We apologize for the lack of content for the last few days. We are traveling for the next several days, so posting will continue to be light. WE should be back to regular scheduling by mid next week. Thank you, TMC
“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.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
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Nate Bethea: Veterans Aren’t Campaign Props
ON Tuesday, Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, called a news conference to discuss his promise to donate to veterans’ charities, made with a splash in January, but not quite fulfilled until reporters looked into whether the donation was actually made.
Mr. Trump didn’t just talk fund-raising for charity, though. He devoted a good deal of time to insulting journalists, including the ABC reporter Tom Llamas, whom he called “a sleaze.” Throughout his harangue, my eye drifted toward the suited veterans standing behind him. They were there, of course, for their symbolic value — because in American politics today, nothing conjures more powerful emotion than the sight of service members. Wherever it is that we stand, our presence there must clearly stand for something meaningful.
Americans have become accustomed to this symbolism because of its constant invocation, in everything from beer commercials to the opening pageantry of sporting events. It should come as no surprise that it manifests itself in our politics.
David Alpher: America’s real terror threat: Domestic extremists pose a greater danger than ISIS ever will
Protect America from those who want to destroy it.
Restore the principles that these usurpers betrayed.These are the messages that have defined the GOP presidential race. They have been used for the past eight years to justify obstruction of the Obama administration, and are now being used to paint the democratic candidates as dangerous. In the late stages of the GOP primary as the rhetoric became increasingly xenophobic, they were applied to increasingly broad swaths of the American population as well.
Years of constant repetition by members of the GOP have given them an appearance of legitimacy, now strengthened by Donald Trump’s victory in the GOP primary contest and the party’s growing embrace of him as their standard-bearer.
Unfortunately, the Republican Party isn’t alone in using these messages.
Right-wing extremist groups use them as well, and to very specific ends: to define the conditions under which antigovernment violence becomes legitimate in their worldview.
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan: An End to Impunity for Dictators—and Their Backers—Makes the World Safer
It was a bad week for dictators, and a good one for international justice. Two brutal, U.S.-backed dictators who ruled decades ago were convicted for crimes they committed while in power. Hissene Habre took control of the northern African nation of Chad in 1982, and unleashed a reign of terror against his own people, killing at least 40,000 of them, until he was deposed in 1990. Reynaldo Bignone was a general in the Argentinian military, and was the last dictator of the military junta that ruled that country from 1976 to 1983, the period known as “The Dirty War,” when an estimated 30,000 dissidents were “disappeared,” i.e., killed. Both men will most likely spend the rest of their lives in prison. These verdicts won’t bring back the tens of thousands they tortured and killed, but, hopefully, they will hasten the end of the modern era of impunity for human-rights abusers and their allies. [..]
Bignone and the Argentine junta, and Hissene Habre, could not have committed their atrocities were it not for the support of the U.S. government. Secretary of State John Kerry called Habre’s verdict “an opportunity for the United States to reflect on, and learn from, our own connection with past events in Chad.” The U.S. should definitely reflect on, and learn from, these guilty verdicts. But we also should investigate, charge and put on trial U.S. government officials who aided and abetted these dictators. We need a uniform standard of justice, applied equally, across the globe.
Dean Baker: The Elites and the Rise of Donald Trump
Last week marked a milestone. Donald Trump passed the 1,237 threshold of committed delegates that gives him a lock on the Republican Party presidential nomination. Given his public comments on everything from immigration to terrorism, large segments of the population must be viewing his nomination with horror.
The rise of Trump has provoked a considerable outpouring of commentary from the pundits. Most of it centered on the chief complaint that the white working class is upset about losing its privileged position and see Trump as the ticket to setting things right.
There is considerable truth to this story. Trump’s strongest support comes from white men without college degrees, although he also does quite well among small business owners. But before we condemn these workers as hopeless Neanderthals, it is worth stepping back a bit to consider what led them to support Donald Trump’s candidacy in the first place.
Jeb Lund: Donald Trump’s sole consistent trait: offering pricey, empty promises
The Donald Trump phenomenon confused the great minds of the Hillary Clinton campaign. Needing to thwart a new, weightless force in American politics, they nicknamed him Dangerous Donald, rubber stamping his renegade brand. Leave it to Trump to have to give them a better one: fraud.
On Tuesday, Trump called a press conference to prove he gave $6m to veterans groups, a very large sum of very beautiful money that he totally would have given even without the press hounding him. Honest to God. Later, US district court judge Gonzalo Curiel released 400 pages of “Trump University” documents showing how much Trump promises are worth. [..]
Good journalists have known for a while that the way you rattle Trump is by honestly reporting on his business acumen. It’s not great! You report on the fact that his construction empire now is largely his name franchised and slapped on other people’s projects. You report on the fact Trump’s steaks, airline, bike race and the United States Football League were failures. You report on how he does better hawking mattresses. You report on how he’d be $10b richer if he’d just invested his money in index funds.
The Trump balloon pops pretty easily. All you have to do is say that it kind of sucks.
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