ArcaMax

On the same day the White House plunged the nation into a constitutional crisis by refusing to provide witnesses or documents to House Democrats conducting an impeachment inquiry, word leaked of a new member on the Trump legal defense team. Engaged to serve as "outside counsel" is former South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, best known for his endless...Read more

Not only is Joe Biden innocent of any wrongdoing in Ukraine -- as almost every legitimate news organization now acknowledges -- but his actions concerning his son's business interests there were precisely the opposite of the smears launched against him by the Trump campaign. That truth won't change, no matter how many times President Trump and ...Read more

To anyone familiar with the life and times of Donald Trump, there was nothing surprising in the tone of his July 25 conversation with the new president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump spoke in the oblique yet perfectly clear language of a Mafia don who knows what he wants and how to enforce his will.

The dialogue between the two ...Read more

Americans have good reason to suspect Donald Trump of committing various and serious crimes, but they have no immediate means to hold him accountable. Rising frustration over this malefactor's impunity was only exacerbated by the latest House Judiciary Committee hearings, which featured two empty chairs and an insolent, prevaricating witness ...Read more

Eighteen years ago, on a terrible day every American then living remembers too well, Rudolph Giuliani earned respect for his calm, inspiring and unifying leadership of a wounded New York City. Too much has happened since then to feel anything but disappointment in him, but on this year's 9/11 anniversary, the man once known as "America's Mayor...Read more

The most predictable thing about authoritarian government is that it will eventually exceed our worst expectations. With Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right president of Brazil, we didn't have to wait long. Not only has the Brazilian president failed to protect the Amazon rainforest but he also seems madly determined to destroy that most vital ...Read more

Whenever Donald Trump says or tweets a remark that embarrasses our country before the world, conventional analysis suggests that it is yet another consequence of his infantile narcissism. So we were told again when the president of the United States insulted Denmark, one of the founding nations of NATO and a dedicated American ally, by canceling...Read more

When Donald Trump retweeted a malicious fantasy about the apparent suicide of imprisoned pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, he wasn't merely entertaining his deluded fans. Trump's conspiratorial canard -- with attendant promotion by Russian bots, American alt-rightists and far-right media -- was plainly designed to deflect attention from his own ...Read more

After the massacres in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, we watched Donald Trump, the president who spends most of his time on social media to divide and polarize America, speak up for national unity and an end to "destructive partisanship." From the White House he issued a statement condemning white supremacy and bigotry as "evil." And even if ...Read more

Robert Mueller's testimony disappointed anyone seeking drama, but his performance isn't the problem. What keeps congressional Democrats from fulfilling their constitutional duty to confront a lawless president is their own political inertia.

In his own careful and stolid way, Mueller laid out the facts and arguments provided in his 448-page ...Read more

Nobody expects Donald Trump to speak the truth about himself or his opponents anymore. To support him requires a suspension of disbelief that is impressive in a misbegotten way.

So when the president of the United States tells four duly elected members of Congress to go back to where they came from, an old trope of bigotry that everybody ...Read more