“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: The Deadly Mix of Guns and Domestic Violence
It’s a good thing Congress passed a law in 1996 barring people convicted of domestic violence from buying or owning guns. Today, despite horrifyingly frequent mass shootings and yearly gun deaths topping 30,000, lawmakers, nearly all of them Republican, stand in lock-step formation against even modest gun-control efforts — like preventing people suspected of terrorist ties from easily buying firearms.
Twenty years ago, in a somewhat less warped political universe, Congress saw clearly that domestic violence and guns were a deadly mix, and passed, with overwhelming bipartisan support, the Lautenberg Amendment, which barred people convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse from buying or owning a gun or ammunition. (Those convicted of felony domestic abuse were already subject to a gun ban under federal law.) As one senator said during debate over the bill, all too often “the only difference between a battered woman and a dead woman is the presence of a gun.” [..]
The Lautenberg Amendment is not a perfect solution. Many people convicted of domestic violence buy guns illegally, and in all but nine states, those who already own a gun are not required to turn it over to the authorities. It has, however, been a step toward protecting women from gun violence — and in that regard it is far beyond anything Congress has shown itself capable of doing today.
Jennifer Conti: I applaud the abortion decision, but it won’t improve access fast enough
You don’t have to be a woman in rural Texas to realize that something heinous has been happening with abortion politics in our country. In the past few years alone, more anti-abortion laws have been enacted all over the nation than in the entire previous decade combined. And this hasn’t translated into fewer or safer abortions. Women, it turns out, will continue to have abortions, even if they have to do it themselves and even if they have to do it dangerously.
To see and hear of these clandestine, pre-civilized medicine approaches to women’s care breaks my heart. Women deserve much better. On Monday, when the US supreme court made a national declaration that they too believe in the value of women and their reproductive freedom, it was more than a legal decision or a news headline.
I’m an abortion provider, and I see this as a real-life move in the right direction – although for many women, reproductive healthcare will continue to be drastically limited because of the damage that has already been done.
Trevor Timm: Donald Trump’s anti-terror policies sound a lot like war crimes
Instead of tacking to the center like a lot of pundits thought he would when he became the Republican nominee, Donald Trump seems intent to double down on his moral depravity, calling for outright war crimes in his quest to become US president. [..]
The amount of damage an unchecked Trump could do with the national security infrastructure in place – the CIA drone program, NSA warrantless spying, the ability to conduct unilateral war with no congressional approval, etc – is truly extraordinary. We learned Thursday from BuzzFeed that Trump allegedly listened secretly to the phone calls of employees at his Florida resort Mar-A-Lago. And this headline from a month ago should send chills down the spine of anyone worried about constitutional rights and the separation of powers: “Trump Orders Surrogates to Intensify Criticism of Judge and Journalists.”
All of this once again points to the extreme dangers of the incredible expansion of executive power under the Bush and Obama administrations, and the failure to prosecute those who engaged in torture a decade ago. It has now turned into political football and a policy dispute rather than what it actually is: a clear crime
Eugene Robinson: GOP leaders: Put your country before your party
He can’t do it, Republicans. It’s time for you to admit that Donald Trump is incapable of even pretending to be an acceptable candidate for president. The question is which side of history you want to be on.
Are you going to stand with him as the balloons drop on the last night of the convention, knowing he shares neither your views nor your values? Are you going to work your hearts out this fall to put an unstable bully in charge of our national defense? Is party unity so much more important to you than trifles such as responsibility, duty and honor?
Leading Republicans should pay attention to what Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) told a reporter for the conservative Newsmax website: “What I am saying is Donald Trump can still get a vote from a lot of conservatives like me, but I would like some assurances on where he stands. I would like some assurances that he is going to be a vigorous defender of the U.S. Constitution. That he is not going to be an autocrat. That he is not going to be an authoritarian. That he is not somebody who is going to abuse a document that I have sworn an oath to uphold and protect and defend.”
Michael Winship: The GOP’s Love Affair With Its ‘Earthquake In A Box’
Breaking up is hard to do and Republicans just can’t seem to quit their presumptive presidential candidate.
Republicans, we know what you’re going through.
Many of us have been in this kind of relationship before: You meet someone new and he or she seems different, exciting, rebellious, maybe even a little dangerous. You get involved. Your friends say, “What do you see in him/her?” And you reply, “Oh, you just don’t know him/her like I do.”
But as the weeks and months go by, you start to realize he/she isn’t just a little dangerous. He/she is a menace. Time to re-evaluate.
As James Hohmann at The Washington Post‘s Daily 202 writes, “Many Republicans who initially rallied around Donald Trump after he clinched the nomination are having second thoughts.” {..]
As the great Charlie Pierce recently wrote at Esquire, “Our politics are not supposed to be vulnerable to this kind of abject farce.” But here you are, GOP, stuck in a dead-end relationship with someone who, when all is said and done, may prove to be the very thing that Trump himself so loves to call other people: a loser. You brought it upon yourself through decades of encouraging rage and ignorance, ignoring the realities of economic inequality and social injustice and creating a government and politics of dysfunctional inertia.
And you wonder why you can’t meet a decent guy for once.
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