AnnotatedOpinions.com

U.S. steel makers are cheering an International Trade Commission vote Wednesday to impose new duties on imports from China. U.S. consumers will want to hold their applause.  

The case was filed in April by domestic steel manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union, which argued that they had been injured by imports of subsidized steel from China. The ruling allows the Commerce Department to impose countervailing duties ranging from 10% to 16% on future imports from China of “oil country tubular goods,” which are the pipes used in the oil and gas industry. . . [AO: Ok. China illegally subsidizes its steel industry. This hurts American Steel Companies by keeping prices artificially low. U.S. steel manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union bring a case against China before the International Trade Commission and win.   

Should we be happy that U.S. workers are fighting for their jobs against subsidized Chinese production? Not according to the Wall Street Journal.]  

China will no doubt respond to this latest protectionism with more tariffs of its own against U.S. products or investment, further increasing the cost of this protectionism. . . [AO: See, this is about
protectionism. This is not about China cheating and getting caught. This is not about the U.S. being given the option to rectify an injustice perpetrated against American workers by China. No. To hear the Wall Street Journal tell it, this is about the U.S. being protectionist.  

Know what? The U.S. is being protectionist. The U.S. is protecting its citizens—hardworking Americans who have seen their industry decimated by, among other things, cheating on the part of other countries—from, yes, cheating. There is nothing wrong with protecting American families here.]

Obama is right to acknowledge China’s might: For better and worse, the U.S. and Chinese economies are intertwined, and that makes America stronger, not weaker. [LA Times]

For Palin, reality goes rogue: The former vice-presidential candidate dwells on the most damaging accusation against her — that she rang up $150,000 in luxury clothing purchases. Too bad that her defense is
preposterous. [Boston Globe]

Studying Palintology: Here’s something useful that George W. Bush can put his money into. [Washington Post]

Our rogue Evita: Sarah Palin follows in the footsteps of Eva Peron. [Washington Post]

Obama’s Judicial Nominations: The White House and the Senate should speed up judicial nominations and confirmations to restore balance to the federal courts. [New York Times]

Time for a ruling on judge: Eight months after President Obama nominated him to the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, a jurist from Indiana may finally have a chance at confirmation from the Senate. [LA Times]

Madoff: A piece of the (malef)action: The convicted Ponzi schemer’s belongings are being auctioned off. Good news for his victims, but it’s still sad that his infamy lends exorbitant value to mundane objects. [Boston Globe]

Puppets in Congress: It is disturbing that so many members of Congress were willing to repeat a biotechnology company’s talking points in the Congressional Record. [New York Times]

Gitmo, Illinois: Plans for moving some Gitmo prisoners prisons in Illinois is no reason for panic [Chicago Tribune]

Democracy – it’s not for everyone: In the past half century, the record of democracies in some regions of the world has been spotty. [Boston Globe]

Shaming undermines justice: Americans may cheer the idea of retributive punishment, but such judgments threaten the principles of our legal system. [USA Today]

What the Future May Hold: For future generations, we need to remember that infrastructure is linked to the health of the economy, the environment and the viability of the nation as a whole. [New York Times]

Their Future Is Ours: The country is stumbling under the challenge of integrating the children of immigrants, who need more supportive policies and programs. [New York Times]

Pandemic politics: How did we get to a point where H1N1 means something different to everyone? [Washington Post]

President Obama in China: President Obama needs to encourage China to play an even stronger international role — but also curb some of its darker instincts. [New York Times]

Great Firewall of China [USA Today]

Iran issue is key to Obama’s other foreign policy goals: His administration hopes to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world and achieve global nuclear disarmament. [LA Times]

Study says drug does little, proving need for more testing: Congress should expand programs on effectiveness studies [Boston Globe]

One nation, insured: Some states, such as Arizona, are considering ways to opt out of a national plan. That’s foolish. [LA Times]

Bitter pill to swallow: The health-insurance reform bill passed by the House contains an unnecessary new restriction on abortion that the Senate should eliminate from the legislation. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

The flaws of lethal injection: It’s a preferred method of executing inmates, but so much can — and has — gone wrong that states need to take a hard look at their procedures. [LA Times]

The limits of juvenile sentencing: Locking up young offenders for life without parole is inherently unjust. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Faith is no defense: When a child dies, why do courts give believers a pass? [Washington Post]

Order in the court [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Don’t blame God for terrorism: After the Fort Hood massacre and others, some people — often atheist stalwarts — like to point at the corrosive influence of religion. But a closer look suggests that the most notorious killers usually act on secular motives. [USA Today]

Arlington, Obama, and the Afghan decision: Arlington National Cemetery is a beautiful place, as it should be, but its grandeur can deceive. [Boston Globe]

Minding our manners in increasingly rude U.S. [Chicago Tribune]

Economic lessons from the playground: The basic rules of the playground are sometimes given a more sophisticated, adult name: socialism. [Boston Globe]

Under the chamber’s cyber-skin: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is overreacting to a parody tweaking its stance on global warming. [LA Times]

Treat. Don’t repeat: Help repeat offenders kick their addictions [Houston Chronicle]

ROTC for civilians: Imagine a time when government work was exciting, admired, and sought-after. [Washington Post]

Dr. No and the Wounded Veterans: Senator Tom Coburn should not have obstructed urgently needed legislation that consolidates more than a dozen improvements in veterans’ health care. [New York Times]

The American way: Smile if you’re insecure: We hide our fear of failure with a positive outlook. [LA Times]

Citizen, heal thyself: Get the swine flu vaccine [Boston Globe]

Bypassing the Karzai problem: Avoiding the top leader for local leaders may be a more effective way to face the many problems in Afghanistan. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Hope in Afghanistan: A much better approach to building the Afghan police force. [Washington Post]

Politics of plate: Quit eating meat and dismantle the global food apparatus. [Washington Post]

Veterans Day

·       A set of dog tags, a clipping, a father revealed: A reflection on Veterans Day of a son trying to reconcile two very different sides of his father. [Boston Globe]

·      On Veterans Day, feeling the cost of war: Afghanistan was abstract, until my friend’s flag-draped coffin came home. [LA Times]

·      Healing our troubled vets: Suicide, homelessness, stress disorders — caring for today’s veterans will be a long-term and costly commitment. [LA Times]

·       Homeless on Veterans Day: Washington and communities across the country should support a national drive to end veteran homelessness. [New York Times] 

·      Recalling ‘Mother of Normandy’: A Frenchwoman dedicated herself to tending the graves of American troops. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

·      Veterans Day [USA Today]

·    Standing tall in harm’s way: Still Army-strong – The image of a traumatized military stemming from Fort Hood doesn’t square with reality. [Washington Post]

·    Taking care of our military: It used to be said that for kids, the military took care of its own. Now help is needed. [Washington Post]

Cruel and unusual: No life without parole for juvenile offenders The Supreme Court should rule against life without parole for juvenile offenders. [Houston Chronicle]

A National Disgrace: A court’s overt disregard for the central role of judges in policing executive branch excesses has frightening implications for safeguarding civil liberties. [New York Times]

Obama’s duty to tamp down anti-Muslim bias [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Dithering heights: Filibustering Republicans and three Democratic enablers bring the Senate to a halt. [Washington Post]

Pawlenty: GOP’s newest ideological enforcer [Boston Globe]

A comprehensive solution to combustible markets: Barney Frank delineates his committee’s approach to preventing another financial collapse. [Boston Globe]

Cruel, Pointless Games: The case of the American hikers is only the latest example of the Iranian government misusing and undermining its judiciary for political ends. [New York Times]

Bodyguard of lies: The House health-reform bill looked better after I heard a GOP blizzard of falsehoods about it. [Washington Post]

No fount of wisdom for GOP: Health care is much too complicated for
Congress [Chicago Tribune]

The W. and Bill no-show: It’s too bad the two former presidents pulled out of two scheduled evenings of policy debates, er, policy discussions. [LA Times]

After the wall, Bush was right: The celebrations of the 20th  anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this week failed to note that reunification of Germany was once a topic of great contention. [Boston Globe]

East Germans feel nostalgic for the bad old days [Chicago Tribune]

Army must be on guard for extremism: For Maj. Nidal Hasan, religion might just have been the lens through which his inner disquiet focused itself. [LA Times]

Fort Hood tragedy: Terror or typical workplace violence? [USA Today]

China, the U.S. and Taiwan: The U.S. could use arms sales as leverage to ease tensions between mainland China and Taiwan, pave the way for closer Sino-American ties and promote peace and stability in Asia. [LA Times]

‘One child’ horrors: Chinese government policy is leading to forced
abortions. [Washington Post]

Kabul, Taliban are talking: Karzai’s government is reaching out to the
insurgents – with U.S. support. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

A little steel, please: Afghanistan strategy could use a little passion from a professorial president. [Washington Post]

The Trouble With ‘Zero Tolerance’: Schools should not be criminalizing students for what are essentially normal childhood behaviors. [New York Times]

Getting in holiday spirit when out of work [Chicago Tribune]

Trucks, Trains and Trees: Without a new system for economic development in the timber-rich tropics, the only Amazon your grandchildren will ever know ends in dot-com and sells books. [New York Times]

Tax increases are coming because they’re necessary [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]  

Afghan success depends on understanding the enemy [USA Today]  

When ‘us’ isn’t so many: A New York congressional race may be a defining moment for the GOP. [Washington Post]  

Medicare: Only real advantage is the one insurers get [Philadelphia Inquirer]  

ICE numbers: Accurate counts on illegal detainees needed [Houston Chronicle]  

America, we’ve seen worse [USA Today]  

Clean Water: Still Elusive: The 1972 Clean Water Act has fallen well short of its goals; the time has come to strengthen enforcement and the law. [New York Times]  

Raising the debt ceiling: The Senate faces the painful duty of once again raising the limit on the national debt. [Washington Post]  

Open up Blackwater’s closed hearing: A judge’s decision to bar media and the public from a case involving the security firm’s role in the deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians is extreme and unjustifiable. [LA Times]  

Progress on Drunken Driving: Mandating ignition-interlock devices for all drunken-driving offenders is smart national safety policy. [New York Times]  

Unity doomed apartheid. Next up: climate change [USA Today]  

China leaving US behind in green energy: In contrast to a fragmented approach in the United States, China is investing deeply in renewable energy and is poised to become an unchallenged leader. [Boston Globe]  

The cars of N.Y. and L.A.: Drivers in both cities share some unique characteristics — but there is a fork in the road. [LA Times]  

Robert Mugabe vs. Zimbabwe: If the flawed power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe cannot be fixed, then new elections, supervised by the international community, must be scheduled. [New York Times]  

Iran talks we should end: A tribunal founded in settling the 1979 hostage crisis has outlived its usefulness. [Washington Post]  

Pakistan fights back: The offensive in South Waziristan is the latest sign it’s finally taking the Taliban seriously [Washington Post]  

The war on ACORN: Conservatives are distorting and playing up the community-organizing group’s so-called scandals, part of a broader effort to discredit progressive organizations and President Obama. [LA Times]  

A mother’s journey for reform: A battle begun for a chronically ill daughter to ensure insurance coverage for college students is won, but much more needs to be done for true health care reform. [Boston Globe]  

Mr. Karzai Relents: To ensure that the presidential runoff in Afghanistan is fair and credible, it’s going to take a lot more effort and high-level attention. [New York Times] 

Nobody wins in the Afghan runoff election: No matter how the Nov. 7 vote goes down, it likely will impede the goal of creating an effective, independent government in Kabul. [LA Times]  

Don’t quit on Afghan women: Is the world ready to let them be killed and tortured again by a resurgent Taliban? [Philadelphia Inquirer]  

A matter of trust: The insurance industry may find out that there’s something worse than having to compete with a Medicare-style health plan for working-age Americans. How about yanking its long-standing exemption from federal antitrust laws? [Philadelphia Inquirer]  

What the oligarchs fear: In health insurance and on Wall Street, the bogeyman is a free market. [Washington Post]  

Good Sense on Medical Marijuana: Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. was right to call off prosecutions of patients who use marijuana for medical purposes or those who distribute it to them within the law. [New York Times]  

Medical pot’s highs and lows [USA Today]  

Grass roots effort: The long-haired stoner is no longer the face of the pro-pot lobby. [Washington Post]  

A compounding nightmare: By Jamie Lau Low- and middle-income households with credit card debt owe, on average, $9,827 on their cards. If you make the minimum monthly payment – often 2 percent of the balance or $10 – at 10 percent interest, it will take you more than 26 years to pay off the balance, including $6,812 in interest. [Philadelphia Inquirer]  

Halloween: Trick or stereotype: Major retailers stopped selling some costumes that played on stereotypes of illegal immgrants as Mexicans and space aliens. [Boston Globe]  

Obama’s Sudan policy: ‘incentives and pressure’: The U.S. is seeking to engage Khartoum in efforts to bring peace to Darfur and deny terrorists a haven. [LA Times]  

Balloon caper: Race to the bottom [Chicago Tribune]  

Parenting’s soar spot: The Balloon Boy saga offers a good lesson on when to let go. [Washington Post]  

Policing our cyberstreets: Keeping pace with cyber-threats demands that resources be marshaled. [Boston Globe]  

The year the dominoes fell: Twenty years ago this season, Moscow’s  Eastern European satellites threw off their chains. [Boston Globe]  

The clock is ticking: The White House and Congress can still do right by the Uighurs. [Washington Post]  

Coffee with a geriatric grumbler [Chicago Tribune]  

Democrats and Schools: Education reform is the central front in the war on poverty, the civil rights issue of our time. [New York Times]

To fix financial system, protect consumers first: The Consumer Finance Protection Act being voted on in Barney Frank’s House committee today provides important protections for consumers and investors. [Boston Globe]

What $100 Million? High-risk, high-reward hedge funds have no place on the books of the nation’s too-big-to-fail banks. [New York Times]

It’s not soup yet: A sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health-care system cannot be considered much of a success if it still leaves millions of Americans without health insurance. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

The White House Quartet: The pressure’s on for Obama and his key aides to put their stamp on health reform. [Washington Post]

How to improve health bill: We come from different ends of the political spectrum, but we agree that our health-care system is unsustainable because of costs. Doing nothing would allow future deficits to explode, leaving our children to clean up the mess. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

What Does Snowe Want? How she uses her power could ironically end up advancing progressives’ causes. [Washington Post]

Reform and Your Premiums: The allegations made by a leading industry trade group that the health reform bill would drive up premiums for Americans needs to be addressed head-on. [New York Times]

James Monroe, a president for our times? Like Obama, Monroe had to deal with high unemployment and home foreclosures. His solutions gave the nation its greatest period of prosperity. [LA Times]

Dow crosses 10,000; on the right, crickets chirp [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

The Tao of Dow 10,000: Through much of this summer and early fall, a chorus of incredulous financial pundits argued that the stock market had risen too far, too fast. With the Dow Jones industrial average closing above 10,000 Wednesday, it is clear that they were wrong. [USA Today]

Miranda’s time limit: Once a suspect asks for a lawyer, police interrogation must stop — but for how long? [LA Times]

What Next in Afghanistan? Obama is wise to take his time, but I worry the waiting could doom the policy. [Washington Post]

Obama’s awkward gift: Giving and getting awkward gifts goes along with being the president. But a Nobel Prize is tricky. You can’t just smile, pretend you like it, and put it away somewhere. [Boston Globe]

Mortgage madness – again [Chicago Tribune]

Hummer: Restore your common sense: The idea of a new, more fuel-efficient Hummer is an oxymoron. [Boston Globe]

Cripple Iran to save it: Millions of the regime’s political opponents would back sanctions that helped remove the ruling clique. [LA Times]

A new role for Turkey: No country’s diplomats are as welcome in both Tehran and Jerusalem, Moscow and Tblisi, Damascus and Cairo. As a Muslim country intimately familiar with the region around it, Turkey can go places, engage partners, and make deals that the United States cannot. [Boston Globe]

The Goldstone fallout: Reaction to the U.N. report on Gaza is not  helping the peace process. [LA Times]

As Baucus bill skimps, health reform suffers: Many young, healthy people will forego insurance and pay the penalty, leaving their families unprotected and depriving the insurance industry of the younger, healthier people it needs in order to accept those with preexisting conditions. It’s a flawed bill that needs to be improved on the Senate floor. [Boston Globe]

Insurers push back: Lawmakers will have to address the issues of policy affordability and penalties for not buying coverage. [LA Times]

Fix Baucus’ health reform Rx: Three big changes Democrats must make for the bill to work [New York Daily News]

Fight obesity by taxing calories: It’s time to fight back against the corn peddlers who are making our children fat. [USA Today]

When in doubt, move fast against terror suspects: The New York police are getting heat for arresting a prominent terrorism suspect before the FBI could unravel all the strands of his plot. But the evidence suggests the police were right to move quickly. [Boston Globe]

Ohio’s botched executions: Lethal injection proves, in several cases, to cross the line into cruel and unusual punishment. [LA Times]

That Promised Financial Reform: For lawmakers to deliver robust financial reform to protect the American public, they must resist the lobbying power of the banking industry. [New York Times]

Who’ll Curb Wall Street? The folks who keep the profits and give us the risk are winning a battle against reform. [Washington Post]

Keeping the aircraft carrier fleet afloat: Before recommending the Navy reduce the number of carriers, the Pentagon should consider the unique contributions they make to national security. [Boston Globe]

President Barack Obama has to decide whether gays and lesbians will be allowed to serve openly in the military. [Chicago Tribune]

Give them a break: Larger VA problems persist [Houston Chronicle]

A Clearer Look at Drilling: The Obama administration must further its promise to take a sensible approach to energy exploration by protecting the Arctic. [New York Times]

Petulance and Peace Prize [Chicago Tribune]

Are women unhappier? Don’t make me laugh: A study says women have become steadily more miserable since 1972, causing some to point a finger at feminism. But the research doesn’t pass the giggle test. [LA Times]

Enough With the Firsts: Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel in economics reminds us how many ceilings have yet to be cracked. [Washington Post]

One Protection for Prisoners: To shackle female prisoners while they give birth is barbaric and may be unconstitutional. [New York Times]

Why too thin isn’t ‘in’ [USA Today]

Author’s pen is mightier than China’s sword: Nurmuhemmet Yasin’s “The Wild Pigeon” is clearly a political allegory, a short story about dignity, integrity, and pride in the face of cultural and territorial erasure. Those who love stories and poems and plays and essays, should urge China to free him. [Boston Globe]

My mother and sister, prisoners of China’s Communist Party: The U.S. must put pressure on Beijing to end its brutal persecution of Falun Gong adherents. [LA Times]

That Karzai conundrum – We’re likely stuck with the Afghan president, but perhaps we can change his behavior: Sometime this week, we may learn who the president of Afghanistan is. Or we may not. Imagine: As President Obama wrestles with whether to send more troops to fight the Afghan Taliban, it’s still unclear whether the sitting president, Hamid Karzai, won the majority required to avoid a runoff. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

How would the ‘public option’ outcompete private enterprise? [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

The Polanski Case: This case has nothing to do with Roman Polanski’s work or his age. It is about an adult preying on a child. It is time that he account for it. [New York Times]

Roman Polanski hasn’t paid for his crime [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Roman Polanski: It’s about time [Chicago Tribune]

Repulsion: The outcry from some over Roman Polanski’s arrest on an old California warrant for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl is, in a word, perverse. [New York Daily News]

Obama’s tough choices: The economy, healthcare, Iran and  Afghanistan — all are problems with no easy answers. [LA Times]

Summoning Keynes: Math-heavy economic models are elegant — they just don’t reflect reality. [Washington Post]

Signs of Life in Financial Reform: Financial regulatory reform has gotten a new boost of energy from Congress and the G-20, but Americans still cannot be sure it will produce real change. [New York Times]

Engaging Iran: West faces complex choices The West faces complex choices involving a historically important culture and country. [Houston Chronicle]

Tilting the Power Balance in Tehran: Why Obama should broaden his agenda to include human rights. [Washington Post]

North Korea: If communism can’t make it there…: The truest sign of the death of communism came when the ultimate dead-ender, North Korea, announced it would no longer label itself a communist country. [Boston Globe]

What in the world is China? At 60, the People’s Republic has evolved into a conscientious global player, except when it isn’t. [LA Times]

Talking With Myanmar: In the past, the punishment-only approach to Myanmar hasn’t worked. Talks, if handled skillfully, might lead in time to positive change. [New York Times]

New heights for Burns and PBS: A six-part TV series on national parks? I was skeptical, even with Ken Burns as producer/director. And with last Sunday’s first part competing against some of television’s best shows, I gave it a half-hour to make its case. Two hours later, I was still
transfixed. [Boston Globe]

Facebook’s online poll crosses a line: The social networking site reacted properly to an Obama assassination entry, but questions about responsibility remain. [LA Times]

Way Behind the Curve: Several responsible members of the United States Chamber of Commerce are quitting because of the chamber’s attacks on legislation to curb emissions. [New York Times]

Violence videos spur bad politics [Chicago Tribune]

It’s worth the trip: It’s hard to see the downside of President Obama’s decision to travel to Europe Thursday night to lobby personally for the 2016 Olympics in Chicago. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

On Safire: William Safire was anything but a nattering nabob of negativity. He had none of the vile and vitriol of today’s howling pack of conservative pundits. [New York Times]

Shutting down child sex tourism: Pedophiles and their victims dominate the media. What has received less attention, however, is that American pedophiles pose a grave risk to children outside the United States. [Boston Globe]

‘High-speed rail’ might not deliver the Obama vision [USA Today]

One man’s rumor is another man’s reality: Dispelling conspiracy theories and untruths can be difficult when people only hear what they already believe. [LA Times]

High Cost of Death Row: States waste millions of dollars on verdicts, security and maintenance in pursuit of the death penalty. Abolishing it makes economic, not just moral, sense. [New York Times]

Obama the Gambler: He’s betting that people will understand machismo is not foreign policy. [Washington Post]

Balancing act: Why can’t the Chinese be more like us? [Boston Globe]

The Be-Like-Ted Race: The contest for Kennedy’s Senate seat creates a rare opportunity for upward political mobility. [Washington Post]

Free speech vs. animals: The Supreme Court should rule that filmed depictions of animal cruelty are protected under the 1st Amendment. [LA Times]

The F.D.I.C. and the Banks: Keeping the F.D.I.C. healthy, which is key to restoring and maintaining confidence in banks, should not entail having the agency borrow from private institutions. [New York Times]

Organ transplants: In a loss, we gained so much: The death of my son took joy from my family, but the decision to donate his organs has provided an emotional connection to people around the world. [LA Times]

Guantanamo blame game: Figuring out what to do with the remaining 223 Guantanamo inmates, including ample numbers of committed terrorists, brings an array of complications. [USA Today]

Reality cooking shows: Whose reality? Enough already about health care reform — it’s time to give reality cooking shows the town-hall treatment. [Boston Globe]

Grizzlies, Back on the List: Saving a species like the grizzly bear isn’t just a matter of counting bears. It is also a matter of saving habitat and devising better long-term survival plans. [New York Times]

During Yom Kippur, a deeper appreciation for religious holidays [Chicago Tribune]

Obama’s choice in Afghanistan: With support for the war slipping, the president must decide whether a counterinsurgency strategy involving more troops is the way to win. [LA Times]

Go All-in, or Fold: The perils of the middle road in Afghanistan. [Washington Post]

Obama can’t downsize to success in Afghanistan: The president  ppears to be dragging his feet on more troops for the struggle, but that’s what an effective counterinsurgency strategy requires. [LA Times]

With kids, all work won’t work: With over 55 million students enrolled in grades K-12, it’s fair to say that some American schools are finding a balance between scholastics and health. [Boston Globe]

The Obama of Japan? How much change will prime minister Yukio Hatoyama bring? [Washington Post]

Cassandras of Climate: As climate scientists have begun reaching consensus that Earth’s outlook is getting worse at greater speed, the need for government action is thrown into sharper relief. [New York Times]

Chicago: Going for gold [Chicago Tribune]