical political purposes, imprison as well — at once — the hundreds of thousands of men in Britain, Sweden and around the world world who are accused in far less ambiguous terms of far graver forms of assault.

Anyone who works in supporting women who have been raped knows from this grossly disproportionate response that Britain and Sweden, surely under pressure from the US, are cynically using the serious issue of rape as a fig leaf to cover the shameful issue of mafioso-like global collusion in silencing dissent. That is not the State embracing feminism. That is the State pimping feminism.

Rep. Rush Holt: Social Security Is Not a Bargaining Chip

Much has been discussed about the effect that the proposed tax-cut compromise between President Obama and Congressional Republicans would have on long-term debt and much has been discussed about how many jobs the proposed agreement would generate and when. Overall, although it would reduce the money withheld from an average American’s paycheck in 2011, it ultimately would increase the burden shifted onto that average American’s back for funding our government. Probably the greatest damaging effect, though, would result from the 2 percent reduction in payroll tax, an ingredient injected late in the negotiations last week.

The provision puts in jeopardy the long-term survival of Social Security – a centerpiece program that has been popular, efficient, and effective for 75 years. Sixty-four percent of seniors – nearly 22 million Americans – depend on Social Security for most of their livelihood. In 1935 most seniors lived below the poverty line, a fact hard to believe since Social Security has changed that. Also 16 million others – not in their retirement years – surviving spouses and children and people with disabilities depend on Social Security.

Today a Federal judge in Virginia ruled that the mandate for individuals to buy health care insurance from privet companies or face a penalty by the IRS is unconstitutional. This could unravel the insurance give away bill if it stands. Two other judges have rules that the bill is constitutional as it wends its way to the Supreme Court.

A federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that the keystone provision in the Obama health care law is unconstitutional, becoming the first court in the country to invalidate any part of the sprawling act and ensuring that appellate courts will receive contradictory opinions from below.

Judge Henry E. Hudson, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, declined the plaintiff’s request to freeze implementation of the law pending appeal, meaning that there should be no immediate effect on the ongoing rollout of the law. But the ruling is likely to create confusion among the public and further destabilize political support for legislation that is under fierce attack from Republicans in Congress and in many statehouses.

In a 42-page opinion issued in Richmond, Va., Judge Hudson wrote that the law’s central requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance exceeds the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The insurance mandate is central to the law’s mission of covering more than 30 million uninsured because insurers argue that only by requiring healthy people to have policies can they afford to treat those with expensive chronic conditions.

The link to Judge Hudson’s ruling is here

“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”.

Paul Krugman Block Those Metaphors

Like it or not – and I don’t – the Obama-McConnell tax-cut deal, with its mixture of very bad stuff and sort-of-kind-of good stuff, is likely to pass Congress. Then what?

The deal will, without question, give the economy a short-term boost. The prevailing view, as far as I can tell – and that includes within the Obama administration – is that this short-term boost is all we need. The deal, we’re told, will jump-start the economy; it will give a fragile recovery time to strengthen.

I say, block those metaphors. America’s economy isn’t a stalled car, nor is it an invalid who will soon return to health if he gets a bit more rest. Our problems are longer-term than either metaphor implies.

And bad metaphors make for bad policy. The idea that the economic engine is going to catch or the patient rise from his sickbed any day now encourages policy makers to settle for sloppy, short-term measures when the economy really needs well-designed, sustained support.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: The Specter Haunting Obama

American decline is the specter haunting our politics. This could be President Obama’s undoing – or it could provide him with the opportunity to revive his presidency.

Fear of decline is an old American story. Declinism ran rampant in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Stagflation, the Iranian hostage crisis, anxiety over Japan’s bid for economic dominance and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan all seemed to be symbols of a United States no longer in control of its destiny. . . . . .

For Obama, political renewal requires a bold and persistent campaign for national renewal. This would challenge his political opponents. But more important, it would challenge all of us.

Robert Kuttner: Social Security: The Coming Cave-in

If you think the Democratic base is mad at Obama now for making a craven deal with Republicans that continues tax breaks for the richest Americans and adds new ones for their heirs through a big cut in the estate tax, just wait a few weeks until Obama caves on Social Security.

How will this occur? The deficit commission appointed by the President has called for an increase in the retirement age, as well as other cuts in benefits over time. And the deal that Obama made with the Republicans just gave deficit hawks new ammunition by increasing the projected deficit by nearly $900 billion over a decade. Social Security will be in the cross-hairs.

The deficit commission has tried to camouflage these cuts by emphasizing that Social Security benefits for the very poor would not be reduced, and might even be increased. But in the commission’s proposal, the cuts would affect middle-class retirees. Larry Summers, who is stepping down as Obama’s economic chief, has refused to rule out cuts.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke in the Senate floor for 8 hours ans 37 minutes schooling the his fellow Senators, the Nation and the President on why the tax bill is a bad deal for most Americans and the country as a whole. Keith Olbermann in a segment of “Countdown”, did an excellent summary of Sen. Sanders’ “Bernie-buster”.

One commenter at Open Left asked if President Obama had trotted out former President Bill Clinton “wasn’t intended to drown out any news of Sanders? A Google News search for “Bernie Sanders filibuster” turns up no big media mentions. And searching “Bernie Sanders” only adds a Hill article talking about fundraising for Sanders.”

We heard you, Bernie, so did a lot of other people.

h/t Paul Rosenberg @ Open Left

The likely winner, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. If this sounds implausible to you, then read this

President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have sunk to the lowest level of his presidency, so low that he’d lose the White House to Republican Mitt Romney if the election were held today, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

The biggest reason for Obama’s fall: a sharp drop in approval among Democrats and liberals, apparently unhappy with his moves toward the center since he led the party to landslide losses in November’s midterm elections. At the same time, he’s gained nothing among independents.

“He’s having the worst of both worlds right now,” said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College in New York, which conducted the national survey.

“As he moves to the center, he’s not picking up support among independents and he’s having some fall-off among his base. If his strategy is to gain independents and keep the Democrats in tow, it isn’t working so far.”

and look at this

Have things gotten better since late 2008, when Democrats took over? The answer is, not really. Unemployment went from about 8.5 percent when Obama took office, to 9.6 percent now. Millions of Americans’ mortgages are underwater. And despite wasting over a year on health care reform, almost no one has gotten new or better insurance as a result. In fact, the number of people with health insurance is even lower now than prior to passage of the Affordable Care Act.

The Republicans won back the House this past election not because they have a better idea or that Americans trust them, but to send a message to the President what he’s been doing hasn’t made it better. Raising taxes on on the poorest Americans and giving the top 2% free money that they won’t invest in jobs in this country, Obama will continue to alienate not just progressive, but independent voters and moderate Republicans. Obama can continue to turn his back on his supporters, break his campaign promises and negotiate with the “enemy” behind closed doors or he can move back to the left and start fighting for the people who put him in office. His choice. If he continues on the path he has now taken with this his tax cut bill, we will be watching President Mitt Romney take the oath of office January 20, 2012.

“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”.

Bruce Fein: Slouching Towards Tyranny

The state of civil liberties and national security in the United States is alarming. . . . . .

The United States was founded on the idea that the individual was the center of the nation’s universe; and, that freedom was the rule and government restraints grudging exceptions. The right to be left alone was cherished above all others. The national purpose was not to build an Empire by projecting military force throughout the planet, but to revere due process and the blessings of liberty at home.

These ennobling ideas have been abandoned for the juvenile thrill of domination for the sake of domination and a quest for absolute safety that elevates vassalage to the summum bonum.

Where are the leaders to awaken America to its philosophical peril? Who has the courage to preach, “Better free than safe,” “As we would not be tyrannized, so we shall not be tyrants,” and, “due process is a higher life form than vigilante justice?”

If not us, who? If not now, when?

New York Times Editorial:  Civil Rights in California

However the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rules in California’s pivotal same-sex marriage battle – and it should uphold the civil rights of Americans – the court has already set one standard that the Supreme Court should follow.

Lawyers on both sides of the struggle sparred over questions of legal procedure and civil rights for two intense hours on Monday – and the whole country had a chance to watch, thanks to the court’s decision to allow C-Span to televise the argument. The dignified proceeding only increased our regret over the moment that was lost in January when the Supreme Court abruptly intervened to block the planned broadcasting of the trial that led to the appeal. The court has persisted far too long in its refusal to allow unobtrusive camera coverage of its own oral arguments.

The central issue before the appellate court was whether Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, violates the United States Constitution. In August, in Federal District Court, Judge Vaughn Walker held that it did. After a nearly three-week trial, Judge Walker found no rational basis for the proposition’s inherent discrimination, which he said violated rights to equal protection and due process of law.

Gail Collins: My Favorite War

Well, here’s some good news for a change. The Holiday Parade of Lights in Tulsa, Okla., has been saved!

know you’ve been worried.

The Tulsa City Council has voted to allow the parade to go forward Saturday night, despite protests against the disappearance of the word “Christmas” from its name.

It’s not entirely clear that the council actually could have stopped it, or even whether the parade ever officially had Christmas in its name. But Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma is outraged.

Inhofe was away from home last December, stuck in Washington trying to kill off health care reform. Now he’s back, and he’s noted a dwindling in the parade’s religious angle. “I just don’t like what’s going on in America today, all over the country, with the aversion some people seem to have toward Christ,” he said in one of his many interviews explaining that he will no longer ride his horse in any holiday event that isn’t named for Christmas.

Go to it, Senator Inhofe! I love this controversy, and only in part because it diverts Oklahoma’s senior senator from his normal day job of trying to convince the world that global warming doesn’t exist.