“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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Elizabeth Warren: Trump didn’t invent the ‘rigged election’ myth. Republicans did.
Cratering in the polls, besieged by sexual assault allegations and drowning in his own disgusting rhetoric, Donald Trump has been reduced to hollering that November’s election is “rigged” against him. His proof? It looks like he’s going to lose.
Senior Republican leaders are scrambling to distance themselves from this dangerous claim. But Trump’s argument didn’t spring from nowhere. It’s just one more symptom of a long-running effort by Republicans to delegitimize Democratic voters, appointees and leaders. For years, this disease has infected our politics. It cannot be cured until Republican leaders rethink their approach to modern politics. [..]
Democrats and Republicans disagree about a lot of issues. We both fight hard to win elections. But winning isn’t everything. Al Gore understood that when he stood down after the 2000 election. Now Republican leaders seem increasingly concerned that when Trump loses, he won’t follow that example. But Trump’s words and deeds are merely the latest — and loudest — examples in a long line of Republican tactics that are poisoning our political system.
Garrison Keillor: Next stop for Donald Trump: Nebraska?
Does the man have friends? Or only associates? This is the big question. Is Sean Hannity really and truly his friend? Or Howard Stern? Or Rudy Giuliani? Do they go out for lunch and tell jokes about the two blondes who went to the drive-in theater in February to see “Closed for the Season”? I doubt this.
He should pick up his traps and move to Nebraska. Not long ago, he was leading in Nebraska by about 2 to 1. There are wonderful, warmhearted people there who love and admire him, so he would fit right in. Look at Broken Bow, a town of 4,000 on Highway 2 in Custer County. He could get a nice three-bedroom place there for $150K. There’s a municipal airport, a hospital. The restaurants are good if you like beef. You can play golf from May through September and after that you can use a fluorescent orange ball and play in the snow. He’d be far away from the New York Times. Trump could make Broken Bow great, put marble floors and walls in the public school, put up a marble statue of George Armstrong Custer. He could attend a good evangelical Christian church every Sunday and go to Bible reading Wednesday night where maybe he can learn more about those two Corinthians. He’d need to be careful about touching women suddenly without permission, though, because many of them are armed. If he grabbed one down there, she might cut him a new buttonhole. Even if she were a Christian.
Heather Digby Parton: It’s the Republicans who rig elections, Donald: The GOP history of voter suppression goes way back
This presidential election has featured the Republican nominee talking about the size of his manly member on national TV and about grabbing women by the crotch on video. He has also endorsed torture, mass deportations, a 2,000-mile border wall, war crimes, nuclear proliferation, a ban on Muslims and jailing his opponent — cheered on wildly by his rapturous supporters.
All of this is a terrible commentary on the state of American democracy. But as hard as it is to believe, something even more disturbing is happening. Yesterday morning Politico reported that 41 percent of registered voters believe that the election could be “stolen” from Republican Donald Trump because of voter fraud. That number rises to 71 percent among Republicans. [..]
This will be the first presidential election in 50 years without the protections of the Voting Rights Act, which the conservative majority of the Supreme Court (including three members who voted to give the election to George W. Bush in 2000, and two more who worked on the recount on the behalf of the GOP) told America that there was no more need for such protections since we were past those ugly days of voter suppression. Seventeen states have new voting restrictions in place.
This is what’s known as “rigging elections.” Trump just got a little bit confused about who’s doing the rigging. The Republicans have been at it for a very long time.
May Boeve: Amy Goodman showed us the perils of standing up to the fossil fuel industry
For far too long, the world had been ignoring the North Dakota anti-pipelines protests. Then the Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman captured private security forces (employed by a fossil fuel company) sicking dogs on Native Americans during a peaceful demonstration against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which encroaches on their sacred lands and waters. For that, she nearly went to jail.
The video made Goodman a target of North Dakota authorities, who brought charges of trespassing and rioting against her and the native leaders on the ground during the dog attack. Yes, a journalist was threatened with punishment for reporting on the horrific attack on indigenous people.
Authorities said Goodman didn’t deserve press protections because her opinions made her an “activist” instead of a journalist. Are we to punish every journalist who calls out state violence as he or she sees it? How could you not have an opinion in the face of such brutality? Should Walter Cronkite have gone to prison for his words about Vietnam?
Lucia Graves: Melania Trump was recruited to do Donald’s damage control. Bad plan
The 2016 campaign has not been kind to Melania Trump, and this week is no exception.
In two new interviews, she was sent in to defend her husband’s alleged mistreatment of women despite not knowing him when most of the accusers did. And she did so in front of a media that has not treated her kindly, to say the least, throughout Donald Trump’s run for president.
Poised under pressure, Melania did as good a job as her husband could have hoped, and a better job than he has of staying on message. The trouble is, 11 days after the leak of the Access Hollywood recording, there isn’t much she can plausibly say to defend him. She wasn’t present for any of the alleged incidents. How can she possibly purport to know whether charges against her husband are true? Especially now that there’s video of Trump admitting every single one of the alleged behaviors, if not the specific incidents?
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