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: Stocks Are Soaring. So Is Misery.

Optimism about Apple’s future profits won’t pay this month’s rent.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 stock index hit a record high. The next day, Apple became the first U.S. company in history to be valued at more than $2 trillion. Donald Trump is, of course, touting the stock market as proof that the economy has recovered from the coronavirus; too bad about those 173,000 dead Americans, but as he says, “It is what it is.”

But the economy probably doesn’t feel so great to the millions of workers who still haven’t gotten their jobs back and who have just seen their unemployment benefits slashed. The $600 a week supplemental benefit enacted in March has expired, and Trump’s purported replacement is basically a sick joke. [..]

But how can there be such a disconnect between rising stocks and growing misery? Wall Street types, who do love their letter games, are talking about a “K-shaped recovery”: rising stock valuations and individual wealth at the top, falling incomes and deepening pain at the bottom. But that’s a description, not an explanation. What’s going on?

Michelle Goldberg: Trumpism Is a Racket, and Steve Bannon Knew It

In the MAGA movement, you’re either a predator or a mark.

In the most recent Senate Intelligence report on Russian campaign interference, a footnote quotes Steve Bannon, the former chief executive of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, disparaging Trump’s oldest son. Bannon said he thought “very highly” of Donald Trump Jr., but also called him “a guy who believes everything on Breitbart is true.”

Bannon, of course, ran Breitbart, the far-right media outlet, before joining the Trump campaign, and then for several months after leaving the White House. Yet he seemed to want the senators to know that he was never enough of a rube to take his own propaganda seriously. [..]

Bannon himself was apprehended on a yacht belonging to the Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui; The Wall Street Journal reported that a media company the two men are involved with is being investigated by federal and state authorities.

The social philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote that in America, every mass movement “ends up as a racket, a cult or a corporation.” Trumpism reversed this. The racket came first.

Amanda Marcotte: Joe Biden seizes the spotlight with a simple argument: Vote for me, I’m not a sociopath

Joe Biden ends the convention with the speech of his life — and a vision of life on the other side of this hell

The first three nights of the Democratic National Convention brimmed with content that was alternately frightening and depressing, which was entirely appropriate under the circumstances. The country is in crisis, with 1,000 Americans dying a day of COVID-19 and more than 10% unemployment. (Quite likely a lot more.) As I wrote after the first night, there was something validating about the grim and claustrophobic vibe of this affair, which reflected the very depression settling over America, which we’re all feeling but is not often mentioned in political discourse.

But it was critical that the last night offer viewers something else — a spark of hope and joy, and a vision of what life might look like once we get to the other side of our current national nightmare. People need some idea what the future could be like under President Joe Biden. And indeed Democrats delivered a largely successful effort to inject some fun and optimism —and, yes, a view of life beyond Donald Trump — as they kicked off what is sure to be a grueling fall campaign. [..]

Meanwhile, outside the hyper-rehearsed and produced world of the conventions, another of Trump’s 2016 campaign officials — Steve Bannon — has been arrested. And despite assurances that he would stop slowing down the mail, and thereby throwing the election into doubt, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, keeps kneecapping the Postal Service most voters will rely on this fall. The chaos is deepening, and it’s going to be a long two and a half months until Nov. 3. At least Joe Biden made the strongest possible case for himself, and delivered a real sense of possibility. Now we must wait to see whether it worked.

Richard Wolffe: Obama returned to torment Trump in ways that only a member of the Oval Office club can

The former president accused of being a foreigner detailed how deeply un-American his accuser really is

Like bankruptcy, political influence moves gradually, then suddenly. On the penultimate night of this unconventional Democratic convention, the pace of that transition visibly accelerated.

For most of the last four years, America’s political conversation has been dominated by the foghorn squeezed night and day by a hair-dried troll. This has been an alarmingly loud, but increasingly tedious monologue.

Without an appropriate adversary, Donald Trump has stalked and skulked the stage: alternately ignoring and inventing enemies, alienating friends and befriending alien forces. It has been a confusing and soulless spectacle. Like the evil genius Megamind, he desperately needs an opponent to define his own brand of mindless destruction.

On Wednesday, the animating force behind Trump’s animus reappeared on screen to declare the beginning of the end of the Trump era – or democracy as we know it.

Barack Obama has loomed large over everything that passes for a political thought inside the skull of his successor. If Obama enacted it or even liked it – from healthcare to a pandemic playbook to American democracy – it becomes, for Trump, a singular focus of his destructive powers.

Heather Digby Parton: Steve Bannon and Louis DeJoy: Different wings of Trump’s empire of corruption

With Bannon indicted and DeJoy hauled before Congress, Trump’s corrupt regime may be coming unglued at last

As the Democrats staged a successful virtual telethon-style convention over the past four days, Donald Trump has been running around the country saying that there’s no way he can lose the election unless it’s “rigged” and telling Fox News that he plans to send law enforcement to polling places, “to Democrat areas, not to the Republican areas, as an example. Could be the other way too, but I doubt it.” He’s also pretty much endorsed the conspiracy cult QAnon, saying they are people who like him “very much.” On Thursday he watched yet another of his 2016 campaign leaders hauled off in handcuffs by federal agents.

It would be just another week in the surreal world of Donald Trump if it weren’t for the fact that the election is just around the corner and his rantings have become quite serious. Certainly, seeing his former White House strategist and campaign “CEO” Steve Bannon face indictment, on the same day that another judge ruled he would have to turn over his tax returns to New York prosecutors, may have focused the mind. [..]

On Friday we will see yet another corrupt Trump henchman appear on Capitol Hill when Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor, testifies before the Senate. The sabotage of the U.S. Postal Service in advance of the election is almost certainly the most corrupt act this administration has yet undertaken.

Trump openly admitted that he opposes funding the post office in order to make mail-in voting impossible during the pandemic. It’s pretty clear that the point of the various “efficiencies” DeJoy has implemented in the past few weeks, such as destroying sorting machines, removing mailboxes and ending overtime for mail carriers, are designed to make mail-in voting difficult or impossible during this deadly pandemic.

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: Kamala Harris’ big night: Democrats foreground “women’s issues” as urgent, universal concerns

On convention’s third night, women’s issues—immigration, climate change, child care, gun violence—took center stage

The official theme of the third night of the Democratic National Convention, the night that Sen. Kamala Harris of California accepted the nomination as Joe Biden’s running mate, was “A More Perfect Union.” It soon became clear, however, that the real theme of the evening was Ladies Night.

This convention has been geared towards women from the get-go — not only are women the majority of Democrats, they are the majority of voters, period — with female faces and issues that rate highly with female voters foregrounded. But Wednesday night went well beyond that. [..]

It’s tempting to sneer and make accusations of pandering because, truth be told, most things that are marketed to women tend to be wrapped in maximum condescension. Paint it in pink, put some glitter on it, make it “sassy” and the ladies will eat it up, right?

But the truth is that the night was nothing like that. Instead, women were addressed not as pink-bedazzled materialistic morons, but smart people with a vested interest in important issues, including many that aren’t traditionally coded as female. The issues that were highlighted on Wednesday — immigration, climate change, gun control, violence against women, child care — were clearly chosen not based on sexist assumptions, but actual research into the issues that women actually care about.

Charles M. Blow: A Convention Without Convening That Succeeds

We get to see some of the biggest names in the liberal cause remind us of what decency looks like.

I have been to several presidential nominating conventions. My first was Bill Clinton’s in Madison Square Garden in 1992. The convening itself — the drawing together of the party’s faithful, the die-hards, the sizzle of their excitement — created the spectacle and the specialness.

A part-political tent revival, part-cult congregational, lavish party.

For that reason, it was hard to conceive of a virtual convention, dictated by social distancing as a deadly virus still rages. Indeed, as the Democratic National Convention opened Monday night, I feared that, despite all their efforts, the convention would fail to succeed.

I was wrong.

There was a particular charge and effectiveness of seeing people in situ, surrounded by their books, in their kitchens, on their lawn, in some place that is meaningful to them or the people they represent. [..]

The greatest thing the DNC may well achieve, even in its abnormal format, is to remind us of what normalcy feels like.

Michael Tomasky: This Is Joe Biden’s No. 1 Job Before Election Day

Make it clear that Democrats have been a better steward of the economy — for decades, and by far.

n Thursday night, Joe Biden will address the country as the official nominee of the Democratic Party. If the voters decide on Nov. 3 to make him president, he will face a big job on a lot of fronts. One of them is the economy: He will be the third consecutive Democratic president, going back a full three decades, who has had to clean up a mess left for him by a Republican predecessor.

Yes, that’s three Republican economic failures in a row. When will the American people figure out that we have a pattern here?

Well, for starters, when Democrats get around to telling them. For my money, that is Mr. Biden and his party’s No. 1 job between now and Election Day: Make it clear that Democrats have been better stewards of the economy — for decades, and by far.

Paul Waldman: Bannon’s indictment confirms that the American right is made up of con artists

If you thought Stephen K. Bannon was going to end up in handcuffs, you might have predicted that it wouldn’t be for a small-time con. After all, Bannon went from running a far-right online publication to the heights of U.S. conservatism, first as CEO of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign and then as “chief strategist” in the White House. He even had ambitions to take his political project global.

But it turns out that the scheme that Bannon has just been criminally charged with is indeed a species of penny-ante grift. Yet it’s the sort of grift the American right has been running on its own voters for decades, which makes this absolutely fitting: [..]

If you’re keeping score, the group of people around the president who have been charged with crimes now includes Trump’s campaign CEO, Trump’s campaign chairman, Trump’s deputy campaign chairman, Trump’s personal lawyer, Trump’s national security adviser and Trump’s longtime friend and political adviser.

Why in the world would all these people find their way into Trump’s inner circle? It’s a mystery.

But the story of Bannon’s arrest isn’t just a reflection on Trump — though it certainly is that. It’s also an extremely common story on the right and has been for decades, long before Trump came along.

David Cole: The Supreme Court’s dangerous ‘shadow docket’

David Cole is national legal director of the ACLU and a professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

The Supreme Court received well-deserved praise for rising above partisan division this term. In controversial cases involving President Trump’s tax records, protections for “dreamers” from deportation, LGBTQ equality and abortion, one or more conservative justices joined the liberals to reach results that departed from the 5-4 Republican-Democrat divide one would expect if the justices simply voted according to the party of the presidents who appointed them. The court’s willingness to be guided by legal reasoning rather than political predilection is central to its legitimacy.

But in a much less visible area of its work, commonly known as the “shadow docket,” the court has increasingly split along party lines. Every year, the court considers emergency motions for stays of lower-court orders. It decides these cases without oral argument, often in a matter of days or even hours. In such cases, it typically offers no explanation for its reasoning, even when dissenting justices voice serious objections, and even when the court is effectively overturning the unanimous decisions of lower courts.

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, the Mail and the Unbinding of America

The Postal Service facilitates citizen inclusion. That’s why Trump hates it.

In June the independent website Factcheck.org made a dig at Joe Biden, publishing a post titled “Biden Floats Baseless Election Conspiracy.” Biden, you see, had suggested that Donald Trump “wants to cut off money for the post office so they cannot deliver mail-in ballots.” There was, said the post, no evidence that Trump’s “stance toward the U.S. postal system is related to the presidential election.”

A few days ago Factcheck.org conceded that Biden had, in fact, been right. The confirmation? Trump’s own statements.

Nancy Pelosi is calling the House back from summer recess to consider legislation on the issue, and for good reason: There are not one but two possible constitutional crises looming. In one, millions of votes never get counted. In the other, delays in the counting of mail-in votes lead Trump to claim victory in an election he actually lost.

These November nightmares are the reason we need to act urgently to secure the integrity of America’s mail. But there’s also a larger, longer-term aspect to the assault on the postal system. It’s part of a broader attack on the institutions that bind us together as a nation.

Stephen I. Vladeck: Why Are Senate Republicans Playing Dead?

They’re allowing President Trump to place loyalists in important government positions.

Saturday will mark the 500th straight day that there will be no Senate-confirmed secretary of Homeland Security — the longest vacancy in the 231-year history of the executive branch cabinet. What’s more, unlike the rare, lengthy vacancies of previous administrations (usually a result of failed nominees), President Trump hasn’t sent a single name to the Republican-controlled Senate since April 10, 2019. Instead, he has publicly insisted that he prefers the “flexibility” that comes from filling positions like secretary of Homeland Security with an “acting” officer. [..]

It’s easy to blame Mr. Trump for abusing the labyrinthine process for filling vacancies in senior executive branch positions — because he has. This administration has found every plausible loophole — and some implausible (if not unlawful) ones — to install its preferred choices in an impressively broad and important array of senior government jobs.

But the real culprit for these abuses, and the principal obstacle to any meaningful reform, is the Senate — which has simply rolled over in the name of Republican Party unity as the president has run roughshod over its constitutional role.

George T. Conway III and Lawrence S. Robbins: No serious lawyer would argue what Trump’s Justice Department is arguing

The least trustworthy administration in decades, if not ever, keeps arguing: “You’ve just got to trust us.”

If there’s one thing you can say about President Trump and his administration, it’s that nothing is regular except the irregular, which has had myriad damaging consequences for the nation. And it’s had particularly adverse consequences for the federal government’s ability to defend itself in court.

The latest example comes in the criminal case against Trump’s first, short-tenured national security adviser, Michael Flynn. He pleaded guilty — not once but twice — to charges that he had lied to FBI agents during an interview about his conversations with senior Russian officials during the presidential transition. Despite Flynn’s admissions of guilt, Attorney General William P. Barr filed a motion asking that the case be dismissed — and supporting Flynn’s effort to have that done without even a hearing before the district judge. [..]

The Trump administration has been saying things like that a lot lately — trying to stretch the law in ways that undermine its remaining credibility. It argued that a sitting president’s accountants and bankers can’t be subpoenaed for his personal records during his term in office by either a state grand jury or, without meeting an impossibly high burden, by Congress. It argued that the president’s close aides can’t be called to testify before a congressional committee investigating presidential misconduct. The least trustworthy administration in decades, if not ever, keeps arguing: “You’ve just got to trust us.”

Amanda Marcotte: Heading into GOP convention, Trump goes all-in on ugly white grievance politics

Trump is betting his future on a simple belief: White people are still deeply racist. Will America prove him wrong?

Not that this should come as a surprise, but with the Republican National Convention less than a week away, Donald Trump is sending every possible signal that whatever its official themes may be the GOP gathering’s true subject will be white grievance politics. Unlike in the past, where concerns about not appearing overtly racist have forced Republicans to resort to dog whistles and coded language, Trump seems to believe to that his best bet is to serve the racism straight up, thereby vanquishing any remaining doubts about whether our president is actually a white supremacist.

Late Tuesday night, Trump praised Laura Loomer, who won the Republican primary in Florida’s 21st congressional district, which is Trump’s official place of residence. To call Loomer a “far right” or “fringe” candidate is understating the case. She’s an obsessive bigot with a long history of unvarnished hatred of Muslims — or anyone she just suspects may be a Muslim — calling them “savages” and labeling herself a #ProudIslamophobe. Her rhetoric is openly genocidal, such as when she declared that “we should never let another Muslim into the civilized world” and urged taxi and ride-share companies not to hire Muslim drivers. (It may be reassuring to know that she almost certainly won’t win in November. The district is solidly Democratic, and Republicans didn’t even bother to run a candidate against incumbent Rep. Lois Frankel in 2018.) [..]

Trump’s celebration of Loomer’s win comes not long after his enthusiastic Twitter embrace of Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won a Republican House primary in Georgia despite being a QAnon supporter who has wallowed in wildly racist rhetoric and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. It’s more likely, of course, that Greene won because of those things.

Michelle Goldberg: Trump Might Cheat. Activists Are Getting Ready.

Election sabotage needs to be met with the largest protests yet.

This summer, a bipartisan group of former government officials, political professionals, lawyers and journalists held a series of war game exercises about how the 2020 election might go wrong. Convened by the law professor Rosa Brooks and the historian Nils Gilman, it was called the Transition Integrity Project, and the results were alarming. [..]

Participants in the Transition Integrity Project played out tactics the president might try if threatened with defeat, including federalizing the National Guard to stop the counting of mail-in ballots. In each scenario, the decisions of the Department of Justice, state officials and the candidates themselves proved pivotal.

But so was the willingness of masses of people to protest. “A show of numbers in the streets — and actions in the streets — may be decisive factors in determining what the public perceives as a just and legitimate outcome,” said the report.