ArcaMax

WASHINGTON -- Everybody wants to know where Sen. Joe Manchin's hideaway is in the Capitol.

The West Virginia Democrat has all eyes on his tall frame as he makes his way through the ornate halls for votes.

President Joe Biden knows that this Joe could make or break his 50-50 hold on the Senate. A tie goes to the White House.

"It's Manchin's ...Read more

Chief among words America will soon hear, over and over, are inside baseball in the Senate: "infrastructure" and "filibuster."

The debate on President Joe Biden's American Jobs Plan for infrastructure takes up where Franklin D. Roosevelt's public works programs left off. When Biden was born, Roosevelt was the president.

A common touch is a ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- "The only people who should have guns are women."

Yes, you read right. I heard my mother's voice clear as a lark from California. Daybreak there, 10 a.m. here.

Sorry, guys, you've lost your gun privileges until further notice.

Then watch the murder rate drop down in free fall. Suicides might plummet, since men are more apt to ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Under the spring sun, something stirs. After a withering four-year winter, Democrats are dancing with the daffodils.

Days are longer and hearts are lighter on Pennsylvania Avenue, from the White House to the Capitol.

Now in power, Democrats are getting radicalized, in a good way. The nearly $2 trillion COVID-19 and stimulus bill,...Read more

What did you miss the most?

The pandemic descended on Washington on March 15, 2020, giving new meaning to, "Beware the ides."

Like they were cut in glass, I remember a bar mitzvah on March 14, with subdued dancing. A dinner for five at Sababa, mirth covering dread of what was coming.

The world changed as we knew it would. We never dreamt for ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- An American woman in a British family -- not a recipe for felicity. Take it from Meghan and me.

Watching the riveting Oprah Winfrey interview with Meghan and Harry, the Duchess and Duke of Sussex, I felt memory stir deep. They opened doors behind the scenes of an enchanted life in the palace, a place she felt miserable and alone, ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Two women are deciding paths of our destiny, the acting Capitol police chief and the Senate parliamentarian. You and I -- and the lamppost -- don't know them.

One unknown gave us something deeply wrong; the other took away something deeply right. Strange for strangers to have such untold, unelected power in a democracy, while we ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Picture America as a big house in Texas.

The place seems wrecked, along with the people in it. They are stranded without power, light, water -- after a gale force.

They fear it's beyond repair and are losing faith in the future. The parents wonder how they're going to pay their bills with lost jobs. The children want to go to ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Some Presidents Day: icy with a bitter blow in the wind.

I'm telling myself the impeachment trial vote on former President Donald Trump was a moral victory. The Senate tally was 57 guilty, 43 not guilty. Seven Republicans joined 50 Democrats for a 14-vote margin. That's a rebuke for the Jan. 6 deadly riot he caused at the Capitol....Read more

The second impeachment trial of former President Donald John Trump opened Tuesday afternoon. It's the Super Bowl of all impeachments, with a single charge: The president incited an insurrection against Congress to overturn the 2020 election. Nothing like it has ever happened in our American story.

The House managers made an earthshaking case ...Read more

The mob's shrieks in the Capitol siege stay with me. That's where the Republican Party is now, at their mercy. The mob roams the building still, at the heart of our plagued democracy.

Republicans in Congress who aided and abetted the outrage are profiles in cowardice. That makes 150 of them, but we'll single out the prize-winners. They dress in...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Peaceful democracy won and beat back the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. But it was a close call. I know, having been there, inside the House chamber, when glass was broken and shots were fired. The raging shrieks of the mob still wake me.

As the duke of Wellington said, looking back at England's magnificent victory over ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Raging racist mobs hold a high place in American history. There I was, in the Capitol siege, with breaking glass, bloodthirsty shrieks and gunshots cascading down marble halls. The statues in democracy's house were weeping.

Inside the House chamber, there was no time to cry. We moved fast down a secret staircase to safety. Only ...Read more