“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.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
Trevor Timm: Yes, US elections are rigged – but not in the way Donald Trump thinks
If Donald Trump actually cared about “rigged” elections, he would stop complaining about the demonstrably false “voter fraud” myth he keeps peddling and instead focus on the real problem: gerrymandering – the changing of electoral boundaries for political gain. Of course he’ll never do that, since gerrymandering is a Republican party speciality and the only thing keeping the GOP from losing the House of Representatives this year.
All signs point to Trump suffering a rout in two weeks, with Clinton’s chances of victory north of 80 or 90%, according to statistical analysis from both the New York Times and FiveThirtyEight. Donald Trump is the most unpopular candidate in modern history, and in elections past, he’d be dragging the rest of the party to a historic defeat in Congress as well.
But despite all this, there’s almost no chance the Republicans will lose control of the House of Representatives this election – or in the one after it – since Republicans in statehouses across the country have fixed the election process by redrawing the congressional district maps in several key states in 2010. They can retain a majority even when Democrats received far more total votes. (The Washington Post has a helpful graphic that explains exactly how gerrymandering works.)
Ron Cohen: Obamacare made it illegal to deny care to the sick. Insurance companies still do it
For years, insurers dropped sick people from their plans or denied coverage due to preexisting conditions like cancer, keeping them from the care and medicines they needed. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was supposed to make it unlawful for insurers to refuse coverage to such individuals or charge them more for health insurance. But it is still happening.
No longer able to keep patients off their plans outright, insurers have resorted to other ways to discriminate and avoid paying for necessary treatments. Specifically, they have imposed specialty tiers and high copays or coinsurance for prescription drugs that effectively force sick people to delay needed care or to find a different health plan. So much for the end of preexisting conditions.
Covering fewer sick patients translates to bigger profits for Big Insurance, but less healthcare for those who need it most.
David Martin: Trump Surrogate Brigade’s Trademark Tactics Hit Galling New Low
Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler’s minister of propaganda, was famous for the “Big Lie” — the notion that an outrageous lie was more likely to be believed. This election season, Donald Trump’s spin doctors are gaining fame for their new creation: the “Lie, Pivot and False Equivalency.”
The current U.S. presidential race has taxed my patience, particularly when it comes to the ongoing torrent of sexist, racist, misogynistic and anti-democratic statements from one Donald J. Trump. The man definitely has a knack for annoyance although, at this stage, I find his pronouncements more humorous than annoying. [..]
Over the years, I’ve watched spin practitioners from both parties practice their dark art. The expectation, of course, has been that each “doctor” will put the best “spin” on his or her candidate. But in my experience, most such folks, both Democrats and Republicans, were at least willing to concede on obvious points. In this election cycle, however, that rule has gone out the window, at least for Trump’s operatives.
Charles M. Blow: Donald Trump’s Lack of Discipline and Discernment
Yes, we’re still talking about sex. Sigh.
On Tuesday night, during a fiery — and quite frankly, bizarre — interview on Fox News, the Trump supporter, walking contradiction and inflated ego Newt Gingrich yelled at the host, Megyn Kelly, about Trump’s own statements about sexually assaulting women and multiple women’s accusations that he had assaulted them.
When Kelly began a question with the phrase, “If Trump is a sexual predator…,” Newt went nuts, said Trump “is not a sexual predator,” chastised her for “using language that’s inflammatory” and claimed she was “fascinated with sex.”
This was an obscene spectacle, and not only because Gingrich has confessed to cheating on his wife at the same time that he was leading impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice related to having an affair. It was also obscene because of the continued tone deafness and abject ignorance within the Trump campaign and among its allies about the canyon of difference between sex and assault.
Sex, in all its range of expressions, including kissing and intimate touching, is consensual. Any forcible touching of another person’s body is sexual assault.
One should always be wary of people who don’t intuitively recognize that difference.
Lucia Graves: A short US election cycle sounds great, but it wouldn’t be good for democracy
I get it. Sheryl Crow’s call to shorten our presidential cycle will resonate with just about everyone this year. Who isn’t counting down the days until this is over? Even Hillary Clinton has been winding the months in balls.
As Crow points out in a petition on Change.org, which, as of Wednesday, had more than 40,000 signatures, this extended political circus is a singularly American phenomenon. “The 2016 election will have lasted nearly 600 days by the time polls close on Nov. 8. By comparison, Canada had its longest campaign season in recent history last year, and it lasted just 11 weeks,” she writes. “Countries across the globe have limited campaign seasons to as short as 6 weeks. With an organized system, a successful, informative, professional campaign could be run.” [..]
With all due respect, I don’t think Crow understands the value of what journalists have done this cycle. Muting the television won’t protect our kids from our reality. And reducing the amount of time we have to learn about the people running for the most powerful job in the world, particularly when so much of what comes out of their mouths is disinformation, won’t make it harder to fool the American public: it will make it infinitely easier.
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