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Guilfoyle never mastered the art of the shakedown

Guest columnists

About three weeks before Republicans expect an electoral beating, Donald Trump had to get rid of Kimberly Guilfoyle, his ambassador to Greece. He simply had to. Trump's money-grabbing corruption was wearing thin even on devoted fans, but the president knew how to wrap his mob-like patter in foggy euphemisms and double meanings. Guilfoyle was not good at it. Not at all. The mob rarely threatens reluctant targets outright. It says things like: "Nice place you've got here. Shame if something happened to it." Or "Do me a favor," as in Trump's 2019 call seeking dirt on Joe Biden from ...

Letters to the editor

Letters to the Editor

Embrace AI’s good qualities but with several conditions DEAR EDITOR: Indictment, a useful word in the age of Trump, might have escaped my vocabulary if not for the low-end AI spell check function. Waiting to “discover,” as 47 “discovered” groceries or the “b” in dumb, would have taken longer than his baseless, punitive lawsuits. AI is noisy and dirty and sucks up water and electricity and a lot of open space. Its speed can help find cures for disease, improve travel and general safety, speed crime investigation, provide more accurate meteorological data and maybe even ...

Beginning of the end or end of beginning?

Editorials

I’m allowing myself to believe that sane people may be in charge of Congress starting next Jan. 20. I know, I know: Polls have gotten our hopes up before only to have them dashed on the rocky shores of political reality. But this time it does seem as if congressional Republicans will finally get their comeuppance for their blind loyalty to Trump. The sense of relief in the land is palpable. We may soon witness the beginning of the end of this daymare — unless Trump goes full-throttled dictator and prevents votes for Democrats in the Senate and House from being ...

In sex assault cases, don’t let prosecution become mob rule

Editorials

“That it is better 100 guilty persons should escape, than that one innocent person should suffer.” — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) The hardest decision a government prosecutor may ever face is also one of the most important tests of the rule of law: What do you do when you believe a crime occurred, and you believe you know who committed it, but you do not believe you can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty? The temptation is obvious. A prosecutor is a public official. The alleged victim wants justice. The public demands accountability. The alleged ...

Columbiana keeps building on its successes

Guest columnists

Several years ago, I began visiting relatives who moved to Apex, N.C. It didn’t take many visits to realize Apex is something special. Walkability. New housing starts. Quaint retail. A robust park system. A historically preserved downtown. A noticeable amount of infill where, during a difficult past, many houses were torn down. So I did some digging. Sure enough, publications like Money magazine consistently rank Apex as one of the best places to live due to its balance of rapid modern growth and small-town historic charm. In 1990, Apex had 5,000 residents. Today, it has ...

MAGA masculinity: Protesting too much

Editorials

We’ve seen Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lifting weights in snug Levis, sweat pouring down his naked muscled chest. Last February, the secretary of health and human services was “giving body” in the “Rock Out Workout” video. A jeans-clad Kennedy flexes alongside Kid Rock in black shorts, then strips off his shirt and joins Rock in a grotto-like pool. Provocative questions followed. Kennedy has become a hero to a MAGA movement that celebrates masculinity and pushes back against what it sees, not without reason, as an anti-male attitude flooding far-left feminism. I’m not the first ...