Tag: Opinion

“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.

Eugene Robinson: Looney, and That’s No Debate

OK, I want to make sure I understand. Two years ago, with the nation facing a host of complex and difficult problems, voters put a bunch of thoughtful, well-educated people in charge of the government. Now many of those same voters, unhappy and impatient, have decided that things will get better if some crazy, ignorant people are running the show? Seriously?

I thought I had come to terms with the whole tea party thing, I really did. I convinced myself that it could be analyzed as a political phenomenon, an expression of disaffection, a reaction to economic, social and demographic change that leaves some Americans anxious and unsettled, blah blah blah. But then came Wednesday’s debate in Delaware-featuring Christine O’Donnell, uncut and uncensored-and all my rationalizations crumbled. This isn’t politics, it’s insanity.

I know that O’Donnell is likely to lose to Democrat Chris Coons. But until Election Day-at least-we’re supposed to take her seriously as the Republican candidate for the United States Senate. Sorry, but I just can’t do it anymore.

Nor can I pretend that Carl Paladino, the raging bull from Buffalo, is qualified by experience or temperament to be governor of New York. Or that Sharron Angle, whose small-government philosophy is so extreme as to be incoherent, could possibly make a worthwhile contribution as a senator. Or that Rich Iott, whose idea of weekend fun is putting on a Nazi SS uniform and gamboling through the woods, is remotely acceptable as a candidate for the House.

Steven G. Bradbury and John P. Elwood: Call the Senate’s bluff on recess appointments

. . . the Senate cannot constitutionally thwart the president’s recess appointment power through pro forma sessions.

The Senate, of course, does not meet as a body during a pro forma session. By the terms of the recess order, no business can be conducted, and the Senate is not capable of acting on the president’s nominations. That means the Senate remains in “recess” for purposes of the recess appointment power, despite the empty formalities of the individual senators who wield the gavel in pro forma sessions.

The president should consider calling the Senate’s bluff by exercising his recess appointment power to challenge the use of pro forma sessions. If the Senate persists, then the federal courts may need to resolve the validity of the Senate’s gambit.

The alternative will likely be greater gridlock in Washington. This practice will inevitably become the standard operating procedure, and the recess appointment power could become a virtual dead letter — undermining what the Founders viewed as an essential tool for the effective functioning of our government.

Come on, President Obama, call them on this Game of Chicken.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Working Families Party: Still Fighting for Working People

Since its founding in 1998, the Working Families Party (WFP) has emerged as New York State’s liveliest progressive political force. It has helped Democrats take back both the US Congress and the State Senate by bringing disaffected Democrats, union members and independents into a coalition with insurgent Democratic candidates.

In 2009, a WFP-backed slate of unusually good progressive candidates for New York City Council, Comptroller and Public Advocate (Nation contributor Bill De Blasio) all won in a landslide. And this September, the party helped defeat notorious state senator Pedro Espada, who had held Albany hostage by threatening to become a Republican and almost single-handedly blocked tenants’ rights legislation from coming to the floor.

That means New Yorkers voting the WFP line on November 2. If you vote for Cuomo, for example, do so on the WFP line rather than the Democratic line. If you select both bubbles only the majority party will receive your vote, and the WFP needs to reach that 50,000-vote threshold to continue receiving its own line on the state ballot.

The WFP is also on the ballot in five other states-Connecticut, Vermont, Oregon, Delaware and South Carolina. In Connecticut, votes on the WFP line could be the margin in some high-profile races like Attorney General Richard Blumenthal versus Linda McMahon for US Senate, and Democrat Dan Malloy versus Tom Foley for Governor.

So if you can vote for the WFP this election, do it. And all of us can tell our friends and colleagues about this once-ragtag group of unions, community groups and progressives that has grown into a force, electing progressive candidates and advancing progressive causes.

“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.

Dahlia Lithwick: Privacy Rights Inc.  

Your right to personal privacy is shrinking even as Corporate America’s is growing.

Look. Nation. You can go ahead and anthropomorphize big corporations all you want. Pretend that AT&T has delicate feelings and that Wal-Mart has a just-barely-manageable phobia of spiders. But before we extend each and every protection granted in the Bill of Rights to the good folks at ExxonMobil, I have one small suggestion: Might we contemplate what’s happened to our own individual privacy in this country in recent years? That the government should have more and more access to our personal information, while we have less and less access to corporate information defies all logic. It’s one thing to ask us to give up personal liberty for greater safety or security. It’s another matter entirely to slowly take away privacy and dignity from living, breathing humans, while giving more and more of it to faceless interest groups and corporations.

Paul Krugman: The Mortgage Morass

The story so far: An epic housing bust and sustained high unemployment have led to an epidemic of default, with millions of homeowners falling behind on mortgage payments. So servicers – the companies that collect payments on behalf of mortgage owners – have been foreclosing on many mortgages, seizing many homes.

But do they actually have the right to seize these homes? Horror stories have been proliferating, like the case of the Florida man whose home was taken even though he had no mortgage. More significantly, certain players have been ignoring the law. Courts have been approving foreclosures without requiring that mortgage servicers produce appropriate documentation; instead, they have relied on affidavits asserting that the papers are in order. And these affidavits were often produced by “robo-signers,” or low-level employees who had no idea whether their assertions were true.

David Swanson: Rule of Law Is Alive and Well Outside the United States

The World Justice Project on Thursday published a “Rule of Law Index,” and there’s no easy way to say this. Let me put it this way: as when rankings on education, infant mortality, work hours, lifespan, retirement security, health, environmental impact, incarceration rates, violence, concentration of wealth, and other measures of quality of life come out, it is time once again for we Americans to shout “We’re Number One!” more loudly than ever. Because, of course, we’re not. . . .

“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.

Joe Conanson: “No new taxes” for GOP — except a national sales tax

Republicans swear they won’t raise taxes — but Rand Paul and Paul Ryan want to tax everything you buy

Can you guess which tax is bad, bad, bad when suggested by Democrats but perfectly acceptable when proposed by Republicans? Listening to Rand Paul and Paul Ryan, among others, the answer is a national sales tax or value-added tax, known in Europe as a VAT. While Republicans argue ferociously to preserve the Bush tax cuts for America’s wealthiest families, the notion of a new federal tax on goods and services – which would disproportionately penalize working consumers — is becoming fashionable among their party’s most prominent figures.

The Kentucky Republican Senate candidate made headlines yesterday when he proposed a national sales tax to replace the income tax, but Paul is scarcely alone in preferring a tax that falls most heavily on the middle class, workers and the poor. Rep. Ryan’s budget “roadmap,” released earlier this year to much fanfare in the conservative and mainstream media, relies on an 8.5 percent “business consumption” tax — yet another name for what Europeans call a VAT. From Arizona to  Maine, Republican candidates seem increasingly eager to impose a national sales tax — and although they usually say this new tax would “replace” the income tax and abolish the IRS, such fantasies aren’t contemplated by Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee.

Robert Sheer: Invasion of the Robot Home Snatchers

The Titanic that is the U.S. housing market has just sprung its biggest leak, and even some of the largest banks responsible for this mess, like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, are now imposing a temporary moratorium on foreclosures. They have done so very reluctantly and only after courts throughout the nation, and the attorneys general of 40 states, questioned the legality of a securitized system of homeownership that has impoverished tens of millions.

How do you foreclose on a home when you can’t figure out who owns it because the original mortgage is part of a derivatives package that has been sliced and diced so many ways that its legal ownership is often unrecognizable? You cannot get much help from those who signed off on the process because they turn out to be robot signers acting on automatic pilot. Fully 65 million homes in question are tied to a computerized program, the national Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), that is often identified in foreclosure proceedings as the owner of record.  

Teddy Partridge: Obama WH Aide Valerie Jarrett: 15-Year Old Justin Aarberg “Made a Lifestyle Choice”

If the closest adviser to the President on LGBT issues – the one he sent to make nice with the Human Rights Campaign’s black-tie supporters last Saturday – describes a 15-year-old suicide as having “made a lifestyle choice” we are absolutely doomed. . . . .

If a presidential adviser had made such a boneheaded remark about any other American minority group – let alone an incredibly loyal group that has provided the Democratic Party its margin of victory in any number of tight races across the nation – would that presidential adviser still have a job?

Does Valerie Jarrett live in the early 1990s? Does she really believe that being LGBT is a ‘choice’ and a ‘lifestyle’ – and will she really get away with insulting the memory of a dead gay teen with this horrifying out-of-touch language?

“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.

Nouriel Roubini & Michael Moran: Avoid the Double Dip

How Obama can save the fragile economy from going back into a tailspin.

Roughly three years since the onset of the financial crisis, the U.S. economy increasingly looks vulnerable to falling back into recession. The United States is flirting with “stall speed,” an anemic rate of growth that, if it persists, can lead to collapses in spending, consumer confidence, credit, and other crucial engines of growth. Call it a “double dip” or the Great Recession, Round II: Whatever the term, we’re talking about a negative feedback loop that would be devilishly hard to break.

If Barack Obama wants a realistic shot at a second term, he’ll need to act quickly and decisively to prevent this scenario.

Near double-digit unemployment is the root of the problem. Without job creation there’s a lack of consumer spending, which represents 40 percent of domestic GDP. To date, the U.S. government has responded creatively and massively to the near collapse of the financial system, using a litany of measures, from the bank bailout to stimulus spending to low interest rates. Together, these policies prevented a reprise of the Great Depression. But they also created fiscal and political dilemmas that limit the usefulness of traditional monetary and fiscal tools that policymakers can turn to in a pinch.

Paul Krugman: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? I Only Earn Six Figures

I live in a very sheltered world, yet I know young people just out of college who can’t find employment; men in their late 50s who have lost their jobs and think they will never find another; and families barely scraping by, terrified by what might happen if anyone were to get sick. These days, there are terrible stories everywhere you look.

Yet some Americans who have secure jobs and rather high incomes are feeling very sorry for themselves because it’s possible that they might have to pay somewhat higher taxes next year if the temporary reductions made during President George W. Bush’s tenure in office are allowed to expire for the wealthy.

Take, for example, an unnamed person mentioned in a recent online post by economist J. Bradford DeLong. This person supposedly makes $450,000 a year, has a family of five and after paying bills, loans, taxes and everything else (including private school tuition for three children and the costs of a $1 million house), is left with only a few hundred dollars a month of discretionary income. Mr. DeLong says this person strongly feels that he should not have to pay more taxes – “It is unfair: he is not ‘rich.'”

Robert Reich: 8 Ways to Fight the Right-Wingers and Corporations Buying Off Our Government

What the public wants means nothing if our democracy is secretly corrupted by big money.

Not only is income and wealth in America more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years, but those hands are buying our democracy as never before — and they’re doing it behind closed doors.

Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this election cycle. The Koch brothers (whose personal fortunes grew by $5 billion last year) appear to be behind some of it, Karl Rove has rounded up other multimillionaires to fund right-wing candidates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funneling corporate dollars from around the world into congressional races, and Rupert Murdoch is evidently spending heavily.

No one knows for sure where this flood of money is coming from because it’s all secret. . . .

According to FEC data, only 32 percent of groups paying for election ads are disclosing the names of their donors. By comparison, in the 2006 midterm, 97 percent disclosed; in 2008, almost half disclosed.

Last week, when the Senate considered a bill to force such disclosure, every single Republican voted against it — thereby revealing the GOP’s true colors, and presumed benefactors. (To understand how far the GOP has come, nearly ten years ago campaign disclosure was supported by 48 of 54 Republican senators.)

Maybe the Disclose Bill can get passed in lame-duck session. Maybe the IRS will make sure Karl Rove’s and other supposed nonprofits aren’t sham political units. Maybe pigs will learn to fly.

In the meantime we face an election that marks an even sharper turn toward plutocratic capitalism than before — a government by and for the rich and big corporations — and away from democratic capitalism.

“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.

Rachel Maddow: The GOP’s Disturbing New Norm

“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.

Paul Krugman: Hey, Small Spender

Here’s the narrative you hear everywhere: President Obama has presided over a huge expansion of government, but unemployment has remained high. And this proves that government spending can’t create jobs.

Here’s what you need to know: The whole story is a myth. There never was a big expansion of government spending. In fact, that has been the key problem with economic policy in the Obama years: we never had the kind of fiscal expansion that might have created the millions of jobs we need.

Ask yourself: What major new federal programs have started up since Mr. Obama took office? Health care reform, for the most part, hasn’t kicked in yet, so that can’t be it. So are there giant infrastructure projects under way? No. Are there huge new benefits for low-income workers or the poor? No. Where’s all that spending we keep hearing about? It never happened.

Robert Kuttner: Obama Calls the Question on Geithner

By pocket-vetoing the bill that sailed through Congress to expedite mortgage foreclosures, President Obama may have begun a chain reaction that will blow up Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s confidence game with the banks. Let me explain.

In early 2009, Obama and his top economic aides faced a fateful choice: either do an honest accounting of the nation’s big insolvent banks, like Citigroup; or keep propping them up and collude with the banks in camouflaging just how bad things were — and still are.

They opted for camouflage. Geithner and the Federal Reserve devised a “stress test” exercise that avoided an honest accounting of the junk on the banks’ balance sheets; instead they used economic models based on very rosy assumptions about how bad the recession would be. Citi and the others were pronounced basically healthy.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: Shadowy players in a new class war

The 2010 election is turning into a class war. The wealthy and the powerful started it.

This is a strange development. President Obama, after all, has been working overtime to save capitalism. Wall Street is doing just fine, and the rich are getting richer again. The financial reform bill passed by Congress was moderate, not radical.

Nonetheless, corporations and affluent individuals are pouring tens of millions of dollars into attack ads aimed almost exclusively at Democrats. One of the biggest political players, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, accepts money from foreign sources.

The chamber piously insists that none of the cash from abroad is going into its ad campaigns. But without full disclosure, there’s no way of knowing if that’s true or simply an accounting trick. And the chamber is just one of many groups engaged in an election-year spending spree.

Dean Baker  and Sarita Gupta: Memo to the Tax Cut Party — Painful Double-Digit Unemployment Doesn’t Have to Continue

A modest tax on Wall Street financial speculation could raise more than $150 billion a year — money that would go a long way toward funding a serious jobs agenda.

here is a depressing complicity among much of the political leadership about the recession. Many politicians seem prepared to accept that we will have sky-high rates of unemployment for the indefinite future. Projections from the Congressional Budget Office and other authoritative forecasts show the situation improving little over the next few years.

At the moment, this means 15 million people unemployed, 9 million under-employed and millions of other workers who don’t even get counted because they have given up hope of finding a job and stopped looking. It is outrageous that we have this situation. Allowing high unemployment to continue for years into the future is unacceptable.

We know how to get the unemployment rate down.

“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.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Christiane Amanpour goes on the trail to Connecticut this week with two Sunday exclusives — Senate candidates Republican Linda McMahon and Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Pakistan’s former President Pervez Musharraf comes to “This Week” for an exclusive interview, shares his views on the growing crisis between the United States and a critical ally, and discusses his return to politics. Can the Islamic republic win the war against extremism? Can al Qaeda and the Taliban be defeated? Will Pakistan’s nuclear weapons be kept in safe hands?

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Joining Mr. Schieffer on Sunday will be David Axelrod, White House Senior Adviser and Ed Gillespie, Chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee and Former Chair of the Republican National Committee

The Chris Matthews Show: This Sunday on Mr. Matthews’ round table forum Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Bob Woodward, The Washington Post Associate Editor, David Brooks, The New York Times Columnist and Helene Cooper, The New York Times

White House Correspondent. They will discuss these questions:

Is Obama’s National Security Team at war?

What’s the evidence Hillary Clinton might bump Joe Biden?

Are Voters Set to Elect Some Extremists to the Senate?

Meet the Press with David Gregory: David Gregory moderates the first showdown between the major party candidates vying for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois: State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (D) vs. Rep. Mark Kirk (R). Mr. Gregory will be joined by Joe Klein, a columnist for Time Magazine and Peggy Noonan, columnist for The Wall Street Journal, who will talk about the coming election and what voters greatest concerns

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: It’s an all-exclusive Sunday! As the midterm elections approach, we talk politics with two House leaders. First, we sit down with Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and then Republican Chief Deputy Whip Kevin McCarthy of California joins us for his rebuttal. We then continue our discussion of the midterms by breaking down the numbers with pollsters Celinda Lake and Whit Ayres. Finally, we look at the landscape of current terror threats worldwide with the man who led the CIA under President George W. Bush, Retired General Michael Hayden.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: This week on GPS: Fareed’s been saying for years that we need to talk to the Taliban. And now the Afghan government is in supposedly “secret” negotiations with them. Will this be the path to peace for Afghanistan? Fareed’s take: maybe, but don’t expect any miracles.

Then, Americans are gearing up to go the polls. The Tea Party is causing much tumult in the mid-term elections. But just what IS the Tea Party all about? And just what political tradition is it “steeped” in? A GPS panel of great historians and thinkers puts it in all context.

And if you think unemployment in the U.S. is bad then you won’t believe what is going on in South Africa. The World Cup was its coming out party but now that the party is over, will rampant unemployment and massive labor strikes cripple the country? And just who is to blame?

Next up, America’s “car czar”, Steven Rattner, with a behind the scenes look at the bailout of the automotive industry and the goings-on inside the White House. Were the car companies really worth saving at all?

And finally a last look at a politician topping the pop charts. You’ll be surprised to see who it is.

“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.

Eugene Robinson: Needed: Competition for Black Votes

This has been such an unpredictable political year that it’s hard to have confidence in any of the forecasts for November. How unpredictable? Well, I’d like to meet the pundit or prognosticator who imagined that a major-party candidate for the U.S. Senate would begin a campaign ad by declaring, “I’m not a witch.”

Christine O’Donnell’s sorcery problem aside, there’s one thing I can say with confidence about next month’s midterm election: African-Americans will vote overwhelmingly for Democratic Party candidates at every level. This is perfectly rational political behavior-but in many ways it’s a shame.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m firmly convinced that the progressive agenda championed by the Democrats is much better for African-Americans, and for the nation as a whole, than the conservative agenda favored by Republicans. But I also believe that in politics, as in business, competition is good. Monopolies inevitably take their customers for granted.

David Sirota: Follow Wyoming on Fracking Regs

To review: Wyoming is as politically red and pro-fossil-fuel a place as exists in America. Nicknamed the “Cowboy State” for its hostility to authority, the square swath of rangeland most recently made headlines when its tax department temporarily suspended levies at gun shows for fear of inciting an armed insurrection. The derrick-scarred home of oilman Dick Cheney, the state emits more carbon emissions per capita than any other, and is as close as our country gets to an industry-owned energy colony.

So, to put it mildly, Wyoming is not known for its activist government or its embrace of green policies.

But that changed last month when Wyoming officials enacted first-in-the-nation regulations forcing energy companies to disclose the compounds they use in a drilling technique called “fracking.”

From an ecological standpoint, fracking is inherently risky. Looking to pulverize gas-trapping subterranean rock, drillers inject poisonous solvents into the ground-and often right near groundwater supplies. That raises the prospect of toxins leaking into drinking water-a frightening possibility that prompted Wyoming’s regulatory move. Indeed, state officials acted after learning that various local water sources were contaminated by carcinogens linked to fracking.

“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.

Robert Reich: The Secret Big-Money Takeover of America

Not only is income and wealth in America more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years, but those hands are buying our democracy as never before — and they’re doing it behind closed doors.

Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this election cycle. The Koch brothers (whose personal fortunes grew by $5 billion last year) appear to be behind some of it, Karl Rove has rounded up other multimillionaires to fund right-wing candidates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funneling corporate dollars from around the world into congressional races, and Rupert Murdoch is evidently spending heavily.

No one knows for sure where this flood of money is coming from because it’s all secret.

But you can safely assume its purpose is not to help America’s stranded middle class, working class, and poor. It’s to pad the nests of the rich, stop all reform, and deregulate big corporations and Wall Street — already more powerful than since the late 19th century when the lackeys of robber barons literally deposited sacks of cash on the desks of friendly legislators.

Paul Krugman: The End of the Tunnel

The Erie Canal. Hoover Dam. The Interstate Highway System. Visionary public projects are part of the American tradition, and have been a major driver of our economic development.

And right now, by any rational calculation, would be an especially good time to improve the nation’s infrastructure. We have the need: our roads, our rail lines, our water and sewer systems are antiquated and increasingly inadequate. We have the resources: a million-and-a-half construction workers are sitting idle, and putting them to work would help the economy as a whole recover from its slump. And the price is right: with interest rates on federal debt at near-record lows, there has never been a better time to borrow for long-term investment.

But American politics these days is anything but rational. Republicans bitterly opposed even the modest infrastructure spending contained in the Obama stimulus plan. And, on Thursday, Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, canceled America’s most important current public works project, the long-planned and much-needed second rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

Mike Lux: Obama Comes Through on Foreclosure Issue: What’s Next?

When the notarization on foreclosures issue suddenly flared up over the last 24 hours, my heart sank. Just as regular homeowners were starting to get some legal traction to fight back against fraud and predatory lending by big banks, it seemed, some bank lobbyist had managed to sneak something through in the dead of night that would screw people over again. It was Washington at its worst: the bank lobbyists in control, and Congress asleep at the wheel.

But then, that most delightful and rare of Washington moments happened: the system worked. Consumer advocates started raising hell on the blogs and in traditional media, the White House started looking more closely at the issue, and literally within a matter of hours, Obama announced that he was not going to sign the bill. No long, painful, drawn out internal debate at 1600 Pennsylvania. No twisting round trying to split the middle on the issue. As soon as the issue was raised, the White House team focused on it, and made the right decision quickly. Elizabeth Warren, the new Assistant to the President and Treasury Secretary, weighed in. Pete Rouse, the new Chief of Staff, got engaged immediately. And the President made the right decision.

So what did we learn? First, that exposing sleazy dead-of-night deals cut by the special interests does sometimes work. And second, that having good people in key government roles really does matter. Obama might well have done the right thing without Warren and Rouse there, but it sure did happen quickly and easily with them around.

“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.

Glenn Greenwald Times Square bomber: Cause and effect in the War on Terror

Faisal Shahzad was sentenced by a federal judge to life in prison yesterday for his attempted bombing of Times Square, a crime for which he previously pleaded guilty.  Aside from proving yet again how uniquely effective our real judicial system is (as opposed to military commissions or lawless detention) in convicting and punishing Terrorists (see this NYT Editorial on that issue this morning), this episode sheds substantial light on what I wrote about on Monday:  namely, how our actions in the Muslim world — ostensibly undertaken to combat Terrorism — do more than anything else to spur Terrorism and ensure its permanent continuation. . . .

When he pleaded guilty in June, this is what he told the baffled and angry Judge about why he did what he did:

If the United States does not get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries controlled by Muslims, he said, “we will be attacking U.S.,” adding that Americans “only care about their people, but they don’t care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die” . . . .

Our national foreign policy seems boiled down to this premise:  we must and will continue to bomb, invade and control Muslim countries until they stop wanting to attack and bomb us or, at least, are unable to continue to do so.  Obviously, though, if we continue to engage in that behavior, that day will never come, given that this behavior is precisely what fuels most of it.  Just ask them and they’ll be more than happy to explain it, as Faisal Shahzad has spent months attempting to do.

New york Times Editorial: Civil Justice, Military Injustice

Supporters of the tribunals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who insist military justice, not the federal courts, is the best way to deal with terrorists, should pay close attention to Tuesday’s events in a United States District Court in Manhattan. Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to life imprisonment, five months and four days after he tried to blow up his car in Times Square.

When Mr. Shahzad was arrested, and later given a Miranda warning, the “tough on terrorists” crowd screamed about coddling and endangering the country’s security. They didn’t stop complaining, even after Mr. Shahzad cooperated with investigators and entered a guilty plea with a mandatory life sentence. All of this happened without the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York Police Department breaking laws or violating Constitutional protections.

This is the choice: Justice in long-established federal courts that Americans can be proud of and the rest of the world can respect. Or illegal detentions and unending, legally dubious military tribunals. It is an easy one.

(emphasis mine)