Editorial voices from across the country
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States:
In Donald Trump’s dark view of America, violence and crime are rampant.
“Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement,” Trump declared July 21 on stage at the GOP convention in Cleveland, where he accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president. “Homicides last year increased by 17 percent in America’s 50 largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50 percent. They are up nearly 60 percent in nearby Baltimore.”
Murders in some cities have recently increased. That’s correct.
But the very criminologist who crunched the numbers Trump cited rejected his conclusion that the nation is awash in violence. That’s “way off base,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a University of Missouri criminology professor who wrote the U.S. Justice Department paper containing the figures.
“Even with the homicide increase in large cities last year, the country is still experiencing violent crime rates that are far lower than they were 20 years ago,” Rosenfeld told Tribune News Service.
Crime is actually lower under the current president than it has been under his predecessors going back to and including Ronald Reagan.
Recent mass shootings, including of police officers, in America and around the world are scary. Presidents are supposed to protect us from terrorism.
But Trump’s diatribes and lack of policy prescriptions aren’t reassuring. Americans shouldn’t fall for the brash billionaire’s trumped-up rhetoric and accusations.
Given that the crisis in the U.S. of opiate abuse has soared to epidemic heights, it is encouraging that Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill united in a rare show of bipartisanship this month to adopt a multi-pronged comprehensive package of assistance to stem its deadly tide.
About four months ago, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and others introduced the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act in response to the heroin scourge rocketing out of control in the Buckeye State and the nation.
The praiseworthy legislation creates grants and other programs aimed at addressing opiate abuse, especially heroin. It contains more resources for long-term addiction treatment, prevention and education, alternative sentencing options, drug courts, expanded availability of the overdose antidote naloxone and for development of new and stricter guidelines for prescribing opiates.
Priority No. 1 for federal lawmakers when they return in September must be to put the CARA on the fast funding track. Then, they should earnestly work – as many have promised – to shore up additional resources for fighting the war on heroin in the fiscal year 2017 federal budget, which takes effect in October.
The evidence is like something from a Stephen King novel. A plague is sweeping across our country and through our communities. Everyone agrees it is a horrible thing and many people and groups are working desperately to stop it.
A few people, though, are abetting the disease – because the fight against it, like many life and death battles, is making too much noise.
The disease is obesity and the numbers and the effects are scarier than anything the master of the macabre could have written.
The precise causes of the obesity epidemic here and elsewhere are manifold and complex, and range from federal subsidies of high-calorie crops to too much time spent in front of TV, smart phone and computer screens.
Mainly, it’s that we eat too much and exercise too little.