“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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New York Times Editorial Board: Congress’s Failure to Fund Zika Response
In late February, the White House asked Congress for $1.9 billion in emergency money to stem the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which at the time had been tentatively linked to birth defects in South America. Since then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has concluded that the virus does cause birth defects, including microcephaly. More than 2,600 people in American states and territories have been diagnosed with Zika. As of June 16, federal health officials were tracking 481 cases of pregnant women who appeared to be infected.
Now, with mosquito season upon us, and despite evidence that a potentially calamitous health crisis could be around the corner, Congress has yet to provide money for a serious response. Indeed, some Republicans initially dismissed the threat and irresponsibly suggested that the government simply repurpose funds already earmarked to combat Ebola.
Then, last week, the House approved $1.1 billion in Zika funding, but with restrictions that Senate Democrats found deeply objectionable. Under the bill, only public health departments and Medicaid-run clinics would receive Zika funds to provide contraception and maternal care. Private health centers, including Planned Parenthood, would be ineligible. [..]
Given the urgency of the matter, it is not asking too much of House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, to agree on a generous bill without unjustifiable restrictions. Allowing the crusade against Planned Parenthood to get in the way of protecting the public is inexcusable.
Robert Reich: Americans have forgotten the meaning of patriotism
We hear a lot about patriotism, especially around the Fourth of July. But in 2016 we’re hearing about two very different types of patriotism. One is an inclusive patriotism that binds us together. The other is an exclusive patriotism that keeps others out.
Through most of our history we’ve understood patriotism the first way. We’ve celebrated the values and ideals we share in common: democracy, equal opportunity, freedom, tolerance and generosity.
We’ve recognized these as aspirations to which we recommit ourselves on the Fourth of July.
This inclusive patriotism prides itself on giving hope and refuge to those around the world who are most desperate — as memorialized in Emma Lazarus’ famous lines engraved on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
By contrast, we’re now hearing a strident, exclusive patriotism. It asserts a unique and superior “Americanism” that’s determined to exclude others beyond our borders.
Heather Digby Parton: Trump, torture and religion: Why the Christian Right has flocked to the GOP nominee
I wrote earlier in the week about the warm embrace of Donald Trump by 1,000 leaders of the religious right. After meeting with him and praying with him in New York, they decided that he’s a sincere man who has the kind of morals and values that qualify him for the most powerful job on earth. All in all, it was a very successful meet-up for Trump and portended an alliance that will help him in the fall.
On Wednesday, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson slightly walked back his comment that Trump had been born again however: [..]
Dobson is a cunning politician and he had his reasons for trying to make Trump appear to be on the “right path.” And he is still backing Trump to the hilt because he says the very thought of Hillary in the White House “haunts” his “nights and days.”
But I must admit that even I have been surprised by the fact that Christians, even leaders as cynical as this man, would stick with a man who would say what Trump said on Tuesday night. For all the talk of him “pivoting” to a more presidential style and professional campaign he went back to some of his most depraved and barbaric rhetoric at a rally in Ohio:
Lucia Graves: Benghazi may be over, but #Benghazi has a life of its own
To understand the story of Benghazi, you first have to understand there are two of them.
The first Benghazi is the second-largest city in Libya where in 2012 the US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in an attack on a diplomatic station. The second is #Benghazi, a dumpster fire of conspiracy theories and nakedly political attacks, fanned by rightwing Twitter trolls and fed by the all-too-common conviction that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there’s a high-level coverup at work.
The conclusive 800-page Benghazi report has finally been issued. It has no major revelations nor any further evidence of wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton, who has already taken “full responsibility” for the tragedy – now get ready to hear a whole lot more about #Benghazi.
A casual observer would be forgiven for thinking the report was already out there, as this is the eighth congressional panel to explore the attack, and in October Clinton sat for an 11-hour grilling on the matter that yielded so little damning information it was widely seen as a joke, with committee Republicans artfully carrying out their role as the butt.
Jim Hightower: It was a long time coming: The Brexit vote shouldn’t have been so shocking to global elites
The most shocking thing about Brexit — the British people’s resounding vote to pull their country out of the European Union — is that it came as such a shock to the British establishment.
After all, say the flummoxed elites, everyone who is anyone in Great Britain was opposed to exiting. The prime minister, leaders of all the major political parties, nearly every banker and corporate chieftain and most media barons had sternly lectured common Brits that talk of withdrawal was irresponsible fiddle-faddle that could undermine the global economic order.
Indeed, Tony Blair, Britain’s former prime minister, has lashed out at British voters for having “a shared hostility to globalization,” referring to their June 23 decision to exit the Union. A decade ago PM, Blair had been a backer of schemes to expand EU’s authority over the citizens of Great Britain and 27 other European nations, so he took the Brits’ electorial rejection personally. In a New York Times op-ed, he rather prissily blamed the Brexit vote on populist demagogues who had caused “palpitations in the body politic.” Obviously befuddled, he asked: “How did this happen?”
Well, sir, one reason is that you and other peers of Britain’s privileged class have been adopting treaties, trade deals and other policies that have reduced the wealth and power of common wage earners while greatly increasing the wealth and power of corporate executives and rich investors. Your prized European Union itself has become a messy, bureaucratic, multinational government of, by and for corporate interests over the interests of the common people.
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