ArcaMax

Of all the holidays on the Jewish calendar, Chanukah, which began last Sunday evening, has always been one of my favorites. Even when I was younger and far less observant, I appreciated the holiday's well-known rituals and customs: lighting the menorah, spinning the dreidel, eating potato latkes, and so forth. My given Hebrew name -- "Maccabee...Read more

On Christmas Day 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem we now know as the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." Earlier in the year, Longfellow had unsuccessfully pressured his son, Charles, not to join the Union Army. On Christmas Day, Longfellow learned his beloved son had been critically wounded at the Battle of New Hope ...Read more

As a leftist Muslim immigrant from Somalia, radical Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is wonderfully blessed with a DEI press. She is perennially assumed to be a victim of racism, sexism and xenophobia whenever she is criticized, and especially when she's verbally targeted by President Donald Trump.

At the end of a typically syrupy interview with Esme ...Read more

It's been a cold winter so far in the Midwest and much of the Northeast, early-in-the-season snow even in Washington, D.C., and temperatures falling to freezing and below in much of the South. Come to think of it, North America's 2024-25 winter was pretty cold too. It's gotten to the point that "polar vortex" is a phrase on just about everyone...Read more

Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the United States Senate, introduced a resolution on behalf of himself and 40 other Senate Democrats that, if passed, would record the sense of the Senate as condemning the media superstar Tucker Carlson because of the political, historical and cultural opinions of a guest on ...Read more

Life in America doesn't feel like life right now. It feels like triage.

People get up, commute, grind through work, juggle kids and side hustles, scroll through their phones in bed until their eyes burn, then do it again tomorrow. They are surviving, but they are not living.

The numbers explain why. The average American now carries around $...Read more

For years, pointing out the obvious was considered impolite: America's biggest, most distortionary transfer of wealth does not flow from elites to the working class. Nor does it show up as corporate welfare. It flows from the relatively young and poor to the relatively old and wealthy. It's the defining injustice of our fiscal regime, the ...Read more

The past week has brought an unusual amount of bad news; so much that it's been difficult to focus on any one item before you're buffeted by the next horrific headline. Here are a few of my personal observations on some of these recent events.

1. Murder of Rob and Michele Reiner, and President Donald Trump's response

I still cannot grasp ...Read more

On Dec. 6, Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein announced that, sometime in 2028, the U.S. Space Force intends to deliver a Golden Dome "operational capability" to defend America against advanced enemy air and space threats.

Guetlein manages the complex "Golden Dome for America" program. The name Golden Dome derives from Israel's successful Iron...Read more

"Affordability" is the Democrats' battle cry to win elections these days. But Republicans are ready to flip the script to woo homeowners, who make up the majority (65%) of American households.

Across the nation, these homeowners are angry and ready to fight against soaring property taxes. Their homes have appreciated, but they don't have more...Read more

One of the most persistent mistakes in modern politics is the insistence on flattening all ideologies -- pretending that all human beings think the same way, want the same things, and are motivated by the same forces. Every time policymakers fall into this trap, the result is not compassion or clarity but some of the worst public policy ...Read more

In a Wall Street Journal interview a few days ago, President Donald Trump was circumspect regarding his party's prospects in the 2026 congressional elections.

Although no one doubts the president's supreme confidence that he is doing the right things for the country ("I've created the greatest economy in history"), he acknowledged, "that he ...Read more

Politicians push government IDs. In a TSA announcement, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem sternly warns, "You will need a REAL ID to travel by air or visit federal buildings." European politicians go much further, reports Stossel TV producer Kristin Tokarev. They're pushing government-mandated digital IDs that tie your identity to ...Read more

Just two weeks after he was sworn into office, former President Ronald Reagan went on national television to address the American people about what he perceived to be a dire problem. It was the national debt.

"The federal budget is out of control, and we face runaway deficits of almost $80 billion for this budget year that ends September 30th...Read more

Whenever Republican officials sit for an extensive interview or series of interviews with a liberal media source, their supporters ask: Why did you have to do that? Why does Donald Trump need to speak to Michael Wolff or Bob Woodward? Now, it's Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles talking to author Chris Whipple for the lefties of Vanity Fair.

But ...Read more

Reading and math scores are abysmal across the country, as national testing results keep documenting. Illiteracy rates are rising: The number of 16- to 24-year-olds reading at the lowest literacy levels increased from 16% in 2017 to 25% in 2023, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

In some inner-city schools, ...Read more