ArcaMax

How could they do it? How could they manipulate his schedule and control his appearances so that no one outside the circle of loyal insiders would see the man we saw the night of that debate?

They were loyal.

In politics, I learned this definition of loyalty. "Loyalty is not about standing by a friend/the candidate/the boss when they're ...Read more

It's the perfect Trump story, one that tells you everything. It begins, as so many of them do, with a candidate whose qualification for high office is appearing on Fox News, proving once again that talking about something on television -- and looking good -- is not the same thing as actual experience.

In this case, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a ...Read more

On Tuesday, Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina and a key vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that he would not support the nomination of one of the most over-the-top Trumpers (I know, that's saying a lot) Ed Martin to be the U.S. attorney for Washington. Tillis told reporters that he had let the White House ...Read more

This was the week that was supposed to be celebrated for the accomplishments of President Donald Trump's 100 days in office. It didn't turn out that way. The president rained on his own parade. The two biggest crises facing the new administration -- the rule of law and the economy -- according to him, have nothing to do with him. Blame the ...Read more

What do you do when you've screwed up so badly that any competent president would be demanding your resignation? Easy. Attack women.

That's the solution Pete Hegseth, reeling from an unauthorized disclosure of war plans to his wife (and his brother and his lawyer), adopted this week. On Tuesday, in what his leaking-like-a-sieve aides ...Read more

There is the secretary of defense sharing battle plans with his third wife, a former Fox News producer, on Signal. His top aides have all quit or been fired. The department is leaking like a sieve about its leader. Disarray, they say. He was stunningly unqualified for the job in the first instance (joke of the week: the cardinals should choose...Read more

Gov. Gavin Newsom did it again. He is so busy running for president, so attuned to his general election campaign in 2028, that he has lost his way. It was bad enough that his podcast debuted with two MAGA-maniacs, Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk, with whom he was trying to find common ground. It was even worse when he turned on transgender ...Read more

Doing the right thing isn't easy when you have a would-be dictator and a squad of political terrorists threatening you. That's what these people really are, and they are frankly scary. They don't care whether they destroy whoever and whatever stands in their way. I don't blame the law firms or universities that have caved to the terror tactics...Read more

As a candidate for president, Donald Trump constantly complained about the "weaponization" of the Justice Department, arguing that its prosecution of him was politically motivated. But as president, Trump has weaponized the entire federal government, to investigate and punish those he considers the "enemy from within" -- whether it is current ...Read more

President Barack Obama finally did last week what so many of us have been waiting for him -- and Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- to do. He stood up and spoke out about the threat to our constitutional democracy posed by Donald Trump.

There is a very nice tradition that former presidents don't step up to criticize their successors, ...Read more

What do you do when the economy is going to hell, 401(k)s are going down the toilet and we're bracing for higher prices on nearly everything?

If you're an average American, you worry.

If you're Donald Trump, you go golfing, as he did twice last weekend, even as people took to the streets in every major city in the country to protest his ...Read more

She is a self-styled Islamophobe, a proud white nationalist and a conspiracy theorist. She called 9/11 an "inside job." She has been banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (pre-Musk), PayPal, Uber and Lyft, among others, for hate speech and posting misinformation. She has been banned from events and had her press credentials suspended for ...Read more

According to Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, "The White House, in coordination with the Department of Justice, has dismissed more than 50 U.S. attorneys and deputies in the past few weeks."

One of those dismissed was Adam Schleifer, a career prosecutor in Los Angeles with an outstanding reputation as a fair and effective ...Read more

The White House press secretary accused him of being an "anti-Trump hater," a "propagandist in the mainstream media," and of trying to sell a Signal "hoax." The president called him a "sleazebag."

President Donald Trump was reportedly furious, not at his own team but at the press, calling the investigation a witch hunt and The Atlantic, owned...Read more

The news came via email, without further explanation, from Ian Simon, the head of the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice. The email, obtained by Politico, says this:

"We are writing to let you know that the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice will be closing as part of the administration's reorganization coming this week. We ...Read more

There is an obvious answer to what California Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing. He's running for president. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. He is nothing if not ambitious. He's termed out as governor and in two years will be looking for a place to land.

But he's doing it all wrong, and it's offensive to the very base he is going to ...Read more

"For more than two centuries," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote Tuesday in an extraordinary statement, "it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

"Not appropriate," huh? That's really going to scare them....Read more

They call it "Cancer Alley." It's an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that connects Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The name stems from the fact that the area's residents have a 95% greater chance of developing cancer than the average American. Some 200 petrochemical and fossil fuel operations are located in the area. About 25% of the ...Read more

I probably don't agree with anything Mahmoud Khalil has to say about Israel. He's the Columbia University student activist who has been arrested and threatened with deportation in the name of fighting antisemitism.

Trampling on free speech rights is no way to fight antisemitism. Neither is cutting off funding for much needed medical research....Read more

Should the government be able to tell a private university what to teach and how to teach it?

Is there a libertarian left in the house?

This is the letter that former and current Trump lawyer (officially the Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney) Ed Martin sent to the dean of Georgetown Law School:

"It has come to my attention reliably that Georgetown...Read more