“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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Adam Palomo: Prince, the purple unicorn
About five years ago, I was a given a collection of unreleased Prince demos. I was experiencing a sophomore slump after my first album, and my friend Nic thought it might help to know that even someone as mythical as the Purple one himself worked through material like everyone else. After all, great pop stars seem to just materialize; beamed down to Earth rather than plucked from obscurity. But what I realised blasting that collection of lost hits like Wonderful Ass and Purple Music, was the realization that his songs were in fact written. And that even when the hits sounded effortless, they were the result of a tireless, insatiable obsession with music … and of course, sex.
His passing feels biblically tragic not only for the man, but also for his medium. Prince, to me, represented the last of the self-assembled pop stars. There’s a spectrum of things that contribute to pop stardom: the ability to sing, play instruments, write hits, produce albums, dance on stage or in videos, and all the while look great doing it.
Mohamad Bazzi: Obama may be preaching ‘tough love’ to Saudi – but arms sales tell another story
When President Barack Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for a meeting of Gulf leaders, he was greeted at the airport by the governor of Riyadh, instead of the Saudi king. Unlike his previous visits, Obama’s arrival was not broadcast on Saudi state television with its usual pomp and circumstance. It was one sign of how livid Saudi leaders are at Obama and his administration – the decades-long Saudi-US alliance has rarely been more tense. [..]
About 5,000 US troops remained in the kingdom at the Prince Sultan Air Base, and the high-tech command center served as headquarters for US air strikes on Afghanistan in 2001. The American military presence on Saudi soil enraged Islamic radicals, who decried the Sauds’ decision to allow “infidel” Western forces into Islam’s birthplace. Those troops may no longer be there, but American arms, worth tens of billions, are.
Despite his rhetoric, and his administration’s perceived shift toward Iran, Obama has not fundamentally changed the US status quo toward Saudi Arabia. In fact, he’s sold more advanced weaponry to Saudi leaders than any of his predecessors. And that means one thing: an emboldened Saudi Arabia will contribute to more war and instability in the Middle East – and America will be drawn into more conflict.
Dave Johnson: Hillary Must Toughen Up On Trade In Case She Is Nominee Against Trump
Yes, much of Donald Trump’s message has a white nationalist and anti-woman character to it. But here is a warning: If Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee she had better get tough on trade – and mean it.
One of Donald Trump’ main elements of appeal to his voters – if not the main appeal – is his stance on trade and bringing jobs back to America. It is a winning message and Clinton is waaaayyyy behind the curve on this.
Much of Trump’s campaign message is about how our country’s trade deals have wiped out jobs. On Day 1 much of his speech announcing that he was running was about trade.
Heather Digby Parton: John Kasich is actually kinda nuts: The GOP primary’s “reasonable moderate” can’t admit the contradictions of his campaign
Speaking to the Washington Post editorial board earlier this week, John Kasich made his pitch for the presidency, saying he is a rebel and an anti-establishment maverick who also has a resume a mile long from having been a Republican official for most of the last 30 years. And it’s kind of true. Unfortunately for him, his brand of rebel is the type that was popular 25 years ago, the type who worked with Democrats to pass budget deals or campaign finance reform. It’s the type that says the Republican party is too conservative. He doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo that today’s Republican maverick thinks the the Republican Party itself is a bunch of wishy-washy, liberal sell-outs if they even pretend that compromise is a virtue. [..]
But lest anyone gets the idea that Kasich has any innovative new ideas, his litany of policy prescriptions could have come directly from the Poppy Bush campaign. He’ll eliminate some federal agencies like the Commerce Department and move Medicare to “coordinated care.” He defends his massive tax cuts by evoking stale Wall Street blather about “certainty” being the magic elixir that will stimulate growth. And he has the nerve to claim that the budget analysts who call his tax cuts a budget buster are innumerate hacks despite insisting he’s going to win the nomination — even though he was mathematically eliminated some time ago so.
Amanda Marcotte: Conservatives gang up on a child: Anti-trans bullying of 5-year-old in Minnesota shows adults, not kids, are the problem
It’s so predictable that it verges on comical: Whenever a feminist tries to argue that most gender norms we have are learned and not inborn, many (probably most) parents will protest. No way, they’ll argue. They didn’t try to impose gender norms on their kids and yet somehow Little Johnny was just drawn, as if by instinct, to the toy truck while Little Jane was clutching baby dolls before she even knew what babies were. How dare feminists suggest that parents themselves put kids in tightly defined gender boxes and then guard those boxes anxiously? Why, that would never happen!
Which is why it’s so strange to read this story about what happened in St. Paul, Minnesota when Dave and Hannah Edwards asked their kid’s school, Nova Classical Academy, to accommodate their kindergartener as she started identifying as a girl. [..]
Anti-trans bigotry is ugly and that should be reason enough to stand up against it. But this story also shows why it has ramifications beyond just making life harder for trans people and their families. The parents and conservative groups involved are using anti-trans hysteria to forward an even broader agenda of gender conformity, arguing that their discomfort gives them a right to tell others how to dress, what name to use, how to behave, and even what kind of medical care to get. If they’ll do it to trans people, don’t think they won’t do it to anyone who violates their tender ideas about how you should behave because of your gender, whether it’s a woman who doesn’t wear makeup or a man who prefers ballet to football. And they are so devoted to this gender policing, they’re willing to abuse a 5-year-old to carve out this privilege to control the lives and bodies of other people.
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