“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.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
Dean Baker: The TPP And Free Trade: Time To Retake The English Language
The proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are planning to do a full court press in the lame duck session of Congress following the election. We will be bombarded with speeches and columns from President Obama and other illustrious figures telling us how it is important to approve the TPP for a variety of reasons.
We can be certain that one of the reasons will be the inherent virtues of free trade. They will not be telling the truth.
The TPP is not about free trade. It does little to reduce tariffs and quotas for the simple reason that these barriers are already very low. In fact, the United States already has trade deals with six of the other eleven countries in the TPP. This is why the non-partisan United States International Trade Commission (ITC) estimated that when the full gains from the TPP are realized in 2032, they will come to just 0.23 percent of GDP. This is a bit more than a normal month’s growth.
Jessica Valenti: Enough is enough: we’ve reached a tipping point on sexual assault
Most times, it’s easier to say nothing.
When a man gropes you on a subway. If a stranger tells you to smile as you walk down the street. When someone calls you a bitch because you turned them down at a bar. The decision of whether to speak up or push back is made in a split second, and for a lot of women, it’s just not worth it.
The person that just harassed you might get even more aggressive if confronted. Besides, what difference will it make, you think. Why spend energy on a person like this?
As the election looms closer and women continue to come forward to accuse Donald Trump of assault, I’ve noticed a shift in the way women are talking about dealing with these all-too-common indignities. They’re not just fed up with the harassment itself, but with the resigned feeling that this is just the way things are.
Garrison Keillor: Bob Dylan, Donald Trump and the wrong prizes
It’s time for recombobulation, after this long-running smash-hit presidential campaign, which you have enjoyed to the hilt and don’t deny it. Never been anything like it. The hulking duke of darkness, the nasty lady in white. Goodbye, high school civics. Hello, Shakespeare. But now we must deal with serious business, such as the foolishness of the Smithsonian wanting to spend $300,000 to preserve Dorothy’s ruby-red slippers from “The Wizard of Oz.” (No, no, no, no, no. They’re only shoes, folks. If you want to see them, watch the movie and Judy Garland will click the heels together. Spend the money to sweeten the retirement plans of museum guards.) And we must deal with Bob Dylan and his attitude toward the Nobel Prize in Literature, and will he go to Stockholm in December?
Bob is embarrassed by the prize. He’s from Minnesota, he has a conscience. He has written a few good love songs and some memorable phrases and the Swedes have embraced him as if he were Homer, which he is not. Elvis loved his fans and bestowed himself on them, and Bob refuses to speak to them and simply whips through 90 minutes of repertoire and picks up the check and boards the bus. For this, the critics kneel at his feet, rocking back and forth, murmuring benedictions. Precious few have dared to question the prize for Lit going to a performer, but Bob is queasy about it. We Minnesotans know about unworthiness.
Robert Reich: Trump isn’t alone — the entire GOP has spent decades trying to destroy trust in the American system
Donald Trump’s warning that he might not accept the results of the presidential election exemplifies his approach to everything: Do whatever it takes to win, even if that means undermining the integrity of the entire system.
Trump isn’t alone. The same approach underlies Senator John McCain’s recent warning that Senate Republicans will unite against any Supreme Court nominee Hillary Clinton might put up, if she becomes president.
The Republican Party as a whole has embraced this philosophy for more than two decades. After Newt Gingrich took over as Speaker of the House in 1995, compromise was replaced by brinksmanship, and normal legislative maneuvering was supplanted by threats to close down the government – which occurred at the end of that year.
Robert North Patterson: Making America Hate Again: Trump’s War On Civil Society
Has it been only five paranoid, divisive, dishonest, self-pitying, conspiracy-filled, societally degrading days of Donald Trump since Wednesday night’s debate? Hard to believe. For Trump has made the last two weeks feel like an excruciating journey to a country we should never be.
The comprehensive damage he has inflicted on our national spirit is unprecedented in a presidential candidate. As sordid as it is, his behavior toward women is but a symptom of his pervasive contempt for the traditions of decency and civility which bind us together as Americans. Still, it is well to start there, for his disdain for women epitomizes his disdain for everyone and everything but Donald Trump himself. [..]
Reminding Trump with obvious incredulity that one of the “prides of this country is the peaceful transition of power,” Wallace asked again, “Are you saying you’re not prepared now to commit to that principle?” Dismissively, Trump replied, “What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense, O.K.?’
There it was. In a single moment, Trump had illuminated the depth and danger of his pathology — a nihilistic contempt for everything that matters.
For values: Truth. Integrity. Principal. Decency. Civility. The rule of law.
For others: Women. Minorities. Muslims. The physically challenged. His fellow citizens. His own family. Anyone — and anything.
Even his country.
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