“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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Lucia Graves: The gun control sit-in is a symbolic victory – but little more than that
The deaths in Orlando may have been senseless murders but they won’t be in vain. Last week a Senate filibuster forced a vote on gun control measures, and this week — in a sit-in by a rotating cast of roughly 100 lawmakers led by civil rights leader John Lewis – lawmakers pushed to do the same in the lower chamber. They refused to leave the House floor until a vote took place, in the biggest Congressional mobilization around gun violence in recent memory. [..]
For all the political might on display, the House Democrat’s sit-in was hopeless. Even if Democrats did get a vote on the legislation in question, they’d lose in a landslide in the Republican-controlled House. And already we know for a fact that it wouldn’t get passed the Senate.
The fact that the legislation is thought to be too weak to meaningfully reduce gun violence in America, that it might unduly impact those wrongfully on the government’s “no-fly” list, that it’s crafted more to make Republicans look bad than prevent the greatest number of gun-related deaths – all those points of nuance are afterthought. What matters is that we take action; we need to do something about gun control in America now.
Neil Gabler: The GOP’s medieval politics: America’s crisis is much bigger than Donald Trump
As incendiary and dangerous as he is — and he is very dangerous — and as much of a main event as he has been in this election season, Donald Trump is largely a distraction from what really ails our political discourse. Long after he is gone from the scene, the Republican Party that engendered him, facilitated him, and now supports him — despite a severe case of buyer’s remorse — will no doubt still thrive, booting up for a future candidacy of Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan. And the media will still act as if Trump were an aberration, a departure from so-called “sensible” conservatism. If so, it will be yet another act of media dereliction.
In fact, worse than dereliction, because the Republican Party, with its history of dog-whistle racism, sexism, homophobia, nativism, and gun addiction, salted now by incipient fascism, has been legitimized by the mainstream media for years. One could say that the GOP and MSM have operated in collusion to the great detriment of this country. One could say that and not even be a liberal, just a commonsensical American.
Bill Blum: Antonin Scalia and the Clear and Present Danger of Second Amendment Fundamentalism
If you’re looking for someone to blame for the continuing partisan paralysis on gun control after the Orlando bloodbath, I have a candidate for your consideration. And no, it’s not congressional Republicans, or the National Rifle Association, although their fingerprints are all over the country’s inaction in the face of our unyielding epidemic of gun violence.
My nominee is the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. [..]
Now, of course, I’m not saying that Scalia was in any way directly responsible for the murderous rampage of the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, or the perpetrators of the other mass shootings that have ravaged American communities over the past three decades, or even for the lunacy of the gun-waving, Constitution-thumping Cliven Bundy clan and other proponents of the “sovereign citizen” movement.
But on an array of issues ranging from gay rights to gun rights, Scalia brought an incendiary temperament to the bench, and the rhetorical style of a fuming political activist that inspired an almost worshipful devotion from his admirers and discouraged civility, reasoned discourse and, ultimately, respect for law.
David Dayen: The Superdelegate Solution
If anything confirms to Bernie Sanders supporters that the presidential nominating system is rigged, it’s the existence of superdelegates. These 712 Democratic Party insiders control about 15 percent of total delegates, meaning they could easily determine a close race. In addition, they create momentum for candidates closer to the establishment, like Hillary Clinton, and force insurgents into an uphill battle. [..]
The fix is simple. Superdelegates—who are Democratic National Committee officers, elected officials, and party luminaries (former DNC chairs, current and former presidents and vice presidents, and prior leaders in Congress)—would still get a seat at the convention. Nancy Pelosi would not have to run for a delegate spot in San Francisco, nor would Barack Obama in Chicago. They could participate in all convention functions, from voting on the party platform to approving credentials. This involves everyone in the process and motivates them to work for the nominee in the fall.
The only difference is this: For the presidential nomination, superdelegates would be prohibited from voting on the first ballot. Only if no candidate received a majority of delegates on that ballot would superdelegate votes come into play in subsequent deliberations.
E. J. Dionne, Jr.: Trump peddles religious ignorance
Where religion is concerned, Donald Trump’s bigotry is his biggest problem, but his ignorance comes in a close second.
We already know that Trump will say whatever he thinks will appeal to the crowd he is talking to, but calling Hillary Clinton’s faith into question before a group of evangelical Christian leaders Tuesday represented a new low — if such a thing is possible in a campaign that hits those markers on an almost daily basis. Trump’s comprehensive and often factually challenged attack on Clinton on Wednesday is drawing much attention. But his comments on her faith say even more about him. [..]
Trump’s indifference to truth, to a basic decency toward the religious convictions of his opponents and to any seriousness about how religion should and should not be discussed in the political arena ought to terrify believers and non-believers alike.
But those who defend faith’s role in our nation’s public life should be especially alarmed. Absent anything substantive to say about his belief system, Trump lashes out at others. And lacking an affirmative vision, he plays on fears and tells evangelicals, as he did Tuesday, that our nation’s leaders are “selling Christianity down the tubes.”
Well. If religion is being sold out, it’s Trump who is orchestrating the deal.
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