As the nation faces a pandemic, financial catastrophe and massive social justice protests, it is suddenly also confronting a spike in violence in some of its major cities. … The burst of bloodshed came at a particularly fraught time in the nation’s relationship with its police forces, amid waves of demonstrations decrying police tactics, brutality… Read more.
Archives for 2020
Like Putin, Stone Knew Collecting Dirt for Years on Trump Would Pay off Some Day
President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of his longtime political confidant Roger Stone, intervening in extraordinary fashion in a criminal case that was central to the Russia investigation and that concerned the president’s own conduct. The move came just days before Stone was to begin serving a 40-month prison sentence for lying to… Read more.
Supreme Court Rules NY Prosecutor Can Get Trump’s Tax Returns, but Congress Must Wait (Until After Election…?)
Frankly, these rulings smack too much of Chief Justice John Roberts being hell-bent on his Supreme Court having its cake (of judicial independence) and eating it too (by pandering to both sides of America’s coarsening political divide). In any case, I am not surprised. I’m just dismayed because it took nearly four years to establish… Read more.
On Latest Tell-All by Trump’s Niece: Oh Mary…
As a reminder, here is how I previewed this highly anticipated book in a commentary on June 18: His niece has written a family exposé that promises to make Mommie Dearest look like a lullaby. The book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, by Mary L. Trump,… Read more.
Capitalizing ‘B’ in Black and Demanding Reparations!
Capitalizing the B when referring to Black people might not seem like a big deal. However, when editors at The New York Times, USA Today, and the Columbia Journalism Review all make a big deal of their change in style, it’s certainly worthy of comment. Here is how the Times announced and rationalized its (belated)… Read more.
Kanye for President? Don’t Be a Sucker … Again!
When Donald Trump first began commanding media attention with talk about running for president, I wrote the prescient commentary “Trump for President? Don’t Be a Sucker!” April 8, 2011, hence today’s title. One name explains why Trump ran, and why Kanye might run: Barack Obama. With respect to Trump, the die was cast when Obama… Read more.
US Veterans Marking Independence Day by Charging Trump with ‘Tre45on’
On March 18, President Trump declared America at war against Covid-19. More to the point, he took great pride in hailing himself a “wartime president.” Except that, Trump has been so incompetent on this front, Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger for the November presidential election, has had just cause to repeatedly dismiss him as follows:… Read more.
While Tearing Down Confederates Monuments, the Washington Redskins’ Slur Cannot Stand
Here in part is what I wrote nearly seven years ago in “Why Is Washington Redskins Any More Acceptable than Washington Niggers … or Washington Hymies?” October 19, 2013: ________ Can you imagine an NFL team today being called the Washington Niggers; or, given owner Daniel Snyder’s Jewish heritage, the Washington Hymies…? Despite vowing to… Read more.
China Continues Daring Britain as It Reclaims Hong Kong
Hong Kong police have made their first arrests under a new ‘anti-protest’ law imposed by Beijing, as crowds marked 23 years since the end of British rule. … The law, imposed by China following last year’s anti-government protests in the semi-autonomous territory, makes secessionist, subversive, or terrorist activities illegal, as well as foreign intervention in… Read more.
Even Putin’s Bounty for the Scalp of US Soldiers Can’t Erase the Blind Spot Trump Has for Him
United States intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a suspected Russian plot to pay bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan. … Mr. Trump defended himself by denying the Times report that he had been briefed on the intelligence, expanding on a… Read more.