Tag: Open Thread

Jun 04 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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: Turn the NRA’s Weapon Against It

In 1934, the National Rifle Association’s lobbyist testified in front of the House Ways and Means Committee about President Franklin Roosevelt’s National Firearms Act. “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons,” the lobbyist said. “I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.”

The NRA testified, under oath, in favor of the nation’s first federal gun control bill.

Eighty years later, the organization believes not only in “the general practice of carrying weapons” but also, as Ronald Reagan once wrote, that the Second Amendment “appears to leave little if any leeway for the gun control advocate.”

The NRA’s dramatic turnabout, and its decades-long campaign to change American hearts, minds and gun laws, is the subject of Michael Waldman’s compelling new book, The Second Amendment: A Biography. Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center for Law and Justice at the New York University School of Law, explains that the authors of the Second Amendment never intended to create an “unregulated individual right to a gun” and explores why, today, we think they did. Published three days before the rampage in Isla Vista, California, that killed six and wounded thirteen, the book shows how we got to this moment of routine gun violence-and offers a way out

Jessica Valenti: The end of hisses, whistles and stares: we need to walk the streets without fear

Two-thirds of women have been sexually harassed just for being in public. But the conversation has exploded, and now something needs to be done

When I think about the first time I saw a penis, it’s like something out of a nightmare, or a really terrible Law & Order SVU episode. Blech.

Too private a moment to share? I agree. But unfortunately the moment itself wasn’t private – thanks to a grown man who exposed himself to me on a Queens subway platform when I was just 12 years old [..]

It would hardly be the first time I was flashed on a New York City subway – over the years, like a lot of young women, I endured ass-grabs, disgusting come-ons and a range of hisses, whistles and stares. For a long time, I thought there was something about me that invited the unwanted attention: it took until adulthood to realize that it was the common cost of being female in public spaces.

Now a new report on street harassment supports what I got an inkling of that day on the subway: sexual public harassment and violence toward women is a widespread, national problem.

Ana Marie Cox: Ted Cruz’s Tea Party allegiance only makes the case for Rand Paul stronger

There are two Republicans who can take down Hillary Clinton, and Rand Paul isn’t much of a Republican. If the GOP wants to survive, it might be to time to ride the libertarian wave

Ted Cruz is riding high right now. Over the weekend, he gave a rousing anti-establishment speech at the activist-oriented Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, and won the event’s straw poll. He also appeared on ABC’s This Week to give a cathartic Hillary Clinton smack-down: “The sad thing with Secretary Clinton, is it seems to be all politics, all the time.” Most significantly, the Texas GOP primaries gave the Tea Party and Cruz an important series of victories at a time when the insurgent movement’s electoral future seems otherwise uncertain – even and especially in this week’s Super Tuesday primaries in Mississippi and elsewhere.

The person who should be the happiest about Ted Cruz’s visibility and apparent success? Rand Paul.

The more Cruz links himself to the Tea Party and basks in national attention, the more reasonable and mature Paul looks – and the less he has to tone down his own extreme positions. Cruz and Paul are the only two possible 2016 candidates with the infrastructure and fundraising abilities that could plausibly challenge what used to be Chris Christie’s advantage, which is looking weaker by the day.

Cori Crider: Forget the ‘Taliban Five’ – Obama’s real chance is to free Gitmo’s Cleared 78

The Bowe Bergdahl-Taliban swap row obscures a new political reality: there are diplomatic solutions for prisoners who have been cleared – and maybe even for closing Guantánamo Bay

So President Obama, like many presidents before him and no doubt many to follow, has employed a routine end-of-hostilities POW swap. For five Guantánamo prisoners, he has managed to bring Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl home. Bravo. But while Republicans do their level best to Benghazi-fy this rather uncontroversial news, the real story on Gitmo is elsewhere.

Lost in the kerfuffle over the Bergdahl-Taliban swap is one simple and very positive development: we now know that, when push comes to shove, the Defense Department and the White House can work together to close Guantánamo Bay. No, shutting down the prison isn’t a matter of flipping a switch. But break the matter down into individual cases and achievable diplomatic solutions tend to present themselves.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett: Underestimate a lady hurricane at your peril

Scientists have revealed that female-named hurricanes are deadlier than male ones. Show some respect, weather watchers

In shocking news that should vindicate men’s rights activists everywhere but surprise no one who has ever angered my mother in a supermarket, it has today emerged that female hurricanes are deadlier than their male equivalents. The study has resulted in the researchers at the University of Illinois fielding calls from journalists enquiring as to whether the whole thing is a joke – presumably it is the inherent and measurable power of a storm that causes deaths, and not its perceived gender? Au contraire, sexism spotters: they found that, over and above the qualities of the storm itself, a severe hurricane with a girly name will kill more people than a storm with a masculine one. This is because, according to the Washington Post’s rather sweet phrasing, “people don’t respect them”. Sister friends, I know the feeling.

Yes, in what could be described as the Guardian reaching “peak feminism”, I am writing about the sexism that is meted out to weather events. But according to behavioural scientist Sharon Shavitt – a pleasing sitcom cockney name if ever I heard one – it appears that “gender biases apply not only to people, but also to things”. People underestimate female hurricanes because they reckon that they are not all that dangerous, perhaps assuming that the worst they can do is be really nice to your face and then embark on a chardonnay-fuelled bullet-pointed character assassination behind your back from the loos in Wetherspoons, the final coup de grace being that they thought you looked fat in your wedding dress.

Zoë Carpenter: The GOP Is Freaking Out Over the EPA’s Carbon Rules. Why Aren’t Power Companies?

Cue the howls of outrage. On Monday the Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft rule to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, a move likely to be the Obama administration’s most significant in the fight against climate change. Immediately, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell called the proposal “a dagger in the heart of the American middle class, and to representative Democracy itself.” Not to be outdone, the Heartland Institute warned that “by the time EPA is finished, millions of Americans will be freezing in the dark.” [..]

If the power plant rules were indeed likely to leave the nation in the dark, one might expect the companies that supply the country’s power to be similarly alarmed. In fact, the apocalyptic rhetoric in Washington doesn’t reflect the way the rules have been received by stakeholders outside the Beltway. It’s not surprising that renewable energy and natural gas companies welcomed them. But even some of the utility companies that operate the country’s dirtiest power plants responded with what looks more like a collective shrug than mass panic. Many companies are pleased with the flexibility in the proposal, and the fact that it sets 2005 as the baseline year from which reductions will be measured. That year was the high point for US emissions, so reductions from that baseline will achieve less than if the reduction were based on current levels.

Jun 04 2014

On This Day In History June 4

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 4 is the 155th day of the year (156th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 210 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1919, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification.

The Nineteenth Amendment‘s text was drafted by Susan B. Anthony with the assistance of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The proposed amendment was first introduced in the U.S. Senate colloquially as the “Anthony Amendment”, by Senator Aaron A. Sargent of California. Sargent, who had met and befriended Anthony on a train ride in 1872, was a dedicated women’s suffrage advocate. He had frequently attempted to insert women’s suffrage provisions into unrelated bills, but did not formally introduce a constitutional amendment until January 1878. Stanton and other women testified before the Senate in support of the amendment. The proposal sat in a committee until it was considered by the full Senate and rejected in a 16 to 34 vote in 1887.

A three-decade period known as “the doldrums” followed, during which the amendment was not considered by Congress and the women’s suffrage movement achieved few victories. During this period, the suffragists pressed for the right to vote in the laws of individual states and territories while retaining the goal of federal recognition. A flurry of activity began in 1910 and 1911 with surprise successes in Washington and California. Over the next few years, most western states passed legislation or voter referenda enacting full or partial suffrage for women. These successes were linked to the 1912 election, which saw the rise of the Progressive and Socialist parties, as well as the election of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. Not until 1914 was the constitutional amendment again considered by the Senate, where it was again rejected.

On January 12, 1915, a proposal to amend the Constitution to provide for women’s suffrage was brought before the House of Representatives, but was defeated by a vote of 204 to 174. Another proposal was brought before the House on January 10, 1918. During the previous evening, President Wilson made a strong and widely published appeal to the House to pass the amendment. It was passed by the required two-thirds of the House, with only one vote to spare. The vote was then carried into the Senate. Wilson again made an appeal, but on September 30, 1918, the proposal fell two votes short of passage. On February 10, 1919, it was again voted upon and failed by only one vote.

There was considerable desire among politicians of both parties to have the proposal made part of the Constitution before the 1920 general elections, so the President called a special session of the Congress so the proposal would be brought before the House again. On May 21, 1919, it passed the House, 42 votes more than necessary being obtained. On June 4, 1919, it was brought before the Senate and, after a long discussion, it was passed with 56 ayes and 25 nays. Within a few days, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan ratified the amendment, their legislatures being in session. Other states followed suit at a regular pace, until the amendment had been ratified by 35 of the necessary 36 state legislatures. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee narrowly approved the Nineteenth Amendment, with 50 of 99 members of the Tennessee House of Representatives voting yes. This provided the final ratification necessary to enact the amendment.

Jun 03 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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

Dean Baker: The Veterans Affairs Scandal and Plans for Downsizing the Social Security Administration

The media have been rightly focusing their attention on the long waiting lists for veterans seeking medical care, and even worse, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs cover-up. Unlike President Obama’s birth certificate and the attack on the consulate at Benghazi, delaying or denying care to veterans is really a scandal. [..]

Unfortunately the VA system is not the only part of the government where essential services may be threatened by cutbacks. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has recently disclosed plans for a major downsizing that will result in the closing of many more of its field offices. The goal is to handle the bulk of Social Security’s requests, questions, and complaints through the Internet.

While it’s important and desirable for SSA to have an Internet site that can address most problems, the reality is that there are many people who do not feel comfortable using the web. This is especially true among beneficiaries of Social Security and disability, who almost by definition are older than the population as a whole, and often in poor health.

Trevor Timm: Supreme Court Rejects Reporter’s Privilege Case, As NYT Reporter Faces Jail for Protecting His Source

The Supreme Court today rejected New York Times reporter James Risen’s appeal of a 4th Circuit decision that ruled the government can compel him to reveal his source under oath. The case, one of the most important for reporter’s privilege in decades, means that Risen has exhausted his appeals and must now either testify in the leak trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, or face jail time for being in contempt of court. Risen has admirably vowed to go to prison rather than comply.

This is the latest victory of the Obama administration in their crackdown on sources, and in turn, investigative journalism. As the New York Times again reminded us today, they have “pursued leaks aggressively, bringing criminal charges in eight cases, compared with three under all previous administrations combined.”

Make no mistake, this case is a direct attack on the press. The Justice Department has recently tightened its “guidelines” for subpoenaing reporters (which have no enforcement mechanism) and the Obama administration claims it supports a tepid journalist shield law, but this was the case where they could have shown they meant what they said about protecting journalists’ rights. Instead, they argued to the court that reporter’s privilege does not exist all, even comparing journalists who invoke the privilege to criminals who have recieved drugs

Jeff Biggers: Obama’s ‘war on coal’ doesn’t exist

Specious slogans dominate key midterm Senate battles in Appalachia, burying West Virginia coal chemical disaster

On Monday, President Barack Obama is expected to announce a new Environmental Protection Agency regulation to cut CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants by 30 percent, setting a cap that will require states to trade or shift toward clean energy alternatives. U.S. Senate candidates in pivotal coal-producing Appalachian states, however, have already fired the opening salvo in the next battle over dirty coal. [..]

Four years ago, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., issued his clarion call for Appalachia and the coal industry to “embrace the future,” adding later that people, not coal, “are West Virginia’s most valuable resource. We must demand to be treated as such.”

Byrd’s call found scant reception in the campaign war rooms, but its sentiment has continued to spread across Appalachia. Kentuckians electrified such hopes for change in 2010 when a regional grassroots movement for “New Power” compelled the East Kentucky Power Cooperative to halt plans to build two coal-burning power plants in Clark County and explore both job-creating energy efficiency programs and renewable energy options. [..]

As long as those voices are overpowered by the relentless “war on coal” ads bankrolled by out-of-state coal industry lobby fronts, change must come from the EPA and the White House.

At least, that is, until a new era of candidates in West Virginia, Kentucky and even Illinois finally provides the leadership to speak up about a just transition to “new power” initiatives for clean energy jobs and development during elections and put the worn-out, misleading slogans of the coal wars to rest.

Paul Buchheit: Toward the Total Paralysis of an Unequal Society

The severing of our society into a plutocracy and a peasantry is so far along that statistics almost cease to have meaning. But the facts have to be told, to help explain the sickening sense that we’re becoming a nation without a middle class, paralyzed by the inequality deniers and excuse makers who refuse to admit there’s something wrong with their free-market capitalist system. The extremes are becoming almost intolerable. [..]

Thomas Piketty recommends a global wealth tax to help reverse inequality. But a financial transaction tax (also called speculation tax or Robin Hood tax) would be easier to implement, more efficiently regulated, and a source of massive revenues at little cost to financial traders.

Whatever method we choose, progressive thinkers in the U.S. and around the world will need to unite on a single cause, much as the Tea Party did in its crusade against government. We can’t afford to disagree among ourselves as paralysis sets in.

David Sirota: Big Money Behind a Big Merger

There are plenty of reasons to worry about the proposal to combine Comcast, America’s largest cable and broadband company, with Time Warner Cable, the second-largest cable firm and third-largest broadband provider.

For one, there’s ever more consolidated control over content. There’s also the possibility of certain types of content being given special (or worse) treatment based on the provider’s relationship with Comcast and Time Warner Cable. And there’s the prospect of even higher prices. Indeed a Comcast executive recently admitted that the company will not promise bills “are going to go down or even that they’re going to increase less rapidly.”

In the capital of a properly functioning democracy, all of these concerns would prompt the federal government to block the deal. But Washington is an occupied city-occupied by Comcast’s vast army. As Time magazine recently reported, “The company has registered at least 76 lobbyists across 24 firms.” Those figures include neither telecom lobbyist turned FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s chief of staff, who was a Comcast vice president and raked in $1.2 million in Comcast payments since taking his government job.There are plenty of reasons to worry about the proposal to combine Comcast, America’s largest cable and broadband company, with Time Warner Cable, the second-largest cable firm and third-largest broadband provider.

For one, there’s ever more consolidated control over content. There’s also the possibility of certain types of content being given special (or worse) treatment based on the provider’s relationship with Comcast and Time Warner Cable. And there’s the prospect of even higher prices. Indeed a Comcast executive recently admitted that the company will not promise bills “are going to go down or even that they’re going to increase less rapidly.”

In the capital of a properly functioning democracy, all of these concerns would prompt the federal government to block the deal. But Washington is an occupied city-occupied by Comcast’s vast army. As Time magazine recently reported, “The company has registered at least 76 lobbyists across 24 firms.” Those figures include neither telecom lobbyist turned FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s chief of staff, who was a Comcast vice president and raked in $1.2 million in Comcast payments since taking his government job.

Jarett Murphy: The Working Families Party Plays it Safe by Endorsing Andrew Cuomo for Governor

Both the governor and the WFP went into the weekend needing something from the other. The governor walked away with what he wanted. The party got an IOU.

Has New York state’s Working Families Party come up with the formula for forcing centrist Democrats to the left and delivering bread-and-butter progressive policy? That was the hope on Saturday night outside Albany, where the party gathered to make its endorsements for state races later this year. Faced with losing the ballot line to a challenger who tapped into resentment over his estate tax cuts, charter-school championing and failure to deliver campaign finance reform, Governor Andrew Cuomo won the party’s designation only after promising to fight for Democratic control of the state Senate and deliver a progressive policy wish list. [..]

The sales pitch worked: Cuomo won a solid (if not commanding) 59 percent of the vote to Teachout’s 41 percent.

But the endorsement vote and the deal that secured it don’t represent success. The real test of the WFP approach-honed since its founding in 1998 and facilitated by hard work in hundreds of contests for local and state office-will be whether Cuomo delivers, which won’t really be clear until his second term is under way.

Both the governor and the WFP went into the weekend needing something from the other. The governor walked away with what he wanted. The party got an IOU.

Jun 03 2014

On This Day In History June 3

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 3 is the 154th day of the year (155th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 211 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1916, United States President Woodrow Wilson signs into law the National Defense Act, which expanded the size and scope of the National Guard, the network of states’ militias that had been developing steadily since colonial times, and guaranteed its status as the nation’s permanent reserve force.

The National Defense Act of 1916 provided for an expanded army during peace and wartime, fourfold expansion of the National Guard, the creation of an Officers’ and an Enlisted Reserve Corps, plus the creation of a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in colleges and universities. The President was also given authority, in case of war or national emergency, to mobilize the National Guard for the duration of the emergency.

The act was passed amidst the “preparedness controversy”, a brief frenzy of great public concern over the state of preparation of the United States armed forces, and shortly after Pancho Villa’s cross-border raid on Columbus, New Mexico. Its chief proponent was James Hay of Virginia, the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs.

Sponsored by Rep. Julius Kahn (R) of California and drafted by the House Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs Rep. James Hay (D) of Virginia, it authorized an army of 175,000 men, a National Guard of 450,000 men. It created the modern Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and empowered the President to place obligatory orders with manufacturers capable of producing war materials.

Langley Field in Virginia was built as part of the act. Now U.S. Air Force Command HQ as Langley Air Force Base, this “aerodrome” was named after air pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley (died 1904). The President also requested the National Academy of Sciences to establish the National Research Council to conduct research into the potential of mathematical, biological, and physical science applications for defense. It allocated over $17 million to the Army to build 375 new aeroplanes.

Perhaps most important, it established the right of the President to “Federalize” the National Guard in times of emergency, with individual States’ militias reverting to their control upon the end of the declared emergency. With the Defense Act, Congress was also concerned with ensuring the supply of nitrates (used to make munitions), and it authorized the construction of two nitrate-manufacturing plants and a dam for hydropower as a national defense measure. President Wilson chose Muscle Shoals, Alabama as the site of the dam. The dam was later named for him, and the two Nitrate plants built in Muscle Shoals were later rolled into the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933.

Developments after September 11, 2001

Prior to the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, the National Guard’s general policy regarding mobilization was that Guardsmen would be required to serve no more than one year cumulative on active duty (with no more than six months overseas) for each five years of regular drill. Due to strains placed on active duty units following the attacks, the possible mobilization time was increased to 18 months (with no more than one year overseas). Additional strains placed on military units as a result of the invasion of Iraq further increased the amount of time a Guardsman could be mobilized to 24 months. Current Department of Defense policy is that no Guardsman will be involuntarily activated for more than 24 months (cumulative) in one six year enlistment period.

Traditionally, most National Guard personnel serve “One weekend a month, two weeks a year”, although personnel in highly operational or high demand units serve far more frequently. Typical examples are pilots, navigators and aircrewmen in active flying assignments, primarily in the Air National Guard and to a lesser extent in the Army National Guard. A significant number also serve in a full-time capacity in roles such as Active Guard and Reserve (AGR) or Air Reserve Technician or Army Reserve Technician (ART).

The “One weekend a month, two weeks a year” slogan has lost most of its relevance since the Iraq War, when nearly 28% of total US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan at the end of 2007 consisted of mobilized personnel of the National Guard and other Reserve components.

Jun 02 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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: On Inequality Denial

A while back I published an article titled “The Rich, the Right, and the Facts,” in which I described politically motivated efforts to deny the obvious – the sharp rise in U.S. inequality, especially at the very top of the income scale. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that I found a lot of statistical malpractice in high places. [..]

What may surprise you is the year in which I published that article: 1992.

Which brings me to the latest intellectual scuffle, set off by an article by Chris Giles, the economics editor of The Financial Times, attacking the credibility of Thomas Piketty’s best-selling “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” Mr. Giles claimed that Mr. Piketty’s work made “a series of errors that skew his findings,” and that there is in fact no clear evidence of rising concentration of wealth. And like just about everyone who has followed such controversies over the years, I thought, “Here we go again.” [..]

This picture makes some people uncomfortable, because it plays into populist demands for higher taxes on the rich. But good ideas don’t need to be sold on false pretenses. If the argument against populism rests on bogus claims about inequality, you should consider the possibility that the populists are right.

Charles M. Blow: Yes, All Men

As I drove my son back to college last week, where he’ll take a summer chemistry course, he said something that struck me: “I believe it’s very important for everyone to be a feminist.”As I drove my son back to college last week, where he’ll take a summer chemistry course, he said something that struck me: “I believe it’s very important for everyone to be a feminist.” [..]

Yes, we should all be feminists, but too often we believe that the plight of the oppressed is solely the business of the oppressed, and that the society in which that oppression is born and grows and the role of the oppressors and beneficiaries are all somehow subordinate. p,,]

Wrong.

Fighting female objectification and discrimination and violence against women isn’t simply the job of women; it must also be the pursuit of men.

Only when men learn to recognize misogyny will we be able to rid the world of it. Not all men are part of the problem, but, yes, all men must be part of the solution.

New York Times Editorial Board: Encouragement (Sort of) About Press Freedom

At a meeting with journalists last week, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. was questioned about the prolonged quest to compel James Risen, a reporter for The Times, to testify in the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former Central Intelligence Agency official. Prosecutors say Mr. Sterling was a source for restricted information in Mr. Risen’s 2006 book on the C.I.A. “As long as I’m attorney general, no reporter who is doing his job is going to go to jail,” Mr. Holder said.

The statement went an intriguing step further than his previous pledge not to prosecute reporters for their news-gathering activities and was taken as a hint that the Justice Department might choose not to jail Mr. Risen for defying a subpoena ordering him to disclose his sources. [..]

Still, there are reasons to be wary. Mr. Holder did not, for example, rule out imposing steep fines, or otherwise inflicting harm on Mr. Risen and press freedom.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: The Real Piketty Scandal (Is Right-Wing Deception)

Conservatives in all corners of the globe must have felt their hearts sing, if only for a moment, when the Financial Times ran a piece entitled “Piketty findings undercut by errors.” Sadly for them, the FT’s claims proved untrue. But if you think that put an end to the accusations against the French economist and his findings on inequality, you don’t know today’s conservatives. [..]

Conservatives aren’t obligated to accept the defenses of Piketty, either, however persuasive many of us find them. But to ignore them altogether, to hype the FT’s attack and omit such exhaustively researched and data-rich rebuttals, is to conduct an indefensible cherry-picking of both facts and arguments.

And that, ironically, is what the Financial Times wrongly accused Piketty of doing.

Conservatives can claim that the progressive solutions which worked so well in the past won’t work today. They can argue, as libertarian Garrett Jones does, that “the best way to defuse the situation is to teach tolerance for inequality. ” They can even continue to promote the disproven solutions of the past, as a new book from Arthur Laffer et al. does. (It won laudatory blurbs from Dick Cheney and Phil Gramm, if that tells you anything.)

That’s how honest debate works — or should. We should all be willing to hawk our wares in the marketplace of ideas.  But to distort the facts or make false accusations is to poison that marketplace with tainted goods. When conservatives do it as a matter of routine — on economics, climate change and so many other issues — it also sends the subliminal message that they don’t believe they can win an argument on its merits.Conservatives aren’t obligated to accept the defenses of Piketty, either, however persuasive many of us find them. But to ignore them altogether, to hype the FT’s attack and omit such exhaustively researched and data-rich rebuttals, is to conduct an indefensible cherry-picking of both facts and arguments.

And that, ironically, is what the Financial Times wrongly accused Piketty of doing.

Robert Reich: Freedom Summer II

I spent several days in New York last week with students from around the country who were preparing to head into the heartland to help organize Walmart workers for better jobs and wages. (Full familial disclosure: My son Adam is one of the leaders.)

Almost exactly fifty years ago a similar group headed to Mississippi to register African-Americans to vote, in what came to be known as Freedom Summer.

Call this Freedom Summer II.

The current struggle of low-wage workers across America echoes the civil rights struggle of the 1960s.

Today, as then, a group of Americans is denied the dignity of decent wages and working conditions. Today, just as then, powerful forces are threatening and intimidating vulnerable people for exercising their legal rights. Today, just like fifty years ago, people who have been treated as voiceless and disposable are standing up and demanding change.

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Jun 02 2014

On This Day In History June 2

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 2 is the 153rd day of the year (154th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 212 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1962, Ray Charles takes country music to the top of the pop charts.

Ray Charles was one of the founding fathers of soul music-a style he helped create and popularize with a string of early 1950s hits on Atlantic Records like “I Got A Woman” and “What’d I Say.” This fact is well known to almost anyone who has ever heard of the man they called “the Genius,” but what is less well known-to younger fans especially-is the pivotal role that Charles played in shaping the course of a seemingly very different genre of popular music. In the words of his good friend and sometime collaborator, Willie Nelson, speaking before Charles’ death in 2004, Ray Charles the R&B legend “did more for country music than any other living human being.” The landmark album that earned Ray Charles that praise was Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, which gave him his third #1 hit in “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” which topped the U.S. pop charts on this day in 1962

Executives at ABC Records-the label that wooed Ray Charles from Atlantic with one of the richest deals of the era-were adamantly opposed to the idea that Charles brought to them in 1962: to re-record some of the best country songs of the previous 20 years in new arrangements that suited his style. As Charles told Rolling Stone magazine a decade later, ABC executives said, “You can’t do no country-western things….You’re gonna lose all your fans!” But Charles recognized the quality of songs like “I Can’t Stop Loving You” by Don Gibson and “You Don’t Know Me,” by Eddy Arnold and Cindy Walker, and the fact that his version of both of those country songs landed in the Top 5 on both the pop and R&B charts was vindication of Charles’s long-held belief that “There’s only two kinds of music as far as I’m concerned: good and bad.”

Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records. He also helped racially integrate country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his Modern Sounds albums. While with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company. Frank Sinatra called Charles “the only true genius in show business.”

Rolling Stone ranked Charles number 10 on their list of “100 Greatest Artists of All Time” in 2004, and number two on their November 2008 list of “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”. In honoring Charles, Billy Joel noted: “This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. I don’t know if Ray was the architect of rock & roll, but he was certainly the first guy to do a lot of things . . . Who the hell ever put so many styles together and made it work?”

 

Jun 01 2014

On This Day In History June 1

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.

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June 1 is the 152nd day of the year (153rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 213 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1980, CNN (Cable News Network), the world’s first 24-hour television news network, makes its debut. The network signed on at 6 p.m. EST from its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, with a lead story about the attempted assassination of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. CNN went on to change the notion that news could only be reported at fixed times throughout the day. At the time of CNN’s launch, TV news was dominated by three major networks–ABC, CBS and NBC–and their nightly 30-minute broadcasts. Initially available in less than two million U.S. homes, today CNN is seen in more than 89 million American households and over 160 million homes internationally.

CNN was the brainchild of Robert “Ted” Turner, a colorful, outspoken businessman dubbed the “Mouth of the South.” Turner was born on November 19, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and as a child moved with his family to Georgia, where his father ran a successful billboard advertising company. After his father committed suicide in 1963, Turner took over the business and expanded it. In 1970, he bought a failing Atlanta TV station that broadcast old movies and network reruns and within a few years Turner had transformed it into a “superstation,” a concept he pioneered, in which the station was beamed by satellite into homes across the country. Turner later bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Atlanta Hawks basketball team and aired their games on his network, TBS (Turner Broadcasting System). In 1977, Turner gained international fame when he sailed his yacht to victory in the prestigious America’s Cup race.

Early history

The Cable News Network was launched at 5:00 p.m. EST on Sunday June 1, 1980. After an introduction by Ted Turner, the husband and wife team of David Walker and Lois Hart anchored the first newscast. Burt Reinhardt, the then executive vice president of CNN, hired most of CNN’s first 200 employees, including the network’s first news anchor, Bernard Shaw.

Since its debut, CNN has expanded its reach to a number of cable and satellite television companies, several web sites, specialized closed-circuit channels (such as CNN Airport Network), and a radio network. The company has 36 bureaus (10 domestic, 26 international), more than 900 affiliated local stations, and several regional and foreign-language networks around the world. The channel’s success made a bona-fide mogul of founder Ted Turner and set the stage for the Time Warner conglomerate’s eventual acquisition of Turner Broadcasting.

A companion channel, CNN2, was launched on January 1, 1982 and featured a continuous 24-hour cycle of 30-minute news broadcasts. A year later, it changed its name to “CNN Headline News”, and eventually it was simply called “Headline News”. (In 2005, Headline News would break from its original format with the addition of Headline Prime, a prime-time programming block that features news commentary; and in 2008 the channel changed its name again, to “HLN”.)

Jun 01 2014

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

“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: Guests on this morning’s “This Week” are: National Security Advisor Susan Rice; and Sen. Ted Crus (R-TX).

At the roundtable are ABC News contributor Bill Kristol; Tavis Smiley of “The Tavis Smiley Show;” New Yorker editor David Remnick; and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Scieffer’s guests are Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); Robert Wallace, head of the Washington office of the VFW; and former CIA/NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden.

His panel guests are David Ignatius of The Washington Post; David E. Sanger of The New York Times; Leigh Gallagher of Fortune magazine; and our Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: The guests on MTP are: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel; Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL); Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association; and former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I).

Sitting at the roundtable are Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director amd Chief White House Correspondent; Rana Forhoohar, TIME Assistant Managing Editor; former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA); and Newt Gingrich (R-GA), forner presidential candidate & House Speaker.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are National Security Adviser Susan Rice; former Senator Jim Webb (D-VA); Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI); former U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns; and former National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.).

Her panel guests are Neera Tanden of Center for American Progress and Republican Pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson.

May 31 2014

Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Health and Fitness NewsWelcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness News 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.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Grilled Cheese for Grownups

Grilled Cheese for Grownups photo recipehealthpromo-tmagArticle_zpse4603dbd.jpg

On these nights I don’t want to get down another frying pan or saucepan. I crave a sandwich, and I turn lovingly to my toaster oven. I rummage in the refrigerator – there is always something, like greens I’ve blanched, a roasted red pepper, a box of mushrooms that are beginning to shrivel, or a hunk of butternut squash left over from another recipe test. I try to keep my refrigerator stocked with a few different cheeses – goat cheese and feta, a blue of some kind, Gruyère and Parmesan. This year, because my son went away to boarding school and I can’t go through a loaf of bread before it goes stale, I’ve begun to keep loaves of sliced whole-wheat country bread in the freezer, so that I can pull it out by the slice when I need it.

~Martha Rosle Shuman~

Roasted Mushroom and Gruyère Sandwich

Mushrooms add a somewhat meaty essence to this quick vegetarian sandwich.

Grilled Gorgonzola and Beet Green Sandwich

A satisfying dinner that can be put together in 10 minutes.

Grilled Feta and Roasted Squash Sandwich

The sweet and earthy flavors of roasted squash are a tasty contrast to salty feta.

]Grilled Goat Cheese and Broccoli Sandwich http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05…

The Middle Eastern nut and spice mix called dukkah is the surprise touch in this sandwich.

Grilled Goat Cheese, Roasted Pepper, and Greens Sandwich

Roasted artichoke hearts are an optional addition to this vegetable-filled sandwich.

May 31 2014

Punting the Pundits

“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 Board: Mr. Shinseki Takes the Fall

The resignation of Secretary Eric Shinseki from the Veterans Affairs Department was probably unavoidable, under the principle that a leader should accept full responsibility for a great scandal. But the department’s problem was not Mr. Shinseki. It has been broken for years. No one should expect his removal to be anything but the beginning of a much-needed process of change.

Time now to tune out the noise from the lawmakers who lately have been baying for Mr. Shinseki’s head. No doubt they will keep heaping abuse on President Obama, on the campaign trail, and at the hearings for whoever is nominated as Mr. Shinseki’s replacement. Empty posturing in support of troops and veterans is a staple of political life, and is far easier than actually helping veterans.

This should not distract anyone from the long list of things that need doing at Veterans Affairs.

Bob Kohn: How Book Publishers Can Beat Amazon

Amazon has caused no small controversy of late by refusing to accept presale orders on books to be released by the publisher Hachette and by understocking Hachette’s titles. These punitive maneuvers, which follow a dispute between Amazon and Hachette about e-book contracts, have led to significant delays in shipments of Hachette’s books to Amazon’s customers.

If you are wondering why Amazon would subject its customers to this inconvenience and wish to understand what’s really happening between Amazon and Hachette – and, indeed, all the major book publishers – you need to know the meaning of the word monopsony.

The Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, when sitting on a lower court, once described monopsony as the “mirror image” of monopoly. Unlike a monopoly, which occurs when a seller of goods has the power to unlawfully raise prices of what it sells, a monopsony occurs when a buyer of goods has the power to unlawfully lower the prices of what it buys. Each violates antitrust laws: As the Supreme Court has long recognized, they both result in a misallocation of resources that harms consumers and distorts markets.

Juan Cole: Mr. Kerry: Here’s Why Snowden Can’t ‘Make His Case’ in ‘Our System of Justice’

Secretary of State John Kerry said that Edward Snowden should “return home and come back here and stand in our system of justice and make his case.”  Kerry seems to have a high opinion of the Department of Justice and the U.S. courts when it comes to national security issues.  I can’t imagine for the life of me why.  Kerry is either amazingly ignorant or being disingenuous when he suggests that Snowden would be allowed to “make his case” if he returned to the U.S.  No one outside the penal justice system would ever see him again, the moment he set foot here, assuming he was not given a prior deal.  He could maybe try to explain himself to the prison guards, assuming they didn’t stick him in solitary.  Here are some reasons Mr. Snowden would be unwise to trust himself to that system, given the charges against him: [..]

Kerry is a bright and informed man and knows all this.  I vote for disingenuous.  He is just trying to deflect Snowden’s obvious popularity with the public and is trying desperately to keep the NSA warrantless dragnet on us all in place.  I remember when he compared the U.S. military in Vietnam to the Mongol hordes.  He should take off those big black expensive shiny shoes once in a while.  He’d find feet of clay there now.

Danny Schechter: Where Is the American Spring? (or Sunshine on a Cloudy Day: A Screed)

Where are you, Temptations, when I need you most? [..]

The month of May is here and will soon be gone, with a May winter every other day here in New York following every occasional outbreak of seasonal warmth. We know the planet is warming, but I have yet to feel it with any regularity in my neighborhood.

Worse that that, the cold outside is not just the zigzagging temperatures, but the sense that we are stuck in a political Ice Age where change of the kind that we will soon be discussing, again and again, ad finitem, at yet another Left forum is more remote than ever. While the Left talks, the Right mobilizes, certainly in Europe, save austerity-devastated Greece. [..]

Here, the Tea Party wing nuts have all but conquered the Repugs, bolstered by new court rulings that allow their funders to buy what’s still on sale in our political oligarchy in this Republic of Fear.

The Obamanauts are done. They can’t steer the ship of state. They are even website-challenged and health care-damaged. Their Ukraine adventure boomeranged, leaving only half a country that needs to render unto Putin more than chocolate. They have driven the bear into his own China pivot, far more lucrative than ours, with warning bells now ringing on every front as the president still yearns for an American “exceptionalism” that is anything but, if not a mirage.

Their co-optation was a willing one, part of the game, and no longer even apologized for. Forget the Hopium. There is always a threat from the right to justify their moving right.

Who, among us, still has illusions?

Robert Parry: Obama’s Neoconservative Foreign Policy Vision

As American neocons continue to shape the narratives that define the permissible boundaries for U.S. foreign policy thinking, the failure to enforce any meaningful accountability on them for their role in the criminal and disastrous invasion of Iraq has become painfully clear.

In any vibrant democratic system, it would be unthinkable that the neocons and other war hawks who yahooed the United States into Iraq a little more than a decade ago would still be exercising control over how Americans perceive today’s events. Yet, many of the exact same pundits and pols who misled the American people then are still misleading them today. [..]

Thus, we’re stuck reading the Washington Post’s deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl reinforce the myth that the Ukraine crisis was caused by “the aggression of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” when the reality is that it was the United States and the European Union that stirred up the unrest and set the stage for neo-Nazi militias to overthrow elected President Viktor Yanukovych and plunge the country into a nasty little civil war.

Yet, you’re not supposed to know that. Anyone who dares explain the actual narrative of what happened in Ukraine is immediately accused of spreading “Russian propaganda.” The preferred U.S. narrative of white-hat “pro-democracy” protesters victimized by black-hat villain Yanukovych with the help of the even more villainous Vladimir Putin is so much more fun. It lets Americans cheer as ethnic Russians in the east are burned alive by neo-Nazi mobs and mowed down by Ukrainian military aircraft.

Mark Weisbrot: IMF’s Insistence on Economic Austerity Could Derail Ukraine’s Chance of Survival

On May 25, the “Chocolate King” handily won the Ukrainian presidential elections in the first round.

Billionaire Petro O. Poroshenko is so named because he made his fortune in the confectionary business. The defeated runner-up, former prime minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko is sometimes referred to as “the Gas Princess,” since she struck it rich in the energy sector. [..]

Which brings us to today: the new government of the Chocolate King is committed to those same conditions, now spelled out in an IMF agreement released at the end of April. I would not want to be in his shoes.

After two years of almost no economic growth, the IMF is now projecting a steep recession for this year, with the economy shrinking by 5 percent. This is largely because of budget tightening that the government has committed to, amounting to about 3 percent of GDP over the next two years.

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