Belgians Detain 21, Trump Sees Things

World at War: Trying to head off a predicted terror attack, Belgian police arrested 21 people in 27 raids in the past day, but didn’t grab the man they wanted most, Salah Abdeslam, who is believed to be the planner of the Paris terror attacks. Among other locations, the police also sealed off at least two sections of central Brussels, but no weapons or explosives were found.

Despite putting Brussels on high alert for an attack, authorities offered no more specific information than that places where large numbers of people congregate could be targeted.

Brussels is now in its third day of lockdown. Schools and subways are closed while security personnel flood the country.

>French President Francois Hollande said he will intensify air attacks on Islamic State targets. Hollande was in England today meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron, who said his country should join the Syrian air strikes, but the decision is up to his parliament.

>Speaking in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, President Obama talked tough about the Islamic State, saying “They’re a bunch of killers with good social media.”  The President has been criticized recently by some politiocal opponents who say he has not taken the ISIS threat seriously enough.

But Obama vowed yesterday to destroy ISIS. “We’re going to get it done,” he said, “and we’re going to pursue it with every aspect of American power and with all the coalition partners that we’ve assembled.  It’s going to get done.”

Small Screen: Ignoring legal threats from lawyers for Tampa Bay quarterback Jameis Winston, CNN last night aired an independent documentary about rape on college campuses. The documentary “The Hunting Ground,” first unveiled at the Sundance Film Festival, features an interview with a young woman who accused Winston of raping her while he was the quarterback for Florida State University.

Winston was never charged with a crime and his lawyers promised to sue CNN for slander if they aired the documentary.

World: Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, a dual citizen of the US and Iran, has been sentenced to prison in Iran, according to a government spokesman. The length of the sentence was not given. Rezaian was arrested in 2014 and accused of “collaborating with hostile governments.” The Post has reported that Rezaian has been kept in isolation and that his physical and mental state have deteriorated.

The Darwin Report: One of only four surviving northern white rhinos left in the world has died at the San Diego Zoo. The rhino named Nola was 41 years old and had to be put down. The other three, also quite old, are at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.

The Campaign Trail: What’s a day without Donald? The billionaire presidential candidate said on ABC News yesterday that he would bring back the torture technique known as “waterboarding” to interrogate terrorists. “Waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they do to us,” Trump said, citing the beheading last year of American journalist James Foley in Syria. “What they’re doing to us, what they did to James Foley when they chopped off his head, that’s a whole different level and I would absolutely bring back interrogation and strong interrogation.”

OK, there’s more. Two days ago Trump said he saw a television report the day of the 9/11 attacks about thousands of Arabs in New Jersey cheering as the World Trade Center towers tumbled. “I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering,” Trump said.

No one else has a record of such a thing happening.

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Thursday, April 18, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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