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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Washington Post Editorial Baord: Sterling Brown’s arrest shows why NFL players have a reason to kneel

Standing and saluting the flag during the national anthem shows respect and patriotism. All Americans should do so, absent some compelling reason to the contrary. Since 2016, varying numbers of National Football League players have knelt on the field or otherwise deviated from the ritual because, in their eyes, there is a compelling reason: to protest police excesses, which disproportionately affect people who, like the majority of NFL players, are African American. Even if you disagree about the substance or manner of their protest, these men are following their consciences and exercising their constitutional rights. That, too, is patriotism.

The potency of their statement can be measured in part by the backlash it has caused; it is the nature of protest to cause discomfort. Rather than pause to consider the merits of the players’ cause, President Trump has fomented and exploited that backlash, urging the NFL and its team owners to punish the players. And it would appear that the controversy Mr. Trump helped to aggravate, and which has cost the league ticket sales and TV ratings, has now brought the league to its knees. The NFL has announced a policy that essentially gives players three options: stand and “show respect” during the anthem; stay off the field until it’s over; or face “appropriate” discipline. The fact that compulsory patriotism is the hallmark of dictatorial systems seems not to trouble the NFL’s confused and frightened moguls. [..]

Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, there is fresh proof that the NFL players are not just overprivileged complainers, as some of their critics maintain; the abuses that concern them are real, and even pro athletes are not immune. The police chief of that Midwestern city just apologized for a January incident in which members of his department tackled National Basketball Association player Sterling Brown, who is black, and forced him to the ground with the help of a painful stun-gun shock, because — well, for no good reason, at least none that’s visible on police body-camera video.

Dean Baker: Donald Trump’s “Big Pharma First” Agenda

After handing huge tax cuts to the country’s richest people and taking away health care insurance for millions, Donald Trump took another giant step toward abandoning his populist agenda last week. Instead of having Medicare negotiate to bring drug prices down, Trump put out a plan that is focused on making foreign countries pay more for drugs.

The most immediate and direct effect of this effort, insofar as it succeeds, will be to increase the profits of the major US drug manufacturers. This is a high priority for all those people who own lots of stock in Pfizer and Merck, but it is not a real goal for the other 99 percent of the country.

It’s true that higher profits could lead to some additional spending on innovation in future years. But just like the claim that the corporate tax cut will lead to a huge flood of investment, good luck trying to find it in the data.

It is also wrong to imagine that the other 99 percent benefit when Pfizer and Merck can get more profits by making our trading partners pay higher prices. First, insofar as foreigners pay Pfizer and Merck more for drugs, they will have less money to buy US car parts or Boeing planes. Other things equal, insofar as Trump’s crusade for higher drug prices succeeds, we can anticipate a larger trade deficit in manufactured goods. This ought to cheer up his supporters in the industrial states.

Eugene Robinson: President Trump’s ‘spy’ and the dark art of branding

President Trump has many limitations, to put it mildly, but he is brilliant at the dark art of branding. Those seeking to hold him accountable had better study his technique — and learn to fight fire with fire.

Witness how Trump is trying to use the word “spy” as a weapon against the FBI, the Justice Department and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the election. The president’s performance this week has been totally dishonest — and, let’s be honest, quite effective. [..]

Trump’s success in making some people believe his campaign was “spied on” does not deter Mueller from his appointed rounds. But it can incrementally shake confidence in Mueller’s findings — unless he completely exonerates Trump, in which case the president will paint him as the noblest and finest public servant in the history of the republic.

None of this should surprise anyone. Trump had early success as a real estate developer, then made a series of foolish investments, especially in Atlantic City, that almost ruined him. He survived by transforming the Trump Organization into what is essentially a branding company that makes deals to put the Trump name on projects whose costs, and risks, are borne by others. He has long understood how perception can overwhelm reality — and how the right turn of phrase can change everything.

Catherine Rampell: So you’re telling me my Subaru is a national security threat?

What—you didn’t know your Subaru was a national security threat?

On Wednesday evening, Trump instructed the Commerce Department to investigate whether to raise tariffs to up to 25 percent on auto imports. The official rationale for launching this probe wasn’t that foreign countries were “dumping” their products at unfairly low prices, stealing our intellectual property or otherwise engaging in the sort of foul play that administrations past have alleged when threatening tariffs.

No, in this case, Trump has instructed Commerce to probe whether imports of automobiles and auto parts “threaten to impair the national security.”

Yes, you read that right. Late-’70s British pop stars may feel safest of all in their cars, but apparently Americans today should not.

If this all seems a bit far-fetched, well, that’s because it is.

Trump also cited national security when he announced his steel and aluminum tariffs in March (“If you don’t have steel, you don’t have a country!”). The logic was shaky then; it’s maxing out the Richter scale now

Richard Wolffe: On North Korea, Trump should do his homework next time

Donald Trump finds himself in a bit of a pickle. He’s not alone, of course. Somehow he’s pickled himself inside a full jar of gullible allies, pandering friends, desperate boosters, and much of Fox News. Still, it’s more than a little awkward to cancel the historic-summit-that-never-was after promising so much from his unconsummated talks with the North Koreans.

Even for an Olympic-sized blowhard, this is a little tricky, so you’ll have to forgive the split personality tone of his letter to the man he now calls “Chairman”. If only Kim Jong-un had behaved himself, he could have got his hands on one of those special White House coins that called him “Supreme Leader”.

But no. All he got was a lousy letter in which careful readers could pick up, Derrida-style, the elusive meaning of something permanently deferred. Like peace talks. [..]

It’s safe to say this is a first in international diplomacy: when world leaders compare the size of their nuclear stockpiles, as a measure of their manly potency, we all should start praying to God.

You might be asking yourself how the commander-in-chief of the world’s greatest military and diplomatic corps might have ended up here. You might even be ready to blame his advisers for failing him so badly.