“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: <Packing Heat in Cleveland
As Republicans gather in Cleveland next week, the life-and-death issue that party leaders regularly duck — the potential for violence that citizens with easy access to guns pose for the nation — will be on graphic display outside their convention center. A number of groups have announced plans to exploit Ohio’s lenient open-carry gun law to flaunt their military-style assault rifles and other weaponry in designated protest zones, all in the name of protecting gun rights and free speech. [..]
“Right now, what we want to do is have a good conversation where we calm things down and we talk about solutions,” Speaker Paul Ryan explained in retreating from an issue — the ease with which terrorism suspects can buy guns — that Republicans had vowed to take up after a confessed devotee of the Islamic State last month opened fire in an Orlando nightclub, where 49 people were killed.
Mr. Ryan’s words deserve close inspection. They’re ludicrous. What he’s saying is that action urgently prompted by one gun massacre must be put off because of the distraction and grief caused by the next atrocity. This is a formula for endless procrastination in a nation where the mass shooter nightmare erupts with savage regularity.
Cornel West: Obama has failed victims of racism and police brutality
A long and deep legacy of white supremacy has always arrested the development of US democracy. We either hit it head on, or it comes back to haunt us. That’s why a few of us have pressed the president for seven years not to ignore issues of poverty, police abuse and mass unemployment. Barack Obama said it very well, following the shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, that some communities “have been forgotten by all of us”.
And now – in Dallas, Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights and beyond – this legacy has comes back to haunt the whole country.
Obama and his cheerleaders should take responsibility for being so reluctant to engage with these issues. It’s not a question of interest group or constituencies. Unfortunately for so much of the Obama administration its been a question of “I’m not the president of black people, I’m the president of everyone.” But this is a question of justice. It’s about being concerned about racism and police brutality.
I have deep empathy for brothers and sisters who are shot in the police force. I also have profound empathy for people of color who are shot by the police. I have always believed deliberate killing to be a crime against humanity.
Lucia Graves: Donald Trump used to dog-whistle racism. Now he just yells it
It used to be that you had to read between the lines to determine that Donald Trump was stoking racial resentments. And it used to be that the subjects of his racial animus were mostly immigrants. But now, increasingly, he’s casting a wider net and amping up his rhetoric.
In the wake of two fatal police killings and five officers being gunned down at a rally held in response to those killings, Trump wasted no time in turning his attention within our country’s borders to the Black Lives Matter movement. [..]
There is no evidence to support either point, but the latter appears to be one he’s particularly intent on spreading.
He mentioned it twice in a recent appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, saying when asked what he thought of the Black Lives Matter movement: “I saw what they said about the police in various marches and rallies. I have seen, you know, moments of silence called for – for this horrible human being who shot the policeman.”
Trump isn’t the only one to erroneously lay police slayings at the feet of a peaceful movement. (The morning after the tragedy the rightwing Drudge Report ran with a banner headline declaring, “Black Lives Kills Four Police Officers”.) But he’s the only one to do it and still get to run for president.
Matt Laslo: Ruth Bader Ginsburg told the truth about Donald Trump – just as she should
The political class is pretending to be shocked that supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is openly criticizing Donald Trump, but she has something to teach Republicans about their candidate-in-chief.
Ginsburg, affectionately known as The Notorious RBG, is garnering headlines for calling Trump a “faker”, before adding, “He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego.”
Republicans pounced on the notion of a supreme court justice wading into a presidential campaign. [..]
Sure, Justice Ginsburg seems to have weighed in on the presidential contest in an unprecedented manner. But Republicans and independents would be wise to dig beneath the headlines and wrestle with the weight of her stinging critique. They may find they actually agree with her assessment.
Amanda Marcotte: GOP war on porn: The same party that nominated a libertine for president is now calling your porn a “public health crisis”
While the final draft of the 2016 Republican platform won’t be finalized until next week, the drafting committee’s meeting is public and reporters have been sending out a steady stream of reports on platform items approved by the committee and therefore likely to be made the official party positions next week. [..]
And, even though their presidential nominee is a thrice-married playboy who bragged on Howard Stern that avoiding STIs was his “personal Vietnam” — because of all the sleeping around, ha ha — the platform committee is extremely interested in policing what everyone else in the country is doing with their genitals. Cohabitation, homosexuality, abortion, even using the bathroom while trans: If it’s not hetero married sex performed in the dark no more than once a month for the reasons of procreation, they are probably against it.
And sorry, fellas, but as much as Republicans love male privilege, when it comes to the sex police, even your private habits are going on the Thou Shalt Not list. Porn, according to what will likely be the official GOP platform, has been declared a “public health crisis” and a “public menace.”
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