ArcaMax

It has become an article of faith in some quarters on the right -- well, most -- that Robert Mueller's investigation has found no evidence of collusion with Russia and has accordingly shifted gears to process crimes like lying to the FBI or obstruction of justice. Having decided that this must be true, many have called for Mueller to wrap it up....Read more

NBC's Katy Tur, responding to an article in the New Yorker about climate, looked into the camera and asked, "How pointless is my life? And how pointless are the decisions that I make on a day-to-day basis when we are not focused on climate change every day, when it's not leading every one of our newscasts?"

It's a safe bet that not only will ...Read more

The Centers for Disease Control has delivered sober news -- average life expectancy at birth in the United States has declined for a third straight year due to extremely high rates of death from drug overdoses and suicide. As The Washington Post reports, this is the longest sustained decline in life expectancy since the early 20th century. ...Read more

Our Thanksgiving family tradition is to go around the table and express gratitude for our blessings. It's such a simple exercise, and yet almost as satisfying as the feasting. Maybe we shouldn't confine it to Thanksgiving? We have observant Jewish friends who've done something like this every week at Shabbat dinners. Each person cites a "...Read more

Question: What does CNN's Jim Acosta crave more than anything?

If you said "attention," go to the head of the class. It's a mystery why the White House has given Acosta way more than that. Acosta had his "hard pass" yanked after last week's press conference. (Don't ask who was obnoxious, because they ALL were.) Acosta has literally become a ...Read more

Exit polls aren't always 100 percent reliable. For example, in 2016, the exit interviews suggested that Donald Trump would lose Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina by small margins. He won all of them.

Let's take it as given that 2018's exit polls are likely flawed in the same way. Still, they are among the most interesting ...Read more

A caravan of ragtag would-be immigrants is making its way through the nations of Honduras (per capita income $4,630), El Salvador (per capita income $7,540), and Guatemala (per capita income $8,000) to Mexico.

The response in the U.S. (per capita income $60,200) -- panic.

Hyperventilation is seemingly the response we bring to all challenges in...Read more

She was mocked as "Fauxcahontas" long before President Donald Trump began referring to her as "Pocahontas," and frankly, Sen. Elizabeth Warren invited the ridicule. She is a poster child for the pitfalls of basing identity on race, and reminds us of the many furies such self-definition can unleash.

What people choose to call themselves shouldn'...Read more

He had an appointment at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect some documents he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee -- a certificate showing that he was divorced from his first wife. He entered the consulate on Oct. 2 at 1:14 p.m., asking his fiancee to wait outside for him. She did. Until 2 a.m. He never emerged.

A number of news outlets...Read more

These have been hard times for American institutions. Over the past four to five decades, confidence in nearly every institution of American life has declined. A 2018 Gallup survey found, for example, that trust in Congress stood at 42 percent in 1973 and dropped to 11 percent this year. Only 29 percent of Americans gave high ratings to public ...Read more

Karl Marx, commenting on the ascension of Louis Napoleon, wrote, "History repeats itself: The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." The drama over Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation has reversed the order. It began as farce. Protesters dressed in "The Handmaid's Tale" red capes lined the halls of senate office buildings. Senator Kamala ...Read more