PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

There is a reason why I read two national newspapers every morning.

The Washington Post reports politics from the center, though left just a bit.

The Wall Street Journal reports politics from the center, though right just a bit.

Read both and then, with other sources, come to your own views,

Today, we have another example of the left and the right as the newspapers dissected the indictment of the Trump organization and one of its main leaders, Allen Weisselberg, the number two person in the organization who reported directly to Trump.

The Post says it’s a huge issue.  The Journal says not so much.

So, read the excerpts below and come to your own decision, as I have done.

My view:  Trump and his lackeys, including Weisselberg, deserve severe punishment for their intentional schemes to defraud America by not paying taxes and other tactics.

From the Washington Post/

Sounds familiar. Previous reporting about the Trump family’s tax returns portrays a multigenerational family enterprise devoted to tax avoidance, if not outright evasion. Thursday’s 15-count indictment lays out a separate, sprawling, 15-year conspiracy to funnel millions in unreported compensation — in the form of rent-free Manhattan apartments, leased Mercedes, private-school tuition payments, and the like — to senior Trump Organization executives, including CFO Allen Weisselberg, who allegedly received $1.76 million on which he paid no taxes.  Both Weisselberg and lawyers for the Trump Organization pleaded not guilty.

“To put it bluntly, this was a sweeping and audacious illegal payments scheme,” Carey Dunne, general counsel for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, said at the arraignment.  “Contrary to today’s assertion by the company’s former CEO, this is not a ‘standard practice in the business community,’ nor was it the act of a rogue or isolated employee.”

From the Wall Street Journal/

Democrats of all stripes have devoted years to investigating Donald Trump and finding very little.  The latest example is Thursday’s indictment of the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer for classifying employee benefits as business expenses rather than compensation.

Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr. and New York Attorney General Letitia James subpoenaed millions of documents and years of tax returns, and that’s all they’ve come up with.  The indictment lists 15 criminal counts, including second-degree grand larceny.  But the evidence in the indictment boils down to misreporting compensation to the Internal Revenue Service and New York tax authorities.