ArcaMax

These are troubling times for President Donald Trump. His poll numbers are in the toilet. The country doesn't trust him with the economy and doesn't support him on what was his favorite issue, immigration. The war he started is not going well and is not popular. He needs to "win" it and make it be over and the Iranians are not cooperating. ...Read more

The Left is extreme, the Right is extreme. In the middle lies truth and reason.

None of this is true -- but it is taken for granted, even by many of those on the Left and the Right. The Left is right about some things, as is the Right, and centrists are frequently, perhaps usually, proven wrong. But moderates control news and entertainment ...Read more

Somebody told me that journalism is dead. It is true that the industry has been struggling since the dawn of the internet and artificial intelligence seems to be poised to finish it off, but it's not dead. Perhaps this is our opportunity to see it meaningfully evolve.

Thanks to the internet, we have taught an entire population to read for ...Read more

I was lucky enough to be born at the intersection of three great pancake traditions. My mother made the American pancake from a box mix called Bisquick, which can also be used to make biscuits and dumplings. My mother made dumplings when she made beef stew. She did not make biscuits. She was not an airy, fluffy cook. She was a stodgy, starchy ...Read more

What next? The war is not going well. Already, there are loud whispers that President Donald Trump may be forced to accept a deal that is not much better than the one former President Barack Obama made with Iran, which Trump tore up in his first term, leading to the nuclear development that underlies the current crisis. Trump can call it ...Read more

The White House Correspondents' Dinner Saturday is the hottest ticket in town, but a tempest is brewing among journalists on Donald J. Trump's presence at the posh gathering.

This is a moment in the tales of our embattled city. It will be Trump's first time at the dinner, a chance for the Fourth Estate to speak truth to his power.

Two ...Read more

Even in this ugly era of political divisiveness under "King Donald," some things remain bigger than partisan politics.

Travel deep into Southwest Texas to the Mexican border and you'll witness two powerful forces of political harmony in Big Bend National Park. First is the true majesty of nature -- 1,200 square miles of high desert beauty, ...Read more

Congressional hearings aren't known for generating Must-See TV, so the rare exceptions tend to be notable. Attorney Joseph Welch's takedown of the demagogic Senator from Wisconsin during the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings -- "At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency?" -- became iconic. Oliver North's attorney, Brendan Sullivan, torpedoed ...Read more

When police arrested Kimberlee Williams, a grandmother living in Oklahoma, because of a warrant from Maryland, she was shocked. She had never been to Maryland in her life.

Ms. Williams later learned that Maryland police had relied on an incorrect result from facial recognition technology that falsely flagged her as a suspect. She is the 14th ...Read more

I've been playing in the public arenas of politics and commentary, of columns and television and campaigns, for long enough not to pretend that it was all warm and fuzzy back then. It was mean and sometimes scary. But mostly not. Even during the "hottest" times, we mostly managed to separate the professional from the personal. We disagreed; we...Read more

The first quarter of this century in the United States saw the rise and triumph of "team politics," in which voters view the Democratic and Republican parties less as representatives of an ideology or set of policies than as opposing teams defined by culture, style and aesthetics. Democrats follow TikTok or Threads, shop at Trader Joe's, drive...Read more

Gasoline prices have surged to their highest levels since the COVID-19 pandemic and it has me feeling pretty good about my electric vehicle purchase. I know that utility prices are also on the rise, but being able to plug my car in at home instead of paying horrid prices at the pump has still saved our family money. Charging an EV at home costs ...Read more

Catholics don't like converts, not really. We don't trust converts. Converts annoy us because no convert to Catholicism can resist finding a real Catholic and explaining the Catholic Church to him.

Enter JD Vance, the latest convert to explain my own religion to me.

How long's this guy been Catholic? Maybe 30 minutes? In that short time, he'...Read more

Democrat Eric Swalwell and Republican Tony Gonzales were both accused of sexual misconduct involving staffers. Californian Swalwell said he'd resign from his House seat after giving up on his run for governor. Texan Gonzales said he was withdrawing from the 2026 reelection race.

Back in the day, male politicians cavorted with their female ...Read more