Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media 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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Trump and the Attack of the Invisible Anarchists

Lurid fantasies about urban hellscapes are all he has left.

On Thursday morning I walked across much of Manhattan and back again. (Why are all the doctors’ offices on the East Side?) It was a beautiful day, and the city looked cheerful: Shops were open, people were drinking coffee in the sidewalk seating areas that have proliferated during the pandemic, Central Park was full of joggers and cyclists.

But I must have been imagining all that, because Donald Trump assures me that New York is beset by “anarchy, violence and destruction.”

With only two months left in the presidential campaign, Trump has evidently decided that he can neither run on his own record nor effectively attack Joe Biden. Instead, he’s running against anarchists who, he insists, secretly rule the Democratic Party and are laying waste to America’s cities.

There’s not much to be said about Trump’s claims that people “in the dark shadows” control Biden and that mysterious people dressed in black are menacing Republicans, except that not long ago it would have been inconceivable for any major-party politician to engage in this kind of conspiracy theorizing.

There’s a bit more to be said about his claims of rampant violence and destruction in “anarchic jurisdictions” — namely, that these claims bear little resemblance to the mostly peaceful reality.

Eugene Robinson:  Trump’s trying to scare up a win in November. Don’t assume it will work.

As President Trump frantically tries to frighten voters with the specter of “anarchists” and “looters” and planes full of black-clad “bad people” coming to menace your suburban neighborhood, take a trip down memory lane. Recall those desperate days of 2018, when the nation was sacked, pillaged and reduced to smoking ruins by vast, unstoppable caravans of marauding Latino migrants.

Except the invasion never arrived; the invading force, as Trump depicted it, never even existed. Which is my point.

This is not the first time Trump has tried to manufacture fear and loathing to swing an election in his favor. Two years ago, it didn’t work. Democrats seized control of the House, flipping 40 seats and transforming Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from minority leader into speaker.

That doesn’t mean the ploy is certain to fail now: Americans are under great strain from the covid-19 pandemic and the economic consequences of suppressing it. But 2018 does provide some context for Trump’s decision to use the continuing protests for racial justice as a wedge issue, abandoning any pretense of trying to promote understanding or heal long-festering wounds. Anyone who thinks this strategy is a guaranteed winner for Trump is simply wrong.

Amanda Marotte:  Trump has a plan to steal the election — in fact, he has a bunch of them

Voter suppression, legal dirty tricks and right-wing militias: Trump’s list of 2020 tactics is becoming clear

Donald Trump knows he is unlikely to win a fair election in 2020. But his strategies to cheat are so numerous and scattershot — did you catch that story about how acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf blocked a report about Russian propaganda? — that it’s tempting to take comfort in the hope that he has no overarching strategy to fake or steal a second term.

In truth, however, the sheer number of schemes in play is all the more reason to worry, because it shows Trump’s team is flexible and capable of adapting to changing circumstances. Worse yet, it shows they have a number of fallback plans. If one effort fails, then another effort might just work. Attacking our democracy on multiple fronts depletes the resources (time, money, energy) of their opponents, making it likelier that one effort will break through and be successful.

There is good news, however. A combination of Trump’s big mouth, the continued courage of whistleblowers and the fact that Republicans have to conduct a lot of their scheming through the media means that, with two months to go, Trump’s plans to distort, subvert or flat-out steal the election have come into view. Democrats, and anyone else who still believes in democracy, can avoid being caught flat-footed. What’s required is to take all this seriously, instead of hiding behind increasingly foolish hopes that it can’t happen here.

Because folks inevitably object to any proposal that Trump is scheming, on the grounds that he’s too dumb to pull any such thing off, let’s just get this out of the way: Trump doesn’t need to be smart. He just needs to surround himself with smart but immoral people. There’s significant evidence he has done just that.

Fred Kaplan:  It’s Time for Trump’s Generals to Go on the Record

Anonymously sourced horror stories just won’t cut it.

A new article by the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg could sink President Donald Trump’s prospects for reelection—but only if one more thing happens. [..]

udging from a recent poll in Military Times, Trump has already lost favor among active-duty military officers. The statements quoted in the Atlantic article could sink his presidency.

There is an obstacle, though. Goldberg notes that a White House spokesperson emailed him, after the story was posted, denouncing the entire report as “false.” Later in the evening, Trump himself tweeted that the story was “more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!”

The denial might carry some weight because all of Goldberg’s sources—some of them generals, including at least one four-star general—spoke to him on background (meaning they could be quoted but not identified by name). And so, it becomes a matter of Goldberg’s word versus Trump’s—or, in the eyes of Trump supporters, a “fake-news reporter” versus “my president.” As a result, the story, which would otherwise be political dynamite so close to an election, might shift few, if any, votes.

Here, then, is my proposal: If these stories are true, Goldberg’s sources—especially the generals, the more highly decorated, the better—must go on the record.

Julia Craven:  Even Honest Voting Mistakes Bring You Trouble in North Carolina

Trump urged his supporters to test a system that doesn’t take kindly to being tested.

During a Wednesday rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to vote twice—once by mail, then a second time in person—in order to ensure their ballots were counted.

This approach to voting would be a felony under North Carolina law. Subsequently, Trump claimed that officials will just throw out duplicate ballots. No harm, no foul. In North Carolina, there are a number of checks in place to make sure no one votes twice, including electronic poll books and post-election audits. Results of such checks are referred to local prosecutors who then decide how to move forward.

And, considering the overzealous nature of some district attorneys in North Carolina when it comes to voting, Trump is potentially doing his supporters a disservice—or at least ignoring recent history—by suggesting they can cast an unlawful ballot in the state without consequence.

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media 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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Harold Varmus and Rajiv Shah: It Has Come to This: Ignore the C.D.C.

Harold Varmus is a former director of the National Institutes of Health. Rajiv Shah is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation.

The agency’s new guidelines are wrong, so states have to step up on their own to suppress the coronavirus.

We were startled and dismayed last week to learn that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a perplexing series of statements, had altered its testing guidelines to reduce the testing of asymptomatic people for the coronavirus.

These changes by the C.D.C. will undermine efforts to end the pandemic, slow the return to normal economic, educational and social activities, and increase the loss of lives.

Like other scientists and public health experts, we have argued that more asymptomatic people, not fewer, need to be tested to bring the pandemic under control. Now, in the face of a dysfunctional C.D.C., it’s up to states, other institutions and individuals to act.

Understanding what needs to be done requires understanding the different purposes of testing. Much of the current testing is diagnostic. People should get tested if they have symptoms — respiratory distress, loss of smell, fever. There is no argument about this testing, and the altered C.D.C. guidelines do not affect it.

But under its revised guidelines, the C.D.C. seeks to dissuade people who are asymptomatic from being tested. Yet this group poses both the greatest threat to pandemic control and the greatest opportunity to bring the pandemic to an end. It is with this group that our country has failed most miserably.

Amanda Marcotte:  How anti-choice propaganda trained Republicans to accept Trump’s coronavirus denialism

Trump’s new medical adviser peddles a familiar model of deceit: Wrap lies and right-wing ideology in a lab coat

Donald Trump didn’t like what the experts were telling him about the coronavirus pandemic, so he found a guy with “Dr.” in front of his name who will tell the president the bedtime stories he wants to hear. Dr. Scott Atlas isn’t an expert in infectious disease or epidemiology, as are coronavirus task force advisers Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom he has pretty much usurped. Atlas is a radiologist and, more importantly, a senior fellow at the far-right bad-idea incubator known as the Hoover Institution (previously home to the infamous prediction that the U.S. death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic would be around 5,000).  [..]

Atlas has questioned whether wearing face masks slows viral spread (it does) and pushed for the CDC to change its recommendation on coronavirus testing to cover only people with symptoms, even though the science clearly shows that asymptomatic people are spreading the disease — and may indeed be a principal vector for spread.

Perhaps most distressingly, Atlas is reportedly behind Trump’s new enthusiasm for “herd immunity,” which is the latest euphemism for a non-policy letting the coronavirus run rampant, like a nationwide chicken pox party. Actual scientific experts in disease are uniformly against this idea, because it would dramatically raise the death rate and likely wouldn’t restore the economy anytime soon, as huge percentages of the population would continue to stay home rather than be part of President Bleach-Injector’s deadly science experiment.

Charles M. Blow: Age and Health on the Ballot

Trump and Biden are both elderly men. Voters should focus on policy and character.  

Listen, the truth is that Trump and Biden are two elderly men. Their age will manifest in their appearance and comportment, and because we are human beings, our health has a natural cognitive decline as we grow older. Those are just facts.

We as voters have to decide to what degree those things should matter in the selection of a president. Being healthy enough to do the job sounds like a simple standard, but that metric can easily tip over into ageism.

Is the slurring of words, the searching for words, or a feeble comportment not to be expected, even if occasionally, of septuagenarians? I search for words now more than I used to and I’m 50.

Still, to some degree, front-of-mind or not, age and health will be on the ballot in November. But it seems to me that the concern over the health of these two candidates cancels each other out. If so, what remains are policy and character, and on those measures the choice is clear.

Kitty Richards and Joseph E. Stiglitz: Doesn’t Feel Like a Recession? You Should Be Paying More in Taxes

Ms. Richards is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, where Mr. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is the chief economist.

It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s good economics.

As the coronavirus pandemic — and Congress’s undersize response — wreaks havoc throughout the economy, tax receipts are cratering. This means that state and local governments are facing enormous revenue shortfalls at the exact time they are dealing with large additional demands. So far, states and localities have responded by slashing spending and jobs, with 1.5 million public-sector workers laid off by the end of June.

The federal government, which unlike most states does not have to balance its budget every year, could solve the problem tomorrow by providing fiscal relief to states and localities, like the $1 trillion provided by the HEROES Act that passed the House in May.

But regardless of whether Congress acts, states and localities can bolster their local economies and support their residents by raising taxes on those who have not been hard hit by the recession. This is not only the right thing to do from a humanitarian standpoint, it is sound economics. [..]

The economic impact of the pandemic is daunting, and it would be better for the federal government to step in. But Americans are living through a catastrophe. They cannot afford for their state and local leaders to abdicate responsibility. States, cities and school districts must require their wealthiest residents to pay higher taxes right now.

The alternative is unacceptable: cutbacks in basic services that will weaken our social fabric and harm our potential for years to come, and a grinding recession that may last for years after the pandemic is brought under control.

Richard Wolffe:  Trump is trying to pin Kenosha on Biden – but he created the chaos and violence

Make no mistake: this is Trump’s America, where protesters are shot by vigilantes as police look on  

Donald Trump took a trip to a place called Biden’s America on Tuesday. It is a strange land where the president of the United States is a helpless guest, a doomed corner of his own country that is somehow ruled by a former vice president.

It is a topsy-turvy place, this Biden’s America. Occasionally, the president can regain his magical ruling powers by summoning assorted minions in uniforms and incanting a spell with his thumbs to tweet the words LAW AND ORDER.

But mostly our president is lawless and disorderly, wandering through a country that has been laid low by a virus from China, a candidate from Delaware, and a bunch of friendly questions from Fox News.

He is as befuddled as anyone on Facebook about what the hell is going on around him. But rather than trying to fix this dysfunctional version of the land of the free, he prefers to scare the bejesus out of white voters so they might forget this historic pandemic and recession. [..]

The last Republican president to promise to keep us safe was George W Bush, running for re-election after 9/11. But every few days in Trump’s America, we lose more Americans to the rampant pandemic than to the terrorist attacks that traumatized this nation 19 years ago.

That’s not just weird. It’s the symptom of a political sickness inflicted by three and a half years of a lawless and lying president. This is Trump’s America, and we just vote in it.

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media 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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Susan E. Rice: Trump Isn’t Here to Serve the People

He has shown that we need new laws to constrain an executive who seeks unchecked power.

Desperate to salvage his presidency, Donald Trump is inciting racial violence by encouraging armed vigilantes to confront protesters angry over the killing and maiming of unarmed Black people by the police. The president is stoking civil conflict to distract voters from his failed leadership and strengthen his electoral prospects.

Deadly as it is, Mr. Trump’s latest tactic reflects his view of the presidency as the tool of one man. Rather than serve the people, Mr. Trump is trying to extend his time in office while undermining any constraints on his power.

Across the executive branch, Mr. Trump and his appointees have flouted long-honored norms and violated laws with relative impunity. They have succeeded largely because Senate Republicans have sacrificed oversight and accountability on the altar of subservience to this president so long as it preserves their majority control.

Under Donald Trump, the abuses have touched almost every corner of government, suggesting the president views democracy itself as his opponent.

Karen Bass: People of color are disproportionately affected by covid-19. Yet they are underrepresented in vaccine trials.

Karen Bass, a Democrat, represents California’s 37th District in the House of Representatives and is chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Six months into our battle against covid-19, the disease has killed more than 181,000 Americans, and the pandemic continues to disproportionately affect communities of color. Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Pacific Islanders and Native Americans are significantly more likely than White Americans to be diagnosed with covid-19, be hospitalized over it and die of the disease.

Despite these appalling trends, the most promising covid-19 vaccine trials are reportedly failing to recruit participants of color. This threatens the trials’ validity, since vaccine candidates can vary in effectiveness across different racial and ethnic groups. It is also potentially catastrophic for people of color, who are disproportionately represented among front-line and essential workers — and who are suffering the worst health and economic effects of this pandemic.

Facing criticism, pharmaceutical executives appear to be scrambling to assure the public that people of color will be well represented in vaccine trials. Too much is at stake to not get this right.

Amanda Marcotte:  Trump and his allies are redefining right-wing violence as “self-defense”: That’s a dark path

In TrumpWorld, fanatical violence is “self-defense” — so long as white right-wing wackos are the perpetrators

Here’s the first thing to notice about the horrific news cycle of the past few days: Donald Trump is openly stoking right-wing violence, in no small part, because it bumps the coronavirus pandemic (6 million cases and rising, more than 183,000 dead) and the economic crisis (10% unemployment and 29 million Americans going hungry) out of the headlines.

The second thing to note is that it’s nonetheless a terrifying development that will almost certainly lead to more violence, especially in light of what promises to be a chaotic but close election, where violent tactics and intimidation could affect the outcome. [..]

The right to self-defense is enshrined in the law: It’s supposed to be a right to take actions that are necessary to protect one’s life or the lives of others. But in Trump’s America, the right to “self-defense” has become a question of identity. White conservatives get to claim self-defense, no matter how clearly they instigate violence, because they view the rest of us as inherently threatening.

Giving right-wingers carte blanche for acts of violence, under the guise of self-defense, clearly raises the tension at an incredibly tense moment in America. That’s what Donald Trump wants, of course. He is trailing Joe Biden in the polls, and clearly intends to claim the election was “rigged” if he loses. If you’re planning to reject election results, and to refuse to accede to the peaceful transfer of power, it would sure help to have masses of armed supporters who believe that it’s acceptable to shoot first in the name of “self-defense.” That’s exactly the army Trump is hoping to build with this reckless rhetoric.

Katrina vanden Heuvel:  Trump hasn’t ended endless wars. Congress must use the War Powers Resolution.

Speakers at last week’s Republican National Convention lauded President Trump as a foe of endless wars. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) praised the president for “bringing our men and women home,” while Eric Trump claimed that his father accomplished “peace in the Middle East. Never-ending wars were finally ended.”

Just hours later, we learned of a direct clash between U.S. and Russian troops in northern Syria. Military vehicles from each country raced in an open field until a Russian vehicle collided with a U.S. vehicle, injuring four Americans, with each side claiming the other was to blame. Former administration official Brett McGurk noted that “these incidents have been ongoing for months.”

How did we arrive at a situation where the two most heavily armed nuclear powers are facing off in rural Syria without congressional authorization?  [..]

The predictable results of this reckless policy are now coming to a head. Nearly seven years after Congress blocked Obama from directly engaging in military action against Russia and the Syrian government, the Trump administration is blatantly deepening U.S. involvement in the very conflict that Congress and the American people resoundingly rejected. If Congress doesn’t rein in this president now, the potential for an escalation will only increase.

Heather Digby Parton:  “American carnage” in Kenosha: Trump comes closer to advocating right-wing terror

Trump has flirted with right-wing vigilantism for years. His re-election strategy seems to be a full-on embrace

In the aftermath of tragedies and disasters, the country naturally turns to the president for words of reassurance. Whether it’s a mass shooting or a terrorist attack or a hurricane — all events that happen more often than we’d like — the president is called upon to comfort those directly affected and bring the nation together to face whatever the aftermath might be.

Depending on your political bent, you might think of Ronald Reagan after the Challenger explosion saying, “We will never forget them as they ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.'” Or maybe George W. Bush standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center or speaking at the Islamic Center of Washington six days after the attacks to quote from the Quran and declare that “Islam is peace.” I think of Barack Obama singing “Amazing Grace” after the Charleston church massacre and Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing, saying, “You have lost too much, but you have not lost everything. And you have certainly not lost America, for we will stand with you for as many tomorrows as it takes.”

This is a big part of the job that presidents are required to perform, and certainly some are better at it than others. But no president has ever been as terrible at the task as Donald Trump. He is simply incapable of being empathetic or reassuring. He doesn’t even try. Instead of trying to bring the country together in a time of almost unprecedented stress and trauma, he has decided to intensify the nation’s anxiety for his own personal and political gain. If there’s ever been a more cynical election strategy I can’t think of it.

Trump and his campaign are making no secret of the fact that they believe protests and civil unrest will make people vote for a second term and so they are stoking the discord as much as possible. They think they can finesse his administration’s disastrous response to the deadly pandemic and the resulting economic catastrophe by ginning up chaos in the streets and focusing people’s attention away from the other problems in their lives and aiming their anxiety at Black Lives Matter protesters, progressives and big cities.