“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.
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New York Times Editorial Board: Reform After the Ebola Debacle
The World Health Organization’s anemic performance in handling the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa may yield one positive outcome: sweeping, and long overdue, institutional reforms to improve its ability to respond more quickly to the next outbreak of a lethal infectious disease. Scrambling to answer growing criticism, the W.H.O.’s executive board recently endorsed changes to enhance the agency’s rapid response capabilities.
The reforms call for well-trained public health workers to rush to the aid of beleaguered countries and an emergency fund to support their initial operations, among other advances. One big question, which can only be answered in practice, is whether the organization’s 194 member states will set aside their typical politicking on behalf of national self-interests and allow it to function as the global health leader it ought to be.
Robert Reich: Back to the 19th Century
My recent column about the growth of on-demand jobs like Uber making life less predictable and secure for workers unleashed a small barrage of criticism from some who contend that workers get what they’re worth in the market.
A Forbes Magazine contributor, for example, writes that jobs exist only “when both employer and employee are happy with the deal being made.” So if the new jobs are low-paying and irregular, too bad.
Much the same argument was voiced in the late nineteenth century over alleged “freedom of contract.” Any deal between employees and workers was assumed to be fine if both sides voluntarily agreed to it. [..]
So it’s not surprising we’re once again hearing that workers are worth no more than what they can get in the market.
But as we should have learned a century ago, markets don’t exist in nature. They’re created by human beings. The real question is how they’re organized and for whose benefit.
Ditching the Keystone XL pipeline should be a no-brainer. The 1,179-mile pipeline extension would carry some of the world’s dirtiest oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas. And it shouldn’t be necessary to repeat this, but since we have a Congress controlled by a party that denies the reality of climate change, it is: 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human activity has warmed the Earth. The evidence of climate disruption is all around us, from warming ocean surface and land temperatures, melting Antarctic ice sheets and glaciers, rising sea levels, and increasing heat waves and other changes in extreme weather events. [..]
This is important because it is estimated that if we are to have even a 50 percent chance of avoiding the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming that scientists have set as an upper limit, at least two-thirds of the world’s proven reserves of oil must remain unexploited. Keeping this oil in the ground will be one of the great struggles of future years, since oil companies could lose hundreds of billions of dollars of assets, and they are politically powerful. But the longer any oil stays undeveloped, the less likely it is to be used: exploitation delayed is exploitation denied. And since the oil from Canada’s tar sands brings much higher carbon emissions than the average oil produced today, it is a prime candidate for staying in the ground.
Bill Boyarsky: Playing Politics With Measles-That’s Pretty Sick
Observing the Republican Party tangle itself up in the politics of measles is rare good news for Democrats who feared they were mired in a losing streak after the GOP gained control of Congress.
Some of the Republican presidential hopefuls are so desperate to win votes from the hard right-wingers who will dominate the phony media show known as the 2016 Iowa caucuses that they are pandering to those who believe that children are harmed by vaccinations against measles. The Iowa caucus-goers constitute a thin but influential slice of the electorate that will determine the 2016 Republican presidential nominee. Since Iowa is first and political writers are enamored with the place, the caucuses have a disproportionate influence on debate around the country on issues such as the measles epidemic.
At the heart of this particular debate is the question of whether parents should be required to have their children vaccinated. [..]
For them, It’s a race toward the right, inflaming and politicizing an issue that scientific evidence-and a majority of Americans-say is not an issue at all.
Ralph Nader: Large Foundations: Rethink Your Priorities
The number of large foundations has been consistently increasing. Some of these foundations are bulging with billions of dollars in assets that could be contributed to nonprofit “good works.” It is potentially the golden age of philanthropy, but unfortunately many areas of recognized need are too often ignored by foundation boards and their executives. Organizations with track records of effective advocacy and accomplishment stand ready to take on neglected problems of our society. Unfortunately, these groups lack adequate foundation support.
When foundations do donate to important areas, such as energy policy, they often award grants to the same organizations that are not original, motivating or making necessary waves. Year after year, these bland organizations are seen as the “safe choice” for donors who are timid about new ideas and groundbreaking approaches. Cushy relationships, as has been demonstrated in the energy/environmental field, often amount to an annuity of contributions for lackluster studies and reports from the same old recipients futilely running over the same old ground.
Robert Creamer: Meet IL Governor Bruce Rauner — Poster Boy for War on Middle Class
Last fall, Illinois GOP candidate Bruce Rauner spent $63.9 million — $27.3 million of his own money — to buy the right to occupy the Illinois Governor’s mansion.
Now that he’s in office his first moves have confirmed that he is the poster boy for the War on the Middle Class.
Rauner is a hybrid of the worst traits of Mitt Romney and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. In fact, you could say he personally embodies the reason why — even though our economy has grown 77% in the last 35 years — the wages of ordinary Americans have been stagnant or actually declined. [..]
Rauner’s first major assault on the middle class was an executive order giving state workers who are covered by labor contracts the choice to benefit from those contracts without paying a “fair share” contribution to support the union that negotiates and administers them.
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