Monday Open Thread [7.6.15]

The Guardian: “Nearly three weeks after the business tycoon announced his candidacy to be US president with a speech in which he claimed Mexican immigrants were criminals whose presence was undermining American greatness, the row refuses to die.”

“Outrage has been widespread among the Mexican people, from those struggling to make a living on the streets to some of the richest businessmen in the world. In a country fraught with divisions over how to create the jobs and security necessary to make mass migration unnecessary, opposition to Trump’s remarks has provided rare unity.”

Yeah, I think if I and all my countrymen were called murderers and rapists simply to my ethnic or national origin, I and all of my countrymen would be rightly pissed too. And now Donald Trump is saying that he did not expected such universal condemnation and outrage on both sides of the border over his racist comments. That tells me that he, like most Republicans, lives in a hermetically sealed world where the only news he receives is from Fox and the only people he interacts with are sycophants and fellow conservative rich guys who all think alike.

Paul Krugman praises the result of the Greek Referendum yesterday and tells Europe to end Greece’s Bleeding:

But the campaign of bullying — the attempt to terrify Greeks by cutting off bank financing and threatening general chaos, all with the almost open goal of pushing the current leftist government out of office — was a shameful moment in a Europe that claims to believe in democratic principles. It would have set a terrible precedent if that campaign had succeeded, even if the creditors were making sense.

What’s more, they weren’t. The truth is that Europe’s self-styled technocrats are like medieval doctors who insisted on bleeding their patients — and when their treatment made the patients sicker, demanded even more bleeding. A “yes” vote in Greece would have condemned the country to years more of suffering under policies that haven’t worked and in fact, given the arithmetic, can’t work: austerity probably shrinks the economy faster than it reduces debt, so that all the suffering serves no purpose. The landslide victory of the “no” side offers at least a chance for an escape from this trap.

But how can such an escape be managed? Is there any way for Greece to remain in the euro? And is this desirable in any case?

What’s up next domestically for the Obama Administration?

While President Barack Obama‘s top foreign-policy initiatives – particularly on Cuba, trade and Iran – have dominated the headlines lately, the White House is gearing up for a domestic policy push that’s largely been under the radar…

In coming weeks, the White House is expected to roll out more executive orders, perhaps on gun safety. And top White House officials are hoping to capitalize on their successful collaboration with congressional Republicans on trade to advance a business tax overhaul and transportation initiatives targeted at shoring up the country’s infrastructure.

Changes to the criminal justice system are also at the top of the president’s domestic wish list.

Peter Baker suggests that we are about to see another round of commutations as a result of the President’s clemency initiative.

Sometime in the next few weeks, aides expect President Obama to issue orders freeing dozens of federal prisoners locked up on nonviolent drug offenses. With the stroke of his pen, he will probably commute more sentences at one time than any president has in nearly half a century.