Lesson learned: How two parties differ on sexual abuse

With all the serious problems facing this country, nothing drives me crazier than to hear somebody spout that old saw: "It doesn't matter how you vote. In fact, it doesn't make any difference if you vote at all. Because it doesn't matter who wins. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party are the same. There's no difference between them."

What a crock of you know what. That's simply not true, and never has been. You name the issue: climate change, health care, Social Security, Medicare, minimum wage, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, labor unions, campaign finance reform, renewable energy, tax reform, immigration, gun control, and many others. It's like night and day. There's a world of difference between where Republicans and Democrats stand.

But one issue, above all, marks the wide gap between the two parties - and that's the issue of sexual abuse. For Democrats, it's a game-changer; for Republicans, it's a yawn. Democrats pay attention; Republicans brush it off. Democrats start by believing a woman's claim of sexual abuse; Republicans start by dismissing her, degrading her, threatening to sue her - and then letting the man accused of abuse walk free.

If we didn't learn that lesson before, we certainly learned it in the last few weeks.

In this year's crowded California Democratic primary for governor, Congressman Eric Swalwell had emerged as the leading candidate - until four women came forward to charge him with sexual assault. Immediately, before any charges had been verified, most of California's leading Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, called on Swalwell to drop out of the race. Which he did.

Now take the case in Maine. Oysterman Graham Platner won the Democratic primary for Senate with 72 percent of the vote - and was well on his way to give Republican Susan Collins the fight of her life - when three women charged him with sexual assault while they were dating, one of whom later also accused him of rape. Without hesitation, every leading Democrat who had endorsed and campaigned for Platner, led by Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna, called on Platner to end his campaign so the Maine Democratic Party could nominate another candidate.

Three days later, Platner withdrew from the race. The only question now is who will replace him on the ballot.

Note the difference with how Democrats responded and how the other party handled charges of sexual misconduct against two leading Republican politicians.

In the Republican primary for Senate in Texas, Ken Paxton was, to say the least, a flawed candidate. He'd been impeached by his fellow Republicans, indicted for securities fraud, and divorced by his wife of 39 years for adultery and a string of extramarital affairs, or on what she called "biblical grounds." It was a serial adulterer up against the squeaky-clean incumbent John Cornyn. Yet Donald Trump endorsed Paxton and Texas Republicans dutifully embraced him as their candidate for the U.S. Senate. This week, Paxton was spotted vacationing in Europe with his latest mistress.

How about that other unnamed Republican who was accused of sexual assault by more than 24 women, found liable by a jury for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll and forced to pay her $5 million, found guilty by another jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in order to cover up "hush money" paid to cover up his one-night fling with porn star Stormy Daniels, and indicted for stealing government documents, election interference in Georgia, and attempting to overthrow the results of the 2024 election? Character matters? Really? Republicans nominated him for president - three times!

On the issue of sexual abuse alone, there's a vast difference between the two parties. One takes it seriously, the other does not. One condemns it, the other celebrates it.

Granted, the Democratic Party can sometimes get it wrong. Like forcing Al Franken out of the Senate for nothing more than a goofy photo. In some cases, in fact, the charges can prove to be false or malicious. But I'd rather belong to a party that acts when faced with accusations of sexual abuse and is later proven wrong, than a party that dismisses them from the get go.

On this issue alone, the differences between the two parties are so clear and the respect for women is so lacking among today's MAGA Republicans, it's hard to understand how any woman, especially any woman who calls herself a Christian, could vote for Donald Trump.

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Teddy Roosevelt was everything Donald Trump is not.

When someone lies every time he opens his mouth, it's impossible to say what's the biggest lie of all. But clearly, after insisting he actually won the 2020 election, one of Donald Trump's biggest lies is claiming he's just like Teddy Roosevelt.

Trump did so again this week when he flew off to the opening of the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota. Liar, liar, pants on fire! Nothing could be further from the truth.

True, like Trump, TR was a loud-mouth from New York who was elected president and survived an assassination attempt. But, otherwise, Roosevelt was everything Donald Trump is not: pro-environment, anti-corruption and fiercely respectful and protective of the law. TR was also not a twice-impeached, convicted felon.

The differences are striking. Teddy won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Russo-Japanese War; Donald started a pointless war against Iran, threatened war with Cuba and has done nothing to end the war in Ukraine. Teddy celebrated immigration as the core to American identity; Donald's goal is to round up and export as many immigrants as he can. Teddy put on the uniform and led the Rough Riders into combat; Donald claimed bone spurs as an excuse to avoid military service.

Another big difference. As documented in historian Douglas Brinkley's majestic "The Wilderness Warrior," Roosevelt is the founding father of today's environmental movement. It was, Roosevelt said, the work he was most proud of as president. He camped out in Yosemite with John Muir. He then went on to launch the U.S. Forest Service and create five national parks, 18 national monuments and 150 national forests.

Trump is the most anti-environmental president ever. He calls climate change a hoax, pulled America out of the Paris Climate Accords and rolled back all climate change programs adopted under Obama and Biden. He's gutted the EPA, opened more federal lands to oil drilling and mining, and eliminated or weakened more than 100 environmental rules and policies. And he's now diverting revenue from national parks to pay for his pet destruction projects in Washington.

But the biggest difference of all is how the two presidents dealt with corruption. Roosevelt fought it; Trump practices it. Roosevelt devoted his life to taking on the robber barons, busting up the trusts and attacking those who used positions of power to enrich themselves. People like Trump, who sees the presidency not as a chance to improve the lives of average Americans, but only as a golden opportunity to line his own pockets.

Other presidents have bent over backward to avoid even the appearance of profiting from the presidency. Trump doesn't care. The first modern president to refuse to put his holdings in a blind trust, he doesn't care about conflicts of interest. He thrives on them. He weighs every presidential decision based on how much money he can squeeze out of it. Conflicts of interest, be damned.

In financial documents released this week, Trump revealed he made a whopping $2.2 billion in 2025, including $1.4 billion from the cryptocurrency business he launched with sons Donald Jr. and Eric, with the help of $500 million from the United Arab Emirates.

On July 23, 2025 Trump signed a new "AI Action Plan" sought by U.S. high tech companies. The same day, Trump purchased stock worth between $1 million and $5 million each in a suite of tech firms, including Broadcom, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia. He signed the bill with one hand, while collecting cash with the other.

As reported by the New York Times, in September 2025 Trump personally negotiated a deal with the president of Kazakhstan giving a little-known American company access to one of the world's largest untapped reserves of tungsten, a metal that the United States desperately needs for the production of missile warheads, fighter jets and computer chips. Ca-ching! It was later revealed Trump and sons own 20 percent of that company.

Most of all, as police commissioner in New York and later as president, Teddy Roosevelt went after public officials taking bribes. "There can be no crime more serious than bribery," he declared in his 1903 State of the Union Address. Imagine then what Teddy would think of Donald flying to North Dakota on his new Air Force One - which is nothing but a blatant, $400 million bribe from the government of Qatar.

Were he alive today, Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't suffer any comparison with Donald Trump. He'd be trying to put him in jail.

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Trump’s war is over. Iran won

It's hard to believe anybody could spend $113 billion and get nothing for it. Donald Trump just did. But, of course, it wasn't his money. It was yours and mine.

Trump's war in Iran is probably the most expensive, ill-conceived, mismanaged, and least effective war in history. If, in fact, the war is over (and who really knows?), the results are stunning. Iran's brutal regime is still in power. Iran still has most of its missile and drone stockpile. And Iran still has its nuclear capacity.

In Trump's "memorandum of understanding" (MOU), Iran only agreed abandoning efforts to enrich uranium and thereby build a nuclear weapon would be "adequately addressed" in future talks. Even though - and here's the key point - they had already agreed to abandon their nuclear weapons program in a deal negotiated with President Obama in 2015 - an agreement canceled by Donald Trump in May 2018, for no apparent reason.

Bottom line. After 109 days of war, as of June 17, Iran is stronger and the United States is weaker. They won, we lost. Thank you, Donald.

Actually, the total cost of the war will be much higher than the Pentagon's estimated $113.3 billion. According to Harvard public finance expert Linda Bilmes, once you factor in additional expenses of winding down the war, repairing damaged military bases and restocking munitions, the total direct military cost will be more than $1 trillion. Not to mention an estimated $1.3 trillion cost to the global economy because of disruption of oil flow. Nor the human cost of 15 American troops killed, 538 wounded and more than 1,700 civilian Iranian deaths.

The Iran War has been a disaster from day one. It's something Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu had been begging American presidents to do for decades. He finally found one president dumb enough to do so. Even though he promised in his 2024 victory speech "I am not going to start a war," Trump launched war against Iran without consulting Congress or our allies, and without explaining to the American people why we were going to war, what we hoped to achieve, how long it would last or how we would get out of it.

If only Trump had taken time to do a little homework. Because of his support for the war in Iraq, I'm no fan of Secretary of State Colin Powell, but give him credit for this. After America's disastrous involvement in Vietnam, Powell laid down rules for any future military action in what became known as the "Powell Doctrine."

Before making a decision to go to war, Powell said, any president had to ask eight questions: Is a vital national security interest threatened? Do we have a clear attainable objective? Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? Have all other nonviolent policy means been fully exhausted? Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? Have the consequences of our action been fully considered? Is the action supported by the American people? And do we have genuine broad international support?

Military action was only justified, Powell asserted, if every one of those questions was asked - and answered in the affirmative. He also stressed that when America went to war, decisive force should be used in order to end the conflict quickly by forcing the enemy to capitulate.

Donald Trump did none of the above. The result is what Republican Senator Bill Cassidy acidly described as a "tremendous foreign policy blunder." Indeed, it's hard to see the MOU signed by Trump as anything but a gift to Iran's repressive religious regime. All sanctions against Iran are lifted. The U.S. will free some $100 billion in frozen Iranian assets. On top of that, Iran will be awarded a $300 billion reconstruction fund. And Iran will get control over the Strait of Hormuz, which it never had before. According to the agreement, Iran promises to charge no fees for ships entering or leaving the Strait, but only for 60 days - after which anything goes.

And what did Americans get out of Trump's war? Higher gas prices, higher grocery prices and higher airline fares, estimated at $2,000 for every American household.

Trump bristles at those who note, correctly, that Obama's initial deal was better than the one he signed after his silly war. "They said he's a stupid son of a bitch," Trump fumed. But after reviewing the terms of Trump's MOU with Iran, it's clear who the "stupid son of a bitch" is. And it's not Obama.
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