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: The Very Strong Case for Bidenomics

The former vice president’s tax and spending claims are credible; Trump’s aren’t.

Thanks to Donald Trump’s shouting and nonstop lying, there wasn’t much of a substantive policy discussion at the debate on Tuesday.

But there were some broad — and unsurprisingly, false — assertions about economic policy. Joe Biden claimed that his tax and spending plans would create millions of jobs and promote economic growth. Trump claimed that they would destroy the economy.

Well, everything we know suggests that Biden was right and Trump wrong. And I’m not the only one saying this. Nonpartisan analysts like Moody’s Analytics and the not-exactly-socialist economists at Goldman Sachs are remarkably high on Biden’s proposals. [..]

But if you’re trying to assess the candidates’ economic claims, you should know that Trump’s predictions of a Biden bust lack credibility, not just because Trump lies about everything, but because Republicans always predict disaster from progressive policy, and have never yet been right.

And you should also know that Biden’s assertions that his plan would give the economy a significant boost are well grounded in mainstream economics and supported by independent, nonpartisan analyses.

So Biden’s economic claims are, in fact, credible; Trump’s aren’t.

Amanda Marcotte: Trump has COVID-19: More evidence that he’s always put his ego ahead of public health

Relax — Donny SuperSpreader can’t benefit from catching a virus he has claimed affects “virtually nobody”

Did you know that Donald Trump needs to wear reading glasses?

It’s reasonable that you might not know that. The president, who may have both the biggest and most fragile ego on the planet, goes to great pains to hide the fact that, like most people over 70, he can’t read printed text without a little magnification. But there’s proof, in the form of a video deposition in the Trump University fraud case that the folks at Mother Jones got their hands on recently.

To be clear, Mother Jones reporter David Corn takes the high road in his story, focusing on the facts of the case without even mentioning that Trump must put on his glasses to read the legal documents. I am not so noble. It’s just more proof that Trump, who loves to rant in disconcertingly fascistic fashion about his “good genes,” is obsessed with presenting himself as some kind of Übermensch who is untouched by the biological realities of aging, even those that people can see with their own two eyes. He has made his doctor deny that he’s fat. He has denied having “mini-strokes” — which was very strange, because no one had said he did. He spends an ungodly amount of time and money on that elaborate combover to make it look like he’s not balding.

Now the phony Übermensch has COVID-19. While we can expect Trump will do his level best to hide any symptoms, he can no longer pretend that he’s somehow above ordinary human weaknesses, such as catching a highly contagious disease.

Trump’s ego, coupled with his disgust for any kind of physical fragility — this is the man who sneered about wounded war veterans that “nobody wants to see that” — has been a major reason that the coronavirus pandemic spiraled out of control in this country.

Heather Digby Parton: Trump’s diagnosis could change everything — but GOP still scheming to suppress vote

With Trump in quarantine and his campaign suspended, don’t think Republicans are dropping their nefarious schemes

Leave it to Donald Trump to test positive for COVID-19 just two days after a disastrous debate performance. It’s tempting to think this is yet another of his reality show stunts, but it’s hard to believe that he could get away with faking something like this considering that the Trump White House leaks like a sieve. It’s more likely he does have the virus and his best-case scenario will be that he’s one of the lucky asymptomatic cases and can spend the rest of the campaign testifying to his youthfulness and strength, no doubt attributable to “good genes.”

As the man himself says, “We’ll see what happens.”

Meanwhile, there’s still a lot going on that requires some sustained attention from the American people, none more important than the ongoing threat that the election, now just a month away, is going to be sabotaged. I don’t use that word lightly. It is becoming very obvious that this is being planned and will be implemented in an attempt to ensure that Trump cannot lose.

In fact, according to some incredible reporting by Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times Magazine, Republican operatives were locked and loaded back in 2016, but just didn’t need to pull the trigger. They had lawyers at the ready to contest the election on the basis of “voter fraud” in all those close states if it had gone the other way.

Rutenberg’s story makes the often-overlooked point that this is not really a Trump operation. Sure, he said back in 2016 that he wouldn’t accept the results unless he won and this time he’s telling his voters that the only way he can lose is if the vote is rigged. But this isn’t his idea. He’s just the first Republican to crudely telegraph the plan ahead of time.

David cay Johnston: Here’s why we should hope Trump survives his fight with COVID-19

Donald Trump’s late night tweet that he and his wife have contracted COVID brings to mind the word “hope” in four ways, all of them tests of the character of Americans.

First, we should hope he is telling the truth. Trump lies so often and easily that this could just be an excuse to hide from further debates with Joe Biden.

If it seems hard to imagine that Trump would lie about the pernicious virus that has killed more than 208,000 Americans just think about the more than 20,000 lies he has told since becoming our president. Sadly, Donald can never be trusted.

Second, we should hope that Trump and his much younger wife recover fully and are healthy again well before Nov. 3. America needs a clean referendum on Trump’s presidency, not a vote about an ailing or even dead man.

Trump will lose the popular vote by at least 16 million ballots, hopefully by more than 20 million. Our democracy needs an unambiguous rejection of Trump. And voters need to disentangle themselves from his smack of moral jellyfish — the blind, spineless Republicans who abandoned principle and their oath to defend our Constitution to toss themselves into his waves of political chaos.

Paul Waldman: Trump thought he could beat the virus with spin. That’s why he’s now infected.

“I think masks are okay,” President Trump said at the debate on Tuesday, but emphasized that Joe Biden was going too far with mask-wearing. “I don’t wear a mask like him. Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”

Trump’s point was that Biden wears a mask even when it might not be completely necessary, and that such caution is essentially performative and thus should be regarded with contempt. In other words, Biden is just doing it for show.

But with Trump now testing positive for the novel coronavirus (along with his wife, the chair of the Republican Party and who knows how many others in and around the White House) the full consequences of his double failure on the pandemic are becoming clear. And ironically — since this is a president who cares about the show above all — it’s his messaging that has caused the most damage. Even to himself. [..]

That covid came to the Oval Office is not at all a surprise. In fact, it might have been inevitable. Trump was so worried about how the politics of the pandemic would affect him that he opened the door for the virus itself to spread. And like the rest of us, he’s facing the 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

Amanda Marcotte: Trump’s plot to steal the election can be defeated: Here are five things you can do to help

Don’t panic! Trump wants to steal the election, but he can be stopped — as long as everyone does their part

During Tuesday night’s debate, Donald Trump, who has gone pure fascist, once again escalated his efforts to scare people out of voting. He encouraged his followers to engage in voter intimidation under the guise of “poll watching,” and told armed hate groups to “stand by.” Trump also floated a number of baseless conspiracy theories about “voter fraud” that are clearly designed to discourage voting and rationalize legal efforts to stop votes from being counted. [..]

Trump can’t win a free and fair election, and he knows it. So he’s doing everything in his power to keep Americans from having one. As the New York Times reported on Thursday morning, Republicans, in their efforts to save Trump, are using every dirty trick in the book to stop people from voting.

Times are scary. It’s understandable to feel demoralized, but it is more important than ever not to give into that feeling. Trump and Republicans want you to feel despair. Despair leads to inaction, which makes it a lot easier for Trump to pull this off.

Instead, it’s time to get angry, and to use that anger to propel you into action. Trump may want to steal the election, but wanting isn’t having. He can be defeated. He will likely be defeated — as long as everyone does their part to stop him.

With that in mind, here are five things you can do, starting today, to fight back and keep Trump from stealing this election.

Richard Wolffe: Trump heckled, bullied and lied through the debate. It won’t help him beat Biden

The president is behind in key states. Fighting on TV won’t turn things around or win over the sliver of undecided voters left

In a bar-room brawl, who wins the fight? The guy swinging his fists or the guy clutching his drink?

From the very first minute of the first presidential debate, the 45th president behaved as he has for the last four years: as unpresidential as possible.

He heckled. He bullied. He blustered and he lied. He came out swinging and didn’t mind where his fists landed: his opponent, the moderator, the Biden family, the microphones. It didn’t much matter. [..]

Biden sounded unsettled by the first round of the Trump onslaught. He lost his train of thought as Trump never ceased to talk over him.

If Democrats were hoping that Biden would box Trump in, they were surely disappointed. Biden’s most effective response was to laugh at the brawling around him.

But something funny happened on the way to Trump’s next swing of the fists: a pandemic. Covid-19 stopped the presidential yapping, briefly. Then Biden made a statement of the obvious, by questioning whether Trump was smart enough to handle the coronavirus.

“Did you use the word smart,” the un-president barked. “Don’t ever use the word smart with me.”

So easily offended, yet so quick to offend. Donald Trump is a heavyweight slugger with a fondant center.

Eugene Robinson: Imagine what it will be like to never have to think about Trump again

It’s within reach. We can vote him out of office — and out of our minds.

If you are like me and you watched Tuesday’s debate with a voice in your head screaming make it stop, take heart: We have the power to do just that. We can evict President Trump from the territory he has forcibly seized in our minds. We can — we must — vote him out of our thoughts.

We can remove this awful man from our collective headspace, which he has so thoroughly befouled. We can reclaim our serenity, our equilibrium, our sense 0f common humanity. We can return to a time when it was possible to go hours or even entire days without once thinking about what our president might be saying or doing. We can exhale.

At a recent rally in North Carolina, Trump was making one of his rambling attempts to mock Joe Biden when he told the crowd: “If I lose to him, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I will never speak to you again. You’ll never see me again.” Biden’s social media team quickly posted a clip of Trump’s remarks, then added a zinger: “I’m Joe Biden, and I approve this message.” [..]

If Biden wins the election, Trump will not go happily and might not go easily. But he will indeed go — and when he leaves the White House, he will also vacate our national consciousness, giving us all some psychic room to breathe.

A vote for Biden is more than a vote for sane governance. It is a vote for American sanity, period.

Jill Filipovic: Masculinity is a force in the US election – and women are responding accordingly

Women are increasingly rejecting Trump’s ruthless version of manhood. The same can not be said for white men

Tuesday night’s presidential debate was a lot of things: a debacle, a degradation, a disaster. But it was also a story about gender, and what it looks like when men lean on tired versions of white manliness to win.

Donald Trump’s entire political career has rested on aggrieved white masculinity. In the president’s view – and the view of many of his followers – there is one way to be a man: you dominate, you hurt people, you use any means necessary to assert yourself as the top dog in the pack. You don’t need to earn respect or demonstrate competence in order to be elevated. You don’t need to play by the rules. You don’t need to be a good sportsman. You just need to win.

This was all on full display at the first debate. Trump interrupted Joe Biden so often that the debate wound up largely content-free. When Trump spoke, he offered virtually nothing of substance; he used his time, instead, to berate Biden, Democrats, the left, Bernie Sanders and anything else that crossed his mind. He was vulgar, aggressive and rude, refusing to abide by the rules he agreed to beforehand. He was a know-nothing bully.