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Nebraska's Osborn is really real

National Columnists

"A Face in the Crowd" is the prophetic 1957 movie about a charismatic drifter "discovered" in an Arkansas jail. The face belongs to "Lonesome" Rhodes, a scoundrel whose folksy act catapults him to national prominence. "Lonesome" (Andy Griffith) abuses women, but the crowd only sees a lovable spinner of down-home yarns. He deflates after getting caught on an open mic mocking his followers as idiots and fools. Maine's Graham Platner was a face in the crowd, sold to Democrats as a salt-of-the-sea oysterman who actually came from a privileged background. The senatorial candidate ...

Hollywood rejects LGBTQ lobbyists

National Columnists

Is it possible that the Republican war on so-called diversity, equity and inclusion is having an effect on the movies? The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is expressing alarm at the decline of LGBTQ characters at the movies. It's at 20.4% of 2025 films in their latest ...

Party radicals need to be controlled

National Columnists

It's starting to sound like we're in the middle of the Spanish Civil War. For those of you who forgot, the Spanish Civil War was the great prequel to World War II, in which the combatants were proxies for the Communists and the Fascists. Stalin's Soviet Union supported the former; Hitler's ...

Pentagon's gender care won't win wars

National Columnists

Just what the Department of Defense, which now self-identifies as the Department of War , needs: more testosterone. The Pentagon is apparently going to try winning 21st-century wars with 1980s-era action heroes. Because surely if the U.S. isn't sufficiently winning in modern combat, it's ...

One boy brings neighborhood together

National Columnists

Many people across the nation were touched by the heartwarming story of Roman Butzlaff, a 4-year-old boy in Concord, North Carolina, who befriended several of his elderly neighbors and became their adopted grandson. When the CBS Evening News aired its July 10 "On the Road" feature on Roman, I ...

Americans are free to be suckers

National Columnists

Many of today's consumer loans are legal but abusive. Payday lenders and used car sellers often steer customers into costly contracts they barely understand. Low-income borrowers with jobs, and therefore, dependable cash flow to siphon off, are favored targets. Sure, there's a sucker born ...