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Columns/Opinion

Is Boris J. bad for Democrats? Not quite.

Right-leaning opinions have declared British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s trouncing of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn a favorable portent for President Donald J. Trump in 2020. Not so fast. Other readings of the British election results see the very opposite. For starters, Corbyn was a despised figure, including within his own party. Trump is, let us say, also less than universally loved. Even a strong economy hasn’t lifted his approval ratings above the disapproval ones, which, according to reputable polls, remain quite high. Although Johnson, a populist Conservative, had ...

Where did impeachment go?

By John Kass Chicago Tribune (TNS) When House Democrats began selling tickets to their President Donald Trump Impeachment Theater — shouting their outrage, preening on those late-night talk shows — it was much meatier business. It would be full of collusion with Russia, blackmail of Ukraine. It would contain extortion and go heavy on bribery. Americans were to expect some giant roast, bone in, with a rich, thick gravy, to feed a nation longing for justice from Orange Man Bad. At least that’s what Democrats promised. But that’s not what they delivered for consideration for a ...

Saudi sympathies ring hollow after Florida shooting

If it walks like a duck … you know the rest. Following a shooting attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola by a Saudi national identified as 21-year-old Mohammed Alshamrani, the FBI issued a statement saying it presumes the incident was a terrorist attack. What might have given them that idea? If profiling were not politically incorrect, authorities might have done a deeper dive into Alshamrani’s background. First, he was a Muslim from Saudi Arabia, from which 15 of the 9/11 hijackers came. It is a nation that promotes the most radical form of Islam, known as Wahhabism, which is ...

Exonerations affect victims, too

We learned last month that three men, incarcerated for 36 years in Maryland, were exonerated of the murder of 14-year-old DeWitt Duckett. This tragic failure of our criminal justice system is a shameful stain on our nation, and the reverberations of this miscarriage of justice will be felt for generations. Though finally free, these men will experience challenges as they re-enter their communities, readjust to their daily lives and address the complex trauma they have experienced. Yet they aren’t the only ones who will be forever changed by these wrongful convictions. The original ...

‘Respect your local police — or else?’

Let’s get two things straight right off the bat. The first is that, in the last few years, no one has protested police wrongdoing more vociferously than African Americans. The second is that no one has had more reason. Those reasons include Darrius Stewart, Oscar Grant, Jordan Edwards, John Crawford III, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, Terence Crutcher, Sandra Bland, Sean Bell, Rekia Boyd, Botham Jean, Antwon Rose, Amadou Diallo, Anthony Hill, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Freddie Gray, LaQuan McDonald, Stephon Clark, Corey Jones, Atatiana Jefferson ...

Has economic inequity really gone bananas?

Three collectors recently took home some unconventional offerings from Art Basel, a famous art show held annually in Miami Beach. Each artwork consisted of a banana duct-taped to a wall. Two sold for $120,000, one for $150,000. For a banana. And some tape. Unfortunately, this farce is just a small sign of the growing gap between the whims of the absurdly wealthy and the challenges facing everyone else. During the same week as the banana bonanza in Miami Beach, the Trump administration announced its plans to slash the rolls of the nation’s nutrition assistance program. That means ...