GIVEN EVERYTHING we know about the FBI's capacity for corruption and abuse of power — something with which we in Boston are only too familiar — I will not be surprised if its Mar-a-Lago raid on Monday turns out to be an unscrupulous act of prosecutorial overkill intended not to secure vital evidence of a serious crime but to damage a political opponent.

Given everything we know about Donald Trump's dishonesty, his pattern of threats and incitement, and his frenzied efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, I will also not be surprised if the agents who executed that search warrant found evidence of serious wrongdoing and had reason to believe that Trump would have kept stonewalling a subpoena.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

THE SECOND round of balloting for the 2022 Country Music Association Awards got underway last week and will run through Aug. 16. The roughly 7,000 voting members of the association will winnow the 20 nominees in each category down to five. The top vote-getters will then move on to the final round in October. The ultimate winners will be revealed on Nov. 9 at the CMA Awards show in Nashville, which will be co-hosted by country music legend Luke Bryan and a legend of a different kind: Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

NANCY PELOSI is not the first US House speaker to visit Taiwan.

In 1997, Republican Newt Gingrich paid a visit to Taipei, where he met with Taiwan's then-president Lee Teng-hui and delivered a speech underscoring the American commitment to the island's security. He also traveled to Beijing, where, he said afterward, he bluntly told Chinese officials: "We want you to understand, we will defend Taiwan." They responded calmly. "They said, 'OK, noted,'" Gingrich recounted afterward. "And then they basically would say: 'Since we don't intend to attack, you won't have to defend. Let's go on and talk about how we're going to get this thing solved.'"

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

ON WEDNESDAY morning at 11, Hal Shurtleff and Camp Constitution will finally get to fly their flag on Boston's City Hall Plaza.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

LATE LAST MONTH, Glenn Thompson's son got married. At the wedding, the proud papa, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, delivered a heartfelt toast. Its theme was the yearnings mothers and fathers feel as they watch their babies grow. At the outset, he said, their urgent hope is that their children will be healthy. Then come the hopes for their safety, for them to "find their way, find opportunity, find inspiration." And then, he said, as kids approach adulthood, "we also hope and pray they're going to find that one true love so that they have . . . someone to grow old with."

Continue to the full article  |  More articles