While President Trump calls Kim Jong Un “honorable,” the parents of Otto Warmbier suggest otherwise in a federal suit: “The 22-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, details in blunt language how the University of Virginia student, a former homecoming king and soccer standout from Cincinnati, was ‘brutally’ abused after being detained on a tour in Pyongyang. He arrived home in a coma after being released last June, dying days later.”
Voters think these are honorable men: “More than six out of 10 believe that the recent FBI raid on the president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was within the special counsel’s power, even as President Trump attempts to frame it as a violation of his attorney-client privilege. And 68 percent believe the president should not fire either Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.”
Any prosecutor would be honored to depose a witness as undisciplined as Trump. “Three weeks after denying all knowledge of [Michael] Cohen’s $130,000 hush payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, Trump appeared to change his story Thursday when he admitted that Cohen represents him ‘with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal.’ ”
Facebook should do the honorable thing — admit grievous error and make amends. “At this point, that Facebook has played a role in spreading the violence in Myanmar is indisputable. The ongoing crisis raises many legal questions and exposes a lacuna in the law that political and public pressure is currently trying to fill. But one thing is clear: This crisis should be an important part of the conversation about the role of the big technology companies in societies around the world. . . . Facebook has become a primary conduit for the spread of anti-Rohingya propaganda and hate speech.” To genocide, in other words.
This is what comes from failing to honor democratic norms and spread prosperity. “At the same time that liberal democracies are showing strong signs of institutional decay, authoritarian populists are starting to develop an ideological alternative in the form of illiberal democracy, and outright autocrats are offering their citizens a standard of living that increasingly rivals that of the richest countries in the West.”
If we don’t honor trade agreements, other countries sure won’t. “German officials expect the White House to make good on its threat to impose higher tariffs on steel and aluminum from the European Union, turning a meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Donald Trump into the last chance to avert a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.” This is economic madness.
Honorable men don’t blame staff for their misconduct. “In the hierarchy of Donald Trump-era scandals, from the brazen to the boorish, pay raises in a low-level agency shouldn’t crack the top quartile. But on Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt managed to spin his hiring practices into a cobweb beyond his control—leaving some reporters questioning whether a low-stakes snafu could now be the ‘end of the line.’ “