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Sanctions on North Korea hurt women

The policy of the United States toward North Korea can be summed up succinctly: Sanctions, sanctions and more sanctions. The U.S. believes its policy of “maximum pressure” will cause North Korea to denuclearize, but it appears to be having the opposite effect, hardening North Korea’s resistance and strengthening its resolve to keep pursuing its nuclear ambitions. Not only have the “maximum pressure” sanctions applied since 2016 failed to change policies in Pyongyang, they have led to grave costs. New research commissioned by Korea Peace Now!, a women-led global campaign to ...

Traffic stop isn’t just a stop

The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” But the Supreme Court has interpreted that protection pretty loosely when it comes to traffic stops, for which the police need only “reasonable suspicion” that the law is or has been broken. (The same indulgent standard applies when police stop and frisk a pedestrian.) Last week the justices heard arguments in a case that could make it even easier for the police to stop — and potentially search — a car. Ominously, the majority seemed likely to give police an additional benefit of the doubt. The case stems ...

Pennsylvania 2020: It’s going to get complicated

Pennsylvania is not a slam-dunk for Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. That’s one takeaway from Tuesday’s elections, which turned the Philadelphia suburbs even bluer, as Republicans suffered additional congressional losses following last year’s midterms. The Democrats have gone from a 13-5 minority in the House to a 9-9 split. These results in the eastern part of the state “are not helpful to Trump’s re-election prospects in Pennsylvania,” said Jeff Brauer, political science professor at Keystone College. “The big question will be the extent of enthusiasm of his ...

Trump cannot ever go home again to New York

The (mostly) charming family movie “Mr. Popper’s Penguins“ is about a divorced father living alone in his posh Manhattan digs. Unexpectedly, he receives two boxes of penguins and then chaos ensues. But the 2011 film has a not-very-subtle subtheme: The prominence of future President Donald Trump as the quintessential rich and heroic New Yorker. Popper (Jim Carrey) and the penguins go skating at Central Park’s Wollman Skating Rink — excuse me, the Trump Wollman rink. You see TRUMP in gigantic letters appearing in almost every camera angle and no Wollman. There’s a scene in ...

Don’t have to look far for a case of real collusion

If you are paying attention to the Washington circus that is the impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s handling of the much maligned Ukraine call, this is what real collusion looks like: A media largely committed to advancing the goal of Democrats to severely damage or remove him from office, a series of at first private testimonies by people who appear to have similar motives and connections to Democrats and/or anti-Trump forces, and now a new book by “Anonymous,” which claims the president has a bad attitude and is difficult to work with. Where to start? “Anonymous” ...

This boomer OK with ‘OK boomer’

Kevin Riordan The Philadelphia Inquirer I tell my millennial editor I want to write about this “hey boomer” thing. I flirt with the notion of asking her if she learned about hey, boomer from Fortnite (which I have since realized is an online video game about survival). But I refrain because I prefer to avoid revealing that I, a man who once thought he knew pretty much everything, seem to know so little about so much anymore. I’m late yet again to the latest party — and this time, the party is all about the hey boomer app, or meme, or hashtag, or whatever it is. But better ...