ArcaMax

I live in a nice neighborhood of single-family homes. There's a market down the block where you see a few homeless people, but the market always has rather burly guys working security, which is enough to discourage a crowd. And to get from there to me is an uphill walk, which homeless people rarely take. Or so I thought.

It was early evening, ...Read more

The pandemic required every state in the nation to decide how it would revise voting procedures to allow everyone to vote safely. In every state, Democrats argued for rules that would make it easier to vote absentee and more certain that your vote would count. The fights, which are now continuing in the courts, are about how many drop boxes ...Read more

There are bad cops. No doubt. We have seen them on television, as well we should. If most cops were bad, it would be easier: Clean house and hire replacements. Instead, you have men and women trying to do a dangerous job and hoping to get to go home and see their families at the end of a shift. They rely on stereotypes to stay alive.

Every year...Read more

There were times when I crowded in front of stores selling televisions to watch Anita Hill or Clarence Thomas, to see Robert Bork borked, to catch the latest on Brett Kavanaugh.

This time, I was sitting in my house with a television that I never turned on.

Why bother?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it, and it's all that matters: ...Read more

Is it too much to ask? Not a cure. Not yet. Not a vaccine. Not until it's safe.

Just the truth.

Let's fight: He knew and didn't tell us. He played politics, warm weather, cold weather. President Donald Trump is strutting around, and he's "not out of the woods.

Let's fight back: The rally was outside. It's a personal choice. Masks were there ...Read more

The answer is simple: Daniel Cameron, the attorney general of Kentucky.

Brief recap: Police officers used a battering ram to enter Breonna Taylor's apartment after midnight looking for drugs. Her boyfriend shot once. Police officers shot dozens of times. Six of their shots killed Taylor. No drugs were found; it was her ex-boyfriend (who didn't ...Read more

It is one thing to tell the nine candidates in a primary debate not to interrupt each other and to stick to the time limits, as many moderators have done, and another thing to cut off a ranting man who listens to no one and simply won't stop, especially when that man is the president of the United States. Can you imagine what Donald Trump would ...Read more

I'm not going to write about Donald Trump today. I know, he is out there telling everyone he won't necessarily leave, even if he loses. Which may scare people into voting for him but is more likely to convince them that Joe Biden needs a landslide.

Stop. There I go again.

No news today.

No Trump.

Most mornings of my adult life, I have ...Read more

Twenty years ago, five conservative Supreme Court justices picked the president.

It could happen again.

Yesterday, Sen. Mitt Romney was President Donald Trump's nemesis and a hero to everyone else. No more. Romney gave Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the vote he needed. Fifty-one Republicans are ready to go forward.

Most Americans ...Read more

On the afternoon of Election Day 2016, I was doing an Election Day panel with my old friend Bob Shrum, with whom I've won some and lost some, and who I have respected for decades. He was comfortable. Morley Winograd, the longtime and much-respected head of the Democratic Party of Michigan, assured me that Michigan would be fine. I emailed ...Read more

The only reason I know where Arcadia or Sierra Madre -- the communities closest to the Bobcat fire in Southern California -- are is because I used to do traffic reports when I was a talk radio host. Traffic and weather together. For traffic, I talked to Captain Jorge up in his helicopter. For weather, I just read the report, which tended to be ...Read more

Tom Bradley, a former police officer who served as mayor of Los Angeles for 20 years, was supposed to win the 1982 governor's race. Every poll said so. He was endorsed by everybody. Going in to Election Day, those polls consistently showed him to be 10 points ahead of his opponent, George Deukmejian, a little-known Republican at the time.

...Read more

Did you hear the word "Obamacare" during the Republican convention? It was once President Donald Trump's worst enemy. Then it got more popular, as people who had not been able to get insurance in the past then could. In this pandemic, it has been essential. The idea of taking health insurance away from tens of millions of Americans in the middle...Read more

There are moments when it all goes bad. I can barely even type the words. Nothing works. Everything you pick up breaks in your hands. Simple conversations, nothing conversations, escalate without either of you knowing why.

The air is all wrong: too hot or too cold.

Are you the only one who has mastered the difficult skill of pouring water into...Read more

No. Can you believe it? This is California. If not here, where? If not now, when?

This is just ridiculous. I read the story. Of course, the poor California Assembly speaker who denied the request is eating his words now. His gender made him do it.

The lawmaker in question was a member of the California State Assembly, whose rather reasonable ...Read more

Nancy Reagan was one of the most elegant women I have ever met: gracious, with impeccable taste. It must have been 1995 when I got an urgent call from the fellow I knew who ran the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, telling me that there had been an emergency cancellation for a panel the next morning with Newt Gingrich moderating, Mrs. Reagan ...Read more

I write this on International Dog Day, a holiday I had not previously heard of, clearly a creation of social media and some sharp marketers. Unlike the flower, restaurant and barbecue industries, which profit from earlier acts of genius marketing (thank you, Hallmark!), this one doesn't have an immediate profit angle. Could it be the work of the...Read more

The first thing I did when I realized the lockdown was coming was get my hair done. On the way home, I stopped by my almost-completely stripped supermarket and bought everything I could find.

I have been home, with few rare exceptions (doctors, hospitals, my son's house) ever since. I realized the other day that I have been wearing gym clothes ...Read more

I used to love conventions. As a kid, I watched every minute on TV -- good and bad. In 1964, I woke my parents urgently to tell them to send a telegram supporting Bill Scranton immediately or else Barry Goldwater would win and we would have nuclear war (which was sort of like the most famous commercial that then-President Lyndon Johnson used ...Read more

Caddies say he cheats at golf. It makes sense. He can't bear to lose something that matters as little as a round of golf. So he cheats.

Congress should be up in arms. We should all be up in arms. Lawyers across the country are already up in arms, prepared for an election the president of the United States has already taken action to undermine. ...Read more