ArcaMax

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who for the moment represents a New York congressional district -- tomorrow the world! -- opposes Amazon's plan to locate one of its two satellite campuses in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City. Amazon promises more than 25,000 jobs. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted her intention to stop what she calls the "creeping ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- I have a question for those Republicans who, along with Democrats, demand the resignation of Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam for the abhorrent photo that appeared on his page in his medical school yearbook: If bigotry is repugnant, why not demand the resignation of Vice President Mike Pence for his ugly views on ...Read more

In an era of identity politics, I should identify with Howard Schultz and his possible race for the presidency. We are both Brooklyn born, Jewish, the first males in our families to graduate from college, and we both like a good cup of coffee in the morning. But Schultz, if you will forgive my metaphor, is not my cup of tea. He'd effectively ...Read more

When and how did it become acceptable to be an anti-Semite? When did it become OK to socialize with and even praise a Jew hater? I am referring, of course, to Louis Farrakhan, who spouts the most vile things about Jews yet retains the admiration of many on the left, including, notably, leaders of the Women's March. They have now separated ...Read more

After the communists under Mao Zedong won their revolution, Republicans in Washington raised the cry, "Who lost China?" Now, all these years later, Republicans are asking the same question about Syria. Their answer is Barack Obama. My answer is both Obama and President Trump share the blame, with this difference: Before Trump had a chance to ...Read more

What this country needs is not a border wall, but about 1 million yellow vests. It needs federal workers who will not work without pay. What this country needs, in short, is a bit of the spirit that animated French workers and brought them out in the streets, wearing the yellow safety vests found in most French cars. I'd say strike up "La ...Read more

I drove past the White House the other day. It'd been a while and the place seemed smaller, somewhat tawdry, almost haunted. I imagined bats winging in and out of it, spider webs in the corners and the president upstairs in the family quarters, talking back to the TV, railing against Pelosi, the Fed, Mueller, Macron, May, Mattis, Sessions, ...Read more

Over the centuries, anti-Semitism has been many things -- a religious conviction, an ideology, a national ethic, an unadorned expression of hate and, in more recent times, evidence of sturdy insanity. Now thanks to a New York Times interview with Alice Walker, it's been reduced to merely a point of view. To cite the Times' own motto, this ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The racket inside Donald Trump's head must sound like the roar of a train. Investigations are coming at him from all sides -- from the special counsel, from the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, from the New York state attorney general, from the relentless poking around of news organizations and, soon, from the hydra-headed ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- OK, America, are we great again yet? Are we respected throughout the world? Are the Chinese quaking in their boots as we hike tariffs? Has Saudi Arabia come clean about murdering a Washington Post columnist after covering up the atrocity so clumsily that you could almost see blood dripping from the hands of the crown prince? If ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Black Death of the 14th century killed as much as 60 percent of Europe's population. A cause of the disease was the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but lacking microscopes, many at the time turned a keen eye on the Jews and killed them by the thousands. Still, somehow, the plague persisted, with the old and children dying off, but ...Read more

Guess what name produces an explosion of outrage if dropped in a conversation with many New York Democrats? Donald Trump? Mitch McConnell? Paul Ryan? Guess again. It's Kirsten Gillibrand, the political assassin of Al Franken, widely seen as an opportunist who has so sharply changed some of her positions that it's a wonder she's not in traction ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- According to lore or rumor, some ancient tribes used to place the old people on an ice floe and shove them into the frigid ocean. Whether this is true, I know not, but it is essentially what some 16 House Democrats want to do with Nancy Pelosi. Here the legend ends differently: She ain't going.

Why she should be denied another ...Read more

Every organization has its rules. The Mafia forbade the killing of law-enforcement officials, so when Dutch Schultz (nee Arthur Simon Flegenheimer) planned to kill Tom Dewey, the New York special prosecutor, the mob killed Schultz instead. A similar rule seems to have guided David Pecker, publisher of the National Enquirer, who apparently was ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Whatever the outcome of the midterm elections, this we already know: Donald Trump will do anything to win. He will exaggerate. He will lie. He will smear his opponents. He will stoke racism, white nationalism and fear of immigration and he will do any of these things because his entire ideology comes down to this: He will not be a ...Read more

While visiting Poland in 1976, I heard about a book. It was called "Anti-Semitism Without Jews: Communist Eastern Europe," and it was mentioned to me because the Jews of Poland, once numerous, had almost entirely been murdered -- yet the hatred of them persisted. The title of that book popped into my head over the weekend when 11 Jews were ...Read more

Almost a year ago, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said that Bill Clinton should have resigned over his affair with Monica Lewinsky. At the time, I thought Gillibrand was wrong -- not to mention a bit tardy -- but now I'm undecided. What moved me, though, has little to do with Lewinsky and much more to do with a name that seems to have been forgotten: ...Read more