Washington Post (July 28)
“Everyone knows, as the Watergate scandal drove home: The coverup is always worse than the crime. Everyone, that is, but Trump.” Should “the allegations in the latest indictment of Donald Trump hold up, the former president is a common criminal — and an uncommonly stupid one.”
Tags: Allegations, Common criminal, Coverup, Crime, Indictment, Scandal, Stupid, Trump, Watergate, Worse
Washington Post (January 19)
“The nation is in the midst of one of the biggest workforce shifts in generations.” Many prefer working at home or at least “want a ‘hybrid’ situation of working two or three days remotely. Cities must adapt to this new reality or risk a downward spiral of falling commercial property values, lower taxes on those buildings and ghost downtowns that could lead to increased crime and homelessness.”
Tags: Adapt, Buildings, Cities, Commercial property values, Crime, Downward spiral, Home, Homelessness, Hybrid, Lower taxes, Reality, Remotely, Risk, Shifts, Workforce
New York Times (April 10)
“Mr. Trump has spent his career in the company of…grifters, cons, sharks, goons and crooks. He cuts corners, he lies, he cheats, he brags about it, and for the most part, he’s gotten away with it, protected by threats of litigation, hush money and his own bravado.” Not, apparently, much longer. “Mr. Trump now has real reason to be afraid. A raid on a lawyer’s office doesn’t happen every day.” In fact, it only happens when investigators have real “reason to believe they’d find evidence of a crime there and that they didn’t trust the lawyer not to destroy that evidence.”
Tags: Bravado, Cheats, Cons, Crime, Crooks, Evidence, Goons, Hush money, Lawyer’s office, Lies, Raid, Threats, Trump
LA Times (March 2)
The U.S. is “sending guns, crime to Mexico.” The country “has some of the strictest gun laws in the world,” but these don’t thwart the cartels. “To stock their arsenals, Mexican criminal organizations exploit lax U.S. gun laws, relying in part on straw purchases.” Each year, on average, over 250,000 firearms cross the border into Mexico from the U.S.
Chicago Tribune (October 9)
While “most of the world has remained silent,” Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has engaged in sweeping genocide. “Nearly 3,000 people have already been gunned down, either by police or vigilante death squads, encouraged by Duterte, who has promised immunity.” Another 600,000 are “now caged in hideously crowded prisons that already look like concentration camps.” This may be “the logical conclusion of the brutal rhetoric of the drug war,” but “history shows that such dehumanization doesn’t stop crime or drug use — it simply enables it.”
Tags: Concentration camps, Crime, Dehumanization, Drug war, Drugs, Duterte, Genocide, Immunity, Philippines, Prison, Silent, Vigilante death squads
Washington Post (September 5)
Russian President Vladimir Putin “has been a stalwart backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, but that does not give him license to ignore the facts and gloss over inconvenient truths,” especially since Syria’s chemical weapon stockpile has roots extending to the USSR. “The sarin gas attack near Damascus should not be so glibly dismissed as “ludicrous” by a Russian president. Instead of mocking the West, Mr. Putin should throw Russia’s support behind an investigation of this atrocity. A horrible crime was committed.”Russian President Vladimir Putin “has been a stalwart backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war, but that does not give him license to ignore the facts and gloss over inconvenient truths,” especially since Syria’s chemical weapon stockpile has roots extending to the USSR. “The sarin gas attack near Damascus should not be so glibly dismissed as “ludicrous” by a Russian president. Instead of mocking the West, Mr. Putin should throw Russia’s support behind an investigation of this atrocity. A horrible crime was committed.”
Tags: Atrocity, Chemical weapon, Crime, Damascus, Investigation, Putin, Russia, Sarin, Stockpile, Syria
