“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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David Leonhardt: A Vote of Conscience and Courage
Forget for a minute about partisan labels and listen to members of the United States Senate talk about why they work in politics.
Rob Portman talks about a 16-year-old constituent who died of a drug overdose — and about honoring his life by fighting drug use. Lisa Murkowski talks about protecting children from fetal alcohol disorders, and Lamar Alexander speaks about premature babies.
There are many more stories like these, and they’re not only for show. They reflect deeply held beliefs that senators have about themselves.
Republican or Democrat, they see themselves as public servants — their preferred term for politicians — trying to make life better for their fellow Americans. Sure, when they’re being honest, they admit that they enjoy the power and perks. But even with all of the cynicism Washington engenders, senators still take pride in the high ideals of politics.
This week, these senators will face a career-defining choice.
Eugene Robinson: Is the GOP trying to repeal and replace itself?
This is a week to keep focused on the most urgent question in domestic policy and politics: Will Republicans snatch health insurance from millions of Americans and slash the vital Medicaid program by $770 billion , all to enable massive tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful?
Plenty of other news is vying for attention. President Trump spent Monday morning venting on Twitter about how President Barack Obama did “NOTHING about Russia” and its election meddling — despite Trump’s frequent claims that the whole Russia controversy is “fake news” and a Democratic Party “hoax.” The Supreme Court has agreed to rule on Trump’s travel ban, which lower courts have deemed unconstitutional; and to decide whether business owners who claim religious objections to same-sex marriage can refuse to provide goods or services for gay couples’ weddings.
There’s much to say about all of those topics, and there will be occasions to say it. But meanwhile Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is trying to ram through legislation that would return us to the days when hard-working families had to choose between seeing a doctor and paying the rent — legislation that will surely cost lives.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Trump’s chaos is covering for stealth escalation overseas
While Washington is fixated on President Trump’s tweets, antics, lies and Russiagate, the administration is ramping up a stealth escalation of our military involvement across the Middle East. As Naomi Klein warns, Trump’s “rolling shock of the chaos and spectacle” distracts from radical actions both at home and abroad. Across the Middle East, the administration drives the United States ever further into wars without end, increasing the dangers of direct military confrontation with Russia and Iran, with little awareness and no mandate from the American people. This is a recipe for calamity. [..]
But the reality is that we are headed into more war without public support, without a sensible strategy or a clear purpose. Americans are tired of wars without end. The response is to fight wars on the quiet: substituting technology for troops to lower our casualties. What is needed now is not a blank check but public hearings that will expose the increasingly dangerous reality to the American people. We don’t need a rubber-stamp Congress. We need someone with a backbone to stand up as Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.) did in 1966, convening hearings that exposed the folly in Vietnam and explored ways to bring the conflict to an end. Where is the Republican Fulbright of today who will question our current course before it is too late?
Moustafa Bayoumi: Trump doesn’t want Muslims in the US. That’s OK with the supreme court
The US supreme court has decided that parts of Donald Trump’s Muslim ban can take effect, lifting lower court injunctions on his executive order and noting that it would hear the case in October. Days earlier, Trump’s White House broke with decades of tradition by refusing to host a traditional dinner, an iftar, for Muslim Americans during the holy month of Ramadan.
While failing to host a dinner seems minor compared to establishing the law of the land, these two events are closely related – and bode terribly for Muslim Americans. Why? Because both actions chip away at the essential idea that Muslims are a legitimate presence in the United States.
Over the next several days, we will no doubt hear copious commentary on the supreme court’s opinion, with some legal scholars arguing that the court has not really sided with Trump because people from the six Muslim-majority countries listed in the executive order will still be allowed entry to the US if they can show that they have a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States”.
Richard North Patterson: Trump’s Legal Apologists Advocate Autocracy
Faced with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, President Trump’s enablers strive to place him beyond the rule of law.
Start with Trump and the FBI. No matter that, by his own admission, Trump fired James Comey to stop the Russia investigation, or that he attempted to protect Michael Flynn — and, most likely, himself — by intimidating the FBI director. As a matter of law, they insist, these actions cannot further an obstruction of justice.
This proposition is spurious — one bullet in a fusillade of sophistry aimed at our constitutional democracy.
For good reason, federal obstruction statutes are interpreted broadly. They include anyone who “corruptly … endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice” or “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding.”
So what legal principles insulate Trump from charges of obstruction? None. Instead, advocates offer a patchwork of discrete and legally insufficient assertions divorced from their factual and legal context.
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