“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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Sally Q. Yates: Making America scared again won’t make us safer
In today’s polarized world, there aren’t many issues on which Democrats and Republicans agree. So when they do, we should seize the rare opportunity to move our country forward. One such issue is criminal-justice reform, and specifically the need for sentencing reform for drug offenses.
All across the political spectrum, in red states and blue states, from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and the Koch brothers to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the American Civil Liberties Union, there is broad consensus that the “lock them all up and throw away the key” approach embodied in mandatory minimum drug sentences is counterproductive, negatively affecting our ability to assure the safety of our communities.
But last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolled back the clock to the 1980s, reinstating the harsh, indiscriminate use of mandatory minimum drug sentences imposed at the height of the crack epidemic. Sessions attempted to justify his directive in a Post op-ed last weekend, stoking fear by claiming that as a result of then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s Smart on Crime policy, the United States is gripped by a rising epidemic of violent crime that can only be cured by putting more drug offenders in jail for more time.
Robert Reich: Trumpcare isn’t about health. It’s a tax cut for the 1% Trumpcare isn’t about health. It’s a tax cut for the 1%
The Senate’s bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act is not a healthcare bill. It’s a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, paid for by a dramatic reduction in healthcare funding for approximately 23 million poor, disabled, working and middle-class Americans.
America’s wealthiest taxpayers (earning more than $200,000 a year, $250,000 for couples) would get a tax cut totaling $346bn over 10 years, representing what they save from no longer financing healthcare for lower-income Americans.
That’s not all. The bill would save an additional $400bn on Medicaid, which Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Donald Trump are intent on shrinking in order to cut even more taxes for the wealthy and for big corporations.
If enacted, it would be the largest single transfer of wealth to the rich from the middle class and poor in American history.
This disgrace is being proposed at a time when the nation’s rich own a higher percentage of the nation’s wealth and receive the highest percent of America’s income since the era of the Robber Barons of the late nineteenth century.
Dean Baker: The Data Defying Job-Killing Robot Myth
It’s rare that a day goes by when there is not some major story of workers losing jobs to self-driving cars and trucks or robots stocking supermarket store shelves or dishing out fast-food hamburgers. The specifics may differ, but the story is the same; new technology will lead to mass unemployment. The frequency of these stories is truly striking for the simple reason that it so obviously not true.
The story of mass displacement of workers by robots is a story of rapid productivity growth. Robots are supposed to be doing the work formerly done by people. This means that we should be seeing far more output for each hour of human labor. This is something we can easily check, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out data on productivity growth every quarter.
Ruth Marcus: The terrifying and terrible prospect of Justice Kennedy retiring
The end of the Supreme Court term looms, and with it the prospect — the terrifying prospect — of a retirement. Specifically, the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who will turn 81 next month and is the longest-serving current justice, named to the high court almost 30 years ago.
So if Kennedy is inclined to retire, it is hard to begrudge him that choice. But his departure would be terrible for the court and terrible for the country. It could not come at a worse time. Any court vacancy these days, under a president of either party, triggers a battle between liberal and conservative forces. Kennedy’s retirement would unleash nomination Armageddon, given the feral political environment and the pivotal role he plays on the closely divided court.
To understand the impact of Kennedy’s departure, just look back to his selection to fill the seat vacated by Justice Lewis Powell. Like Kennedy now, Powell was the ultimate swing justice; his was the key fifth vote for liberals on issues including abortion rights and affirmative action, topics as charged then as they are today.
John Atcheson: Party of Disaster: Explaining the Republican Train Wreck
OK, let’s not be fair and balanced. Let’s be honest. And let’s not allow ourselves to start thinking of these last six months as anything like “normal.”
Let’s face it, the Republican Congress and the Trump Administration have been an unmitigated disaster. From healthcare to immigration to foreign policy to national security, Republicans have lurched across the national horizon like drunken sailors on shore leave with bonus checks. And Trump? The steady stream of self-indulgent, self-destructive, and self-incriminating tweets issuing forth with all the self-restraint of a caffeinated six-year old says it all.
The thing is, none of this should come as a surprise. Since Reagan, Republicans have been more about ungoverning than governing.
And thanks to Democratic complicity, the ungovernment juggernaut has just about triumphed.
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