“Punting 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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Katrina vanden Heuvel: Even the GOP’s ‘Serious’ Candidates Are Way Out of Step With Mainstream Americans
Republicans are advocating a future that will drag us back to the failed policies of the past.
Donald Trump continues to bring comic relief and mean-spirited bombast to the Republican campaign trail. But while Trump is a continuing spectacle, he also makes (a tiny bit) more sense than his rivals when he indicts US trade policies or scorns the influence of big money that turns politicians into puppets.
Nevertheless Trump, despite his current lead in the polls, isn’t likely to be the Republican presidential nominee. William Galston, the Wall Street Journal’s designated Democratic pundit, last week suggested that there were five “plausible” Republican candidates-Senators Marco Rubio (Florida) and Ted Cruz (Texas), Governors Scott Walker (Wisconsin) and John Kasich (Ohio), and dynast Jeb Bush. In the most recent edition of his 2016 candidate rankings, conservative Charles Krauthammer, while not dismissing Trump, suggests that Walker, Rubio, and Bush stand in the first tier of the Republican run-off.
But these “plausible” Republican candidates hold views that are dramatically at odds with interests and values of the vast majority of Americans.
Ellen Brown: Trumping the Federal Debt without Playing the Default Card
In a post on “Sovereign Man” dated August 14th, Simon Black argued that Donald Trump may be the right man for the presidency:
[T]here’s one thing that really sets him apart, that, in my opinion, makes him the most qualified person for the job:
Donald Trump is an expert at declaring bankruptcy.
When the going gets tough, Trump stiffs his creditors. He’s done it four times!
Candidly, this is precisely what the Land of the Free needs right now: someone who can stop beating around the bush and just get on with it already. [..]
How can the country remain strong with very little debt, without defaulting on Social Security, Medicare, or the federal debt itself?
There is a way. The government can reduce the debt by buying it – and ripping it up. The debt can be bought either with debt-free US Notes of the sort issued during the Civil War, or with US dollars issued by the Federal Reserve in the form of “quantitative easing.”
The vast majority of the money supply today is created by banks when they make loans, as the Bank of England recently acknowledged. Banks create money by “monetizing” debt, turning loans into the digital deposits that make up most of the circulating money supply. The government could push the reset button by monetizing its own debt, turning it into what it should have been all along – debt-free, interest-free dollars.
Giving prisoners access to financial aid for college tuition is the first step towards “de-carceration.”
Prison isn’t the most intellectually stimulating environment, but the dimmest corners of the criminal justice system may actually be a perfect place to liberate an otherwise wasted mind. A new initiative by the White House to issue Pell Grants to incarcerated students is about to test just how truly corrective our so-called corrections system can be.
The plan to extend Pell Grant access in prisons is described as a “limited pilot program” authorized through a federal financial aid waiver program under the Higher Education Act. Incarcerated adults could apply for grants of up to $5,775 for tuition and related expenses, at college-level programs offered in prison facilities nationwide. Designed to allow for studying long-term effects of education on recidivism, the program moves toward restoring access to Pell Grants for incarcerated people, which Congress removed in the mid-1990s.
College behind bars remains a tough sell to some law-and-order conservatives-hence the charmingly titled counter-legislation, the “Kids Before Cons” Act. Generally, however, the idea of de-carcerating the prison population appeals to an ascendant libertarian streak among Republicans because, in fiscal terms, textbooks and professors yield better returns on investment than weight rooms and laundry duty.
Joan Walsh: That big Fox News debate meant nothing: Trump continues to dominate his cowardly rivals
The non-Trump contenders continue to hope for a miracle: the frontrunner departs, and they inherit his support
I enjoyed the Aug. 6 Fox debate as much as any Democrat, but the results are in: As is typical with debates, the GOP wrangle watched by 24 million Americans changed pretty much nothing. [..]
All the Fox debate really did was prove that Trump can make Roger Ailes say uncle, after savaging Megyn Kelly and siccing his misogynist supporters on the popular anchor. It also gave Democrats great footage for fall campaign ads, where we can expect to see Walker looking like a sociopath as he explains why he doesn’t care about saving mothers’ lives, and Rubio shrugging off the troubles of rape and incest victims who become pregnant.
As I wrote earlier, they’re all Todd Akin now – and they probably have about as much chance of becoming president as Akin did.
Heather Digby Parton: The GOP plot to destroy “birthright citizenship”: Everything you need to know about Trump & Walker’s hideous plans
Anti-immigrant hysteria reaches a fever pitch in the Republican Party, which now takes aim at the 14th amendment
Back when he was considered by all the smart people to be the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Governor Scott Walker made a huge gaffe when he told Glenn Beck that he was not only repudiating his previous tepid support for a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, but that he now believed even legal immigration should be curbed. [..]
When Walker made his comments, many in the GOP were shocked and objected strenuously. Sen. Orrin Hatch called it “poppycock” and Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio said “we want legal immigration…it’s enriched our country immeasurably. It’s who we are. It’s the fabric of our success.”
That was in April of this year and what a difference four months makes. The new GOP frontrunner, Donald Trump, has made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, and curbing legal immigration, a policy he endorses, is only one of several highly controversial policies he’s proposed in his recently released “immigration plan.” He is also for deportation of all undocumented workers and plans to repeal “birthright” citizenship, which would require a constitutional amendment.
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