My wondering the planet is done for now. The blog will now return to somewhat regular postings. I hope
“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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Richard Wolffe: For Democrats, it’s mission ‘defeat Donald’. Step one: unite the party
Donald Trump delivered the most disciplined speech of his runaway campaign on Tuesday night. He reached out to Bernie Sanders supporters, promised to run against a rigged political system, and mostly stuck to his prepared remarks.
He issued no racist statements about federal judges, no sexist slurs against female journalists, and no sweeping bans on an entire religion. So all things considered, this was a minor miracle for what passes for the Trump campaign.
However, as a new chapter starts in this carnivalesque campaign, our orange protagonist can no longer be compared to his own caricature. It’s time to start comparing him directly to the candidate who will stand beside him on the debate stage in the fall.
Less than an hour after Trump’s teleprompters were switched off, his newly minted general election opponent delivered a masterclass in disciplined campaigning. [..]
If Bernie can bring himself to embrace his former rival, he may have real influence in a Clinton administration. If Clinton can bring herself to maintain outreach for several weeks, she may stand a chance to consolidate her own party support.
Without that kind of leadership, Democrats will find themselves uncomfortably reliant on the spontaneous internal combustion of the Trump campaign.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: Social Security’s Enemies Are Down, But They’re Not Out
Not so long ago, Social Security was endangered by a “bipartisan” political consensus that sought to cut its benefits — already lower than those of comparable countries — as part of a “grand bargain.” President Obama even put a slow-motion benefit cut into one of his proposed budgets, in the form of a reduction in cost-of-living increases.
And nobody talked much about raising taxes on the rich. That, they said, was “politically impossible.”
Things have changed dramatically. The Democratic president, virtually all of the party’s Senators, and both its presidential candidates now say they want to expand benefits. An idea that was widely dismissed when it was proposed by Bernie Sanders is now the Democratic position. The “bipartisan” anti-Social Security army seems to be in ragged retreat, its campfires dying and its tents torn down.
But this isn’t over.
The president’s recent declaration is a major win for the left, as Nancy J. Altman and the Huffington Post political team explain. But the counterattack has begun.
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: Wasserman Schultz Has a Change of Heart, But Too Little, Too Late
Return with us now to the saga of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the soul of the Democratic Party.
First, a quick recap: Rep. Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), chair of the Democratic National Committee, also has been an advocate for the payday loan industry. The website Think Progress even described her as the “top Democratic ally” of “predatory payday lenders.” You know — the bottom-feeding bloodsuckers of the working poor. Yes, them. [..]
So last week the previously tone-deaf Wasserman Schultz perked up, did an about-face and announced she will go along with the proposed new rules on payday lending after all. At first blush, that’s good; the rules are a step in the right direction. But all that lobbying cash must have had some effect, because the new rules only go so far. A New York Times editorial calls them “a lame response” to predatory loans and says the final version of the new regulations “will need stronger, more explicit consumer protections for the new regulatory system to be effective.”
Nick Bourke, director of small-dollar loans for the Pew Charitable Trusts, is a man who closely follows these things and got to the heart of the matter: Not only do the proposed new rules “fall short,” they will allow payday lenders to lock out attempts at lower-cost bank loans.
Dean Baker: Weak Job Numbers Will Delay Fed Rate Hikes
The weak employment report for May should eliminate any possibility that the Federal Reserve Board will raise interest rates at its June meeting next week. At least for this purpose, the bad news is good news.
But we should still be asking why does the Fed have its finger on the trigger in the first place? The Fed should not be so anxious to slow the economy at the first sign that the recovery is on a healthy path. The Fed’s anxiousness to raise rates should make the public very concerned. And it is an issue that deserves far more attention than it has been receiving in this election year. [..]
It is surprising that the Fed’s policy has not been a focus of any of the candidates thus far. The president appoints seven of the twelve voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) that determines interest rate policy. (Bernie Sanders has occasionally raised these issues.) The candidates should be talking about the sort of people they would appoint to these slots and what they might do to rein in the members of the FOMC who are effectively appointed by banks. And, if the candidates don’t bring up the topic themselves, the media should be asking.
The Fed is hugely important is setting economic policy. If we are going to seriously debate economic issues, Fed policy has to be part of that discussion.
Richard North Patterson: No Time For Trump, Part One: Iraq, Syria And The Danger Of ISIS
Of the challenges facing our next president, perhaps none is so fraught as ISIS.
Every new horror — Paris, Brussels or San Bernardino — brings fresh confusion. In the faces of refugees, some see enemies; others see enemies among our neighbors. Sick of war, we wish our real enemies away, or conjure fantasies of destroying them from the air. But we cannot hide from hatred, or carpet bomb complexity.
And so, inexorably, we are drawn toward the tragedy of Iraq and Syria. Some feel shame at our arrogance; others at our impotence. But these places are now part of us, and ISIS breeds there. We cannot turn history’s page.
In short, the fight against ISIS is a Gordian knot of complications. Nonetheless, I’m going to take a stab at cutting through it.
So please pour yourself a cup of coffee, sit back, and bear with me. Because only by dealing with the difficulties can we appreciate the problem — and why Donald Trump is so monumentally unequipped to keep America safe. In this arena, ignorance and narcissism are a lethal combination.
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