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.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour:

Her guests this Sunday will be General Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq and General Peter Chiarelli, the general in charge of the U.S. Army’s efforts to reduce the epidemic of suicide among U.S. soldiers.

The Round Table will be George Packer of the New Yorker, Gillian Tett of the Financial Times, Politico’s John Harris, and Michael Gerson, Washington Post columnist and former Bush speech-writer. The topic will be Mr Packer’s piece this week in the New Yorker on the broken Senate, as well as, California’s gay marriage ban is ruled unconstitutional by a federal court; Republicans push to change the constitution to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants; and Elena Kagan is confirmed by the Senate in a highly partisan vote.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:

His guests will be Ret. Admiral Thad Allen, U.S. Coast Guard, David Boies, American Foundation for Legal Rights, Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, Dan Balz, The Washington Post and CBS News Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford. Discussion will ne on What’s Next for the Gulf? and Same Sex Marriage Debate.

Chris Matthews:

The topics will be on Will Dems Have Votes To Kill Tax Cuts?, Will GOP Run Against Gay Marriage? and Will Hillary Clinton Bump Joe Biden From The 2012 Obama Ticket?

His guests will include Howard Fineman, Newsweek Senior Washington Correspondent, Erin Burnett, CNBC Anchor, Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News, Capitol Hill Correspondent and John Heilemann, New York Magazine, National Political Correspondent.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley:

Her guest will be Governors Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) who will discuss their views on immigration, same-sex marriage, and health care. The second segment will include Admiral Thad Allen (Ret.), National Incident Commander discussing the recovery efforts in response to the oil catastrophe. Allen will also respond to this week’s NOAA report on what happened to the oil that spilled into the Gulf.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS:

Fareed will give his take on the controversy over the proposed cultural center at Ground Zero and the founding principle of freedom of religion in America.

He will have a one on one interview with Former Pakistani spy chief Hamid Gul to discuss allegations from the WikiLeaks documents that he conspired with terrorists to kill Allied soldiers and “set Kabul aflame”.

Then, the Foreign Minister of Serbia on whether war in the Balkans is possible again.

And finally a look at how Iran has America pinned to the mat.

Fareed Zakaria: Build the Ground Zero Mosque

I believe we should promote Muslim moderates right here in America. And why I’m returning an award to the ADL.

Ever since 9/11, liberals and conservatives have agreed that the lasting solution to the problem of Islamic terror is to prevail in the battle of ideas and to discredit radical Islam, the ideology that motivates young men to kill and be killed. Victory in the war on terror will be won when a moderate, mainstream version of Islam-one that is compatible with modernity-fully triumphs over the world view of Osama bin Laden.

As the conservative Middle Eastern expert Daniel Pipes put it, “The U.S. role [in this struggle] is less to offer its own views than to help those Muslims with compatible views, especially on such issues as relations with non-Muslims, modernization, and the rights of women and minorities.” To that end, early in its tenure the Bush administration began a serious effort to seek out and support moderate Islam. Since then, Washington has funded mosques, schools, institutes, and community centers that are trying to modernize Islam around the world. Except, apparently, in New York City.

Fareed Zakaria’s Letter to the ADL

Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was delighted and moved to have been chosen for it in good measure because of the high esteem in which I hold the ADL. I have always been impressed by the fact that your mission is broad – “to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens” – and you have interpreted it broadly over the decades. You have fought discrimination against all religions, races, and creeds and have built a well-deserved reputation.

That is why I was stunned at your decision to publicly side with those urging the relocation of the planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan. You are choosing to use your immense prestige to take a side that is utterly opposed to the animating purpose of your organization. Your own statements subsequently, asserting that we must honor the feelings of victims even if irrational or bigoted, made matters worse.

“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.

Op-Ed Contributor at the NYT, Kenzaburo Oe:

THE Futenma Marine Corps Air Station on Okinawa, one of the largest United States military bases in East Asia, is in the center of a crowded city. The American and Japanese governments acknowledge the dangers of this situation, and they agreed nearly 15 years ago that the base should be moved; however, no move has yet been made.

In 2009 a new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, tantalized Okinawans with the prospect of moving the despised base off the island, but he was recently forced to resign, in part because of his failure to keep that promise. Mr. Hatoyama’s successor, Naoto Kan, has made it clear that he intends to respect the United States-Japan security treaty – a position that, while not directly related to the issue of dialing down the United States military presence in Japan, may indicate which way the wind is blowing.

It was recently reported here that a government panel is about to submit a policy paper to Prime Minister Kan, suggesting that regarding Japan’s “three nonnuclear principles” – prohibiting the production, possession and introduction of nuclear weapons – it was not wise to “limit the helping hand of the United States,” and recommending that we allow the transport of nuclear arms through our territory to improve the so-called nuclear umbrella.

Kenzaburo Oe, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994, is the author, most recently, of “The Changeling.” This article was translated by Deborah Boehm from the Japanese.

On this day there have been many significant events. Certainly, one of the most memorable is that this is the anniversary of dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. It is also the anniversary of President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act.

Recent significant history that has been over looked by my usual sources is this: The August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing better known as the August 6th PDB. It was handed to President George W. Bush, who was on one of his many vacations to his home in Crawford, TX, by Harriet Miers, who was the President’s WH Council, and promptly ignored. Whether Bush ignored the warning that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack the US because he was told to let it happen or, the darker theory, that the government made it happen will never be known, at least not in the lifetime of those reading this. Whatever Bush’s motive was, it set off a series of events in this country that has affected us all and divided us like no other incident since the Civil War. The US has now been in Afghanistan for almost 9 years and Iraq for over seven and, despite the Democrats holding the White House and the majority in both houses of Congress, there is no end in site to those two wars. Despite campaign promises to restore the rule of law and the Constitution, the Obama administration has continued the most heinous of the Bush policies that are violations of not just US law but International Law, ratified treaties and agreements. A sad anniversary, indeed.

“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.

From the Editorial Board of the New York Times: Marriage Is a Constitutional Right

Until Wednesday, the thousands of same-sex couples who have married did so because a state judge or Legislature allowed them to. The nation’s most fundamental guarantees of freedom, set out in the Constitution, were not part of the equation. That has changed with the historic decision by a federal judge in California, Vaughn Walker, that said his state’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the 14th Amendment’s rights to equal protection and due process of law.

The decision, though an instant landmark in American legal history, is more than that. It also is a stirring and eloquently reasoned denunciation of all forms of irrational discrimination, the latest link in a chain of pathbreaking decisions that permitted interracial marriages and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults.

As the case heads toward appeals at the circuit level and probably the Supreme Court, Judge Walker’s opinion will provide a firm legal foundation that will be difficult for appellate judges to assail.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: Is the GOP shedding a birthright?

Rather than shout, I’ll just ask the question in a civil way: Dear Republicans, do you really want to endanger your party’s greatest political legacy by turning the 14th Amendment to our Constitution into an excuse for election-year ugliness?

Honestly, I thought that our politics could not get worse, and suddenly there appears this attack on birthright citizenship and the introduction into popular use of the hideous term “anchor babies”: children whom illegal immigrants have for the alleged purpose of “anchoring” themselves to American rights and the welfare state.

“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.

I am hardly Mayor Michael Bloomerg’s biggest fan but on this I am right there with him.

Michael R Bloomberg: Defending Religious Tolerance: Remarks on the Mosque Near Ground Zero

The following are New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s remarks as delivered on Governors Island.

We have come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We’ve come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that, more than 250 years later, would greet millions of immigrants in the harbor, and we come here to state as strongly as ever – this is the freest City in the world. That’s what makes New York special and different and strong.

Our doors are open to everyone – everyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard and play by the rules. New York City was built by immigrants, and it is sustained by immigrants – by people from more than a hundred different countries speaking more than two hundred different languages and professing every faith. And whether your parents were born here, or you came yesterday, you are a New Yorker.

We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That’s life and it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11.

On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn’t want us to enjoy the freedom to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams and to live our own lives.

More

The conservative talk show host and author, Laura Ingraham, has penned a new book, The Obama Diaries, based on on President Obama’s fictional private thoughts. Steven Colbert exposed the racial stereotyping calling the book “hideous, “hackneyed” and ‘terrible writing”.

As Atrios pointed out, there was not one word about foreclosures or housing in Geithner’s Op-Ed in today’s NYT..

What’s Missing

What’s missing from Timmeh’s NYT op-ed?

The words “foreclosure” or “housing.”

Obviously HAMP isn’t in there either.

Pending housing sales for June dropped another 2.6%.

The number of contracts to purchase previously owned houses unexpectedly fell in June, indicating demand kept unraveling after the expiration of a homebuyer tax credit.

The index of pending home resales dropped 2.6 percent from the prior month, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. Economists projected a 4 percent gain, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. The expiration of a government tax credit on April 30 caused the gauge to slump 30 percent in May, the most since data began in 2001.

To add to the economic quagmire Bloomberg reports to day that Consumer spending and Income is expected to “stagnate” for June, as well.

Consumer spending and personal incomes in the U.S. unexpectedly stagnated in June, showing a lack of jobs is hurting the biggest part of the economy.

Purchases were unchanged after a 0.1 percent gain the prior month that was smaller than previously estimated, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Incomes didn’t increase for the first time since September and the savings rate increased to the highest level in a year.

At least it isn’t dropping. Perhaps that’s the reason for Geithner’s optimism. Just clap louder. I can’t my hands are bleeding

Glen Greenwald

Kudos to Eva Rodriguez for explaining what a deranged extremist Marc Thiessen is – and doing it in the WashPost

Eva Rodriguez Drone strike for the WikiLeaks founder?

Did my colleague, Marc Thiessen, just call for a drone strike in Iceland? Thiessen is obviously incensed by WikiLeaks’s dissemination of tens of thousands of pages of government documents relating to the Afghan war. And he wants WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, to pay. Here’s how Thiessen put it.

 

Assange is a non-U.S. person operating outside the territory of the United States. This means the government has a wide range of options for dealing with him. It can employ not only law enforcement, but also intelligence and military assets, to bring Assange to justice and put his criminal syndicate out of business.

“Military assests”? Does Thiessen think we’re going to send in Special Ops to pluck Assange from Iceland, Belgium or Sweden, where he’s known to hang out? Or is he thinking that a drone strike might be more effective or efficient?

(emphasis mine)

If all else fails to stop him, wipe out a city or two. What’s a few innocent people getting killed if the goal is achieved.

Up Date: Theissen is Keith’s Runner Up

“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: Momentum becomes substitute for logic in Afghan war

In Afghanistan, momentum has become a substitute for logic. We’re not fighting because we have a clear set of achievable goals. We’re at war, apparently, because we’re at war.

No other conclusion can be drawn from the circular, contradictory, confusing statements that the war’s commanders and supporters keep making. President Obama, in an interview with CBS taped last Friday,  said it is “important for our national security to finish the job in Afghanistan.” But as the war’s deadliest month for U.S. troops came to an end, Obama was far from definitive about just what this job might be.

It is very apparent, the US military is not leaving.

Laurence Lewis: Gates: “We are not leaving Afghanistan in July of 2011”

But the U.S. will be staying in Afghanistan. For a long time. With no end date in sight, and even the long-suspect timeline for the beginning of a withdrawal looking more and more like the beginning of nothing much at all.

To be continued.