“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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Bruce Fein: There Should Be A Litmus Test Before Confirming Attorney General Nominee Jeff Sessions
Limitless executive power has wounded the Constitution and the rule of law. The wounds may soon compound. [..]
The foremost role of the Attorney General (akin to Horatius at the Bridge) is to protect the Constitution from presidential vandalizing.
President-elect Trump has nominated Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, which is subject to Senate confirmation under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.
The Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate are saddled with the solemn responsibility of insuring that the nominee is qualified to prevent President-elect Trump from vandalizing the Constitution. Meticulous and fair public hearings on Mr. Sessions’ nomination are imperative.
A multi-pronged litmus test should be applied.
Paul Krugman: The Populism Perplex1
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than two million, and she would probably be president-elect if the director of the F.B.I. hadn’t laid such a heavy thumb on the scales, just days before the election. But it shouldn’t even have been close; what put Donald Trump in striking distance was overwhelming support from whites without college degrees. So what can Democrats do to win back at least some of those voters?
Recently Bernie Sanders offered an answer: Democrats should “go beyond identity politics.” What’s needed, he said, are candidates who understand that working-class incomes are down, who will “stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry.”
But is there any reason to believe that this would work? Let me offer some reasons for doubt.
Jim Hightower: Trump’s excess serving of braggadocio makes this election year a particularly baffling one
What an election year! I feel like I’ve been transported through a cosmic squirrel hole and into a baffling political universe where facts are fiction, bizarre is normal and corruption is a virtue. Am I hallucinating? Or has this insanity really happened?
Since I can’t yet conjure up the deep meanings (or lack thereof) in this year’s national vote, I’ll offer instead a reflection on some of the oddities from this rutted and potholed general election road we’ve traveled, jouncing through the destruction brought largely by the furies howling from deep within the Donald. [..]
Trump’s limitless ego wasn’t the worst of the spectacle, of course. Again and again this year, packs of Republican Congress critters rushed to the media to denounce the boorish comments and bullying behavior of their party’s presidential nominee. And then having blasted Trump as being somewhere between thuggish and morally depraved, they proceeded to urge voters to elect the brute our nation’s leader.
Dean Baker: The Republican Deficit Hawks Abandon Their Religion
Remember all those times the Republicans in Congress shut down the government and threatened to default on the debt? The ostensible cause was the out of control deficit. Back in the day when President Obama was drafting the budget, these Republicans were arguing that the national debt threatened the well-being of our children and grandchildren. They claimed to view deficit reduction as a sacred cause.
Well, we’re about to see a religious conversion of world historic size as the Republican Party, and its congressional leader Paul Ryan, convert from deficit hawks to big spenders. With Donald Trump in the White House, we’re going to discover that they think large deficits are just fine.
Mark Brenner: This Is Not a Drill: Bracing for the Trump Era
Donald Trump’s win is the gut-punch finale to a surreal election season. For thousands of rank-and-file activists the outcome is even more bitter after the inspiration and energy stirred up by Bernie Sanders’ improbable campaign.
Unfortunately, we don’t need a crystal ball to figure out what a Trump presidency has in store for labor, especially with Republicans controlling the House and the Senate.
National “right-to-work” legislation, outsourcing and privatizing more public services, large-scale deportations, a ban on prevailing-wage laws, pulling the plug on Obamacare — these are just the tip of the iceberg. So after we mourn, we need to organize.
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