ArcaMax

"I am shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here." -- Captain Renault, Casablanca

Human nature being what it is it should come as no shock that the next level of approved gambling in America is sports betting. States already have casinos, the lottery and other ways of separating money from the weak for their ...Read more

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," he could not have foreseen today's Republican Party.

A bill authored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that would require the federal government to balance the budget each year was soundly defeated last ...Read more

CANBERRA, Australia -- Here in Australia, "Question Time" has long been one of my favorite exercises of parliamentary democracy. The prime minister and government ministers appear before other elected members in support of their policies, while the opposition asks pointed and sometimes funny questions in an effort to belittle those policies.

At...Read more

MELBOURNE, Australia -- When you hear "world tour" you usually think of superstars performing concerts in various cities for adoring fans. Not so with the presidentially deprived, entitlement-driven Hillary Clinton.

Last week, Hillary Clinton came to Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, and to Sydney, its largest, with a huge chip on her...Read more

Following the 2016 election, President Obama rightly warned the Trump transition team "we only have one president at a time." It was a reminder that there can be just one person articulating American foreign policy so world leaders will have no ...Read more

The "wall of protection" conservative media has erected around President Trump may be crumbling.

Fox News Channel, whose opinion programs -- especially Sean Hannity's -- have been staunch defenders (some critics say mouthpieces) for the president, and The Wall Street Journal, which editorially has been generally supportive of the president's ...Read more

To be vulgar once earned societal disapproval, ostracism from polite company and -- in my grandmother's era -- put a young person in danger of having his mouth washed out with soap.

Today, vulgarities are now mainstream. People speaking in a way that "would make a sailor blush" are now on primetime television and words once frowned upon in ...Read more

Before meeting with North Korea's "very honorable" (Trump's words) dictator, Kim Jong-Un, the president should bone up on the history of that country's duplicity and deception, including ways it has used the wishful thinking...Read more

There he goes again. Despite the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years, including declining rates for minorities, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), affectionately called "crazy Bernie" by some conservative talk show hosts, is again flirting with the idea that the federal ...Read more

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other." (Matthew 6:24)

The verse refers to money, but in light of today's debate about the unaccountable devotion many Christian leaders have for President Trump it ...Read more

"It's a modern changing world

Everything is moving fast.

But when it comes to love I like

What they did in the past." -- politics/fromtheright/calthomas/s-2071232">Read more

When President Bill Clinton signed the welfare reform act in 1996, which he negotiated with then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, the left claimed people would starve. They didn't. According to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, between 1996 and 2000, the politics/fromtheright/calthomas/s-2070364">Read more

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." -- politics/fromtheright/calthomas/s-2068797">Read more

The isolationist spirit -- a reluctance to become involved in foreign entanglements -- goes back in U.S. history to Thomas Paine and his 1776 pamphlet "Common Sense" and to George Washington's 1796 ...Read more

Fox News host Laura Ingraham has apologized, as has the network, for nothing more serious than her tweet: "David Hogg rejected by four colleges to which he applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA ... totally predictable given ...Read more

KEY LARGO, Florida -- At dinner with friends, I was asked what is wrong with Washington. The question presumes a standard by which "wrong" can be defined.

I am frequently asked this question by people who do not live in "the swamp." They don't behave like Washington politicians. If a disagreement arises in their personal or professional life, ...Read more

Among the several ways to judge a person's fitness for office are the enemies he has made.

In the case of John Bolton, President Trump's choice to become national security adviser, those who oppose his appointment -- liberals, neocons and some Republicans all with differing worldviews and questionable foreign policy experience -- appear to say ...Read more

President Trump wants us to believe that the ridiculous 2,232-page spending bill passed by Congress, but unread by most members, is a matter of "national security," because it has money to rebuild the military. He said he had to sign the bill for ...Read more

Perhaps Vladimir Putin was using his experience meddling in U.S. elections to meddle in his own. Putin "won" re-election last Sunday with about 76 percent of the vote, not as much as the 99 percent Iraqi ...Read more

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether pro-life pregnancy help centers in California should be required to post notices informing women of the availability of abortions elsewhere. The pregnancy ...Read more