Pondering the Pundits

“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

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Richard (RJ) Eskow: Eric Holder’s Justice

Eric Holder certainly has changed since his days at Columbia University. According to the New York Times, “as a boyish-looking freshman” he “was recruited by upperclassmen to help take over the R.O.T.C. office,” which they claimed as “a student center named for Malcolm X.”

As Attorney General, Holder chose not to prosecute banking giant HSBC for laundering Mexican drug cartel money. Holder, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, and other Obama Justice Department officials showed similar favoritism to other big banks.

In fact, not a single big-bank executive was prosecuted during their tenure, despite the most massive and well-documented epidemic of financial fraud in American history.

The Times reports that young Holder “chose to major in American history as a means to explore his own heritage and to use as a prism through which to examine current events. Longing to escape the elite world at Columbia, he spent Saturdays taking underprivileged teenagers around New York City.”

It’s easy to condemn the Eric Holder of today. It’s harder to understand, and sadder to contemplate, whatever became of someone who was once so young and idealistic.

Matt Haney: Both parties want prison reform. Why won’t Congress listen?

For the first time in our nation’s history, both major political parties are poised to make a bold statement in support of fixing America’s criminal justice system. This past weekend, the DNC approved this year’s platform, which pledges to end the era of mass incarceration. The RNC isn’t far behind.

With the Democratic and Republican parties now on board for reform, it’s time for significant progress at the local, state and federal levels to follow.

America’s addiction to incarceration, which has left us with 5% of the world’s population but close to 25% of its prisoners, was a bipartisan undertaking. For years, our shared commitment to prisons as the primary mechanism for achieving public safety was tragically memorialized in the respective party platforms and policies.

Richard Wolffe: He made it as awkward as possible – but Bernie Sanders did the right thing

They are the odd couple of presidential campaigners: a charmless but effective control freak and a reckless but lovable shambles. Together, their extreme discomfort has been clear – for more than a year they couldn’t stand each other’s company. Now they apparently understand how much they need one another.

When Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigned in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, the scene was just as forced as you might have expected.

“Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating process,” Sanders barked as the Hillary crowd cheered wildly. “And I congratulate her for that.” At this point, he clapped her on the shoulder like he was shoving her into the crowd. For a brief moment, Clinton stopped her bobble-head routine of nodding rhythmically while staring glassy-eyed into the middle distance.

Jamie Weinstein: Unity at the Republican convention? Forget about it

Reince Priebus hopes that the convention in Cleveland next week will help unify the GOP.

“Given the drama that we’ve had … I think now, more than ever, the role of the convention to assist in the unification of the party is going to be extremely important,” the chairman of the Republican National Committee told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel over the Fourth of July weekend.

Unfortunately for the chairman, the convention will showcase a Republican party that is about as united as the former Yugoslavia. The best Priebus can hope for is Potemkin displays of unity on stage and no violence off it – but even that is not assured.

Daniel Gaynor: How To Make Facts Great Again

More than picking who to vote for, that’s the most important question of election season. Because, as the battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump intensifies, the election is no longer about who to vote for—but who to believe.

For something so simple, facts are the same thing they’ve always been: the objective, honest bits of information that help us make decisions. Facts underpin our choices every day. If you’re wondering whether to splurge on that milkshake with 450 calories, you’re using a fact to inform your purchase.

Facts are also the fuel for our nation’s operating system—democracy. Voting, in effect, means that everyone gets to make decisions together. But when voters lack basic facts about what they’re deciding, they become misled and misinformed. And as a result, without facts, our future is more likely to take a nosedive.