ArcaMax

Ever since I got sideswiped and have been driving a rental car, I've been without my Pandora stations, and suddenly I'm stuck listening to the news again. The traffic has never seemed worse. The news seems hardly real: terror; disaster; more people under investigation; the president telling the Russians that James Comey is a nut job (who tells...Read more

What's the leakiest house in Washington, D.C.? Here's a hint: It's on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Ask anyone who's been inside the White House lately. There's never been anything like it. Sinking ships leak. As do losing campaigns, lame-duck administrations, and most White Houses, eventually. But not in April and May of a president's first year in ...Read more

There's an old saying that if you wait long enough, every historical figure gets rehabilitated -- or at least outdone, in the worst ways, by their successors.

But if you'd asked me a few months ago for an exception to that rule, I would have cited former President Richard Nixon, forced to resign in disgrace for obstruction of justice and ...Read more

My mother died just over 11 years ago. What did I know? My son was about to be Bar Mitzvahed. After moving six times since getting divorced, one apartment after another, we had just moved to the house I still live in today. Then I was relieved to finally be in a place big enough for me and my two teenage children (now it's just me, and it's way ...Read more

The news that President Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey is not cause for celebration.

Of course Comey deserved to be replaced. Not only did he make a horribly bad decision when, 11 days before the election, he threw the contest to Trump when he announced that the investigation that went nowhere (twice) into Hillary Clinton's ...Read more

"It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election," FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee, explaining his decision, in the closing days of the presidential campaign, to announce an investigation into emails Hillary Clinton's confidante Huma Abedin had forwarded to her husband, ...Read more

I was about to get into it with my son about President Donald Trump's suggestion that Andrew Jackson, a slave owner who died in 1845, could have avoided the Civil War (as if there were a compromise to be had on the question of expanding slavery into the territories), when he quickly dismissed me by pointing out that no one cares.

Or rather, ...Read more

Yet again, it's that pesky Constitution and those federal judges who take so seriously their obligation to uphold it, even when the king -- excuse me, the president -- is on the other side.

Being president, as Donald Trump is discovering, is nothing like being the boss of a reality television show, where you can go around telling people who ...Read more

On Wednesday, officials of the University of California Berkeley announced that they were canceling a speech to be given by conservative writer Ann Coulter scheduled for April 27. Then on Thursday, facing the prospect of a lawsuit, caught between the First Amendment and the fear of violence, university officials proposed that Coulter's speech be...Read more

I'm not dumb enough to believe that all the reviews you read on various sites are authentic. I know that if a product no one has ever heard of has thousands of five-star reviews, something is amiss. Real customers aren't claiming a skin cream "takes years away in just minutes!" The only thing that does that is plastic surgery.

I know that ...Read more

The president's press secretary is either the stupidest person to ever hold a senior position in the White House or he's an outright anti-Semite. This is not a partisan issue. He is an embarrassment not just to the administration but also to our nation -- Republicans, Democrats, Jews, Christians, Muslims and all thinking people.

In case you ...Read more

For years, I have been trying to figure out what it will take to make my students care about politics, to believe that elections do matter. I don't take sides in the classroom; I don't play the "politically correct" game. I'll take whatever position the students don't take: I think the only way to state your own position persuasively is to ...Read more

Judge Neil Gorsuch would never have been appointed to the Supreme Court by Hillary Clinton. He's way too conservative.

But unfortunately for those of us who would prefer a more liberal choice -- such as Merrick Garland, who never got a confirmation vote -- Hillary Clinton didn't win the election. Donald Trump did. And that means he gets to ...Read more

It was one of the stupidest threats I have ever heard from a president of the United States, followed by one of the most ludicrous blame games ever to be played by any White House.

Vote for the American Health Care Act now or Obamacare will remain in place, unchanged. That's what the president told the Republicans in the House and loudly ...Read more

What a leader.

Faced with the certain defeat of his effort to take health insurance away from millions of Americans, our fearless leader did not attempt to compromise, negotiate or even mend the program that has allowed millions of Americans access to health care.

No, no acts of responsible leadership. But then, what would you expect? A ...Read more

I've been an American Express cardholder for longer than I care to say. Let's just say it's been close to 40 years, and American Express has always been the first card I use. No more. Hello, MasterCard and Visa!

Here's the short version. I bought a suit for my son at an off-retail store. For the next few months, the store's owner (aka thief) ...Read more

Donald Trump is learning a lesson he should have known during the campaign. Being president is not like being the host of "Celebrity Apprentice" or a billionaire boss. Not everyone works for you. They don't all run around saying that you're a genius, doing whatever you tell them, literally treating you like a king. Being president is nothing ...Read more

If President Trump and his party have their way, you'd better be well. Or have a lifetime employment contract with a company large enough to negotiate reasonable group insurance. Or have never been sick in your life.

In the bad old days, I tried to buy health insurance for the woman who helped me raise my children, maybe the most important ...Read more

The president who gave the joint session address on Tuesday night wants Washington to put aside "trivial fights" and "compromise." He actually said this: "The time for small thinking is over. The time for trivial fights is behind us," that president said. "From now on, America will be empowered by our aspirations, not burdened by our fears."

...Read more

On the verge of irrelevancy in an age where people are used to getting their news for free, The New York Times, pay wall and all, is on a roll.

And thank God for that.

Having declared the press the enemy of the people and banned The New York Times from a White House press briefing, Team Trump has managed to give the press in general, and The...Read more