ArcaMax

There you are. There I am. Complaining. Deadlines and obligations. Bills and budgets. The empty nest. My dogs, ages 12 and 14.

And in a flash, none of it matters. Not one bit.

In a flash, I am doing what I shouldn't do: Googling scary prognoses.

There are all kinds of families. Some we are born into. Some we create.

When I moved to Los ...Read more

Labor Day marks the real beginning of the nomination campaign. And for all the talk of the crowds of candidates, the race has shaken out far more at this point that many of us expected.

The winner as of Labor Day: Elizabeth Warren.

And she's winning for all the right reasons. She has the most to say. Yes, she's that smart. You may not agree ...Read more

I commuted between LA and Boston for years. I was supposed to be back on the road Friday, another book tour. I got on planes the way my mother took trolleys.

The phone rang. That was the end of BEFORE.

Everything else is AFTER.

We are a different country, those of us who can remember. We saw it. We saw these men mow down innocent men, women ...Read more

It doesn't get easier 6,000 miles away.

"Don't you like your president?" asks a man who is a strong supporter of Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu and our Donald Trump.

I try to explain it's not a matter of liking. I respect Israel's right to choose Netanyahu, a man who I do not agree with, just as we Americans have the right to elect as our ...Read more

Ed Markey, the progressive senator from Massachusetts, is -- to most people's surprise -- facing a potential primary challenge from a slightly less progressive and almost ridiculously inexperienced junior congressman named Kennedy.

That's it. Joe Kennedy, son of former Congressman Joe Kennedy, son of former attorney general. He is "thinking" ...Read more

Every legislator, state or federal, takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Missouri voters deserve a refund. And they aren't the only ones, just this week's bad example.

Knowing full well that it would be declared unconstitutional, the Missouri legislature passed -- and the governor signed into law -- a ...Read more

On the occasion of Bill Clinton's 73rd birthday, the chattering class has come to bury the president they once adored -- and not to praise him.

Not me.

I wish the biggest thing I had to worry about in the world was a blue dress. Imagine having time or energy for such nonsense when the Russians are wreaking havoc with our democracy.

I wish ...Read more

Years ago, Frank Rich, the legendary New York Times columnist, wrote a piece -- channeling his grandmother -- on the first question her generation used to ask when big news broke: Is it good for the Jews? Or (more often) is it bad for the Jews?

You could hardly blame them. Living through the Holocaust makes the question painfully relevant.

...Read more

He could never have done it alone.

I'm not talking about his suicide. That he did himself.

I'm talking about his crimes.

Imagine if Jeffrey Epstein had had to find his prey himself. Imagine a sleazy middle-aged guy hanging around in front of a high school trying to pick up teenage girls.

People would notice. Teachers would see. The police ...Read more

Doesn't have a chance?

When the public says they're looking for that so-called generic Democrat whom they would overwhelmingly favor over President Donald Trump, they mean Michael Bennet. They just don't know it yet.

In 2013, he was one of the "Gang of Eight" -- four Democrats and four Republicans -- who crafted a comprehensive immigration ...Read more

I have been studying death penalty politics (as well as law) for decades, largely because I've had to. The death penalty bedeviled Democratic candidates in the '80s and '90s, and its repercussions are still felt today. Back then, the public was for it. But it was more than that. Law and order, Nixon's 1968 rallying cry, turned crime into a race ...Read more

About 138 million Americans voted in the last presidential election.

Almost 220 million have private insurance.

"Medicare for All"? I can't begin to imagine the bureaucracy.

Employer-based insurance is still the most popular; more than half of the population is covered by employer-based private plans. Jobs with benefits, my mother taught me ...Read more

On the day I left Paris (after a well-timed visit to my daughter), the temperature was 96 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was still morning. That day, it climbed to 104; the next day was the hottest in France in recorded history.

Unlike the United States, where I mostly need a jacket to deal with summer air conditioning (perfect for a man in a suit)...Read more

I was blessed.

On my first day as his law clerk on the D.C. Circuit, Judge J. Skelly Wright, who had hired me sight unseen when I was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, told me that Justice Brennan would not do the same. True, he always hired Judge Wright's Harvard clerk sight unseen, and he had never passed on a Harvard Law Review ...Read more

After all the pundits declared him the loser in his first debate, after almost two weeks of backpedaling and explaining, Joe Biden still leads the field among likely Democratic primary voters. At least that's what the latest national polls say. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, one of the best, was released on Thursday and found that 26 ...Read more

Alexander Acosta, as the U.S. attorney in Miami, was responsible for cutting the deal that allowed notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to get away with a slap on the wrist.

In yet another example of the vital importance of old-fashioned investigative journalism (aka "fake news"), the Miami Herald in February detailed the agreement that ...Read more

It was a very good night for California Sen. Kamala Harris. And, for those listening, a strong showing for Sen. Michael Bennett and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The night before, Sen. Elizabeth Warren owned the stage.

But the real story coming out of this week's debates was not who won but who lost. Much easier to call that one.

It was Bernie and ...Read more

It happens. A golden boy comes to Washington and spends too much time at Bullfeathers, the bar where congressmen and young staff members have frolicked since I was a young staffer. Back at home, wherever that is, he's the war hero who made good, the devoted father and son, the regular guy. Back home is where his wife and kids are. In Washington,...Read more