Voices of Sanity

If you're having this reaction to the news cycle: Here's an antidote: a roundup of smart people saying smart things.

• Ta-Nehisi Coates dissects the press reaction to Basketgate:

  The safe space for the act of being white endures today. This weekend, the media, an ostensibly great American institution, saw it challenged and—not for the first time—organized to preserve it. For speaking a truth, backed up by data, Clinton was accused of promoting bigotry. No. The true crime was endangering white consciousness. So it was when the president asserted that it was stupid to arrest a man for breaking into his own home. So it was when the president said that if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin. And so it is when reformers suggest police not stop citizens on so flimsy a pretext as furtive movements. The need to be white is a sensitive matter—one which our institutions are inexorably and mindlessly bound to protect.

• Paul Waldman has a reality check for the people tut-tutting about Clinton and 'transparency'.
• Josh Marshall notices a curious omission from Trump World's reaction to Basketgate:

  As far as I can tell, none of the Trump campaign pushback to Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comments have said anything about the people Clinton was talking about not being racist, not being misogynist or by whatever definition not being 'haters.' It's not referenced once.

• Paul Krugman explains the right-wing cult of Putin:

  Beyond that, however, admiring Mr. Putin means admiring someone who has contempt for democracy and civil liberties. Or more accurately, it means admiring someone precisely because of that contempt.
  
  When Mr. Trump and others praise Mr. Putin as a “strong leader,” they don’t mean that he has made Russia great again, because he hasn’t. He has accomplished little on the economic front, and his conquests, such as they are, are fairly pitiful. What he has done, however, is crush his domestic rivals: Oppose the Putin regime, and you’re likely to end up imprisoned or dead. Strong!

Read anything particularly worthwhile lately? Post links in comments.