Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media 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 “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Eugene Robinson: Those of us who are vaccinated can come out of our bunkers. It’s glorious.

After staying distanced and getting vaccinated, we’ve earned this reemergence.

The details of the new guidance on covid-19 from federal health officials may be a bit confusing, but the gist is clear: If you are fully vaccinated, you can resume something that resembles normal life. And having done so myself, let me assure you: It is glorious.

Some basic cautions remain. Don’t do anything you know is stupid. Keep a mask handy, and wear it when appropriate. Be kind, and do your best not to make other people uncomfortable. Realize that unforeseen circumstances, among them the emergence of vaccine-resistant virus strains, could set us back. But for now, those of us who are vaccinated can come out of our bunkers and reengage with the world, assuming we remember how. [..]

Mask-wearing likely will be fairly commonplace in U.S. cities, the way it has been in some Asian metropolises for many years. If I have a cold or the flu and I have to take public transportation, why shouldn’t I wear a mask to protect others? It’s a shame that the mere sight of masks appears to drive some people crazy, fueling unnecessary conflict.

We’ll deal with all of that later. For now, join me in celebrating the return of the handshake and the hug (when appropriate). I used to take human contact for granted. I’ll never underestimate the pleasures of a friendly dinner or a round of golf again.

Jeremy Scahill: Why Biden Is Right to Leave Afghanistan

The president should ignore the powerful voices in Washington pushing him to reverse course and not end our longest war.

When Joe Biden assumed the presidency in January, he embarked on a mission to reverse a slew of policies put in place by former President Donald Trump while leaving untouched the elite foreign policy consensus. Mr. Biden issued 42 executive orders in his first 100 days — more than than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt — and has waged a methodical campaign against Mr. Trump’s agenda. With one major exception: Afghanistan. [..]

Mr. Biden announced that while he did not agree with all of the particulars of Mr. Trump’s plan and timeline, he would move forward with them. “It is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government, and that means something,” Mr. Biden said. [..]

Once the United States pulls out its conventional military forces, hawkish figures in the American security and foreign policy establishment will use every subsequent incident of Taliban violence to argue that withdrawal was a mistake. In his speech announcing the withdrawal, Mr. Biden seemed to understand this dynamic, and he offered a pre-emptory argument: “We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal, and expecting a different result.”

For now, Mr. Biden deserves credit for continuing the course set by his deeply flawed predecessor and making the case to his supporters that the war must end. He must remain steadfast and end America’s longest war.

Paul Krugman: Technobabble, Libertarian Derp and Bitcoin

Rising asset prices don’t mean that silly ideas make sense.

A number of readers have asked me to weigh in on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, whose fluctuations have dominated a lot of market news. Would I please comment on what it’s all about, and what’s going on?

Well, I can tell you what it’s about. What’s going on is harder to explain.

The story so far: Bitcoin, the first and biggest cryptocurrency, was introduced in 2009. It uses an encryption key, similar to those used in hard-to-break codes — hence the “crypto” — to establish chains of ownership in tokens that entitle their current holders to … well, ownership of those tokens. And nowadays we use Bitcoin to buy houses and cars, pay our bills, make business investments, and more.

Oh, wait. We don’t do any of those things. Twelve years on, cryptocurrencies play almost no role in normal economic activity. Almost the only time we hear about them being used as a means of payment — as opposed to speculative trading — is in association with illegal activity, like money laundering or the Bitcoin ransom Colonial Pipeline paid to hackers who shut it down. [..]

But I’ve been in numerous meetings with enthusiasts for cryptocurrency and/or blockchain, the concept that underlies it. In such meetings I and others always ask, as politely as we can: “What problem does this technology solve? What does it do that other, much cheaper and easier-to-use technologies can’t do just as well or better?” I still haven’t heard a clear answer.

William Barber II and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: A Cry of ‘I Can’t Breathe’ United a Generation in a Gasp for Justice

Dr. Barber is the president of Repairers of the Breach and a co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. Mr. Wilson-Hartgrove is the author of “Revolution of Values: Reclaiming Public Faith for the Common Good.”

Emmett Till’s death helped inspire America’s Second Reconstruction. George Floyd’s galvanized the third.

In Elizabeth City, N.C., the morning after a jury in Minneapolis found the former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of the murder of George Floyd, a unit from the county’s Sheriff’s Department dressed in tactical gear arrived at the home of Andrew Brown Jr. They were there to serve drug-related arrest and search warrants.

Within minutes, 42-year-old Mr. Brown was dead, shot at the wheel of his car. He was hit by five bullets, including one shot to the back of his head. The North Carolina prosecutor in the case has called the shooting “justified.”

If George Floyd forced America to face the question of whether an officer who abuses power can be held accountable, Andrew Brown Jr.’s blood cries out from the ground of eastern North Carolina for deeper change. Justice demands systemic and enduring transformation — something that younger generations will see and trust as authentic. We call it the Third Reconstruction. [..]

The Third Reconstruction is about more than any single bill or the agenda of a political party. It is about building power to fundamentally reimagine what is possible in our society. Both the First and Second Reconstructions in American history happened because moral movements reclaimed the promises of democracy and a new, expanded electorate insisted on new priorities. If the Trayvon Martin generation has pricked the nation’s conscience and sparked a moral movement, we believe a coalition of poor and low-income people who have historically been “low-propensity” voters has the potential to shift the political landscape. We must organize around an agenda that lifts from the bottom so that everyone can rise.

No single verdict or election can bring about the racial reckoning America needs after 400 years of building systems that have rested upon white supremacy. But the generation of young people who saw themselves in Trayvon Martin knows that whatever the color of their skin, their lives will not matter in this society until Black lives matter in our public policy.

Amanda Marcotte: Republicans are sleeping on the jobs bill. Democrats need to move on before it’s too late

McConnell declared that “100% of our focus” is on “stopping” progress — time for Biden to take him seriously

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is worried. Congressional Republicans have tied up President Joe Biden and other Democrats in endless “negotiations” over the American Jobs Plan and Gillibrand, for good reason, believes Republicans are just trying to hamstring the administration. Speaking with Politico for a piece published Wednesday morning, the Democratic senator from New York called on Biden to end negotiations and pass a bill through the budget reconciliation process, which would only require Democratic votes, instead of endlessly compromising to snag Republican votes that are never coming.

“I do not think that the White House should relegate recovery to the judgment of Mitch McConnell, because he will not function in good faith,” Gillibrand explained. [..]

Even now, Republicans are playing this game with the creation of a commission to investigate the insurrection on January 6. Democrats met all the demands laid out by Republican leaders in drafting the plans for the commission, but the vast majority of Republicans in the House nonetheless voted against it, and the Senate GOP leadership has made it clear they plan to kill it with a filibuster.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already admitted that stalling and killing Biden’s ambitions is his plan. He told reporters earlier this month that “100% of our focus is on stopping this new administration,” reminiscent of when he said, “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” As many with a Twitter profile quoting the poet Maya Angelou would say, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media 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 “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Michelle Goldberg: Kushner’s Absurd Peace Plan Has Failed

There’s no ignoring the plight of the Palestinians.

“We are witnessing the last vestiges of what has been known as the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Jared Kushner crowed in The Wall Street Journal two months ago.

He was surveying the results of the Abraham Accords, the ersatz Middle East peace plan he helped negotiate under Donald Trump. At the heart of his supreme self-assurance, and of the accords themselves, was the deadly fiction that the Palestinians were so abject and defeated that Israel could simply ignore their demands.

“One of the reasons the Arab-Israeli conflict persisted for so long was the myth that it could be solved only after Israel and the Palestinians resolved their differences,” wrote Kushner. “That was never true. The Abraham Accords exposed the conflict as nothing more than a real-estate dispute between Israelis and Palestinians that need not hold up Israel’s relations with the broader Arab world.”

To circumvent that dispute, the United States set about bribing other Arab and Muslim countries to normalize relations with Israel. The United Arab Emirates got an enormous arms deal. Morocco got Trump to support its annexation of the Western Sahara. Sudan got taken off America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

But the explosion of fighting in Israel and Palestine in recent days makes clear something that never should have been in doubt: justice for the Palestinians is a precondition for peace. And one reason there has been so little justice for the Palestinians is because of the foreign policy of the United States.

Alexis Goldstein: These Invisible Whales Could Sink the Economy

Regulators have shockingly little insight into the inner workings of funds like Archegos. Here’s how to fix that.

Before he almost lost everything overnight, Bill Hwang was having a comeback.

In 2012, Mr. Hwang, a former hedge fund manager, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and settled insider trading charges. But he started over in 2013, using $200 million from his shuttered hedge fund to create Archegos Capital Management — a so-called family fund. The scandal-tainted Mr. Hwang then turned that $200 million into some $20 billion, betting big on a portfolio of high-flying media and tech stocks.

But Mr. Hwang built those riches on a mountain of debt — and when his bets went bad, it wasn’t just Archegos that paid the price: The banks that lent Mr. Hwang money, including Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, lost over $10 billion, while the stocks he gambled on shed $33 billion in value.

From regulators to the financial press, everyone seemed mystified by the implosion of Archegos. In part, this is because when Congress passed the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which brought new measures of oversight to private money managers, they exempted family funds like Mr. Hwang’s. Hedge funds must publicly report certain stock and option positions every quarter, filing a Form 13F with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But family funds don’t need to file a 13F, so their portfolio positions remain hidden.

For the average American dealing with the ravages of life under Covid, the story of Bill Hwang and Archegos may seem like just another Wall Street fat cat who got too greedy. But there may be many more Archegos-size risks — hidden from regulators, lawmakers and traders alike — now threatening to spark the next financial crisis.

Amanda Marcotte: No, the media can’t “move on” from Trump’s Big Lie — not until Republicans end their war on voting

Journalists should not give into GOP bullying to ignore the full-scale war Republicans are waging on democracy

Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw was pretty angry with NBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday’s episode of “Meet the Press.” Todd was uncharacteristically determined to hold the Republican’s feet to the fire, calling him out for his support of Donald Trump’s Big Lie.

Republicans are increasingly circling around this talking point. They insist that the coup is ancient history and that it’s churlish to keep rehashing who did and did not join in efforts to overturn democracy. It’s the favored justification for the ouster of Wyoming’s Rep. Liz Cheney from House GOP leadership, with Republicans claiming it’s not that she refuses to support Trump’s election lies so much as that she just keeps going on about it. And it was the line that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., trotted out last week, while trying to wave off media inquiries about the GOP’s increasingly fierce backing of Trump’s Big Lie: “I don’t think anyone is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that is all over with, we’re sitting here with the President today.”

The problem with this “water under the bridge” approach is twofold. First, it should be self-evident that seditious behavior should not be so easily forgotten or forgiven. Second, Republicans themselves have not moved on from the attempted insurrection or the lies that Trump used to justify it. On the contrary, Republican leaders have spent the past four months actively moving not just to turn Trump’s Big Lie into GOP canon but to use it to justify laying the groundwork for Trump or some other GOP nominee to successfully steal the 2024 election.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Democrats can claim the ‘family values’ mantle with paid leave and affordable child care

For young American families, having both kids and healthy finances can feel nearly impossible.

The American family is shrinking. And not necessarily by choice. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that births in the United States fell by 4 percent in 2020. The pandemic is likely compounding this decline, but the trend began long before the current crisis: Last year’s census showed that the U.S. population increased by just 7.4 percent in the 2010s — the slowest rate of growth since the 1930s.

It’s no surprise why. For young American families, having both kids and healthy finances can feel nearly impossible. Thanks to our uniquely byzantine health-care system, the average delivery costs more than $4,500 with insurance. To make matters worse, parents may not get any paid time off, since the United States is the only industrialized nation in the world without paid family leave. When parents return to work, they’re saddled with exorbitant care costs, with center-based infant care averaging over $1,200 a month. And many balance these expenses with crushing debt; the average student loan borrower has over $39,000 in loans.

Clearly, American society is not structured to help families thrive. Democrats have an important chance to change that by meeting the two most obvious needs for parents: paid family leave and affordable child care.

Leana S. Wen: The CDC shouldn’t have removed restrictions without requiring proof of vaccination

The vaccinated may be well-protected, but let’s not forget our obligation to those who do not yet have immunity.

For months, I have been criticizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for being too cautious with its guidance for what fully vaccinated people can do. I saw little incentive for people to be vaccinated against covid-19 if they had to keep wearing masks, avoiding gatherings and refraining from nonessential travel. On Thursday, the CDC abruptly reversed course, announcing that fully vaccinated people can essentially resume all aspects of pre-pandemic life.

This announcement would be very welcome if not for one big problem: There is no concurrent requirement for proof of vaccination. Without it, the CDC announcement could end up increasing confusion, removing incentives for those yet to be inoculated and delaying the eventual goal of herd immunity that would get society truly back to normal.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky that there is extensive and growing evidence that those who are vaccinated are very well protected from becoming ill and spreading the coronavirus to others. In fact, the most recent data from the CDC reports only 9,245 infections in 95 million fully vaccinated people, an infection rate of less than 0.01 percent. As I’ve written before, if you’ve reached the two-week threshold after inoculation, you should feel free to be rid of restrictions for yourself.