“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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Trevor Timm: The TTIP and TPP trade deals: enough of the secrecy
It’s amazing how just a little transparency forced onto the free trade deals the Obama administration been negotiating in secret totally turns the public against them.
After the contents of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and the European Union was leaked and published by Greenpeace a few days ago, the negotiations – already in turmoil – have been thrown into further doubt now that the public has actually gotten to see what is being proposed by both sides.
As usual with US-negotiated trade deals, the contents were kept completely secret from both ordinary Europeans and Americans, yet was easily accessible if you’re a giant corporation. So naturally, the terms are heavily tilted toward big business at the expense of the environment, health and safety standards.
Jennifer Sabin: The Newly Emboldened American Racist
I live in a political bubble. A lovely, liberal, northeastern bubble. The majority of my friends and family are Clinton supporters, and the rest favor Bernie. One or two Republicans I’m close to voted for Kasich in the primaries. I’m pretty sure there are a few closet Trump supporters in my life — and on my Facebook friends list — but as long as they stay in the closet, we’re good.
It’s what’s outside my bubble that keeps me up at night, especially now that Donald Trump has been anointed the presumptive Republican nominee. It’s what keeps me writing on and on about this election.
I have to thank Mr. Trump for opening my eyes to the American ugly I didn’t want to see. I needed a wake up call. I’m not closed off in some strange, futuristic liberal world. I live in a diverse community with a mix of political and social viewpoints, and I consistently read newspapers and websites with differing ideologies. I know my American history and I know what racist people have been saying about President Obama for the last eight years. I’ve watched the videos of young black men shot by cops. And I’ve listened to the calls for racial justice on college campuses. I’ve worked on a college campus where I was the minority, and my students have spoken and written about their experiences. Throughout my life I’ve heard stories from my Jewish friends about the nasty comments they’ve endured. So yes, I understand how deeply racism and bigotry run through American culture — as much as any educated, white, Protestant person can really understand it — even if I don’t hear it in my home or my backyard.
Lucia Graves: America’s Trump nightmare has arrived
Donald Trump could actually be the next president. Just let that sink in.
This is a man who actively demeans women, has encouraged violence at his campaign rallies, would ban all Muslims from entering the US and recently seemed undisturbed by an endorsement from a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. And yet Trump, a political outsider, is poised to grasp the highest office in the land.
It was never supposed to happen. But here we are. Tonight in Indiana, in the primary that nobody thought would matter, the thing that nobody thought possible a year ago, is really coming to pass. Donald Trump is going to clinch the Republican nomination. He is really winning, like he always says. Only it’s not a joke or catchy mantra – it’s reality.
Amanda Marcotte: It’s a con: Christian men are not “testing” Target’s trans-inclusive policy by going into the women’s room
It was a story destined to go viral immediately: The far right and definitely creepy American Family Association (AFA), in order to prove that Target’s trans-inclusive bathrooms are a danger to women, is testing the corporate behemoth by sending men into women’s restrooms and instructing them to claim they are trans if someone confronts them.
“Group claims to be sending men into women’s restrooms at Target,” reads a typical headline at the Chicago Tribune.
“‘Family’ Group Says It’s Now Sending Men Into Target’s Women’s Restrooms,” reads another at Huffington Post.
You couldn’t come up with better click bait than a story about a group sending creepy conservatives into bathrooms to somehow “protect” women from creepy men in their bathrooms.
Heather Digby Parton: Ted Cruz vs. the GOP identity crisis: He’s everything the base said it wanted — but it really wanted Donald Trump
If anyone thought that Donald Trump might go easy down the stretch, yesterday’s circus sideshow before the vote should disabuse them. On the day he was projected to win a yuuuuuge victory in Indiana, which was widely assumed to spell the end of the #NeverTrump movement and be Ted Cruz’s last stand, Trump decided to take a gratuitous swipe at Cruz by parroting a National Enquirer article that accused Cruz’s father of being in on the Kennedy assassination: [..]
Cruz was clearly angry about that and with some justification. If anyone else had said something like this it would have been considered a heinous smear unworthy of a presidential candidate. With Trump it was just another Tuesday.
Cruz came out swinging and staged an election day press conference like nothing we’ve ever seen before. “Pathological liar,” “narcissist,” and “serial philanderer” are just a few of the words he used to describe his rival. He reminded people that Trump has said he regards “his battle with venereal disease as his own personal Vietnam” and that he was “nuts.” And that was just for starters.
“Lyin’ Ted” spoke the truth. Trump is all those things and more. But he’s also Teflon Don, and nobody cares.
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