ArcaMax

Last week, Simone Biles shocked the world by withdrawing from the first week of Olympic competition because the "mental" wasn't there.

To a curious but largely supportive public, other gymnasts tried to explain the "mental" part of gymnastics and the dangers of jumping when that part is off. When you get the "twisties," they explained, it's ...Read more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued more guidance, this time to put our masks back on indoors with potentially unvaccinated people because you might transmit the virus to them. And those unvaccinated people are the ones crowding the hospitals. They are a danger to themselves and others.

A very big part of me would like ...Read more

It was the summer of 1984. I had never set foot on the University of Southern California campus. The joke among law professors was that if we dropped USC and just called it Gould School of Law -- which is the actual name -- we would have picked up a few points in the rankings.

My big "contribution" was to add language to the "stump speech" ...Read more

It was my friend and favorite reporter Nina Totenberg who broke the story in 1996. The Supreme Court had agreed to hear a case in which women were seeking admission into the Virginia Military Institute, or VMI.

"Good luck on that," I thought to myself, remembering my year at Dartmouth, where I was well-known as the "cohog" who "F-ed the curve."...Read more

I have packed up the masks.

There may be areas of the country where vaccines are hard to come by, where smart, sensible people are still waiting in lines to be protected.

Not here. Not in most cities in America. The administration this week announced renewed efforts to go door to door if that is what is necessary to reach its vaccination ...Read more

Bill Cosby is a free man, but he is not an innocent one. No one has found him not guilty.

The big issue in the case -- the critical admission of the testimony of other Cosby victims, the difference between the first and second trials -- was not even addressed.

Bill Cosby is a free man because of a news release issued by Bruce Castor.

If the...Read more

It has to go down as one of the greatest stunts in political history.

The sheriff of Los Angeles County arrived with his deputies to take back the Venice boardwalk from our homeless "neighbors" who have literally occupied it.

The thing is, the Venice boardwalk is in the city of Los Angeles, the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Police ...Read more

California's ban on assault weapons is back on the books, at least for now. After a federal district court decided that the ban on AK-47s was a "failed policy" that had not reduced violent crime, and was therefore unconstitutional, a unanimous panel stayed the lower court's order, thus leaving the ban in place -- for the time being. Few doubt ...Read more

If ever I heard of an oxymoron, that's it.

There is nothing graceful about all the medical tests -- and enhanced risks -- that seem to come with each decade.

Some people drew luckier than others in the DNA game. My lawyer and longtime dear friend, the legendary Bert Fields, is the only lawyer in his fine firm who actually goes to work in the...Read more

Apparently, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has been much in the news for his outlier comments on COVID-19, is at it again.

He just so happened to go to a synagogue in Surfside, Florida, to sign a bill that has troubled many religious leaders.

DeSantis has ordered every schoolteacher in the state to set aside one to two minutes each day ...Read more

I never thought I would say it but I miss Donald Trump. Not as president, certainly not that. But as a distraction.

Remember how every morning you could wake up to screaming headlines about the latest outrageous Trump tweet? By the time you could fully digest its inanity, there would be yet another one. To those of us who thought that he ...Read more

As a longtime professor, I find it quite strange that an academic approach that has been discussed for at least as long as I've been teaching is only now making its way into the political debate.

Just last week, former Vice President Mike Pence, in an effort to reclaim his stake to Donald Trump's base, gave a speech in New Hampshire not only ...Read more

It worked for Richard Nixon, who won the presidency in 1968, redrawing the electoral map. The once-solidly Democratic South, which supported John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, deserted Hubert Humphrey.

It worked in Massachusetts, where, in 1978, a candidate trained by the legendary hardball player Dick Morris defeated the popular incumbent, ...Read more

When I used to do politics in Boston, there was a saying about loyalty. Loyalty isn't about sticking by your friends when they're right. That's easy; mostly, it involves joining the parade. No, loyalty is about sticking by your friends when they need help, when the easy thing to do is turn your back.

I have a lot of wishes.

I wish the people...Read more

I admire the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky from Harvard. She is following science, and science says there is no reason for me to wear a mask.

My chance of developing a case of COVID-19 serious enough to put me in the hospital is basically zero. I can't say that for anything else in life...Read more

The decision of the Republican House, led by Kevin McCarthy, an otherwise sane person, to oust Liz Cheney from her leadership position is a measure of just how afraid Republicans are, not of Democrats but of each other.

The arithmetic is simple. Most House seats are "safe," meaning that the incumbent's party has a comfortable advantage in the...Read more

Democrats close to California Gov. Gavin Newsom call Caitlyn Jenner the gift that keeps on giving.

Republicans just hold their heads. Some argue that after months of tedious signature gathering, the effort to recall Newsom is fizzling, and not just because vaccines are available on a walk-in basis and California is headed for herd immunity.

...Read more

COVID?

COVID-19 has all but disappeared from California. At this writing, our positivity rate -- the percentage of tests that are coming back positive -- is 1.2%.

California has gone from being one of the worst places in the nation for COVID-19 to being the best. The joke is that everyone who could get COVID already got it. The reality is ...Read more

The latest effort by anti-abortion activists to limit access to abortion, notwithstanding Roe v. Wade, takes the form of "reason bans," in which a woman's right to an abortion depends on the reason she wants it. This week, the North Carolina legislature advanced a bill that set forth the prohibited reasons and would penalize any doctor who ...Read more