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Columns/Opinion

We’re living fable of emperor’s new clothes

If you’re going to lie, make it a good one. Meaning, put some effort into it. Make it convincing. Make sure the truth is not easily discoverable. Don’t just draw on a weather map with a Sharpie. That’s apparently what Donald Trump or someone in his employ did last week to prove he was right all along in claiming that the state of Alabama lay in the path of Hurricane Dorian. He made this claim via Twitter Sunday morning, and it was so alarmingly wrong that the Birmingham office of the National Weather Service quickly tweeted an emphatic correction: “Alabama will NOT see any ...

The ongoing tragedy that’s still Sept. 11

By Bridget Rooney Tribune News Service Sept. 11, 2001, will always be recognized as a day of tribulation in the United States. Some 3,000 people lost their lives in multiple terrorist attacks, the largest one being the fall of the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City. Thousands of first responders and civilians risked their lives to save others. Eighteen years later, the toll is still climbing. Many forms of carcinogens were left in the air and inhaled by thousands of people. General illnesses caused from high levels of dust inhalation have attributed to chronic ...

Protection protocol anything but

In the eight months since the Trump administration began implementing its euphemistically named Migrant Protection Protocols, the government has returned more than 35,000 asylum seekers to Mexico to wait out the slow legal process that will determine whether they’ll be allowed to live in the U.S. or be returned to the countries they fled. Another 18,000 are biding their time in similar conditions under a separate “metering” policy that limits the daily number of asylum applications the government will accept at ports of entry. As The Times’ immigration reporter Molly O’Toole ...

Stop the mental health data mining of our children

No, no, no. Hell, no! That’s my response to the latest trial balloon floated by the White House to join with Silicon Valley on a creepy program monitoring “neurobehavioral signs” to (purportedly) prevent gun violence. President Trump’s old friend, former NBC head Bob Wright, has been pushing an Orwellian surveillance scheme called “Safe Home” — “Stopping Aberrant Fatal Events by Helping Overcome Mental Extremes” — that would cost taxpayers between $40 million and $60 million. The Washington Post reports the plan could incorporate “Apple Watches, Fitbits, ...

Looking for love in wrong place: The online snake pit

Some scandals reported as shocking are shocking for reasons other than those implied in the coverage. One would be the online scam that bilked millions from businesses, the elderly and women looking for romance. Federal prosecutors say this is one of the biggest online swindles in U.S. history. The fraud centered mainly on Nigerian nationals who would impersonate American servicemen stationed overseas. They’d strike up intimate conversations of the you’re-the-woman-I’ve-been-waiting-for variety. Once the conmen sensed ardor and trust, they would ask the women to send them ...

When will latest ‘lost’ generation come to its senses?

There are people in every generation who believe the generation following theirs is either going to the dogs or will ruin the country. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll lends credence to that way of thinking, especially where Generation Z/millennials (those born in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s) and Generation X (those born in the early-to-mid 1960s to the early 1980s) are concerned. The poll of 1,000 adults earlier this month found that “younger generations rate patriotism, religion and having children as less important to them than did young people two decades ago.” The poll ...