Dana Milbank at the Washington Post writes in Lindsey Graham’s no deal:
Lindsey Graham is turning himself into the mad dog of Capitol Hill.[...]
The problem is Graham, to get through the 2014 primary, needs to say “no” more often now. And Congress can hardly afford for one of its few remaining dealmakers to take an obstreperous turn. But perhaps Graham should be given some slack. The Republican primary system has gone haywire, and this may be the only way a sensible lawmaker can survive it.
Robert McCartney at the
Washington Post argues that
Despite Redskins’ claims, concern over name isn’t political correctness run wild:
All major Native American organizations have formally called on sports teams to discard Indian names and mascots.
Here in the Washington region, the chief of the Piscataway Indian Nation has been staging protests against the [NFL] team’s name since 1980.
“If the team had another name related to black folks, that stadium would be on fire,” Billy Redwing Tayac said. “Redskins is a racial slur for North American Indians.”
Paul Krugman at
The New York Times says it's time to
Raise That Wage:
Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, offered a perfect illustration of this disdain last Labor Day: He chose to commemorate a holiday dedicated to workers by sending out a message that said nothing at all about workers, but praised the efforts of business owners instead.
The good news is that not many Americans share that disdain; just about everyone except Republican men believes that the lowest-paid workers deserve a raise. And they’re right. We should raise the minimum wage, now.
You can read more punditry and editorial board opinions below the fold.
The New York Times Editorial Board states in About Those Black Sites:
Two weeks ago, an appeals court in Italy convicted a C.I.A. station chief and two other Americans for kidnapping a radical cleric in Milan in 2003 and sending him to Egypt. The decision means all 26 Americans tried in absentia for the abduction have been found guilty. On Tuesday, Italy’s former military intelligence chief was sentenced to 10 years in prison for complicity in the case.
In December, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the kidnapping and treatment of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen mistaken for a terrorist and brutalized by a C.I.A. team at the airport in Macedonia in 2003, amounted to torture. He was never charged with a crime or given access to a lawyer. The case was brought against Macedonia because the European court does not have jurisdiction over the United States.
Both judgments are important condemnations of C.I.A. tactics under the Bush administration. They are also a warning to Mr. Obama that pressure for the United States and its partners to acknowledge and make amends for gross violations of international legal and human rights standards is unlikely to subside.
Joseph Stiglitz at
The New York Times writes
Equal Opportunity, Our National Myth:
Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity. This is especially tragic: While Americans may differ on the desirability of equality of outcomes, there is near-universal consensus that inequality of opportunity is indefensible.
Adam Winkler at the
Los Angeles Times writes in
Who gets a gun?
In a bow to the gun lobby, Obama has endorsed an exception to universal background checks for transfers of firearms within families. The argument is that a father who wants to pass on to his son a beloved rifle shouldn't be burdened by having to conduct a background check. And family members, who are most at risk, should have every incentive to refuse to give a felon or dangerously mentally ill person a gun.
The data, however, suggest the opposite. It's precisely those closest to a prohibited purchaser we should trust the least. In studies of prison inmates, nearly 35% obtained their guns from friends and family members — the largest single source of criminals' guns.
Doyle McManus at the
Los Angeles Times says
The second-term Barack Obama is sounding more like Bill Clinton every day.
Leonard Pitts Jr. at the Miami Herald joins a growing chorus in On use of drones, Obama overreaches:
[T]the Justice Department says its definition of “imminent threat” doesn’t require “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” [...]
The idea of a secret killing program, answerable to no one, is jarringly inconsonant with who and what we are supposed to be. One fears that, in the name of expedience, we will become what we abhor. Indeed, the danger is imminent.
Whatever that means.
Patricia J. Williams at
The Nation laments in
The War on Drugs Is a War on Kids:
Drugs are ubiquitous in this country, and yet we know that some people have the privilege of doctor-prescribed intoxication, while others are thrown into dungeons for seeking the same relief. We know that the war on drugs is heavily inflected with Jim Crow–ism, economic inequality, gun culture myths and political opportunism. We know that Adam Lanza’s unfortunate mother was not the sole Newtown resident stocking up on military-style weapons; plenty of suburban gun owners keep similar weapons to protect their well-kept homes against darkly imagined, drug-addled marauders from places like Bridgeport. We divert resources from mental health or rehab, and allocate millions to militarize schools.
The result: the war on drugs has metastasized into a war on children.
Best publicized, perhaps, is the plight of young people in Meridian, Mississippi, where a federal investigation is probing into why children as young as 10 are routinely taken to jail for wearing the wrong color socks or flatulence in class.
Tim Murphy at
Mother Jones asks
Georgia Legislators Propose Ending Direct Election of Senators—Why Not Just Get Rid of the Senate?
If the bill passed, Georgia would be the first state to endorse repealing the 17th Amendment, but the idea has gained traction among conservatives over the last few decades. Texas Gov. Rick Perry supports it; so do GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Flake of Arizona.
Moshe Marvit at
In These Times writes
Long Before Conservatives Stifled Gun and Tax Studies, They Derailed Labor Research:
Just before the November election, news leaked that the Congressional Research Service had been strongarmed by Senate Republicans into withdrawing a report that analyzed the last six decades of economic data and found, contrary to deeply held Republican dogma, that there was no correlation between top marginal tax rates and economic growth. Six weeks later, after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, we were reminded that 15 years ago the National Rifle Association successfully lobbied to kill all federal funding of gun research, leaving the public without solid information with which to debate gun control.
Now, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has begun calling for an end to federal funding for social science research, Paul Krugman has labeled the modern GOP “the ignorance caucus.”
James Jeffrey at
The Guardian writes about
Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan find little ethical defence in the 'just war':
Soldiers and veterans are keenly aware of the ethical damage of war and which they've instigated, each in their own way. Everyone reacts differently, but guilt and shame are hard to avoid. Sharing such feelings is immensely hard, as many fear being condemned and consequently feel exiled in society.