Tag: Open Thread

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

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

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests for Sunday’s “This Week” are: potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Clinton campaign senior adviser Joel Benenson.

The roundtable guests are: Weekly Standard editor “Bloody” Bill Kristol; Republican strategist Ana Navarro; Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden; and editor and publisher of The Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Face the Nation: Host John Dickerson’s guests are: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC); and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook.

His panel guests are: Ruth Marcus, The Washington Post; Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Mark Halperin, Bloomberg Politics; and Robert Costa, The Washington Post.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on Sunday’s “MTP” are: John Podesta, Chairman of Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign; former GOP presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney;  Amb. Brett McGurk, Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL; and Bill Daley, former Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama.

The roundtable guests are: Stephanie Cutter, former Deputy Campaign Manager for President Barack Obama; Hugh Hewitt, host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show”; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent; and Evan Thomas, Editor-at-Large for Newsweek.

State of the Union with Jake Tapper: Mr. Tapper will have an exclusive interview with former President William Jefferson Clinton.

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

“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

Trevor Timm: A government surveillance bill by any other name is just as dangerous

Less than two weeks after Congress was forced into passing historic NSA reform, the Senate tried Thursday to sneak a dangerous “cybersecurity” proposal, which would exponentially expand the spy agency’s power to gather data on Americans, into a massive defense-spending bill. The amendment thankfully failed, but it will be back – possibly within days – and it may require a huge grassroots effort to stop its passage.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted to attach the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa) to the defense bill in order to push through the controversial measure while avoiding a large public debate about it. But he just missed getting the 60 votes required to move the amendment forward. [..]

But the bill has an even darker, more dangerous element that’s only come to the fore in the last couple weeks, even though the legislation has been kicked around for a few years.

In a little-reported speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden issued an ominous warning (pdf) to the public about the so-called “cybersecurity” bill, which he has called a “surveillance bill by another name” on multiple occasions. He warned every senator not to vote on the bill without reading a secret Justice Department memo interpreting the government’s existing legal authorities.

Ellen Brown: Fast-Track Hands the Money Monopoly to Private Banks-Permanently

In March 2014, the Bank of England let the cat out of the bag: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it. So wrote David Graeber in The Guardian the same month, referring to a BOE paper called “Money Creation in the Modern Economy (pdf).” The paper stated outright that most common assumptions of how banking works are simply wrong. The result, said Graeber, was to throw the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window.

The revelation may have done more than that. The entire basis for maintaining our private extractive banking monopoly may have been thrown out the window. And that could help explain the desperate rush to “fast track” not only the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). TiSA would nip attempts to implement public banking and other monetary reforms in the bud.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

June 13 is the 164th day of the year (165th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 201 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1966, The Miranda rights are established.

The Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be advised of their rights before interrogation. Now considered standard police procedure, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you,” has been heard so many times in television and film dramas that it has become almost cliche.

Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark 5-4 decision of the United States Supreme Court. The Court held that both inculpatory and exculpatory statements made in response to interrogation by a defendant in police custody will be admissible at trial only if the prosecution can show that the defendant was informed of the right to consult with an attorney before and during questioning and of the right against self-incrimination prior to questioning by police, and that the defendant not only understood these rights, but voluntarily waived them. This had a significant impact on law enforcement in the United States, by making what became known as the Miranda rights part of routine police procedure to ensure that suspects were informed of their rights. The Supreme Court decided Miranda with three other consolidated cases: Westover v. United States, Vignera v. New York, and California v. Stewart.

The Miranda warning (often abbreviated to “Miranda”) is the name of the formal warning that is required to be given by police in the United States to criminal suspects in police custody (or in a custodial situation) before they are interrogated, in accordance with the Miranda ruling. Its purpose is to ensure the accused is aware of, and reminded of, these rights under the U.S. Constitution, and that they know they can invoke them at any time during the interview.

As of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Berghuis v. Thompkins(June 1, 2010), criminal suspects who are aware of their right to silence and to an attorney, but choose not to “unambiguously” invoke them, may find any subsequent voluntary statements treated as an implied waiver of their rights, and which may be used in evidence.

“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: Seriously Bad Ideas

One thing we’ve learned in the years since the financial crisis is that seriously bad ideas – by which I mean bad ideas that appeal to the prejudices of Very Serious People – have remarkable staying power. No matter how much contrary evidence comes in, no matter how often and how badly predictions based on those ideas are proved wrong, the bad ideas just keep coming back. And they retain the power to warp policy.

What makes something qualify as a seriously bad idea? In general, to sound serious it must invoke big causes to explain big events – technical matters, like the troubles caused by sharing a currency without a common budget, don’t make the cut. It must also absolve corporate interests and the wealthy from responsibility for what went wrong, and call for hard choices and sacrifice on the part of the little people.

George Zornick: The Case Against Fast Track

The day is upon us: After months of increasingly heated debate, the House of Representatives will vote Friday on granting fast-track trade authority to President Obama and his successors in the White House. The Senate has already passed fast-track legislation, and if it gets through the House this week, it makes the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership a near-lock to pass sometime later this year.

For that to happen, Republicans will have to hold defections to a minimum, because only around 20 Democrats are expected to vote for the bill. Why has fast track raised such consternation among labor groups, economists, and progressive activists?

We’ve tried to distill all the basic objections here. The White House and leading Republicans have had ample forums to make their case for fast track, and plenty of outlets have duly presented the pro-trade arguments. But here’s the case against fast track.

Remember-this just concerns the actual granting of trade promotion authority, which is what Congress is considering Friday. Objections to the actual TPP pact are far more voluminous, and for another day.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

President Ronald Reagan demands the tearing down of the Berlin Wall; Civil rights activist Medgar Evers killed; O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole and Ronald Goldman murdered; Baseball Hall of Fame opens.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.

Medgar Evers

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on image to enlarge

June 12 is the 163rd day of the year (164th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 202 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1776, Virginia adopts George Mason’s Declaration of Rights

The assembled slaveholders of Virginia promised to “the good people of VIRGINIA and their posterity” the equal right to life, liberty and property, with the critical condition that the “people” were white men. These same white men were guaranteed that “all power” would be “vested in, and consequently derived from” them. Should a government fail to represent their common interest, a majority of the same held the right to “reform, alter or abolish” the government.

Drafting and adoption

The Declaration was adopted unanimously by the Fifth Virginia Convention at Williamsburg, Virginia on June 12, 1776 as a separate document from the Constitution of Virginia which was later adopted on June 29, 1776. In 1830, the Declaration of Rights was incorporated within the Virginia State Constitution as Article I, but even before that Virginia’s Declaration of Rights stated that it was ‘”the basis and foundation of government” in Virginia.  A slightly updated version may still be seen in Virginia’s Constitution, making it legally in effect to this day.

It was initially drafted by George Mason circa May 20, 1776; James Madison assisted him with the section on religious freedom. It was later amended by Thomas Ludwell Lee and the Convention to add a section on the right to uniform government (Section 14). Patrick Henry persuaded the Convention to delete a section that would have prohibited bills of attander, arguing that ordinary laws could be ineffective against some terrifying offenders.

Mason based his initial draft on the rights of citizens described in earlier works such as the English Bill of Rights (1689), and the Declaration can be considered the first modern Constitutional protection of individual rights for citizens of North America. It rejected the notion of privileged political classes or hereditary offices such as the members of Parliament and House of Lords described in the English Bill of Rights.

The Declaration consists of sixteen articles on the subject of which rights “pertain to [the people of Virginia]…as the basis and foundation of Government.” In addition to affirming the inherent nature of natural rights to life, liberty, and property, the Declaration both describes a view of Government as the servant of the people, and enumerates various restrictions on governmental power. Thus, the document is unusual in that it not only prescribes legal rights, but it also describes moral principles upon which a government should be run.

Influence

The Virginia Declaration of Rights heavily influenced later documents. Thomas Jefferson is thought to have drawn on it when he drafted the United States Declaration of Independence one month later (July 1776). James Madison was also influenced by the Declaration while drafting the Bill of Rights (completed September 1787, approved 1789), as was the Marquis de Lafayette in voting the French Revolution’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789).

The importance of the Virginia Declaration of Rights is that it was the first constitutional protection of individual rights, rather than protecting just members of Parliament or consisting of simple laws that can be changed as easily as passed.

“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: Closing Off Abortion Rights

For the last several years, opponents of abortion rights have cloaked their obstructionist efforts under all manner of legitimate-sounding rationales, like protecting women’s health. This has never been more than an insulting ruse. Their goal, of course, is to end all abortions, and lately they’re hardly trying to pretend otherwise. [..]

The Texas law is only one part of the intensifying nationwide effort to make getting an abortion as difficult as possible, a strategy that always hits poor women hardest. In 26 states, women must wait for a period of time, usually 24 to 48 hours, before going through with the procedure. That number will grow when Tennessee’s new waiting-period law goes into effect in July, and again with the expected signing of a Florida bill. These laws are often paired with a two-visit requirement, making abortions that much more unattainable for women who cannot take the time off from work, especially if they must travel long distances multiple times. [..]

Meanwhile, for millions of women across Texas and the rest of the country, particularly those who are poor or live in rural areas, reproductive freedom is more elusive now than at any time since before Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

Bruce Fein: Rand Paul Is Right: Republican Neocons Created ISIS

Senator Rand Paul is spot on.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was created and is fueled by Mr. Paul’s lobotomized neocon rivals.

In other words, to paraphrase Walt Kelly’s Pogo about the Vietnam War, Mr. Paul’s foreign policy detractors have met the enemy, and they are them!

With the predictability of the sun rising in the East and setting in the West, power vacuums in primitive political cultures give birth to extremists–religious or otherwise. There are no exceptions. Ruthlessness and fanaticism flourish in a Hobbesian state of nature. [..]

Notwithstanding Lindsey Graham and fellow neocons, I would wager not a single American has lost a wink of sleep worrying about ISIS attacking the United States.

Of them all, only Rand Paul has earned the accolade of Rudyard Kipling’s poem If…

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…you’ll be a Man my son.”

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on image to enlarge

June 11 is the 162nd day of the year (163rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 203 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress selects Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert R. Livingston of New York to draft a declaration of independence.

Knowing Jefferson’s prowess with a pen, Adams urged him to author the first draft of the document, which was then carefully revised by Adams and Franklin before being given to Congress for review on June 28.

The revolutionary treatise began with reverberating prose:

Draft and adoption

While political maneuvering was setting the stage for an official declaration of independence, a document explaining the decision was being written. On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a “Committee of Five”, consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, to draft a declaration. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded-accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are contradictory and not entirely reliable. What is certain is that the committee, after discussing the general outline that the document should follow, decided that Jefferson would write the first draft. Considering Congress’s busy schedule, Jefferson probably had limited time for writing over the next seventeen days, and likely wrote the draft quickly. He then consulted the others, made some changes, and then produced another copy incorporating these alterations. The committee presented this copy to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was “A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled.” Congress ordered that the draft “lie on the table”.

On Monday, July 1, having tabled the draft of the declaration, Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole, with Benjamin Harrison of Virginia presiding, and resumed debate on Lee’s resolution of independence. John Dickinson made one last effort to delay the decision, arguing that Congress should not declare independence without first securing a foreign alliance and finalizing the Articles of Confederation.[64] John Adams gave a speech in reply to Dickinson, restating the case for an immediate declaration.

“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.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day.

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

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Katrina vanden Heuvel: A new definition of freedom in America

This weekend, Hillary Clinton will unveil her “vision for the country” at a mass rally at the FDR Four Freedoms Park in New York City. Her campaign indicates that she’ll reveal a fuller picture of her economic policies in what is being billed as her official campaign launch.

But the stunning Louis Kahn memorial to Roosevelt can be more than just a setting for Clinton. It can inspire her to a far broader and bolder mission: to challenge directly, as Roosevelt did, the constrained notion of freedom that has dominated our politics since Ronald Reagan, and to offer a more expansive, empowering view of America’s experiment. [..]

The big unanswered question is whether she is prepared – as FDR was – to take on the economic royalists of this day. Where will she stand on the corporate trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and its private corporate court system? Will she favor fair taxes on the rich and corporations to rebuild the United Statesand put people to work? Will she make the case for vital public investments – in new energy, in infrastructure, in education and training – that have been starved for too long? Will she call for breaking up banks that are too big to fail? Will she favor expanding social security, now that corporations have virtually abandoned private pensions?

Lauren Carasik: Revelations on FBI spy fleet cloud surveillance reform

All government monitoring programs need transparency and public debate

On June 2 as President Barack Obama signed the USA Freedom Act into law, curtailing domestic surveillance, The Associated Press reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been using a fleet of low-flying aircraft over U.S. cities for video and cellphone surveillance. And on June 4 The New York Times reported that the Obama administration secretly expanded the National Security Agency’s role in warrantless domestic cybersecurity in 2012.

While the new law imposes welcome restraints on warrantless intrusions into privacy, the battle to curb unchecked governmental power is far from over. The law contains its share of loopholes and reinforces much of the post-9/11 security state. And the challenges of engaging in robust public debate surrounding privacy and security are compounded by the administration’s unprecedented secrecy.