ArcaMax

The conventional explanation for why Trump’s second term is far more extreme than his first (which was extreme enough) is that the guardrails are now gone.

The people who occupied significant roles in the White House and Cabinet during his first administration — who talked him out of (or subverted) his illegal and unconstitutional cravings ...Read more

Trump’s Big Ugly Bill delivers $170 billion for border and immigration enforcement.

This is on the scale of supplemental budgets passed by the United States when we enter war.

ICE will add 10,000 agents to the 20,000 already on the streets.

Its annual budget for detentions will skyrocket from $3.4 billion in the current fiscal year to $45 ...Read more

One of my objectives in this column is to equip you with the facts you need. As the Senate approaches a vote on Trump’s giant “big beautiful” tax and budget bill, I want to be as clear as possible about it.

First, it will cost a budget-busting $3.3 trillion. According to new estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the ...Read more

One of my goals in writing this column is to alert you to dangers to our democracy so you can alert others, who then alert others, and by this means we enlarge and strengthen our bulwark against the tide of fascism.

Wars pose particular challenges to democracy because nations at war often become more xenophobic and willing to give those in ...Read more

Today I want to assess Saturday’s No Kings protests in the context of American capitalism.

Standing up against Trump is not only important politically and morally. It’s also profitable.

Diversity, for example, is good for business. CEOs that have scaled back their companies’ diversity programs in response to Trump’s attacks have ...Read more

Now that Trump’s tariffs have been halted, his One Big Beautiful Bill has been stymied, and his multibillionaire tech bro has turned on him, how does he demonstrate his power?

On Friday morning, federal agents from ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Drug Enforcement Administration conducted ...Read more

One of our highest priorities in this darkness must be to protect the people who are doing the most right now to push back against Trump’s tyranny: our judiciary.

In some 180 judicial rulings so far, federal judges have at least temporarily stopped Trump from (1) deporting and/or imprisoning people without due process, (2) firing federal ...Read more

The old professor in me thinks the best way to convey to you how utterly awful the so-called “one big beautiful bill” passed by the House last week actually is would be to give you this short 10-question exam. (Answers are in parentheses, but first try to answer without looking at them.)

1. Does the House’s “one big beautiful bill” ...Read more

Last Friday, the credit rating of the United States was downgraded. Moody’s, the ratings firm, announced that the U.S. government’s rising debt levels will grow further if the Trump Republican package of new tax cuts is enacted. This makes lending to the United States riskier.

(Moody’s is the third of three major credit-rating agencies to...Read more

Trump is overplaying his hand.

Not just by usurping the powers of Congress and ignoring Supreme Court rulings. Not just abducting people who are legally in the United States but have put their name to opinion pieces Trump doesn’t like and trucking them off to “detention” facilities. Not just using the Justice Department for personal ...Read more

Words matter. When the media points out Trump’s “potential conflicts of interest,” as it has in recent days when describing Trump’s growing crypto enterprise, it doesn’t come close to telling the public what’s really going on — unprecedented paybacks and self-dealing by the president of the United States, using his office to make ...Read more

Today is the start of the 14th week of the odious Trump regime. Wednesday will mark its first 100 days.

The U.S. Constitution is in peril. Civil and human rights are being trampled upon. The economy is in disarray.

At this rate, we won’t make it through the second hundred days.

Federal judges — judges appointed by Republicans as well as ...Read more

If the Trump regime can dictate what the universities of America teach or research or publish, or what students can learn or say, no university is safe.

Not even the truth is safe.

If the Trump regime can revoke student visas because students exercise their freedom of speech on a university campus, freedom of speech is not secure for any of us...Read more